Lazy story writing and more plot-holes than an average movie experience. I just don't see anything bold about this story.
Lets see bad guys have new tech that has a single weakpoint? Check
Death Star related weapon? Check
New Heroes in safety bubble while everyone around them dies? Check
Cute aliens to sell toys? Check
Hoth like battle on sand instead of snow? Check
Space chase like episode 5... well not as exciting but Check
Ok now explain bombs that fall in space. Leia surviving space long enough to force pull back to the cruiser. Dj learning about the shuttles. Rose being portrayed as a strong female character, yet throws the survival of the resistance away for a fangirl love of Finn. Phasma was a complete waste.
I enjoyed three moments in the film if I am being honest and the person next to me fell asleep in the middle and started snoring. When the movie ended no one clapped we all just sat there thinking WTF did we just watch.
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I've read articles saying the THE LAST JEDI is being rejected by fans because the fan theories all turned out to be incorrect. That's wrong. THE LAST JEDI is being rejected because it didn't deal with any of the questions that THE FORCE AWAKENS spent so much time asking. Who are Rey's parents? It doesn't matter. Who is Snoke? Shrug. We're going to save Luke Skywalker until the last few seconds. Why? So he can spend almost the entirety of the next movie doing absolutely nothing.
Mark Hamill has said in interviews that he disagreed with Rian Johnson's take on Luke Skywalker, and THE LAST JEDI reveals that Hamill was spot on. Luke's reasoning in the film makes no sense. Even if he doesn't want to train any more Jedi, he should still want to stop the First Order and help his sister. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That Han Solo's death doesn't even motivate him is a betrayal of the original trilogy and everything those characters went through. If you're going to make a movie about Luke Skywalker, master Jedi Knight, something the entire original trilogy built to, don't you want to see what one of the greatest Jedi Knights can do?
Basically THE FORCE AWAKENS was to spotlight Han Solo and this movie was to spotlight Luke Skywalker, but this movie is about Luke doing nothing. Watching Luke do nothing for 90% of his screen time simply doesn't work as drama. What's even worse is we know that Luke will come around or else there would be no story. The original trilogy is about Luke leveling up. Now we should get the payoff, and the ending looks like it's going to give it to us, but then it does a bait and switch and it turns out Luke was never really there.
Think of how awesome the ending would be showing Luke tossing First Order walkers through the air? Giving Luke this kind of moment wasn't necessary specifically for this movie except that Johnson purposely had Luke do nothing instead. If you're going to do that, then you have to counterbalance Luke's inactivity with Luke doing a lot in the end, which he doesn't, and then he died, so that mean we won't ever get to see the culmination of Luke's Jedi training. What a wasted opportunity.
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1/10
Total Disaster: Not worth the paper the ticket was printed on
As much as I wanted to love this movie, it utterly failed to deliver on so many levels. Disney, in all its previews, advertised the film as a serious epic focused on Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren, with no doubt some appropriate comic relief as always. What they delivered was a farce-tripping over itself with excessive and ill-timed humor such that no scene could ever be taken seriously, even ones that were intended to be. That combined with frenetically paced scene transitions, too many new characters, and wasted sub-plots (casino scenes), meant the main story and characters were left undeveloped with few burning questions answered. The main premise, equivalent to a slow motion car chase with the First Order chasing the Resistance until they run out of fuel, was absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps most unforgivable of all was the treatment of Luke Skywalker. While initially promising, his diminished role and ultimate end were insulting to his character and inconsistent with everything we know about him. Shame on Rian Johnson.
In the end, Disney got lazy and knew that no matter what, they'd make a ton of money off people who want to see a huge lightsaber fight and lots of space battles with big special effects. They forgot that lots of people actually like movies that, on top of all that, are written and produced with enough thought and care so as to not appear like a fifth-grade homework assignment put together 30 minutes before it was due.
Not worth the paper the ticket was printed on.
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I can honestly say that i have never left a movie theatre on any previous occasion and been angry. When I left the theatre one of our group asked me what I thought, i usually have something to say about what we've seen. I errupted, the anger was welling up inside. I can't really convey in words, the level of disapointment.
So many things, which have all been said by other reviewers. Snoke, Leia in space, re-hash of ideas from empire and jedi, needless comedy .....
I'm glad that I came to read the reviews on here, because when I got home from the cinema all I could see were professional reviews praising the movie, what an amazing piece of film ...... I was lost, I didnt understand... was it only me?
Clearly its not only me.
I wanted this to be a great movie, it was supposed to be a great movie ,,,,, Disney, why wasnt it?
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4/10
I fundamentally ALSO disagree with every choice for Luke, just like Mark Hamill.
To clarify before beginning my review, I'm a 34-year-old lifelong female fan (not a misogynistic racist fanboy as some people assume of those who are unimpressed with this movie's outcome). The characterization of Luke and some of the others was downright WRONG, especially to those of us who loved the OT. And let's be clear, I'm not an OT purist. I will defend Revenge of the Sith to my death. I watched the Force Awakens 5 times in theaters. I thought Rogue One was one of the best Star Wars movies ever.
But The Last Jedi? This movie broke me. Almost within the first five minutes, I knew this was not going to go well. Other reviewers are probably nailing all the fine details but for me, from the beginning, the writing was uninspired, shaky, and poor. The forced comedy and cheap one-liners all in place it simply DID not belong. Cutaways to the porgs, which I thought I would love and ended up being there purely for kids and merchandising options. Come on, Luke dusting off his shoulder? Throwing the saber over the cliff? And Hux, a character who was set up to be hard and terrifying, was made into a Three Stooges style punchline character almost. Poe was one-dimensional. Holdo was completely unnecessary and looked more like a citizen of the Hunger Games Capital than a character in SW. Finn and Rose's storyline could have been completely taken out. Boring, uninspired, and useless.
Kylo and Rey's storyline and their force bond was the only thing that interested me as I hung in there, waiting for some redeemable moment of the movie. I genuinely felt sure that Ben Solo would be redeemed. That is really the way it should have gone. But NOPE. Rian Johnson and company seemed way more determined to write a bunch of trash and twists just to be able to go "GOTCHA" to the audience. Well I don't like cheap tricks. There's a difference between good plot twists and bad ones. These were ALL bad, including Leia's sudden space walk many are compared to a Poppins like moment. The characterization and ending of Luke's life and some of the others was downright WRONG, especially to those of us who loved the OT.
This is the first Star Wars movie to ever have left me feeling so numb. By the end of the night, hours after we left the theater, I felt totally gutted and crestfallen to realize what the Star Wars sequels had become, because Rian Johnson had to "Age of Ultron" the series. Again, Kylo and Rey's storyline was the only thing of interest in this movie, and Rian even messed that up by the end. No chance of redemption now.
Well, no thanks to episode 9. I'm done seeing the franchise i love being butchered by Disney and their ever-growing greed taking over with no respect to the characters we love. This was the biggest disappointment of my life.
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After seeing the unbelievable rating of this movie, I have never felt further removed from the average Star Wars fan.
I wasn't a fan of The Force Awakens, feeling it was derivative of previous Star Wars movies. But, in spite of my distaste for the movie, I understood what there was that people liked about it. It was nostalgic to see old faces. Rey, Finn, BB8 and Po were each likeable characters that I felt worthy of leading future movies. The action and effects were excellent. There were hints that we were going to see more with the force in future movies. Most of all there was promise. Therefore, yes, I get how people can see that movie in a different light to how I see it.
But this? I just don't get it.
The Last Jedi was so tedious that were it not a Star Wars movie, I would have walked out of the cinema within an hour. I'm not talking about a slow burn here, I speak of unrelenting tedium and mediocrity. There are fundamental problems at the story level that made it impossible to get hooked by this movie and should have been fixed long before it went into production. The pace was glacial, and when things finally happened, they were anticlimactic at best.
Talking of fundamental problems at pre-production levels, why don't we talk about the script. Not only is the story underdeveloped and poorly plotted, but the dialogue is attrocious. When it's not being cheesy and cringe worthy, it is more wooden and unbelievable than even what we saw in the prequel movies. There was cheese in the original trilogy dialogue, but it was earned off the back of powerful characters, great performances and other genuinely inspired lines.
Being as there are such strong problems with the story and script then, it is hard to hold the actors at fault for the lack lustre performances in this movie. All of the acting fell flat in The Last Jedi. None of the emotion (what litlte there was) felt real to me, and as such I just didn't feel any steaks to get me hooked.
*** Now we move into serious spoiler territory... you've been warned. ***
I am not an editor, but even I could easily cut a third off this movie with a single paragraph. If when Po first confronted the admiral about her plan she had simply explained it, Finn's entire storyline could have been cut from the movie and they would have ended in the same place. Finn would have no need to go off on his hunt for the 'Code Breaker' and the story would have been tighter for it. I get that the film makers didn't want to give the plan away to the viewer, but considering that part of the movie takes up the majority of the second act, it is a really weak premise to hold to. Not only this, but if you cut away this farce, the movie would have been considerably shorter, much cheaper, and the pacing would have been infinitely more bearable.
Now let's move onto Snoke. You know, this strange being that was teased in The Force Awakens as the next big thing and has sparked so much speculation in the Star Wars community for the last two years? Yeah, that guy. Well he is little more than a plot device. Insanely powerful in the force, yes, but a plot device none the less. He exists only as a way of bringing about Kylo and Rey's story which just made their story seem artificial and forced. So there's another third of this movie wasted.
So the last third of this movie is the Luke Skywalker and Jedi story. Surely that's going to make up for it, right? No. Sadly not. Luke has returned to the spoiled, flawed character of the first movie who just wants to sulk about the fact that he cant go off with his friends to pick up some power converters. There's even a moment in the movie where Yoda actually points this out. That means that it was a conscious decision to tear down the protagonist of the original trilogy that has spawned 4 decades of love and an enormous universe of stories. The decision to do that boggles the mind.
Basically, this movie was a mess from beginning to end. It gets 1-star for the visuals (though there was a lot of bad CGI in this movie), and one more star simply because I don't think this movie is the worst movie in cinematic history. It's watchable at the very least, which is reason enough for that second star.
I certainly have no hope for the new trilogy Rian Johnson has been employed to write.
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This is a reupload of my old review that gathered about 400 upvotes, but was still removed by the noble IMDb staff apparently due to use of profanity. So whenever you read something like "freaking", you can imagine what I really wanted to say.
Wow, the lackluster trailers failed to give me any hype for this, so I wasn't even expecting much, but this, this is a new definition of "low".
Virtually everything in this movie is outright bad. The plot is disjointed and stupid. The action is bland, the space battles lack in scale and logic, with 1 fighter being able to destroy all of a huge dreadnought's cannons. As for lightsaber duels, well, there are none for Christ's sake! And the one fight using sabers has horrible choreography that is nowhere near the spectacle of acrobatic battles of the overly-hated prequels.
The characters also suck, both old and new. The largest new addition is an ugly fat (I mean, body-positive) Asian chick who is extra-annoying and whose subplot leads to nowhere. As for the old ones, Kylo and the Ginger still act like hysterical children whereas our Wonder-Girl can still do amazing feats of the Force with no prior training, like holding a ton of boulders without breaking a sweat.
The huge problem is that Episode 8 has managed to blatantly flush the intriguing stuff from Force Awakens down the toilet. Big SPOILERS ahead.
Made theories about who is Snoke? Nevermind, he is just a CGI model with no backstory who dies after a stupid cliche villain monologue.
Thought Phasma would be an actual character, a leader of the stormtroopers? Nah, she is just an extra who also wastes the chance to kill off the heroes to die in an utterly stupid way.
Hoped that Luke would kick some ass for the old times' sake? No Sir, he's just gonna project some sort of hologram of himself and then die for no reason! How the hell would he even make that "hologram" on another planet with the Force?
Theorized as to who would be Rey's parents? Obi-Wan, Sarlacc maybe? Lo and behold, they are noname off-screen god-damn bums.
Sounds amazing right? To add to that there's garbage like:
Boring talks about Hope and Resistance; Yoda's cameo who looks like a plastic piece of crap from the old movies, talks nonsense and somehow spawns a bolt of lightning even though Force ghosts have never been able to interact with the physical world before; A space casino which looks like a normal Earth casino but with some silly creatures; Leia survives in outer space and flies like Superman though she has never displayed any knowledge of the Force except for some connection with Luke; A lot of sugar-cutie (ice foxes) and disgusting ("Porgs", that thing with nipples) creatures designed so the incarnation of Satan aka "Disney" would sell merchandise; The annoying Asian prevents Finn from stopping the ram thing for no reason.
This isn't even close to everything wrong with this movie, just what I remember off the bat. It's one of the two films that I've ever given a 1/10 to (the other being Movie 43) and the single worst movie in the Star Wars franchise. I now have zero willingness to see Episode 9 or that trilogy that will be written and directed by this movie's creator, Rian "Worthless" Johnson.
The Star Wars are dead, baby. Was fun while it lasted.
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I can't really get into what's bad with this movie without dropping a ton of spoilers, but let me put it this way: a friend of mine went to see this before I did, and when I asked him how it was he hesitated, then said "it's just a superhero series now". He was more right than I ever could have known.
The plot is stupid and is full of moments where my friends and I looked at each other and said "wait, what?". There are sequences in this movie that simply do not need to exist and provide literally nothing to the story. The technology, previously something I always thought was neat about Star Wars, is genuinely dumb and makes zero sense (why do big laser bolts in space arc like artillery?). I am ashamed to have paid money for this and as a long-time Star Wars fan it hurts to see just how dead the franchise I love really is.
All that said, the special effects look and sound great, and it was fun to see Mark Hamill acting again. Other than that this movie is a disgrace not just to the franchise but to anyone with a brain. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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I was totally baffled during the movie and when I walked out of the theater, had become lost of thought and empty of any emotion - perhaps because I was in a state of shock. I won't regurgitate the many valid negative points that previous reviews have already discussed. They are all valid and should be up-voted every single instance. I just want to comment on how utterly disgraceful it was for the handling of four main characters:
1) The writing was careless for Luke's character and his fate. Even Mark Hamill himself disagreed with Rian Johnson about Luke's character and fate, which did not end well for long-time SW fans of the greatest Jedi! In this movie, what we get is an old grumpy Luke, not the spunky fighter Luke who took on baddies, blew up a Death Star, learned the force, and brought down the baddest Dark Jedi/Sith Lord of them all. Granted, he's not young anymore. He's been stuck on a desolate planet for years. He has every right to be grumpy because that's what happens with age. We get it. Instead, the Luke Skywalker in Johnson's adaptation of a beloved series is no more than a jaded, self-preserving, pessimist. C'mon! Does every old hero have to go down this road? It was perfect for Wolverine in Logan, but it is not in this movie! It would have been much better if we see Luke with every last bit of Jedi force, leading the last remnants of the Rebellion away from the grips of destruction, then breaking into Episode IX with some questions to be answered. Instead, we were left with yet another Jedi biting the dust knowing that we'll see him again in spirit. Wow, how great was that? We can all feel wonderful now that his spirit lives on. Give me a break! He could have taken on Kylo just fine given what was shown of his powers and fighting skills in a few scenes . And why oh why did he have to fall down when he had already shown Rey who was still the boss? Luke, you were shamefully disrespected by this director.
2) Rey's Jedi force and training were poorly developed. She came to Luke and went through some very superficial training. Luke didn't have her doing any physical training, there was no time spent on teaching fighting skills or how to control her light saber. There wasn't even a "control your anger" type of training that Luke went through in TESB. She simply had it all endowed coming in to Ach-to. If that's the case, then why the hell did she even need Luke? The writing failed miserably with her development as THE last Jedi. While Daisy Ridley did well with her part as an actress, it was the writing that failed her.
3) Snoke's fate...need I say more? The most powerful bad guy in the universe got killed! We didn't get to learn about his vast knowledge about the Jedi, their origin, and how he turned Kylo. All we know is that Kylo is still angry...dating back to SWTFA (and unfortunately Han Solo was on the receiving end of that anger). Did I mention that Kylo is still angry? Angry at his dad, at his uncle, at his mother - three pillars of the SW saga. That's still all we know.
4) Leia. OMG, Johnson gave her floating powers. This is no disrespect to Carrie Fisher. She did a fantastic job as usual. But Leia now has powers unbeknownst to us.
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Wow this is getting hammered by reviews and now I understand why. Given its still in week 1 and most of the early reviews were all paid for and fake, the fact that this is at:
57% - Rotten Tomatoes
50% - Metacritic
Means that the real scores are likely closer to 30% and 25% if you take out all the paid for "pro" and fake user reviews... wow.
Are they serious? Didnt they learn from the 1st one that they need to push the story forward instead of making a C grade retelling the old stories? Wow, so glad I didnt pay to watch this.
1st of all, the replacement characters remain unlikable because dialog and character building is poor. Attempts at humor are not funny nor charming, and the plot development might as well be written by someone with a high school level intellect. Plot holes abound in what is sadly yet another attempt at a retelling of the same story from the 80s... how you can make more plot holes in a story remake? Well they did. and they threw in a few eye rolls as Rei continues to be a lore destroying super Jedi that has more power than all the previous Jedi combined without even trying and barely any training. The sensitive storm trooper who didnt want to kill can now kill as many of his brethren while smiling. And oh apparently the rebel are now so dumb that they dont even consider looking around for an exit when they are trapped until the magnificent leader says they should look around and after asking Lea if its ok to look around with him... lol.
Luke who is supposedly a master Jedi at this stage in his like, is now the guy who either died due to being out of shape or by a 3rd rate sith dork who lost storm trooper in melee combat. But he he sure fooled him for a minute to allow a group of worthless idiots escape... I guess this was his Obiwan moment when he went up against a full powered Darth Vader and had no chance of winning... except in Lukes case it was against a kitten with the IQ of a wet towel. They basically took a dump on all three original movies (and even the prequels if you care about those) as well as all the written lore that came after not to mention common sense. Luke got killed while projecting his hologram... why? To give the rebels time to escape when all they had to do was look around for an exit and shoot themselves out. But they were too dumb to figure that out. It took sacrificing Luke (who didnt actually need to die, he could have pulled out the second they started looking for an exit) and Rei to move a few rocks to do what would have been trivial with the guns and equipment the rebels had with them. And all this happened why? Because they ran out of gas lol.
Good bye Star Wars.
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A movie that tries extremely hard to be politically-correct, while being inclusive and embracing diversity, that it forgets what it means to be a part of the Star Wars lore. One of the greatest protagonists in cinematic history has been reduced to an uninspiring hermit drinking milk off an alien-cow-dinosaur hybrid. Supreme Leader Snoke could potentially be a greater villain than Darth Sidious but unfortunately killed off, Darth Maul-style. Meanwhile, forgettable and insignificant token characters such as Finn and Rose were kept alive all in the name of "multiracial-diversity" and "political-correctness". And don't get me started on the space battles: It was vomit-inducing.
There was an estimated 4-5 First Order Star Destroyers including the massive Snoke's personal flagship, all armed to the teeth with thousands of turbolasers, hundreds of laser batteries, tractor beams, anti-ship torpedoes, and this movie is telling me that none, and yes, NONE, of them could take out one feeble Resistance cruiser? And don't forcefeed me with that "oh they're out of our range, so at the moment, we could just continue pursuing them for several hours and hope they would eventually run out of fuel" reasoning. General Hux could have just deployed his entire squadron of TIE Bombers, strategically targeting the cruiser's engines and shield generators, and poof! Mission accomplished.
Wow, didn't know that the mighty First Order Dreadnought that is capable of orbital bombardment was extremely vulnerable to "vertical-dropping bombs that defies space physics" from ONE Resistance bomber.
The "finding the codebreaker at the Casino-Monaco Planet" storyline was grossly unnecessary and a borefest. It would have been better to allocate the precious screentime to a more-engaging backstory about Snoke or showing more of Rey's Jedi training.
Leia flying around in space without a spacesuit. Apparently being strong in the Force negates the urgent need for oxygen, being frozen, or propelling oneself through a microgravity environment. SpaceX, anyone?
Snoke's death was unreasonably premature.
Luke's death, while expected, could be better managed by the writers.
Kylo-Rey intergalactic Force-Skype communication: The next Tinder in the making?
Conclusion: A Disney-approved Sci-Fi comedy specially made for the general masses, Porgs for the kids, while leaving behind the tiny bits of crumbs for the longtime fans to scrimp on. Hey, as long as Disney makes $2billion at the box office and millions more on merchandise and other related IPs, who are we to criticise them? In the end, it's all business, profits, and nothing else.
146 out of 189 found this helpful.
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Congrats for killing another franchise. The movie was horribly edited, half of the things happening on screen are literally pointless and theres NO character development whatsoever. Rey becomes a jedi after a 15 min meditation session with Luke, Kylo kills Snoke (wich was supposed to be stronger than vader and sidious) and this somehow doesnt change anything AT ALL. But hey, the 2.5h of screentime are filled with poe doing poe things, finn and a forgettable chinese partner going to the forgettable space-las vegas and doing pointless things that have nothing to do with the plot except giving benicio del toro some money, and leia somehow flying in space. Oh also dont expect explanations for the multple questions you may have had after seeing TFA. 13/12/2017 is the day Star Wars died, good job mickey mouse.
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1/10
NEVER, in ALL MY LIFE, have I been more GENUINELY ANGRY at a movie.
How this script made it past everyone at Disney I'll never know. What happened to the Star Wars that told a coherent story and focused on characters that we truly cared about?
Here, we have a ridiculous stew of new pawns thrown into the mix who end up amounting to nothing. The characters we do care about are under-utilized. Phasma has an underwhelming death after once again being absolutely worthless and without consequence. The other two deaths in the film are that of the two female characters who are introduced with minimal development. And... how did Luke die? He just decided to drift off into oblivion in the same fashion as Yoda? This made sense for Yoda in Return of the Jedi as he was way beyond his years. But Luke here basically just commits suicide.
Genuine drama and momentum is traded in for cheap twists and a non-stop urge to be humorous instead of taking itself seriously. Several of the jokes are cringe-worthy, as if a room full of aspiring comics sat around and said "Hey, wouldn't this be kinda funny if we had this character do this?!" and then they just included every possible outlet for humor with zero discretion. Trading in fluid and impactful story-telling for an overabundance of cheap laughs... something that no Star Wars movie til now has dared to do.
I was genuinely excited to explore the true nature of The Force in this installment, but I was sorely mistaken in that department as well. The dialog during the training scenes is simplistic, rehashed from The Empire Strikes Back, but in a dumbed-down way. No new or innovative ideas are brought up, and as Luke trains Rey, he does so with an air of mockery. To those who have found actual insight, emotion, and philosophical resonance in The Force, the way this movie handles the subject is beyond insulting.
Also- I understand Leia is strong with the Force- but are we really supposed to believe that Jedi can survive being THROWN INTO OUTER SPACE now?? Where do we draw the line? These are human characters we're dealing with, but Mr. Johnson apparently has no boundaries.
And his final shot? A boy who we have NEVER SEEN BEFORE. I understand the meaning behind it- to say that anyone can be force-sensitive- but really?! For me, Star Wars has always been about the characters. So when one considers the closing shot of the movie (which has, in other Star Wars films, always been highly poignant) to be a RANDOM BOY... instead of a character that we're actually invested in... you'll see why I am upset.
Adding even more questions to the list of unanswered mysteries introduced in The Force Awakens, this episode has me seriously concerned for the culminating chapter of this trilogy. Best of luck to Abrams in salvaging the story he set out to tell, as The Last Jedi has left it in a very puzzling and disappointing place.
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4/10
A thoroughly mediocre movie - might disappoint existing fans by targeting a broader and younger audience
Warning: This review contains significant spoilers.
After the excellent Rogue One and the very positive reviews that this movie received, I was hopeful that it would be outstanding. However, I left the theater with a feeling of enormous disappointment. Let me start with the positive aspects of the movie, though. Technically, it is a masterpiece: the special effects are fantastic. Visually, it is a stunning recreation and advancement of the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV-VI). Most of the actors do a good job and the soundtrack is great, too. The space battles are extremely well made -- probably the best I've seen in any movie so far.
However, all of these positive aspects cannot save the movie from its poor plot, misplaced humor, and the fact that it simply does not feel like an authentic continuation of the existing Star Wars universe. Obviously, the last point in particular is subjective, but below I will provide detailed reasons for my judgment.
In general, the plot is not believable, tries to achieve too much, and delivers too little at the same time. It is not credible because the entire story feels forced. The uninterrupted hour-long hunt for the Resistance ships (which is a very thin and weak main story line) seems like an artificial way to create tensions. It is full of gaps and developments that are not believable. On the one hand you have the technologically vastly superior First Order forces which are able to follow the Resistance fleet through light speed (something that, according to the characters in the movie, was not even possible previously). On the other hand, they are not able to get any closer to them when in normal speed. Also, it is not believable that an explosion that destroys the entire bridge of a ship and kills everyone on it, leaves Leia physically mostly unharmed (not a Jedi trick, because the Jedi can definitely be harmed physically). Furthermore, the fact that the one person they absolutely need for their plan (the so-called "Code Breaker") is conveniently close to the location of the chase just appears to be too big a coincidence. Similarly, the presence of a comparatively close old rebel base is not very credible either. Finally, Supreme Leader Snoke, who appears to be a mastermind, does not notice the light saber next to him turning (I mean, come on)...
One of the biggest problems with the plot is that the tensions created are resolved much too quickly and in an anticlimactic fashion. Supreme Leader Snoke, who we barely know and who remains completely mysterious, is taken out of the movie after approximately five minutes of conversation without any big fight. He turns out to merely be a placeholder to fulfill a certain story function. The problem that characters are introduced too fast, remain underdeveloped, and are then removed (even though there is great potential to develop them) -- like Captain Phasma or Rose Tico -- shows that the movie tries to achieve too much but delivers too little. While the plot heavily focuses on Rey, Kylo Ren, and Luke Skywalker, nearly all other characters suffer a fate of under-development and/or quick removal.
Also, actors throw around the word "treason" and even commit acts of betrayal without any meaningful consequences. For example, Poe Dameron takes over the command of the Resistance in a "coup d'état," only to apparently be forgiven shortly afterwards. This is presumably due to the movie's younger target group, but doesn't help its authenticity at all.
This leads straight to my second major concern: Episode VIII simply is not an authentic continuation of the existing Star Wars universe. The development of characters and the main story was much more believable in the old Expanded Universe that is no longer part of the official canon. Just compare the development of Luke Skywalker's personality in the old Expanded Universe, as a guardian of new Republic and heir to the Jedi Order, to his completely new personality in Episode VIII (where he runs away from everything and tries to destroy the legacy of the Jedi). Considering that throughout Episode VI Luke does not give up the hope of turning the evil overlord Vader (who he knows to be his father) into a good person again and in light of his success at doing this, it is also not credible at all that he would even consider killing his nephew -- Kylo Ren -- in his sleep. It just doesn't make any sense given Luke's previous character development.
As pointed out above, Snoke's appearance and development is also more of a joke. Not to mention Kylo Ren: with his childish attitude he simply cannot serve as a credible bad guy (and especially not Supreme Leader). The entire First Order is a cartoonish version of the Empire. This is not Star Wars anymore. Moreover, the casino scene and the entire side plot with Finn and Rose also did not match the atmosphere and world design of any previous Star Wars movie. The casino looked more like Las Vegas than anything I've seen in the Star Wars universe so far.
Finally, the humor used in the movie often feels misplaced. The film seriously starts with a "prank phone call" from Poe Dameron to the general of the First Order. This reminded me of Bart Simpson's calls to Moe's bar and just feels completely wrong as the opening scene. The First Order commander is fooled too easily and his behavior and attitudes remind me more of a teenager than of a high-ranking imperial (First Order) officer. This is again presumably due to the movie's younger target group.
Some jokes are pretty good and made me laugh, but their frequency is so high that it simply doesn't feel like we can take most characters seriously anymore. That may be the goal of the creators of the movie -- to produce something more light-hearted -- but, as I said above, this simply is not an authentic continuation of the existing Star Wars universe.
Overall, it is pretty clear to me that the movie seeks the broadest possible audience. With stunning special effects, great space battle action, lots of light-hearted humor, and a more cartoonish First Order it wants to turn everyone into Star Wars fans. However, by doing this, it breaks with previous movies of the saga and ultimately has enormous potential to disappoint existing fans. By going maximally mainstream (more than Star Wars was ever before), the movie might be successful at making money, but it's ever harder to distinguish Star Wars in a meaningful way from any other recent SciFi film or even the latest super hero movies. Despite its strengths, the weaknesses -- especially the bad plot and not credible character development -- make it mediocre overall. If this movie would not have the label "Star Wars" on it, most people would probably not care to see it. It likely would be forgotten within a few years. With the label Star Wars on it, despite all of its shortcomings, it will probably be an enormous (financial) success.
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DO NOT READ MY REVIEW IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE SPOILERS
This review is a result of episode 8 as a stand alone and not toward a possible 9 (where Disney could reveal Kylo was a liar and the reason why he told Rey if she knew what he saw when he touched her hand, would cause her to turn to his side, was because she would turn dark knowing Kylo killed her father) In the same way episode
6 not 5 revealed Luke and Leia to be siblings.
From the moment Poe made fun of "General Hugs" and talked about his mom I knew this movie was going to be a POS. Didn't realize Star Wars was on the same comical caliber as The Marvel Cinematic Universe which is based off of comics. After re-watching Episode 1-6 and seeing younglings killed I noticed a severe inconsistency with this universe as of late. I feel the comedy aspect could have been picked up in spin offs, not the main movies. Why does every movie HAVE to have an even amount of comedy nowadays. The Dark Knight didn't require comedy to be an amazing film.
Poe had several people killed with his asinine plans and ideas, and we are supposed to look at him like he is some amazing leader ready to take over for Leia? REALLY!? How can anyone think this story is coherent.
I love how Rey has never had a teacher or been trained in Kung Fu but some how she has mastered every technique. Since when has a martial arts student suddenly been able to master and perform flawless techniques without a teacher or training? Humans in Star Wars have NEVER done this and neither in real life.This is the reason why people were frustrated with E7. It is terrible writing to start off a character needing no development. Heck even Leia tells Rey they don't need anything else after the resistance is destroyed. NO SH!T, especially when you have written a character to be so perfect.
We come to segment of the movie where Poe agrees that Rose and Finn should go off and find this codebreaker. This entire portion of the movie was to illustrate to the audience that maybe the resistance isn't all good and maybe the empire isn't all bad. At the end of this little section of the story we find out that Finns efforts were all in vain JUST like episode 7, where he goes to rescue the perfect character who doesnt need rescuing. Disney, why would you allow one of your main characters(a minority figure), to be portrayed as useless in 2 films in a row. I love Boyega and you let Rian Johnson destroy his character in the worst way. Which leads into my next tantrum.
Finn not performing the most courageous act in history, sacrifice. I know everyone else felt it as Finn was about to collide with the battering ram cannon, that swelling in the throat, and the tears starting to form as finally his character does something meaningful. To only have it ruined by Rose with her line that "We won't win by destroying the things we hate; we win by saving the things we love." OH REALLY??? well that is trumped by the comment Luke makes about war just beginning... last time I checked wars were won by ruthless tactics not by handing out flowers.
At one point Luke sees Rey leave and goes to burn the sacred Jedi texts to have Yoda assist with some lightning. Luke turns around and verifies with Yoda that it is time for the Jedi to end where Yoda nods and tells Luke yes. OH REALLY??? That is why Luke on Crait tells Kylo that he will not be the last Jedi? WTF were you thinking Rian Johnson? This script is far less coherent than the last turd I watched, Bedeviled.
The acting, sound effects, visuals, music(oh the lovely, amazing music), and costumes were beautiful and praise worthy and with the failure of the script I firmly believe everyone did thier part except Rian Johnson. I love the cast and almost everyone who worked on the film even poor Kelly Tran, but Rian you should feel ashamed.
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2/10
Why would I watch the third one? There is nothing left I want to know...
First of all, I'm a big Star Wars fan, and I think the prequels were good, because they were building up to something, Vador. But this... Where is THIS going...? It's the first time in my live that I've taken the time to write a review, because there is no way this movie deserve his 8.1/10 rating. And five years old kids don't come to rate movies on IMDB, so people were clearly paid to rate this movie past 5 stars.
At first, I thought it was a Family Guy parody. Poe talking about General Hux's mother and making him look like a fool. Jedi Temple Maids!?!?! LUKE MILKING A WEIRD CREATURE, WHAT THE..!?
Every mysteries JJ Abrams brought to us with The Force Awakens; Snoke, Rey's Parents, Rey's Vision, Luke & Kylo backstory all lead to nothing... Everything was answered like if Rian Johnson didn't agree with JJ Abrams first view on the Trilogy and wanted to get rid of it right away. I can't believe he gets his own trilogy.
But who were the writers on this movie!?
Why did they decide to shoot Leia's ship if they didn't want her to die. Waking up & flying in space, really? All that so we can finally get rid of Admiral Ackbar?
What was the point of the "Casino mission"? (Maz's character appearance was pointless by the way) Finn and his new "nobuddy" were really going to leave satisfied with only freeing a weird horse? That's what they were going to do if they were not rescued by that weird traitor code cracker.
How did Captain Phasma survived the first movie? And for what? To just die AGAIN!
Why did Luke look so afraid of Rey turning to the dark side to then just decide to keep training her the next morning? They really lost me there, at one point I thought there was a mistake in scene editing and this scene was supposed to come later in the movie.
What about Snoke... he was supposed to be so powerful. What was he doing?? - And now my young apprentice I fully trust you, I know everything about you! I can read all your thoughts and I will say everything you think out loud until you strike me with the lightsaber just beside me. Nonsense. I really thought there was a big reveal coming up for this character. The only reveal we got was that he was actually nobody and weaker than Kylo.
There is really nothing left to care about after this movie. I did not know that a trilogy could contain only two movies... The only thing left is that Kylo Ren and the First Order are still alive. But hey! There's a little boy with force and a broom! He was probably heading to his Quidditch game if you ask me. Is he who I am supposed to care about for the next movie?
The comedy also ruins the movie. Filmakers got to stop. Not all movies have to be action comedies. I am tired of the Avengers because of this exact reason, they are all the same. There is no serious movie anymore. (Look at the new Jurassic Park trailer per example, comedy again, this will suck). Star Wars movies were light si-fi movies. Now, this was like Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or Star Trek - Far, far away.
I am a Huge fan of JJ Abrams work, but unfortunately (I am sorry JJ), I won't be going to the theatre to see the third one. This is about Disney an there way of handling the Star Wars franchise. In my opinion, you are ruining the Star Wars spirit.
I can't see how this trilogy can be saved now...
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3/10
"It's time for the Jedi, and for Star Wars... to end."
The Last Jedi is one giant cinematographic anticlimax. Each sequence had a twist for the sake of a twist. Each time, the chosen twist was always the lesser of the interesting possibilities the resolution could offer. Each scene had a build up that lead to an anticlimax.
Examples:
1) Set-Up: Luke gets his blue light saber back. The biggest buildup at the end of The Force Awakens. Two years in the wait to see what Luke is going to do.
Anticlimax: Luke throws the light saber away over his head in a slapstick manner.
2) Set-up: Is Admiral Holdo a traitor?
Anticlimax: Apparently she's not, she just wanted to hide her plan (of saving The Resistance) from everybody without any apparent reason, creating forced conflict.
3) Set-up: DJ explains the war economy to Finn and Rose and shows that the weapon dealers sell weapons to both The First Order AND The Resistance.
Anticlimax: Finn and Rose ignore it completely and pretend this discussion never happened.
4) Set-up: We finally meet Snoke, the new biggest Dark Side villain of the galaxy. Who is he?
Anticlimax: He's nobody, Snoke is killed off in the most anticlimactic and convenient way possible; and this in the middle of the movie!
5) Set-up: Rey is finally getting the answer of who her parents are.
Anticlimax: She is a nobody. Her drunk parents sold her to Unkar Plutt when she was a child. They then died and were buried somewhere on Jakku in a mass grave.
6) Set-up: The big climactic build-up of the battle on Crait where Luke walks towards The walkers of The First Order. The music builds and Luke is ready to do some serious force-s***.
Anticlimax: Luke was using a projection of himself, Force-broadcasting it from Ahch-To to leave some time for The Resistence to escape. This drained his energy and killed him apparently.
The Last Jedi felt like making love to the woman of your dreams, and right before you come she stops you, pushes you away, and tells you to leave for not apparent reason. You are just dumbstruck thinking "What!?"
The Last Jedi is a mix between Return of The Jedi and the prequels. It had the potential of becoming "something truly special", but like the prequels, all the decisions that were made were the least interesting and in some cases the most ridicule ones. For example: The whole crowd started to lough in mockery when Superwoman Princess Leia flew through space... Casting A-list actors like Benicio Del Toro for small roles is another example of a weird choices.
The rhythm was off. Wen the subplot started about Finn and Rose going to Canto Bight, the movie started to drag. Then, when the Crait battle started, everything was rushed. All the interesting questions The Force Awakens asked were answered in a rush.
The Last Jedi is a ridicule movie, a 2h32minutes long awkward an weird cinematographic experience.
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2/10
Went to the movies happy, came out partially sad and confused.
I never thought I'd be saying this, but I have never been this conflicted with a Star Wars movie plot in my life.
I want to go through the movie one point at a time:
Opening scene is probably one of the better space battles we will see in a long time. We notice the desperate escape and sacrifices made by the Resistance. PROBLEM with this part was that you don't know any of the characters- and starting a movie by simply creating sacrifices doesn't give you that emotional connection with the people dying. Either way it was ok enough.
So we know Luke went exile on this island, and we would assume (as TRUE fans) that he would learn a thing or two about the origins of the Force. I mean the whole hype around the existance of BOOKS in the universe of Star Wars got everyone excited. But amazingly enough, Luke didn't even seem to have read them all - we literally don't see their signifiance in this whole movie.
We remember Luke Skywalker as the beacon of hope after RotJ, but in this movie he seems like a completely different person. I would assume even after loosing his first generation of Jedis he would try to persuade himself to restart, but noooo he DOESNT - he has given up.
Luke hardly teaches Rey anything about the Force. We see few lessons, but nowhere near how Yoda taught Luke. This in my opinion was a sad moment! Yet no one really understands why Rey is so competent with the usage of her force abilities.
Rey's parentage thrown down the drain. Kylo reveals that her parents sold her on Jakku for drinking money.. I still feel like we will see more to this particular plot in Episode 9.... (HOPEFULLY!)
Snoke... man oh man, what have you done Disney? After the Force Awakens, we are left with so many questions regarding this being.. who is Snoke, how does he hold so much knowledge of the Force, what is his connection with the Old republic or the era of the Empire? NOTHING answered in this movie, and on top of this (please God help me with this one) he is killed! There is no revelation about his origins. Just a simple bad guy who was born out of nowhere and wanted to destroy the Jedi and take over the Universe... I mean COME ON, such a stupid way to go.
Finn and his girlfriend scenes are such a waste of time. You feel like the planet they travel in order to find a codebreaker is a scene from a Harry Potter movie. I am conflicted with how long they made that scene.. so unecessary. I can say a whole lot more about this particular bit, but I'd like you to see this movie and cry about how bad it was made.
Poe was fantastic actor in this movie. I love his enthusiasm and he truly lifts the movie with his comedy, bravery, and sense of justice.
Princess Leia (RIP dear princess) - seems to be tired in this movie. I'll go straight to the important scene: at one stage some tie bombers destroy her command bridge and she is seen blown into space. Suddenly she wakes up (while being frozen to death) with the use of her Force abilities and flies back into the ship... We have seen some new abilities of the Force now, this one is a big one
Resistance is left with, hmm.... 8-9 people by the end of the movie?
At the latter part of the movie the remaining Resistance sends out message across the outer Rim for aid, you would believe that someone would reply in their darkest moment.......... NOPE, no one did. BUT LUKE came out in a spirit form (using Force ability while physically remaining on the Island planet). After a deadly "fight" with Kylo Ren, he dissapears amd returns to his own body. There he watches the sunset and becomes one with the Force, in other words he DIES. Rey can sense this and so can Leia.
With this particular scene we have learned that Luke truly has learned more epic usage of the Force. The part that gets me pissed: does teleporting your own spirit to another planet result in your own death?... nothing about this gets answered. You just see him use ONE ability and poof = dead.
This movie is all about making way for the newer generation and I truly hate the way it is done. Trust me, I love Star Wars and I would love to give the newer generations time to evolve and introduced in the most intelligent way, but this movie just wants to kill off legends.
Sorry but in my honest opinion, this is the WORST Star Wars movie ever created.
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Expect everything you love and know about Star Wars to be trashed in this film. Imagine preparing the most extravagant meal with the most expensive and luxurious ingredients in the world. You spend days preparing the food, then as you plate up you pour two buckets of salt on top of everything. Your wonderful well made food ruined under a mountain of salt. This is exactly what the director did in the Last Jedi, he destroyed it. It was overlong, far too conscious of itself with crude plot twists and no love for the characters. It was as if an alien had landed on earth and never seen the other films and just made it in an afternoon. The words Last are very meaningful, it's the last time I will go to a Star Wars film, the Last time I will care about a star wars film and the last time any fan will have hope of seeing a film fans deserve. The Jedi are WELL AND TRULY DEAD!! Great work Disney!! Took some doing to destroy this franchise.
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2/10
As a die hard Star Wars fan it pains me to write this review....
"The Last Jedi" was by far the worst Star Wars movie that has entered the series. The actors themselves are great, but it is the story that has completely ruined the direction of the Star Wars franchise. There may be some spoilers ahead so if you have yet to see the movie please do not read further.
To start, one of the biggest issues with the new Star Wars movies are the excessive amount of puns and comedic entertainment that have now been added to the series. Star Wars is not a Marvel movie and is NOT intended to be a comedy. The Last Jedi adds too much unnecessary humor that takes away from the seriousness that is Star Wars.
This film is filled with unnecessary scenes and plot holes that will leave you scratching your head by the end. The best example of this is seeing the humanizing moment when Kylo Ren decides not to fire on the bridge of the spaceship where his mother (Leia) was. Leia still ends up getting blasted out into space from the other tie-fighters and then uses her force power to pull herself back into safety. I'm sorry but A) Leia has never shown a glimpse of power like this so how are you going to introduce this now and B) What was the point of the bridge blowing up if she was just going to survive anyway? Again, another frustrating waste of time with no explanation or answers.
Another major fault by The Last Jedi is the handling of the unanswered questions we all had from "The Force Awakens" such as, who is Snoke and who are Rey's parents? We never learn who Snoke is or how he ever came in contact with Ben Solo or how he was able to manipulate Ben to the dark side. With the image of Snoke being a major villain in The Force Awakens you think he would have had a larger role rather than to be killed off halfway through the movie with no explanation of his origins. The ladder follows with the question of Rey's parents, who are deemed "nobodies" who left their daughter on a planet without a care in the world. Although this could turn out to be false in future movies the fact that we are left with this as the outcome is anticlimactic and very disappointing.
Another thing I have realized that is wrong with the new movies compared to the old is that they are trying to focus on so many supporting characters rather than the core group. The original Star Wars movies still has some of the most iconic supporting characters in cinema today because of their impact while they were on screen, not because they had to create an individual story for each and every character introduced into the Star Wars world. The Last Jedi continues this poor tactic by trying to have a story for Rey, Luke, Ben (Kylo), Finn, Leia, Poe, Rose, Gen. Hux, Phasma, etc. Another thing to note is that Phasma had another pointless role in this film same as during The Force Awakens and just feels forced into the movies at this point.
There was so much potential in The Last Jedi but the poor execution of the story really made the movie a dud not to mention trying to make the movie a mix of "Return of the Jedi" and "The Empire Strikes Back." The connection between Ben and Rey was interesting and could have been expanded on more as well as the history between Ben and Luke (now knowing the details of their conflict and the perspective of each individual in the scenario). By far my biggest peeve of the movie is when Yoda shows up as a ghost to speak with Luke. Why would Yoda be the one to show up when Luke had a bigger connection with Obi-Wan, or even his own father (Anakin) for that matter considering Obi-Wan and Anakin faced a similar scenario when Anakin slipped to the dark side (same as Ben Solo). Just another example of poor story execution. They essentially took everything that made Star Wars what it is today and threw it all out the window and left us with a mess of a movie with no plot or direction. Again, this is no reflection on the cast, all of them did a great job executing their roles, but the writing was really some of the worst we've seen in a long time.
I left the theater with no excitement or feeling of "what's next" and overall was disappointed that they took something so great and have turned it into garbage. This movie seems like the end of the "Star Wars" we all grew up with and loved.
If I had to describe my overall experience for The Last Jedi in one word it would be, disappointed.
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2/10
They brought Star Wars back. Only to spit on its name.
Wow. Just wow. The Last Jedi was the worst piece of garbage masquerading as a Star Wars movie. I genuinely feel bad for paying the ticket fee. This movie doesn't deserve that. I logged into my IMDB account for the first time in years just to post this review.
See, I hate it when my favourite things are being destroyed. It's like a phantom dagger piercing my heart.
Why exactly is TLJ such a horrendous farce of a movie?
Spoilers, beware. Let's see...
1. No character development. At all. The only thing we learned is that Kylo Ren has conflicts of conscience. Everyone else remains as forgettable, boring PC main characters. Finn is still a black dude who sometimes gets excited. Rey still beat Kylo Ren with her girl powers without actual training. There's a new short, plump, socially awkward girl. Need I say more.
2. The romance between Finn and Rose felt forced. They had zero chemistry at all. The kiss-scene felt like it came out of nowhere. I get that romance is a reoccurring theme in Star Wars, but... just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should. Did they write this on their lunch breaks? Jesus Christ.
3. No tension. You know one ingredient that makes a good movie? Emotions. I may just be cold, but I felt almost ZERO emotions while watching TLJ. There wasn't a single scene that made me excited, hyped, joyous, sorrowful, or angry. The only emotion I felt... was disappointment. I didn't even chuckle once. Speaking of chuckling...
4. Misplaced comedy. Really. I'm not the kind of person to laugh out loud often, but not a single 'comedic' or 'funny' scene even made me smile.
5. What happened with Snoke? He was both a severely underused and cliche villain. It's almost like they tried to recreate the ending of Return of the Jedi when Rey entered Snoke's throne room and was briefly force-tortured by him. Then he dies. Awesome. Honestly, I didn't like him that much either way, but... You have three movies to make a compelling villain. Three movies. Of the most popular fictional saga in the entire world. And THIS is what you come up with?
6. What happened with Captain Phasma? No. I refuse. I REFUSE to believe that was her fate. She'll come back, right? That was just a ruse to make us think that she's dead. There's no fucking way that you kill off one of the most underused villains of all time like that. SHE HAD LESS TOTAL SCREEN TIME IN 2 MOVIES THAN GENERAL GRIEVOUS DID IN REVENGE OF THE SITH FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
7. Random ass-pulls. Things that make you go "Oh, come oooon!". Princess Leia's 'death' is a shining, prime example of this. Curses, our fair princess was vacuumed into space! Oh wait. She can just use her space wizard powers to move herself back to safety. The movie was full of these mini-deus-ex-machinas, but it would take forever to list them all.
8. Awkward directing and mini-plot holes. So... when Finn and whatshername were captured and prepared for execution by Captain Phasma, there were stormtroopers all around them. An explosion. Everyone except our gracious main characters is dead. What happened to the troops surrounding Finn and Rose? At the end after the crash, how did Finn carry whatsherface back to rebel lines without AT-AT's obliterating them? My god. I admit I was tired, so maybe I missed some key elements. Could someone explain in detail how the main characters survived in some scenes for reasons other than their extraordinarily thick plot armour?
And since this is the 8th 'episode', I think the 8th reason why The Last Jedi is a heap of garbage is a good place to stop. There are, of course, many more things, like Kylo Ren's betrayal of Snoke, Luke's death and Admiral Holdo's hyperspace-suicide which were completely intellect dampening from a logical perspective.
One thing I liked were the Force scenes between Kylo and Rey. Them sensing each other and the camera angles being placed accordingly. Those were pretty sweet.
The visual and auditory presentation of Holdo's suicide by hyperspacing through the imperial fleet was really cool. Otherwise, it made no sense lore-wise. Couldn't the rebels just have destroyed all of the Death Stars in the previous movies the same way?
Rogue One was good. Fantastic, even.
The Force Awakens was bad.
The Last Jedi somehow manages to be even worse. I'd rather watch the prequels three times in a row that have a go at these Disney Wars movies befouling the Star Wars name. I have no hope for Episode 9. Hire better fucking writers and directors and maybe we'll see.
Hell, if Disney contacted me, I'd write a compelling, unforgettable script for Episode IX for FREE. I'm dead fucking serious.
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As a lifetime Star Wars fan, I was sorely disappointed to see even the biggest fans laugh at the writing and concepts of this film during the midnight launch screening, if only the jokes were as funny.
The film lets you know where it's going almost immediately, opening with a typical "poor signal radio" gag between two important parties, warning you that there is nothing to be taken seriously in this plot. These poor attempts at humour continue throughout the rest of the film, with excessive amounts of time spent on jovial scenes that only exist to pander to people who might not know the franchise or promote possible merchandise.
This lack of finesse carries over into the writing and plot, most of the dialogue is downright cringe-worthy, not dissimilar to you might see in some kid's first fan film. The plot essentially doesn't exist, from beginning to end, nothing has changed in the larger universe. Furthermore, any significant plot points from the previous film that might have required an explanation are dismissed with an "Oh, yeah that was nothing". On top of the disaster that was the "plot", there are a multitude of lore-breaking cop outs and a very short timeline for the events of the film to occur in order to create suspense, which is then completely ignored. To sum up the script, it was lazy, unintelligent and full of continuity errors.
All this film does is shit all over every aspect of Star Wars that fans love, characters included. It feels small, the characters are undeveloped and the sense of wonder that Star Wars is built on was entirely snuffed out. At least the prequels felt a part of something larger.
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3/10
Worse than I thought it would be, horrible script. That fantastic trailer tricked me!
The film makers did the right thing by releasing a smart trailer that did not give hardly any of the story away, however I was left unsatisfied and there were some plot twists that completely destroy the rest of the potential star wars cinematic universe. Most of the movie is a missed opportunity.
I will get straight to the point and cover the things I liked and the things that I disliked.
Liked
1. Mark Hamill, he is and will always be fantastic as Luke Skywaker his performance was great.
2. Snoke was an interesting character and formidable bad guy, he would and should have kicked serious ass in the next star wars movie!!!
3. The battle at the end.
4. Chewie.
Disliked
1. Too much comedy perhaps. The new order was a joke and it seemed like they tried too hard to make every scene a funny one with all First Order characters acting like complete morons, and the rebels stunning each other like juveniles being given a tazer.
2. Politically hidden messages in the movie. - Anti Capitalist tone for the people / creatures in the casino. Was that alien picking up coins a reference to Trump? And the horses smashing through the casino knocking over rich people (who by the way sell weapons in the galaxy) really? It's that unobvious? I could see it a mile away.
3. Snoke taken out so easily.....I mean c'mon Kylo Ren will now be a raving lunatic for the last episode and does not have any dimension to his character besides yelling like a nut case.
4. The middle of the movie dragged on and was so boring. A ship following another ship for the whole movie does not add anything new to the star wars lore.
5. No lighsaber duels??? even at the end wtf? instead they just fight ninjas.
6. Leia blasting Poe and the other commander (Dern) repeatedly calling him a flyboy??? what is that???? that's not star wars, that's a bad attempt at hipster comedy which failed. Looks like DERN thought she was in top gun 2.
7. Leia is blasted into the vacuum of space and is still alive. Then uses force pull to save herself. That's just so stupid!
8. Luke skywaker....force projecting himself, then fainting to death???? Um what???
9. Captain Phasma is just cannon fodder and a huge waste.
10. The sub plot where they are looking for that lock smith guy is horrible and cheesy, he ends up being a boring character that is again thrown away and wasted.
11. A Rebel Capital ship has 18 hours of shield power and can sustain constant cannon fire, but a dreadnought star destroyer has NO shields and can be successfully attacked by one X-Wing and a handful of bombers?
12. Poe's failed mutiny was an absolute joke. How did he get the other squad leaders to point their guns at the officers? and with no consequence to them?
13. Rey's parents to be hyped only to turn out to be quote - "filthy merchants" WHAT?
14. OH Look! A convenient abandoned planet, that happens to have a well stocked, hidden rebel base in it right there when they need it. LOL, gosh a 3 year old kid could think of a better story with a better plot.
There are touching moments when Luke reunites with Chewie, Leia and R2D2. But nothing touching throughout the whole film with any of the new characters. There is just no emotion there worth mentioning, except Kylos crazy behaviour and outbursts.
Many questions are unanswered, like what was Snokes back story? Why is Yoda happy to burn the jedi tree? Where are the knights of ren? Who will train Rey if Luke is dead / gone? Where can they go to conclude the saga in a satisfying way from this point? The whole thing is a huge mess. Force Awakens was so much better and that says a lot.
The movie ran over 150mins and was an unsatisfactory bore-fest. It's like they want to destroy everything in all past start wars films and turn the franchise into a space comedy. Anything serious about the franchise they have sought to destroy. Sorry that was already done a million times better in Spaceballs. Sorry I really wanted this to be great but it failed on so many levels. The plot of the movie is summed up as, Rey wanting Luke to train her and the First Order following a rebel ship. This movie is best described as a mess akin to the mind of Kylo Ren.
3 out of 10.
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Just came back from the theater and I'm so conflicted. I don't know what to say. I really really want to love it but I really don't like it. The force awakens left so much potential for an amazing movie but this was huge chance missed. Instead I saw a misguided incongruous and incomplete movie that saddens me to my core. The magic is gone, I don't know what else I can say.
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1/10
Star Wars is Officially Dead for Me... So is IMDb.
Okay, I do not know where to start... Really. I didn't like TFA but I had some very big expectations about this one. The start of the new story was incredibly bad but it had the potential to be fixed somehow. Sadly, it didn't happen.
I will start with the good things, and there are a lot of good things but when I see it as a Star Wars movie, all of those good things fall apart.
- Kylo Ren and Snoke are cool as shit!
- The acting is superb.
- The music and the VFX are amazing...
But that's all of it. We can enjoy all of those things in every other similar movie. The MCU movies for example.
Now, there are spoilers ahead, so if you didn't watched the movie, stop reading my review here.
If TFA was a copy-paste of ANH, TLJ is a mix of TESB and ROTJ. Literally. I like the prequels, and even if I didn't liked them, I still would have respect them because they are original and George Lucas didn't afraid to take risks with the storyline. TLF is a complete BS /I am sorry for the language but COME ON!/. It is one big multi-million black hole. Disney care only about money. Everybody cares about money, there are one of the most important thing in the world. But when you do something - put your heart in it...
- I did not care about Phasma /and Ackbar too/, she was useless but I cannot believe they killed Snoke so stupidly. We didn't learn anything for him. He just showed up a few times, he was badass in all of his scenes, and in the end he is killed for no reason. His back-story is equal to that of Phasma.
- There are a few new characters, nobody cares for them, except Finn, may be. He falls in love with one of them but she is killed off too.
- Luke Skywalker, the Grand Jedi Master we all know from the books and the video games is so pathetic and illogical that for a second I tough I am not following the movie or something. He dies too, I am okay with that but he is acting like an grumpy grandpa, and somehow teleporting and doing Force stuff we had never seen before. Nothing against it but, please explain how those things happened!
- Leia can fly.. In SPACE??? What was that??? I will not make my rating for the movie lower because of that scene of course, just didn't liked it.
- There are so many other bad things, worse than my English, but I am tiered of writing this, so I am going to finish now.
So, when the movie came out and I saw the critic reviews, the high ratings, I thought this movie is going to be at least watchable. Now, when I saw it, along with the other people, and I see all the negative reviews, I cannot believe that this rating (8.3) three days ago was real. Cannot be. This is F.. BS! IMDb is dead for me, I will no longer consider this site for a movie rating criteria. It is a complete lie. I know that some of the movie ratings are manipulated but never believed that that they are manipulated so much! It is insulting, and I am sorry if I am mistaking!
So, the conclusion is - if you want to watch a Star Wars movie - go watch Star Wars Episode 1-6, or Rogue One. If you want to watch a Star Wars Parody - go watch Spaceballs. If you wanna kill yourself - go watch The Last Jedi!
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I rarely write a review but I feel I NEED to do it this time. I just watched The Last Jedi in 3D on a laser projector and the picture quality was top notch. At the beginning you can clearly see that the 3D effects in this film were going to be awesome. The ships in the opening scene were very detailed in a way I've never seen before in a 3D film.
But sadly I can't hide my disappointment. Where the Force Awakens introduced us with new characters and thus a lot of questions, The Last Jedi doesn't answer them. In fact I have even more questions now than before. It is also a bit of a slow movie, it takes some time before it really starts going.
I'm not going to describe every scene, just a few thoughts I have. We can all guess who the Last Jedi really is going to be, but it's a Jedi who's training is probably the most incomplete. Feeling some rocks, reaching out to the Force (and yes that part was actually funny) going to a cave which again doesn't give any answers. What were they trying to do when she stood in front of that mirror like wall ??? Luke, Lea and Kylo Ren's characters were on par, no big surprises there, aside from what happens to Lea when the ships bridge gets bombed ... Nah, I can live with that scene albeit somewhat extreme for her character.
What really makes or brakes this film is the faith of a main character which was introduced in the Force Awakens, Supreme Leader Snoke. Now I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan, but I'm the kind of fan that didn't read the comics nor did I see the animated series. I know a bit of the background but that's it. Still I consider myself a fan and I'm sure many of you didn't read the comics or haven't seen the animated series either, just as I haven't.
So as far as I know Snoke is a new character one which is portraied with great strength, one who would even surpass Darth Sidious. I was hoping that the Last Jedi would tell us more about his origins, was he in the prequels ? Has he been hiding in the shadows ? How did he encounter Kylo Ren ? Etc ... Allas no answers here ... not a single thing is said about who he is and where he comes from but you can see how strong he is with the Force when he's trying to get answers out of Rey. Skipping some dialogue here ... Rey is being held down by Snoke and orders Kylo Ren to finish her, whilst at the same time YOU CAN CLEARLY hear his dialogue about how he can feel what's going on in Kylo Ren's mind, how he KNOWS what's going to happen and at THAT very SAME time Kylo Ren SIMPLY turns Rey her lightsaber (which Snoke took from her and was resting on his armchair) ignites it and Snoke is being cut in half ??? Did he not see this coming ??? This a character which kept fans curious for the past 2 years and he DIES in such an unbelievable and stupid CHEAP way my jaw LITERALLY dropped to the floor !!! This scene makes or brakes it for me ... and it was the latter.
From that point on I kinda lost interest in the story and all I could think of was why ??? WHY RYAN JOHNSON ?? WHY ???
And when you think of the story as a whole it's basically an escape the bad guys movie. Finn and (forgot) are going to Canto something to find a codebreaker. They get locked up in jail and of all places that's where they find him ... Sigh. Later on it was apparently a trap and this codebreaker delivered them to the First Order but we don't see anything story wise how this trip was even relevant, they could have just stayed on the ship to begin with and went to Crait straight away along with the others. But then again that would have shortened the movie by half an hour or so at least.
I have to say the people who made the trailer really did a hell of a job getting people all excited for the latest Star Wars instalment but it simply doesn't deliver, at least not to me.
So many questions still, is Snoke really dead ? Why is there nothing said about the Knights of Ren who were clearly seen in the Force Awakens ? The everlasting question about Rey's parents, simply answered by Kylo Ren was a bit disappointing too, but will there still be a twist ? So many many questions still ...
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1/10
Everything that's wrong with blockbusters today - all flash and no substance
I would first like to say that I just created an account just to review this film! This is mainly because I feel so strongly after viewing this film what I think is wrong with hollywood and big block busters today... bad storytelling.
Starting off, I am somewhat a fan of Rian Johnsons past work. I recommend Brick to all of my friends and think it is a very well thought out modern Noir story. I even enjoyed Looper which I thought was an imaginative take on time travel. Though a major concern among people who have seen it and some critics is that it is filled with plot holes. Unfortunately it seems as though Mr. Johnson did not read these reviews...
I am not a massive star wars fan. I never read the books, the comics or even watched the clone wars television series. I am not a die hard fan for Star Wars. But I am a die hard movie fan. I love movies for their storytelling qualities that let the audience experience something new and different. This major quality that I enjoy most in movies unfortunately is not found in The Last Jedi.
Something that I will be referencing throughout this review is the term "Deus Ex Machina" which is a term used to describe a "God Device" or something found in a plot that arrives just as though a God put it there. I will use it very loosely to point out weak plot points that simply do not make any sense. Other reviews talk about how certain actors act and how some things don't feel right for Star Wars in general. I do not feel like I am knowledgeable enough to point out these flaws. So for all intensive purposes I would like to focus on the story just like I would for any other film.
Now to the meat of my review! throughout the film certain things happen in the story that save characters from peril or fix problems they have. Comparing this to real life, we all have had occurrences where something Lucky happens to us and are saved from something horrible. But this does not happen over and over and over again. Starting from the beginning Leia is thrust out into space and is presumed dead. Nowhere in the past films has she been able to observably use the force and mostly can feel things through the force. How is it that right when she is flung to space she manages to not only be able to use the force but can do something that has never even been seen within the franchise? The entire focus in the first act is that the rebels main ship can barely stay out of range from the First Order. How come the First Order doesn't just speed up? Use just a smidge of light speed to cut ahead and become in range? this goes beyond the realm of possibility that they would just drag along behind them and not make the first move when they know they are weak. 3. The entire Finn story line is expendable. It could have never happened and the story could have still ended where it did. When writing I would think that you would look at the story and make sure every single ounce of the story was crucial to get from point A to Point B. Looking at the Finn story it is littered with Deus Ex Machina's for instance when they get arrested. They just so happen to meet someone in the cell who can break into the First Order? Later on, Finn fights Phasma then she happens to fall and die (waste of a character). Then Rose magically arrives with a small ship to get them off the burning ship. Later they crash onto the "salt planet?" and manage to be the only ship that gets into the hanger alive. WHAT ARE THE ODDS! I don't want to talk for hours so my last point with Finn is that before Hologram Luke gets barraged with laser canons, Rose passes out. So between Rose passing out and Hologram Luke gets blown to pieces Finn runs across this "salt field", Through laser explosions? and gets Rose back to the base in less than 5 miniutes. I'm not even kidding look at the distance between the base, where he landed and the time when Hologram Luke gets attacked. Its ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever.
There are other points I could bring up, like Finn getting rescued last minute by Rose. Snoke just so happened to get out of character and trust Kylo RIGHT AFTER SAYING HE SENSED HIS CONFLICT. Like yep... just said I didn't think you were a full Sith but now I trust you and I'm going to close my eyes. Or the rebels luckily finding an escape root from their new ice fox friends.
To conclude, the story is weak because so much happens through blind luck. This is what bad writing looks like everyone! Whenever someone sits down to write there has to be a cause and effect. There is none here. Just cause and luck. It just simply did not make any sense.This does not span to just Star Wars, but all of Disney's films. They lack good story elements that are either extremely predictable or just have random things save them right when they are in trouble. Do not be fooled by the great acting and flashy effects THIS IS BADLY WRITTEN. They say you support something with your money. So from now on I will not be paying to see a Disney owned and operated film for a long time. I am officially fed up with Star Wars, Marvel and dare I say Pixar. Please Disney stop destroying good storytelling and rehashing other peoples ideas!
That is all.
Thank You if you read all of this!!
-TheFlood
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There are some well written and comprehensive reviews on here already so I won't waste your time in the details.
Essentially, the entire first half of The Last Jedi feels like a Star Wars parody. Instead of the odd moment of humour every now and again, every scene AND character is a comedian in TLJ. It's a crap gag a minute. And some of the great work done The Force Awakens to re-energise the franchise was just completely undone. You know that incredibly significant and poignant moment at the end of TFA as Rey hands the lightsabre to Luke? Just wait and see what happens next.
I've rated it 4 stars because the second half of the film does pick up but by then the damage is done. TLJ is a huge misstep in the franchise.
838 out of 1,259 found this helpful.
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I was fed the hype, including a number of critic reviews in the mainstream media, and am left wondering if they saw the same film that I've just watched.
Very, very average at best. Little discernable actual plot; just a sequence of set piece action sequences interlinked with pointless chummy, huggy dialogue between characters that I find it hard to care about.
It's cinema for the twitter generation. No actual depth to it at all, just a derivative movie which repeats (and repeats) the genius signals of it's early predecessors without doing anything at all new. What a horrible shame that possibly the most successful movie franchise of all time is reduced to this.
ACTING
It really is coming to something when Mark Hamill is not only the star of a movie but is also depended on to hold the whole thing up. I am coming to the conclusion that Daisy Ridley really doesn't have the talent to do her (key) role justice. Adam Driver actually steps it up a whole gear from the previous movie and was very watchable, but all the other characters basically shout thier lines at each other, clearly conscious of someone holding a stopwatch off screen.
SCRIPT
Star Wars scripts have always been legendarily wooden, but under Disney the bar has been lowered to a level that 6 year olds would find condescending. Let me provide an example :
Back in the old days (say) a Tie fighter would be attacking the falcon. Old dialogue was something along the lines of :
(Skywalker and Solo struggle to shoot fighter, Skywalker eventually bags it)
LUKE : "See I got one"
SOLO : "OK kid, don't get cocky"
In the new world that same scene is scripted :
(Finn and Rey struggle to shoot fighter)
REY : "Shoot that fighter!"
FINN : "I'm going to shoot it"
REY : "If you don't shoot it now we'll all be destroyed"
FINN : "OK I'm going to shoot it"
(FINN Actually shoots fighter, massive explosion on screen)
FINN : "WOOT! WHOA! Did you see that? I shot it"
REY : "Yes I did that was amayyzeeen"
FINN : "That was fantastic!"
REY : "Yes you are absolutely amazing"
I think you get my point...
Shockingly dreadful, CeeBeebies level scripting that almost had me yearning back to the good old wooden days of Hayden Cristensen wooing Natalie Portman.
AND THE DISNEYFICATION
Oh boy, here's where Disney should have left it alone. The film unfortunately trots out a small zoo of cute "Disney" creatures. From the pointless Llama-like creatures which have been stolen stright out of "Never Ending Story" to the little Pingus with big eyes the film starts to resemble one of those dreadful Pixar animal animations which only 5 year olds can bear.
I could almost write pages and pages about where this film goes wrong. The film raids the it's own archives for material heavily, refilms it and it's just not as good second time round despite having what appears to be a few $bn of effects thrown at it.
Thank you Disney Corp for actually managing to accelerate the ruination of the greatest movie franchise in cinema history. All that remains now is to bring back Jar-Jar Binks in a leading role.
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1/10
The Last Jedi is a Disgrace to Every Star Wars Film That Came Before It
The Last Jedi is obsessed with the fallacious idea that in order to move forward you have to destroy everything that came before. It is as if someone walked into the Louvre and said "you guys need to stop holding onto the past," and then threw a torch down, cackling as hundreds of years of irreplaceable works of art burned to the ground, and then, standing triumphantly on the ashes, drew a smiley face.
In order to make room for the new characters to shine, Rian Johnson obliterates the character of Luke Skywalker to the point that Hamill himself couldn't recognize him; in the Original Trilogy Luke Skywalker transforms from a whiny farm boy into a hero who proclaims "I am a Jedi, like my father before me" and manages to do what both Yoda and Obi-Wan thought impossible: bring Darth Vader back to the light. In this film, Luke is tempted to murder his own nephew before he even did anything wrong simply because there is a chance he may turn to the dark side, but the worst thing is that after that rather than attempt to fix his mistake he falls into a pit of despair and hides on an island as his friends are slowly wiped out by the First Order. When Rey arrives he refuses to train her or help the resistance in any way (despite having made a map to his location in the previous film), until a strange out of character pyromaniac Yoda force ghost appears and tells him Rey is perfect already and also the extremely cliched line that "the greatest teacher, failure is." Luke is not the only wasted character from the Original Trilogy either: Chewbacca serves as nothing more than comic relief and Leia is incapacitated for most of the film after a strange Mary Poppins-esque stroll through outer space. Admiral Ackbar is killed so unceremoniously you barely even notice he dies.
The usage of the force in this film is wildly inconsistent with the previous films as well. First of all, force ghosts never were able to alter physical reality, yet in this film Yoda is able to bring lightning down from the sky, leading us to the question of why the force ghosts haven't just destroyed Snoke from their impenetrable positions in the netherworld. Leia is able to fly through outer space, and Snoke can force push people from across vast distances. Rey is able to lift multiple tons of boulders with apparent ease despite how difficult it was for Luke to make a single X-Wing in the Empire Strikes Back even budge. The force projection that Luke does at the end is actually interesting, but for some inexplicable reason they decide to make it kill him.
From a critical standpoint, the film is an incoherent mess. There is little to no character development and the plot is little more than a long, drawn out series of "gotcha" moments; we are treated like dogs, as Rian Johnson dangles delicious treats above us before rapidly yanking them away. In the climax of The Force Awakens Rey finds Luke and extends his lightsaber, but in The Last Jedi Luke merely throws the lightsaber over his shoulder. Leia is sucked into outer space, only to magically force fly back to safety. Luke agrees to train Rey, but then quits after only one pathetic training session. Finn is about to heroically save what's left of the resistance, but - surprise! - he is saved at the last minute by his awkward love interest. Snoke is the most powerful sith in any Star Wars movie ever, but is anticlimactically killed by a cheap trick. The entire first half of the movie leads us to believe Kylo Ren and Rey will join forces, but after Kylo Ren saves Rey - surprise! - they're not going to work together: Kylo Ren will remain the stereotypical bad guy and Rey the infallible heroine. Rian Johnson had a chance to actually do something original and daring in this respect, but instead chose to take the safe route.
The writing in this film is atrocious. Several lines are lifted verbatim from the Original Trilogy. The humor is out of place, overused, and sounds like they took the words of a heckler writing in the margins and thought they should actually put it in the movie (Star Wars meets Rocky Horror Picture Show). We are distracted by pointless subplots that are of no consequence. The new characters have no personality and sound like modern day buffoons who were simply transplanted into the Star Wars universe. There is so much wrong with it that you really just have to see it for yourself, although I would recommend not paying money for it.
In conclusion, The Last Jedi is the worst Star Wars movie ever made. It is heretical. It is the anti-Star Wars. It stinks.
22 out of 27 found this helpful.
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I was expecting to be dissapointed before "the force awakens" but after seeing it, I thought, "maybe I underestimated Disney, they can do this". Then "Rogue One" came out, it was alright as well. I have watched all 8 movies again, prior to watch "the Last Jedi"; dude, you got a good story, a stoormtrooper that ran off from the First Order, a young Sith and a Jedi who are having conflicts, Luke Skywalker, technology for incredible effects and so on; yet, what you shoot is a movie that stoortrooper is a coward and a hopeless romantic; Sith and Jedi fall in love each other; a Supreme Leader whom we still don't know how it got to be a leader (at least we knew the story of Darth Sidius before) and who dies like a freaking young jedi; we have the legend Luke Skywalker who became crazy and coward but somehow immortal. We have the main characters WHO JUST DONT DIE NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. Disney must return shooting the High School Musical; they have ruined Star Wars, they have ruined the best memory of my childhood. As a Star Wars fan, I could not help myself crying after seeing this movie which is worse than "the Phantom Menace". You need to be ashamed. You have betrayed George Lucas' legacy, you have betrayed the purpose of Star Wars. You now can be happy all the 10 year olds will love the movie, good job.
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If you calculate the ratings of every user you will find out this movies should not have above 4 rating. I believe IMDB.com is being unfair by giving it a "fake" rating propably with the purpose of giving it better sales.
27 out of 34 found this helpful.
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Star Wars is over.
As a true Star Wars Fan I can just say that it hurts. I love Legends, I love Episode 4 - 6 and I even love the prequels. But I hate the Last Jedi, I hate the plot (to be honest there is no plot), I hate the acting (Daisey Ridley), I hate the characters (Rey, Finn, Finn's chick, benicio del toro), I hate the explanations (if there was any), I hate the casino arc, I hate the political message (SJW), I hate the Leia Supergirl scene, I hate the choregraphy (even if there is no real lightsaber duel), I hate the ATAT, I hate how they used Yoda, I hate that they didn't use some of the old SW Tracks (Imperial March, Duel of Fates etc.), I hate the fuel issue, I hate the resistance (9 people left?!), I hate the new Anakin Child, I hate the dialogs (hux, rey), I hate that there was no Star Wars feeling at all, I hate Disney, but hey I love Porgs now!
1 point because its Star Wars
1 point for the visuals
2/10
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2/10
This movie declaration of bankruptcy to the Star Wars world
...but certainly not bankruptcy for Disney, seeing how they treat Star Wars only as a cash cow.
I had big hopes for Star Wars when Disney had announced this triology including the participation of the reccuring cast. Similar to the Force Awakens, the story in Last Jedi is disappointing and weak (to be fair, compared to Force Awakens a bit less weak, due to some unexpected story-twists), the new characters are still not interesting but rather onedimensional and the old characters are used in a very unsatisfying way. There are many elements in these movies, which don't feel they belong in the Star Wars universe - including all those modern, misplaced jokes - which might fit in well with Marvel-movies.
In my opinion this movie wasn't written by people who really care or know a lot about Star Wars, but solely by the influence of producers, sponsors, marketers and political ideologies. As a teenager I read many of the well written Star Wars novels, which had fantastic stories and use of Star Wars worlds and figures - it's a pity that none of this creativity made it into these Disney movies.
At least Disney gave us Gareth Edwards' Rogue One. Albeit its shallow story, it was a movie which looked and felt like Star Wars. Thanks for that.
765 out of 1,172 found this helpful.
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I don't know where to start with this utter abominaton of a Star Wars movie. It's like Rian & Disney took everything that J.J. Abrams wrote and threw it out the window. There is no explaination who Ray and Snoke are and who were the Knights of Ren, Snoke is even killed off in the middle of the movie in a ridicilous way. The way they changed Luke Skywalker as a character is is just sad. All the hype where lukes blue lightsaber came from in The Force awakens was for nothing. There was not even a proper lightsaber battle in the end.
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1/10
Movie described in three words: Annoying, Boring, and Disappointing
ANNOYING: Snoke couldve been so badass. He is so strong in the force. And yet he is given no backstory, where the hell did he come from? Where did he learn his force powers? How did he fund and start the First Order? How did he corrupt Kylo? He's killed off in a anti climatic way and appears super weak and random. I dont care if its all explained in some cartoon, he should be able to stand on his own in the movies, as all the other bad guys in Star Wars have. Captain Phasma was super random and weak. She was dumb enough to let Finn escape and unable to kill him when she gets the chance. I hated how obviously PC the movie was. Female officers and pilots everywhere, of every skin tone. I hated how Luke didnt learn anything about the force during his exile and overall didnt seem like himself at all. The kiss between Rose and Finn was just funny in a "I want to kill whoever thought this was a good idea" of this kind of way. Oh and how did Leia survive in space? No other jedi master has been able to do that and she isnt even practised in the force! At least give some context into her abilities before showing me that. Poe disobeying Leia and only getting a wee slap on the cheek and a demotion undermines her character. He did something directly against the Generals orders and shes too nice to care all that much? If she maintained her anger that'd be all good but she seems to have completely forgotten it as they escape, even letting him take the lead of the rebel escape from the base. I also noticed the theme of rehashing the originals going strong. Empire attack rebel base and rebels must flee. Young jedi learner goes to reluctant master and ultimately leaves against his wishes. Only difference is, Empire strikes back doesnt waste the entire movie with these two plot points and progresses further, whereas the Last Jedi doesnt.
BORING: the opening action sequence has no suspense because i already know theyll succeed in escaping. Also how the hell can Poe take down all the surface turrets of a buffed Star Destroyer? because this movie doesn't care about making sense. The new characters are all boring. We get some hacker dude who i cant even understand, some purple lady, a lady with a big nose, an asian lady and some other random rebel ladies. Compare this to the characters introduced in the other star wars movies, with great personas and cool, distinctive traits. The movie takes place over 24 hours or so and nothing new is introduced to the star wars universe. We literally see a ship chasing another ship and Luke being uncharacteristically pissy. Finn and Roses story adds nothing to the plot at all. In fact, they serve to provide the empire with a guy who tells them the rebels are escaping and enables them to shoot down half of the resistance. And yet they are still welcomed as heroes when they meet Poe. The Jokes mostly fall flat, except when im laughing at the terrible plot or the obviously product placed Porgs. Rey and Lukes plot has no real development or substance to it. She spends more time talking to Kylo, who isnt even there! I love how we're meant to like Poe, Rose, Finn and stuff because of their jokes and banter. Theres nothing else to them. Poe for example. All I know about him is he likes BB-8 and he isnt good at taking orders. Where's Finns struggle with his storm trooper past? Why is Poe so good a pilot? Han Solo was able to be likable, badass and interesting the moment we met him. Same goes for Darth Vader, Yoda and even characters like Obi wan, Grevious and Dooku grow on you in the prequels. I feel no attachment to these new characters.
Disappointing: I noticed how Rian Johnson is trying to be innovative and be all like "I can make a successful star wars movie without a lightsaber battle." Ok. Congrats. You did it. But why not add an awesome lightsaber duel? You had a nearly 3 hour movie and the closest we came was when they fight the royal guards. Why not add a new lightsaber colour? Or a new force power? Lightsaber battles are what makes a star wars movie awesome! The action in this movie felt lackluster. The chase scene with the weird horse things was random and unsuspensful, the final battle where the rebels charge against the AT-AT doesnt result in anything epic. The battle of Finn and Captain Phasma was predictable, not to mention unbeliebable. How can Finn beat the captain of the first order so easily? Because Finns a good guy and we root for him (apparently.) God damn that Yoda scene as well. Trying to make him look like the original Yoda as a diss to the prequels but then making him look super fake. Why does he decide to burn the papers? theres no real reason. Give us Qui gon, Obi wan or anikan, they'd be interesting to see. General Huck sucks. How is it that grand Moth Tarkin can be so effortlessly cool with little screen time and someone like Huck never comes close to this? Are we supposed to fear and admire a character who is a literal fool and in charge of the entire First Order fleet. That is one of the weirdest parts of this movie. Why is there such a powerful faction suddenly popping up with all these weapons, able to take heavy losses (because of incompetent commanders) and yet the resistance cant fight back at all and have to run away the whole time?
This movie was somehow worse than Force Awakens. The fact that Johnson is being given a new triogy after making such a lackluster film shows Disney (and Kathleen Kennedy) dont care about making good films. They want a director who will do whatever they say. When a director isnt being feminsist enough or isnt sticking to the shit scripts, their fired. This has happened with the original director of episode 9 and the directors of the Han Solo movie. I wish Lucas had kept star wars to himself, because the fact that these movies are canon now ruins the original trilogy. Han never learnt his lesson and became a smuggler again, and borrowed to much money again. Luke becomes the opposite of a wise jedi master. Leia ends up alone amongst idiots commanding a faction even weaker than the rebel alliance, without authority enough to keep people like Poe in line. The defeated empire rise even more powerful 30 years later, which undermines the victory in return of the jedi.
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If you're looking for a slapstick car crash with no heart, pathos or tension, The Last Jedi is the film for you.
So much is destroyed in the two and a half hours this film spans. Luke, the purest of heart, the one character that is seemingly impossible to ruin, is stripped of all his character and charm for no apparent reason.
Nothing in this film seems to serve a purpose. And even when we think there is some sort of plot - no! We are then told that the light and the dark are fairly interchangeable, that no side is a good side... except when in the end it matters again?
Domhnall Gleeson's character is more of a caricature, being thrown about like a rag doll, completely undermining the power of the villainous empire. Leia survives the most ridiculous explosion and exposure to space. Who is Snoke? Who is Rose? Why is every moment of possible tension destroyed by a cheap joke, making this film more like the soulless void of the Marvel franchise or a money-grabbing Disney film?
Why can none of the actors act? This film poses so many questions regarding the script, it's plot, and sadly, the industry as a whole.
Watching The Last Jedi was like watching an old friend suffer an undignified death. All I can think to do is get drunk and pretend it was a bad dream.
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Force Awakens was a great start for a new trilogy. It wasn't ideal but it was a really good start. Unfortunately unnecessarily because The Last Jedi decided to throw everything into garbage bin.
The plot is a complete mess with no conclusions and no point. The choices made by creators were awkward and just plainly STUPID. The movie leads absolutely nowhere leaving you with distaste. You WILL be rolling your eyes.
The only answer to the questions prompted by TFA we get is Rey Parents. Have you felt satisfied with the answer? I certainly did not. Still don't know the reason for her power. The training with Luke was a DISASTER. There was no training at all. Breathing exercises don't count. Sorry. Why did Yoda even show up? There was no point at all for this. Why did Rey Jump to this "Black hole underground place"? It lead to absolutely NOTHING. The worst but most hilarious subplot was the one when our heroes go to the casino only to get brutally arrested for bad parking. And they still managed to find what they were looking for in the prison by accident. And again it lead to absolutely NOTHING. This part could have been cut out with NO CONSEQUENCES whatsoever.
The deaths... Come on. You want to kill someone - kill them. Don't revive them 5 minutes later with "magic". If that wasn't bad enough, Luke died from sitting on a rock too much. Probably hemorrhoids.
I feel bad for actors who played, this lazily written script, very well . Especially Mark Hamill whose character's got SLAUGHTERED. Finn was useless. He did nothing that mattered the whole movie. The last scene of him speeding towards the Death Star cannon gave me some hope but no, he had to be saved in the name of forced romance.
Good humor and special effects don't good movie make. The movie has to have some substance first in order for this to work.
And we now have completely pointless, unresolved, unnecessary movie.
GREAT JOB DISNEY!
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2/10
Burn the past, it's time for this trilogy to end...
Plot twists turned to plot anarchy. Ryan Johnson effectively throws out Chekov's gun principle in favor of the much more dictatorial "all that matters is what the writer thinks matters in this exact instant; it might be forgotten or brushed off 20 minutes from now".
A lot of story logic and story direction was sacrificed to make the heroes as heroic as possible and the message the movie delivered as inspirational as possible. I appreciate the intent but Star Wars is a fantasy with some fable-like moments. Treating this movie (or any movie really) as a sacred text that teaches our kids morality is just presumptuous and unnecessary. There should be a balance here.
Mixing two generations of characters proved this trilogy's undoing. Not enough time was devoted to the new cast who got lost in the countless B-plot story lines and need to showcase Han. Luke, and Leia. Love all the new heroes, btw.
The SW OT was build on friendship and romance; the PT on family. Even with all the special effects and action, the relationships between the characters is what made these movies shone (some more than others). Our main cast in this movie has never spent any time all interacting with each other. Poe and Rey met in the last five minutes of the movie. The movie as a result is an emotional wasteland. Ditto for not thinking of a way for all the OT cast to get together for a scene in TFA, however short the scene might be. This movie was an emotional wasteland. The New Yorker used the following adjectives to describe this bold new SW world: "abstemious, de-mentalized, militarized". I couldn't agree more.
I had no issue with how some classic elements from Star Wars were discarded or reinterpreted. However I have to say that putting such emphasis on these same elements (Anakin's lightsaber for example) in TFA and then literally tossing them aside was baffling to watch. I am not one bit surprised by fans angry about that just because of how these elements went from significant to who cares. If you really wanted to be bold, Lucasfilm, perhaps you shouldn't have brought these elements up in the first place. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Sorry!
Speaking of bold, there were some interesting ideas in this movie. But somehow we ended up with an evil man in black armor with a red laser sword who is in command of a faceless army bent on subjugating the galaxy, a rag tag team of rebels who resist him and all space tyrants. and a young inexperienced jedi who is helping the rebels. That sounds... familiar? Hopefully, episode 9 does something unexpected with that set up.
The movie was profoundly unfunny. The only thing the quippy one liners achieved was to undercut the tension and diminish the story's impact. And the funny parts were not meant to be funny. Leia flying through space is not bad, but the way they portrayed it was. The space chase was just Family Guy Star Wars or Space Balls level of absurdity. By all means show us new ways the force works! But the long-distance yet tangible force hologram was just distracting.
Heroes are as good as their villains. The First Order are caricatures. I guess that makes it more palatable for kids when they see the First Order ships carrying thousands of members of the First Order blow up.
I had no problem with the death of Han Solo or the fate of Luke Skywalker. But know we know the OT trio led sad, strife-filled lives and never escaped the conflict that formed them as human beings in their youth. It's like their hope and dreams were crushed with age until it was time for them to pass. That's a very nihilistic statement that anyone who is currently under 25 will have the pleasure of discovering as they re-watch the movies in the future.
I just can't see how the movie is nuanced. The bad guys are badder than ever. The good guys are more heroic than ever. It's good vs evil; light vs. dark. Nuance never did play a role in this universe. Lets not fool ourselves that it does now.
The special effects were very nice, but 99% of all the vehicles and even of many aliens were just tweaked designs we have seen before.
Ryan Johnson, I am still a fan :). Maybe both sides on this debate will reassess their position and we will meet half way.
That said, the entertainment media's reaction to any negative opinions about the movie has been sad to witness.
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Snoke is a silly joke in a yellow bathrobe compared to Palpatine. And so is this movie compared to Episode V, even to Episode III in my opinion.
*** Spoiler from here on***
Before I am going to mention my main issues I have with this movie let me say I had some really good laughs, intended and unintended ones, and the movie was well made, but the story...oh boy.
As I read somewhere at least one subplot is totally pointless because it leads nowhere, namely the "casino plot" where Benicio del Toro comes in, what a waste of a good actor. I learnt when some sub plot is pointless, you just cut it. Also the internal logic of this sub plot stinks: if that admiral with the purple hair just would have explained their plan to Poe all would have gone well, very well to be exact. So we have a whole pointless sub plot because some leader didn't want to explain their plan. When this lady assumed command and looked clueless I felt: Where is Captain Kirk when you need him?
The other main issue I have is this:
Killing off your vain villain is o.k., but not in the damn middle of the trilogy! Here is the strength of the original trilogy when it comes to the main villain: Although the emperor is mentioned in ANH, you have the impression Vader is main bad guy, only in TESB you see the emperor for the first time as a hologram and in ROTJ for real. In this sense TFA feels like part 2 of a trilogy and TLJ as part 3, but it just is supposed to be the 2nd part. What good is that?
Kudos to Disney, you have manouvered yourself in an excellent position with that. So the whole storyline of TFA and TLJ feels like two people were working on it and Rian Johnson just didn't like JJ's creation of Snoke so he kills him off in a most silly way, one of the unintended laughs.
As sad as the passing of Carrie Fisher was, why not kill Leia? Do some reshoots, but no, Luke has to go. Really well done. The only explanation I have is that they did a lot of reshoots in order to kill off Snoke and then set of a new trilogy with that kid in the end....here we go again.....
I never thought I'd say this, but I really miss Mr. Lucas' talent for constructing and telling storys.
EDIT: Almost 48hrs later after I watched the movie I am still feeling disappointed. The analytical part of me still says, the movie isn't that bad so my 6 stars will stay, but the Star Wars Fan boy heart is so sad. I still don't know if I can joyfully rewatch the original episodes because I know what is going to happen to Luke later.
The only explanation I have is this: George Lucas sold to Disney to get revenge on all these prequel haters so he can say: "See that big pyle of Micky Mouse poodoo you can get?"
303 out of 461 found this helpful.
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Big reveal for characters is that there is no reveal.
Script=crap
Lore wise=crap
Adam was ok,i still hate how Daisy is over acting her role.
Everything else is a drag in the movie.
It was elongated travel and pointless at this one.
Disney paid more critics than ever since they only think about money their ex executives are running pyramide scheme known as Herbalife.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Intro scene already kills star wars lore since "That is not how the force works" after Leia ship bridge gets blown to pieces by TIE alike fighters she just skywalks back into the deck instead of dying.
Who is Snoke?Snoke is ancient entity which cannot sense deception in his own apprentice so snoke is old and ancient idiot.Kylo uses force to cut snoke with lightsaber right next to Snoke and somehow Snoke has no idea that might happen.
Who is Rey?Super powerful junker child who supports everything Kathleen Kennedy wasnt in her childhood powerful strong female created for SJW justice.
Tried making marvel movie with alot of jokes misplaced instead of star wars funny moments so on that level its same as Jar Jar Binks.
Luke developed Force projection?More like casting illusion spells in DnD that is exactly what Luke does.Luke creates illusion to fight Kylo at the end which drains him from his life force and he dies never leaving that rocky planet.Also his robes remain same as yoda death.Disney SJW force bullshit.
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2/10
Likely the last time I pay to watch a Star Wars movie
In many ways visually stunning, but I cannot for my life believe the many raving reviews. They are simply not credible.
The visuals are like 10 layers of coatings on a turd not even polished.
I said I would wait to judge JJ Abrams Force awakens until I'd see the next movie in the franchise, because there were things I liked, and things I didn't.
But this next installment spun off on just about everything I didn't like. And has so many flaws I cannot possibly list them all.
They managed to gut just about everything that made the original trilogy great, more interested in adding whatever they can merchandise, instead of a coherent movie.
They dole out force powers like it is candy, the once so mysterious force is everywhere it seems, no longer a hardwon ability that you need to work for. Last Jedi? Heck,everyones a Jedi! Ok, I exaggerate but the feeling is there.
Age and wisdom is non existent concepts, and supposedly powerful characters die from the equivalent of slipping on a banana.
Sheer marketing is going to make a lot of people see this, and I have no doubt it will be a box office hit. But it will also destroy the franchise.
So sad.
839 out of 1,327 found this helpful.
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George Lucas had silly creatures and crazy CGI in the prequels, this movie has all that. But what is missing in this film is the lore, mythology, dialogue and long term character arcs. The Force Awakens was an enjoyable greatest hits of Star wars with two mysteries that were genuinely enthralling - Who is Rey and what is her connection to Skywalker / Kylo? And who is the mysterious Snoke?
Major spoiler here!.
Rey just turns out to be no one, with no connection to anyone. That's literally the explanation in the film. So much for weeks of analysing her Force dream in TFA.
Snoke - no explanation of who he is, whats his connection to Palapatine, How he witnessing the Clone wars. Nothing. And he gets killed off just as he was becoming interesting.
I guarantee that George Lucas chapters 7-9 would have made these character arcs far more fascinating and fully thought out. This was just very lazy script writing.
I am awarding three stars simply for Adam Drivers tormented Kylo Ren. They almost get this bit right and when he is on screen the film lifts considerably.
Comedy - the first 20 minutes totally remove any of the gravitas and methology of the film. Stupid gag after stupid gag. When Leia floats through space I looked at my brother and we both laughed and then put our heads down in shame, shame for our love of star wars and shame for George Lucas. We will never get to hear his true views on the film, but I know his heart must be cramping up in his chest. Crazy sub plots, silly casino wrecking horse / camel things, the slowest psace chase ever, the AT-AT attack was just them walking in a straight line, no proper light saber fights, Yoda turning up and talking absolute non sense.
There is some enjoyment here, but few and far between. Possibly it might get better on subsequent viewings a la "Crystal Skull" and your expectations are low. The mythology is not there, so I doubt it will be watched too many times. The prequels have silliness and bad acting, but strip that away the three film arc of Anakin to the Dark Side and Palpatine to power is genuinely fascinating and is what draws you in to repeated viewings. That is missing from the new sequels.
We will never get to see George Lucas vision for these sequels. That is a true shame as I fully believe he would have done a much better job. These sequels are a Disney / Marvel churn out. Big on CGI but no story, spat out for the popcorn masses, whoc can't focus on a long term story. There is a reason George left 3 years between sequels and 20 between trilogies. He had the whole story though out and planned in his head.
160 out of 240 found this helpful.
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This movie is not just bad, but a disgrace. This movie is filled with gaping plot holes, horrible character motivations, terrible pacing, and the most obnoxious "comedy." This movie is so full of shit, I'm surprised that they didn't manage to put anything that belongs in a Star Wars movie in it. This movie isn't just bad, but also retroactively ruins the story of the original trilogy. While I suggest people see it for themselves, go in having a bad feeling about this. While Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker, Rey, and Poe Dameron are good characters and tolerable at times, the movie finds a way to ruin them.
SPOILERS:
Everything about this movie is horrible. Let's list it piece by piece:
-Nearly every joke fails. Horrible one-liners, dumb slapstick, and burp jokes.
-Princess Leia not only survives the vacuum of space, but can also fly through the vacuum of space like Superman. THE FORCE! YES!
-One woman, who is dreadfully annoying and has purple hair, who will hence forth be called Dr. Satler, takes out an entire First Order fleet with one cruiser and hyperspace. This means that fleets can be eliminated by one person on one ship. No more space battles, I guess. Can't wait for Episode 9 when they are afraid of a new fleet and nobody says "We could just fly through it with one cruiser and win!"
-Dr. Satler tries to teach Poe Dameron some stupid lesson about leadership and not being brash by not filling anyone in on the plan. Why on Earth would she not tell the Resistance she was trying to get to that old Rebel Base? To prove a point? Poe's arc makes no sense, what has he learned? To let you men believe they're going to die?
-An entire First Order Fleet takes more than 5 seconds to wipe out one cruiser. Stupid.
-Rose. Everything about her.
-There was actually a legitimate amount of time dedicated to freeing space horses from a space casino planet. This is real. And Finn and Rose save horses but not slave children. Heroes!
-Luke was willing to kill his nephew. Why would Luke do this? First of all the entire fucking point of the Original Trilogy is Luke learning that the only way to overcome Darkness is by hoping for something better. He learns that even the most evil man in the galaxy, Darth Vader, could be redeemed. Did he forget the most transformative experience of his life?
-Great villain in Snoke! Except we know nothing about him, who he is, what he wants, why he is so powerful, etc. Dies in two seconds too.
-Kylo turns to the Light to kill Snoke, but Disney remembered they needed to sell villain action figures so they made him evil again for no reason.
-Remember the Knights of Ren? Yeah, me neither.
-BB-8 is capable of taking out three trained men with coins, and piloting an AT-ST.
-Finn beats Phasma because a random platform just goes up for no reason.
-Codebreaker guy has a stupid stutter. And his motivations are dumb. Waste of Benicio.
-Poe Dameron stops the First Order fleet by making a Yo-Mama joke at Hux.
-Porgs.
-Porgs, again.
-Luke is capable of being a hologram across the galaxy, which is fine. Kind of a weird Force power.
-Luke ends his "epic" "fight" with Kylo Ren by doing a one liner.
-Not enough Chewbacca
-Force connection to talk to people is ok, I guess. Kind of dumb. But I refuse to believe they can touch each other or water ends up on Kylo's glove. That is impossible.
-Rey's Force vision in the cave is really dumb, just snapping and a reflection of herself.
-Yoda looked horrible. And he said dumb stuff. Or: Horrible Yoda looked, dumb stuff he said.
-Every cool dramatic moment or tension was immediately ruined by a joke.
-Salt planet speeder vs. First Order is stupid. Took too long and they would have died.
I'm sure there are more problems I could get on, but I'm too mad to think.
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2/10
I WAS HOPING i COULD TELL YOU SOME GOOD NEWS....BUT I CAN'T!!! THIS MOVIES SUCKS!
Oh boy, where to start? I'll try to break it down, starting with what I liked:
The space battles and visuals are great! Dog fights, the ships, the red "salt" at the end...the visual effects department really nailed it!!! Props again to Lucas Arts, they keep pushing the boundaries of Star Wars worlds.
The actors delivered. With a plot more thin than a brain surgical blade, you can see these guys busted their asses to deliver a good acting. Carrie Fisher is amazing, she seems like a great and respected leader. Oscar Isaac squeezes a fine performance out of a bunch of bad lines. Daisy Ridley is fine again and Adam Driver continues to be cool as the villain in conflict.
Aaaannnd, that's it. That was the good part of this movie.
Now to the (endless) bad stuff:
LUKE: Bad bad choices with the most important JEDI of all time (along Darth Vader an Yoda). It's just unforgivable how they turned the most gifted and last jedi into a secluded bum who refuses to help his own sister. Just disappointing, saving for a little bit at the end (which does not redeem the character)
REY: Oh my god, what did they do with their leading female character??? The whole Mary Sue stuff of the first movie was already annoying, but now she's a force user who LEARNS EVERYTHING BY HERSELF after Luke does not train her and dies? Plus she bursts alone to face the emperor and the new future "Vader"? And she freaking wins somehow??? C'mon!
SNOKE: I'm really pissed about this one. Who was this guy? Where did he come from? How did he learn how to use the force? Who trained him? How did he rose to be the master of the First Order? We'll never know anything relevant about a very cool character because he was freaking murdered BEFORE we find out!!!
KYLO REN: What is he doing in this movie? EXACTLY what he did in the first one. Does he feel bad about killing his own father? Is he the new Vader? What's his relationship with Rey? Why does he hate Luke so much? Nooo, he's just a spoiled child who wants to dominate everything for no apparent reason other than "the dark side is strong in him". And the whole "let's kill the emperor, then you'll join me and we will rule the galaxy" plot is as old as my grandmas socks. Lame.
CAPTAIN PHASMA: Another cool character flushed down the toiled. Hate as you want the prequels, every secondary character had a decent development and honorable death. This one? Just a poor excuse for a cool toy and 5 minutes of one disposable battle scene.
FINN: Useless. No development of the character: he's there because he needs to be. His side mission was just dumb.
ROSE: What's her purpose in this movie? I'm still trying to figure it out.
GENERAL HUX: Useless. The most important person after Snoke, the military commander of the First Order was turned into an incompetent leader and a punchbag for other characters' jokes. Stupid.
ALL THE OTHER CHARACTERS: no function at all. Aside from Leia, who we see for the first time as a true force user, the other "classic" characters are completely forgotten and left as decorative memorabilia. They are left without a function and completely disrespected in their canon. No, no just noooo. You cant do that to these guys.
The fuel chase (is this the best these guys could come up with???), the unanswered force questions (what did luke learn in his exile???) , the jedi origin mistery (a bunch of books and a tree, that's it???), the discovery of Rey's lineage (I'm the daughter of two nobodys), it's all a big fat BULLSHIT story who does not deliver any satisfactory answers.
DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME. If you're a true Star Wars fan, you're better off without this one.
102 out of 150 found this helpful.
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This film destroyed the characters of the original trilogy, I don't want to spoil it so I won't say how. This is no longer Star Wars. There is too much to complain about; the plot was pointless yet aggravating, the side plots were boring. Disney and Rian Johnson have found a way to cripple the saga and leave it completely irrecoverable.
1,012 out of 1,622 found this helpful.
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Very surprised that the critics gave this a thumbs up. It's possibly among the worst Star Wars movies (including the prequels). It's entertaining, for sure, but in the way David and Jerry Zucker films of the 80's were crowd pleasers. This isn't something you go home thinking about or affecting you when you go home, at least in a good way.
The problem as I see it is that it tried to tackle too much in one movie. Worst, it spent so much time on unimportant (and seemingly inconsequential) events and not enough time on the bigger questions that were left hanging from TFA. The story structure is a mess. The Finn/Rose subplot could've been totally removed, and the new characters introduced were a waste of time.
Characterizations were very inconsistent. Characters who had already grown in TFA (Finn, Poe) suddenly regressed for no reason. Major characters (Rey, Kylo, Luke) would make surprising moves without any basis or set-up, for the sake of surprise. In fact a lot of the movie can be said as favoring a "twist" happening at the expense of consistent character development. The prequel movies' treatment of Anakin's character development was a lot more satisfying, AND that's a generally panned. At least the prequel movies' story tried in earnest, TLJ did worst that just phoning it in.
As some movies have become acclaimed films over time after an initial bashing by the critics (e.g. Bladerunner), this one I believe will take the opposite direction.
Here's hoping JJ fixes everything with IX.
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1/10
George Lucas - "There is no episode 7" Same goes for episode 8
I know the movie genre is a lot about personal preference, but Star Wars is a little more than that. It is not only a great sequence with a lot of story and emotions behind it, but a very uniquely build world.
With that mentioned, when Episode I came out there was some disappointment in the core fans, because they've projected their version of what Star Wars should be in the final product. I LOVED Star Wars I, it was a very subtle simple introduction to the world in a different way. Yeah, Darth Maul could be a little more under the highlight, but other than that we got really good product.
Now what happen with Episode XII? It was recycled, cheap reproduction of Star Wars. They tried to satisfy the core fans with the copycat plot of the previous episodes, BUT they failed to deliver the very essence of Star Wars, its storyline connection. You've just killed (literally) the characters of the old Star Wars, like it's some kind of mocking to the whole world, replaced with the new ones that are completely disconnected from the sequence. If you put episode I to VI in a row, you get that touching family story full of struggle, fantasy, pain & joy. What happens when you add the next VII and VIII? Just super disconnected emotional disaster.
Disney could acquire lucasarts, 20th Century Fox, but with their arrogant attitude towards the history of a production, they'll fall as every empire did before them, no matter how big they get.
If you feel the same as I do, please think twice before you support them. And research what the creators/actors think themselves about the whole situation.
Happy holidays,
271 out of 423 found this helpful.
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Let's be honest. This movie was trash pure trash. Cheap gag after cheap gag. So many one liner jokes that were unforgivable. I skipped the last star wars (thank god for friends telling me to stay away) but this one I couldn't help myself. Saw it and wanted my money back it is that bad.
I don't understand how a simple plot could be stretched into almost 3 hours. Most of the best parts came from a simple 10 second explanation... instead of showing the scene. Why wasn't the ship stealing science made instead of 10 second explanation we stole it...
The rebels are behind a giant door hey guess what there is a battering ram that can blast it open... also if Luke Skywalker used the force to come see the rebels why did he have to enter through the hole in the back like wtf lol.
Also Luke Skywalker died from over exerting while taking a shit . This is last star wars I will see.
Please let this joke disney series to die. Let it die. Just let it die.
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3/10
Hurts to say that this is the most disappointed i've ever been with a movie
I really did want to love this movie and while some scenes really were great, there was so much here that has completely made me lose all hope in star wars.
-Half of this movie is filled unnecessary jokes that fall completely flat. The original trilogy's humor was used sparingly and never felt forced. this movie is filled with it, and even goes as far as to open the movie with a joke that didn't work for me or my mates. Seriously, this movie shows Luke getting green milk out a breast of some creature then drinking it and smiling at Rey, was this suppose to be a joke or was it serious. This was the point where i started losing hope in this movie. Also as soon as Luke gets his lightsaber off Rey, he throws it off a fucking cliff for a laugh.
-They hand out force powers like its candy, Leia has never used the force in her life and all of a sudden knows how to get herself out of the situation she was in. Rey is now a better force user than Luke ever was with two lessons. Are you serious?
-Snoke, one of the coolest, interesting and most powerful characters in the newest trilogy, is killed off because of what seemed to me like Disney had no idea of who his character was and the part he was suppose to play. seriously its like Disney have no idea of what the direction and story of the new trilogy is and are just making up as they go.
-Luke who would do anything to turn his father back to the light side of the force, makes a decision that feels so out of place for his character and is ultimately the reason Ben turned.
R2 gets one scene with Luke which is probably the most emotional part of the movie.( I really didn"t give a shit that Luke died because of how they handled him) and Chewbacca is only in the movie to interact with porgs and serves no other purpose.
-Casino scenes Chris explains my thoughts exaclty.
-Snoke's bodyguards literally danced around Rey and Kylo (have to admit it was a pretty cool scene though)
-The whole movie felt like we made zero progress other than Snoke"s very unfortunate death and Kylo taking over as supreme leader. (also Phasma was underutilized once again, such a great actress and her death is pretty much worse than Boba Fett).
-So many missed opportunities. there were few times where i felt like the heroes were in danger and when i did, some cliche bullshit happened and they,re okay because this is a Disney movie and every character needs to live. Rey turning and joined with Kylo (which is the path i thought the movie was heading in) would have been so cool to see that and would have left moviegoers with a sense of dread and hopelessness, and would have given me a reason to go see the next in the trilogy. I now literally have no reason to see the next one because every character i cared about is dead or the choices made for them are truly poor and lazy In my opinion. I really don't want to see how this ends because I've seen the typical good verse bad a thousand times before.
As i said, there is a few really cool ideas and scenes here, but there is so many negatives about it that i just cannot call this a Star Wars movie.
What hurt the most was having to come home and tell my Dad, who saw A New Hope three times the day it released and showed me just how much the original trilogy meant to him and others, and tell him that this is the most disappointed i have ever been with a movie.
As a huge fan of Star Wars, I want to love this movie, but I just cant
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1/10
The Worst Star Wars Movie .... and probably the worst movie of 2017!
As a big star wars fan for decade, I felt so angry and sad at the moment when the end credit pop out .. this movie, has so much problem that I don't know how to start with....
*** Spoiler alert ***
The opening scene make all the opening scene in the prequel now a classic..... bomber !? seriously? As if we were in some kind of WWII movie!? give me a break!
The scene with Leia floating in space is the most stupid, ugly way to show her force capability...... I almost stand up and yell : WTF!!!
The entire story line of Rey trained with Luke is poorly handle.. it could have been great but why include those care taker plot which aim at providing joke to the audience??? This sequence don't mean to be joke about.....
Snoke.....oh, poor snoke.... all fanboys theory can now be at rest or more precisely described, not care any more... the trick from Kylo is so so stupid.... as powerful as Snoke, I just don't see how could he miss that....
The entire Finn / Rose subplot is totally useless.... C'mon! Casino!!! What is it , a James Bone movie!?!?
The final battle scene........ what the hell are those walker doing!? hmm..... just there to make this look like ESB?
Remote Luke.... it's a good idea and seem to be the only less distracting thing for the entire movie....
No brilliant space battle scene, no classic lightsaber fighting scene (if my memory is correct, not a single crossing of 2 lightsaber ever happen in the entire movie except during the memory scene).
J.J. , now it's your job to move the saga back to the way it should be in Episode IX.... but it would be a huge task as the damage created The Last Jedi is so huge that I doubt it can heal at all....
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Luke is dead. Carrie Fisher is dead. Star Wars is dead.
Despite Disney's best efforts to convince us that Star Wars has been re-born, the opposite is true.
Expectant Star Wars fandom Rises and Porg toys to meet it.
What was once a mysterious and captivating mythology set in an enormous and complex universe is now something Jedi actually do use to move Rocks at the crux of the film (despite the writing poking fun at this earlier in the movie) set in a Galaxy where it is now possible to track ships through hyperspace.
With talk of 'Admirals' and "talking to the bridge" as well as commands like "steady on" I was half expecting Luke to beem himself up to the field of battle to save the day at the films climax. Oh wait, he did.
It is now possible for Luke to project a hologram of a younger version (why?) of himself to a far away planet in the galaxy (as well as Lord Voldemort/Golem/Snoke forming a telepathic link between Rey and the uniquely gripping Kylo Ren for the duration of the film) to fight Kylo.......
(At this point the galaxy feels like it stretches from your own front drive to your next door neighbours back garden)
.....long enough to stall the incoming bombardment of AT-ATT walkers to let Rey move rocks so the Resistance, today apparently reborn as the Rebellion (why are they now called the rebellion again?) can escape.
This film had a lot of stalling. Poe Dameron stalls Hux with a classic (ha ha) phone prank.
The films centrepiece involved the Resistance ships stalling their demise by flying slightly ahead of the First Order through Space for 18 hours (or however long it was) while the token Black character Finn and the token Asian character Rose went on an entirely uninspiring, un-enjoyable and ultimately completely pointless 'adventure' that felt more like watching a Harry Potter film than Star Wars.
HAS IT OCCURED TO ANYONE THAT THE FIRST ORDER COULDVE FLOWN INTO HYPERSPACE TO RIGHT IN FRONT OF WHERE THE RESISTENCE WERE AND COMPLETELY DESTROYED THEM EXTREMELY EASILY WITHIN SECONDS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I cannot believe an entire film was built around such a ridiculous chase through the galaxy that could've been ended within the time it took The First Order to go into hyperspace and re-appear the other side of the resistance.
Along side Hyperspace tracking, we now have given birth to surely a new exciting breed of Star Wars Space ships: Suicide Hyperspace Bombers (It was a stunning scene to be fair)
I fully expect the next film to have token Arabs (thus further expeanding Disney's worldwide appeal and bottom line) piloting their J-wings through other ships via hyperspace to destroy them.
The Star Wars Universe has stalled.
This was really disappointing. Heartbreaking. Devastating.
I watched it three times in the cinema to give myself a well rounded perspective.
Aside from the fantastic performance of Driver as a conflicted and interesting character with a well developed back-story, an entertaining opening sequence and a great "Emporer-Vader-Luke in ROTJ" esque- "Snoke-Kylo-Rey" sequence, this film feels uneventful and pretty pointless.
Luke Skywalker is a pitiful, shameful shadow of his former self which is just so sad to see.
Leia force flying through space was weird.
We didn't find out who Snoke was.
We didn't find out who Rey's parents were
We didn't find out what had happened to Luke's lightsaber
Phasma was killed off proving what a pointless and boring character she was.
Maz was cut out almost entirely proving what a terrible character she was.
Benetio Del Toro' character is out of place.
Rose is just awful.
Carrie Fisher's daughter and the old Resistance woman were very annoying
I honestly do not care how this Trilogy ends.
Perhaps episode 9 should be titled:
Star Wars: Disney's Harvest.
Bring back the Prequels.
1/10
33 out of 45 found this helpful.
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"Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is... it's true. All of it".
So said Han Solo in The Force Awakens. It turns out, though, that Disney *do* think it's all a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. The only thing they believe in is making money. Lots of it. And boy, there's lots to be made by selling little penguin lookalikes so cute they turn even poor Chewbacca into a life long vegan. Why worry about the story, the script, the acting, the plot, you know, the stuff that makes a movie really great and enjoyable to watch, when you can milk a generation of newly minted fans for soft toys for the rest of their pre-pubescent lives?
And the sad part is that I know all that and I still suffered two and half hours of this awful film in utter disbelief and didn't ask for my money back after it was over. I suspect we have all been turned to the dark side of the Force and enslaved by the Empire - except in our galaxy they go by the more innocent sounding name 'Disney'.
I won't bother with the details of why this movie was so bad. The atrocious dialog, the cringe-worthy and ill-timed attempts at humor, the gaping plot holes, and the wooden acting could all have been forgiven if the movie had not been turned into a caricature of itself. But the director and writer Rian Johnson managed to achieve this feat by poking fun at all of Star Wars characters and themes and stripping them of any deep philosophical, moral, or intellectual meaning. Meet the new Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck: Luke Skywalker and Supreme Leader Snoke.
It's a good thing Han Solo died in the previous installment of this declining franchise. After seeing this one, he may have started to once again question his belief in the Force.
57 out of 82 found this helpful.
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I wish I could give this garbage zero stars. And make no mistake, that's exactly what this film is, no matter what the glowing reviews tell you. I would greatly appreciate your time in reading my extensive review so I can tell you exactly why this film makes Star Wars, from here on out, dead to me.
As a political scientist, I want to warn that I'll be focusing on criticizing the underlying toxic concepts and agenda that are pervasive in this film, rather than the plethora of other faults that have already been pointed out by reviewers and non-paid off people alike. Yes, the film is bloated; yes, it shares visual and narrative similarities with The Empire Strikes Back; yes, it delivers absolutely no character development; yes, the plot has more glaring holes than Swiss cheese; yes, the humour is completely off and unnecessary; yes, Luke Skywalker is ruined and dies because he ran out of Mana points; yes, Kylo Ren still throws temper tantrums that try to present him as a nuanced, conflicted character but instead fail spectacularly; yes, Rey is a blatant Mary Sue; and yes, everything about this film is pointless and consequently doesn't make sense.
And it's 2017: I am no longer impressed with beautiful visuals, the technical spectacle of CGI, and cool explosions. I never cared about it anyway, and now I especially don't because it's a standard of modern filmmaking. So if these are counted among the actual positives of this film, that's just pathetic. But I basically want to do a post-mortem and examine why this film ended up being so thoroughly disappointing and is causing backlash.
In my opinion, it's because everyone, from the creators to the viewers, is more concerned about being politically correct than having a thought provoking, engaging story with memorable characters and a good, emotionally involving plot. It's like this new Star Wars trilogy was conceived in the boardroom of a disgustingly lucrative and intrusive media corporation that has the power to shape people's minds, particularly young impressionable ones. Or something.
74 out of 109 found this helpful.
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Have been a "Star Wars" fan since I was a 5 year old boy and grew up with the prequels, which at the time, were receiving a tonne of hate! I love the prequels and the story in which they tell. Yes, it was no where near as action packed and dramatic as the Original Trilogy, which I love as well by the way, but it was telling to story of a time before the Empire, before the struggle, which meant that the prequels had meaning.
I booked tickets for "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" for a midnight Gold Class session at Crown Casino in Melbourne the morning they were released! This was probably 4-5 months in advance also, booking a hotel room for the night. The build up to this movie was huge, similar to "The Force Awakens" and probably every other "Star Wars" movie before it, however I was too little to be apart of it. I sat there, extremely nervous, waiting for the "A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy far far away" to appear, and BANG! The theme song begins and we were away! Like all Star Wars films, the beginning was a space scene which turned into the Resistance running away from The First Order! I really did enjoy the first 10 minutes or so, with Poe featuring his incredible flying ability taking care of his targets with ease! However, fast forward 10 minutes and all of a sudden it does not feel the same. The Star Wars feel I get when watching the first 6 episodes just was not present (It faded in and out of ep 7). The story was quite pointless IMO and I feel all the questions which were asked in, The Force Awakens, were either answered with disappointment or, were answered by creating a new branch of questions.
Here is a list of Questions, Pros and Cons (my opinion of course):
There were some funny scenes however, most of it was forced and was not Star Wars humour
Still don't understand what was wrong with Luke, how a hero of the originals could just abandon Han, Leia and the "Resistance"
Is Kylo Ren completely evil? They teased both sides and I still have no idea. He chose not to kill his mother, killed Snoke, helped Rey yet, still wanted power of The First Order and maintained his will to kill his old master, Luke Skywalker.
Leia can fly...? I really hated that scene (no disrespect to Carrie Fisher)
I don't know if I wasn't paying attention at the time but who took control of the ship after Leia was unconscious?
The guy that helped save Po and the asian looking female, what was with him? He helped save them, and then gave them up, and then we don't know if he lives or dies?
Who in the hell is Snoke? (Yes, I know he is the "Supreme Leader", but who the fuck is he)
Why was Snoke killed so easily?
The fight scenes were made poorly and I still don't understand how Rey is so strong in combat.
I could go on and on but I will leave it here for now as I want to watch it a second time to make sure I'm not crazy and it wasn't because I had such high hopes the first time I watched!
164 out of 255 found this helpful.
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3/10
Feels like it was directed and written by people who have never watched the PT/OT
Background: life long Star Wars fan, grew up with the prequels, love the OT, liked TFA and loved Rogue One.
The Last Jedi was terrible. I would rather watch Attack of the Clones a hundred times over than watch this disaster of a movie again. Between the hatchet job on Luke's character and his arc in the OT, the forced comedy and tonal issues, Rey's force abilities being completely unexplained (I think they are changing the force into a superpower that requires literally no training now based on the scene with the kid at the end), the heavy handed shoehorning-in of the "next generation" characters who I find to be completely underdeveloped, unlikable, and annoying, offing Snoke without any backstory or answers. And the biggest WTF moment which was Leia flying through space and turning what at first I thought would have been an acceptable sendoff for Carrie into one of the most weirdest and distracting scenes in the entire franchise. Even Laura Dern was disappointing, there was something about the way she acted her character that was off-putting and didn't really work for me. This movie was an absolute trainwreck. It felt like TFA and TLJ had completely different tones to the point that it was distracting. The way TLJ handled force powers and Rey's unbelievably fast transition into force-god makes me feel like this universe is cannibalizing its own rules and the dissonance between the 3 trilogies is reaching ridiculous levels.
My issues with Luke's character in TLJ is that he faced down Palpatine and Vader in the OT, always believing there was good in Vader and successfully redeeming his father. Seeing the good in others is central to Luke's character. Kylo Ren has done absolutely nothing to earn the same level of respect story-wise and from the audience as Palpatine and Vader. He's a nothing, a poser. That has been established by TFA. So Luke's conflict with Ren feels so...wrong. It doesn't make sense. He was being manipulated as a teen by Snoke, and Jedi Master Luke couldn't do anything about it and actually considered murdering him in his sleep before Ben even attempted anything? After everything he accomplished in the OT? Are you kidding me? TLJ not only retroactively makes TFA worse, but also makes the character journeys of both Luke and Anakin less meaningful.
I can't be the only one extremely annoyed that they never bothered to flesh out the New Republic AT ALL? Or at least explain how Snoke was able to create such a strong military in the shadows to be able to overthrow the government? Now that the writers established that Snoke was a joke deserving no background or context in lore with his anticlimactic death, we're supposed to believe that the New Republic was just that weak and incompetent?
Positives: Benecio Del Toro, the creatures, seeing Mark Hamill again even if his character was butchered. I'm glad Rey's parents ended up being a nonfactor, I was holding my breath thinking the movie was going to disappoint me further with an awful reveal.
I miss George. The Sequel Trilogy is severely lacking in the coherent vision and themes present in both the Original Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy.
30 out of 41 found this helpful.
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After watching The Force Awakens and being utterly disappointed, I had little hope that this trilogy could recover. By watching Rogue One and being pleasantly surprised, there was "a new hope" in me that The Last Jedi might grow beyond TFA's flaws. And a attempt it did, there were moments in the movies, I thought had great potential, only to be ruined by lazy writing.
Without giving away any spoilers. The plot was lazily written; once again there were strong similarities to The Empire Strikes back, but in varying order; there were too many clichés, and Americanisms (which e.g. work well in Marvel movies, which are set to resemble the "real" world, but do not belong in Star Wars universe); the movie follows too many characters, and give almost no time to develop any; and unrealistic improbable moments, which ruin any suspense, as opposes to realistic improbably moments; feministic moments of no added value to the plot; and probably more I can't think of at the moment.
I give this 3 stars for the positive things I did like, which were: special effects, unique alien races and worlds, and Benicio Del Toro's acting which as a side character was the best.
I guess this is a coming of age moment for us all. The most crucial moments of this movie all serve as a metaphor that the Star Wars we used to know and love is gone. In its place is something incomprehensible, that may look like Star Wars, but doesn't feel like it.
In the end, Star Wars: The Last Jedi succeeded in making a plotless sci-fi action blockbuster, nothing more, nothing less.
28 out of 38 found this helpful.
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3/10
Rian Johnson wrote an AWFUL script. Mark Hamill was RIGHT!
I'll tell ya quickly why The Last Jedi sucks...Aside from the Rey/Kylo "Force Skype" which was totally ridiculous. So Luke never got his happy ending, ya see, he struggled SO much - his aunt & uncle were burned alive, his mentor Ben Kenobi is murdered, his hand gets chopped off, his evil father dies. He's had SO much misery, it'd be nice to see him 30 yrs later happy, with a wife & a few kids maybe? But no, it was all for nothing. Luke's reward for all those acts of heroism is to die alone on an Island, never getting married, never finding happiness, & not having any cool lightsaber battles. Mark Hamill is pissed I'm sure.
63 out of 93 found this helpful.
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4/10
Don't waste your time, remember Star Wars as it was.
I might have thought "The Force Awakens" was slightly disappointing when I first saw it. Well, I must change my mind.
From the unfortunate perspective of a viewer of "The Last Jedi", I feel obliged to reconsider my previous opinion. The first movie of this unnecessary postmodern Star Wars trilogy seems like a masterpiece if compared to the absolute tragedy of the last chapter.
Cheap humor? Incoherent dialogs? Clichés?
What happened to Star Wars, the innovative, mindblowing, legendary franchise that made poeple dream, shiver and sigh?
Nothing more than the mere name survives.
The authentic vibe of the old trilogies is now so irremediably lost under a pile of easily sellable garbage, that not even a miraculous change in the next chapter could bring it back to life.
Which is bitterly ironic, considering that the only purpose "The Last Jedi" seems to be aiming to is to live shamefully in the light of the six glorious prequels (yes, even "The Phantom Menace").
On a less sentimental ground, I must add that, incredibly, the plot of this new movie does not add anything new or meaningful to Chapter VII. The only substantially unexpected events (Snoke's death and Luke's poetic dissolution into the Force) are, but I am not even surprised anymore, treated without the necessary emphasis or the dramatic touch that these moments need.
On the other hand, useless characters (I am referring to those played by Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro) and CGI monstrosities (crystal foxes, screaming penguin/hamsters or whatever they are) spend way too much time on the screen.
And then one last, unforgivable error : Yoda.
Why did they have to use the grotesque, puppet-like figure of the Jedi master which appeared in the first trilogy, while the little green hero as portrayed in the second one was a renowned success worthy of imitation?
There are too many questions to be answered regarding this movie, while in the past the only one was : "when will I watch the next chapter of Star Wars?".
Today, I don't even want to know if and when Chapter IX will be out.
My conclusion is deeply pessimistic and personally surprising :one can undoubtedly say these last two movies were ineffective and trivial, but they did have at least a relevant effect, that is killing the most perfect science fiction saga of all time.
73 out of 109 found this helpful.
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This is the second film ive walked out on in my life, i was actually bored and nodded off at one point.
The opening sequence has Poe taking on a star destroyer and knocking out the turrets by himself, eh? The movie had just started and i was already questioning what was going on.
There was a scene where Leia is blasted into space, starts to freeze then flies back into a rebel ship. What? ive read similar scenes in various Star Wars books where Luke has put himself into a force induced coma till rescue arrives.. but thats Luke. I feel like someone has read a few SW books and thought 'thats cool we can do that, oh and that and this' forgetting that none of it fits in with the rules of the jedi in the movies.
The two way conference call between Ray and Kylo was used far too much and this is what forced me to leave
Finally how can yoda turn himself from a ghost into an apparrant solid life form?
I want to enjoy movies not sit and turn into Annie Wilkes and say 'that didnt happen in the last movie, you cant do that'....
If you do go to see it, book the best and most comfortable seats in the cinema as its an absolute bore fest.
0/10
141 out of 220 found this helpful.
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The scene where Luke throws his light saber away sums up the film pretty well. Legacy themes and characters are ridiculed throughout the movie. For sure it's a different approach, full of twists and unusual turns but none of them adds anything positive to the story. Plot constituents are snatched away one by one and replaced with ... cheap humor, lame dialogues or stupid loopholes (how Rose & Finn on the ship conveniently survive the blast and kill Phasma is just one of the worst WTF moment).
The Last Jedi falls short of epicness (ridiculously small scale battles), consistency and most of all pace. The new protagonists are just ... dull. I couldn't care less if they were to die before the credits or in the next episode. This mediocre sci-fi flick gets even boring at times, far from the thrilling Rogue One.
Hux & Ren are the worst pair of vilains ever : clumsy & moronical. The empire (first order sorry) had never been disrespected before TLJ, and neither had the whole Star Wars universe.
edit : to those claiming that the movie is attacked by trolls or angry fans just take a look at other sources like local sites where rates are even lower. In France TLJ is rated 7/10 by critics and 6/10 by the audience.The people who "LOVED" this farce of a film can only be found on Facebook on the official pages. Some Reddit users pretend that when seeing it a second time, the flaws wash over you, but it still doesn't deserve any praise. Disney may not care about the last part though.
87 out of 132 found this helpful.
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I am baffled by how much The Last Jedi hates what should be its strongest fans.
As others have said, this movie doesn't go the way you think it would, but not in any sort of interesting way. I, like many, came into this move with questions I'd been wondering about for at least 2 years. Who are Rey's parents? Who is supreme leader Snoke? Why is he so powerful? How was Ben Solo seduced to the dark? Last we saw of Luke he was on an island. What the blazes is he doing there?
The Last Jedi could have answered these questions in many ways. It could've answered them "safely," giving what we expect. It could've answered them in interesting ways, propelling the story forward in unexpected directions. The movie's answer?
"It doesn't matter. Oh, you thought it did? You assumed after all this build up and mystery there'd be some sort of payoff? Well screw you. I need a paycheck."
Other reviews have gone into the uninspired story, the barebones plot, and the surprisingly non-funny attempts at humor. I'll spare you my takes on those and focus on one aspect I hold dearly in my heart: Luke Skywalker.
Luke Skywalker is my favorite character in any fictional story, ever. And this movie does all it can to completely ignore his character arc from the original trilogy. If you love Luke Skywalker, I mean really love his character and who he is, you won't like this movie.
I've loved Star Wars for as long as I can remember, but, unfortunately, this is not the Star Wars I was looking for.
69 out of 103 found this helpful.
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So our resistant heroes continue their fight against the Second Empire. Not much really happens unless you consider killing off various characters significant. (Admiral Ackbar!!) No real answers or explanations to any of Abrams "mystery box" storytelling. Who's Snoke? Dunno. Who's Rey? Nobody. Long winded and filled with awkward humour (Luke milking a thing) and pointless adventures. (Finn's trip to a space casino which ends up accomplishing exactly nothing) Filled with confusing story telling where characters turn bad (or good) and back again for no reason and people show up out of the blue with no explanation as to how they got there. (How did Rey meet up with Chewie again?) Like Han in the last film Luke is really only in it to pass the torch and is just treated in an embarrassing manner. Strangely Leia survives and I'm expecting her to be written out in the opening crawl for the next one. These new movies are written in a TV variety style where characters and things show up for a round of applause and then go away.( "And now...heeeeeres YODA!) These new movies are more in the style of the Star Wars Holiday Special than the original movies. Frankly it's just weird.
(P.S. the Harry Potter-esque final scene was the most Un-Star Wars scene ever)
167 out of 264 found this helpful.
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It is so sad to see that in order for people to enjoy and accept a movie these days they NEED to see characters who share their views regarding what is politically correct, skin colour, sexual preferences, gender sensitivities, eating habits etc etc etc. This was by far the WORSE Star Wars movie ever made. Weak and badly written story full of plot holes that puts a colander to shame, MARVEL humor totally out of place for the SW universe, mistreatment and abuse of the main characters because they needed them to carry 2 movies but toss them away in the most disrespectful of ways just because Disney needs to make more movies in the future and sell BS merchandise, leaving us with new heroes that, due to the poor story writing, simply do NOT have the weight to carry the saga from now on.
Being a fan of the original trilogy, i never expected the iconic characters i grew up with to live forever, after all Obi Wan and Yoda are gone but they completed their circle (in a physical form at least) and no one got angry then. So the main problem isn't change and moving forward, but the WAY that this will be handled.
As far as i am concerned i do not see me paying to see another Star Wars movie from Disney in the future, at least not one regarding the main line of the saga.
62 out of 92 found this helpful.
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Sometimes there is the situation, when you want to say or do something, but not knowing why, you do the opposite. The same must have been with the Disney executives, who read the script of The Last Jedi by Ryan Johnson. They wanted to say something like "What?!?!". Instedy they uttered: "Excellent! Let's do this!". Here is how The Last Jedi buried the Star Wars franchice once and for all.
The first problem with the Force Awakens, was that it was basically the copy of the New Hope. However, the passage to the world which looked and felt like Star Wars should always do, compensated for most of the drawbacks of that movie.
Today, if you feared that The Last Jedi would rip off The Emprire Strikes Back the same way The Force Awakens did with the New Hope, fear no more. It turns out it is now possible to cram two movies (namely The Empire Strikes Back AND Return of the Jedi) into one at the same time! The key scenes are meticulously moved into this picture (though in different, problably random, sequence). Who needs the whole new trilogy, anyway?
The main problem with The Last Jedi is the story. It is totally unbalanced, starting from the first minutes. Of course, there are a couple of paths we have to follow, but their interconnection just does not work. There is no tension, no one will be sitting at the edge of the seat, waiting for the next scene. Also, although the movie seems to the the Star Wars episode, sometimes it turns to be something more like Harry Potter...
The second problem is tone. The general idea was to make this episode a darker one (just like The Empire Strikes Back). Unfortunately, there are also some funny scenes (quite good ones, I must admit), which are put here and there. As the result, we have no idea - should we be scared, worried or amused? Sure, this is the space advanture movie for kids, but some content for adults used to be smuggled as well. Now, there is just a mess we have no idea how to react to.
Unfortunately, some characters playing even prominent roles are treated cruelly and despite their previous achievements. For example, Luke (who at least speaks now) is not the Jedi master, who defied the Satan himself, saved his father and brought the peace to the galaxy. Instead, we will see a grumpy old man, who complaints a lot, is afraid of many things and behaves like anyone but the Jedi knight we knew from the original trilogy.
General Hux, who was the ambitious supreme commander of the First Order forces, now is just the incompetent clown, often facing comical consequences of his own failures. It is interesting, anyway, how the First Order managed to pose a threat to anyone, having such a set of stupid commanders with the lack of imagination, surprised by the Resistance during every encounter.
Captain Phasma, who, allegedly, was so popular among fans, is in the movie for a very short amount of time, though this time she speaks a couple of sentences more than before (nothing special, but still...). I bet everyone will be disappointed by this character after watching the episode...
The old cast is passable but the new actors are not that good. Music is nothing special and I believe it will be difficult to remember the score at all. Visual effects are good, but new ships' designs are not that impressive. In general, everything that would work is "borrowed" from the original trilogy. All new ideas are questionable at best.
If anyone is hoping to find answers to the most pressing questions about this new Star Wars universe (like, who is Snoke, what is the relation between the Empire and the First Order), You can continue waiting. The Last Jedi brings no answers to any questions as such.
To sum up, while The Force Awakens was the positive surprise, giving hope that Disney has any idea how to push the Star Wars cart, The Last Jedi takes such hopes away. The movie is weird, some characters do things that should not be done by them, the pacing is wrong, there is no required atmosphere. It seems that indeed the best thing they could do was to repeat the older story once again. Everytime they try to throw something original in, they fail miserably. I am afraid, this is the end of the Star Wars universe. There is nothing more to be said in this topic. Now, esteemed executives from Disney, please switch to the production of Tron 3...
231 out of 371 found this helpful.
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I'm sorry but this movie just isn't starwars. For one, there was WAY TOO MUCH comedy. So much so, it made the serious scenes have much less of an impact. The comedy style had a Guardians of the Galaxy sort of feel to it, but it didn't fit in a STARWARS movie.
Secondly, there was very little continuity with previous Starwars movies. Suddenly, Jedi can now use the force to project holograms, and can communicate with each other that way instead of just with a voice inside their heads. Also, somehow the insane amount of power that is tied to the Skywalker bloodline is now meaningless, or at the very least a huge contradiction.
Which brings me to .. Thirdly, how in hell is ray so powerful? It doesn't make sense. In the previous movie, she bested Kylo Ren literally right after just discovering she had force powers, and with NO TRAINING AT ALL. Now, she manages to get the better of Luke freaking Skywalker ... seriously? Again with NO TRAINING!
In the old movies, Luke looks totally pathetic when he was training. Both Yoda and Kenobi were vastly superior with their skills compared to Luke, and it was a little reminiscent in that way of old school kung fu movies. Luke had to gradually progress and EARN his skills. However, in these new movies, there is no reason for Ray to train and no need for her to improve because she is already greater than everyone in the galaxy. She is just right of the box the greatest thing to ever exist. It's stupid!
This movie feels like it was written for the spoiled millennial generation only. The generation that wants greatness without actually having to work for it or earn it. The generation that chooses shortcuts over hard work and discipline, every time.
IF you're the type of person who cheats on tests, or did steroids as soon as you started working out, you might like this movie. If you're the type of person who doesn't care at all about the continuity with previous movies in the series, and the overuse of comedy where it doesn't fit at all doesn't bother you, then yeah, you might like this pile of filth.
P.S. all three of the prequels blow this film out of the water.
45 out of 65 found this helpful.
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I'm going to be brief. New story in VII and VIII is just not good. It makes prequels look well writen and structured. Only thing that keeps me watching is the fan service. Once they reuse and kill all my beloved childhood characters, I just might loose interest. Anyway who really wanted to actually see them die?
Last thing - Luke just won't even consider killing somebody, that is just so out of character. I feel so sorry for Mark Hammil and I understand now why he hated the script...
Luke is and ever will be the central character in Star Wars. In my heart I'm just sticking with Timothy Zahns books in expanded universe, thank you very much...
131 out of 205 found this helpful.
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how the heck rating is so high? I mean 8.0 out of 10? movie was'nt near 5/10!
First of all i have never written a review in my life but this movie made me do it!
actually this ain't a review but more of a complaint to IMDB cause i went to the movie because it had 9.0 rating(aprx.30k votes) and i did'nt go through the reviews cause the rating is so damn high that made realize that movie is good but hey hey hey its not even near to a bad movie its the worst movie i watched and payed for!! my money and my time was a total waste ! damn i want my 10 bucks now!
Yeah i know money can do some shits and it made me write a review and to others who are reading this please don't watch this movie it had nothing but good graphics and shit!
I don't know i have read almost half of the reviews and they all said movie was awful its just awful!
so i don't understand that how IMDB showing 8.0 rating when thousands of reviews gave one, or two or maybe 3 ratings out of 10?
the movie which had the best things were only graphics and action!
story was awful!
damn i wish there was some negative numbers rating shit so i would give it -10!
43 out of 62 found this helpful.
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Where do I start? What a joke of a film this is Disney just cashing in on the original trilogy but in there way. The whole thing is a disaster how on earth are critics saying this is good they must be paid simple. To say the script was disjointed is a understatement it's awful, even Luke Skywalker was not the same character in any way. To even mention the villains would be a waste of time. To me Star Wars ended on Return of the Jedi.
154 out of 244 found this helpful.
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I was really looking forward to this movie, especially with all the critics singing it praises ie better than empire strikes back.
What can I say. It is just garbage. i started to find myself forgiving the bombing run in space??? But by the time we got to flying space leia I just gave in.
the whole movie was about running away in slow motion which made no sense. Nothing happened and there was hardly any action.
Then there was the weird Rey and Kylo force FaceTime which was pointless.
I could go on but others have said it better.
Utter garbage and I am a Star Wars fan.
41 out of 59 found this helpful.
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I was not a fan of the previous installment and hoped that it would get better from there however this was just garbage and it is sad to think they are going to make a trilogy with this director.. oh well for as bad a George Lucas is at writing a movie at least his stories make sense. This was pure and utter nonsense that made me think Jar Jar was a good idea.
nuf said
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Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end. Before I get into my review I will say this, I am a HUGE Star Wars fan, whilst Rogue 1 and TFA were not perfect, they had that Star Wars feel, this does not. It genuinely breaks my heart to have to say this, but I hated a Star Wars movie, I spent most of the movie trying to convince myself it was ok. In the 3-4 hours I've had since leaving that hope has gone and I'm bitter. Here goes:
1. The overall story is trash, it's centred around the lamest concept ever. A literal crawl through space whilst we wait for them to run out of fuel... seriously. Who the f**k thought that should be the grand centrepiece for a SW film.
2. The "subplot". It's the most pointless, contrived piece of s**t I've ever seen. They go to a casino planet, sounds cool right? Could be some cool aliens, right? Could see some cool space gambling, right? No. It's a casino. Have you seen Las Vegas, its that, with less f**king freaks. Why do they go there? To find a code breaker, on the word of Maz Kanata. Poe gambles the last of the resistance on finding some random guy by his lapel pin on the word of a terribly CGI-ed Maz. Ok. The worst of all, besides the rest of the s**t that happens on the planet (which is both numerous and terrible) it's all completely pointless. They don't achieve their objective and if they did, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because the resistance already had a plan, they just don't like sharing... 0/10, worst SW storyline ever.
3. Everybodies a nobody. Member Snoke, yeah he's no one. Member Rey, yeah she's no one. Member Finn, yeah he's no one. The porgs are more fleshed out characters than half the t**ts in this film. The less said on Snoke the better.
4. The First Order. The biggest bunch of losers, led by the king of the Ls. Seriously, these guys are the most inept bunch of morons in cinema history. Kylo has no credibility because he constantly loses, he's pathetic. Unless the end of the final film is him killing Rey and ruling the galaxy then he's pointless. He's lost more times to her than Luke's had weird green titty milk. The FO Stormtroopers are so so so bad. They cannot do anything well. Captain Phasma is like Boba Fetts simple cousin, another member of the First Order suck fest.
5. New force powers. Apparently the force can now allow you to survive in space, fly about like iron man and make realistic holograms of yourself.
There's tons more s**t so I'm going to rattle some more off:
No mention of the knights of Ren
Poe singlehandedly wrecks a dreadnought with an x wing.
Introduced Holdo as the successor to Leia, dies almost instantly.
Gave Admiral Ackbar a paupers death
Chewie was pointless
Most of the aliens look like s**t
CGI is trash
No one replies to SOS despite receiving it, basically saying the galaxy don't give a shit, so why fight to help them?
Ex machine by the boat load. Executioners?
Tried way too hard to push random non-Star Wars agendas. All rich people are scum. Wars are all about money (yet want us to be invested in this Star War...). There's other s**t but I can't be bothered.
Finally, F**K all the reviewers writing s**t like "this is as good if not better than RotJ", it's not even the phantom menace. You are the reason companies can churn s**t out and you are deceiving you're audience. Secondly, F**K the execs who allow garbage like this to be made. How anyone could sign off on some of the decisions this trash made is ridiculous. Finally, F**K Ryan Johnson, you've killed this trilogy and made the worst SW movie ever, congrats. DO NOT ALLOW HIM TO MAKE A NEW TRILOGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
49 out of 72 found this helpful.
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If movie sucks, is it ok to ask for your money back?
"Well done" for turning such an epic sequel into a casual sunday afternoon tv movie...
Plot was very weak, shallow and full of cliché corny "jokes" that were completely off the spirit of the film.
Too bad to believe. Please don't make any more Star Wars movies. Let's preserve the excellency of the old films. This is just to disrespectful and embarrassing.
64 out of 97 found this helpful.
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If TFA was a slap in the face, then The Last Jedi is a knife in your guts. It's a horrendously badly written, focusless, directionless, awfully long, stinking mess from yet again a director who does not have the faintest idea what Star Wars is about.
TLJ reveals that there absolutely never was a story for Disney's sequel trilogy, after all. There are no character arcs either (save for, maybe, Kylo's). The only 'grand idea' they had was to kill our old heroes one by one and destroy everything they stood for. To destroy everything we loved about Star Wars.
Did they at least replace them with something worthy? Well, since from Finn to Phasma, from Maz to Hux, from Snoke to the new characters (Rose, Admiral Holdo, or the Codebreaker) everybody proves to be nothing but filler (even more so than in the already dreadful TFA), the answer is a definite No.
Stick to Rogue One. That's the only post-Lucas SW movie that is worthy of the name. The Last Jedi? A new low, but I'm afraid we still haven't reached the bottom of the barrel.
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6/10
I wish the advancement of technology would fix bad writing!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!
Just came back from seeing the last Star Wars Movie after the deja vu experience that was The Force Awakens.
I deeply love most that is the Star Wars Universe, I, however, hate what bad writing is doing to it.
I understand there is only so much depth that you can put into a 2 hour movie which also has to appeal to a young audience but some of the writing choices are just baffling to me.
The look, feel and sound are pretty much spot on. As soon as the picture roles I am back in the SW Universe. Modern technology only makes it easier for us to enjoy it.
But my lord the plot holes and bad logic used. SPOILER!!!
Ok let me get this right for Ryan, the writer. You CANNOT let an untrained Jedi (however powerful and force intuitive as she may be BEAT an experienced SIth Apprentice whose power is some of the most terrifying that we have seen (which is ridiculous in its own right) and then turn on his master without him sensing it while he was using force powers to the likes we have not seen so far on the girl WHO BEAT HIM IN THE PREVIOUS MOVIE!!! That's not HOW THAT F****** WORKS!!!
Another one. You CANNOT fly a rebellion cruiser at light speed into an Imperial Star Destroyer. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!! THEN WHY NOT USE AUTO PILOTED CRUISERS AND TAKE OUT THE WHOLE FIRST ORDER!!! 9WHY ARE YOU HIGHLY PAID TO WRITE THIS!!!)
Another one
Jedi aren't gods. They cannot just wake up in space because the force will not allow them to die. THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS!!!!
This is just lazy writing. The writer (and director) has no real idea of what story he wants to tell. No real direction. He makes some stuff up and then leaves all logic at the door when certain key points come up.
I love Star Wars, I truly deeply love it. I love the concept of the Jedi and the Sith and how there is balance in all of it (I believe balance is the key in and to everything in the real world).
I am tired of leaving the theatre in frustration because of bad script writing. I am not an anal film critic who wants some life altering experience every time he sits down in a theatre. I, however, do want it all to at least make some sense.
180 out of 294 found this helpful.
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Ok, VII was not very good. However, Abrams tried to implement new storylines, Charakters etc... Johnson destroys all of these with only a few swings, leaving you with just nothing.
One of the worst films I've ever seen honestly. Okay, I never was the biggest Johnson fan, however, this movie shows in my oppinion that this man is just plain bad.
29 out of 41 found this helpful.
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1/10
Did what I didn't think was possible in a Star Wars movie...
After the prequels, I didn't think it was possible to break the franchise with a single movie...but I think they somehow managed to do it here.
I won't spoil anything here, but I will say that this movie grates on me more with each passing minute - to the point where I probably won't watch it again (which is shocking to me...I didn't think that was possible). It's the Iron Man 3 of the Star Wars saga, right down to the anger-inducing red herring - something best to forget and pretend it never happened.
I honestly have no idea how they recover from this and make anyone care about this universe and these characters again.
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1/10
The Last Jedi tramples all over Star Wars and offers nothing to moviegoers
I'm genuinely so angry, frustrated, furious, disappointed, upset, confused and gutted.
What the heck just happened to Star Wars?
Today I went to see The Last Jedi not just once but twice. Both in Imax 3D and I went in having not seen any spoilers and avoided any reviews and trailers in order to keep my experience fresh and innocent.
The opening thirty minutes is the most tedious opening to a Star Wars film since the days of the prequels, with absolutely no emotional attachment to the overlong action on screen. Bad start to a very bad movie.
As the film goes on it becomes apparent that the script is not going to be good. Some of the dialogue is the worst in Star Wars history, and there are moments when characters are talking to each other that make you want to throw the person next to you at the screen.
Characters are stuffed into this episode like there's some kind of mad emergency to feature as many as possible for merchandising reasons.
The comedy made me angry too with a couple of lines and a cheeky wink at C3PO making me wince and worry for the future of Star Wars.
Luke Skywalker's character has basically been totally disrespected and ruined in this film too. There's no way he would do what he does and feel how he feels in this film, but the director of this movie has no worries about this or any other part of the Star Wars universe he tramples all over.
There are pointless relationships (Fin in particular gets involved in an unnecessary romance that leaves the viewers cold)
There is one shot where Luke delivers the line about things not turning out the way you think it will that is so badly out of focussed it makes your head hurt.
The musical score is as slow as this overlong movie too adding nothing of value.
I just don't know what else to say other than this is a total absolute mess of a movie that tramples all over Star Wars, makes it worse, disrespects the characters, and offers the worst dialogue not just in Star Wars history but quite possibly the worst script and dialogues of all movies in 2017.
What happens to Leah will have you wanting our money back (if you don't walk out at this point).
It's that bad.
It's so shockingly bad.
The sequence with Leah in space will get you so angry your skin starts to boil.
And even worse the acting is bad. Daisy Ridley delivers some of the dialogue as though she's appearing in The Room with Tommy Wiseau, and Domhall Gleeson giving the worst Star Wars performance since Jar Jar Binks was strutting his stuff.
Imagine Transformers meets Pacific Rim with the acting of The Room and the storyline to beat all mad storylines and you'll have an idea of the vacuous tepid dull overlong tedious steaming pile of odorous cinema you'll see in a long long time.
I went straight back in to watch it again to make sure it wasn't just me missing the whole point of this film. It wasn't. It really is that bad.
Avoid like the plague or go in with the lowest possible expectations
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3/10
Episode 8: The Last Movie ... has fulfilled its destiny
With this movie I say farewell to my beloved franchise. I have followed the saga and its Universe since I was born. Like many of you, blood runs deep through me when it comes to Star Wars; but Disney has gone to far with Episode 8 (I wanted to leave at times or vomit). TFA was a crappy reboot movie of a somewhat questioned franchise (all thanks to old fanboys of the originals hating the prequels just because they had to see new stuff&CGI; which I prefer if they enhance my experience). Yet Rogue One brought some great intense depth to very important events around the time the original trilogy takes place.
Lets start by saying my biggest concern with TFA was its lack of originality, which TLJ has a bit too much of, hence needless to say I had some expectations with the latest installment. Some where met, like: 1)amazing space battles, 2)ground battles, 3)Luke & Rey and 4)Surprisingly Snoke. The rest is a completely unintelligible mix of scenes and absurd comedic script. Just to name a few: 1)Stupid jokes with Poe&Hux at the beginning, 2)Leia surviving in space & reaching to the ship, 3)Phasma, 4)Yoda's return is disgusting and insulting, 5)Killing of the Jedi with no explanations, 6)Killing Snoke, 7)Killing Ackbar just so we can have another female lead with Holdo, 8)Mutiny, 9)Luke's weird death, 10)Rey's parents, 11)Cruiser chase 12) Lame Kids with rebellion rings, 13) No R-2 (all in favor of BB-8 rise) and (biggest BS) 14)Stupid Canto-Bait subplot with Finn (Imo he had to die in TFA), Rose (which I actually liked her character) and an awkward looking hobo (The plan fails btw) in some futuristic Vegas Casino.
Lightsaber battles where fun to watch, but wouldn't watch them again. AND OF COURSE the biggest concern with the movie: PORGS!!! They are AWESOME (Im not being sarcastic). I had fun with these little bird creatures and I approve of them (as with crystal foxes).
Still no explanation about the state of the galaxy and its turmoil. I bet we will get a comic or a new TV series about it just so they can make a quick buck.
Score: Not memorable and nothing new (stick to original or prequel music)
People praise Mark's acting, I found it just ok. Daisy is better than in TFA but still "meh" and Adam is probably the best actor of all the cast&crew (and it shows). The rest are "ok". No one is getting an Oscar for their performance.
I'm no director or screenwriter, but there has to be some sort of control over these new directors and writers taking over (Where is Pablo Hidalgo when we need him?). Who seriously thought Rian Johnson has the ability to carry on this monumental task?! His movies suck!!! They are horrible to say the least and now we have to expect a new trilogy from this guy? I will not be watching that for sure. Other concern is the critics: did they watch the same movie I just saw? How is it that great? Attack of the Clones was better structured than this. And sadly, Star Wars is just an ATM now working exclusively for Disney. I would expect from such a respected and famous company to treat their property with love&care and not burn it to the ground as they have done with 7&8. But in the end CASH is all that matters.
3/10. 1pt for the few things I liked, 1pt because of Porgs and 1pt due that BF2 odd looking compass appears.
Verdict: Go Watch under your own Risk. Im sticking with episodes 1-6 & Rogue One + TV shows as cannon. Everything related to sequels is utterly dead to me. I won't return for IX.
125 out of 201 found this helpful.
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The character of Luke Skywalker is so clearly developed in the original trilogy. He shows up to help his friends and family when in need, no matter what and at any cost. He repeatedly makes selfless, morally sound decisions. He sees goodness in people when nobody else does, even in Darth Vader. To now portray him as a cynical, sarcastic, grumpy old hermit who had it cross his mind to murder his nephew in his sleep (he sensed darkness!) and then isolate himself on an island "to die" and avoid cleaning up the mess he made of his nephew makes no sense, even with the flashback explanation given.
The same goes for Jedi. Their awesome power lies in cool force abilities and light sabers - ONLY on a SUPERFICIAL level. What really distinguishes a Jedi and makes those characters magical and awesome is their certain noble way of being - that is calm, courageous, and clear-minded in any situation. Despite the movie's title, there is no Jedi to be seen in this film.
As for the "baddies," we have two incompetent, bickering rage-a-holics left in Hux and Ren. They are sure good at screaming. Despite Adam Driver's jaw-dropping talent, the Kylo Ren character's primary traits remain confusion and rage. He has no clear direction and thus no real power, no intimidating presence. He's an unsympathetic crybaby and he's going to lose every time, as he has until now.
There is so much confusion in the characters overall - and just as much at the end of this second movie as in the beginning. It's likely a reflection of the way the trilogy is being pieced together with multiple writers and no real collaboration between them in creating the characters and story arcs. Rey, Luke, Ren, Poe, Finn... great characters who have no idea what they want in this mess. Snoke, Holdo, and Leia were the most powerful, driven characters in the movie and the only ones who weren't confused at all... alas, those ships have sailed.
There were some other aspects to the film that were less than ideal storytelling, or didn't feel right in a Star Wars film, but honestly, I can let everything else slide. The nonsensical discarding of Luke, the Jedi, and the Force had me walking out of the theater feeling tired, hollow and sad, even though I enjoyed and was entertained by many parts of the movie.
This movie truly "lets the past die, kills it if it must." It takes us down a glittery new beautiful CGI path with awesome twists, effects, and the sights and sounds of Star Wars but missing the heart and soul of it. That's a path I'm not really interested in following.
51 out of 77 found this helpful.
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The film was beyond being a disappointment , it was literally a mockery of human intelligence. They did not even tried to put something on the screen, they are just abusing the legacy of Star Wars and taking advantage of modern film technologies.
Here are the reasons for this deduction:
1-Film lacks the continuity as if 50 different authors had written an another scene and the have put them chronologically. There is no real story writing not even an imitation of Empire Strikes Back.
2-Nothing is explained: who is Snoke what lies behind his story? how the republic formed and how its political organization was? where is the resources and planets controlled by the First Order? what is their real motivation to exist? Who actually rules core planets of the lore like Corusant, Naboo or other Inner-Mid Rim Planets?
3- Explanations to other highly wondered questions were just disappointing. How Kylo turned to dark side? who were the parents of Rey? What role Luke will play during Rey's training?
4- They are not capable to understand the fact that star wars is not an action movie nor solely a science-fiction/fantasy. Star wars is an history of an another Galaxy with sub-lines, 5000 years of story. People admire this movie because of its depth, complexity and intelligent fiction.
Please Disney and J.J. Abrams; leave Star Wars where it was and ruin it. Do not consider 7-10 years of age as your potential spectators. Do not think we would go to cinema just because it is Star Wars. Fire your producer, your authors and read some ORIGINAL STAR WARS
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1/10
An absolute insult to the Star Wars franchise... makes the Phantom Menace look like Citizen Kane.
Without question, this is the worst Star Wars movie ever. It's not only bad, it's an insult and a slap in the face to life long fans. Kathy Kennedy has some explaining to do... she's really messed up here with Rian Johnson.
I don't see anyway back from here.
196 out of 324 found this helpful.
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Ep I 7
eP 2 5
eP 3 10
ep 4 10
ep 5 8
ep 6 9
ep 7 8
rogue one 10
As you can see, i dont hate new movies. Really like the last two. Bud this is really a bad movie.
Leiah resusitate like Superman in space, and came back to the space ship in the most stupid and horrible way ever. Never saw a Jedi come back from dead, or survive in space.
Remember last powerfull scene with Luke and Ray handling the Light Saber? They make it a really stupid scene
TOOOOO many jokes, braking climax all the time
-The plot itself its stupid, with a fucking giant ship following 3 small ships during hours....
Music doesnt deliver anything
Honestly i really dont understand how could they make such a bad movie. I will never see it again, traing to think it was a bad nightmare and that i wake up with a decent Episode 9.
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4/10
An entertaining film with interesting ideas, that is let down by poor writing
Unlike many people I didn't mind 'The Force Awakens'. Its purpose was to set up a new trilogy and introduce us to new characters, which I think it did very well. Though it took very few risks and was very similar to 'A New Hope', it had reasons for it.
Now we move onto 'The Last Jedi'. I was very excited to see this film, especially after the stunning trailer that was released a few months back. There was so much to explore and so many questions to be answered. I wanted to see these characters we were introduced to in the previous film to develop further. I was expecting a story that would thrill me and leave me on the edge of my seat. That unfortunately didn't happen.
Though this film is visually stunning and the score is as always incredible, it has one major flaw. The story/writing. I think a big reason for this is that Rian Johnson wanted to create his version of Star War, and although that results in some interesting ideas, it also discards a lot of what was set up in 'The Force Awakens'.
The Good -
I enjoyed the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren, as well as Luke's conflicting feelings about the use of the force and the way of the Jedi. The clashing of ideologies, and the inner conflicts of these characters made for some very engaging and interesting scenes. I also thought there were some well directed and visually stunning scenes, particularly when either of these 3 characters were present. However, thats where the good ends.
The Bad -
The film never seems to move forward. Finn and Rose's plot line was very cringe worthy, and impacts the plot in no way whatsoever. The only thing there subplot had going for it was exploring the themes relating to weapons dealing (which was not explored enough to have any impact on the story or characters). Benicio Del Toro's character was interesting, particularly with his ideologies, but was criminally underused. Phasma was also a let down. I thought after the previous film she might go out seeking revenge or at least become somewhat more of a threat to the main characters. Unfortunately not.
Also, most of the film involves a rebel ship trying to outrun a large imperial vessel. Poe and Leia were great to watch, but nothing significant really happened. The scene where Leia returns to the ship using the force seemed out of place and didn't really fit with what we've seen in previous films. I also thought had she died it would have been much more impactful. It's also worth noting, the entire subplot with Finn could have been avoided had the Vice Admiral put in charge actually told her plan to the crew. As an audience member, her sacrifice had no emotional weight whatsoever, and her character kinda just appeared and was used up very quickly. Also, how is it there just so happens to be a rebel base right below the rebel fleet. Very fortunate.
Then we move on to Snoke. In 'The Force Awakens' we believe him to be a huge threat. A menace whose intentions we are keen to discover. When we see him in this film, he demonstrates his immense power. Then he is killed off as if he was of no importance whatsoever. This results in multiple issues in my opinion. It diminishes the set up that was built in the previous film. It means we are unlikely to discover why he formed the First Order, where he came from or what his intentions with Kylo were. Kylo is an interesting character, and I thought it would have been interesting to build up his inner conflict even further. Instead he becomes the main overruling villain, replacing Snoke. the problem is his character doesn't suit that role in my opinion. He works better as a conflicted character, and now he has become leader of the First Order, he is stuck in the villain role. So, we're right back where we started. The First Order and the Rebellion are on equal playing fields, and nothing significant has really changed or developed. Also, how did Rey learn to use the force so quickly? It belittled her development a somewhat substantial amount.
Overall, I'm quite disappointed in this movie. It has some high highs, but at the cost of some very low lows. I would probably watch it again as it was somewhat entertaining and had some interesting scenes, but I consider it to be a bad film and I can't say I have high hopes for the next instalment. I feel very let down by this film, which is a shame because after 'Rogue One' I know Disney can do so much better.
50 out of 76 found this helpful.
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I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Star Wars fans suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly saddened. I fear something terrible has happened."
Shame on Disney for destroying the Star Wars franchise.
161 out of 266 found this helpful.
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I really wanted this movie to have a backbone, do something different, suprise me. No, it plays out pretty much as expected. The only suprise was I thought it was worse than Force Awakens.
Apart from the by-the-numbers plot, I couldn't help noticing stupid issues,
- A room of about a hundred stormtroopers and they all die except Finn?
- Red water (salt?) exploding from the ice and none lands on their ships, hell they didn't even close their windows.
- Rey magically appearing back on the Falcon?
- Luke giving Solos bracelet to Leia, bit cruel knowing it was going to fade away, just as well she just discarded it anyway.
76 out of 120 found this helpful.
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I just watched the movie about 3 hours ago and seeing so much good review I simply can't understand them. So let me give you my opinion on it.
The first scene is just so wrong on so many level:
1. make fun of the empire by mocking a general, that way the empire is no more to be afraid of
2. destroy all turret of an amiral level destroyer with a single slightly modified x-wing going against all previous rules
3. Hear the sound of spaceships in space from the planet...
4. Survives a few minutes in space...
And that is just the few very first scenes.
This is also one of the rare movie in which I remarked technical problem between scenes. People not being at the same place 1/3rd of a second after, etc.. I generally never detect this kind of issue in a movie. So that must be really huge coordination problem here.
In some scene, I was more in a disney movie for children than in a Star Wars.
I couldn't relate to any character. Lot of detail didn't make any sense to me as well as many character decisions.
Not everything is to be thrown away though. There are very good scenes and ideas too.
For example, Laura Dern was just great, and its last scene in the movie is quite beautiful and creative. I also enjoyed some actions and special effects which are generally quite pleasing. But there were very good occasions to make a great movie, and all of them were lost, so in the end, that is not a movie I think I'll remember.
So if you are ok to look at a Disney movie, go for it you'll be happy. If you want to watch a Star Wars movie "à la" Rogue One. Then, you better not watch this movie.
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I just got back after watching the last jedi and i still dont really know if i found this movie good or bad.
First the things i liked;
The space battles looked amazing.
The lightsaber battles were very well done
I liked the character rey much more this time, i hated her in TFA. Still not my favorite char tho.
Most of the jokes were funny, i really laughed about chewie with the porgs.
most of the acting was well done imo.
Things i didnt liked:
The chase the cruiser plot that dragged on far 2 long imo.
The whole rebellion fits on 1 cruiser? how can they even be a threat to the first order that seems to have a endless supply of star destroyers and even bigger ships.
New republic gone, first order rules and this gets just glossed over except for 1 sentence in the title crawl. I would like to see abit more of the political state of the galaxy to explain the rebels/first order further.
Snoke dying like a wimp and we still dont know anything about him. Most useless villain ever. General Hugs and kylo almost equally useless.
-The Finn/Rose plot without any payoff. This part of the movie felt very forced, just to give finn something to do.
Again this movie felt very sjw-ish just like TFA.
Overall i just be glad once disney finishes this trilogy and can move on to something completely new. The whole rebel / empire/first order starts to get really boring and without resolution in sight. Same for the jedi / sith story, seems like ive seen it all before.
125 out of 205 found this helpful.
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I have no explanation for this piece of junk other than that someone at Disney really hates Star Wars for being bigger than Mickey Mouse. This is not a movie. This is a planed assassination of the Star Wars myth, lore and legend.
58 out of 90 found this helpful.
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1/10
I was wondering if the last Pirates of the Caribbean was better!
Critics stop lying to us! you cant call this movie best star wars movie ever!
I get it everyone have they own opinion!
Ok where do we start
1) Rian Johnson - Script and directing was main problem (long and boring at times)
2) Villain have no clear or strong identity - compare to the old movies
3) Jokes - yes, some of them where funny, BUT this is not a comedy movie. Some of them forced.... BADLY............
Lest just say its missing Han solo jokes/moments!
4) Rey was better this time, rest of the cast same or worse compare to the last movie.
5) Do we get answers for the main questions? only for a few.
6) Disney forcing you to go and watch next one this is sooo clear and frustrating!
With movie like this you can have another 20 ezzz!
Should you watch it? yahhh it got nice CGI......... R.I.P Star wars (what it's use to be)
PS. movie would be better if you would call it somthing else - this is no longer Star wars That we know!!!
290 out of 497 found this helpful.
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This movie pretty much killed any desire in me to see another film that has Star Wars in the title. I'm done.
I didn't have high hopes going into it, but hey Luke is back how bad could it be? This movie showed me that oh yes, it can get much much worse than you think it could. The entire movie felt rushed, you don't really get to empathize with any of these characters, always running from here to there with another plan/mission. To be honest if felt like I was watching the cinematic cut scenes from a video game.
No one seems to keep true to their character, this is most glaring when it comes to Luke. Luke acts in no way like you'd expect the character from the original trilogy to act. It's like they said what do we know about Luke, listed all his characteristics, and then said lets do the polar opposite of each one of these things. No one will expect it!
Actually that seems to be the entire theme of this movie. Building towards a plan of action, then doing a total 180 just for the sake of surprising the audience with the unexpected. If that happened once I would say "huh, I didn't see that coming", and I'd applaud them for it. But the 180 turns happened about 6 or more times(I'd have to see it again to count them all, but that is never going to happen) after the 3rd one it just got annoying.
In the end this movie is one I wish I had not seen. Is it Jar Jar bad? I'd say worse. You be the judge.
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Having just seen The Last Jedi I am hoping this is the last Starwars film made by Walt Disney.
The main problem is that the scripting is very poor and there is nothing new in the films. The crystal foxes were about the only new thing in this last film. Walt Disney are being very lazy and really just milking the brand.
I.e. 'we are losing all our ships'. What. Useless bit of narrative that is. I can see you are losing all the ships. This telling what was going on happened over, and over, and over again. Film is a visual medium 'SHOW DONT TELL.
Daisy Ridley doesn't have an acting bone in her body. Performances by her just make me and most of the people I went to the film with CRINGE.
POOR SCRIPTING, POOR STORY AND POOR ACTING GET IT A 2 OUT OF 10
GIVE THE FRANCHISE BACK TO GEORGE LUCAS - IT IS NOT SAFE IN WALT DISNEY'S HANDS.
24 out of 34 found this helpful.
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It has it's moments, but unfortunately everytime it was about to turn interesting, some stupid, ill timed attempt at humor totally ruined it for me. Chewbacca's reply to Rey regarding Finn was however spot on, and propably the best thing in the whole movie..
No fault of the actors, but the whole Finn/Rose story arc is just pure garbage and BB-8 is begining to challenge Jar-Jar Binks for the most annoying character in Star Wars.
And don't get me started on the porgs, or Luke's personality change, or Phasma, or Del Toro's character, etc. etc.
On the plus side, it's beautifully shot for the most part and it wasn't as predictable as The Force Awakens.
24 out of 34 found this helpful.
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The original debate was prequels vs sequels but I believe both sides can put their differences aside and shun this trilogy completely. The movie was basically the empire strikes back but with slightly better graphics and far less character development or satisfying camera work or scenes. Back in my day when I first watched the star wars movies (1-6) I could feel their hatred and their emotions. You knew Anakin was hurting all through episode 3, you saw the hatred in his eyes as he fought his brother in arms Obi-wan Kenobi, now I am left with an SJW fueled piece of shit where everything has to be socially correct, all people in power were women on the good side and evil men on the dark side but even this does not compare to the lack of depth or attention to detail let alone the complete moronic behavior of the characters. It almost seems as Disney spent all of their budget on the graphics and forgot to add in any plot or brains, Rey chases Luke around an island for half the movie and then just leaves without any more training and still has dead parent issues which Kilo Ren tries to use as a shitting pick -up line. I was sitting there just repeating to myself "wtf" over and over again as multiple plot holes and other non-logical scenarios played out before my very eyes. I have endeavored to keep this review spoiler free because there isn't much to spoil if you just rewatch Ep VI but just past on different antagonists as well as protagonists and just remove the " I am you're father scene"
Having bashed this movie enough I will still go see episode ( to give Disney and Lucasfilm another chance at redemption before the spin off movies like Han-solo etc come out
38 out of 57 found this helpful.
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Gave this creation 10/10 before actually watching it. Afterwards decrease it to 5/10 and this morning after sleeping on it decided to put an end to this with 2/10 with anger and sadness in my heart.
Unfortunately I have had a really high (new) hope for Star Wars universe after TFA and RO but Disney managed to ruin it, as usual.
There is no fear and trembling from the main bad guy (Snoke), and Luke is the same foolish young one apprentice of Yoda as he was in episode V only with more power and beard.
First couple of scenes were naive and copied from various movies (Matrix, Superman etc.) but after the throwing lightsabre over shoulder everything went downhill.
Sorry guys but they (Disney) just crapped all over our believes and expectations.
86 out of 139 found this helpful.
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First of all, big fan of Star Wars.
But this just killed the whole saga... Compared to this, Rogue One is a proper masterpeace. People wold think that they have learned from the Episode 7 disaster. Going to the theather my only Hope (pun intended), was that it wont be that bad. It was worse... Way, way worse.
There where actualy people leaving the cinema. That has to tell you something.
Sentences from the original saga like: Join me, and together we shall rule the galaxy, and Youre are fulfiling youre destiny just killed it.
Battle of Hoth, Falcon run into the Death Star and the rest of the bad ripoffs are killing the whole movie.
Whoever is a SW fan and gave this movie more than 3 is payed to write good about it.
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1/10
Space Balls: The Last Nail in the Coffin for Star Wars
I don't even know how to start this review, because as a lifelong Star Wars fan I am still in shock after seeing this movie. The Force Awakens already started a downfall spiral for Star Wars when they decided to completely ignore the previous story and to rehash the old trilogy, but even this rehash was done in a most superficial and ugly way.
Watching The Last Jedi I felt like I was watching Space Balls, Space Travesty or some Robot Chicken Star Wars spoof. They absolutely ridiculed every aspect of Star Wars that we love. I doubt they ever watched previous movies. The Force, which is a basis for spirituality now serves as galactic Skype calls. Seriously the whole movie was totally ridiculous, at Disney they don't understand a single thing about Star Wars. Now there is no story, no emotional depth, no mythological elements, no substance at all. It is just a mashup of the stupidest jokes and pointless action sequences. The characters are as shallow as you can imagine.
Disney has ruined the epic saga for good. Don't support this garbage and boycott this movie. George Lucas should have never sold Star Wars. It must be so hard for such a visionary storyteller to watch this utter bullshit of a movie.
263 out of 453 found this helpful.
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3/10
THEY RUINED LUKE SKYWALKER IN THIS MEDIOCRE SEQUEL
I was incredibly disappointed with Stars Wars: The Last Jedi (TLJ). I cannot believe some people are saying this is the best one since Empire, bcoz it's not even close. There are so many problems with the movie; the writing, the poor structure, the lack of innovation and focus.
But first, I'll start with the positives. I think Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill gave a wonderful and committed performance to their roles, despite qualms I have about the material they've been given. Daisy in particular really shines throughout; she has great screen-presence and is very enigmatic. Secondly, I was surprised by the abundance of humor in the movie. I really enjoyed the comedy and found all the jokes really funny and organic to the story in a way that never feels out of place. Also, the Porgs were kinda cute. Lastly, I thought there were two great action set pieces that really elevated the film above TFA & RO. The opening space battle was quite amazing and well-done. The dogfights and ship battles were very thrilling and suspenseful. Then there's a lightsaber fight towards the end that was just spectacular and could rank as one of the best set pieces in a Star Wars movie. It was also one of the most beautifully shot scenes in the movie, with really impressive lighting, wide angles and long takes to really highlight the complex but excellent choreography.
Now the negatives. Overall, I found the movie to be incredibly messy and badly paced. The story is incredibly boring and feel like they're threading the same ground as the original. There were many plot lines that felt lifted whole cloth from Empire and Return of the Jedi, and when they happened I was like "Are we really doing this again?" It quickly becomes evident that these movies feel like The Hobbit to the Star Wars franchise - in that, there's not enough material to warrant a new trilogy. TLJ never feels like the 2nd book of a trilogy. It feels more like the 2nd act of an incomplete story. Like TFA, this movie will leave you incredibly dissatisfied. Entire subplots were invented for our main characters, only for the outcome to yield absolutely no results. There were also way too many new characters introduced in the movie, all of whom took significant screen time away from characters that we already know. A character is introduced and is given the kind of epic send-off that should have been given to an established character we know and love, but bcoz we don't know this new character, that send-off lacks any impact. Also, too much time was spent on the island with Rey and Luke and nothing was accomplished. Rey's talents also remains largely unexplained.
My biggest issue with the movie however is the depiction of Luke Skywalker. Prior to this, I had read that Mark Hamill was really unhappy with Rian Johnson's direction for his character, and it's true. The Luke Skywalker in this movie IS NOT THE LUKE SKYWALKER WE KNOW & LOVE. Many of Luke's actions seem very out-of-character and contradicts everything that George Lucas had established about him in the originals. There is one particularly egregious act that Luke commits that feels like an absolute betrayal to that character. It undermines all the goodwill of Luke's arc in the originals that Lucas worked so hard to build-up and complete. Also, they seemingly established Luke as the main character and give him the same hero's journey as ROTJ again, only for him to be missing for 45 mins in the movie. And boy, do they really abused the classic John Williams Luke theme in this. You won't go for 5 mins without hearing his theme over and over again.
So overall, I did not enjoy watching TLJ. You're probably going to watch it once bcoz it's a Star Wars movie but trust me, there won't be any repeat viewings on this one, bcoz it lacks substance. My theatre audience was silent for the entire movie, saved for a few laughs at jokes that were effective, but there were at least 3 fan service/ shocking moments that should have elicited a response from the crowd, but everyone was dead quiet. You know the movie is incredibly ineffective when even the things fans want to see lands like a thud.
So I'm giving it a 3 out of 10; two points for that amazing 3rd act lightsaber battle, and 1 point for both Mark and Daisy. For those who are seeking a true sci-fi action adventure experience, I recommend watching Luc Besson's Valerian (2017) instead. That movie is bursting with creativity and feels like it's blazing a new path for the sci-fi genre that these new Star Wars movies should be doing but aren't. Most importantly, that movie feels fresh and innovative, two things that TLJ were seriously lacking.
229 out of 393 found this helpful.
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TL;DR The worst adaptation with the label "Star Wars" to date. Real fans will be devestated. Dont spend money on this atrocity. I wont spend anymore money on future Disney movies. It has been 4 days and i am still devestated, my friends and i are still discussing everyday how stupid this movie was.
I have just returned from the midnight premiere of "The Last Jedi" and i am baffled...The first 10 minutes already give me PTSD flashbacks when i think of them, they got a fricking mother joke into star wars...
Have the people responsable for this movie actually ever seen a single Star Wars movie ? I guess not.
I am looking at this review score on here (8,4 at the time i am writing this) and am thinking to myself if the people who voted this movie up have ever seen a Star Wars movie before ? I also guess not.
Episode 8 has NOTHING to do with what Star Wars is for us, what our childhood was, what the universe means for us fans. Disney is trampling our favourite franchise with their boots.
Ever since the prequels came out the community always saw them in a negative light, oh boy i tell you the prequels are gold in comparison to this.
Somehow Disney thought that Star Wars is a comedy franchise, they bombard the viewer with jokes left and right and most of them are horrible, cringy and far from fitting to the actual situation. The Story is absolute banana bullshit, but shhh no spoilers in my review.
Oh and i have to add that everything Episode 7 is introduced is shat on in Episode 8, it is liek the new Director didnt even want to think about plotline that J.J created so he just ended them as quickly as he could.
Tbh i cant really find the right words anymore thats how devestated i am. I need to stop now, i could ramble on and write a novel on this matter and somehow it would be a better movie than Episode 8.
209 out of 358 found this helpful.
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Bottom Line: The Last Jedi was a pointless story with pointless character deaths that undermined the Star Wars universe.
Maybe Disney knows how to make money and good movies are just not the way. This new trilogy is doing very well for Disney, but is a mashup of recycled clips that completely miss the point of why they were there originally. Middle movies are always difficult, but The Last Jedi was particularly devastating to the Star Wars universe. As a Star Wars fan, I'm a little tired of the "good guys" being the underdogs and fighting the big evil. These movies would have been much more believable and interesting if the Republic was starting to reestablish itself and the First Order was becoming a credible ISIS like threat. Snoke ended up being a non-player in this new universe, so they should have skipped him completely and had Kylo Ren as a want-to-be emperor instead of a want-to-be Darth Vader.
These movies have no discernible theme, so far. The original 6 were about the redemption of Anakin through a prophecy that said he would destroy the Sith, but left out that he would destroy the Jedi and himself in the process (the force needs balance after all). The Jedi were the imbalance and Anakin set the force right by embracing the dark side and destroying them all. These larger themes are forgotten in this new trilogy leaving them hollow with little more to think about than what merchandising will come from them. What is more difficult to grasp is that most of the plot elements dead ended leaving you with the feeling that you wasted all of that precious screen time.
One of the greatest tragedies was how R2-D2 was left as a nostalgic prop. In the original 6 R2-D2 was the one who guided the fate of the galaxy by subtle influence on everyone else, and was the only character who knew the whole story from beginning to end. In The Last Jedi he is nothing more than an old robot and his significance was missed completely.
A few interesting things that occurred if we view the movie as a series of clips, Force Skyping was an interesting addition to a universe that did not have this type of communication in 1977. The concept of good and evil being a matter of perspective, how arms dealers sold to both sides, and how the Force is bigger than the Jedi were more realistic elements then the black and whiteness of the original view of the world.
There are too many ridiculous plot elements to go through here, such as the resistance fleet very slowly getting away for the entire movie, and Rey being upset by Kylo Ren not wearing a shirt as if the destroyed AT-AT remnant she was living under in the desert her entire life as a scavenger had strict fashion protocols.
Overall, it's another mish mash of recycled concepts that miss the point. Just watch the original trilogy again and sit this one out.
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The films lack of focus from a narrative perspective is perhaps the most obvious and daunting problem posed by this mess of a film, but it is also aided by Rian Johnson's many failed attempts at humour and fan service that fall well short of the original trilogies energy. Dare I say even Attack of the Clones, possibly the most condemned Star Wars film to date, at least had structure and relevant character development. The Last Jedi however falls flat on its face time and time again throughout its unnecessarily padded runtime, with dozens of 'shocking' and 'dark' moments: quite obviously Johnson's nod toward a darker Star Wars film akin to Empire, which are so overused and rushed in setup that I myself was completely desensitised by any impending twist.
From the off, issues with regard to story and editing were prevalent with each scene plagued by over-dramatisation and poor pacing. The very first scene featuring Paige Tico's untimely death is indicative of sequencing throughout the whole movie, with her character kicking that ladder for what felt like a million years before the remote finally fell for an unnecessarily dramatic catch. However Paige's death is just the beginning in terms of exaggerated melodrama, with 'THAT' Leia scene following not long after...
With the passing of Carrie Fisher many speculated a heroic final goodbye for her much beloved character. Johnson however, obviously lacking in foresight handles this hurdle poorly, almost taunting fans with Leia's close brush with death on the bridge before she ridiculously flies through space in what could possibly be as cringe-worthy as I'm assuming her CGI duplicate will be in the next film.
Leia's temporary replacement, Vice Admiral Holdo was also a wasted opportunity, with her character stepping up in Leia's absence as a potential new leader of the Resistance. Not only was her martyrdom another example of a newly introduced character being killed too soon, but it also could have served as a great sacrificial exit point for the late Carrie Fisher if their roles were reversed. Even the manner in which Laura Dern's character was killed off was jarring as her hyperspace insta-kill is honestly a step too far. The destruction level caused by such a manoeuvre will make fans wonder, why don't they just do that all the time? Why didn't they just do that to the Death Star?...Twice?
Fans also wondered whether Gwendoline Christie's character, Captain Phasma would finally live up to all the hype as portrayed in advertising and merchandise, however she seems to have been surplus to any real plot movements once more; undoing all added canonical source material that sought to bring her back from the dead after the Force Awakens, and ultimately her characters appearance in the film was as brief as it was pointless... except for all the toys sold in her likeness I suppose. Well-done Disney. Money... Speaking of even more disappointing deaths, we move onto Snoke, a character depicted as the next main antagonist: a character who from early scenes in this film seemed like he might be the most powerful Sith Lord to grace the silver screen yet. His ability to manipulate Kylo and Rey across vast distances was a testament to his unique powers unseen by any other force wielding character in the now pretty average canon that Disney seems to be creating. But it was his signposted death at the hands of Kylo Ren that was most disappointing. A sequence set out to shock the viewer, yet I was not at all surprised at Kylo's betrayal; in fact I'll be more shocked if Snoke doesn't eventually put himself back together when Disney realises that they've just killed the most interesting character in the film. And of course it wouldn't be the first time a Star Wars villains death was later retconned as Darth Maul once survived being cut in half after Lucas Arts realised they could sell more toys if he was alive again, so all bets are off I guess.
And finally I must mention Luke Skywalker's sudden departure. Putting aside the fact that many, including Mark Hamill himself fundamentally disagreed with creative choices surrounding his character... Luke's death was just really silly. A scene that totally lacked any emotion or resonance toward the story, he just simply died and that's that: kind of a spit in the face to kill off such a beloved character in such ambiguous fashion.
All these deaths and subsequent lack of empathy from audiences are the result of Johnson's flailing story. The plot can be summarised as succinctly as "Rebels flee from the First Order" in an almost comically long car chase, whilst simultaneously the plot with all its throwaway tangents and expendable characters seems almost impossible to discern an overarching story.
Moments like Maz Kanata's holo call, Yoda's return (apparently force ghosts can now summon lightning and whack people on the head with sticks), or Rey's infinity mirror scene didn't work to expand the Star Wars world as we know it; alluding to an expanded universe that stretches beyond the main plot as other Star Wars films have done so in the past, rather these moments added unnecessary clutter to an already misdirected catastrophe of a film that's nothing like the Star Wars mythology of old.
Much like J.J Abrams, Rian Johnson has looked to both copy and rebuke the classic Lucas mould by adding in uncharacteristic narrative elements that blur the lines between good and evil. And by effectively removing both the Jedi and Sith order by killing Luke and Snoke respectively, the series has set itself up to be more grey and ambiguous in intention. I feel this is what Mark Hamill was referring to when he spoke of doubts... Star wars should be formulaic. It's the classic battle between good and evil, but now Rian Johnson and J.J Abrams in kind, seem to want to leave their mark by reinterpreting and effectively butchering the series oeuvre.
71 out of 114 found this helpful.
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Other spoilery reviews have covered the details of the bizarre and contrived plot so let me add in that the pacing is so bizarre that the entire first half and last half hour feel oppressively heavy, scenes cut between each other right when things get interesting, characters react entirely arbitrarily, and, most importantly, only one character has something vaguely resembling an arc! What's the fun in watching people who always interact the exact same way for a movie that feels so tediously long?
The story also slams shut so many doors that the universe contracts like a collapsing star. Not only is it unfun and kind of insulting, I'm not sure how there are enough plot threads left for a full Episode IX. Everything's been answered here, and in such a way that it'll never be revisited - after having had no impact.
The tone is also a bizarre mishmosh of Marvel snark that makes the tone indistinguishable from any other meta schlock from the past decade. The movie prides itself on "deconstructing tropes" but does so just by implementing different tropes, ones of "oh my tech doesn't work, this is awkward,"
"I came up looking heroic and have a moneyshot and then immediately fell over," "literally everything you just said is wrong," or
" 'You don't want to hear X.' "Yes I do.' 'X.' 'You're right, I didn't.' " instead of, you know, character development.
There's a Yo Mama joke in the first ten minutes, for crying out loud, and a scene so experimentally bizarre that words could not hope to describe it coming just a few more minutes later.
It was *so* not worth undoing the original trilogy and setting up mysteries in Episode VII to get here.
3/10 because Adam and Mark turned in great performances with Daisy giving a pretty good one as well as some really good individual scenes. A lot of real craftsmanship went in making the movie, and it is just sad that it was put together into...this.
(Yes, I did feel so butthurt about this movie that I created a brand new account for the sole purpose of writing this. Say what you will, but I'll defend every word I wrote.)
28 out of 41 found this helpful.
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This movie is a joke. Rian Johnson just made fun of our childhood heroes and destroyed Star Wars! I can not fathom why Disney let this movie happen, after the masterful effort done by J.J. Abrams with The Force Awakens. I say redo! And BTW take that new Star Wars Trilogy you gave to Rian Johnson away from him.
31 out of 46 found this helpful.
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4/10
If you're a old star wars fan, this film will destroy you!
Pros:
*Very good visuals.
*Very good CGI.
*Some good action scenes.
*New creatures and vehicles.
Con:
*Very bad story (very illogical and stupid plots).
*long and useless plots.
*Bad characters stories and developments.
*Bad jokes that seems forced.
*Bad new characters added.
*Quick and meaningless deaths.
For me it's the worst star wars since a phantom menace. The problem with this one though, they,re destroying the characters you loved. (And, not just for the originals but for the 7th to)
7 out of 8 found this helpful.
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This movie should have been named "The Last Star Wars." I want my money back!
A complete disaster from beginning to end. Yoda didn't even look right!
So Rey's backstory isn't important? So Snoke's character doesn't deserve some explanation? So it was pointless for Luke to have ever become a Jedi in the first place? So every male is either incompetent, evil, or depressed? So the "joke" lines were written by a 5th grader? Come on!
Bye, bye "Disney" Star Wars. I'm done with your petty "universe." Like Mark Hamill, I will simply treasure George Lucas's masterpieces.
51 out of 80 found this helpful.
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I've been a life long star wars fan. I've eaten up everything from the franchise, while the same time not being blind to any weakness it may have. I'm not into 'creating my own star wars storylines in my head' only for a new film to let those exceptions down. My not a big fat fanboy and yes, I have a life.
The Force Awakens was one of my favorite star wars films. Yes. JJ used the framework of ANH and ROTJ to help create it - but it was a hell of fun. But most importantly, it introduced the new generation of heroes and villains. In fact, it introduced them so well that I actually cared about their story and was excited to see where it went next.
The film ended on the biggest cliff hanger in the whole series - the legendary Luke Skywalker was found.
Enter The Last Jedi, the first film to pick up almost exactly where it left off. I was really ready to like this film. TFA gave the tea the best set up ever. But I'm sorry to say, it was massively squandered.
I'm okay with pushing the franchise somewhere new. I'm okay with curve balls and plot twists. I'm okay with everything - if it's done right and is plausible to the universe it is in.
As a popcorn film - it works fine. There'res jokes, and flashy things all with ticking clock plot line to keep the characters moving.
As a Film - there are issues. The pace is choppy. There is a whole plot line that is made redundant. Another plot line that falls apart if you start thinking about it. Too convoluted.
But as a star wars film? It is very disappointing.
It's the 2nd chapter of a trilogy. The 8th film in a saga. It throws away everything TFA sets up. The Johnson seems to be very out to do his own thing. 3 new characters pop up in this film and all 3 don't add much to the plot let along be any interesting. In Empire Strikes back, we're introduced to 2 new major characters - Lando and Yoda. The rest of the time, we follow the heroes we have grown to know while the new are integrated with purpose.
The film, and now the trilogy seem to have no direction. What's the over arching story?
And finally, for a film that 'takes risks' and 'breaks new ground' - it really doesn't. There's no commitment by the film makers to do so. The scene where both Rey and Ben ask for each other to join them could have been a fantastic way to be different - Rey go dark or Kylo Goes light or they switch completely. But no - they are back to the same afterwards.
When Finn decides to sacrifice himself - could have been a moment that the characters truly remembered him. But no - a list minute deus ex machine by Rose.
And BB8 in this film was Prequel Trilogy bad. If you liked him spitting chips out as the star wars jingle played, or piloting a freakin AT-ST - you can no longer take a swing at the PT.
And the shot with BB8, Rose and Finn on the AT-ST, running through the hanger - was as bad as the swinging monkeys in Crystal Skull.
I could go on, but yeah. Not great!
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1/10
Maybe the last Star wars movie i will see at the cinema :(
This movie is summed up by one line repeated a few times in the movie. Let the past die, kill it(I didn't think Disney meant it literally) It had small spurts of good, but at points i wondered whether i was watching spaceballs, or watching Disney butcher my childhood. The crazy pacing, and spectacle based narrative just felt flat, and ultimately underutilized. As much as I wanted to enjoy this, it just didn't come anywhere close to what could have been. Did they even realize they had made TFA? So much that was setup has now been shunned, that's sad. The forced humour in Disney owned IPs needs to stop. It works in marvel(sometimes), but not everywhere, and especially not here. best since empire...............no way
45 out of 70 found this helpful.
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Star Wars fan very very disappointed. This movie is not Star Wars that we know of . If this movie was on its own , its a good film . But it isn't. George Lucas , how could you sell up your creation for pure money to Disney , to let them ruin it the way they have, Shame.
They have insulted the character of Luke Skywalker
. Turned him into a cowardly hobo, fighting the main baddie as stupid hologram and then dying of exhaustion, pathetic. General Leia , they blew her off into space , would have been ok if not sad that she would have gone out that way , only to start using the force and flying , yes flying like a cross between Superman & Mary Poppins , then goes into a coma wakes again and limps on through the rest of the movie. With all the original cast members gone now in the stupidest disrespectful ways , it would have been better not to have them back at all , leaving their characters untarnished but well done Disney for messing this up. The director can't have watched any star wars films otherwise he wouldn't have created this load of rubbish . The 1 rating goes for the actors who I thought did well with what they had to work with , just a shame they were let down with poor story and script . Kylo Ren could have been a badass baddie, if they just kept his face covered . Adam Driver has the voice to give you the fear he's a bad guy a quality actor when used right , but let down in my opinion . Rey turns out to be a nobody , next. Snoke turns out to be a nobody , next . Fin and Rose , waste of time , next . They killed Admiral Ackber like he was a nobody . Why is there stupid comedy in this . The originals had comedy but genuine character comedy , it suited the film . This film is cringe worthy cheesey rubbish . Overall this is the worst star wars movie . Shame on you Disney and Lucasfilms .
26 out of 38 found this helpful.
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Just watched the movie and while it was entertaining it's really bugging me how far they missed the mark on this movie. Could have been so much better. It's more akin to the George Lucas 2nd trilogy in it's plot holes or story devices that go nowhere, general bad story and dialogue and inability to capture the magic of the original trilogy - which is even more maddening as I felt that Force Awakens was able to do that somewhat.
Let's address some of the things that bugged me:
Marvel style gimmick joke by Poe on Hux to start the movie. Feels really out of place, and Hux becomes more slapstick comic relief as the movie goes on when he did a pretty good job of being threatening and villainous in Force Awakens; a waste of a good character
Yet another case of a Imperial / First Order ultimate weapon that is easily defeated by 1 fighter pilot REALLY ORIGINAL
Finally have another passably iconic Star Wars ship besides the Millennium Falcon in Poe's black x-wing and it is destroyed in the first 20 minutes
All of a sudden Leia is some kind of force master that can survive explosions and the vacuum of space WHAT. This is not even addressed by anyone in the movie, like "that's our Leia casually using force powers that haven't been mentioned before"
Most of the movie takes place in outer space BORING, almost every planet save the Jedi temple one completely forgettable
Game of Thrones style time shifts like when they are going to the casino planet or coming from "super remote" Jedi Temple planet in 5 minutes in the Falcon WHAT
They are on the casino planet for like 2 minutes and now we are supposed to care about these kids we saw for 2 seconds WHAT
Trying to make some kind of class struggle statement after Disney basically spends 50 some BILLION DOLLARS ON A MERGER TO BECOME THE MOST POWERFUL STUDIO IN HOLLYWOOD GTFO
GREMLIN ALIEN LITERALLY COUNTING MONEY IN THE MOVIE SYMBOLISM MUCH
Resolution of what transpires on forgettable casino planet goes literally nowhere and actually would have benefited the movie if it were removed entirely. Benicio del Toro character completely pointless.
Casino planet basically kept in to serve the purpose of borderline celebrity cameos. Most people watching this movie have no idea who these people are anyway.
First order chasing the rebels for god knows how long, it's impossible to tell how much time is passing because it's in outer space, no mention is made as to how long this exchange transpires yet it goes on for most of the movie
Chase justified by first order not having long enough range weapons WHAT
They had that miniature death star cannon the whole time, WHY DIDN'T THEY USE THAT - SHOOT IT OUT OF THE BACK OF THE CRUISER
They make mention of having multiple dreadnoughts besides the one destroyed in the beginning, just light speed one or more in to shoot the rebels
OR EVEN JUST LIGHT SPEED AHEAD OF THE REBELS AND SURROUND THEM FFS
Poe almost completely screws the rebellion over with his mutiny, his 2nd egregious insubordination of the movie - yet after it's over both Leia and Laura Dern laugh it off "I LIKE HIM" "THAT'S OUR CRAZY POE" WHAT
Luke does one force exercise with Rey and she is like a force master when every single other force wielder ever takes years of training, including Luke himself, Kylo Ren by Luke's own admission, even DARTH VADER WHAT
All of a sudden the Millenium Falcon can hold like 390 people WHAT
Zero backstory or plot given to Snoke - COMPLETE WASTE OF A POTENTIALLY AMAZING VILLAIN - everyone is beating this one to death
Zero mention again of rest of the Knights of Ren
Zero backstory given to cool Red Snoke guards though it becomes one of the coolest light saber battles in any of the movies - Are they the Knights of Ren???
Again almost zero backstory or screen time given to Phasma - the coolest Star Wars villain since Darth Maul
Phasma will probably be back in the next one just to fight Finn again like the Star Wars version of Jaws from the Bond movies...
Entire casino planet storyline - the mutiny - Benicio Del Toro - sisters necklace thing - fight with phasma and almost execution - evil BB8 - Jedi Temple caretakers among things that could have been completely removed without hurting the movie, even improving it, or replaced with coherent story that actually furthered the plot and/or was fun
Luke bragged up for years about how amazing and powerful he is, but feels totally impotent in the movie. Finally given time to shine and fight and it turns out to be a complete sham and a complete waste of time
Yoda shows up for some reason WHAT - COMPLETELY MISSED A CHANCE FOR LUKE TO COMMUNE WITH OTHER POWERFUL JEDI FROM THE MOVIES - if you had ghost yoda show up why not ghost Qui Gon or ghost obi wan FFS
I really could keep going but it's pointless. This is what you get when you put Rhian Johnson in charge, WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA, LOOPER WAS TERRIBLE.
So much wasted potential... super disappointed FML
32 out of 48 found this helpful.
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Never written a review before, but I had to for this one..
For a movie with so much promise The Last Jedi in the worst in the series so far.. As a huge Star Wars fan, I can't explain my disappointment.
Whilst visuals are often very good, incredible on a couple of occasions, the story lands completely flat on its face! What makes Star Wars so special is the characters, their emotion, family connections, and the main characters connection to the force, and their part in its balance.
Luke's character is ripped to pieces in this movie.. I feel very sad indeed. I'm certain Mark Hamill feels the same. The best thing about this movie were Mark and Daisy's performances. It's such a shame the writing was as inappropriate as it was. Adam Driver is also excellent at times.
What about Snoke??? Perhaps the most powerful force user ever to appear in a Star Wars movie.. I am absolutely stunned at Disney's decision there...
Overall:
Visuals: 8/10, some poor CGI
Acting: Mark - 10/10, Daisy 10/10, Carrie 10/10,Oscar 9/10, Adam 8/10, the rest.. 5/10
Script: 4/10
Story: 2/10
Rian Johnson: Truly awful creative decisions!!! 1/10
29 out of 43 found this helpful.
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1/10
Complete dung. Bad humour, story & characters. The priority was making a statement of 'Political Correctness', not making a good Star Wars film.
The humour is awful, very tongue-in-cheek and just doesn't work, it makes the film aware it's a film - I can't think of the correct way of saying this, its almost a spoof at times, parody, just really bad.
The story is bad, lazy, messy and full of huge plot holes, it isn't even worth thinking about too much as the writers obviously didn't. It feels like they had many writers not communicating well with each other go off and create their own separate set pieces designed to launch new toys, these sections are clumsily strung together into a showcase of FX.
The effects were impressive for the most part, only what I expected though and it isn't enough to hold attention when the story is so bad and badly told, I didn't care about much of the action because I didn't care about the reasons for the action. One new creature was particularly bad FX too.
The characters are dull and forgettable, most seem to be there more to make a statement of 'diversity' etc than anything else. There's a couple of older women in it who really smashed any small sense of immersion I might of had, just bad acting and weren't convincingly competent. The general rule is: the white men are evil or weak, females or 'POC' are inherently good, for the most part anyway - it's just patronising, juvenile and very tiresome.
I think this film has been poisoned with current political trends and virtue-signalling. Making a film to please modern Feminists, Leftists and SJWs has taken priority over making a good Star Wars film and it really shows, they've gone heavy on The Force being a metaphor for millennial 'feels' too, very cringey. Look out for next Star Wars film making a big statement in support of 'Trans rights' (a 'Trans' Wookie maybe?), and Rey blaming everything on Kylo's 'toxic masculinity'.
I've wasted enough time on this film already so I'll end my review here, just be aware if you plan to see it that there is none of the familiar Star Wars magic, no feel good factor, no reason to care and certainly no reason to pay good money to see this. I hope this film fails as hard as the new game is, and I grew up a Star Wars fan.
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1/10
a modern blockbuster ..with all that entails :barf:
Last Jedi suffers from franchise disease. There is a great deal of action and melodrama-many close ups of faces that are either concerned or sad- but there isn't that much actually happening and no one is in any real danger.
How could they be? All of the characters have to be in the next movie, as they all have various merchandise and it's expensive(focus groups cost money) to try to introduce new characters. So, our characters rush about excitedly but still have time to deliver speeches, marvel movie style one liners :barf:, and they emote to one another in the empty headed postmodernist way that Oprah talks to her audience.
It just fails as a movie.
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Having seen the film, I can see why Mark Hamill hated the script and its treatment of Luke Skywalker. This movie was awful in every way except the cinematography. What's most shocking for me were the 'spoiler-free' reviews in mainstream media which contained flat-out incorrect statements or facts about the movie. Either those reviewers watched a different version of the movie, or they never watched the movie at all and were just paid to publish some positive drivel and "facts" provided to them by the studio. An amazing misfire in the SW series and the first one which doesn't feel like a SW movie at all.
36 out of 55 found this helpful.
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2/10
I went in with high expectations, however....?!@#$%^&*!
Days prior to this movie, I rewatched all Star Wars, from ep1~6, and rewatched (liked 5 times) ep7 in 3D.
I could recall the moment while watching ep7. I had tears rolling when i saw the Millennium Falcon. I had tears flowing when Hans Solo and Princess Leia appeared. I had the most chills when the man the whole movie is dedicated to find, finally appeared at the end of the movie. I remembered some article mentioned that Steven Spielberg loved it so much, that he watched 4 times.
Guessed he's disgusted by the latest installment now. I clapped hands with the other viewers when the majestic theme started playing. But i did not clap when the movie ended. I will try not to give away the plot, if you must know, other reviewers (normal users please, not those so-called critiques) have already mentioned a little too much. I get it that they tried to tell as story full of unexpected plots and twists, however, make some sense please?? You can't just give us a twist without any good sense of doing it! I am not picky at all, as some users have written, such as Cap. Phasma not given enough depth. But I walked out after the end of the movie with a WTF feeling.
Maybe Carrie Fisher wanted no more part in this rubbish, so she decided maybe its her time (God rest her soul) to bid farewell for good. (I will edit and remove this part of the content should any members condemn me for joking about the most-loved CF, no disrespecting intended at all).
This is not a review to sway Star War fans or movie-goers away from this ep8. This is rather (i hope) a wake up call for the Disney executives to turn from the Dark Side towards the Light. Good or bad, i will still watch, as it is Star Wars. May the Force be with Disney!
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Seriously why? You had so many directions to go, and infinite amount of new characters you can introduce in sooooo many different ways and you kind of let us all down in the force awakens let's be honest. Decent but a let down and a bit of a copy and paste from a new hope but whatever whatever it's just the first one it's just to renew the series with a similar feeling I get it.
But why god why did you do it again. You essentially copy and pasted the main idea from empire strikes back oh and you killed all of your character development in the fucking process. We all have been waiting 2 years to know more about snoke and how he lured kylo ren and where he has been, the knights of ren, Rey's parents and her story and that was at least the bright side of force awakens it left off well and wanting much more. The last Jedi DESTROYS ALL OF THOSE THINGS IN 1 SCENE. Along with all of the conflict in Kylo ren. It doesn't even make sense that he would turn on Rey the moment he could where was the conflict???? IF he can do that why couldn't he finish his mother off Jesus Christ just give me consistency.
But before that scene it was yet another "run away from the bad guys while barely making it" scenes that never ends until it does and it's wasted at that point and is only still going to show off new walkers on a flat terrain that's perfect for them to go assault another base with trenches for no reason.
There's basically no chemistry between Rey and Luke even though is acting was spectacular. They just beat around the bush and would rather show a cowardly storm trooper and a chunky female pilot fly off to a planet and do a mission that has virtually NO MEANING WHATSOEVER AND WAS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME. But back to Luke and Rey.
Horribly disappointing, they have no real dialogue just luke cracking a joke at her every now and then while she stares off to the side. They both spend most of the time lying to each other about what has happened and what is happening.
30 out of 45 found this helpful.
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The movie itself is well created. It´s beautiful visuels great space battles and so on. But thats about it.
This "Star Wars movie" is so far from what it should be. Too many wasted characters. To much backstory left unclear. Hardly stays true to the star wars we love and know. It just dosent add up. Their is no continuity from the old movies lore and ways, that defines Star Wars.
I have no idea how episode 9 is going to recover from this. I sincerly hope that disney scratches episode 7 and 8. Start over and redo everything, for the fans.
161 out of 278 found this helpful.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the most disappointing thing since George Lucas sold the rights to Disney. A hyped-up sequel to the "A New Hope" rip off, this movie is filled with cringe-worthy dialogue, an embarrassing story, terrible editing, massive plot holes, and a surprisingly awful film score. There are some good things about the film however, which confuses me because it's almost like watching two separate movies being smashed together.
1) Apparently people can live in outer space now. In the opening fight sequence, the girl on the bomber lays on a beam that is open to outer space and suffers no consequences. Even though she later dies by explosion.
2) The bridge of the ship that Leia is in gets hit by a shot and violently explodes and rips everyone into space. The next scene Leia is floating out and about and just wakes up and flies back to the ship. The doors open, and again everyone is exposed to space and nothing happens. Leia dies a very violent death and then just wakes up and goes back to the ship and takes a nap. 3) As the movie continues you realize that all the buildup of Mark Hamill reprising his role as Luke Skywalker is actually a negative thing. When the anticipated moment has finally been reached and Luke is handed his old light saber, he immediately tosses it over his shoulder. This light saber was created and used by his father. His father fought with this weapon in the Clone Wars. It was given to Luke by Obi-Wan. Luke was trained by Obi-Wan and Yoda. He used this light saber to fight his father and save his friends. He turned his father back to the light side and defeated the Emperor once and for all. And in this moment in TLJ all of this history was thrown in the trash. I guess disregard everything that took place from 1977-2005. None of that matters. Luke is absolutely pathetic and behaves completely out of character. He hates the Jedi? He hates the Force? That's a great idea if I've ever heard one. After a quick visit from Yoda he is changed back to normal, but half the movie has passed by this point. 4) If Luke hates the Jedi and the Force so much and goes as far as to say that it should all end together, AND exiles himself onto an island to die with no intention of ever coming back, then why does he continue to dress exactly like a Jedi every moment of his life? Why doesn't he go back to wearing the attire he wore for the first 19 years of his life? 5) Luke eventually states that he went into hiding because he failed his nephew, Ben Solo, and that Ben has a power that he has never seen before. However, Luke knew Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and himself. And so far in the past 2 movies in the story line there has been no demonstration that Kylo Ren has any skills at all. Rey defeats him easily in TFA and she has never even held a light saber. In fact, Snoke even makes this point in the movie. You also see Kylo fighting later in the film against Snoke's guards and he is getting slapped around again. Isn't he supposed to be strong in the force? Yet some nobody puts him in a choke hold and almost stabs him. 6) Another huge problem is the distractingly terrible CGI. Snoke is just obnoxious but it only gets worse. The annoying 'porg' penguins and later the giant llamas must have been created by an eager 7-year-old. And how many computer animated explosions can we see in this movie? 7) So Finn and newly added Rose set off on a quest that takes most of the movie to accomplish. Sounds like a big deal but it is simply to find some nobody decoder to stop the 'First Order' from following them. Very nice ideas going on here. Along the way they spend a big chunk of time watching NASCAR pod racing and freeing CGI llamas. Rose tries to explain why this is a big deal but no one cares about this forced subplot. They then get captured and sent to a jail cell where another decoder happens to be there and has been laying around in his cell with a key this entire time. What was he waiting for? Nothing. Actually, he was just waiting for the writers to tell him what to do next. Nice. 8) Later, Poe holds a mutiny against the acting commander and hates her, yet when he is stunned the commander and Leia both comment on how much they like him. I don't think so. 9) After they leave and arrive at the bad guys' ship Finn and Rose get captured. The villain, Captain Phasma, does the typical stalling when it comes to execution and has to find a better way to kill them. In the meantime, a lady from Jurassic Park smashes into the ship and kills everyone in this room EXCEPT Finn and Rose. How convenient. Then Phasma and some troopers come walking up in a formation even though they were all just standing right next to each other. Phasma gets shot but her armor deflects the laser bullet. I think the 'First Order' has the resources to make all their soldiers have this armor so why don't they? They have multiple giant space weapons that can destroy planets but armor that works is a little too much to ask? So Finn gets up and has a very anticlimactic fight with Phasma. Why would they have done it any different? 10) The movie goes between Kylo, Rey/Luke, Leia, and Finn scenes. Is Chewbacca just an extra in this film? Because he gets as much screen time as those frog costumed creatures on Luke's island. Kylo's scenes were all very entertaining and Adam Driver was very likable. Rey's scenes were also interesting and I was waiting to hear what's been happening to Luke, but everything else in the movie could not have been less interesting. I don't think I've ever been more bored while watching a movie. This is why it felt like two separate movies edited together. 11) After the Snoke battle, Kylo Ren appears to have also killed Hux, but shortly after you see them both standing together. You also see a similar deal when Finn is about to sacrifice himself for the 'Resistance', yet Rose smashed into him to save his life, meanwhile jeopardizing her own. But no worries because everyone is invincible in this film. Except for Luke apparently. I guess using the force one more time was just a little too much for him these days. It was a very uneventful and unheroic death for the star of the original trilogy. 12) All this buildup of finding Luke and he does next to nothing. He aides in the plot which is helping the 'Resistance' keep running but other than that he does nothing. Except for complain and die. He doesn't even have a light saber duel. He uses the force to trick Kylo Ren and pulls out his blue light saber, except Kylo had just recently destroyed that one so why did he think Luke had it??? 13) Before transparent Luke shows up, all the rebel fighters were standing in a hanger with the blast door open watching the 'First Order' stroll in and fire at them. Death and destruction could have easily been prevented and we're supposed to believe these are the people who have been fighting the bad guys this whole time? Are they as stupid as the writers? Oh. 14) Even a lot of dialogue from this movie was very childish and made me feel like I was watching a show created for little kids. Finn is sacrificing himself to save the 'Resistance' and Rose stops him. "We're not going to win by killing the things we hate, but by saving what we love." Well Finn was about to save everyone he loved by killing the 'First Order' but you just stopped him for no reason. And then she gives him an extremely awkward kiss and proceeds to pass out just like Leia did earlier in the film. How creative. Another childish addition is when they're looking for an exit in the cave and a CGI ice fox is conveniently standing in a doorway waiting to lead the people to safety. I'm not 9 so this doesn't amuse me. There's a lot of trying to lead you to believe someone is about to die, just to have a cheaply executed save. Boring. 15) The plot of the movie is that the "Resistance" is trying to run away from the "First Order". The presented problem is that once the "Resistance" runs out of gas, the "First Order' will be in range to fire on their ships. Is the "First Order" running out of gas too? Is there a reason that the all resourceful "First Order" can't cut them off? Or by summoning any ship in their possession? What are all the other "First Order" ships doing at this moment? It's supposed to be pretty important that they have the last of the "Resistance" on the run right in front of them but all they are doing is following them? 16) Rose was unconscious at the end near the heavily guarded "First Order" battering ram. How did Finn drag her all the way back without dying? 17) They even couldn't resist having the droid BB-8 driving an AT-ST walker. I guess the children under the age of 5 need some entertainment too. 18) Disney is in dire need of a thesaurus. Can we get a word count on the word "hope" please?! Also, stop with the "never tell me the odds" joke. That ended in 1980. Why did C3PO have a red arm in TFA and not in this film? Why is the mystery of Rey's parents never laid to rest? "Oh they were nobody." K thanks for the movie bye. Who is Snoke? Why did he show up, supposedly being the most powerful being, and then die with no known motivation/plans?
George Lucas' Star Wars movies were told in a unique way that could easily have been told apart from any other writer. It was almost an art of its own. There's a style to making Star Wars and I could tell this movie came out in 2017. There used to be a purpose behind the dialogue, and now it's just schlock. It was like the way Obi-Wan described the light saber; "an elegant weapon for a more civilized age." Now writers are clumsy and random, and people laugh at CGI penguins on the screen. TFA and TLJ both focus on what happened between Episode 6 and TFA, but the whole idea of training Jedi and Luke's interaction with Ben Solo sounds more interesting than the current movie's plots. Or lack thereof. At least Leia wasn't killed off in this movie so I'm really excited to see her return in full CGI....
24 out of 35 found this helpful.
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I don't know how or where to begin with my review. Should I begin with my explanation how I felt after watching the TLJ or should I try to (as if I needed to)point out how ridiculous this movie is? First of all, you have a huge gap between what J.J. Abrams started and wanted to achieve and what Rian Johnson wanted. For example, J.J. introduced a new villain, mysterious Snoke, whom we know nothing of at the end of TFA. Rian decided that he had no need or place for him in his story so he just erased him without giving us at least some of his background story. Secondly, I think that we all liked Ray as a character and we all wanted to know something about her past, but Rian decided not to trouble himself(and us) with it?!? What about Luke Skywalker? How could they expect any hardcore fan or any sane person to like the way his character has devolved? From a movie hero of several generations to a grouchy old guy who has cut his connection to the Force and we find out that he was considering to kill his padawan and nephew Kylo while he was sleeping?!? No matter how frustrating these things were for me, nothing is compared to almost retarded plot with so many holes in it, that makes the TLJ boring and unwatchable. A space chase until they run out of fuel? Really? This is a SW universe! Is that the best you could come up with? As a hardcore fan I have read the novels and comics that follow the story after ROTJ. They could have picked any story from expanded universe but instead they decided to do this? Let's just run through some facts. Rebel fleet is running away from First order because they are lighter and faster but they cannot jump to lightspeed because they can track them. So, First Order keeps chasing them and they cannot shoot them down because their weapons are ineffective at that distance. If the Rebels are lighter and faster how come the distance between them and the First Order is the same throughout the movie? Shouldn't they be distancing themselves slowly from FO fleet as time passes? Leia surviving the space vacuum and flying through debris like a witch using the Force is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen! Why would Rebels send Finn and Rose to find codebreaker? I would send my best operatives. How about you? Why FO military is commanded by incompetent general Hux? What is the purpose of Phazma as a character? What is the possibility that, while running from FO, rebels stumble upon a planet that has, surprisingly, an abandoned rebel base from the war with the empire. And it happens to be an impregnable bunker with no back door??? Again, the FO/Empire is attacking Resistance/Rebel base with AT walkers and again there are soldiers in the trenches in front of the base!!! They mention several times through movie that they should reach or call their friends in the Outer rim. What is the position of strength between the New Republic and First Order. What systems are under NR control and which are under FO. Who is Snoke? Where did he come from and where did he get his training? How he started the First Order? Force is now used for making conference calls and it's mocking the original idea of the spirituality of the Force. Luke is force projecting himself and then faints to death?!? No lightsaber duels? WHY??? I watched Rogue One that has no lightsaber duels or Force users in it and it was fine by me because it was a different setting and different story. This movie must have had light saber duels!!! I could keep on and on with things like this but I will only point out that two main characters from TFA have not progressed in either way. Kylo is still an angry kid who does not know what or how to do something and Ray's connection to the force is still a mystery as her origin. What is even worse Luke does not train her just opens a door of a new world for her. To end my review I will repeat a quote from the movie : "Let the past die. Kill it, if you must". I think that is exactly the meaning of the new trilogy (episodes 7,8,9). I cannot think of a better way to say it. They (Disney) are trying to explain to us that they don't care for the legacy of the Star Wars saga, that they want only to earn more money and if in that process we(hardcore fans) are disappointed, what can be done? That's life. I give The Last Jedi a three stars just because of the space battle at the beginning of the movie and because visuals are outstanding. I said to myself after watching The Force Awakens that I will forgive but I will not forget. I think that after watching The Last Jedi I have only one choice...
24 out of 35 found this helpful.
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Good parts:
(1) Porgs
(2) Some Luke Skywalker scenes, although his character was virtually unrecognisable from the original trilogy
(3) Very good space battles
(4) Luke's reunion with Artoo
(5) I felt Finn and Poe were more likeable in this movie compared to Force Awakens
(6) Most Princess Leia scenes, except where she flies through space
(7) Mark Hamill was exceptional. I never wanted him off screen.
Bad parts:
(1) The dejected feeling I had when the movie finished. As a matter of fact I felt this way about 3/4 into the film. This is obviously subjective but it looks like I'm not alone based on other comments. This is especially the case if you're a fan of the original trilogy. I honestly feel cheated and wonder if the movie was meant to create such emotions in people.
(2) The way Johnson wrote Luke. He has always been optimistic and self sacrificing. He would never have even considered killing Ben. He wouldn't have allowed others to suffer while doing nothing. In the 'legends of Luke skywalker' book he is very inquisitive about the Force and it's origins. Yet he doesn't read original scripts while being stuck on an island with nothing else to do. He is a jedi master but is overpowered by Rey in their stick battle- maybe on purpose? He should have spent more time with Chewbacca to console him about losing Han. He uses no force powers, except at the end, and doesn't 'kick butts' like Kennedy said he would. He projects himself to Crait to stand there? It could have been an epic battle between him and the first order. Just show some development in his character!!! The decision to kill him off was absolutely atrocious and series ending for myself. He could have survived the Force projection. Rey will do it in the next film and I'm sure she will be just fine.
(3) Rey- I don't mind Rey as a concept and Daisy does a half decent job portraying her, but how is she so powerful? It also appears that she can do no wrong!! In this stage in her development Luke hadn't even moved a noodle with the Force yet! She is extremely naive. She finds a jedi master and then viciously confronts him because Kylo told her something. I would have thought shed be reluctant to believe Kylo in relation to anything. I don't like that she's the last Jedi. It is very contrived and cringe worthy. The explanation of her parents was uninspiring. Had she been a skywalker her force powers would have been somewhat understandable.
(4) Artoo- we see him for a brief moment. I wanted to see him and Luke together much longer. Once they're reunited where does Artoo go? Just disappears it seems. BB8, who I like, is conveniently saving the day all over the galaxy. Does Luke understand R2?
(5) Leia using force powers to fly through space...
(6) killing off snoke with no explanation of his origin. He had been built up to be a great villain and match for Luke.
(7) Rey and Kylo scenes together, even though they were apart. Just awful.
I've only just seen this movie being a big fan of Star Wars. I didn't mind TFA due mainly to the ending. I thought the 2 movies would make up for Luke's absence in the TFA. Clearly I was wrong. Even if Luke comes back as a force ghost I still won't be going to see episode 9. My best hope are the stand alone films, provided Johnson goes nowhere near them.
68 out of 111 found this helpful.
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I walked out of this movie with six friends at 3 am, and all of us were WIRED from adrenaline and amazement. And then I checked IMDB and saw nothing but angry fans, proving that there really is no pleasing organized fandom. Everyone complained mightily at how unoriginal and "safe" The Force Awakens was, and then a movie comes along with an actual point of view, with incredible style unlike anything that has come before it in the series, that is daring, fresh, and original...and now it's just too different for everyone.
Though some of the complaints are fair (namely that one major subplot turns out to be largely a digression), this was so surprising and thoughtful and fresh that it frankly makes The Force Awakens better by recontextualizing it. This movie has something to say if people will take a moment to listen to it rather than getting pissy that it wasn't what they were expecting.
636 out of 1,161 found this helpful.
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Ugh , was not impressed with this movie. I wasn't bored, but this seemed like a live action version of the rebels Cartoon. Thought Daisy Ridley had some bad line delivery in this , esp in the first 3rd. Some of the first order military thought they were in a Christmas Pantomime. Too much juvenile humor. Too much schmaltz. Too many Fake out deaths . The scene when Phasma is just about to execute Finn then there is that explosion and what luck all the first Order troops around them are dead but somehow Phasma has teleported about 50 feet away with her posse right behind her and not shooting. Also whats with the Praetorian guards striking action poses when they are so far away from any threat? I did like Kylo and Luke though
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Porgs are cool. The Last Jedi is not. It is very disappointing movie for somebody looking for answers to really anything Star Wars lore. It has some good moments but after The Force Awakens left viewers such a high-note with the return of the Luke Skywalker - I left feeling empty and wondering if they just should have left it all alone.
The legend of the rebellion and childhood hero for so many Luke Skywalker is a broken man who unfortunately has not learned too much in his time in exile. Something that really puzzles me here is that there are no new revelations about the force as one would expect, especially by somebody in exile with unlimited time, power and the potential to learn.
We're treated to a great performance by Mark Hamill but I wanted Luke Skywalker to be great. He is the hero of the Original Trilogy, by far the most revered and loved and he gets a moment, sure, but it merely serves as an opportunity to 'pass the torch' to the younger cast and it seems so contrived and obvious.
This is all made worse by the real-life passing of Carrie Fisher who plays Princess Leia who seems much more comfortable in her role than in The Force Awakens.
I must admit I had really high hopes for this film, for nostalgic reasons and as much as I really liked the characters in The Force Awakens it's the original characters who we all fell in love with and seeing them treated like this is - as means to simply pass the torch to younger actors is really disappointing. The Force Awakens did it right with Han Solo because it elevated Kylo Ren's villain status enormously.
The problem is that the Rey and Luke dynamic needed to be fleshed out way more. We needed more revelations about the true nature of the force, how it began, something new and we got nothing even though Luke has his hands on the first ever Jedi texts and scrolls, it seems like he hasn't read them because we get absolutely no real insight into what they say. How disappointing is that considering he is in exile? What else has he got to do? I found this totally, utterly frustrating beyond belief.
More wasted opportunities lie with some of the characters. Supreme Leader Snoke's characters 'moment' was a shocking but empty. We got no backstory and nothing clever to bind the saga together. He is literally just a 'bad guy' that just appears out of nowhere and corrupts young Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren.
Captain Phasma is another throwaway character with nothing to do at all as is General Hux, who just provides comic relief and then there is Rey's parentage which becomes the ultimate disappointment in this story. Another aspect that just left me feeling empty and unsatisfied.
Oscar Isaac's ace pilot Poe Dameron is back and joined by Laura Dern playing newcomer Admiral Holdo. Their story is one of the best side stories that completely pays off. I loved Poe Dameron's energy and enthusiasm in this just like I loved Finn's in The Force Awakens.
Unfortunately Finn's journey is far less compelling now. He is joined by actress Kelly Marie Tran who plays Rose Tico and a friendship, possible romance ensues but it's all very cliche and nothing to write home about nor is the much hyped Canto Bight scenes which resemble something more out of a Harry Potter movie than Star Wars.
The other dynamic is Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship which does manage to keep you guessing for a time. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley are again, really good in their respective roles but it's not enough to save the story from feeling like a lost opportunity to tie the Skywalker story (the Star Wars story we all fell in love with) together in a satisfying package.
I think Disney have tried to throw one too many curve balls and they're way off. I remember leaving The Force Awakens with so much optimism and I wish it were different but essentially I feel that there is nowhere else to go. We've left in the middle of the desert without a tank of gas at the conclusion of The Last Jedi.
103 out of 174 found this helpful.
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I'll make this a short review, the actors did an amazing job for the most part, the only one I have a major issue with is Benicio Del Toro's portrayal of DJ, his character really serves no purpose for this film and the whole Finn, Rose and DJ arc is one big political statement against rich people, I don't need that in a Star Wars movie.
The way Rian Johnson destroys the Original Trilogy in this movie is astounding, he takes our hero Luke Skywalker and just shatters him and makes him a shell of himself and turns him into an unrecognizable mess. There are three scenes in this movie that made me go WTF in the theater and one of them has to do with Carrie Fisher's Leia in the first part of this film.
Andy Serkis' Snoke is a wasted character in this movie, he could have been a great villain for this whole trilogy and....then useless.
I went into this movie with high hopes after The Force Awakens, but after seeing this? Rian Johnson doesn't deserve a Star Wars trilogy, he should be fired.
All in all, DO NOT see this movie.
121 out of 207 found this helpful.
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5 Minutes into this movie it was all clear. I was looking at Star Wars - The comedy. Disney's desperate attempt of trying to please fans of all ages ends up in a chaotic storyline where nothing interesting really happens.
Lets talk about the jokes. In case you are afraid of missing them, don't worry! This movie will continue to feed them to you until they leave you with an awful taste of Jar Jar in your mouth. The amount of comic relief was beyond me. I wouldn't even consider most of the comic as "relief". Just immersion breaking attempts of keeping the attention of the younger audiences. Speaking of immersion breaking.. The use of words like "Godspeed", "Police", "crack open like an egg" really proves that the writers had no clue of what they were doing.
Lets look at the casino scenes. There we were, back in the mess that were the prequels. With CGI characters doing "funny" CGI things. Imprisoned in the dark prison cell, Finn and Rose is speaking to a mysterious silhouette. My mind was going through the alternatives of which this character might be. He's in a rich-people-place, so he's probably rich. He's in a prison, so he's probably a "bad" guy.. maybe a smuggler? Hold on! Rich, smuggler, Please let this be Lando! That would definately save the entire boring visit to the CGI-paradise and give meaning to Finn's storyline. Hah, nope.
I could probably write a short book of all the things that made no sense but I will try to keep it fair. Remember, we're all buying the concept of sound in space.
The super-battle-ship gets taken out by ONE X-wing. Tractor beam? Missiles? Anything?!
"Chrome Domes" armor deflects laser. Sounds like a great material for... everything?
Lukes emo character. He tries to save Vader but almost kills an innocent Ben Solo in his sleep.
Snoke can't be betrayed, can't be defea.. oops. Snoke was useless. Leaving us there with "the rule of two" but without answers.
Disney thinks we care about random rebel ships being destroyed and random rebel sacrifices. If they want us to feel sad, sacrifice someone we love.
Now lets dig a little deeper.
You can turn on a lightsaber with the force now. This changes everything. Think about it..
Why didn't Obi Wan just slice Darth Maul off by the ankles whilst hanging in the pit at the end of Phantom Menace?
Why not just turn off your opponents lightsaber mid-swing?
(Insert infinite number of other questions here)
Thank you for sticking with me with through all the negativity. Lets look at the positive things.
+ The Yoda scene was perfection.
+ The look and feel of (almost) everything was spot on.
+ The sound design was what you might expect from a Star Wars movie.
+ Most likely the most visually stunning Star Wars movies ever created. Even if it had some flaws.
+ Alot of screen time for Kylo Ren. Adam Driver proves he's a great pick for the role.
+ Great action scenes.
+ Luke Skywalker's super-jedi-mindtrick
For me personally. The biggest question is: Why should we look forward to the next movie?
Now when Kylo Rens/Reys allegiance is sorted out. Snoke is dead. Reys parents are most likely never to be revealed. It didn't leave us on a cliff or wanting more.
May the force be with episode IX.
Oh by the way, to my surprise.
I actually liked the Porgs.
62 out of 101 found this helpful.
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Just as episode VII ruined the ending of VI, this film ruins the character of Luke Skywalker, at least if you consider these Disney created films as canon. Many of the core elements which were present throughout Lucas' films are again absent in Disney's third attempt at making a Star Wars film. For example formerly central characters such as C3PO and R2D2 again take a back seat, popping up only occasionally to silence fans who might criticise their absence. Similarly beloved characters Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia are again treated like garbage to make way for new characters who are not even half as interesting. Likewise, lightsaber battles are again almost non-existent despite their universal appeal and a romantic comedy's worth of humour is shoe-horned into the film at the most inappropriate of moments.
All of the mysteries which were left after episode VII were answered or brushed aside in the most lazy and uninteresting ways, leaving almost nothing worth watching to occur in the next installment.
The film, like the last two, is a simple cash grab by Disney and a group of filmmakers who have no regard for the universe Lucas has created. It almost seems a compliment to call the film fan fiction as I struggle to believe any fan could serve up such rubbish. The highest level of canonical material is that which was created by George Lucas, Disney will tell you that their films are a continuation of his story, but in reality they are nothing but a tool for generating profit.
50 out of 80 found this helpful.
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I was keeping a running tally of the number of cringeworthy moments in this film, but I lost count at 12. There was still an hour of film left.
I feel completely betrayed as a Star Wars fan. Enough with the forced jokes and cringy one-liners (yes folks, the first scene of this film involves a repackaged 'yo momma' joke and sounds like the beginning of a Verizon commercial). Enough with the re-hashed scenes, useless characters, and 'twists' that are on the verge of lunacy rather than anything founded in the Star Wars universe. 'The Force' is NOT a blank check for you reconcile anything you want!
There's something woefully wrong when commanders of the First Order are cracking jokes a few rooms away from Snoke, and members of The Rebellion are having kissy time while the remaining few of their group are on the verge of being wiped clean. There are other much more obvious examples, but I'll save sharing those on the off chance that anyone actually decides to go see this movie.
The viewer gets the impression that the new era of actors are high on the line of coke that is the original trilogy, while the actors from the original trilogy are more than content taking the backseat - the ultimate clash of overdone and passive acting of any movie I've seen, and no, they don't balance each other. (General Leia Organa literally has a line where she states "Well what are you lookin' at me for?"). Not leadership, apparently.
Nonetheless, I'm thankful for seeing the movie - if nothing than as a form of non-validation. Its confirmed that the Star Wars universe deserves so much more than Disney or the directors and producers they contract could ever give it. I had so much Hope for the new Star Wars movies. But like all good things, I suppose it too has burned in the fires of Mustafar.
22 out of 32 found this helpful.
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I thought that it can't be worse than TFA. Oh boy, imagine my suprise. This movie is so fundamentally flawed, that I almost can not belive it. Every aspect of this cash grab is just BAD, except for audio/visuals. You name it. Plot, dialogues, character development,etc. etc... Total disaster and cringefest. I just wonder, who the fuck gave green light for the script? Well done Disney, millenials will love it. From my side, this is the last SW movie I went on relase.
51 out of 82 found this helpful.
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8/10
A beautiful, humorous and magical Star Wars movie!
I've been a Star Wars fan since I was 7 years old, and I even remember seeing Empire and Jedi on the big screen as a kid. Yeah, I'm old. But, I'm a little shocked at so many haters of this movie, many of you have given a 2! A 2???? Seriously?
I've given The Last Jedi an 8. It's an epic and original Star Wars movie, with gorgeous cinematography and incredible music from the wonderful John Williams again. Rain Johnson has managed to expand the force mythology, inject some good ol' humour back into the saga, and throw in some wonderful surprises, that I believe, we all needed. It seems like many of you do not like change, or are not prepared to enjoy a Star Wars movie that takes risks. This movie takes huge risks; it dares to offer something fresh in a franchise that is over 40 years old. It also pays homage to the original trilogy in a beautiful and tasteful way. So, no, I do NOT understand the haters out there.
Nevertheless, it's not a perfect movie. There are some risks that Johnson takes, that will upset some fans, but some of those decisions have made me ponder the force in a new way. One of the main problems for me was the 'detour' from the main storyline with Finn and Rose. This storyline felt a bit sluggish, 'forced' and feels kind of shoehorned in there, and it also doesn't really serve the greater story-but then again, maybe it DOES. I will need to see it again to decide on this. There were also a handful of 'dumb' little moments, that I won't get into, and certainly at times I was reminded that Star Wars movies were originally made for children, and while we have our darker adult themes at work here (and even spiritual themes), there are also many magical moments for children. Maybe us 'grownups' need to stop taking it all so seriously and learn to be kids again?
For the most part, this is a solid, original and gorgeous Star Wars movie that I believe, makes The Force Awakens seem a little bland and unoriginal. Go and see it, it's the best Star Wars movie since Empire.
199 out of 352 found this helpful.
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1/10
Bring George Lucas back, Star Wars story is killed by Disney
The original expanded universe was better than this garbage, Disney are just making generic star wars films for a joke, this is not inspired by Joseph Campbell or any meaningful themes but by Disney's aspirations to make ridiculous amounts of money off these films and sell merchandise.
I would prefer George Lucas and his story than this terrible script.
I will never spend any money on anything star wars related again!
139 out of 242 found this helpful.
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The 8th chapter in the newly resurrected Star Wars series, is a rollercoaster of an adventure, filled with the unexpected fun, twist and turns that have been delightfully introduced by Rian Johnson. What you would expect is not what is given to you, in the most whimsical Star Wars film to date.
Following from the end of the Force Awakens, we find Rey attempting to bring Luke Skywalker out of hiding to help the battle against the vicious First Order, but Skywalker himself does not seek to return, as his own past has defined him as he insists on staying in the dark. Meanwhile General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) leads the resistance in escape from the First Order in deep space, where Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Hux ( Domhnall Gleeson) won't rest till they are finally destroy them.
As a life long Star Wars fan, it was regrettable when I went to see The Force Awakens two years ago, and coming out feeling very disappointed. After a couple more views, I have been able to enjoy the film, but still find several issues with it, that haven't made it the Star Wars film for me. I have to admit though that the ending, with reveal of Rey's power and that final appearance of Mark Hamil did have me anticipating in glee for the next chapter of the series. With a darker appearance than the previous film, and a different director: Rian Johnson, I have been very excited about the promise of The Last Jedi.
As the caption "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" emerged I had a sudden shiver of joy (as did it last time). Unfortunately soon after, I found myself thinking its was going in the same direction of the Force Awakens, with the same issues occurring.
We start with a rather choppy beginning in the establishment of our characters, that created a great disturbance in the balance of things. This was only pre-mature but stood out to ne. Again we have frequent moments of on the nose dialogue, that may sound good on paper, but through certain delivery is not. There is also have middle subplot with Finn (Jon Boyega) and new rebel character Rosa ( that doesn't really land on its feet and eventually becomes a waste of time just to fit into the 152 minute runtime.
We furthermore have the return of the endless string of laugh out loud jokes and quirks that turn it almost into comedy, charming to some maybe, but not for this fan. Star Wars at its core is film about the struggle of good vs evil which I and I'm sure many fans take seriously, but its very hard to take it serious if the film isn't half the time. Its not just the cute humour with BB-8 but there are times during critical conversation, that it appears a custard pie has to be thrown. I know if you take any Marvel film you could pick out a hundred moments of humour, but there's something about the humour in the latest Star Wars films, which just ruins it for me, it pulls me out of this fantasy and draws attention to the artificial construction.
That being said what Star Wars The Last Jedi wonderfully succeeds as a fun, action pack, adventure, character drama, and I am over joyed to say for myself, as a Star Wars film.
A Bold and original take for the Star Wars series, The Last Jedi at last becomes its very own film, in a inventive war drama, taking you places you would never expect to find yourself. From a brilliant dramatic tension between, Rey and Luke, to Ren's desperation to prove himself to Supreme Leader Snoke, and the resistance struggling to work cooperatively against the First Order. This is mostly held together by Mark Hamill's stand out performance as the broken Jedi master, in his heart-rendering eyes and stares, Hamill, perfectly embodies an aging Skywalker, lost of hope for the rest of the galaxy. This is the key heart that drives the soul of the film. Furthermore Driver brings a much stronger an more powerful performance in Kylo Ren, especially when opposite his counterpart Rey, with Daisy Ridley also bringing a more thriving performance.
Of course opposite Johnson's brialliant storytelling, is a range of fantastic action, including some sensational space dog fights, planet battles and as always exhilarating lighsaber battles. The Last Jedi, almost never rests in its continuous array of action making it one of the most action packed Star Wars films yet.
What I wanted for The Force Awakens is exactly what I got in the Last Jedi with its own story, still with certain shouts to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but still a new chapter to remember. As also similar to last year's spin off film Rogue One, The Last Jedi, properly begins and ends with a monumental final third act This is where the new Star Wars era finally become Star Wars for me. The film represents the change and innovation which the filmmakers are presumably planning to bring into a new Star Wars generation.
Star Wars The Last Jedi has now thankfully awakened the force in me, as to appreciate this new Star Wars era. It does still suffer from a several flaws within narrative structure, and my personal quarrels, but managed to bring out the real Star Wars fan in me. An incredible and enjoyable watch, The force is very strong with this one.
173 out of 306 found this helpful.
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Too bad there were probably some really talented people that worked on this. They deserve mad credit....
But this movie was very painful to watch at times. I got major Ep1-3 flashbacks throughout. 3 hours and hardly any progress in story or character developement. Very very disney childish. This movie will not hold up with time.
No interest to see Episode 9.
20 out of 29 found this helpful.
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First of all, I applaud Disney for taking risks for once, but not with a saga episode and not taking it to this extreme. What happened to Kathleen Kennedy's promise to George Lucas? If this movie feels like it captures the soul of Star Wars, then you've slept through most of the original trilogy. I get what Rian Johnson was trying to do here, but not to the expense of previously well known and established characters like Luke and Leia. Underwhelming, disappointing and useless sequel to The Force Awakens. There, a new storyline was built and by the end of this movie we're in the same situation, minus some characters. The plot didn't advance; it's like the director made his solo take in the Star Wars universe in the middle of a trilogy. Daisy Ridley acts better here, compared to TFA, Carrie Fisher gives her second best performance in this universe, after The Empire Strikes Back, and Hamill brings his A game for this one. But in a story that doesn't understand its lore and previously established movies, nothing matters in the end. SW became SJW, with little care to a rich history and apparently only interested to please Di$$-ney and Kathleen's needs for diversity. This is not a Star Wars movie, doesn't have the heart (but it has more forced humor, thanks Disney) and doesn't capture what made this franchise a Force to be reckoned with. Truly ashamed as a fan.
42 out of 67 found this helpful.
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1/10
Member for 13 years and this is the first time I have to review.
Where to start?
I've no idea, literally none. When your film is massively inferior to The Phantom Menace you know you have a bad film on your hands. The first thing I'd like to point out is the worst case of man-hating on a film I have ever seen. Literally EVERY single woman in the film is a superhero (Super Leia is the best example) Even the one female baddie is depicted as someone you should pity, but without exception every man is either stupid/cowardly/sinister/insane or pointless - even to the point when a man tries to do one heroic thing he gets stopped from doing by a woman for, reasons. Plot holes galore (How does someone who has no substance in one scene embrace someone in another?) The ripped off new hope in the last one, and this one tries to do a greatest hits of empire and jedi but manages to make it completely uninteresting. Disney please stop this, just make a normal film for a change, we the public are sick of agenda movies.
38 out of 60 found this helpful.
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I can't imagine any hero being treated as badly as Luke Skywalker has been treated by Disney. Disney and Lucasfilm seem anxious to wipe out all existence of the Skywalkers and all past history of the Jedi.
Overall the film jumps from action set piece to action set piece without much logic. And why are the villains a threat? Ren and Hux are bumbling idiots that are easily outwitted.
Leia's first use of physical force powers is a head-scratched with bad VFX. It also poses the question - if Leia uses her Force abilities to save herself, then why doesn't she use them to save the Resistance fighters or their ships?
There's no answers for plot holes or other questions posed by TFA and viewers are left with unsatisfying answers - Rey's parents are drunks, Snoke is easily killable and irrelevant and the long awaited moment between Luke and Rey is played for laughs.
After so much hype leading up to the new trilogy, perhaps expectations are too high but this is such a disappointing, sad end to a character so many people idolized as a child. Luke was suppose to be the new hope, but apparently he was just a failure.
27 out of 41 found this helpful.
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There's so many things wrong with this movie, i don't even know where to start. The storyline is a mess.... They act like the entire episode 7 didn't exist. Horrible character development, I cared not one bit about anyone really in the entire movie. I'm so sorry i'm about to say this (since i'm a star wars fan since birth) but Star Wars is officially over for me and I am sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
27 out of 41 found this helpful.
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3/10
The SW universe is dead. At least, for those who care.
It is now written in stone. Star Wars is over. A vastly red herring movie cements the fact that the old Star Wars is over. Along with it over is the need for a structure, for a theme, for a point for the heroes to exist.
No one cares about giving back stories to the characters, or even names. They just exist. Star wars was about a vast universe with lore, background and character development.
All this is gone. No one cares why someone is a bad guy, or a good one. And you will never discover anything. Just throw in more pokemon-like creatures and silly jokes.
We once mocked George Lucas for lines and bad writing like "I'll try spinning" or "I hate sand".
After this movie, we all miss George Lucas. Yes. It is that bad. And utterly pointless.
Let's call it quits and keep Rogue One as the only new SW movie in an otherwise pretty much bulletproof 6-logy. I know it had flaws, but this movie lacked even the basic plot. Even that...
27 out of 41 found this helpful.
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1/10
spits in the face of every fan repeatedly and demands they pay for the privilege
Words actually fail me at everything they've done to the old characters.
i could say its appalling ,its disrespectful, its awful,that the film makers don't get star wars at all.
but none of these words comes close to actually seeing this film and viewing this affront for your self.The new actors are bland and terrible just like the last one.Its an achievement that the film, manages to be worse in an entirely different way than the pastiche /rip off feel of the last movie .Beloved characters are changed beyond all recognition and reason,poorly used then disposed of.
Mary sue herself has almost no training from the jedi master but of course doesn't need it because she's a strong independent woman ,like beyonce, right?
Finn otherwise known as captain bland goes off on his own to do stuff we dont care about because otherwise he wouldn't have anything to do in the film .
Poe Dameron of course get short changed again.
I
am
done
with
star wars
12 out of 16 found this helpful.
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1/10
Not just the characters and plot, the Star Wars astrophysics were destroyed
Listen, ignoring the "man-hate" destruction of all the male characters, the physics are irrevocably destroyed. 1. Space cruisers (and most ships) do not require a stop at the nearby gas station. They have reactors. (ahem, they don't run out of fuel like they were depicted in this Sith propaganda film). 2. If it was so easy to destroy HUGE vehicles by jumping through them with light speed, why even build anything large like... say a death star? 3. If the First order ships were so slow, why not just light speed jump ahead of them and blow them away? (As an aside, see below *) 4. Has stealth technology become ubiquitous in the star wars universe? 5. Transports have always had light speed. Just send them in 7 different directions. 6. Leia. In space. Without a space suit. And she survives the blast AND zero atmosphere? Morons. The lot of them. 7. Finally, where did the entire resistance fleet go? (* obviously they focused on speed of their ships over the number).
12 out of 16 found this helpful.
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Firstly Luke...
What an annoying whiney old wind bag, completely useless, void of any appeal, the great Luke Skywalker hero to many children was basically an empty vessel with nothing to add, no wisdom to impart, just empty filler to link the story, it was made very clear luke was not important and felt very much like they were sweeping the character under the carpet.
Then there was *cough* supreme leader Snoke.
Well...he vanished like a fart in a hurricane.
After an entire movie building him up to be Emperor Palpatine, he was in fact as expendable as a stormtrooper...what a waste.
Now for the point in the movie I hated the most.
I believe the place Finn and Rose go is called Canto Bight, it's a planet with a huge casino that the rich frequent.
This entire side story massively distracts from the main plot and serves as nothing more than a low brow attempt to point out the greed involved in war and introduce us to some terrible CGI effects.
This was the point in the movie I knew it couldn't be saved.
On the subject of Finn and Rose, they were involved once again, in not one, but two scenes, that I might have forgiven (maybe) if the movie was better.
Firstly both Finn and Rose were in handcuffs, with hundreds of stormtroopers surrounding them, the ship is then hit at light speed and everyone on the deck is killed, apart from Finn and Rose of course...yippee
Then in another scene Finn decides he needs to sacrifice himself to stop the ramming cannon (not sure that's the correct name) by driving into it, Rose on the other hand decides she needs to stop him killing himself by potentially killing the both of them and proceeds to smash into him at 200mph, while 30 feet in the air (too dumb for me to accept) oh and by the way she just met him for the first time a day earlier.
Both characters were badly written and their scenes added nothing to the movie.
Lets move on to the fact that Rey at no point in either movie has any training, yet is as powerful as Kylo Ren...lazy lazy writing.
Laura Dern was pointless, and the movie dragged whenever she was in it.
There was a quasi-political feel to this movie emphasised by its casting choices, which I just about forgave in the force awakens but not in this ham fisted mess.
NEWS JUST IN...Princess Leia can purposefully move her limbs, and use the force, all while completely unconscious and floating in the vacuum of space.
Unfortunately she thought it served the rebellion best to keep this to herself and stand around looking concerned, while telling others to go off to battle... bummer.
Now... unfortunately whenever I watch the original trilogy, I know that Luke becomes a hermit, cowering on an island, who hides a piece of a secret map in R2D2 for people to piece together, and then after the loss of many lives in trying to protect these map pieces, he tells them to get lost after they eventually find him... troll much
...he also drinks milk straight from the teats of an alien cow/elephant.
31 out of 48 found this helpful.
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1/10
Wasted oportunity!(1st part spoiler free, 2nd part with spoilers)
***SPOILER FREE PART HERE***
Where do I begin? I went to the theater having read all the spoiler free reviews this movie got starting from it's release date. So my expectations were at prequel-levels of low if you know what I mean. I knew there was going to be some controversy in the movie but I was like:"Hey... if they have a backstory or motivation strong enough for me to believe, I'll maybe like it." But oh boy I was in for a nightmare. The film started with illogical space scenes, then went to stupid story lines that took the characters from point A to point B to get something from point B only so that in the end all the effort didn't matter. There was little to no background for Luke's way of acting in this movie, I mean he had no strong motivation, which was a problem that I saw the movie had from the beginning to the end which crippled it. Characters were changing motivations like weather and talking drastic decisions just for the sake of taking them without any ramifications or logic towards the future of the franchise. And let me expand this: The movie felt like it was made by 2 types of directors: one that build great climaxes towards huge twists and another one(like 5 years old or something) that would write idiotic conclusion the the twist that let me like: "what?" "how is that possible?" and no explanation further. Basically it felt as if Ryan Johnson build those moments for huge twists and Disney we're like: "We'll take it from here!" I'm not really sure that's how it was or if Ryan planned this whole thing himself but it went awfully wrong and felt like a "Batman and Robin" disaster. To conclude this: all those awesome game-changing moments from the trailer are just lies meant to drag the audience towards something but actually scr*wing them up after.
***SPOILER PART COMING BELLOW!***
Ok, so word limit... gotta be quick. From the start the movie goes illogical with that First Order fighter that after is being shot by an X-wing SOMEHOW goes through 6 bomb carriers and destroys them all like they were air, like they wouldn't at least slow him down one at a time, why? I'll tell you, to dramatize the poor situation the resistance was in... and make you enthusiastic for the Resistance that later on when BOMBS FELL FROM BOMB CARRIER IN SPACE(=VOID) TO THAT FIRST ORDER BIG-DESTROYER, ends in a prequelish style the conflict. The movie then shifts to the Rey-Luke story which I found to be the most interesting in the whole movie. She goes to him, hands him the lightsaber and Luke after seeing it, you would think he would wonder how it got to Rey and now to him right? No, comic-relief incoming... throws it over his back. This scene didn't said much at the beginning for me but after seeing the movie I realized that it summarized the whole movie perfectly: A movie that build up greatly towards a game-changing revelation or twist and then slapped you in the face by resolving that twist or revelation so cheap and so immature that I was wondering how in the world could a mature man come up with a story like this. It looked like it was written by a 5-year old at best. Then after some verbal exchanges between them Luke starts to teach Rey 3 lessons in the Force. In one of them she puts Rey to feel the force and she goes instead to the only dark forced place in the island and Luke is like "you went so easily there". At that point I was like "ok, that would be interesting to maybe turn Rey to the Dark Side and bring back Kylo from it." That would have been a fantastic story arc. What did the movie do instead? Never mentioned it again. Actually when she is faced with Snoke she is so determined to not be turned to the dark side that just contradicted everything they build on her character in the movie up until then. Let's talk about Kylo: This movie at the beginning builds his character towards accepting more of the Light Side of the force by deciding to not kill his mother(although at how his character eventually becomes it would have been a great build up in Dark Side inside him with that move) and KILLING FREAKING SNOKE. At that point I was like "ok, again another promising build-up towards him turning to the light-side.". However the movie after that instantly turns him super-evil just for the sake of having a villain in the movie. Forgot to mention, at on point the movie starts to develop a certain relationship between Rey and Kylo using force-connections in which they talk to another. I tought that could have been an interesting plot change, to make them join forces or maybe become attracted to one another and maybe defeat Snoke together. No, they depart ways because Kylo suddenly wants to kill everyone that tied him to the past and "bring order to the galaxy"(Vader style). So from all the possibilities the movie could have gone with this, they chose the most typical and foolish. Ok, going back to Luke, his motivations are incredibly changing throughout the movie and have no background for why they are as they are. So, he trained young Jedi(Ben Solo among them) to discover that Ben had a darkness growing in him because of Snoke? I mean how? The movie doesn't show that and it's as vague about it as was TFA. Suddenly Luke wants to kill Ben. Didn't he think like "it's my sister's son. Shouldn't I talk to her before murdering her child?". No, but just decided that because the screenwriter wanted it, otherwise there would not be any explanation. And when you can't explain a character's motivation in a movie without saying that it was the screenwriter's will, then you know he(screenwriter) failed. Here is a piece of dialogue that I thought for Luke to explain his motivations and it would make for a better story for him than the one we got in the movie: "I tried training new Jedi, but when I saw the darkness growing in Ben I had to do something. If Obi-Wan who trained my father failed at keeping him to the light side, what change could I had with keeping Ben to the light? If Obi-Wan failed, I was going to fail as well, or at least that's what I was convinced at that point. So I had to do something in order to keep the galaxy safe from the rising of another future Sith Lord". That would have given a little sense to his actions and maybe make him realize that what he tried at that point was wrong. Going back to Leia's supposedly death scene. The control room from the front of the resistance ship where she was standing was destroyed by First Order fighters. We literally see her die and float in space just a while so that out of nowhere in this entire saga, where she didn't care about the force, she comes back to life and goes inside the ship near a door and enters the ship to later be put into a coma and come back to health by the end of the movie. I was wondering did the producers knew the actress died right? They also made Kylo's character the new supreme leader and impossible to turn(not even by Leia) to the light-side again, so why there was a reason to keep her alive and not kill her and give her the sent off she deserved? Finn and Rose's story line was interesting but ultimately wasted oportunity. They go to find a master cracker that would get them on Snoke's ship and deactivate the tracker with which the First Order followed the Resistance's cruiser in hyperspace, although the movie never explains how they were tracking the Resistance. They find a cracker other than the one who they were searching for and this one waited for them in a prison. At first I was like "how convenient that he unlocked the prison door and had the key just when Rose and Finn came" but later it's revealed that he was actually a "Lando 2.0" and that leads to a stupid and short fight or round 2 of Finn vs Phasma. In the end the Resistance finds shelter on a planet and take cover behind a huge door. The First Order comes there and besieges that stronghold. Somehow convinced by ghost of Yoda, Luke comes back but just like a ghost to face Kylo, although him for real would have been a better and more unpredictable scene. After Luke's ghost is discovered he dies on the island and becomes one with the Force because why? Did he actually fought Kylo or was in danger of dying like Obi-Wan was in episode IV? After that somehow Rey comes with the Falcon and helps Finn, Poe and the Resistance to escape from that stronghold by lifting some HUGE AND IMMENSE rocks that she clearly didn't have the training to do so since all she did was argue with Luke and take 3 lessons with him(Luke trained with Obi Wan then with Yoda and was still not prepared enough to face Vader). The final nail in the coffin for this movie was Finn's scene at the end where he goes for that cannon. I was happy to let him die because he was a character that has been build over the course of two movies and a sacrifice like that would have been a fitting end for his story-arc and an ACTUAL SHOCKING TWISTING MOMENT IN THE MOVIE! No! Rose had to save him in the last moment cliché.
Aside from that the visuals were top-notch, but what are visuals good at if you don't have a logical story and clever twists? The score: oh boy... such a disappointment. I downloaded it on thursday and listen to it. At first I was: blah... generic iconic music. I said let's try and listen it again, maybe I missed something musical or iconic or thematic... no, it didn't get any better. And that's the problem with John Williams lately: no inspiration whatsoever. He used to write iconic scores that had multiple themes and motifs in them. Now he is composing just generic iconic music like Danny Elfman. Aside from that the acting is pretty good but ultimately wasted with a awful story.
I didn't think that there could be a worse movie than TFA. I was wrong and this movie makes TFA look like a masterpiece. That's how bad this joke for a movie is. Officially it has become the worst movie I've ever seen in my life and by far the worst movie from the Star Wars Saga. 1/10
24 out of 36 found this helpful.
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The Last Jedi. With a title like that, it's no surprise that Star Wars Episode VIII was one of the most anticipated movies of the year. The implications and perceived darkness of the title and trailers gave mega-fans like me more hype than we could handle, especially coming off the nostalgic and satisfying Force Awakens, which was a grand-slam commercially, critically, and most importantly: with the fans. I bought my tickets at first release, wore my favorite Star Wars shirt, and arrived at the theater expecting great things and to be blown away again.. but I can't believe I'm saying this: I left The Last Jedi disappointed & feeling like I got insulted by an old friend.
The movie has good visuals and a lot of action. There, those are the only pros I could think of. Now, the flaws. First and foremost: Disney-fication. I have noticed and been calling this out since the summer and how much Marvel films have changed since their Disney deal in movies like Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok, where it feels like Disney is trying to skew the movies towards weak-minded kid audiences who want silly jokes and fuzzy creatures instead of films that take the artform seriously or have any wit, consequence, or point to make. The SAME problem bleeds over to TLJ, even more brutal as things like Porgs (the new Jar Jar Binks as far as I'm concerned..), burping dwarves, Luke cracking jokes, and alien maids in nun outfits are shoved down our throats, when the film was marketed as being dark & serious like Empire Strikes Back and is essentially a big lie on that front and insult to Star Wars fans who trusted it.
Next, the script is a mess. I found myself thinking at several points in the film 'Wait, this doesn't make sense. No problem, they'll fix it in the end.' But they never did. First, the entire Finn and Rose subplot is completely useless and does absolutely nothing to progress the story in any way. It feels like they just wanted to give Finn something to do & fit in an Asian character to appeal to that marketplace's $$$ (even more insulting). Also, the plot on the ship made NO sense. If Captain Phasma had just explained her thinking to Poe instead of leaving it muddy for dramatic effect, all would've turned out better for the Rebels instead of the disaster it did. Finally, I don't think the filmmakers understand how space works (crazy to ponder as it's called STAR Wars) as Leia had the perfect opportunity to have a meaningful (and well-needed after her tragic passing in real life) exit, but somehow survives being in DEAD SPACE without even a suit and swims to safety like nothing happened when science says she would've died instantly. Wow.
Finally, accuracy to the Star Wars name and vision George Lucas built over 40 years. The film feels almost like a parody and betrayal of the character of Luke and the Jedi. I have to wonder if Rian Johnson even watched the original trilogy because of how different Luke is as a person, COMPLETELY flip-flopped in every way from who he is as the biggest character in the history of Star Wars, and one of the biggest characters in the history of fiction. Like I could maybe accept that isolation can change a person a little, but not this much and his explanation and reasoning made no sense and were so poorly written it pissed me off: Luke sensed a little darkness in my student so Luke is going to kill him and all Jedi he spent an entire Trilogy begging to be part of!!!! Also, why did Yoda come back and say Jedi need to die and go along with his reasoning (which at least would've made for a more intriguing storyline if the movie had stuck with it and ended the Jedi and tried something different), but at the end of the movie, we are in the EXACT same position narratively as when we started: The Rebellion is scrambling to survive as they're being hunted down by the First Order. The only difference is *SPOILER* Luke's exit, but even that lacked the true gravity and emotion that we should 100% expect from the exit of MAIN CHARACTER OF STAR WARS.
In the end, (I still can't believe I'm saying this for one of my most hyped films of the year) I left The Last Jedi disappointed and like I got let down by an old friend. The title, marketing, trailer, and "critics" all lied to me (Rotten Tomatoes is without doubt to me on payroll by Disney to give every one of their major releases a 90%+ (every giggly Marvel movie seems to challenge Dark Knight.., TLJ rated higher than A NEW HOPE & EMPIRE), even when fans are hating it and gave it the lowest audience score in the history of Star Wars (even lower than PHANTOM MENACE!) I do not plan on seeing The Last Jedi ever again & will not watch Ep. IX if Disney has anything to do with it. They ruined Star Wars for me.
24 out of 36 found this helpful.
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I don't know what Disney does to get all the critics write raving reviews about their movies like the last Thor or Guardians of the Galaxy (both very dissappointing), but just like this one, expectation from reviews doesn't compare to reality.
First of all: this movie is boring. There aren't any spectacular lightsaber fights, the movie is about a first order ship chasing a rebel ship, there are no fun locations (just s handful of planets) and what about all the characters being bad comedians?
I did like seeing the madness in Kylo Ren's eyes, Adam Driver is the best thing of the movie. De rest of the cast was mediocre. Finn's new girldriend Rose was the worst of all. They didn't used Luke Skywalker to it's full potential. Instead what happens to him is strange and dumb.
Man I just saw this movie and had to get it of my chest. Don't let the media lure you in a so called "master piece". It's one big dissapointment..
59 out of 98 found this helpful.
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1/10
How so many good reviews? Not possible, did you even see the movie?
My suggestion if you want to enjoy the movie: go to the cinema with low or no expectation and hope for a surprise. The more i think about the move the more things i think were done bad and i have to say something about a lot of stuff i read in other reviews:
there were amazing lightsaber fights / space battles / ground battle scenes
SPOILERs: YOU CANT SAY THAT IF YOU HAVE SEEN ANY OTHER STAR WARS MOVIE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a lightsaber battle for a few minutes where the main characters face 3 ninjas in red. This says a lot...
What glorious space battles? The one where 1 X-WING takes out the "best" ship the Republic has to offer? Or when the Empire chases the Rebelion caravan for the whole movie and this is the main plot? The light-jump scene?
The ground battle where there is a fortified base and the Republic invades with 5 robots?
Have any of you seen previous movies with large battlefields, vast creatures, lightsaber duels? And those who did - how many of the things i just mentioned did you already see in previous Starwars movies? - If you know this for yourself now you know what kind of movie you are going to see...
A few good things:
good acting by almost whole cast
few decent moments
More bad things:
really bad story / plot
for me the "funny" cameos were 90% bad and out of place
greatest waste of Villain and the way he dies...
space scene with Lea - there is no excuse for that, how can this get in a movie?
no backstory to any characters, no explanation of things we were hoping for
why is even Chewbacca here? And the little pets - oh yes, we have to sell toys...
54 out of 89 found this helpful.
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Well this film is a very mixed bag and somewhat a disappointment. After JJ Abrams brought back the magic with a somewhat overly familiar kick off to the new trilogy I had been looking forward to seeing it go in new directions for the next episode. However whilst it did go in some new directions (as well as mirroring previous chapters), I did not like where it went or think it was executed very well.
I am not really a fan of the director and this did nothing to change it. The visuals bar the space battles were not memorable, the design of creatures was often poor and going backwards with an over reliance of cgi is such a shame after how good The Force Awakens looked. The humour in the Force Awakens was much mover over the top than we had ever seen before in Star Wars but it still worked but in The Last Jedi it kicks off with Marvel Cinematic Universe style humour that doesn't fit and continued to sprinkle that in throughout. The magic was missing and the beats just felt all wrong for large sections of the film. I did not care for the script but it was the directorial execution that was more uninspired and I am happy that JJ will be back in the directors chair for the last part.
There were things I did like though... as in most all of the scenes on the Island with Luke Skywalker and Rey. As mentioned before the space battles looked very slick, especially the opening one. A couple of new characters shone like Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and DJ (Benicio Del Toro) but some disappointing characters from The Force Awakens were still quite bad like Snoke (Andy Serkis), Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) and Admiral Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). One thing that was a pleasant surprise was the little furry creatures known as Porgs that have caused much debate were actually pretty good and used sparingly.
In the end it was a very messy unfocused film that did not wow outside of the space battles with a mixed bag of performances and too much silly humour which should not be confused for charm. A huge disappointment but some seeds are set that could easily be steered into a rousing final chapter in two years time.
149 out of 265 found this helpful.
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I have been waiting 2 years for best case a ... Marvel. The cinematography, the visual effects are obviously incredible, it's entertaining but the story itself is going the worst scenario you could have imagined. It's the worst episode of the saga in my opinion. A few funny moments with Luke and Kylo pre-fight with all the lasers on Luke "Force Hologram" but too many BS scenes like Leia coming back to the ship?!? Snoke dying on his throne with the laser saber WTF! without even fighting much. He looks so powerful but dies like an idiot! An uncharismatic supreme vilain with Kylo; the dialogues between Rey and Kylo until they touched their hands... shit; The ghost of Yoda with Luke... Daisy Ridley plays really well Rey; the other characters are all somehow annoying. Well, I'm so disappointed by Episode 8 therefore I am not excited by the upcoming 9. #heartbroken :D
45 out of 73 found this helpful.
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Star wars the last jedi is one of the most sickeningly awful modern day movie cash ins of all time. Disney shamefully and explicitly destroy the Star Wars franchise with this installment, its 9th (including Rogue one) and most certainly MY last.
Where to begin? How about with the global polical correctness? The blatant 'we are gonna sell this to China again so lets get plenty of familiar faces for them to support.
Character development? Zero. Nothing is learned or progressed from TFA which was the very reason to pay for admittance.
The wayward comedy/drama tone which was so blatantly a chop - change suited for adults and children alike.
Really bizarre non story which honestly must have been written during lumch breaks on days of filming.
CG! looked terrible and there was obviously way too much of it. Rogue one looked far better.
The future for star wars is like its present, bleak.
Disney have dropped an absolute clanger here and its destroyed a once loved film series for myself.
Do not support this artless worthless excuse for a Star wars installment.
2/10 (no idea what exactly it gets 2 for i just dont want to look like the idiots who right 1 or 10
72 out of 122 found this helpful.
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Did we really wait two years to find out Rey's parents were a couple of drunks who sold her for drinking money? Lame.
This film ruined Rey, making her some awkward, pointless character looking in on a family dispute she has no stake in. Rey was flat and was just used to give Kylo an arc, because Johnson was in love with him. Finn was giving nothing to do, as well. All the mystery created by Abrams in TFA--gone. All the wonderful new characters introduced in TFA--disrespected.
Yes, there was emotion between Kylo, Luke, and Leia, but Luke is dead and Fisher is sadly gone. No one cares about Rey vs. Kylo, now that Rey is a nothing character.
21 out of 31 found this helpful.
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1/10
For the very first time in my life, I wanted to rage quit during the movie
Disney have literally f****** star wars in the p****y with an oversize butcher's knife. This movie is actual s**t. The characters suck the story sucks and it's just one disappointment after another.
There is no depth or soul. I would honestly have rather watched a JaJa Binks spinoff.
This wasn't star wars, it was a s****y Disney B-grade kids scify wearing a star wars mask.
The writer/director should be shot in the kneecaps then hung in the desert to die.
32 out of 50 found this helpful.
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There were so many failed attempts at jokes. Literally nobody in the movie theatre laughed. Pretty much everyone in this packed IMAX theatre just stayed completely silent. And that should just tell you enough about how much this movie sucked.
It's like they never knew what tone to go for. During most scenes I just felt bored or really confused, because the scenes that were supposed to be dramatic suddenly turned into a cringy joke. Like that scene where Rey hands Luke the lightsaber and he just throws it over his shoulder. It just left me so confused, thinking; Wait, were we supposed to laugh here?
There were just so many weird and confusing moments in this movie, like when Leia survived that huge explosion and then flew like Superman through space, or how the all-powerful Snoke didn't even sense a lightsaber moving right next to him.
I also thought it was so disappointing that Luke is so much out of character in this movie and is just this grumpy old man who never leaves that goddamn island.
And the other characters aren't really well written either and it all just resulted in me not really caring that much about them at all, even though I wanted to.
And the porgs were not even cute, just super annoying.
I do not recommend seeing this movie, as I now feel that Star Wars has died.
R.I.P. Star Wars.
15 out of 21 found this helpful.
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You'll see the plot holes when you go see it. Have fun! Flipping between stories was a mess. Also, did anyone else's movie theater burst out laughing when Kylo Ren showed off his pecs? I was laughing the whole way. At all the parts they didn't mean for me to laugh at.
BLEH.
108 out of 189 found this helpful.
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The movie totally abandons the whole logic and themes or Star Wars.
Spoilers !!!
The bad guys are now completely stupid unlike the genius Sidious , the bloodline is no longer connected Jedi ability and talent.
A lot of twists but all for the worst , just a HUGE disappointment.
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Everyone told me
Not to stroll on that beach
Said Disney gonna come
Poke me in the coconut
And he did
And he did
First of all, I didn't like The Force Awakens. It felt extremely forced and most of the time it was just a lame rip-off of the old episodes. So, I totally didn't plan to support The Last Jedi by paying for it. And then that awesome trailer happened... It was so... charming and mysterious that I thought "Whatever!". And went to premiere. Man, I was a fool...
The best thing about The Last Jedi is that, unlike previous episode, it doesn't really feel like exactly the same thing. There's no another Death Star (well, no proper one that is), there's no more "father / kid" stuff, etc. Thanks to that it feels somewhat fresh. Like it's a movie on its own, not just copy / pasted content from the old movies. It is something new to see. Something you didn't see before. I really liked that about the movie. Of course, some things are still feels old. For example. they literally turned Phasma into a new Boba Fett and it's hard not to notice that. But all in all, this movie does provide new content. And it's a good thing. Most of the things that were supposed to be pretty obvious and straightforward ended up in a totally unexpected way. Since the previous episode was extremely predictable, it was nice to see something different. The movie also comes with some nice new design and creations (porgs, for example, were really nice addition) and I loved that they still kept puppets as a part of the thing. All that is pretty good. Also, the final battle here is arguably the most beautiful one in the entire franchise. All that red and white colors... It looks incredible in 3D. The movie probably worth watching once just because of that beautiful final battle. People who designed it did fantastic job.
Unfortunately, everything else about the movie is just bad. Especially the script. It's just a mess. It doesn't even feel like a proper movie. More like a bunch of some random scenes. But what really killed the movie is two things.
1.Jokes. Yes, Star Wars always used to include some, but this... It doesn't even feel like Star Wars anymore. Believe it, or not, it's more like a MARVEL movie now. Remember Thor: Ragnarok? That's how it is here. Cheap jokes even ruined Luke. I'm not kidding. Legendary Luke Skywalker in this movie looks more like an old internet troll. Since the early scenes the movie tries to be fun and fails. I thought Thor: Ragnarok killed the Thor series just because of such lame humor, but here it's like a complete catastrophe for the entire franchise.
2.Snoke. In the previous movie he was teased like a dark and mysterious being. For two years people tried to guess who he is. The first Sith, or some sort of vampire who lives by consuming the Force. But guess what? He's nobody. Just some random guy. Not only he fails to be a proper villain. In this movie he looks like the most pathetic creature in the entire universe. He looks exactly like some random pimp from the gangster movie. You know, one of those "all talks" characters. Who dies right after everybody begins to think he's too annoying.
Snoke marks the point where everything goes down the drain for real. Just because thanks to him the whole trilogy falls apart like a house of cards. If he's such a loser, why in the world everybody's so afraid of him? How the First Order is even possible with such a "supreme" leader? Hows the whole war possible? I mean, in this movie we can see that it's not that hard to get on Snoke's ship. He isn't hiding, or something. And with Luke so strong and Snoke so stupid... why in the world Luke didn't even try to stop this war at the very beginning? To save a lot of lives. Just because he feels down? That's just stupid. I mean, yeah, Star Wars movies aren't supposed to be deep and realistic, but this is just... stupid.
Think about it. Kylo Ren is just a kid. A kid who didn't show any real power. He was beaten by a girl who took the lightsaber for the first time, he was almost killed by a Praetorian Guard, he was heavily humiliated by Luke, he didn't do anything real for two movies besides whining... But he easily kills Snoke, who's supposed to be big and important. With just a stupid pimp and a single wannabe Sith... How in the world the First Order can even be a thing?! It's just... *sigh* Snoke's death is literally the most stupid scene in the entire franchise. Probably the most stupid thing I've ever seen in any AAA movie. It's THAT bad.
Another thing I hated is that the movie doesn't even try to think about the old movies. In The Phantom Menace Jedi Council refused to teach Anakin Skywalker because he was "too old" and therefore too unstable. And even though he got there eventually, he was heavily monitored all the time. In the original trilogy, Luke was trained as "A New Hope". He was way too old, but he was trailed by Grand Master Yoda himself. In this movie we have Rey. Who didn't even know about the Force and just used the lightsaber for the first time. And everybody's OK with her being the successor of the entire Jedi Order without any training whatsoever. It's like nobody even cares anymore. The Force is strong with you? Go and do some stuff then. That's how this movie works. It's just mind-blowing how stupid it is.
And that's basically it. It looks pretty good, it's nicely designed, there are good old actors we all love... But it's so dull and stupid that it's literally impossible to enjoy it. Any fan theory about this movie on Youtube is about 9999x times more interesting and complicated than this bunch of nonsense. If it's true and Rian Johnson will also write the first episode for the new trilogy, then Force save us all... No idea why Disney just can't hire a proper writer for such an expensive franchise, but I honestly do want them to stop with such lame approach. Even though I love Disney since I was a little kid and think that there's a loot of good things about them, Star Wars is franchise that was killed exactly because of them. Stop, Disney. Just stop. Please.
42 out of 68 found this helpful.
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Just watched it and I am very disappointed. It feels like it got almost everything wrong. Everytime you expect something awesome to happen, you are disappointed. I mean, for christ sakes, there were 0 lightsaber duels. Even at the end it builds up to an epic duel and then lets you down.
If you, like me, have been excited for months, this is very disappointed. All the questions, theories and expectations are dealt with in very unsatisfying ways.
Visually stunning, but that is really the only positive point I can think of.
58 out of 97 found this helpful.
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I first need to state that as a Star Wars Fan I'm thrilled to witness all those new sequels,
for instance I didn't praise The Force Awakens however I thought back then that rebooting such an old franchise is a hard task, I really enjoyed Rogue One which I'm thinking is maybe one of the best Star Wars movie ever even compared to the first trilogy.
So I've been watching this morning and my words can't describe how much of a letdown I think this movie is.
The movie is riddled with pranks, bad humour, making fun of the Star Wars universe in a bad way, I usually like humour but here it's not subtle enough.
There are lots of realism issues, for instance people surviving in space with no gear, a single stupidly modded X-Wing taking down a Capital ship, I know Star Wars is a fantasy but this is too much.
I feel like the new characters are out of place, I don't get them, moreover, they evolve too quickly, adding to the realism issue.
Some creatures, items unveiled into this movie don't add any value to it, they're here just to sell more merchandising items
The villains on the dark side are ridiculous, a boy and a creature that could play in one of Disney movies, they really don't compare to Vador nor Palpatine
Parts of the Story don't make any sense, how come Snoke fleet couldn't keep up with resistance fleet rusty ships?? they chased them for like 8 hours, seriously??
Moreover it's still recycled from previous Star Wars Movies.
Ship design is not on par with the previous movies.
64 out of 108 found this helpful.
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Ninth installation of this space-opera serie was a devastating letdown. The movie does not "drag a little in the middle" as many critics claimed, it just drags; in the beginning, in the middle and in the end.
Plot of this movie is splintered into way too many little paths each hosting its own stars. This movie is just filled with characters that are by no means important or relevant to the story, they just are there.
I don't think Star Wars should be dead serious. But in all honesty, the amount of jokes in this movie just killed all the atmosphere what remained of the Galaxy far far away.
It seems that easter eggs, puns and lazy action were more important than plot or continuity.
Force Awakens was fine, a bit different, but this was just... too much.
84 out of 145 found this helpful.
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The PLOT OH MY GOD THE PLOT!
Leia and her Mary Poppins/Superman scene WTF
The Comedy fell flat at every opportunity.
The Bombers dropping bombs in space with zero gravity.
The PLOT
Snoke's death
Snoke's lack of story
The PLOT
Where is the knights of Ren?
Everything with Luke in it.
Luke milking a sea lion thing then grinning at Rey like some creepy freak WTF
Luke throwing the saber over his shoulder.
The PLOT
Luke going to kill Ben Solo because he sensed dark side in him??
Luke being the dude who wanted to save Darth freakin Vader but fook it kill his nephew!
No wonder Mark Hamill was pissed.
Rey is the jesus christ of the jedi world.
She has instant super doper powers with zero training.
Rey's parents are nobodies even though in TFA it was made out they were someone important.
The PLOT
The awful side story of Rose and Finn that was worthless.
They end up in a jail cell conveniently with a hacker who's waiting to break out WTF
Rose falls in love with Finn in a few hours??
Snoke's throne room has nothing in it apart from a giant magnifying glass WTF
The mutha fookin PLOT!
And last but not least the ending Luke's death OMG that was horrible writing.
It all could have been forgiven if at the very end Luke came out with his green saber and kicked all the Walkers ass's but nooooooo he wasn't really there GTFO here Rian you dick!
10 out of 13 found this helpful.
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I'm 49 years old. STAR WARS was the first movie that I ever saw as a child. My mom and dad took my brother and I to the drive-in to see it. That year for Christmas I got a STAR WARS bed spread for my room. I've been a true fan for literally as long as I can remember.
My wife and I took our 17 year old son to the movie last night -opening night. Afterward, walking to the truck, the question was asked, "What did I you think of the movie?" Our son says, "That was one of the greatest movies ever!" He goes on about the fighting and everything. He thought it was too long and a little boring at first but really loved it overall. I tried to be nice and said it was my least favorite STAR WARS movie ever. Then my wife and I start tearing apart every aspect of the movie and saying how much we hated so much about it. The audience said it all really: Not a sound for the whole film. No laughing at the stupid humor, No Ooohs or aaahs. No cheering. Really? No cheering from a late opening night theatre full of adults dressed up like STAR WARS characters? There was nothing to cheer about.
I feel really bad. This is no longer my movie franchise. Maybe it will my kid's franchise? Maybe my parents hated A New Hope but just took me and my brother solely for us as kids? Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut last night. Our son kept saying that we were being such a bummer by talking about how bad it was and what a terrible director and what a terrible story blah blah.
What should I do? Pretend I liked it and take my niece and nephew at Christmas and go with my brother as planned and get popcorn and say how great it was and have a great time with my daughters too as we have planned? Should I do what the professional movie reviewers have done and rave about it even though I know it's a terrible movie on its own and a terrible betrayal of the franchise?
At least my wife and I can be honest with each other. I feel so bad sometimes for this generation growing up now. They don't know how good we had it growing up, and now they have lost the old STAR WARS universe that we had hoped was revived for them to enjoy. Or maybe I'm just old and they will love the new universe being created? Maybe it's time for me to just talk about the good old days and wear my old shirts and get cranky.
My new shirt: STAR WARS: (until Rian Johnson)
10 out of 13 found this helpful.
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Usually I am rather passive when it comes to browsing through the pages of IMDB, but this film made me feel obliged to create an account and leave a review on this film.
As a casual Star Wars fan, not one of those crazy superfans that his franchise has, some of which I had the pleasure of sharing the theatre with i assumed as their howls rang out over the opening credits, but nonetheless, i went in with mild excitement but also i was aware that director Rian Johnson was once one of those crazy superfans that felt it necessary to howl over the titles so all in all i was hoping for success but expecting disappointment. and as i walked out, disappointment was an understatement.
I believe that because of Rians love for the franchise, he felt so much pressure to get it right and do the trilogy the service it deserves, that that ultimately he crumbled under the pressure, but he was not the sole reason for the disappointment.
The ensemble put together was a mixed bag of over rated and under appreciated actors which performed accordingly.
John Boyega has evidently lost his appeal ever since being exposed to the world of police brutality from his role in Detroit and is clearly prioritizing being Idris Elba's son in Pacific Rim 2. Daisy Ridley's acting skill and ability to show true emotion was the actual thing to be murdered on the Orient Express. Adam Drivers time as a Portuguese priest in Silence didn't give him enough of a chance to control his inconsistency in living up to his potential and Domhnall Gleeson was as usual under apprecitaed in his role as General Hux, I now hope he doesn't have those god awful side burns in either Goodbye Christopher Robin or Peter Rabbit.
All in all, Star Wars - The Last Jedi was a film that was a mixture of embarrassing script writing and unnecessary nonsense put in there exclusively for the Rian Johnson's of the world, combined with little moments of happiness and enjoyment.
And a note if you're reading this before you watch Star Wars The Last Jedi, don't be the one to ruin the silence, but if you're reading this after watching Star Wars The Last Jedi, then do you regret not breaking the silence with a stupid noise also? I know i do.
10 out of 13 found this helpful.
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The movie title is totally misleading. when you say "the last jedi" it makes people think either you start with 1 jedi or end up with 1 jedi. uh... that was not the case. there were 3 jedis to begin with and by the end 2 for sure - but possibly 3. so i don't get the title at all. and since there are still jedis, they'd probably make a start wars 9: more jedis. apart from that, the acting was quite blah... there was a big attempt to inject funny moments, some were somewhat successful but over half were meh - not just for me, the 7 other people i went to watch it with didn't laugh either.
we got free movie premier tickets, that's why we went. i wouldn't pay for that movie, i'd feel really ripped off if i had.
85 out of 147 found this helpful.
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I clearly don't understand the global grade of the movie.
I went to see it expecting a bad movie as I didn't like Star Wars VII at all but they still managed to disappoint me...
The amount of non sense in this movie is countless.
It seems they forgot every star wars movie made by Georges Lucas, and even inside the movie some end parts aren't logical with the rest of the movie...
The good point is some very good visuals.
It's not just a bad star wars movie but also a bad movie.
175 out of 317 found this helpful.
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3/10
never thought it would be possible to ruin Star wars...
I am shocked that lucasart storygroup let this movie turn out this way. No character background, messy plot, slapstick humor, over the top happenings and bad manuscript.
This is coming from a hardcore Star wars, not sure if I even want to see IX anymore.
But, some of the acting was amazing (kylo, rey, luke, leia)
66 out of 112 found this helpful.
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3/10
Guess I'll Have To Watch Rogue One, for the fourth time, to wash the memory of this horrible film from my mind!
3* for Nostalgic Reasons only, tied for the worst Star Wars movie ever!
I haven't written a movie review in years, but as a fan who grew up on Star Wars and loves this franchisee. I felt it's my duty to share the word of how AWFUL this movie is. Disney is destroying our beloved Star Wars, not smart for company who's investing heavily in it. Another stink-bomb like this and I won't want to visit Star Wars Land in 2019!
Without breaking down the movie I'll share this. I'm tired pf PC characters with no depth, plot holes larger than a galaxy, and gratuitous product placement to the point of wanting to gag.
This film simply put is lazy, boring, and devoid of any emotion.... One of the worst ever.
I had big hopes for Star Wars just coming off of last years Rogue One, which I thought was awesome. Thought they'd bring some of that level of character building and storytelling to Last Jedi, but they didn't and it showed. As I said earlier it's time to watch Rogue One again as to wash the memory of this horrible film from my mind.
22 out of 33 found this helpful.
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3/10
The spoilers and trailers great editing... it really fooled me!
From the start I loved the original trilogy, 'New Hope, Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi". only Rogue One which I thought was good cemented the new and old together.
The Last Jedi, how can I say it was absolute rubbish, I was fooled and so were you!
No matter how many millions in the Box Office it took, they were all fooled too by the clever trailers and the adverts to push the movie!
We all had to see it to know the exact truth of the story! you don't know unless you see for yourself.
Some newspapers and critics must be paid by the company to give it good reviews to push the film!
The film does not make sense, it like watching paint dry!
Snokes giant star destroyer is chasing the fleet at what looks like crawl speed
and they have to find or break the location signal on the star destroyer to allow them to escape. why not find the transmitter that allows them to track the rebel ship!
or find a way to block the signal
lots of explosions no substance in the movie!
22 out of 33 found this helpful.
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How bad is this movie? On opening night of STAR WARS multiple groups walked out of the theater. At the end of the movie, instead of applause, the audience booed.
I cannot blame them. Just based on the movie I've watched, not fan websites or theories, this was a terrible movie. There were multiple script plot holes & dead ends, character inconsistencies, and even continuity errors all throughout the movie. Without the story line errors, this movie could have ended within the first 25 minutes. The Last Jedi is the perfect example of franchise over marketing and poor film making. I feel, much like The Room, The Last Jedi will be shown to film classes for years to come of what not to do.
30 out of 47 found this helpful.
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I think that the general consensus of the reviews, is that the moderate fan and mainstream audience is pleased (hence the rating), but the actual Star Wars fan is very uninspired and unsatisfied with the film.
My main problem is that it does not feel like a Star Wars. It is so clear that this had a new writer/directer from the previous 8 films. The style of it is comedy orientated, the porgs are a clear attempt to engage a younger audience and I think resemble minions from Despicable Me. The main plot and sub-plots are very poorly written and for the most part undeveloped. I agree that there are some genuinely decent moments, but overall the film was of a very low quality.
I do have to commend some of it, the comedy although too frequent was actually funny. I liked the Yoda part and I'm glad that they chose his original series appearance. As I've said, the acting in it was of high quality and I did like the Kylo-Rey plot. I thought that they used Chewie/3PO/R2 in the correct amount. The fighting scene where Kylo and Rey work together is fairly awesome and I like what they did with Skywalker at the end.
However, the overall plot felt very unimaginative and actually it was up to the sub-plots to actually achieve anything in the film. Essentially, the whole film is a slow and boring chase at snail's pace from the First Order. Also, if you question the plots they all just seem stupid and poorly thought out. Ask yourself:
Why would the First Order not just speed up with their plentiful fuel reserve to catch up with the slowing Resistance ship?
If Hux is the crazy merciless leader that the writer's make him out to be (maybe a Tarkin 2.0) then why would he not do that ^?
If the plan is to ship people off to Crait, why did VA Holdo not just tell Poe that this was the plan? This surely would mean that Finn's whole story in this could be cut which also was a shit sub-plot as well.
Just what was the whole master-lock thief guy plot - just shit and undeveloped?
Why is Rose Tico ; a random engineer (pipe cleaner) suddenly part of the Resistance fighting squadron on Clait?
Why not make Leia be the one to sacrifice herself which would fit in with Fisher's unfortunate death which would be a testament to Fisher herself and Leia as a character? Instead they use an annoying and random character (Holdo) to do it, taking away the value of her sacrifice for the audience.
What is the point in Phasma, other than to sell toys and games? She is just undeveloped and has about 5 minutes on the film and is killed so easily.
These are just basic plot flaws which represent how bad this film is
A closer look at some of the other plots, crucial to the trilogy also were not well written.
Daisy Ridley did very well and I really like her, but in this episode, the question of her parents was bigged up incredibly and given so much hype when in the end it just turned out that they were no-one. This could be because that adds to Rey's originality, but, if they really are no-one, how is she so in touch with the force? They could have helped themselves by Luke training Rey a lot which would answer how good she is. The fact that Kylo Ren who is very powerful is unable to out-force grab the lightsaber from Rey shows the questionable plot and credibility of the film. It is also just a complete copy of ep 6. In Return of the Jedi, Luke goes to the Death Star as a prisoner in order to try and turn Vader because he thought there was good in him. In the Last Jedi, Rey goes to Snoke's ship as a prisoner in order to try and turn Kylo because she thought there was good in him. Similar?
I really do not like what they did with Snoke. The problem with having separate writers for sequential films is that they have fundamentally different ideas about how characters should be portrayed ; Snoke in Ep 7 and Ep 8 are two very differently presented characters so it feels like they are contradicting themselves. He is this weird guy in a golden dressing gown who is clearly very strong with force and says that he knows Ren's thoughts and yet is killed by him so easily. So much conjecture was thrown around in the run up to the film about who Snoke is and his story and this film is frankly lazy in its writing and gives no light about him at all because they couldn't come up with anything good enough so instead they just shed no light on it. The Force Awakes did well in making him a mysterious character that we do not know much about and people really bought into that. But this film undid all of that and instead killed him half way through the film and therefore trilogy. In effect, his role is just to interest people in the Force Awakens and in this to bring Kylo and Rey together. On the other hand, it is a good fight scene with Rey and Kylo and if nothing else it was a shock when Snoke was killed. Snoke just seems lazily undeveloped and his death leaves so many questions unanswered.
To make up for the low quality plot, they bombed it with cheap comedy that is aimed at 4 year olds. From the start, with Poe saying he'll 'hold for Hux' it was funny, but that just does not have a place in Star Wars and that set the tone for the rest of the movie. The serious moments are undermined with unoriginal and mainstream audience aimed comedy. I'm not saying that Star Wars should be without any comedy, but if you look at Rogue-One, which I thought was superb, they had maybe 6/7 moments of comedy, predominately from K2-SO and that was sufficient. This stuck to the Star Wars feel that comedy comes from the droids as they aren't serious characters and this is how it should be. Instead we find that in the Kylo-Luke bowt, Luke is providing comedy by wiping his shoulder. Again, this was funny, but can you imagine there being cheap jokes during a Vader-Luke fight? I could go on about the comedy as there are many examples but the problem is that it is so frequent that it undermines the underlying theme of struggle against oppression from the dark side of the force. As well as that, there are moments of cringey writing especially on Crait with Rose's dying/not dying speech to Finn. The actual script itself is quite poor with a dull repeating theme of 'the spark that lights the hope'. The word hope was dropped into the majority of lines and felt forced and cringey. VA Holdo's 90s style 'fly boy' theme is terrible and pretty much straight from Top Gun. This lack of quality in the script is the main reason why the Star Wars feel is non-existent in this.
This film left me so unsatisfied and it only takes 2 minutes to see that the actual Star Wars fans are left unhappy with it. I had predicted that the quality of Star Wars films would worsen maybe after this trilogy in 10 years or so but instead that time has come now I think that this is a very disappointing film. I wanted to be amazed by this but I just wasn't. As you may be able to tell, I do not write film reviews often if at all, but I felt compelled to by the lack of quality and to vent my anger at Disney for butchering this and sending Star Wars into the mass-market pleasing, staring CGI. I'm not just stuck in the 70s original style of films but you cannot claim the umbrella and therefore fanbase of Star Wars when you just change it like that and provide a film of such low quality. There's no consistency, no development and no imagination in this and for that reason it's a really shite film, with only a few spouts of light to recover it.
30 out of 47 found this helpful.
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I don't know where to even begin with this movie, as another reviewer has said, it gleefully thumbs it's nose and mocks, via feminist and SJW claptrap, much of what made Star Wars great. Mark Hamill has said that he fundamentally disagreed with almost every decision Rian Johnson made for Luke's character and I've got to say that he's been quite restrained in saying that because what's been done to the character of Luke Skywalker in this movie is nothing short of cultural vandalism.
With this movie Rian Johnson makes JJ Abrams look like Spielberg, it absolutely boggles the mind that Disney have given him a whole trilogy. You've got to wonder just what planet these Hollywood types occupy. This most millennial of movies - preachy, shallow, self satisfied, lazy, boring and nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is - with a whole act that's completely pointless, is chock full of terribly out of place, cartoonish humour and laughably bad dialogue - Luke chose the island because it was "the most unfindable" - I kid you not, he actually says that. He needn't have worried, I highly doubt this insulting hack job will be much sought after in the years to come.
165 out of 299 found this helpful.
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Just watch this movie last night and this is the worst Star Wars movie I have watched so far. I give 1 star, considering the high class of the producer and the franchise name itself. In the name of Star Wars, I'd like to give it -10 if I could.
Boring movie. The plot is moving around to no where. It seems like Star Wars just lose its soul. No strong character like before. It seems to me Star Wars mix up politics, religion, palestine, ackbar, whatever. The result is so terrible that made me fall to sleep and decide to back home before the movie end. You can't make everyone happy.
98 out of 172 found this helpful.
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Rian Johnson, you seriously fucked up Star Wars story-line and million fans of it. Wasted screen time on the new characters that meant nothing and not important. The movie should focus on those important characters such as Rey, Finn, Snoke, Luke and Kylo
For Star Wars fan sake, Dont you ever continue further with a new trilogy. Rogue One is even better than Last Jedi.
35 out of 56 found this helpful.
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Rogue One had the grittiness, darker tones, and suitable humor you would expect in Star Wars. TFA was well paced and did the job to set the stage for new characters and a new trilogy. The OT lore that has survived for decades is all of a sudden a bunch of jokes.
35 out of 56 found this helpful.
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My family just got back from seeing Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Some great ideas, but it's injected with Marvel-style humor, Disney-style merchandise masquerading as characters, and ultimately trashed by the worst kind of lazy writing. Not sure what the critics thought "we" needed, but this was not it. I've read many better comics and novels with most of the same characters, and now they've been rendered into "myths and legends" by a wave of the Disney hand, and replaced by this garbage.
40 out of 65 found this helpful.
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1/10
Imagine if the prequels were never made and Disney somehow made a prequel
I had high hopes for this one. TFA I enjoyed and Rogue One wasn't bad either, so this one should have been fantastic. Instead, we got a lazy, incompetent mess. Basically, every interesting bit in The Force Awakens, which was otherwise a rehash of Episode 4, was scrapped or messed up. Rey's parents, the Knights of Ren, Kylo's obsession with Vader, Snoke's origin, Phasma basically worthless and it's all either unanswered or resolved in a completely underwhelming fashion.
The plot is 100% filler. The not-Empire has destroyed the Republic (again) before TLJ even starts and nothing really changes afterward. No to mentions that the plot inherently sucks to begin with for this movie. These massive star destroyers can't hold them in a tractor beam? Something done in a New Hope? Seems like an easy tactical solution. Nope.
The characters are just bad. Luke has been completely gutted and turned into a passive, cowardly sociopath. Rey continues to be a Mary Sue, but it's dialed up to eleven this time. The Force ghost of a beloved character (Yoda) shows up to basically tell Luke Rey doesn't need him and he can't teach her anything. I wish I was making this up. It's honestly ridiculous. Coincidentally, Yoda is also turned into a cackling lunatic. Finn and the new character Rose have a pointless romance and a filler plotline. Only Kylo Ren has some serious decent character development as his fall to the Dark side is explored but then undone in the final scene with Luke as he turns into a comic book villain with no tactics or thoughtful villainy, if that's a word. It's like a poorly executed rehash of the Obi and Anakin dual without the backstory. Not to mention that he basically needed help in every battle sequence which again takes away any of the good stuff accomplished character arc wise. He managed to off Snoke it a comical way, but then gets put into what amounts to a headlock by a royal guard? Seriously? Rey has to save his weak ass? He could stop a laser bolt but couldn't be bothered to do anything remotely badass in this sequence? They left that to Mary Sue but still want the audience to feel like he's somehow a threat.
Another thing that struck me was the humor in this episode. It's off the charts and completely out of place. Every other line is a quip, and even serious characters like the old, depressed Luke act like they're in a Marvel movie. It's extremely jarring.
Anyone notice that every strong character in this movie was a female? Agenda's anyone? The sacrificial pilot right at the beginning, the purple haired lady that couldn't be bothered to explain a plan because the man (poe) was just too stubborn and hotheaded; read testosterone filled to be reasoned with apparently. Did I mention Mary Sue Rey?
How about Super Leia? Seems to me Kathleen Kennedy is making darn sure females are given all the heroic opportunities and the OT males get castrated. I could overlook this overt pc crap had the story honored and expanded on the lore instead of taking a big giant heaping pile of crap on it. The story is basically reset. Nothing in the past matters, and the future is open to any interpretation Disney deems marketable. RIP Starwars 12-14-2017, you had a long run.
Overall, this is the worst Star Wars movie. I have little hope the last one will salvage any of it as they have wrecked it all with this entry and undone even the works of the novels, TCW and Rebels.
19 out of 28 found this helpful.
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1/10
A nightmare created by someone who hates Star Wars: A Star Wars movie that doesn't want to be a Star Wars movie and succeeds.
The movie basically wants to ruin everything that is Star Wars.
It's actually quite explicit about it through Kylo Rens sentiments of wanting to destroy everything from the past.
The sad thing is that it succeeds:
> It doesn't feel like a Star Wars movie.
> Everything from The Force Awakens is left unanswered and ridiculed.
> Lukes character is unrecognizable and depicted as pathetic and sad.
> Snoke is killed off in some weird gimmick.
> All apparent laws of the universe is broken...
lightspeed... ruined...
(Why don't they just all kamikaze all the time... One little starfighter could take down the entire empire fleet if they were in a straight line?)
force powers... ruined...
(Leia can fly? Snoke can read minds and shoot lightnings, but not stop his own pathetic death? Luke can create holograms? Daisy Ridley can do everything with no training?)
space battle... ruined...
(I mean why can't the empire shoot the ship from the other side? How stupid is this?!!)
force wisdom... ruined...
(The movie offers no satisfactory insight into what the force is, how it works og origins of the jedi - even though the movie teases with books and Yoda)
> The plot makes no sense and is utterly disengaging.
> The humor is a dreadful attempt to be smart, but ends up wrecking the characters integrity (The blue milk scene with Luke is just a disturbing twist on the 'Got Milk' campaign).
> The constant introduction of new characters is annoying.
> The twists for the twists sake are just a big F**K finger to the fans.
> The unlimited number of untied ends this mess created are unbearable.
I think that was what I wanted to say. I created an IMDB profile to do it.
I will never see a Rian Johnson movie again. I will remember him as the guy who wanted to wreck Star Wars and was allowed to by a army of Disney executives. It makes me wonder what these people are employed to do? Why did nobody stop him? How the hell can this "you-must-be-incredibly-brain-damaged-to find-it-satisfactory-on-any-level" story go into production? Sigh... New hope? Nope. More like No hope.
19 out of 28 found this helpful.
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I went with low expectations. Somehow, they managed to even go lower! I can't describe how bad it is. It would run up a thesis of 3 volumes!
I will not put spoilers but Disney should outsource SW to someone with imagination and a genuine knowledge of the SW universe.
It is pathetic, how they are treating legends of SW and how they are introducing new ones, if there are any.
The script could have been written better if given to a high Bollywood director who just had 1 ton of tequila. Yes that bad.
I feel sorry for Mark Hamill agreeing to this scrip, no wonder Harrison Ford wanted to get killed in the first place.
Bottom line, I disagree with everything in the movie. the script, the acting, the plot, the fights (OMG if there are any!!!! reminded me of kung fu panda) and the final outcome!
I don't know who to pity more: those who wrote the script with a 5 years old imagination or those acting with a smug face that tells you "I can't believe I'm in a SW movie!.
19 out of 28 found this helpful.
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This movie has no cohesion with the force awakens at all. Countless plot points that were built up in the episode 7 only to be swept away in the last Jedi. Snoke backstory? Nope. Rey's parents? Who cares. Luke as a powerful Jedi? He gone. Mystery of Ahch-To and ancient Jedi teachings? Dusty books in an old tree.
This movie spent most of it's time destroying what was established in episode 7 and didn't spend any time on developing future plot development. Where do they go from here? There's nothing to get excited about for episode 9....... I feel devoid and empty after seeing this movie. Utter disappointment.
You can hate on George Lucas all you want for the prequels but at least they had an overarching cohesive narrative that linked all the movies together.
19 out of 28 found this helpful.
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This was unexpected. Admittedly I went into the movie theatre with high expectations, but this left me feeling completely disenfranchised. What happened to Luke? This felt like a complete character assassination. I understand that characters can develop and evolve, in fact it's one of the best things about saga's and trilogies. Unfortunately this movie felt like an attempt to wipe away the legacy of the original trilogy, and has frankly left a life long fan with no excitement for future Star Wars movies.
31 out of 49 found this helpful.
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Uninteresting development of the plot, again, a bad copy-cat attempt of the first trilogy ( rebels are found, they need to escape, the hero undergoes training etc.. )
The screenplay is the worst one yet, it could have been literally any other bad blockbuster movie full of of special effects. Half of the scenes make no sense ( Rose kisses Fin in the middle of the base being blown up???? ) , add no value to the story ( What was the point of that 5minutes long mutiny?!?! ) and have child-like superficial humour.
Characters are badly developed too, they turned Luke into an idiot who's lost and confused, Leia ( RIP Carrie ) does nothing to the storyline, Kylo is still the same traumatised kid and what's the point with Banderas!??!
You can read George Lucas's comments when Disney took over, even Mark Hamill said he wished they followed George's ideas. No need to analyse though, you can clearly tell Disney shifted focus audience to new generations as this is a movie for kids. For the rest of us, the whole movie almost felt like a parody of STAR WARS.
41 out of 67 found this helpful.
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5/10
Probably the most disappointing film of the year...
It kinda pains me to say this but The Last Jedi was the worst Star Wars film so far, if we exclude the prequels.
I was absolutely right about me either loving it or being completely indifferent to it, and I was unfortunately completely indifferent.
The good:
-There was practically zero fan service. After Force Awakens and Rogue One I was very apprehensive about the route they would go down with this but thankfully there was only a single moment that explicitly brought in a "fan moment" from the original trilogy, and that was factored into the plot so it is totally not noticeable.
-It was not what I would call a "safe" movie. It does not mimic Empire the way TFA mimicked ANH.
-There was one pretty cool fight scene.
-There is one 20 second series of shots that was absolutely fucking beautiful. It wasn't anything we had seen before in a Star Wars film and it looked brilliant. If only the film had more of this kinda thing. When you see it you will know what I mean.
-It felt like it had a coherent vision and was not hacked to pieces in the editing room, and as such it had far better pacing than Rogue One.
-A lot of the Luke stuff was far less predictable than I was expecting it to be.
-Whoever came up with the idea of having a planet with red ground that is covered in white stuff deserves an award of some kind, because those scenes had a great aesthetic to them.
-Oscar Isaac is great as always.
________
The bad:
-Early on in the film we are introduced to a new character. This character is incredibly irritating and unfortunately remained present for the entire film.
-There are no setpieces. As in, there is no Battle for Endor. There is no Battle for Hoth. Heck, even Rogue One had the Battle for Scarif which was by far the best segment of the movie. In The Last Jedi we have one fight, one cartoony as hell chase scene and one extremely small scale space battle at the beginning. That's it.
-The film is 2hr32, and it feels like it. Plot-wise this is by far the least complex Star Wars film so there is absolutely no reason why it needed to be this long.
-There is an extended sequence about an hour in that straight up felt like watching a cartoon.
-There is a straight up error in the opening sequence. A character is in a spaceship with the door open, whilst in space, without an oxygen mask, and yet the film doesn't acknowledge this. I know this is a film with space wizards, but usually the Star Wars films adhere to basic scientific principles.
-The film brings back characters from TFA who almost literally do nothing. They have zero character arc and were a complete anticlimax. I will post who I am talking about here once some of you have seen the film.
-There isn't much in the way of a plot. The plot of the film could be written in probably two sentences.
-Most of the humour didn't land with me. It was very much "disposable humour", in that it wasn't clever, it was more just surface level silliness.
________
The other:
-After my wishful thinking after TFA and R1, it seems they have made the decision to explicitly acknowledge the events of the prequels. Whether this is good or bad is dependent on whether or not you like the prequels.
-It seems weird to even type this, but the blatantly artificial diversity was very distracting. I have no problem with black people being in Star Wars. I have no problem with women being in Star Wars. If the film is good, who cares? But here, even moreso than in TFA, you can just tell that some boardroom somewhere decided that they needed to have 1/4 of the cast be white, 1/4 be black 1/4 be Asian and 1/4 be other. Seriously, every time you see a shot of a group of people, it is blatantly obvious that they were shoehorning in different ethnicities because diversity. I am willing to bet that the reason the only main character this film introduced was Chinese is to appeal to the gigantic market that is China.
-After reading that Leia was a "key player" in this film and the next, I was really curious to see how they handled Carrie Fisher's death. Turns out, they don't really need to handle Carrie Fisher's death because Leia did not do anything in this movie that impacted the plot. They can literally ignore her for Episode IX and not even mention her and the film can play out the same.
________
And finally, I made a note of all the things that could arguably be considered similar to Empire. There really aren't that many:
-Walkers are present on a white planet.
-Jedi training.
-Bad guys suddenly have a giant ship that we hadn't seen before.
-Evacuation is a plot point.
So yeah to summarise it was just disappointing. Not awful, and I am sure many people will like it but it did nothing for me. I will probably watch IX but my interest has plummeted. 5/10.
And for anyone curious, here's where I'd place it against the others:
The Empire Strikes Back - 9/10
A New Hope - 9/10
Return of the Jedi - 8/10
The Force Awakens - 8/10
Rogue One - 6/10
The Last Jedi - 5/10
Revenge of the Sith - 5/10
Attack of the Clones - 4/10
The Phantom Menace - 4/10
27 out of 42 found this helpful.
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I didn't like the last one so I have no clue why I paid to go see this. It is AWFUL. It's a SJW cauldron of nonsense. They even had the presence of mind to put a chubby chick as one of the main characters. The body positivity movement at it's finest I guess. Regardless, this movie is garbage and nothing more than a money grab by having a title that mimics a series that used to be okay when it was original. And Adam Driver is an awful actor. Save your money and three hours of your life you can never regain.
53 out of 89 found this helpful.
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Firstly I hated the force awakens. I thought it was a shoddy rewrite of return of the Jedi which was badly scripted and fanboy esque.
The last Jedi was marginally better as a film i.e. it at least had some kind of original story and not a total rip off but aside from that it was pretty terrible.
Firstly the film is long, very very long - There were 30 minute scenes in it that added nothing to the film and could easily have been cut (the scene with Rae and Luke for example)
Secondly it is full of plot holes one that springs to mind is when Ren kills Snoke, Snoke clearly throughout the film is portrayed as having the power to read minds, yet he is not able to read Rens mind trying to use the light saber next to him (guess that harry potter occlumency class was really good!)
The fight scenes were average at best, very loud, lots of explosions, but overall achieved nothing.
My favorite out the bunch has been Rogue one which I thought was brilliant.
This was a weak attempt again, with crappy characters, crappy plot and overly excessive CGI.
disappointing!
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3/10
Star Wars lost a bit of it's magic after The Last Jedi!
I am a big Star Wars fan and I really appreciate the revival of the Star Wars saga. And with The Force Awakens and Rogue One, it seemed the Star Wars Universe was back shining like never before. But after seeing The Last Jedi I am afraid that same Universe lost a bit of it's magic. The Last Jedi is full of bad jokes, unexplained phenomenas (like how does Lea, get blown out of a ship and then get's back in, like some sort of Superwoman). Together with some bad story choices: like light speed tracking? Snoke playing "Jedi mind tricks" on Rey and Kylo so they are connecting with each other? It feels like this movie missed the point in what makes SW so special. Was it all that bad? No, the ending scene on Crait was interesting, and that is where you will see a little bit of the "old" Luke Skywalker back, but that real "Star Wars" moment was sadly short lived. Off course as a fan you have to watch this movie too, but don't set your expectations to high.
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Horrible and utter garbage! Hell even the Star Wars prequel had a better story line and was well written. The visuals might be more realistic and less CGI but the story is total garbage and when they bring back favorite characters they ruin them, this isn't Star Wars. They should just scrap this all together, all garbage.
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James Cameron sums it up best with his review of The Force Awakens when he said " George's group of six films had more innovative visual imagination"
This is a Good Movie but a very Bad SW Movie. Some of the decisions in this movie I wonder if Rian was a ever a fan or really watched the previous movies.
I also fully understand and agree with Mark Hamill, when he said that he fundamentally disagreed with the character changes Rian decided on for Luke's character. Totally opposite to Luke's character.
I have been a SW fan since I first saw SW A New Hope in Montreal's Atwater theatre back in 1977. Still my favorite SW is EP V Empire, none of the new ones come close to those 2, and they (TFA and The Last Jedi) are actually making me prequels that much more. If not for one thing, but related to James Cameron's comment in the beginning of my review.
No interest in Solo movie, definitely no interest in EP9 with Abrahms back again and definitely no interest in Rian's trilogy.
I can rewatch all of the Lucas's 2 trilogies over and over ....don't know how many times I have seen EP V, and enjoy each time as much as the first....this is a rare thing. TFA I cannot watch, the more I see it the more upset I get....The last jedi is the smae....
The last Jedi is the 1st SW I have seen on first go, that I dislike from the outset....Even TFA I liked first watch only, but could not stomach repeat viewings...
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I am beyond shocked that Disney and Lucasfilm allowed this atrocious script to be finalized as the next chapter of this saga. Their misleading campaigning behind this episode leaves a bitter taste in my mouth as I got to finally watch the finishing product. Claiming that Luke & Rey are the beating heart of this film when it turns out nothing of interest happens between these two character. Rey, a character that young girls of this generation could finally look up too is taken a back seat in her own story and her character development goes nowhere. Luke a character i wish i could write from his compassion for others, his bravery, is turned into a shadow of what is bad in this episode that Rian Johnson cooked up.
The characters that made the force awakens good are mere shadows in this atrocious episode. I'm so sorry, Luke, Leia, Rey, Finn, Poe, and the new characters i find interesting but the storyline for them failed them.
Rain Johnson has only shown me that he only cares about the visual effects of a film but not the story of it which should be the most important above all else.
I hope Disney & LucasFilms learn from their mistakes and never let Rain Johnson touch the Star Wars property ever.
23 out of 35 found this helpful.
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I always prefer reading the reviews, but this is the first time I'm taking my time to write a review. Honestly I'm the only Star wars fan among all my friends and I've been waiting for 2 years for this movie.
SPOLER ALERT!!
Lets get to the point, it was kinda.... NO! Really awful!! The script is soo poorly written. Atleast there was one pretty light saber fight in every star wars movie The franchise is famous for its one and only LIGHT SABER fights and sadly there was no action with light saber except some childs play. After force awakens, I bet everyone wondered who supreme leader Snooke might be? sadly we will never know about it hereafter since he was cut in half just like a birthday cake. and who invented the idea of the slowest chase in any galaxy unti the fuel empties? The first order must had many hi tech weapons but we just a canon shooting slowly throughout the movie. And Leia flying in space while surviving the blast? COME ON!! thats ridiculous. All the hype for Luke in force awakens is just to see a teaching session and hologram stand off? The bad ass looking Knights of snooke were pathetic.
Rey disappearing just like that from her confrontation with Ren who was equally matched and suddenly shows up with the falcon! Finally Luke's gone... Leia's gone.... Han solo's gone.... The only remaining lineage of skywalker is a weak short tempered Kylo Ren. The only person who disappointed me is myself due to my very high expectation.
Terribly disappointed. Its not a Star wars movie. The 4 rating is just for the actors who performed excellent.
It's the poor script that killed Star wars.
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4/10
In a weird way more disappointing than the Prequels
After The Phantom Menace my expectations went down significantly for all things Star Wars - so whenever anything good happened in the 2 and 3 I was pleasantly surprised.
Now the opposite happened - after quite a good TFA and a pretty spot on Rogue One, I had high hopes.
This movie was like watching TESB and a prequel mixed and played at double speed. It was super slow and boring in places yet the next moment it would jump in the plot - one minute escaping in transports then suddenly all set up in Crait waiting for the Hoth-like attack.
And can anyone explain to me why at the end they're all on the Millennium Falcon happily chatting as if they're at a cocktail party when the Resistance and all their friends have died - I mean the resistance now basically fits on the Millennium Falcon !!!??? They act like they won....
And lightspeed jumping can destroy a huge starship? Why not make missiles light jump then and destroy all starships with shields?
And the lock breaker - so when exactly was his betrayal planned - why would anyone go to such trouble to catch Finn? Was it planned in advance (how did they know?) - did he turn and betray them later? Why and how? What was the gain from the Imperial side - simply to catch Finn? They're blowing Rebel transports up like there's no tomorrow - why the effort to catch Finn?
The big fight scene with the red Snoke bodyguards - I felt like I was watching a modern interpretative dance scene on a stage.
Wow - this movie had me shaking my head sooooo often. Where was the heart - the emotional connection - the only time I felt anything was in the reunion scenes - Luke meeting R2 - Luke meeting Chewie - Luke meeting Leia
And those emotional highs were paid for by the good writing in previous films and cashed in by a sub-par movie with sub-par writing. Shame..!!!!
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Star Wars is supposed to be an alternate reality where the possibilities are endless. Yet, The Last Jedi fails to explore anything subtly new other than forced comedy and superficial and momentary gray zones in-between the good and the bad. There is this really destructive, scattered story-telling that kills the overall vibe and the remedy is seen to be an overkill of desperate moves to exploit nostalgic bonds to the original trilogy.
First of all, people are really invested in this franchise emotionally including myself. So you naturally have high expectations and you are inclined to like it to a point of justifying major "wtf" moments. I could not do so in this movie.
Expanded universe concepts have been somewhat complementary to the lore of the saga throughout the years. There is a genuine feeling that a big picture of the history of this galaxy exists; the old republic, the jedi order, the Sith and of course the force.. This saga is just an important historical story in this big picture. So if its really a -commercial must- to continue this specific storyline (and its perfectly ok) it is very important for any new addition to build up on the key points of this mysterious galaxy, far, far away. The force, the jedi order and the Sith.. Of course there are much more than just the three and the talent and genius kicks in at this point, when you have to deliver a 3 dimensional story with culture, emotion, depth and keeping faithful to a solid overall context which immerses the audience in this alternate reality. If you fail to do so in this slippery ground, The Last Jedi is what you get.
Well, I believe episode 7 was way better than 8. Sure, the repetitive script, superficially sweeping over some of the major concepts was its weaknesses. But, you felt this start would somehow pay off later and as a fan you just feel grateful to see this galaxy one more time on the big-screen. I liked the characters, the build up and the whole cinematographic experience which resembled the original trilogy so much better than the new trilogy (1999 to 2005). The light comedic touches were ok. Overall, the commercial cliches and psychological exploitation of the original trilogy's script was somewhat acceptable, for a new story excited us in the shadows.
Why The Last Jedi is a disappointment?
1. The before-mentioned important concepts of Star Wars fabric are downscaled and became one-liner summaries of what should have been the depiction of a deep philosophy. Remember Luke's training in Dagobah. Well it is a good start for Rian to build up on. However somehow 40 years later you mess up the chance to raise the flag in portraying proper Jedi teachings and training..
Luke not having read the Jedi scripts in his chosen exile is very strange but you think, maybe he just wants to be a cave hermit after the traumatic events that occurred. But why go to the first jedi temple if you want to isolate yourself from the force and its teachings. It makes no sense. It's like going to Koribban to find the light-side. (Geeked out there one second) Is it that hard to find an uninhabited planet in the whole galaxy?
I like Rey. I really do. But you cannot get good at something even if you're naturally super talented if you don't know the first thing about it. A stick thrusting self-trained survivalist girl from Jakku could not simply now the "Kata's" of the Lightsaber. I think, when they first watched Episode 7, the fans said "Well, ok..She's intrinsically and naturally super gifted and will now learn about the ways of the Jedi, the force (Bushido if you want to call it that) in the next movie" . This is the kind of fan-justification I was talking about before..But it's just not possible anymore to justify, she, besting first order's elite guards or challenge Kylo for the mid-air lightsaber. If you're a super committed fan you can justify it maybe. But the real problem here is not Rey being super good out of nowhere, but the saga not building up on its holding pillars. The Force!
2. The film is very myopic. There is this entire galaxy in their disposal for them to drag us in-and-out of adventure, from planet to planet with the possibility of very different and culturally intriguing characters, but rather than that the entire film is a big chase scene between two spaceships. I know, I know.. I've underrated The First Order's armada and flagship but if you mock the Antagonist side of the story from the very beginning to "Marvel-ize" the franchise and if you never take the time to explain who the hell is first order, how did it emerged, who is Snoke, how did he get hold of Ben Solo etc. one simply cannot build interest on them can he?
3. The continuum of the story is disrupted by very, very shallow sub-script. The Resistance has no soul, no reason and just makes no sense. If you could make whole another movie concentrating on the scenes between the first order and the resistance taken from this one, it would be a low budget, B-grade TV movie with a Star Trek vibe to it. (I don't like Star Trek too much :( )
The mutiny, the plan of Laura Dern (Holdo) which does not make you think to yourself "a-ha!" and sympathize with her and Leia's irrational secretive motives have no basis and being put there just to heat things up and build up a pseudo-climax. Very bad move.
The introduction of a side-kick for Finn (Rose) feels very unnecessary. Rather than that I would prefer to see Finn and Poe further bond over in an endeavor to save the resistance fleet, for they have a screen chemistry I think that people like (could like). But they chose to mess with Poe individually by portraying him coming to his senses and being wiser in just a couple of hours from being mutineer, breaker of chain-of command action guy and rogue cannon to a compliant, what's best for everyone, I suddenly love Holdo guy. I was afraid he would make a speech addressing the kids watching and educating them in the importance of being a team player..
And the love-friendship interests between Rose and Finn seems just to portray a message rather than to include audience emotions and to improve the subscript.
The casino scene have some deep messages like corporate-slavery, animal cruelty, child labor, social inequality, war machine profits etc. and its ok. However it is not the time to deliver these messages, well you can try but I personally did not feel touched because they have only 6 HOURS to accomplish their plan and you could miss your plane in some instances when in that kind of a time-constraint (a bit of a forced statement I know) but they will find a certain guy, persuade him, break-in to the flagship of the first order and save the day makes it a bit off.
The whole scene is also very Monte Carlo, they should have tried to come up with a rich city of gambling and its culture without making it so earthy and familiar.
The most acceptable thing in this whole crude mess of a subscript is maybe the "meh" performance of Benicio Del Toro, I liked his very shifty character just when you thought he is a classical "scoundrel gone good" when he returns Rose's necklace of emotional value, he sells them out in an instance watching for his own interests with a "I don't give a shit" pose.
4. Comedic overkill. Star Wars should have a dark, dramatic feel. Trying to win the audience with some laughs is ok. Making jokes of everything even in very inconvenient scenes zones you out immediately. I think Episode 3 is the best regarding this aspect. I love the corruption of the dark side and the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. A perfect loop, circle. Trying to prevent the very thing by becoming the very reason for it in the first place.
5. Disney. I thought nothing bad of them at first. Judgmental people talking bad since the first day and it was premature to judge before something was delivered. But I was mistaken. For all I know, this movie lacks the high presence of Jar Jar Binks. It is that much Disney. It is majorly a heartwarming family movie with some lightsaber holes to the face and cut-the-torso from the waist touches. Well..it is complicated.
6. Again, how did the first order came to be? Is it related to Operation Cinder? Project Resurrection? Episode 7 built up a Supreme Leader Snoke image and 8 has shown us he is really powerful, and then he is dead. It's ok, I like this kind of no big deal moves but who the hell was he?? Did he know Sidious? Well at least they have something common to talk about with Darth Maul now..
The pro-s of the film;
1. I liked Adam Driver's performance. 'Roid rage moments and sane gray-moments. He portrayed them well.
2. Daisy Ridley. If you read this Daisy, you should stand up for Rey, and her right the get a proper education. They're killing your potential as an actress by leaving your character force-illiterate and shallow.
3. A good visual experience (as expected). Especially the Kylo-Rey against Elite Guards scene and the Splitting the flagship in half with hyperspace scene.
4. Rey's parents being nothing of importance and the cave scene.
5. Rey & Kylo force connection scenes. The portrayal of different perspectives of Kylo and Luke about the events in between them. These were the best spectacles in the movie for me. They are delivered well. Well done
Both innovation and traditional are good but too much traditional, people complain about how repetitive things are. Too much innovative additions, people start to feel alienated and get psychologically distant to the source material and also complain. It is all about the "Balance". It is very hard to please the fans in these aspects. Rian tries to create a sense of balance but, the traditional becomes emotion-free replica scenes of the past, and innovation becomes out-of context and off. This is where this movie fails, I think. One cannot help but feel there is simply not good enough of a story there is to tell..
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If you love star wars then you're likely going to be disappointed, but on a general film making stand point it was also just awful. It's FAR too long, most of the story could have been told in much less time. There was huge swathes of the plot that made no impact on the film what so ever and were a complete waste of time, which made me feel pretty exhausted to the point I didn't care what happened next. Which is the kind of thing I'd imagine you shouldn't do before a pivotal point where you need the audience to care.
The Force Awakens by comparison had a fairly rushed, fan servicey plot and the pace of it barely gave you time to have a breath but it was entertaining and held quite a lot of charm. They've completely lost that with this one. The huuuuuge buildup to the Luke reveal at the end and the loooong wait to find out what happens next made fans come up with all sorts of exciting plots and theories. Who is Snoke?! How did he get so powerful?! What will Rey and Lukes training be like and how will he teach her?! Who is Reys parents?! All this cool stuff you daydream about waiting for The Last Jedi only to be utterly devastated that NONE of it is relevant in any way. If anything it feels like they took all the theories and deliberately just shit all over it, as well as shitting on all the old Star Wars to make that irrelevant as well.
They've ruined our beloved legendary heroes and they've even done a pretty good job at ruining the new characters they've introduced, by making them look completely incompetent and stupid to the point you kind of just want the bad guys to wipe them out completely. Po and Fin were cool but now I just really don't like them anymore. Rey is still kind of cool but she's basically a Jedi so that makes her cool by default. Kylo Ren is probably the most likeable person so I'm a bit confused as to why I feel like that, because I feel like I shouldn't feel like that.. If that makes sense.
I'm done with Star Wars basically.. unless the Empire wins. I'm rooting for you Ben!
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This movie is a complete failure. Not just as a Star Wars bu as a movie it fails.
I will just list what i thought while watching the movie to describe my reasons for giving this movie a bad mark.
1. Right in the beginnig first order strikes with an entire fleet but somehow uses single dreadnought class ship while multiple star-destroyers simply watch right behind it while it gets destroyed for some unknown reason.
2. The women in the bomber which destroyed dreadnought ship, how did she even catch that detonator ?
3. During the chase of the rebel fleet how come first order cannot send a few ships (or just one star destroyer) at light speed to cut off rebels right in front of them? I mean the chase goes on like for so long Finn goes to another planet. If there is a reason explain if not then you are taking us for fools. THIS MAKES ENTIRE MOVIE RIDICULOUS!!!
4. If entire fleets could be destroyed with the light-speed kamikaze of cruiser class battle ships why build giant star destroyers ? And if i remember right in Star Wars universe uses Hyperspace travel not just lightspeed.
5. Luke Skywalker, who did not even kill Darth Vader when he could do it by defiying every kind temptation decides to kill Ben Solo in his sleep. When did he as a jedi master became so corrupt to have such thoughts.
6. Leia just flew in space...Yes by using force in zero gravity you can push yourself to opposite direction but to fly like that while also using force to keep yourself alive one needs such a degree of mastery in the force ...I wont say anymore.
7. I watched some random adventure of Finn and a random drama girl with space horses for like how long god knows. And they do not just fail they also get most of the fleet get killed because their code breaker betrays them.
8. Next time Yoda should direct that lighting to Kylo Ren...
9. Battering ram started firing and the reinforced gate started to melt but somehow Finn's junk ship did not melt right in the middle of that beam. Goodjob.
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1/10
How the hell does this have an 8 star review. Worst movie I've ever seen.
I've never written a review. This is my first review for any movie and I wanted to write this just because I fully believe that this movie should be buried and never shown again. If you are on the fence on whether to see this piece of garbage, save your money. You are better off watching the live action dragonball z movie - which was honestly a better movie. No joke, that's how bad this is. This movie takes you on the most mediocre ride of your life. They have moments where you think that it will get better and then they choose the exact opposite option of what should happen. Burn it to the ground.
Spoilers:
Remember in episode 3, when palpatine subtly manipulated anakin into betraying the jedi order and it culminated into a sweet battle between yoda and palpatine? Remember how palpatine won that fight and became the sith lord/ emperor for the next 30 years? Remember how cool it was to see a real bad guy, who mastered the art of manipulation?
Yeah. That is non existent in this movie. Snoke is the sith lord, and he gets cut in half, there is no epic battle, there is no subtle manipulation. Snoke cant even be considered a sith lord because he was the most weak and pathetic thing that ever existed. And Cry-lo Ren cant stop weeping uncontrollably. Hes still a whiny emo kid. They didn't even kill Carrie Fischer off in a decent way. I have so many things I want to say about this movie but I'm too disgusted with the trash I watched to even start.
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20 Euro thrown out the window...wish i had burned them...would be such a better investment with the heat generated.
First of all ignore those ignorant, greedy, positive "Critics reviews" because they got paid by Disney or just have no clue what they are talking about and on top of all that they are getting paid for it...what a sad world.
This confirms that anyone on this planet can be a Director, Writer, Screenplay writer, Actor etc.(basically the most paid jobs in the industry).
The jobs where you get paid the most for literally doing nothing without any brain needed and getting millions just for a couple of months creating garbage like brainless "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"...damn injustice...
I can't think of where to begin because there was not a single thing done right or good in this movie and I'm a HUGE fan of Star Wars or after seeing this movie was a fan of Star Wars.
Plot:
Coming back to life after being thrown out of Space?? Is that a joke Mr. Johnson?
Chasing the rebels and waiting for them to: GET READY: Run out of Fuel! Holly Mother of God. Send in the fighters?? Jump a little to get closer??
Finn going to get a guy (the only guy in the galaxy who can get them in) who was waiting for them in a cell, because you know they are going to get captured and he knew that so he waited for them to break free...
The dead of Snoke...wow of course he didn't see what Ren was planning...sure..sure the villain that was introduced so strong and mysterious get's killed of like this.
Most of the humor is just forced crap and way to much of it.
The ending scene with that unknown kid mopping the floor and what getting inspired by the crap the rebels did? Wait what did they do is there anything good in this movie?
There is so much more but i can't think or write anymore because I'm so frustrated and emotional right now...
UNBELIEVABLE It's a 8/10 on imdb at the moment...Start giving 1 star...what are you waiting for...nobody is coming to safe it.
Can't wait to obtain the future films without spending 1 cent on them.
16 out of 23 found this helpful.
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Character assisinations, weird flat jokes, and dubious plot choices everywhere - giving this 2 stars purely because the acting was great so kudos to the actors for trying there best to uphold this Mess. Whole thing plays out like it was planned on a napkin, with no thought for past Star Wars canon or what would make sense following The Force Awakens. Save yourself the money on this one.
16 out of 23 found this helpful.
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Cannot shake the overwhelming disappointment that was this movie. Looking for any type of big reveal? Backstory? Plot twists? Well, none of that happens whatsoever. The film is horribly boring, predictable and honestly, not worth watching the first time, let alone again. They managed to push what the force can do into the realm of ridiculousness with Leia literally flying through outer space. ...yes, that seriously happened. The way the portrayed Luke was terrible, and surface level. There was no wonder or angst of what was going to happen between Rey and Kylo. Way too much screen time on space battles, one piss poor lightsaber battle, no backstory on Snoke and him going out in a forgettable manner. Overall, the movie leaves you asking, "What the hell did I just watch?"
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This movie had more plot holes and bad acting than Showgirls.. I could not wait for it to end. Everyone in the theater pretty much felt the same way.. Laura Dern was so stiff that I thought she was a mannequin. Without spoiling too much, the first ridiculous plothole was the whole bombing run. I guess they forgot that there is NO gravity in space....so dropping bombs on a moving space ship is pretty much impossible (as they would not fall) and why were the bombers so close together that when the first one blew up it would wipe out the whole squadron???? It was all downhill after that.
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This film has utterly gutted and disappointed me the dark, serious sci-fi atmosphere of previous films is completely shattered in The Last Jedi, with constant corny jokes (most of which are good for 13 year olds) and shirtless kylo (is rian trying to make all the twelve year old girls love star wars now? never before has a star wars film had a shirtless male, it generates a new feel losing the original "Star Wars mood". Futhermore there are many cringe scenes and moments, and not enough focus on the paramount characters with too much action from side characters.
13 out of 18 found this helpful.
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I am a Star Wars Fanatic and I went into this movie with so much hope and questions but I walked out of the movie saying "WTF?" This movie sucked as a Star Wars movie and I wonder how much Disney paid all the critics to give this movie positive reviews. This movie answers no past questions, it's horribly slow, and they throw in too much comedy elements (unlike Star War-ish). Luke is portrayed as a moopy, unhelping person. Leia uses more of the Force than Luke in the movie. The Supreme Emperor was not used properly... what was supreme about him again? I have every Star Wars Movie/Show on Blu-Ray and I am sad to say, I wont be buying this movie when it is released on Blu-Ray... Even my 8 year old daughter was bored out of her mind during this movie (constantly asking me when is the movie going to be over) and she is a star wars geek as well. Sad release for Star Wars fan with this movie.
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Where to begin? This movie is not even as good as most amateur fan fiction. From the writing, to the plot, to the fact that the writer of this movie does not even seem to understand the characters he is writing about, this is the worst excuse for a Star Wars movie ever created. The Last Jedi makes the Ewok movies feel like great cinematic achievements.
Starting with Luke Skywalker, the hero of the original series is reduced to an incoherent hermit that won't help a galaxy in need. He is in no way the same character that redeemed Vader. It's not consistent with his character and then his death is so needless that it seems like Rian Johnson just hated the character of Luke and wanted to take a leak on his legacy.
Regarding Leia, I have no objections with her showing Force abilities, but the way they utilize those in the movie are beyond ridiculous. Her flying through space like Superman looks insanely stupid and silly.
Also, as much as George Lucas was maligned for silly humor in the prequels, TLJ makes those seem serious by comparison. The stupid slapstick and potty humor is more appropriate for an "American Pie" film or "Dude Where's My Car?"
The characters in the movie seem to have next to no motivation in general and are just there. Characters like Snoke seemed to have lots of potential, but this movie cut off all the interesting plot lines from The Force Awakens, and we are left with Force sensitive children with no names sweeping stable floors instead.
On a positive note, the action sequences are adequate, but not as impressive as the battle in the original trilogy. The light saber fights are okay, but nothing special.
Overall, I recommend this as a Netflix watch only. Rian Johnson has messed things up so badly that he has left JJ Abrams a Herculean task of trying to salvage this steaming turd and make something that approaches a decent conclusion to this trilogy. Perhaps a better name for The Last Jedi would be, "Dude Where's My Star Wars?"
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2/10
if you had a bad feeling about this you were RIGHT
This movie deserves no more than 3 stars. For a movie as long as this almost nothing good happens. The story makes no sense and jumps around with no clear or consistent morals. It handles the characters poorly with most if not all of them being out of character. They treat characters like Finn,Poe and Luke with complete disrespect offending both new and old fans alike. The only good in this movie is the emotional performace from Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher despite how their characters were written, the CGI was gorgeously done and the costume and makeup team also did a stellar job.
Don't waste your time or money on this movie- rewatch The Force Awakens instead.
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I wasn't really sure what to think of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. At first I thought I really liked it. Now I mostly think that I really wanted to like it. It's Star Wars after all. Who really wants to hate on such a beautiful franchise?
This certainly isn't a bad movie though. It's actually a pretty decent movie. There are many enjoyable moments in the film. Some of the visuals and cinematography are just stunning and a joy to watch. The different planets, the many new introduced creatures, the space battles, everything really is as dazzling as it can be.
All the actors were flawless as well. Especially the older generation of Star Wars actors. Mark Hamill is as good of a Luke Skywalker as he was in his younger years. Carrie Fishers stars one last time, and gloriously proves why she will be missed, not only as an impressive human being, but as a celebrated actress as well. The younger generation deserve praise too. In particular Adam Driver who perfectly plays the disturbed and confused Kylo Ren.
What is extremely dissapointing in the end, is the writing and plot of the movie. It's faulty at best. It was never going to be easy to build on the original trilogy. I had always hoped that if they rebooted the Star Wars saga they'd just bring a completely new story, and leave all our grand heroes safe and happy after the ending they deserved in The Return of the Jedi. This movie, even more than The Force Awakens, proves why I had my reasons for concern.
There are just too many dubious plot holes that make me wonder if they really studied all of the famous Star Wars characters before writing the movie. First of all why is Luke Skywalker so negative? I remember him as the only guy in the whole universe who was positive enough to believe that Darth Vader could be saved. Now all of a sudden he's negative and grumpy? Odd...
Why is the young Jedi Rey so powerful? She never received any training at all. At least Luke Skywalker was trained by Ben Kenobi and Yoda for some part. Rey on the other hand literally received two small trainings by Luke. It's enough to make her seem more powerful than Luke ever was though, the jedi who defeated Darth Sidious' empire. Anakin Skywalker for example, who was considered the most powerful in his time, was trained for like 20 years.
The power the force takes in this movie is absurd as well. Some of the activities that force users can generate in this movie go way beyond the power of any of the previous Sith or Jedi in the older films. For example, I wonder why Yoda couldn't do what Luke does in this movie during all his desolate years at the jungle planet of Dagobah. Yoda was by far the most supreme commander of the force after all.
But not only the character or story development was feeble. Some parts of the plot itself made me doubt the quality of the film too. In particular the part of the story that followed the character of Finn (John Boyega) and the newly introduced hero Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Not only felt the character of Rose abundant, they honestly go one of the most crazy and bizarre rides of the whole film. In the end this expedition proves to be totally unrelated to basically the whole film. Whether they did or didn't go on their mad rescue operation, the movie would have ended the same. It was basically a waste of film screening.
That waste would perhaps have been better filled up with some more background information on how exactly The First Order had been able to seize power over the galaxy, and emulate this New Republic before it even could have truly lift off. Or how this Supreme Leader Snoke managed to take control of this new wannabe empire, and where exactly he came from, and what exactly he had been doing the whole time Darth Sidious and Lord Vader were in charge of the galaxy. Snoke seems powerful after all (and old). Why was he content to be on the background during the original trilogy, if he was a powerful Sith himself all the time?
Star Wars Episode 9 will have to be the greatest written movie ever if it wants to fix all of the questions, and plot holes Episode 8 leaves behind.
Rian Johnson didn't convince me to believe he will be the new Savior of Star Wars by creating a fantastic new Star Wars trilogy, as Disney has commanded him to. The writing was just too mediocre, as if this was a tv series in its 12th season. Surely it couldn't have been that hard to create plausible new Star Wars plots? It's such a broad universe after all.
54 out of 91 found this helpful.
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1/10
Even more than TFA, TLJ is rife with symptoms of a rotten, corrupt state project
It's biggest problems are extremely bad writing and bad acting.
As for the writing the problems are:
1. Insufferably bad humor
2. Mind-numbing lack of any sense within the universe
3. Bad use of screen time
4. Addressing NONE of the story's mysteries
5. Daily political messages
6. Taking open sucking up to the "boss", Katelyn Kennedy into the story
7. Shaking up the Star Wars universe with new concepts
8. Fan service
32 out of 51 found this helpful.
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So I've been a Star Wars fan all my life, it's by far the movies that has shaped my childhood and my life beyond any other piece of fiction.
But, after episode 8, that's just over.
There is no coming back from this. I can't believe it's got 8/10 on IMDB and 96 on rotten tomatoes, it truly shows how these critics are bought and paid for.
You can't trust people anymore, Disney has monopolized Hollywood, and this is the result, quick cash grab low thought out movies.
Ep 1-6 is an epic space saga.
Disney wars is an evil coorporations cash grab.
37 out of 60 found this helpful.
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I've never been so dissapointed by a movie in my life...
Let me start of by saying the acting, cinematography, sound and so forth was decent.
However what destroys this movie is the worst plot/writing/script in history. It doesn't even deserve to be considered canon of the Star Wars universe.
Rey's parents who they obviously has teased a lot is apparently some random unknown people... Honestly that's the best they could come up with? Why not make her Palpatine's granddaugther and her parents left her because the "Resistance" was after them. That would make a much more interesting story since the people she's now helping are the ones that killed her family! Also it would atleast make it somewhat plausible why she's so powerful. Which now just makes no sense at all, and honestly it's a disgrace to the lore of Star Wars.
Okay so another point that's teribble the "World building". We get absolutely nothing explained, how did the First order come to be? Who is Snoke? Why are they even called the "resistance" when they're fighting for the new "senate". And what actually happened to the new republic? Yes some planets got destroyed but surely the galactic republic was more than 5 planets? Well apparently not. Then again why do the resistance use old rebellion equipment, ships etc. Obviously the empire would have left tons of ships, equipment and so forth when it dismantled.
And if you thought that wasn't enough they also decided to mess up Luke Skywalker, why not actually let us see him use his powers for real? I read fake leaked scripts where Kylo and the knights of ren went to the Island and while Kylo fought Rey Luke would completely destroy the knights of Ren. That sounds a whole lot more epic than the real script!
Now the Casino plot, I didn't actually hate this part, but first of all "ONLY" arms dealers are apparently rich in this world.... First of all didn't the "Resistance" use old rebellion ships, equipment ? Why would they have to pay for that when Leia always was in charge of this? And again what about all the stuff the Empire left back? Again this is problem with the world building because how the movie presents the First Order they control maybe 1-5% of the galaxy, atleast that's the impression I personally got.. And also we've never seemed anyone in the SW universe wear a "Tux" but suddenly everyone on this casino planet does it...
And the overall plot which is "Escape from the First Order fleet". That's the best they could come up with apparently... A whole 2½ movie is about one single escape... One would think the people writing this had a bit better imagination but it seems not.
And the last point which is more directed towards the series as a whole and not only this movie. Give us something new! The whole "Rebels vs Empire" is done so many times now... TFA, Rogue one, Last Jedi and Star Wars Rebels if you count the series. It's just so completely overdone and it's the same stuff every freaking time...
37 out of 60 found this helpful.
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4/10
The star wars cow has been hung on the milking machine!
Well as a Star Wars Fan from the 70's I thought number 1 was bad with JAR JAR binks but this new one topped that in badness. It seems to me that characters were designed for Toys R Us instead of contributing to a good Movie. The recurring theme of Star Wars has always been the Bar with creatures from all over the universe this new one feature a casino that acted as a social statement (Child Slavery, Animal Cruelty, and Arms Sales) did not add anything to overall movie basically, who cared? Another thing Princess Leigha flying through space with no suit? Really? All I know is that I left saying to theater management is it needs to be the last movie ever. Its time bury it. But with Disney and now Fox all things are possible.
8 out of 10 found this helpful.
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The entire plot of this movie could've been avoided entirely in the beginning, if Po was told about the rebel's plan. Which there was absolutely no reason to tell him other than "Hey your Po, screw off for no reason at all". In addition to this, they killed off the only serious villain leaving no threat left at all. Plus there are hundreds of reasons more why this movie was terrible. Too many to talk about
8 out of 10 found this helpful.
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I thought that was the worst episode yet, not even an episode. Would have been better if they marketed it as episode 7.5...
Some cool bits, but a pointless episode in my opinion...way to many 'why' moments from start to finish and if you take those entire 'why' moments out, there was no point even having this movie.
Plus all the in your face comedy from start to finish was so not Star Wars is about and just trying way to hard...
Now they have set up episode 9 for failure and episode 7 means nothing now.
There is only a fine needle to thread for episode 9 now to pull everything back from disaster! Very hard!
I would rather watch episode 1, 2 and 3 then that again...that says it all!
8 out of 10 found this helpful.
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Rian Johnson ruined the Star Wars for many true fans by making Luke a cowardy crep, who is thinking about ending his nephew's life while he is sleeping. Luke's character was way off and Johnson's idea was not a twist but a cheap trick to ruin him for what purpose exactly? He lost many audience for his future Star Wars projects.
8 out of 10 found this helpful.
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1/10
Worst movie ever !! Thank u disney for ruining star wars for me
I think most of the people give 10 is disney employee also i see they have perfect grammar as well and most of them don't have reviews other than a few movie. Yeah, also they don't want to spoil it because there is nothing to spoil !!!!
Characters are shallow most of the good characters are npc animals which disney try to sell I think. There is no sense from beginning they follow the last ship of resistance about 20 hours "reason thier ship is faster" they don't think to send fighters or jump in front of them no they follow 20 hours with no logic. Mark Hamill probably have a bad stomach or something with that face they think this is a good acting.The script is worthless, the act is shallow and directing is boring he just does fast pace and slow pace with scenes it's like two different directors directed it. Anyway, this movie so bad too many levels. They killed star wars for me. thank u Disney
115 out of 206 found this helpful.
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1/10
Ryan Johnson has Destroyed Star Wars we need a new hope
I saw Star Wars in 1977 as a kid and was taken to a Galaxy Far Far away and was captured in the adventure, the Mythology the Jedi the plot twists and turns that weaves all the movies together and binds the saga together.
Unfortunately This Movie is not Star Wars. It breaks all the rules doesn't answer any questions or build anything coming from The Force awakens although there is one or 2 scenes that are kind of cool all you have grown to Love about the Star Wars Universe and expect is disgarded like yesterdays garbage. Luke is not Luke like the character said "This is not going to go the way you think" That's 100 percent correct. I also agree 100 percent with Mark Hamill'stated to Rian Johnson that he Fundamentally disagreed with everything about how Rian wrote about his character.
This doesn't even get into the bad acting poor writing boring story. the one thing they were able to do is keep the secrets from the movie from Leaking no one would have every even guessed it its so bad.
55 out of 93 found this helpful.
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3/10
Disney, Rian, you really managed to break my heart.
I still don't believe it. Yes ok, VII was a bit exaggerated and resumed a lot of the stereotypes of "A New Hope", but this is pure madness!
From too many forced humorous jokes to a story that tries to innovate but turns out to be pure unemotional anarchy. The only good thing is the role and the interpretation of Mark Hamill, beautiful and unexpected.
They forgot that STARWARS is an epic fairy tale with a certain romance and that transports the imaginary elsewhere. I felt completely present and upset for two and a half hours.
So sad. With this last step they have disintegrated the possible future of the saga ... not to mention that R.Johnson will be entrusted with a whole new trilogy!
We can only hope for some spin-off to let us smile again...trilogies are over.
Personally, the only one who understood what STARWARS is was the great Gareth Edwards with his "Rogue One".
70 out of 121 found this helpful.
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I'll go ahead and give this movie two stars, and that is the absolute best I can do for it. I suppose there were a few flashing instances of goodness about it, but overall, I can't help but say that I am more than disappointed, I am sick to my stomach.
I felt like this movie was just shy of pure garbage. The plot made no sense. The characters were dry. The ball wasn't really moved down the field at all. This movie is such an insult to the original trilogy that it is ridiculous.
And you know what?! For some stupid reason, all the critics are loving it, using words like "amazing" and "astonishing." They are so dedicated to a movie that features women and minorities that they don't know crap when they see it!
I agree with the reviews that say that this movie even insults TFA. Everything that was mysterious about Ep.7 was completely crapped on in this movie.
49 out of 82 found this helpful.
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Putting aside the fact that TLJ destroys all the original trilogy characters development and motivation as well as the new trios, or the way it contradicts or ignores all of star wars canon, or even the fact that it kills every interesting plot point from TFA, it an incredibly poorly made film. i have no idea why people are giving it good reviews; it was poorly edited, poorly plotted, poorly designed, and flat out did not feel like a star wars movie. i dont see how episode 9 can fix any of this. as a star wars fan, im heartbroken
38 out of 62 found this helpful.
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Seriously, cringy jokes, useless subplots and boring as hell. It missed completely the "space opera" feeling and felt more like a Marvel movie mixed with the other worst made in Disney.
Who is Snoke and where he comes from is not explained and thrown into garbage since he dies, Phasma dies as well but without the Boba Fett effect, she's just useless, Rey confirmed a Mary Sue at 200% because she's the daughter of no one (literally, that's her heritage) and she's strong in the Force "because yeah", Mark Hamill sometimes is underwhelming and last, but not the least, Leia flying in space without any reason or explanation.
The whole casino subplot felt out of place and Benicio del Toro looked like space Jack Sparrow, but without being funny or interesting as the Captain.
Literally 2 and a half hours wasted.
38 out of 62 found this helpful.
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This is the WORST Star Wars movie I have ever seen. I really feel sorry for Mark Hamill. Appalling plot, too long, bad jokes, limp direction and yet apparently we're hailing Rian Johnson as the next big thing. What a waste of nearly three hours of my life. No tension, no excitement, no anticipation. Oh, and wait for Luke to start breast feeding some kind of giant bird. Got what a shocker. Stay well away!
33 out of 53 found this helpful.
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I was so excited to see this film after Rogue One crushed it in every aspect and The Force Awakens had great entertainment value, minus retread plot. But wow, this movie was so lost and stuffed full of unnecessary characters and plot lines. What happened? Couldn't they afford to have Lawrence Kasdan do a pass on the script? The worst part was the bad humor, attempting to fit in to the millennial, Guardians of the Galaxy, aesthetic. This movie was made to sell stuffed animals to 4 year olds.
20 out of 30 found this helpful.
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1/10
To Rian Johnson on behalf of Star Wars fans around the world
No film in history has ever been as eagerly anticipated as much as The Last Jedi after the release of the wonderful trailer you made. The trailer was so good it sparked a tremendous global, communal event.
I understand fully that you, along with many, felt the need to take Star Wars in a totally new direction. Perhaps to a certain extent it was necessary to do so. However, I think you could have made the transition much more subtle, respecting the tradition and finding a better balance between new ideas and old. You've narrowed SW down so much, somewhat selfishly, into your own personal interpretation. I know you can't please everyone but you have made it your way or the highway.
You have essentially dismantled an entire 40 years of fandom. A fandom that has helped a huge amount of people from many different backgrounds escape from their problems.
For many people, Star Wars is all they have. It seems you have failed to see the franchise in an empathetic way judging by the over use of cringeworthy comedy which does nothing but mock the immersion of the franchise. To change Star Wars into something entirely unfamiliar is deeply damaging for many people and I think it's important that you understand this. (along with all that worked on TLJ who agreed with your choices)
It's no secret that to make a Star Wars film is a mammoth task, especially having to please so many different people around the world but you had more than enough material to create potentially the greatest instalment of Star Wars so far. Instead you totally destroyed the magic.
Many of us are absolutely devastated and heart-broken. I personally will never see Star Wars in the same way after TLJ. Maybe that was your intention?
You seem like a lovely man in interviews and you are clearly a gifted film maker. It's no surprise that you are highly regarded in the film industry but in regards specifically to your first Star Wars project, I just wanted you to know that many of us are saddened and disappointed with what you have done to our franchise.
Star Wars is just a movie for many but much more than just a movie for most. Keep that in mind.
Best Wishes
Star Wars fans around the world
20 out of 30 found this helpful.
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1/10
,',A misadventure that should have never spawned. The essence of defecation upon a Galactic shrine','
';.The art /design and music/sound was what you would expect, fine indeed, but the story and character arc is a ruinous mess. It's an insult to the legacy that has manifested since A NEW HOPE birthed from Lucas and generations of artists who explored and enriched the ideas and images of that Universe. I am a far cry happy about this progression,therefore I lay down an unsettled 1/10 for the sake that is represents a doom of something once great.',;
24 out of 37 found this helpful.
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We waited two years after Rey held his lightsaber up to Luke Skywalker for THAT?
You had Luke Skywalker himself in this film and completely wasted the opportunity. The use of his character is nothing short of cinematic tragedy and frankly, insulting to fans of the original trilogy.
I deeply regret George Lucas turning over his characters now. This is just terrible. They should have started a new franchise at Disney but they obviously wanted to piggyback the Star Wars fame.
The only good part is the actors. The casting is actually superb, which is mostly credited to the last director. A few moments such as with Rey and Kylo are interesting. However, the message sent to older fans is just horrible. A little respect for the original trilogy would have been nice.
24 out of 37 found this helpful.
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Forget the last 40 years of star wars and perhaps its bearable. Please never touch Star Wars again Rian Johnson, spare us. Some how you managed to strip its heart and soul by making it completely void of any substance, conviction or direction.
Apparently Yoda, Obi Wan, Luke, and every other Jedi wasted all their time bothering to learn about the force and about following the light. This movie makes Luke's journey to become a Jedi through The original movies look like a pointless odyssey which would have happened eventually.
I have never been so let down by a movie and I saw all the Hobbit movies... all of them. I have loved Star Wars since I was five and it was simply my childhood. This is the first Star Wars addition that I have ever wanted to be destroyed other than the Christmas special and I have seen the Battle of Endor, The Caravan of Courage, read the EU, and watched the cartoons. Disney, why?
6 out of 7 found this helpful.
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2/10
So painful to watch. I wanted to cry for the death of Star Wars
I know, sounds extreme, but it's true. Try as I might to see what others saw in this movie as "good," I simply can't. This movie seems to be trying its hardest to ruin the original series in order to create a new series, but here's the real problem, there's NO chemistry between any characters in this movie. None. Zero. This movie is cold. Never mind that it is a Star Wars movie, it's cold as a movie can get, any movie. If it wasn't Star Wars no one would go see this movie. I'm working extra hard not to reveal any spoilers, but I fear for the future. Rogue One was so much better than this and showed the potential for Star Wars, and then TLJ ruined all of our hope. Hope is gone in this movie. Our hope that Disney would do right be Star Wars. Maybe they can fix it in the next installment, but doesn't seem there's any care to even try based on this movie. Let's hope JJ can save Star Wars in part 3. He can start by giving Luke a much better send off as the Luke we knew and loved the last 30 years. If Luke only comes back as a merely a Force ghost, I'll never forgive Disney.
6 out of 7 found this helpful.
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I was pretty disappointed with episode VII (too much fan service, rehash of episode IV and a universe that simply lacked depth and detail), but the latest installment is much, much worse. Not only are we given zero explanation to the tons of unanswered questions episode VII left us with (who is Snoke? Where did he come from and how did he affect Ben Solo? What is the Knights of Ren, WHERE are the friggin Knights of Ren??), but the movie is such a bore, filled with pointless new characters. Rose, DJ, Holdo (what's up with that purple hair?), ridicolous scenes with a casino, some giant space horses, repeated telepathic chats between Ren and Rey and a space chase that last the entirety of the movie. There is close to no plot, and the stuff about Luke - and what he has done - is highly unbelievable. The main characters Rey and especially Finn are such bores this time around, they have close to no personality. I really don't understand what Rian Johnson was trying to do - what an unbelievable mess!
6 out of 7 found this helpful.
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6/10
It wasn't a bad movie... just a bad Star Wars movie
I enjoyed bits and pieces of The Last Jedi, but as whole it was lacking in many areas. I felt the plot was a bit half-baked and the direction was at times misguided. For a series so well known for its iconic villains it was baffling to me how at times the villains were portrayed in such a comedic manner. I don't recall Darth Vader ever being involved in a cheap laugh, or for that matter any of the villains in the original trilogy or the prequels. The cheap laughs involving the villains in The Last Jedi really undermined their credibility and left the final movie without a true antagonist.
Having said that, if you're looking for a few genuine laughs (albeit perhaps far too many) and the general feel of a Star Wars movie then it's probably worth your time.
6 out of 7 found this helpful.
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I've been letting what I watched last night at the theater sink in so that I could try and come to terms with what was given. I tried see things in a different light so that I could find some enjoyment and hope for the future of the franchise, but it's oh so hard. Let me start by saying that so many of the plot points in this movie were completely useless and wasted. The entire plot-line of Finn and Rose was utterly pointless. Everything they set out to do ended up having no effect whatsoever, and in fact, they ended up making things worse for the Resistance in the end. It was a mess of unnecessary CGI and bad acting to do what exactly? Explore a part of the universe for 25+ minutes to never be talked about again? Or was it to kill off a character that once again provides no substance to the film? They could have cut that entire sequence out and the film would have very likely ended the same. On top of that, we were given the slowest chase sequence in a Star Wars film, that could have ended with some simple hyperspace maneuvering. In addition, the entire interaction with Admiral Holdo and Poe could have gone in such a more interesting direction, but instead, they throw out the whole traitor route, in favor of a simple lack of communication? Hell, they went as far as mutiny for absolutely no reason. And don't even get me started on Snoke. So much wasted potential. Finishing it off, we have one of the worst send-offs in the Star Wars universe for its potentially greatest character. Did I want something different? Sure, but I don't believe a bad plot counts as "shaking things up."
6 out of 7 found this helpful.
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How this movie is getting such fantastic reviews from critics is beyond me. I didn't absolutely hate it. It wasn't horrible and there were certainly a few bits that kept me entertained, but overall this movie missed the mark big time.
The best way to describe the film is with the word "underwhelming". Snokes death personally annoyed me a lot. In TFA we had this mysterious, kinda scary character. No one could quite pin how old he was or even what species he was for that matter. Everyone was wondering where he came from, who trained him, how exactly he managed to reach out to Kylo Ren and twist his mind in the first place. These were good questions, questions that kept the excitement since everyone first watched TFA alive, but to then just give him what? 10 mins of screen time all up and just kill him? Without even bothering to try and answer any of these questions? That just seemed like really lazy writing to me. Not to mention his actual death was pathetic. Seeing him use force lighting on kylo, it was obvious he was very powerful so to not even be able to see him in full action and to kill him such a pathetic way was a huge disappointment.
Now Kylo is the supreme leader and he's just not as exciting seeing as he isn't in the slightest bit intimidating like former star wars villains (e.g. Darth Vader or even anyone in the eu), and we already know he's evenly matched by the protagonist so there's really nothing endearing about him being the boss of the bad guys. Not to mention that in an attempt to make his character complicated and relatable, Rian instead created an unstable man-child that's very easy to hate and absolutely does not steal the show like Vader did.
Phasma was once again a huge disappointment and the last show down between Luke and Kylo really solidified the fact that the movie was a let down. When Luke wen't out to face Kylo to protect his family and friends, I genuinely thought it was going to save the whole movie but instead it was the most anti-climatic scene I've probably ever witnessed. Was really hoping to see a really good jedi/ sith fight scene, force powers and all because let's be real, that's the real reason most people watch star wars but instead got we Luke swerving a few attacks before finding out he wasn't even there and then he just dies????
The good parts of this movie; some new characters like Rose and Holdo were good, Poe was great in this film and was good to see him get some more screen time, and like I said before, there were some good/entertaining bits but overall it just didn't have the same feeling as other star wars films do, some good characters/ characters that had a lot of potential to be interesting were butchered, the writing was mediocre, the plot was average, doesn't really feel like the movies are going anywhere atm and some scenes were borderline childish. Huge disappointment.
6 out of 7 found this helpful.
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I am a big fan of the series, having watched all episodes many, many times. This movie is more like a failed SPACEBALLS attempt than anything worth of the Star Wars brand and producers should be ashamed of the final result. I do wonder if IDMB system has been hacked by bots or paid reviewers as all comments look quite negative and, despite of this, the overall grade of the good looks good. Can somebody explain this to me?
29 out of 46 found this helpful.
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I was really looking forward to this one but i enden up coming out of the cinema sad and depressed. this is the worst SW Movie i have seen.
Still after 2 days i feel depressed.
29 out of 46 found this helpful.
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3/10
ITS TIME FOR THE OLD FANS TO DIE...AND A NEW GENERATION OF UNINSPIRED FANS TO RISE
Yes, the title is Lucasfilms intentions. Let me summarise this movie in one sentence:
It is a visually good looking movie with all around good acting but the plot makes absolutely no sense. I don't recommend it for hardcore fans and if i had kids i wouldn't take them to see it either. Its like letting your kids watch a bootleg Cinderella cartoon (The Swan Princess) it just looks intriguing but its gonna leave you confused and with a icky feeling in your stomach. Only general adult audiences might find it to be good but then again I think they were really tired after the movie.
My dear reader I understand your hype will not let my words through your minds right now, but in time you will realise this saga is going nowhere. What was the point of the Force Awakens and Last Jedi if all it led to was the continuation of the Jedi and resistance (rebellion). We know they are going to continue so why pull us through all this confusing pointless plot if you are going to end up in the same place.
Snoke dies like a bad Saturday morning cartoon, I was shocked for like 15min I couldnt pay attention to the movie, Snoke was legit scary and strong so much potential reminds me of Darth Maul's demise actually ( If they find excuse to bring him back i will be pissed) wow you know whats the worst out of all this is Snoke and Luke die for Kylo Ren and he still is whiney teen tantrum who just wants to BAAASH BAAAASH everyone. WTF?!!! and oh yeah Yoda shows up burns First Jedi Temple and tells Luke just train Rey to become Jedi HEHEHEHEHE only this time they have balance with the force...but she will use it for good and Kylo for bad...HMMMMMMMMM so its basically the same thing as Jedi and Sith!!!!
People are saying the movie leaves us with so many possibilities...REALLY?!!! nothing changed! Rey is a basic Jedi who is going to find kids and train them to become Jedi. Kylo is bad and want to kill everyone and wants Rey to Join him apparently to rule the galaxy which when you think about it why would he want to do that when he is free from Snoke and has good in him. It is like Vader in ROJ after being redeemed by his son to says "ok now lets go Kill everyone lol" WTF?!!! Lets talk about the resistance for a moment. So apparently the way to defeat the mighty fleet of the First Order requires only 1 X-wing, 1 bomber and 1 cruiser. Have the X-wing piew piew some things easy, have the bomber just go over and bomb a mega star destroyer easy and Finally kids just drive your cruiser at light speed towards the entire enemy fleet and destroy them because fuck Star Wars logic. Thats not how Star Wars works!!! For example in ROJ when the empire is not attacking the rebels its because they are purposely holding back as ordered by the Emperor but here the star destroyers do nothing!!!
What a joke they gave the director a trilogy to produce. Really what is there to look forward to in Ep9, NOTHING.
Honestly the spoilers don't matter for this movie because its so meaningless. They shit all over Star Wars lore.
In the end Disney has just one message: kids you can be a jedi so please come to our parks and buy our merch and we will put shiny movies every year with mediocre plots to remind you about Star Wars.
Poor Mark Hamill gave a good performance but for what?!
You know I watched TFA in IMAX prebooked, Last Jedi in normal 2d standard theatre and I'm going to watch Episode 9 later at my home... do you sense a pattern here?! No applause at the end of the movie and I saw it at premier night in a fully booked main theatre. Also please don't look at the reviewers who promote the movie because they need premier tickets for every Star Wars movie.
Im just eager to see how these hacks at collider and their equals are going to defend this movie!
All in all salute to Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher because they deserved it.
54 out of 92 found this helpful.
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1. The script is full of fillers so Rey's story can advance. The whole trip going for the decryptor and infiltrating the enemy was pure garbage, was completely pointless and it didn't affect the story.
2. Who was Snoke? So much talking about disappointments just to die sitting in his chair.
3. The new nerdish character so badly force, it looks like a character from The Big Bang Theory. Like somebody said: "Hey, our fans are nerds, so lets introduce a completely pointless nerd character so they can relate to."
Protagonist should be active agents in the story development of any film, and this movie lacks precisely this. It's a weak story presented poorly and it looses completely the western essence from the original films.
41 out of 68 found this helpful.
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1/10
Was Rian a saboteur or doing a new 'ghost busters' out of Star Wars?
To take something with such a rich heritage as Star Wars, and make Last Jedi out of it you must be really good at sabotage, or have your hands tied.
Maybe Rian had to follow instructions such as: "All your male characters must be stupid winning brats ,failed heroes, childish, or evil and having female reproductive organs now makes you more powerful than having the force. Being woman is stronger than being a jedi. "
If such were the job description he signed up to, he may not be to blame. Much less ideas can be made from that than having the movie as its own center.
17 out of 25 found this helpful.
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1/10
The worst Star Wars movie yet - yes, even worse then episode 1
Everyone who uses the force is incredibly powerful for no reason. Leia has unforeseen force magic ability that no-one seems to mention. Luke is super powerful despite not even using the force for years. Rey is super powerful despite being a nobody who hasn't trained. Snoke is SUPER SUPER powerful but nothing is explained about who he is, how he's powerful or anything at all about him really. Kylo Ren is the only one who doesn't seem that powerful and he's supposed to be the main bad guy, the scary "monster".
The sub-plots with Poe and Finn are pointless, do not advance the story at all and are generally uninteresting.
Snoke's character is killed off way too soon and his character seems completely pointless other than copying the original trilogy, which this episode did A LOT but just made it worse.
New characters are added that we have no feelings for. The chinese girl seemed to be in it so they had people of all races and she was a pointless character and uninteresting. The purple haired woman was very annoying and I just wanted her to die so I wouldn't have to watch her in any more scenes.
The entire 2.5 hour movie was pretty much about 2 ships in space not moving at all, and does not further the story from TFA at all, creating no interest in the final episode.
Comedy was used way too much and it was the type of comedy too. Han Solo's sarcasm and wit was the perfect comedy style for Star Wars. But this episode was full of slapstick comedy and a lot of it was aimed at kids.
Very disappointing after TFA being quite good and looking forward to this for so long.
21 out of 32 found this helpful.
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I don't know what i just watched. This movie is utter cringe and is probably the worst Star Wars movie. How is this such a high score on IMDB? There were moments where I sighed. Apparently no one making this film knows what Star Wars is. The acting is BAD yeah worse then Attack of the Clones, dialogue poor and there is no story arc to any of these characters. The film is a mess and poorly written. It's also way too long of what it should be clocking at 2hrs and 30 mins.
The only characters I cared about was Luke and the rest of the old gang. The humor is way overboard. Its sad to say but TFA was better then this and that movie was abysmal too. What sucks is there were so many opportunities for this sequel. I walked out of TFA hoping that they could fix this trilogy in the sequel. We still don't know who Snoke is he is just an Emperor clone. Finn has a new love interest. Kylo Ren is wasted. Rey is written to be like a little girl. She's very annoying and the actress playing her Daisy Ridley is wooden worst then Portman. We saw nothing of the Knights of Ren. Leia somehow survives after being thrown into space and shot at. Then she magically flies. It just shows Disney fingerprints all over this. One redeeming thing about this movie was the Yoda and Lukes scene.
If you want a true Star Wars story go play The Force Unleashed or Watch the OT hell go watch the Prequels they are all better then this Disney Garbage. Without Lucas Star Wars has no soul
21 out of 32 found this helpful.
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Watched the movie at midnight screening with my 13 year old daughter. The first thing the struck me was the use of humour, far beyond anything we have seen in the SW franchise before. The opening scenes with X-Wing vs Star Destroyer "being put on hold" was bordering on farce IMO. There were a few incidents like this that felt forced attempts to lighten the mood. Secondly are the Disney merch team now heavily involved? The number of new cuddly aliens introduced in this movie 3-4 at least, I can see them all appearing at Disney stores near you in the not too distant future.
The movie itself felt like a series of short stories, that didn't join up particularly well with average writing, lots of plot devices we've seen many times before. Lazy writing IMO. As has been said on other threads far too many characters introduced and expecting the audience to have immediate attachments to them just didn't work, Rose for example.
On the plus side the visual effects were stunning, as were the fight scenes and some of the acting was excellent in the scenes between Luke and Rei.
Unfortunately modern movie making appears to be formulaic and designed to appeal to the masses, which I'm sure this will. It's safe, doesn't deliver anything different and overall pretty average...I'm sure the Disney execs will be patting themselves on the back for this one - 5/10.
21 out of 32 found this helpful.
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This was so unsettling that I almost cried. The cast was struggling with generic script, space battles were awesome sometimes , til just boring on other occasions. Mr. Hamill had few moments in where he shined despite the obvious non directorial guidance. Some scenes felt like ripoffs of TLOTR, other SW movies. Just utter persistence of Studio on cramming cute and annoying animals in movie made it Disney like. Yuck.... The heads of many in theater fell more than one occasion due to unnecessary scenes, attempts of tiding up loose ends from previous movies, super occurred scenes that had no general meaning. Lack of story consistency with characters popping up randomly not related to story afterwords...Wat's up with that??????
When you try to create line of story and waste 10 min on creating plot stick to it, make twist sure....BUT DON'T LOOSE characters in the process. Or add random . Bad editing ....
I'm cutting on franchise. Rouge One was cool compared to this...
129 out of 236 found this helpful.
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I will never pay to see another one of Disney's movies.
They have done the impossible...and killed my childhood
George Lucas is probably kicking himself for selling the franchise knowing now that Disney has ruined it for alot of people.
My suggestion? Just pretend all the other Star Wars movies, besides the originals and prequels, do not exist and never watch another one til the cash grab that is Disney sells the rights to Star Wars.
I will now go home, curl up in a ball, and watch the originals and try to forget this horrible film
190 out of 356 found this helpful.
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What an unbelievable sham of a movie camouflaged by gorgeous art direction. I'll give this movie a single start for just existing and the extra one only for how beautifully rendered it is. And that's about all that's right with this one.
The Force Awakens rode on the hate for the prequels and an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and got by just rehashing the best parts of the erstwhile first 3 movies. What exactly is Rian Johnson's explanation or motivation to turn a decades-old mythology into his personal playground and how pray did Disney go ahead with this? Characters mouth incredulous dialogue (some of it captioning action on the screen), others throw hissy fits, some others decide to sacrifice themselves at the altar of temporary relief to their armies only to be thwarted by others with secret crushes on them. Backstories and plots drawn up in Force Awakens are decimated into smithereens like Alderaan.
Mark Hamill, bless his hamming soul, is a classic 80s actor - unsubtle, upstages co-performers and clearly guns for longer screen time by slowing down dialogue delivery and throwing in a dozen or so pauses, glares and grimaces. His directors in the original trilogy probably recognised this and so gave him tight, sharp scenes to work with. Rian Johnson succumbs to the fanboy-as-director syndrome and lets Mark do his thing hoping that nostalgia will lull us all into not expecting a performance worthy of a 2017 film. Oscar Isaacs makes up for poor writing by being the film's only hormonal teenager stuck in an adult's body. Daisy Ridley starts and ends the film confused. Adam Driver should consider taking Kylo Ren off caffeine. Carrie Fisher reveals a superpower at the most inopportune moment. At which point, I thought Guardians of The Galaxy might make an appearance. Because by then, we'd already been subjected to some dialogue clearly inflicted by JossWheddonitis.
If you're going to be honest then call this Star Wars Rebooted or something so true followers like me can make a choice and stay way. This is just dishonest, play-to-the-gallery filmmaking backed by a machinery that knows a billion bucks is out there to be made But here's the truth. Episode 9 is going to struggle at the box office, now that the trust and love for this saga has all but been put to waste.
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Let's think back the The Force Awakens (we will be doing a lot of that) -- the entire movie centered around a single plot device: Luke's lightsaber.
So after waiting two years to learn the significance of this, Luke the old takes one look at the lightsaber hilt and nonchalantly chucks it away, essentially slapping us in the face for having been so stupid as to trust the filmmakers to pay this off.
But having insulting payoffs doesn't end there. How about the whole mystery of Rey's parents? Well it seems the filmmakers wanted so badly to disprove all the fan theories that they decided to hand us another lump of turd by saying that her parents were... drum roll... NOBODY! Not the way Anakin had no father, but as in "nobody" significant.
The obvious place to begin with this review is to state how it blatantly rips off scenes from both Empire and Jedi, or perhaps that it decided to one-up Force Awakens' lame lightsaber battle by giving us NONE AT ALL, but instead I'm going to look at this from within the context of the Star Wars universe, in which 3 films stand out as particularly memorable -- Episodes IV, V and III.
All of these films had interesting storylines, complex characters and took those characters to a place by the end where their entire world had changed.
The characters in Episode VIII do nothing remotely close to this. Rey's so-called training on Degoba-er-Luke's Island, consists of little more than Luke voyeuristically watching her dance around with a lightsaber. Sure she has a scene like Degoba's deep dark cave where she sees herself reflected, but in this case it did nothing more than point us towards the red herring of her parents. In the end her "new changed world" was simply her using the force to move some rocks to save her friends. Not much of an accomplishment for someone who already used the force in much more powerful ways in the previous film.
Much like Force Awakens did, this one took familiar characters from the original trilogy and put them into a blender. Reluctant mentor Yoda became Luke, ethnically diverse character who turns on the heroes to save his own hide in Lando becomes both Rose and DJ (Del Toro).
And yet none of this stupidity seems to be at the core of what annoyed the majority of Star Wars fans. There were two things that did...
1. Leia miraculously surviving an explosion and getting sucked into outer space by using the force to fly to safety... now personally I don't mind the force part of this, to me it was almost the same way they can draw a lightsaber to themselves, she just did the reverse. But how the hell did her head no explode in deep space? What was she breathing?
2. Luke's hologram at the end and demise. Yeah it was a bit of a cheap trick, but worse than that, it felt completely unnecessary. Not only that, it opens the door to a lot of potentially stupid things in the next movie, like maybe Rey has multiple holograms of herself for Kylo to fight (if they do this I think I'll die a little inside).
I know I'm coming off as harsh, but there were some good moments. The film started out promising. Although Poe taking on the entire fleet by himself was a stretch, they sold it pretty well. I likes the scene where Snioke first talks to Kylo Ren because he calls him out immediately for two of the things that annoyed me about The Force Awakens: the fact that he wears a helmet for no reason whatsoever, and the fact that he was bested by a noob.
There was also a scene towards the end where Finn was about to sacrifice himself to save the alliance... but just like the other previously mentioned scenes, they immediately went on to cock up something that had the potential to be really good. That's actually a good metaphor for the entire film. Even the comedic moments felt out of place - one in particular felt like it came right out of Spaceballs.
I didn't think it was possible to anticipate a Star Wars film less than I anticipated this one, but they've managed to get me to a new level of disinterest. If that was the goal... job well done.
14 out of 20 found this helpful.
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I've never written a film review before, but in this instance I feel I must say something. This film was an absolute disgrace, it wasn't just a bad Star Wars film but a bad film in it's own right. I feel strongly that people need to stop supporting these type of corporate movies if the writing, scripts and plots are this bad. If i'm being constructive I liked the beginning and the soundtrack, the rest....I have no other words. For the first time of seeing a film I actually want a refund.
81 out of 144 found this helpful.
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Elected one of the Representatives of the New republic
- Rebuilds the Jedi Order on Yavin, trains awesome new Jedi like Kyle Katarn
Defeats multiple empire remnant leaders like Grand Admiral Thrawn with the help of his friends
Not only defeats the Emperor's super hot and empowered personal assassin, Mara Jade, whose last orders were to kill Luke at all costs, but also turns her to the light and FUCKING
MARRIES her creating the coolest space couple ever
Has children with her who along with Han and Lea's kids spawn an entire new generation of interesting and impactful characters
Fights off dozens of new and interesting villains like the Yu'zonn Vong, an invading race from an entirely different galaxy who can hide from the Force making a new and interesting
dynamic, Lumia the Sith who uses a lightwhip like a bad-ass and turns one of the Solo kids into one of the most powerful Sith ever, and a reincarnation of one of the goddamn founders
of the Sith order on Korriban
Overall, grows to be an amazingly powerful and wise character who grew from a farm-boy to the last hope of the galaxy to the courageous hero everyone in all of the galaxy knows they
can count on and will always be there for them.
Luke in the disney movies:
is a grumpy-ass hermit virgin who ran away from all his problems, abandoned his friends, dint give a fuck that Han died or Lea is in danger, forgot all the lessons he learned, and drinks not-blue milk from weird alien titties.
FUCK YOU DISNEY
11 out of 15 found this helpful.
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1/10
I am sorry for our loss SW fans and there is something fishy going on with critics head over heels loving this movie...
In short this movie, albeit directed by Rian Johnson, was another Jar Jar Abrams style unoriginal hack job copy paste from its predecessors; jam packed with special effects, prospective toy animals and story ideas of people who I presume, think that they are clever and/or special, but to their own detriment are not.
What Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy & Co. did in the Last Jedi is berserk tabula rasa butchery of not only the original trilogy but their own work TFA as well, in terms of consistency and story. Sure they have to sell new books and create newer cooler characters, and when they can't they just make the old ones uncool to make the new ones look cool, if that makes any sense.
Let's go deeper.
First of all, as far as Star Wars goes, I like the original trilogy a lot and respect it, I really disliked the Force Awakens because of its mock-Emperor and Darth Vader wanna be villains, its Mary Sue protagonist and the script which was copy pasted from "A New Hope". But if I was to develop a sequel to TFA I would have to respect it even if I do not like it and keep it consistent.
But this film though, I hate it. Yep very strong words I know but unlike the film my feelings are sincere. I feel like Disney thinks that they can get away with any chance they take with the franchise because fans will flock to the theaters no matter what and throw away their money.
I did not like the "Lost" style building up of intrigue and mystery Jar Jar tried to pull off regarding Snoke and Rey's origins and reasons for Luke's reclusion in the Force Awakens, and it is evident in this movie that they did not think it through in TFA to have any developed story or ideas about them then. Abrams, Kasdan & Arndt were just winging it. And evidently when Kathleen Kennedy and Co. & Rian Johnson decided they cannot wing it in this movie, heck they just kill the people / ideas off without explanation. For instance:
Quickly they make Ren smash his mask. Yay no longer a Vader copy, he's a real boy now.
Again quickly, snoke is killed by Whino Ren, while bragging how supreme he is (and we still did not learn who the bleep this guy was in the first place).
Lastly and in 10 seconds we learn that Rey's childhood is a byproduct of bad parentage by insignificant no name junk collectors.
But the worst for me is the guy we love for being able to overcome the dark side and refused to kill his fallen father which in turn led to the Emperor's undoing, Luke Skywalker, according to this movie freaked out upon sensing the dark side in Ben Solo and tried to kill him in his sleep, just for a moment. The guy who stood for optimism and was literally "the New Hope" who redeemed the unredeemable bad guy Vader, reduced to a hermit that turned his back on his loved ones, and killed off Obi Wan style, with the most ridiculous new force power of projecting interstellar holograms. Dude please.
Another major issue I have with this movie is that Disney, Rian Johnson or whomever is ridiculously desperate to be perceived as politically correct, diverse and inclusive; but in the end they come out as insincere since they just shove down an unnecessary parallel and nonsensical story arc of Finn and Rose with a little social commentary on capitalism, which is rich coming from Disney. As you know Disney has a rich history of depicting minorities (!).
Suffice it to say I will not be paying Disney for anything from now on. I definitely won't watch another Rian Johnson movie either.
Anyhow if you're still reading let's make a soft exit by listing minor but nevertheless still very annoying stuff about the film:
If you really wanted a Lando type character, here's an idea why didn't you just put Lando in the movie. Mr. Williams is alive and well last I checked.
You call that jedi training?
Luke milking an alien and drinking it caveman style?
I didn't see a point in the character Vice Admiral Holdo.
I still don't see the point of the character Maz Kanata.
Force skyping of Whino Ren and Rey, I'm no millennial nope, not for me.
Forced Marvel style humor every 2 minutes, I don't even like it in Marvel movies.
1 ewok type cg animal to be sold as toys is unbearable, 3 is just repugnant.
Damned Disney killed of Admiral Akbar.
And on and on and on... I am having a very hard time how critics can overwhelmingly like this piece of trash, I would still despise it if I was not a fan. Can a company really buy critics off? Not a fan of conspiracy theories but it seems like it. I will not be reading professional critics' reviews from now on.
11 out of 15 found this helpful.
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1/10
Avoid the movie! It will ruin your love of star wars
I've never left a review, I've always found that reviews should be ignored and that you should give all movies a chance. HOWEVER, this film comes under the star wars banner and to put it simply is not a star wars film. It tries to be an action comedy, jokes are thrown at you all the time and I personally found myself not laughing at one. I was sitting there as the film not only contradicts itself (E. G. Failures are the biggest lesson followed by giving up on life and joining the force) but every other star wars film. What can't the force and hyper space solve? I can't think of anything. The space chase an makes zero sense as the first order has ships that it can send ahead at light speed but chooses not to because... Instead of looking for faster ships to evacuate the fleeing resistance ship, the plan was to hack into the tracker of snokes destroyer? No wonder there's only 400 surviving in the resistance at that point. The characters are dull and everyone has a cringey moment cracking wise. There's literally no consequences for any of the characters decisions. Ray goes in to the dark side cave and faces no backlash. The kids openly free the animals in front of there masters and face no punishment. The character that takes over Leia for some reason keeps her flying straight plan a secret (the worst tactic ever btw) a mutiny ensues and nobody strips any one of these weapons and they just hold them there in the middle of a busy hanger for no reason apart from so they can escape easily. For some reason it was a genius move to completely pave over what happened in the force awakens and openly mock dedicated star wars fans by telling the audience how stupid it is. I have no idea how this got through the board room. Probably because they are trying to net the biggest audience possible from the already biggest movie franchise ever. I hope it fails. I won't see another Disney movie. Marvel, Pixar, starwars it all lines the pockets of people who don't care about movies. It's all about money and selling the merchandise. One quick note Rose that character who literally dies and is brought back magically is my least favorite part of the last Jedi. Mary Poppins Leia was stupid but they could of made it work if the rest didn't sell itself out soo much. Also forget using any imagination, it's all spoon fed to you as the movie treats you like an idiot. Hence it has a seen were ray narrates herself and a overlay of the description Luke gives of the force. Starwars #MeToo
11 out of 15 found this helpful.
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Star Wars ended with Episode VI. We need no sequels. But since Disney decided to make more, everything went downhill. This movie is all about the destruction of everything we knew and love about Star Wars.
11 out of 15 found this helpful.
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This movie is filled with awful jokes, prequel levels of bad dialogue, and flat-out disappointing twists.
The plot focuses around an over abundance of conveniences, everything just happens when it needs to and characters do very little outside of dump exposition at each other. The CGI, most notably on Snoke, is quite bland, and there are plenty of scenes that had me cringing and sighing while the rest of the audience laughed and cheered.
The Porgs are really damn annoying, and appear in seemingly every shot on the island where Luke Skywalker resides. You can hear them sqwarking all the time, making fairly nice looking shots and themes look silly. The way they are shoehorned into this movie so clearly for the purpose of children's merchandise its pretty saddening. They aren't cute, and unlike the Gungans or Ewoks, they don't even do anything of value. I don't even like the Gungans or Ewoks.
This film clearly tries something new and original, but I think the prequels had already proved people don't like that.
I believe Rian Johnson is a bad writer, and a worse director, I haven't enjoyed a single film he's directed, and I seriously can't imagine what Disney saw in him when finding people to helm a movie like this.
I legitimately can't even believe how disappointed I am in this movie. I've had so much faith in the new trilogy, The Force Awakens was flawed but good.
This? Disney just doesn't know what to do. They aren't developing the characters, and the story keeps going backwards in places.
The biggest reveal of the movie is pathetic and unsatisfactory.
32 out of 52 found this helpful.
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Well, it shocked me a little bit. Yes, it was a long movie, with a lot of happening, but away not enough explanation. I felt a bit disappointed after watching the Force Awakens. Despite it was a huge remake of the New Hope, I felt it was awesome, and a great base for a new trilogy. Because JJ was able to bring back the magic, that I'm watching a true Star Wars movie, in every single detail...
...but, I've expected much more from the Last Jedi. Another big hit, just like the Empire Strikes back. It was slow, lack of action, with some long boring threads. I feel disappointed about Snoke, because that character was simply nothing more than just "one another". We still don't know anything about, his story, or how he influenced Ben Solo to join him etc... However that duel, with the pretorian guards was great, but that whole feeling before, felt like a remake of Episode VI.
The escape of the resistance was very boring, and could have been much better and exciting, just as Finn's journey with Rose to that planet. The filmmakers just simply couldn't find any great role for Finn. I really missed Maz, because she could be an amazing character. And I really hated that CGI Yoda, and how Leia used the force, or how Luke throwed away his lightsaber, he got from Rey, those annoying jokes, which are suitable for a Marvel movie, but not for Star Wars.
Although it was unpredictible, mind-blowing in some places, I really loved especially Poe's character. But so much to process or analyse. I write these rows right after the film, it is possible that I will love this movie, but right now... I just don't know...
75 out of 133 found this helpful.
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I saw TLJ yesterday (12/15/17) after hearing glowing reviews from the critics and a huge fan boy friend. I went in hoping for the best, I almost walked out it was so bad.
SPOILERS:
WTF, a single X Wing can attack six battle cruisers and a dreadnaught without a single fighter being launched in defense? Every time the First Order jumped out of light speed why can't they shoot? The universe's worst slow speed chase takes up two plus hours of film time! Why can't they send a destroyer ahead to jump out and destroy the resistance cruiser? Snoke ended up being a little punk, Rey's parents were a nothing dead end story, Luke was just a grumpy old man who died of boredom, etc....
Fin spends half the movie with a weak love interest at a casino retreat weekend where they get thrown in jail for parking on the beach. They spend thirty minutes giving us a lesson on the evilness of greed, then steal some llamas... Because of Fin and Rose's little getaway, more than 3/4 of the remaining resistance fights get killed when they return, way to go hero's!
Rehash, rehash, rehash, this movie is just plain garbage. On the plus side, the porgs didn't ruin this movie, it was already ruined when they showed up... If you're reading this, you'll probably see this movie anyway, go in with low expectations, you'll probably still be disappointed.
18 out of 27 found this helpful.
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Luke, what a waste, what was that? he couldn't even be arsed to leave the island, and now he's dead. Ffs.
How could they not destroy that ship? It's out of range until it runs out of fuel? That's it then.
The Jedi books in a tree? Come on, store that digitally.
Who was Snoke? Pointless. Is Kylo the new bad guy? I like Adam Driver, he has probably the most developed character but he gets his arse handed to him by everyone.
The kamakazi ship kills 100s of stormtroopers standing around Finn and the Chinese girl, yet they remain unscathed.
Rey mysteriously warping to the Falcon after fighting Rylo.
The Red Sand or water exploding everywhere, yet it never lands on the ships, they don't even close their windows.
Leia freezing in space then coming back to life and floating back to the ship like a fuckin witch.
Luke handing over Hans memento to Leia, which she just drops.
Luke casually walking into a sealed base.
It felt so business driven, hey look more women in charge to win that female demographic, hey look a new main Chinese character for the lucrative Asian market. I half expect Poe to tell us he's gender fluid in the next.
18 out of 27 found this helpful.
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As a life long fan of STAR WARS, this movie was just devastating.
Nothing made sense, it was like a couple of the worst Star Wars Rebels cartoons hacked together and made into a live action film. The entire thing is an unfathomable mess, no storyline, very bad directing, forced humour, unnecessary scenes and some pretty bad acting at time.
Not to go into too much depth, but to lamely kill off a villain that they have been building up for two years half way through the film? Leia laid to rest in an explosion....wait..no lets bring her back?, Fluffy Porgs?....Chewie should have ate that roast one! Kylo Ren..dark, light, dark , light...make your mind up!, The Casino scene could have been removed completely without any impact....it just goes on and on and on.
Rian Johnson and Disney have completely killed this franchise, I don't think even JJ will be able to turn this round in the third instalment, What he did well in the TFA Johnson has torn down in this excuse of a film. I really hope he has that new 3 film saga taken away from him in the most humiliating and public manor.
When you come out of a movie theatre thinking that even the prequels where better really does say something.
Micky Mouse just killed Star Wars.
18 out of 27 found this helpful.
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Why would you start this movie by mocking Star Wars? why does Luke call a lightsaber a laser sword? Why does he crack jokes when its finally time to train Rey and make some sense out of her force powers. Why does everyone crack jokes the whole movie as if they're making fun of Star Wars instead of making a great movie. I guess they read the script, and realized this was not going to be a great movie. We as Fans can not praise this movie just because it is part of The franchise, or Disney will let it happen again. Lawrence Kasdan, or somebody else should have helped with this screenplay. It was all over the place, the pacing was bad, It felt slow. It had unnecessary annoying characters like the lady with Purple hair. Boring Casino planet, with a boring chase horse alien scene. A short sad boring finale for Captain Phasma, once again with jokes that received NO laughs in theatre. Chrome Dome?? who was this for? Benicio Del Toro with a silly stutter that wasn't funny to the crowd I watched it with. I talked this writer/director up so much after seeing Looper, but it seems he isn't a star wars fan, and wasn't the right guy for the job!
18 out of 27 found this helpful.
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I reckon once the dust settles on this film the backlash will begin, and you will see film critics doing a massive U turn on this film soon. Right now they are caught up in the hype and are too afraid to give it a bad review for fear of being ridiculed, particularly as the film did lots of nice PC correctness box-ticking and going against type, which critics usually love. The more I think about it, the more disappointed I get now with this film. There is so much wrong with it, its easier to focus on what actually works in the movie, and the answer is very little. Too many storylines, the whole prequel-type CGI casino scenes with Finn and Rose was not needed at all, too many unnecessary twists were the film was trying too hard to be clever, but most unforgivably - destroying Luke Skywalker's character. I didn't care what happened to any of the characters by the end of the movie. It was trying too hard to be too box-ticking PC correct too - vegetarian is good, being rich is bad, religion is bad, everyone is equal, you don't need to be a Skywalker to be a Jedi, anyone can be a Jedi, etc. Terrible film, and may actually be the worst film in the entire franchise (how is that even remotely possible after all the hard work achieved with Force Awakens and Rogue One?)
33 out of 54 found this helpful.
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While visually impressive it does little to save the uneven pacing, lackluster story and downright confounding character development (or lack thereof).
This movie has some great action and handful of fleeting yet awe-inspiring moments but it's a case where the bad far outweighs the good.
Fortunately I went to a free screening as I would be extremely disappointed if I paid to watch this film. That being said there seems to be enough of a casual Star Wars fan base out there that will gobble this up and ask for more.
33 out of 54 found this helpful.
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Everything about this movie sucks. I wanted a cool, interesting and plausible story from SW universe. Instead this movie destroyed existing SW lore and was dumbed down to the point of unwatchable. Leia surviving in vacuum of space?!?!? Supreme leader Kylo!? Are you fucking kidding me? Rey using advance force abilities without training? I will watch episode 9 but I will not pay for it (torrentz). Fy disney, maybe if you loose hundreds of millions of dollars on the next one, you will start making movies that actually make some sense!
23 out of 36 found this helpful.
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I love Star Wars. I really like the previous film. However, this, is NOT Star Wars. It's gone all disney/daytime tv. It's like the brainchild of Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Lorde when they were having a sleepover. I walked out before the end it was that bad.
23 out of 36 found this helpful.
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My main issue is that Disney didn't break the mold so to speak, which would have been refreshing and creative. In terms of plot devices it is played safe almost every time and it begins to get boring as the action never ceases. Every task and so called challenge faced are too easy for the characters. Similar to The Force Awakens, character development and a real sense of hardship is barely present. Again, similar to The Force Awakens, they knew that they would maximize profit if they employed the original movie main cast. Financially this decision makes sense, however in terms of creating a genuine and original product it does not.
Yes, it is Star Wars, they are piggy-backing and I don't want to take it so seriously, however this movie was a real kick in the balls and I honestly did not set any expectations or pay any attention to reviews or opinions before watching it.
I will list specific scenes or moments in the movie that either made me laugh or shake my head in disappointment. SPOILERS BELOW:
The scene when Leia comes back to life and air-walks back to safety is beyond ridiculous and the movie went downhill after this moment.
The "force Skype scene" where Rey gets a good look at Kylo in his high-rider panties extra sweaty and greasy was pretty hilarious, it parallels to the cringe angst Anakin scenes in the prequels, in fact a lot of Rey/Kylo scenes seem worse than the Padme/Anakin scenes and that is saying something.
Snoke became a trivial super villain and at least his death was a twist but it didn't make any sense at all in the Star Wars universe. He went down like a bigger bitch than Kit Fisto in Return of the Sith.
That stupid wannabe feminist character with the purple hair saying "godspeed... you rebels.." was extremely lame and unnecessary.
Yoda cameo was just bad. Really really bad.
I have so many examples but there is plenty of good reading in other user reviews so I will contain myself.
All I'm excited for in the next movie is seeing Rey wield a double-bladed lightsaber, as was hinted in this movie.
Finally, I noticed a trend in user reviews, that is most are poor ratings and generally negative and critical reviews. I don't understand why the movie is rated 8.2 and where these 10,000+ 10 Star ratings came from...
23 out of 36 found this helpful.
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3/10
It hurts... It really hurts. I take Jar Jar-Binks any day over this...
If you just casually watched a few "Star Wars" movies & thought they were alright, this is for you. If you are a "Star Wars"-fan you can't take this new installment seriously; to a point where you actually feel a bit of shallow pain after you leave the theater. The movie feels like fanfiction, which threw all the rules, that George Lucas created, out of the window und made your childhood characters fly through space without any suit or anything, but with the force. Star Wars always felt like a real thing far far away, now it feels like a summer blockbuster movie, that you'll forget the second you come home. There are so many Things that are bad about this movie, that i couldn't get them into the review. I'm not a Review guy, but now I felt a strong sense do get my disappointment out of my system. KATHLEEN KENNDEDY: PLEASE GIVE US MORE FROM GARETH EDWARDS, THAT'S OUR ONLY HOPE!
92 out of 167 found this helpful.
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I feel like my best friend has died. Disney and Rian Johnson have successfully murdered Star Wars.
The story was a total shambles from start to finish and the classic characters were practically unrecognisable from what we know and love. It is almost as if Rian Johnson has never watched ( and even less understood) the saga. Obviously the critics have been bought, because absolutely NO TRUE Star Wars fan would give this more than one star.
I enjoyed TFA and thought there was potential and looked forward to seeing the last Jedi. However ( coming from a fan, whose very first film he ever watched at the cinema was A New Hope), this film has destroyed everything that Star Wars truly is.
35 out of 58 found this helpful.
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Where does Disney come off giving Rian Johnson a TRILOGY after this garbage? He doesnt know how to tell a story! The pace was totally off. The story was nonsense. The vision was small. Almost EVERY choice Johnson made was a bad one. Quite simply NONE of it felt EARNED, which shouldnt be surprising because clearly the writer/director didnt earn his job.
52 out of 90 found this helpful.
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I'm getting to old for this. This is not "our" Star Wars anymore. Huge letdown after decades of George "maybe/maybe not" antisipation. Just in case it's not obvious enough, we get the books burned to leave no doubt that what has come before is no longer wanted or cared for. Clean slate is an understatement. Mass appeal approach is to be expected; but you CAN make a movie that appeals to children, the "Twilight" crowd and also viewers like me. Major missed opportunity. I'll just keep re-watching the end of ROTJ. Luke will always be the hero archetype and nothing that Disney does will change that for me. Those that felt a "disturbance in the force" when Disney bought Lucasfilm were right. Shame on you Kath and the Disney puppeteers that pull your strings.
29 out of 47 found this helpful.
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1/10
An absolute disgrace that makes The Phantom Menace look like a masterpiece.
I don't know where to begin. This movie was so terrible that I'm at a loss for words. I guess I'll start by saying this movie is directionless, horribly written, and an overall waste of god damn time. If you thought TFA was bad, you'll be wishing you were watching that instead of this atrocity. Everything that was built up in TFA was completely dropped like they were nothing at all in this film. Who are Rey's parents? Well, it's explained! Spoiler alert if you haven't watched it yet: but Rey's parents are just some scum who sold her for drinking money! She has no relation to Luke or Obi-Wan or any Jedi for that matter, she's just nothing. And this is explained like a massive insult to the fans who wanted to find out for so long. Who is Snoke you may ask? Another burning question left by TFA. We don't find out! Instead he dies pathetically and all we see him do in the whole movie is just throw Rey around with the force. The story, if you can call it that, is pathetic. I feel like I've seen fanfiction with more thought put into it than this piece of crap. The whole story is virtually just the Resistance is trying to go to a Rebel base on an abandoned planet while trying to shoo off a First Order ship trailing them. That's it. It felt like the writers didn't even know what they wanted or what they were trying to do. Dropping all the huge questions like they were some kind of joke and not explaining anything, and killing Luke off in quite a stupid way. There wasn't even any good action in this film to keep it at the least entertaining. The final fight scene on the planet the Resistance go to has nothing to it. There is only one lightsaber fight scene but it's short and pointless. Character development was thrown out of the window entirely as we learn nothing about any of the many characters we were introduced to in TFA, not even Rey. I'm appalled and in shock at how something like this could even be made by so many people working on it. it's like they wrote a half-arsed script and said "eh, it's enough to make a 2 hour movie and earn some cash." To say that I genuinely wished I was watching TFA again instead of this isn't an exaggeration. Hell, I'd rather be watching Rogue One or even The Phantom Menace. Calling this movie a disgrace is an understatement. Captain Phasma also appears, but yet again, like in TFA, does virtually nothing and actually ends up dying almost as pathetically as Snoke. Who the hell wrote this movie? That's all I could think while watching it. I implore nobody to watch this absolute piece of garbage, it is the biggest disgrace to Star Wars, so big that it's made me understand that the entire prequel trilogy were actually not that bad after all. I implore any of you reading this review to not watch this movie, please for the love of God don't give this awful evil tyrant corporation that we know as Disney any more money. That's all I have to say. I am sickened by this piece of crap movie.
19 out of 29 found this helpful.
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2/10
The main emotion I felt after watching this movie was disappointment.
To be clear, I don't usually invest my time on the internet complaining or hating on other peoples creative efforts just be cause I don't agree with their choices.
The last Jedi is an exception.
I'm driven by the rave reviews by professional critics to provide a counter point, and it seems many many other fans are too. To be very clear, this movie isn't just bad because it doesn't fit the Star Wars "formula", it is bad because it doesn't fit the "interesting and engaging cinema" convention.
The pacing and plot are flat out bad. This is not simply a matter of this movie "Dancing to its' own beat". The flow of the story creates a jarring viewing experience and the plot doesn't movie along with any real purpose. The story itself is strange at best, terrible writing at worst.
New characters are introduced with confused motivation and no sense of purpose. (Rose, Holdo, Del Toro) Others that were introduced in the previous iteration are cut down before they contribute anything solid to the story. (Phasma, Snoke). Our new heroes seem to stagnate, especially Finn and Poe.
The one exception is possibly Kylo, who is faced with some of the few moments of interesting emotional tension and is well acted by Driver. Rey, a new character I loved in TFA, is in limbo. She doesn't end up having journeyed anywhere as a character through this story. Sure she is put in some challenging situations and faces conflict, but where does it all leave her now? How has she changed or grown?
Our old heroes, Luke and Leia seem stuck in a bizarre parody of their former struggles and achievements, Mary Poppins-ing through space and milking alien sea cows. Add to this a drawn out casino sub-plot replete with alien horse race getaway and a few "wow that looked cool" moments. I'm willing to admit, given some time this might be passable for an afternoon's distraction, maybe on the level of Attack of the Clones, but it is certainly not great cinema and far from a great Star Wars movie.
The adoration slathered all over this thing by the mainstream press is beyond bizarre. Sure, much loved franchises like Star Wars are prone to be divisive, but the overwhelming sentiment of disappointment is mounting and people will question how these glaring issues have gone almost completely unnoticed by the pros.
19 out of 29 found this helpful.
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Ok, I don't have much time: the plot is horrible, is a mess; the characters are horrible, nobody is explained, things happen; there were some ideas, but they put them in the trash like nothing, like they were horrible. As we say in Italy: "tutto buttato in vacca!", everything thrown away like there is no importance in anything. And without a reason. A horrible horrible movie, a waste of time and money.
19 out of 29 found this helpful.
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"A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away" Isn't that the greatest single tagline for an epic start to a fantastic story ever? Well, the story is now dead. George Lucas did a magical thing in 1977. He had us captivated and enthralled. It was a fantastic adventure filled with unexpected turns and imaginative storytelling.
Say what you want about the Ewoks, but everything still remained in the greatest single story ever created that made it what it was. It was emotional, and inspiring. Star Wars created a new avenue for science fiction and human masterpiece cinema. It wasn't perfect, but it was true to itself and we were all FULLY invested. Of course I'm talking about us Star Wars fans. WE actually own Star Wars. It's a shared love that is timeless and bridges generations so when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and made promises to not ruin the magic we were hopeful. All hope is now lost, and the spark is completely gone.
The Star Wars fan must be SAVED from paying to see this movie!
We start of with a galactic space battle between {really} only two space cruisers. The dreadnaught is bad and the resistance ship is good. This battle actually continues for almost the entire damn movie. Right! Can you believe it?! All the while a couple of our heroes travel happily to and fro the space cruiser at will to get special quest items in order to escape. Really that's all that happens here. Oh yeah, and resistance fighters are being killed every so once in awhile, but we really don't care about any of them until it's convenient to show them when numbers count. Of course they just totally disappear when they're not needed anymore.
Now this god-awful dumbed down trend of epic CGI chases that are so overblown and outside of moving the plot has finally reached its most ridiculous peak. There is a space horse chase through a casino, and believe it! Everything that can be rendered artificially on a computer screen is smashed. Our heroes are of course champion expert riders with no plot realistic element of danger through a montage of child-like gag reels. GAG REELS! Stop it! Everyone hates them. They're so pathetically, and desperately forced upon you, it's insulting. Extremely insulting. We hated them in Phantom Menace, we HATED them in Attack of the Clones, WE HATED them in Force Awakens! They just keep getting worse and more unintelligent. Remember how Star Wars became what it was? Intelligent story telling beyond anything we've ever known before.
Characters are fleshed out in such a way that your booger eating children will recognize their costumes in the toy store. Poe, Kylo, Luke, and a couple of others are passable as characters in dialogue and acting, that's about it. The Snoke battle was great, unfortunately completely wasted, and the climactic super awesome light speed sacrifice attack on the ultimate evil space cruiser begat more WTF moments than a sense of catering to what could make the movie at best forgivable. Remember, we've already got 3 count em 3 goddamn DEATHSTARS! Size isn't everything, and along with the Jedi, character and soul have been completely annihilated by the dark side that is RIAN EFFIN JOHNSON.
Luke Skywalker's implied demise and battle is the ultimate 2 girls in one cup barf to the face. All anyone has been wanting is to see what kind of a Jedi Luke is now, and you get nothing. No pay off at all, and then he just disappears all on his own. My God, that is the lamest thing I have ever, ever seen.
I'm leaving out a bunch of unspeakable other problems, like really bad acting, horrible scenes that pretty much give up on trying and leave it all to a green screen. It was nice seeing Carrie Fischer, but now that she has lived through this horrible installment the train seems not be more deraillable.
The Jedi are entirely extinct.
19 out of 29 found this helpful.
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Disappointed. Felt more like Star Trek and GOTG is too many places. Just a few good scenes but mostly a mess and a disappointment.
Go watch episodes 4, 5, and 6. That's Star Wars, not this.
19 out of 29 found this helpful.
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2/10
This film is to Star Wars what Airplane! was to disaster movies
I think it would be safe to say that The Last Jedi is 85% comedy/15% sci fi.
I have no problem with comic relief in a serious film as long as the laughs emerge smoothly within a particular screenplay and do not interfere so heavily with the story that the audience begins to wonder just exactly what the hell they paid good money to see.
Water squirts out of Finn's suit at the beginning?! Leia is blown out into space but does not die I guess because she is strong with the Force; or maybe she is just displaying her new superhero abilities?! Snoke is killed by a light saber sitting right next to him?! Snoke's background is never explained. I am assuming the reason for his death is because the screenwriter was either too lazy or too damn dumb to outline any kind of history?! Same can be said for the number one question that has floated around every film goer's mind for the past 24 months...Rey's parents. Every individual fan on the entire planet Earth has forked over their highly detailed theories surrounding this question...hmmm...then forked over some serious cash to find out the answer. What the answer actually (get a grip folks) just happens to be is the one thing nobody ever considered: The screenwriter is too lazy or too damn dumb to care one way or another. She's "nobody"?! But wait, low and behold, the laughs are most certainly plenty; Luke throwing the light saber over his shoulder?! Luke "training" Rey, her eyes are closed, she reaches out (with her hand), Luke toys with her with a blade of grass on her fingers; that was just NOT what Luke meant when he said reach out (this was actually one of the funniest highlights)?! Finn tries to fly dead on into a certain very big badass weapon only to be stopped by what apparently is Finn's new squeeze (some oriental girl he kinda sorta hooked up with midway through the film, I guess she fell madly in love with him in record breaking time because they shared a tiny Harry Potter style adventure riding these ultra weird gigantic horse/donkey/rabbit/giraff creatures...that were from a race track...outside of this space casino........its a subplot........I think)?! Chewy has a new buddy in the Falcon that is about the size of a pigeon. Yes the pigeon thing is along for the ride?! Oh yeah, Luke rather spectacularly takes on an entire gunline of what looks like a slightly different design of Imperial Walkers from Empire Strikes Back, yes the character of Luke Skywalker is most definitely living it up as a full blown sarcastic laser sword weilding stud puppet, but wait, there is a twist, he's not REALLY there. He presumably is casting his image from his lonely little island, then he, I guess dies?! Yoda also makes a quick cameo, sets a tree on fire, burning some choice pieces of ancient Jedi written word. Afterwards our favorite Jedi master breaks out into a strangely wicked array of laughter that for some oddball reason reminded me of the Emperor?!
This film is a comedy. The comedy is literally equal to something you would see in a special features outtakes of just about any movie you purchase on disc. A whole bunch of bloopers and outtakes edited together with some action scenes.
.....Speaking of parodies there was one more thing I forgot to say in my review so I came back to submit a small revision. Some of the laughs in this spoof actually work and some simply miss the target but there was also some that seem to be delivered from the heart. Laughs that you can't help but to thank the Director for being nice enough to shine a light on true comedic nostalgia. There was, undeniably, one scene specifically in this barrel of a million laughs that caught me completely off guard. At one point we see a close up of what looks like a ship landing, then there is a much wider shot of droids holding irons, ironing the bad guy's uniforms (HA HA HA...HEE HEE HEE...PRETTY FUNNY). For about twenty minutes I was thinking, "...an iron, why an iron, why an..."(then it hit me). Hardware Wars. I hadn't seen it in over thirty years. I had totally forgotten about it. The 1978 spoof Hardware Wars?! After the movie I went on Youtube to check out some hilarious piece of history. It's probably the funniest Star Wars spoof ever made. If you haven't seen it then I highly recommend it. Yes my childhood has been truthfully resurfaced, it is just as funny now as it was way back in the day. Far more entertaining than this BIG HUGE "epic". So.....I DID get something out of Last Jedi.
I can't wait for IX. I KNOW I will be just on the edge of my seat.
24 out of 38 found this helpful.
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Congrats to Disney for stealing my money and many others to pad their pockets. Don't waste your time with this one. You will leave this movie with the same questions you had after the last one. The story did not develop or progress like other Star Wars movies. I feel like this was a huge waste of money and time for all involved. You could literally skip this movie in the series and pick up with the next one and not feel like you missed much...I guess that is what you can expect from a "no-name" director!
24 out of 38 found this helpful.
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A complete blunder of a film, "The Last Jedi" fails to capture the true essence of the Star Wars franchise. Director and writer Rian Johnson stumbles through an obvious plot line with incoherent editing and far too many jokes. Star Wars isn't a comedy flick Rian. Great actors like Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley struggle showing us their true thespian colors attempting to bring to life a script that feels like it was written by a 12 year old. The entire rhythm of the movie is just wrong. The battle scenes are unsatisfactory and plain, there is far too much fan service and no true content or meaning. The art has disappeared. They might as well have brought back Jar Jar binks. This fan is epically disappointed.
24 out of 38 found this helpful.
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4/10
For All Adults, It Really Is Time To Stop Supporting This Crap
I left the movie screening last night feeling empty. I get what they were trying to do which is set up for the future, but I felt like they lost the appeal of what makes this franchise great. I'm done. If we can be all honest with each other, there really hasn't been a good Stars Wars film since the original 3. From Episode 1, 2, 3 crap....then 7, now 8 just left you feeling empty.
Bottom line, if you never see another Star Wars movie, you will not be missing out on anything.
37 out of 62 found this helpful.
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No big spoilers in this review...Because there were no big reveals in the movie to answer questions from The Force Awakens, which most of us can say was great but the next installment was going to have to answer a lot of questions, which it didn't. I feel like I just watched a movie that Rain Johnson payed Michael Bay to help with. Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad but it wasn't GREAT, and I think that's what we were all expecting after The Force Awakens.
72 out of 129 found this helpful.
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Reducing Star Wars to an entertainment film only, after the work that George Lucas has done (of research and writing) is absolutely simplistic; work that had always been reffered to the studies of the anthropologist J. Campbell, for example. Let's be clear: I don't say that there's no attempt in The Last Jedi to relate to the great anthropological issues (which have always characterized the franchise) such as the overcoming of paternal hegemony, but, the few things that may have worked, have been sacrified in the name of childish jokes and grotesque situations. Giving the peculiar explanation of why Kylo Ren turned evil, by the way, was the only thing that may have really surprised in the movie, on which base, could have been settled a better plot. The main issue of The Last Jedi, in fact, is the total lack of a solid narrative structure and filmic logic, which, at least, had always characterized George Lucas storytelling, from the very early beginning.
Anyway, Star Wars means a lot of things for billions of people all over the world. Thus, killing what it represents in the deep and hoping that everything would be fine, sounds like an insult to mankind intelligence.
When someone has the honor and the privilege of putting hands on masterpieces that have revolutionized the American film industry, first of all, he must understand in which kind of franchise he is working on and so follow certain unwritten rules. For example, If I'm writing for the TV show "The Walking Dead", I can not let Zombies eat candies, instead of human brains.
This is the reason why Rian Johnson can not talk about "gray shades" in a world where there has always been a such clear gap between good and evil (despite history teaches:"only a Sith deals in absolute...") or He can not force Luke Skywalker to act such as a dull boy, when he's always been the opposite in terms of character's personality. If you twist the founding elements of a saga, you're not innovative, you're just a fool.
Just remember that, if you're staging a famous opera, you can, of course, change the set up and the lights, but not the basic contents; otherwise it would be like drawing, on top of Mona Lisa's head, hornes: a sterile, but fun, provocation ... just like The Last Jedi.
48 out of 83 found this helpful.
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The Force Awakens was a triumph in re-kindling our passion and thirst for more Star Wars epic adventures and our need to continue that adventure with The Last Jedi is sadly taken away with this pitiful instalment.
The plot has all the makings of a classic Star Wars movie. The Resistance on it's knees with all hope seemingly lost. The First Order tightening it's grip and closing in with brand new modern Star Destroyers, chasing the Resistance through the galaxy in an old Ford Cortina and a spud gun for protection all thrown together with a bit of Jedi stardust.
But from the opening scene with the cheesy " yes I'll hold" phone joke the only thing that was missing was the hold music!!!!!! From there it just get worse and worse with infinite bad comedy throughout the film for what can only be described as cheap laughs which totally ruined it.
There is so much to say which I won't as everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I can only describe this as a when Star Wars met Harry Potter movie.
So disappointed !!!!!
39 out of 66 found this helpful.
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Terrible pacing, pointless sub plots, good film hiding in here, just needed 30 minutes cut out of the film and another 10 minutes explaining two of the main characters' back stories.
32 out of 53 found this helpful.
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1/10
How to ruin a good movie franchise and reputation of actors
1. Add some kind of minions
2. Don't explain characters backgrounds and origins and dispose that mystery built up in the process. Suchs as Phasma and Snoke
3. Add a Mary Poppins scene in space where she uses the force
4. Create a side story, like a SW Rebels cartoon, that doesn't affect the movie plot at all and only adds time to the movie
5. Create plot holes that are unredeemable. Such as Luke leaving a map in order to be found in case of need but then trashing that plot by making him saying otherwise
6. Mix it all together and make it last 2 hrs and 40 mins.
12 out of 17 found this helpful.
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Most male characters were dumbasses, including Luke and Snoke.
Poe was a hot shot asshole who didn't follow orders and had to be "corrected" by the "sage women".
Most female characters were heroes who always made the right decisions. The leaders on the resistance were mostly women.
All evil characters save one (Phasma), were white males or at least males that we could visually see.
The leader who took Leia's place early on had purple hair which is basically pandering to SJW lesbian feminists.
The Mary Sue still barely needed training yet is a continuing master swordsman and force user as she took on Snoke's guards.
The trailer where Luke is standing behind her for example, wasn't even his training her. He just went to take a closer look at how great she is at handling the saber lol.
Let's also not forget the Porg's who were everywhere. When Chewie wanted to eat one, they changed his mind and the falcon is now their vegan safe place.
All the best characters were butchered. None of the main questions were answered sufficiently. Too many people tossed in there where it actually tried to make us feel something for some of them, like the fat little dumpling who was with Finn on that useless mission.
A mission that could have been replaced by one exploring the Knights Of Ren or some back story to Snoke, but that's right, the second he really started to become interesting, let's just cut him in half without even being aware it was about to go down lol.
12 out of 17 found this helpful.
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I really wanted to like this movie, but it's terrible. I honestly can't think of a single good thing about it other than the music (almost all of which is from earlier Star Wars films) and that it isn't a remake of The Empire Strikers Back. Besides that, there's almost nothing good about it.
The pacing is terrible, and it jumps between scenes with completely different emotional tones and, despite being the longest running Star Wars movie ever, seems to constantly be speeding through everything. Extremely important story moments are covered in only a few minutes, while unimportant scenes seem to stretch on as long as possible. Most people I talked to had little idea what the plot even was, aside from the information provided by The Force Awakens.
The plot makes no sense either, and would be avoided if the characters weren't complete idiots who make mind-numbly stupid decisions, such as hiring shady criminals in a prison to help them, or wanting to escape on ships that they know don't have weapons. There's also no explanation as to the current political situation, and it's unclear what's even happening in the Galaxy at large. It's not even hinted at as to who's funding the inexplicably recreated Empire, and it's not even clear if the New Republic still exists. Worst of all, everything was reset and everything that ever happened in the original movies means absolutely nothing now. Every victory ever won by the Rebellion, every superweapon destroyed, every system liberated - are all meaningless. Han Solo returned to being a smuggler and divorced Leia and was murdered by his son in the most obvious trap imaginable, Luke Skywalker became a failure and ran away to pout on a deserted island and also ultimately died, and the New Republic the rebels fought and died to create was destroyed in five minutes of screen time by a new Empire which is inexplicably strong enough to build a planet-sized superweapon which is now left to be opposed by a new Rebellion which itself will ultimately be destroyed when they inevitably make another trilogy.
The writing is insulting. There's one scene where Leia is sucked into the vacuum of space and somehow survives floating through it for several minutes and pulls herself with the Force to her ship. The dialogue is filled with "jokes" which are always as out-of-place as possible. When the entire Resistance is evacuating there's a scene where Leia turns to C-3PO and says to "wipe that nervous look off your face", or something to that effect. Rey is still a flawless Mary Sue, while Luke Skywalker's character was completely ruined, and he went from leading the Rebellion to victory against the Empire and being set to recreate the Jedi Order to a failure who attempted murdering one of his own students and burning down the original Jedi Temple. Yoda's ghost shows up to burn down the temple for him through the Force, which begs the question of why force ghosts have never interacted with the physical world in such a way before, and if they can why Yoda doesn't just go stop Snoke and Kylo himself, who wouldn't be able to fight back as Yoda is already a force ghost.
The cinematography and directing are also terrible. Even though the sets and environments are beautiful, the camera seems to have no idea what it's supposed to be doing. It will randomly cut away from the characters for two seconds to the top of a mountain or something else nearby and cut immediately back to them as if nothing happened, and other times will cut between different characters, forward in time, or even to dreams or hallucinations without giving any indication that it switched to something else. The film also seems to have an obsession with randomly making things slow motion and silent during action scenes, which feels out of place in a Star Wars movie and also extremely overused given its inclusion in seemingly every action scene.
12 out of 17 found this helpful.
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I have just returned from watching this overly long nonsense and am surprised at the rating it has been given thus far. I suppose the stars wars desperates are the most likely to respond early in the movies season and many of them click 10 as soon as the yellow test spools.
There have been some ordinary uneccessarily convoluted Star Wars flicks over the years but this one is a whole new order of tedium, none of the characters came across in a way that inspired me to care two figs about what they did or whether they lived or died. Even worse I cannot thing of a single scene where the eventual outcome wasn't patently obvious from the get go.
I won't induge the spoiler queens by being more specific if you watch this mess you will understand..
As for the soundtrack that trumpet riff that accompanies everything Star Wars has gotten really old. Props to John Williams for building a career around one riff n all but doncha think you owe it to the rest of us; who after all have funded your luxurious life, to give us a break from more of the same old same old? If I never hear another trumpet sound I will be happy, I used to love brass too,
The wannabe jedis will love this of course but for the rest of humanity what is it about 2017 which made Hollywood decide that cranking out so many badly plotted turkeys overflowing with nonsensical & hackneyed dialog would all that was necessary to keep us all entertained?
Big mistake as the receipts for this disaster year reveals.
12 out of 17 found this helpful.
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I consider myself to be a starwars fan having watched all of the movies multiple times including The Clone Wars animated, Star wars rebels and playing almost every starwars games and reading about the nature of the sith and jedi in novels and stuff like that.
First of I kinda liked The Force Awakens. It wasn't a perfect starwars movie but I can say that it respected the Star Wars mythos and it created some interesting characters and possible plot twists in Rey and Kylo and Supreme leader Snoke.
We as moviegoers had incentives to continue watching this new saga JJ had created. We all were after watching TFA looking forward to what happens now with who is Rey, who is Snoke and the development of Kylo ren as a villain.
Well...The Last Jedi SHITS on this completely. Its like Rian Johnson deliberately wanted to ruin EVERY single character in this movie. And not to mention what he did to Luke Skywalker...and the flying Leia
So...Rey basically is no one. Left alone on Jakku by her parents and that's just it. That's her backstory. That's lazy writing to its finest. I mean at least they could have come up with something about her lineage. What was the purpose of the Force dream she had with Obi wan's voice in TFA when she finds luke's lightsaber....nothing. No purpose at all.
Kylo Ren...they managed to turn him into a kid with anger issues who can't control his emotions. I mean being a sith or whatever the writers consider Kylo Ren to be is not about expressing childish emotions. It doesn't really add to the big picture that he is now a supreme leader. A person who cant control his feelings. He is not a compelling villain. Snoke had that potential but they killed him off...
As for Luke...oh boy I cant even comprehend how they approved the script for Luke. Giving him godlike powers to astral project himself halfway across the galaxy and fooling everyone that he is the real Luke while basically he sits in his comfy rock and dying afterwards from Force exhaustion.. That was plain laughable and kinda sad to see what they have done with our beloved character.
And Leia...they should have just let her die in that vacuum in space. Instead they made her use her force abilities for the first time and it looked...well...ridiculous.
These problems are by far the worst in this movie with how they went with the story on these characters. Because basically no matter how shallow the main plot is(and in TLJ it is shallow) the force that moves Star Wars forward are the characters in it... and they managed to ruin that in this movie.
Hope JJ will fix this mess...
Cheers
12 out of 17 found this helpful.
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Rian Johnson is about to become known as the man who killed Star Wars and you can put money on Disney reversing their decision to hand him a new trilogy. Who in God's name saw what he did here and made him an offer on that basis? The best advice I can give Disney is to fire that person, immediately. The next best thing they can do is write this trilogy off and have someone wake up and discover it was all a terrible dream. As nonsensical as that sounds, it would be less damaging to their franchise than this was.
12 out of 17 found this helpful.
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Had real hopes going into this film but what a mess. The tone of the film is set out in the first five minutes where you're led to believe you are watching Spaceballs II and comedy is forcibly fed into every scene. A storyline that makes no sense added to some average acting and at points some really poor looking CGI left me jaw dropped for all the wrong reasons. I've no idea where they will go from here but frankly at the moment, I couldn't care less.
69 out of 124 found this helpful.
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It's clear that Rian Johnson made a movie for himself, not for fans. The writing is terrible, Finn (the co-lead) is sidelined, Poe is wildly out of character (I thought there was a team to ensure that nothing contradicted canon?) and you'll notice that the people of color in this movie are subjected to some of the most violent stereotypical racial violence I have ever seen. Rey is not empowered, she has no storyline and instead is only there to further Kylo's story. Luke is out of character. This entire movie begs the question: What on gods green earth is Kathleen Kennedy doing, and why hasn't Disney fired her already?
26 out of 42 found this helpful.
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The Last Jedi lost me as a generational fan (someone who has been there since opening night of New Hope). I won't do any spoilers, but I will say that I left the theater completely, thoroughly disappointed with TLJ. I'm not sure who Rian Johnson was trying to reach with his screen treatment, but it wasn't me or anyone else in the theater, which was packed, and stone silence from beginning to end.
The FX and CGI were fine. That's the only reason I'm doing 3 stars. There was no coherent story. Whatever talents the actors brought to the film were entirely wasted.
The more hours of distance I put between myself and the movie, the more I feel violated as a franchise fan. Rogue One was fun. TLJ is a complete and total face splat.
33 out of 55 found this helpful.
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3/10
TFA was a good warm up, Rian fell at the first with TLJ
What can I say...flying Leia, force skyping, force projection, clunky dialogue, pacing was poor, dropping bombs in space, Snoke was pointless, Rey is a Jedi wiz after 2 mins, Luke never really uses his light-saber and dies from exhaustion. Oh and the old trilogy means nothing...so never watch it again as it's a pointless exercise.
I really couldn't give two monkeys about ep 9
9 out of 12 found this helpful.
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I was left disappointed! I'm actually sad with how Disney is turning such a great movie series into a total crap hole. They are too focused on "progressiveness" and "diversity" rather than sticking to a good storyline.
9 out of 12 found this helpful.
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Full of plot holes.
The hole casino plotline can be scrapped.
Misuse of characters.
Destroying the lore.
Should have ended 3 times but kept going.
A bad movie, filled with ready to buy merchandise.
Why Yoda..... Why???????
9 out of 12 found this helpful.
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Like most people who enjoy Star Wars, I grew up with it. I watched it every time I found it on TV as a kid. I purchased The Trilogy about three times in various formats and iterations. Then, the Prequel Trilogy (The Poop Trilogy, as I tend to refer to it) comes along and ruins all of hope of seeing a good Star Wars movie again.
The Force Awakens is released two years ago and my hope is restored. It's not the same, but it doesn't need to be. It has the spirit that I want. There was love in that movie. And Rogue One was great in ways that I hadn't expected. It was also different, but made it clear from the beginning what its intentions were.
So the roller-coaster ride of Star Wars fandom brought me to The Last Jedi with pretty high hopes. My friends and I were all pumped up and cheering as The Crawl began, like everyone else.
By the end of the movie, the customary applause did not occur. The theater was silent, and I realized that a contorted expression of disgust that remained since about half-way through.
I apologize, as if you've read one negative review of this movie, it seems that you have read most of them. While a lot of people did like it (and I can see why), everyone that disliked it seemed to very similar reasons:
*Bad writing and awkward jokes that felt like they belonged in a different movie.
*Nearly every lesson learned about goofy CG characters was forgotten. The last half of the movie felt like it was devoted solely to cramming in as many shots of cuddle critters as they could.
*Everything except Rey's storyline is completely pointless. There's a mutiny on-board the Resistance cruiser that is so irrelevant (and far too much of the movie) that I'm not even going to get into it. Though I will mention that Laura Dern sticks out like a lavender-haired thumb in this movie. The section with Finn and Rose, like the mutiny that is occurring simultaneously, could have been removed from the movie and basically nothing would have changed, other than the run-time being drastically shorter. This convoluted bit of filler involves light speed tracking devices, codebreakers, encrypted shields, a casino on a planet of war-profiteers, and Benecio Del Toro. Throw in a little action sequence for Capt. Phasma before "killing" her again, and the storyline ends in basically the same place as it started. The tracker is not disabled, DJ (Del Toro) betrays them for money, a bunch of faceless characters die, and that's about it. But we got more cuddly CG merchandising out of it!
*The "Don't Spoil This" gimmick that they attached to the TV spots was for good reason. Remember all of those enticing mysteries set up during Ep. VII? Who is Supreme Leader Snoke? Who are Rey's parent's? What really happened with Ben Solo and Luke? You will be extremely disappointed to find out that Rian Johnson did not care to answer those questions. Not to save the revelations for Ep. IX, he just threw them away and moved on with more shots of CGI toy advertisements. Who is Snoke? Who cares... he's dead. Who were Rey's parents? Nobody. They were space white trash that sold her into slavery for beer money. Luke and Ben? BIG misunderstanding that just got WAY out of hand. All of the mystique built up over the past two years was discarded, seemingly because the director/writer couldn't come up with satisfying answers.
*PERSONAL PET PEEVE: No love for Stormtroopers in this movie.
That being said, it was not ALL bad. There were some really shining moments in this movie. And despite being tedious in many respects, it's never really boring. The little cameo with Yoda was one of my favorite parts, and the way Luke's face lights up when he sees R2 for the first time in years is really pretty touching. But I have still rated this VERY low, as the negative aspects are too overwhelming for me. I've heard Abrams is coming back for Ep. IX, which is pretty exciting. But I feel he's got an uphill battle once again, as Last Jedi effectively paved over what he built to make a petting zoo.
9 out of 12 found this helpful.
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First of all , nobody wants to hate a star wars movie .All of us more or less enjoy and love every single of the movies regardless if the are some parts tha are flawed ...''The Last Jedi'' was the most anticipated movie of the year with high expectations.The movie is enjoyable and not boring ,with many space battles ,great special effects , good acting ,BUT NOT FOR A REAL STAR WARS FAN.
The force awakens created some mysteries about 1)rey's parent's , 2)snoke's origin and we get nothing..1)Rey's parents are some scum..The saga is about the family of skywalker and their connection with the force so I CAN NOT understand what they had in mind when they decided to give Rey this back story...She has no relationship with noboby from the entire saga she is just nobody..so why Han Solo in TFA seemded shock about Rey's identity??..2)Snoke , the mighty force user and the main villain of the sequel trilogy is killed in the middle of the movie and furthermore we get no info about his identity , his coflict with Luke , his origin story..so the mystery about him its pointles..
The thing that i also didn't lke were the jokes...Disney should hane known that STAR WARS IS NOT AVengers.There many forced jokes that shouldn't exist..Rey gives the lightsaber to Luke and he throws it away?? come ...its hilarious.....
In addition the casino worl is out of star wars...it reminds me somthing of star trek and battlestar galactica...its a world that we have never seen in star wars universe and i think it was out of space and time ...
The script was awful (FUELS ???? !! )....Luke skywalker isn't what we have been waiting for and he dies alone (like solo ) without glory...
I give it one star because Disney doen't care about star wars but she does care about making money...the movie prepares us for more movies of the expanded universe and fails to continue the magic of Star Wars..
9 out of 12 found this helpful.
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You could cut out every scene with Finn and the whole movie would be exactly the same. The whole plotline is basicly filler. It adds nothing to the story.
But Poe's plotline is even worse. If he wouldn't do anything hundreds of rebels would still be alive (or even Luke). He just should have listen to the admira,l sit down and shut his mouth.
9 out of 12 found this helpful.
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Just learn about the universe you want to portray for f*ck sakes.
There are no superheroes flying in space, no weird horcrux connection between people in sw. Lightsaber is not a wand. It doesn't choose people. Force ghost never physicly interviens like shoot a lightning or something. People don't just learn force pull things without a training like the kid in the end of the movie or as a matter of fact Ray in TFA.
The whole movie looked more like Harry Potter/Marvel than Star Wars... Who fcol wants another action movie full of empty one-liners that noone would say while his/her life was in danger?
The Finn plot was the laziest piece of writing I've ever seen and had no consequences to the overall plot.
And what they did to Lukes character is just unforgivible. No suprise Mark Hamill bashed them for it.
At the top of it all, the feminist propaganda is really off putting. All male characters are weak impulsive dumb cowards while women are super(wo)manly flying through space, command battleships, guard the escape pods from men fleeing the battle, sacrifise themselves by staying on ships for certain death and hide their plans from hothead male characters.
On the bright side acting was superb and visuals as well! Ridley, Boyega, Hamill and Fisher and many others did all a great job.
May the force be with us, while Disney will be destroying Han's character next year.
9 out of 12 found this helpful.
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Be prepared to let out angry gaffaws and make friends with any Star Wars fans sitting next to you, bonding over your mutual disgust. This movie is utter garbage. Rian Johnson should just retire in shame after this.
I can't tell if this is a botched mess from the directing or editing or all of the above. The graphics aren't even great. Saturation was weird. Characters were empty. Chemistry between actors was bad.It was way too choppy. The plot line was weak. It seemed like a collection of scenes with no real point, just a bunch of money shots.
The first third of the movie holds NO dramatic tension whatsoever. Leia got blown out of a ship, presumably dead, and I felt nothing. (Of course then somehow she is immortal and goes on some weirdly long, awkwardly shot float back into the ship. Why is Leia suddenly immortal?) That moment should have been heavy or held some weight, but nope.
There's a whole story line with Finn and a new character--Rose (UGH)-- that has little purpose, if any at all. The casino scene felt like something straight out of the prequels. Ah, look at all the weird quirky characters.
Poe/Finn call Maz to figure out the codebreaker. Why call Maz? Just so her character can make a cameo? It was a completely goofy conversation that felt like a video game cut scene.
Luke on the island is weird, never really gets explained properly, or maybe I just don't accept the reason, but whatever. There's a hokey scene where Rey is following Luke during his daily activity. He drinks the milk from some giraffe creature with a deranged look on his face, the giraffe creature looks at Rey as if it feels violated, and Rey looks away uncomfortable. The whole scene felt like something grotesque that I shouldn't be seeing.
Dialogue is awful. When Rose (UGH) "saves" Finn, she says something along the lines of "we'll win not by fighting those we have, but by saving those we love." Multiple people in the theater legitimately groaned and then we all started laughing.
Also, the droids barely are in it. Chewie is barely in it. The movie misses the mark with regards to Star Wars charm. It tries too hard in certain places, making it cringeworthy, and woefully neglects areas that could have given the film more character.
I could keep going on and on, but I'll refrain. One positive: The Porg is adorable.
16 out of 24 found this helpful.
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Force Awakens was by far and away the worst Star War movie............UNTIL The Last Jedi came out. It managed to make Force Awakens look even worse. Look at the VILLAINS in the 6 previous STAR WAR EPISODES. I'm talking Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader pre and post, Boba Fett, Rancor, Wampa, Sarlaac, COUNT DOOKU and Darth Maul, EMPEROR Palpatine, General GREVIOUS, JABBAH..........What do we get in this entire TRILOGY? We get Snoke who was a hologram only and then gets killed that quickly with no background about him given plus we get Kylo who 1) got beat by a young girl who never even knew she had the force let alone being trained in it and 2) We have no clue if he's good or bad. He is like Sandman from Spider-Man 3. Like WTF. So Episode 9 were talking more jobbling back n forth between Rey and Kylo with no other VILLAINS. General freakin HUX. He is the Sith apprentice of this Trilogy basically.
AND WHO IS REYS PARENTS????????? nobodys really
16 out of 24 found this helpful.
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I created an account because I was so mad at this film I needed to vent.
Cons:
It felt like T.P.Menace; insane amounts of CGI, non stop action, way too many side plots and characters, epic battle scene after epic battle scene after epic battle scene, never using any sort of nuance like Obi Wan did "These aren't the droids you're looking for", everything has to be a huge battle for some reason.
We also never got a full reunion with Luke Skywalker. All that mystery and lead-up from TFA, only to find out he's basically your angry uncle who can't even talk without sounding like an angry drunk. A far cry from the soft spoken, righteous young jedi of old. The least they could have done is show him having a reconciliation meeting with Chewie and Leia (one that wasn't just a projection). Also, if Luke can just force teleport anywhere, why didn't he just teleport into the main command ship and find a way to blow it up? Or teleport into the lead gorilla walker and shove his lightsaber in the controls? Or into Kylo Rens ship and blow it up while it was midair? Or teleport next to the door smashing machine and hack it to bits?
I could go on but I won't, this movie pretty much killed the franchise for me. It made The Force Awakens, a movie which I loved, much much worse, I will not sit through either one of these movies again.
Pros:
About halfway through the movie I thought to myself that this movie wasn't worth the calories from my popcorn, so I threw it away. Already working my way to that summer bod, thanks TLJ for helping me there at least!
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The plot is so weak and silly. Unbelievable that this is the plot for big movie.
The characters is so stupid. The mighty Snoke died by the most stupid villain in Starwars' history. The legend Luke died pointlessly. If finally he has to die, why he doesn't go fight directly with Kilo? Stupid. Have all the knights been trained? They fight lilke kids who got light saber as x'mas gift! Forget spectacular Jedi fight like in Ep 1-3. Only kids fights you can see.
If they want to expand the territory of force other than Jedi power, make a new movie is better.
The worst thing of this movie is FORCING TWIST PLOT. It sounds cool at first but it totally failed. They force WOW to watchers. They pretend to culminate, surprise watchers and make watchers unable to predict the story. But it's totally screw the plot and entire movie.
What a waste of time watching this trash.
44 out of 76 found this helpful.
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Is it still a Star Wars story? I guess. I don't really know what to feel about it. Having just seen it a few hours ago...I think phrasing it in a nutshell is that: Star Wars is now just a franchise norm, unable to live up to the hype that it had all those years.
Well...SPOILERS after this line. Here goes...
----------------------------------
I thought we would be exploring on the characters Rey, Finn, Poe and the legends like Luke & Leia Skywalker. But it turns out that they are all very two-dimensional now, unfortunately.
First off, lets start with Rey. The Force Awakens established her as the main protagonist. So here I thought we would dwell on her more - about her character. But it doesn't seem to go anywhere, other than the fact that her heritage is just from a "nobody". A nobody that is able to wield The Force to such extend, that without showing any real "training" from Luke...she is able to just do what she does in The Last Jedi. It begs to make me question - even if she does not meet Luke at the end of The Force Awakens, she would eventually know how to do what she does with The Force in all of its aspects that are shown in The Last Jedi because her plot requires her to do so. Like communicating with Kylo Ren light years away or lifting multiple boulders all at once, that could be just as heavy as one single X-Wing, yet she does it with such ease. And the fight she had with Kylo Ren - we did not see Luke train her, but we saw her training herself as Luke looks on. So...I guess her "training" happens by being close proximity to a real Jedi Master like Luke Skywalker. Makes me wonder, if she is close to Master Yoda while he was alive, will she be able to command the atmosphere at will too? Since Master Yoda did that in ghost form (I do not want to get started on that Jedi Ghost ability that we witnessed).
Next, we have Finn and Poe. One of which is delegated to being the humor relieved character, whom is inexperience and aspiring to be the hero that he should be, while the other is just a hot-headed leader-wannabe. I'll let you guess who is who. Since both are just the same when we were introduced to them in The Force Awakens. Nothing more. Nothing less. As for their stories that they partake in the film...I kept wishing that their subplots would just disappear - so that we can get more screen time for Rey & Luke. That is how disinterested I was.
Luke Skywalker. The Jedi Master. Whom now can project himself through galaxies because the plot requires him to do so. I would had think that the writers would actually think of something plausible...but no...they just went with the simple - power of projection. It also makes me wonder, all those while with Master Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda...why didn't they do that in Prequels or in the original trilogy at all?
And Leia Skywalker-Solo (bless her soul. RIP Carrie Fisher). The Jedi power that they showed her do...wow...I am sorry...but it does boggle my mind. After all these years of trilogies...I am beginning to ask myself, when did the Star Wars script ever devolves into a Mary Sue state? Oh well...
As for the others...I didn't care about the asian ethnicity characters that were introduced. One lived and died in the introduction, and served as a motivation for the other? Whom by the end of the film was just gone, and I do not feel anything at all for that character. But I guess they did it, because China will appreciate it a lot.
Supreme Leader Snoke? Whom is supposedly to be so powerful and yet killed off by the middle of the film? WOW....bo-ring. zzz. And Captain Phasma....makes me wonder why they even bother introducing this character in the first place?
As for the story itself - well...i guess it is passable. Oh-Kay. So-So. If we treated Star Wars like any other franchise norm. There are dramatic moments. There are easter eggs. There are humor of all kinds that some are almost slapsticky. There are porgs here and there....and everywhere PORGS! I guess toy sales are more important.
Well, that is the gist of it all. Just my opinion. My reaction. Will I rewatch it ever again? Probably - only when it is on tele. Maybe others will enjoy The Last Jedi tremendously. And that is good. Go and enjoy yourselves with it. Or just go and check it out for yourselves. After all...It is Star Wars yah.
38 out of 65 found this helpful.
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There is no single Star Wars fan who will like this movie.
A combination of a remake, stupid comedy and full of some totally illogical plot-twists. It is fun to watch only because it is bears Star Wars name, but nothing more than that.
I will give it 2 stars, only because of special effects which are great and that is pretty much all.
38 out of 65 found this helpful.
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1/10
Star Trash: or how the franchaise falls into a void
I´m gonna be short; my level of disappointment grows every unnecessary minute of the movie. The script, empty of originality, with so many holes is boring as HELL. Of course none expects to be as good as the first ever made trilogy, but this?...is a joke...really!!!
22 out of 35 found this helpful.
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2/10
A Complete Mess: Bad pacing, script, direction, and jokes.
I can only imagine that Disney assembled a team of bean counters who had to okay the dailies for this movie. Otherwise, I don't know how you realistically end up with such an uninspired disaster.
It feels like the only guiding principles were: 1) Don't repeat the mistakes of The Force Awakens and 2) Create merchandise tie ins for every possible demographic on Earth.
The pacing in the movie is horrible, the scenes move abruptly from location to location with no rhyme or reason other than it has to. There is way too much forced humour, to the point it is jarring and removes you from the very brief moments in which anything resembling tension (or a real movie) was starting to emerge.
The writing was something you'd expect out of a video game or something. Third rate game studio RPGs have better writing.
I'd agree with the other reviews in that Rian Johnson made JJ's TFA look like a masterpiece in comparison. JJ's TFA was completely devoid of originality and played it safe, but at least it was executed very well.
The Last Jedi just feels like it was put together in the editing room 15 minutes at time with no overall vision or goal other than to set up merchandising for the future.
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2/10
The need to get JJ Abrams in immediately to remake this disaster.
If we look at The Last Jedi detached from our feelings on Star Wars and the characters, we are still left with a bad movie. It is a poorly executed film on all levels. The plot is rushed and jumbled and there were multiple occurrences where the movie felt that it was at its climax, but it kept pushing on. In many ways, I felt like I was watching three or four movies hastily pushed into one. The timeline of the movie is confusing as we have the plot with the Resistance fighters and the First Order occurring in the span of 18 hours, but these scenes are intercut with Rey and Luke's interactions, which clearly take place over several days. When we take into account Rey and Ren's force communications, the timeline does not line up. Rey has much more time in her story than the Resistance fighters do, but the movie tries to make it appear like the events are occurring simultaneously. Moreover, The Last Jedi takes place practically immediately after the events of The Force Awakens, but there is no explanation as to how the First Order regrouped so quickly after the destruction of the Starkiller Base or how Hux, Phasma, and Kylo Ren managed to survive the destruction of the base, as the audience never saw them leave the base in The Force Awakens. While Empire Strikes Back places years in between the events of the preceding movie and itself, The Last Jedi forgoes that and ends up leaving many loose ends left loose.
The script is bad. The dialogue is forced and cheesy and feels genuinely out of place from what Star Wars movies have provided in the past. The editing borders on amateur. The special effects are a hot mess from hell. Characters move through the air in ways never shown before in Star Wars and it does not work. It looks cheap, it looks like a parody.
The Last Jedi is bad as a movie, not just as a Star Wars movie. As a Star Wars fan, I felt physically ill watching the film. I nearly walked out several times, but stuck around hoping that I would find some small reward for my suffering. I did not. I was pushed to the ground and kicked repeatedly in the stomach by this movie as a fan. As a film student, I was shocked by how Disney and Lucasfilm could allow a movie to be so poorly executed.
17 out of 26 found this helpful.
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Man o man... As a true Star Wars fan, I was extremely excited about the trailer and after the ripoff of TFA I had regained trust with trailers from TLJ that things would get better... The trailers suggest that Rey gets a kick ass hard training by Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, who is determined to restore the peace in the Galaxy after the will of the Force brought Rey to him just after the First Order blasted so many planets to dust...But no, he is an afraid old man and is whining all movie long that he wont do anything. I thought he would have discovered that being a Grey Jedi, fyi Jedi that find a balance between dark and light, is the right way to bring balance in the Force and that he would learn Rey to do so and eventually get Kylo Ren to understand. But NO. Disney doesn't give a crack. It's all about children watching that want to buy the toys.
I hoped there would be some good and plausible reveal about why Rey is so extremely talented in using the Force. Like she was the sole survivor of Kylo destroying the temple, the twin sister of Kylo and that Luke has used the Force to manipulate memories of Han, Leia and Kylo to keep her safe after the turn of Kylo and the rise of the First order. But enough of my broken dreams.
Rey was just a skunk daughter, because it's so politically correct and good for children to learn that someone can be an important hero without having a certain background. Thats apparently more important than the Skywalker legacy.
FORCE BREAKDOWN
Mastering using and understanding the Force takes YEARS of training and Luke only got fast on it because he was the son of The Chosen One and therefore extremely Force sensitive. This Rey can do anything just because she is Force sensitive. That's not how the Force works, our dear Han would say. It rejects all of the training Luke needed, the whole Jedi order from the prequels and makes it some sort of randomness WHICH IT ISN'T. It couldn't believe it. I just couldnt. Force Facetime calling between Kylo and Rey. If only my previously mentioned idea that they were twins should be true, BUT NO. This is NOT how the Force works.
LUKE SKYWALKER HUMILIATED
He hasn't learned anything from his isolation on the sacred Jedi Island, he wont help the galaxy that is being destroyed by the Dark Side. He's a grumpy old man that got bested by a little girl called Rey in a stick fight. The final scene was impressive and showed of his developed Force powers as would the son of Anakin Skywalker after 40 years of being a Jedi. AND THEN IT KILLS HIM. Man o man.
THEY COULDN'T GIVE PRINCESS LEIA A PROPER GOODBYE
Carrie Fisher, such a shame she had to pass. They had the chance to bring something up to give her a royal and honorable goodbye, giving her life for the Resistance. But no, she will just get a mention in the next opening crawls. Disney has no respect for any Star Wars aspect.
PREQUEL DISRESPECT WITH YODA APPEARING
I don't know what kind of fan you are, but the prequels aren't so bad anymore after SW VII and VIII. They put in the original trilogy Yoda ghost burning down a Jedi tree. Anakin calling to Luke to encourage him to save the galaxy, his nephew and train Rey would be the right thing to do. Emphasizing that Vader died a Jedi. The prequels were only mentioned once telling that the Jedi suck because of letting Darth Sidious take over. Alright, thanks.
OTHER CHARACTERS
Snoke was a real cool Sith in the beginning, humiliating Kylo for being weak. And now he just died. Kylo killing him was a good move, after all Sith also hate each other, but WHY NOW ALREADY. We needed more background and him training Kylo in the Dark Side, keeping him there. Now Kylo is supreme leader with some weird loser admiral at his side. Finn kissing some random Asian girl while being in love with Rey, him killing Phasma, it's actually not even worth mentioning. Poe is okay but him taking over the Resistance is just making it seem weak.
R.I.P. STAR WARS, KILLED BY DISNEY
George Lucas is laughing now, for being criticized for the Prequels. You now know what bad Star Wars is, ungrateful fans, he grins. Disney just destroyed Star Wars, the Force, the Skywalkers, everything. I can honestly say I'm very, very sad about it, as a lifelong fan. And I feel really sorry for all other diehard fans that lose their precious galaxy for the sake of Disney's hunger for money.
17 out of 26 found this helpful.
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They just kill the whole foundation, which was laid on episode 7 and literally destroyed all Classic trilogy persons. They just nothing, they fought for nothing, their legacy is nothing, their life was nothing. After that they ruined almost all new characters, only not-so-good plotted previously villian Kylo Ren now have really strong motivation to be bad.
23 out of 37 found this helpful.
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1/10
Why?! Fundamentally destroys the heroes we love. Goes absolutely nowhere!
Disney and Rian Johnson have taken Star Wars back to a level of quality I havnt seen since Attack of the clones or The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. Every positive aspect and mystery of the force awakens simply disregarded and swept away with nothing satisying any expectation AT ALL. Superficial and soulless. Destroying the legacy of every character we love and have grown up with. A kids movie with a bombardment of flat jokes and humour and moments that should be heartwarming and emotionally powerful played off as cheesy poorly executed fan service. This movie was like a terrible fan fiction written by a prequel fan. 3 hours watching a film where there is no progression in the overarching story of the franchise since 7 and works to negate anything interesting set up 2 years ago now. So disappointing that JJ didnt stay on to continue the same light but serious and mysterious tone of 7. Instead handed to a man who has no understanding of subtlety. Jumping the shark over and over again until those blue credits you have come to love so much roll and you are left relieved it is all over.
It feels like with the abundance of fantastic and genuinely surprising stories from the Expanded universe Brian Johnson and Disney thought looking for something so ridiculous and insulting to true star wars lovers would be the only way to create something edgy and original. WRONG!
There was so much potential here for this story and characters and now someone who has been a huge consumer and absolute fanatic from the first time he watched Star wars as a small child. I wont be interested in future installments. Frankly because there is nothing left to care about anymore besides a few boring super capable young people and a villain who probably isnt a villain for much longer.
Oh well. Thank god I had Bladerunner 2049 this year.
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4/10
Patchy at best - Have not been as disappointed since Jaja Binks stole some of my life that I will never get back
Somewhat disjointed. There are some good parts, but it was a bit "try hard" on how many items/characters they could interject from the earlier movies that mostly seemed out of place. Most of the humour was lame. Have not been this disappointed in a Star Wars movie since Jaja Binks took some of my life that I will never get back.
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Well, I went to see it with quite low excectations on the basis of the directors past efforts, namely Looper.
I thought "why not give the guy a chance", and I had hopes that i'd be positively surprised. Unfortunately I wasnt.
Now, dont get me wrong. Its not at all a bad movie. It's just not up to par and the standards one should be able to expect from the SW fanschise. Its an ok movie, but nothing more.
The main greivance I have is the outright plagiarism from earlier installments such as Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi. Its beyond obvious and I'm still kind of stunned by how blatantly it was done. Come on, show some creativity as a director. One should be able to expect that at least.
There are still good things about it. The fx, as one expected, are great. Its fun, there's a lot of humour in it. Hamill is intense and impressed me. Some nice new ships, a few nice fights and Serkis is great as usual. The cast does a good job over all.
I was sceptical right away when the announced the director for this one, he didnt prove me wrong at least, and its really sad that he's been "given" the franchise - more or less - and named director of three more SW movies.
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2/10
I wanted to like this movie but i just couldnt. Im done with this NOT Star Wars
I was so disappointed in this movie i basically machine gunned it the whole ride home to my wife. the plot was laughable and ridiculous. every other dialogue had silly forced humor that took away from the tone and feel of a star wars movie. none of the major questions from TFA were answered and were steamrolled and shoved aside like they werent a major element of the last movie. over half of the movie was unneeded and just fillers. not to mention every white male is portrayed as intensely angry, and a complete nut case with no tact or character. it was long and teedious. the special effects were pretty good but the main thing i appreciated about this movie was the score. Classic John Williams masterpieces as usual. all in all it was just too disappointing for me to stomach. dont think i will be in a hurry to see the next installment and certainly wont fork over more cash for a hard copy of this trainwreck. I loved star wars ever since i was a kid but this is just plain wrong to pull on the fans. Disney congrats. you destroyed everything i loved about star wars.
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This movie was horrible. Questions from the previous film were unanswered, or swept away in seconds as though the issues were inconsequential. The level of disrespect towards the legions of fans who spent years following this series was monumental.
Disney stinks and so does The Last Jedi.
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It has some good moments. But it's a disappointment. Mark Hamill was perfect. Carrie Fisher was great. It breaks way too many boundaries, and leaves the heart and history of the story shattered and in pieces. I didn't think they would go so "Disney", but they did. "Let the past die" is the quote that all fans should take to heart when seeing this.
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As one of the Biggest " Star Wars " Fans on the Planet, I am Angry!!! I thought " Force Awakens " was a Disaster!!! After watching " Last Jedi ", I truly wanted to Punch a Wall!!!
Where do I start? First off, what's with the One Liners throughout? Not even funny. To Luke not using his force!!!!
Gimme a Break! I wish they left it after Return of the Jedi. At least, then we can imagine how we want to about where the story continues.
In a word, this movie is CRAP!!!!!!
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When we heard the news that Rian Johnson was asked to write a new trilogy the hopes for TLJ went up, sadly the contrary is true.....
The Last Jedi is a big budget fanf(l)ic and doesn't feel as a continuation of TFA which was IMO a very good movie to rekindle the franchise. This is only one of the many flaws of this movie.
But the biggest flaw however is how they handled Luke Skywalker, it was awful and completely out of character. They wanted to create a shock element in expense of one of the most iconic movie characters of all time, Luke Skywalker. The core trait of Luke was to never give up on people, because of this he could redeem his father in the Original Trilogy. They just ripped this trait out of the character so they could create a shock element. Why? Couldn't they come up with a more creative idea? There are a lot of fan theories created after TFA that make so much more sense and are much more coherent then what they did in TLJ.
Shame on the people who concocted this.
Hats off to Mark Hamill, who was still able to give a believable performance even though he couldn't find himself in the direction they choose for his character.
R.I.P. Luke and thank you Mark Hamill for breathing life into (for me) the most icon character ever to grace the movie screen.
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2/10
The Original Star Wars Concept Needs To Pass With Carrie, Mark and Harrison
Don't get me wrong - I love Rey, Fin and Po, but the incredibly tacky bar scenes, smarmy stuffed animals, overall bad writing and endless repetitious plot elements need to be blasted by the nearest Death Star as soon as it is charged and ready. The franchise is now officially in a zombie mode that sucks the soul out of every new Star Wars film before the opening crawl has faded. We need to demand the franchise be allowed to mature and become leaner hopefully strangling as much of the Lucasonian kitsch as possible. I personally think it's time for a darker Star Wars that still holds to the light even if that requires walking a tightrope between what was and what could be - the same tightrope they fell from when making Blade Runner 2049. It's now time to let the kids run with it.
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There's an astounding thin line that divide magic from ridiculous. The Lucas saga was able to turn on the magic but the Disney saga fails.
The force, the jedi power, the empire's technology are magic stuffs that works. The princess leila flying into the space with an evening dress is only ridicolous.
This movie have some good parts: finally an original plot, gorgeous space battles, and some character was improved.
But all the subtle sjw propaganda that poisons the most of the film are irritating.
We have a black guy, a woman and an asian that are "the good" fighting againsts stupid,awkward and hysterical militaries, we have learned that if you're rich you're surely a piece of s**t, there is a moment for a message about the animal rights, and fulsome situations with poors and slaved childs but strongs thanks to their own faith on rebellion against the fascism.
I've no prejudices against black, asian, gay or left wing. But i wanted to see a fiction story, not yet another iteration of the movie "V for Vendetta"
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2/10
It's not the break with tradition that's bad. It's the way Rey is infantilized.
Let me start by saying there were moments I loved. The fight on the salt flats of Crait, the old hologram of Leia playing out of r2, the choreography of basically all of the lightsaber fights, Rey lifting all of those rocks at the end, Luke becoming one with the force, Rey and Finn hugging. I could go on, but the thing is, they're little moments. And most of them are cosmetic, or have to do with the skill of the actors, and have little if anything to do with the plot.
Which, frankly, is a mess. I understand and appreciate having the balls to do something with such a monster franchise. It takes a lot of courage to change the accepted and the incredibly popular. And some of Rian Johnson's decisions worked, especially that little boy at the end. But there were friendly moments of Star Wars levity that got thrown out too, like "I have a bad feeling about this" and those quirky and hokey PowerPoint transitions. Ultimately, though, the biggest problematic decision he made was removing the traditional focus on a trilogy. Star Wars has always been about threes, and it's what has kept it from being both too singular and too overwhelming. Rian Johnson added a cast of barely fleshed out characters that really only shone because of their actors. Kelly Marie Tran, I adore. Rose seemed like a last minute addition of boner-fodder for Finn, or drama-fuel between Finn and Rey. Her kiss at the end cheapened all of the selfless and heroic personality she had built up by aiming it all in the direction of a man.
At its core, the film is a story of rebels running from the Empire. But it took my boyfriend pointing that out for me to realize that's all this film really accomplished, because it was so muddled and hectic. There were too many storylines, made to accommodate the unnecessary characters. This film was heavy, and not in a good way.
What gave me the greatest frustration, however, was the way Rey's character had changed since The Force Awakens.She was a girl who had survived, alone, on a desert planet filled with scavengers and thieves, and she had a strong enough moral compass to help bb-8 out of Teedo's net and not sell him, even though she could have fed herself for months. She was a girl who was kidnapped by Kylo (crylo), tortured, and had her mind violently assaulted by him, and then beat his sorry behind on Starkiller because NOBODY should have to go through that. She was the girl who was intelligent and brave and freed herself. Now? She's the girl who is tempted by the dark side and the allure of knowledge that will benefit only her. She's the girl who, with a moment's hesitation and a single inconsistency in the Luke/Kylo confrontation, believes /the man who assaulted her/. She's the girl who puts her trust in the man who killed both his father and the only fatherly figure she had ever known.
And Johnson tries to cover all of it up by giving her mad lightsaber skills and having her lift a bunch of rocks at the end. What bothers me the most about this situation is that Johnson has played up the chemistry between Crylo and Rey. He has played up the chemistry between an abusive tormentor and his victim. It is astounding to me that, in the current Hollywood climate, critics are raving about Johnson's decisions when that was one of them. In short, Rey was the shining star of The Force Awakens. It feels like The Last Jedi is covered with clouds, and a lot of them stormy.
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After the destruction of the franchise by Disney in ep. 7 there was a tiny light of hope to recover from the stupid plot, the senseless carachters and the total LACK of Force elements... this light has faded... Shame on you Lucas, you should have never sold your precious toy
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This isn't going to be what you expected, but to be honest, who did?
Star Wars series is so amazing. Capturing our imagination with fast spaceships close to the ground dodging and shooting lasers back and forth, it's great. This movie isn't.
If you walked out of Episode 7 with a giant grin on your face, anxious to know what happens next, you're seriously going to be seriously disappointed and I can't stress that enough. I know because that person was me.
Episode 7 was amazing, sure it was a Episode 4 remake, but it asked so many questions and answered so little about the characters we were going to be with for the next 2 films. Episode 8 is is quite the opposite. It wasn't amazing, not a remake (totally original, but in a bad way). Answers zero to no questions about any of the characters we've learned about.
This movie was extremely hyped, I know because I'm a 15 year old kid writing a review about a science-fiction movie series I grew up with. The second they announce a sequel after a movie that offered so much, it's inhumane not to be excited or at the least, curious about it.
There are 3 story lines in the film. One is great and offers a lot. It's basically the one you want to watch because the other two are so boring you wish the movie was just about that one.
The second storyline is completely useless. It's a waste of time and the people in it simply stall the plot from getting back to what's actually important.
The third story line is even worse. With constant cuts back and forth and back and forth make the plot advance almost nowhere. Sure, some scenes are cool (people who have seen the movie and know which plot line I'm talking about know which scene I'm talking about), but it ultimately plays no role in the half-baked showdown that wasn't even real. "Biggest Reveal in Star Wars History," yeah... not really.
A big reveal depends on what you want the reveal to be. Either who really Snoke is or who Rey's parents are. I'm not going to say which one actually is important, because for something to be important, it has to be said in the first place.
There is only one good things about this film in it's entirety.
Millennium Falcon scenes are the best. Nothing compares to it.
In conclusion, if you want to see this movie just for the heck of it and don't really care if the movie is good or bad, go watch it, you'll at the least be entertained.
If you are a fanboy who loves every aspect of the series and can recite lines from the saga from heart and want to know more to expand your knowledge, your knowledge truthfully won't really increase that much. Who are you?
10 out of 14 found this helpful.
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Disney really ruined Star Wars. I'm profoundly sad, as a fan so deeply connected to the original trilogy since immemorial times of my life.
I agree when I hear people saying "this is no longer Star Wars". It really isn't. It's just bad movies BASED ON the original story of Star Wars.
Disney makes the prequels look nice.
10 out of 14 found this helpful.
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This movie has way too many forced Marvel movie style jokes in the wrong places that kill the drama. They even have Leia flying through space like Iron Man. Yes, I'm serious.
Furthermore, this movie took a crap on the Star Wars mythology and beloved characters. Now I understand why Mark Hamill had been saying that he disagreed with every decision the director of this movie made about his character. It also took a giant crap on all of the interesting and exciting things that The Force Awakens setup and left us without nothing to be excited for in the next one.
JJ Abrams will have his work cut out for him trying to cleanup this mess in the next one. Help us, JJ Abrams, you are our only hope.
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Have you ever been in love and out on a special night together, in which you had been looking forward to for a long time? Then you were dumped unexpectedly and left to wonder, what the heck happen? You thought your relationship was solid, built to withstand anything. That was the feeling when I left the theater. It hurts, so ,so bad.
10 out of 14 found this helpful.
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I was really looking forward to see this movie. the force awakens was awesome and really set my expectations high. i was so dissapointed, too much comic relief. and a plotline that was just flatboring. im a huge fan i even like the prequels. this is just horrible. first time i ever rate a movie this low. its just sad
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Disney has turned Star Wars from a source of integrity, hope, fun and imagination into a commercial for its rides and Disney Store. pathetic.
As a sign that nobody cares for this boring Star Wars and the shallowness of the emotions here something bad happens to Snoke and no one cares. Compare that to how euphoric we were when the Emperor died.
Is Rian an alias for JJ Abrams?
10 out of 14 found this helpful.
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Where to begin? This film takes a gigantic crap on everything fans love about Star Wars. Destruction of the Skywalker Legacy; Huge Plot Holes; Flying Space Lea; Heavy Handed Liberal Agenda; Snoke?????
Thank You Disney for practically ruining my childhood. I will never see another Star Wars film
10 out of 14 found this helpful.
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Just out of #StarWars The Last Jedi. OMG what a fucking waste of time. Force Awakens had its flaws but it left you with some serious universe altering questions. TLJ fails on every level to either answer them or complicate them with questions of its own. Don't get me wrong there are one or two nice moments but they are slivers of red meat in a shit sandwich of a movie. I can't go into details because spoilers, opening weekend and that would be an epic dick move. One site asks "is it the best SW movie since the 80s?", it's not even the best star wars movie of the past year. RT and other algorithm sites will have you believe it is close to perfect. It's a by numbers, heartless, ATM of a movie.
I did not like it.
10 out of 14 found this helpful.
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1/10
A letter from the Lawyers of 80s after school specials
This is a cease and desist from the lawyers of any and all after school specials from the 80s. We find that the content of your latest movie The Last Jedi is in a galaxy far far away from your brand. So much so that we believe you are stealing from all of us. Can you get more corny? You destroyed the depth of a hero and a evil of a villain all one episode. Perhaps beyond the point of return. As soon as Luke Skywalker throws the light saber over his shoulder, we knew that we might have a case. In the Force Awakens, Rey gets introduced to the light saber. It was epic. It painted the depth and the fierceness of the force. The intensity of Luke's character. It was done extremely well. Then you went and flattened the whole depth of it out. What was the line in the movie. Something like, "That is how the rebellion wins. We don't attack with our hate but we save with our love." I am pretty sure, that is our kind of line. Only thing missing was the studio audience saying an "awwwww" all at the same time. Please cancel this movie and start all over.
Signed defenders of cheesy movies and shows of the 80s
Serious Review:
Visual effects 8
Story line 5
Dialog 000.1
Acting 5
I can't believe I am saying this but I would not even recommend it. It honestly ruined the star wars franchise in the level of badass-ness. I am sure it will sell more toys at Christmas but overall the sales plummet eventually. My suggestion, Make all just a stupid dream that someone wakes up from and redo it.
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And you thought the prequels where bad? They look like classic poetry compared to Disney's lazy calculated writing what they did to Luke Skywalker is absolutely abborent and totally out of character even mark Hamill said he fundamentally disagreed with rain Johnson Disney and the script in regards to his character.
No questions brought up in tfa are answered and literally just skipped over AGAIN
1/10
The movie was long winded at 2hr 35 mins but I left with more questions than answers.
Only good part of the movie is Adam driver as ben solo kylo Ren thats it.
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9/10
Get along with the idea that this is a good movie!
I really don't understand how some people dislike this movie. The only weaknesses I can think about are the characterisation of Finn, who is actually a useless character in this movie and the movie's length (the picture could last 20 minutes earlier).
Guys, how can you complain about the screenplay? This is the the only Star Wars movie, after The Return Of The Jedi, which explains perfectly what the force is. In addition, the story is finally original and, like in Rogue One, we get the idea of real Star Wars. Freaking wars! What did you expect? Movies like The Revenge of The Sith? Some of you cherish George Lucas' films so much but you don't understand that those movies contained more plot holes then the most recent ones.
The cinematography surely takes us back to the first trilogy, why don't you say anything regarding that?
The themes that the movie develops (different themes from the usual ones of the previous trilogies) make sense and are explained correctly, also thanks to the role of certain characters in the picture.
Are you guys upset because Johnson tried to be a different director from Abrams and Lucas? Are you upset because he invented a story which is more complex than the simple ones you were used to?
Get along with the idea that this is meant to be a different trilogy. And get along with the fact that Johnson made a great job!
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1/10
It's as though the makers of this movie didn't even bother to watch the OG trilogy.
Wow! Words cannot describe how bad this movie is. I think this movie went all the way through production with thousands of people involved and not 1 of them bothered to watch the original trilogy. I wont even mention any spoilers. Just avoid this movie at all cost especially if you are a diehard fan of the original trilogy. As I sat in the theater watching this mindless drivel I was actually thinking of how much better Episode 1 the Phantom menace was compared to this dumpster fire of a movie.
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I cant say much more than has already been said. TFA was a flawed but very fun movie, Rogue One was amazing, this one was flat out disappointing (story, cgi, tone of most of the humor, the way luke was handled,etc).
I hope Abrams can finish the trilogy strong. I LOVE Star Wars and this was just a bad movie IMO.
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I've never written a movie in my life until now, but as a Star Wars fan for 40 years I felt so betrayed by this movie that I felt compelled to write this.
SPOILERS AHEAD
I saw TLJ twice, really trying to like this film but I have to say: I think Rian Johnson has the potential to destroy this franchise. I got the feeling as I watched it that he didn't even watch the originals and that he doesn't get what's "canon" about the universe. He just invented all these new force powers: Yoda's shade interacting with the physical world by calling down lightning, Luke's projection that could actually be physically felt, Leia surviving the vacuum of space (this was almost laughable). Ugh. Just Ugh.
TLJ was hugely anticlimactic on so many fronts: Snoke, Luke, Rey, Phasma and Ackbar. Even TFA opened up new possibilities with Snoke (who is he? How did he meet Kylo?), Rey (what's her lineage?), the mysterious Jedi island (what's in the texts?). Part of the magic of the original trilogy comes from the open-ended potential for backstory given all the possibilities created. Witness Kenobi's oblique reference to the Clone Wars way back in Episode IV. I feel like This director got lazy and just closed all these doors without bothering to explore them.
Further, the anticlimactic demise of Phasma reminded me of the anticlimactic demise of Boba Fett in ROTJ - another badass looking character meeting a very weak end!
Finally, instead of introducing Laura Dern's character and then having her making the ultimate sacrifice (no one cares about her), why not have Admiral Ackba do it? Hell it would've been epic if he said "It's a WRAP!" as he crashed the cruiser into the destroyer. Certainly would've been better than having him meeting an unceremonious end just as a mention as a casualty. So many wasted opportunities.
The entire casino subplot was meaningless to me and unnecessary. For the first time EVER, I felt antsy and bored during a Star Wars movie. What was the purpose of Rose and Finn in this movie aside from forced political correctness? Oh did I forget the whole animal cruelty angle too? This is a STAR WARS movie, not a political platform!
So I'll end by committing sacrilege and say that TLJ ranked worse than Phantom Menace for me as the worst Star Wars movie ever. Despite TPM giving us Jar Jar, it also give us Darth Maul and actually a cohesive plot. Contrast this to a bloated CG-fest that completely disrespected 40 years of Star Wars canon and wasting the last opportunity for us to see what Luke Skywalker could have become.
This was all #SnokeAndMirrors and should have named #TheLastStarWarsMovie instead.
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Zero plot - 3/4ths of the movie is just a ridiculous chase, Luke was a complete joke, Snoke turned out to be nothing, lots of unimportant sub-plots, and one of the most idiotic dialogs and not just in star wars movies. Just a dull, mediocore, way too long movie. I really dont know where will they begin part 9 from this...
To sum up - biggest let down of 2017. What the hell....
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I had relatively high expectations of the Episode VIII, due to the fact that Rian Johnson is the director, and that Disney / Lucasfilm / Kathleen Kennedy (I hoped) must have tried to make this movie much better than the "Force Awakens".
Unfortunately, "The Last Jedi" has so many plot holes, inconsistencies, ripoffs from previous movies, annoyingly flat and underdeveloped characters and dialogs, that it deserves many bad reviews that it receives from the public. It could have been so much better...
PLOT HOLES and THINGS THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE - examples:
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Vice Admiral Holdo, for no reason at all, doesn't inform Poe and other members of the Resistance about the planet Crait and the escape plan. This creates Poe's unnecessary mutiny, just to fill the movie with some unneeded drama and to make cheap "twist" when we realize what the Leia's and Holdo's plan is.
BB-8 overpowers and ties 3 prison guards armed with blasters, and muffles their mouths... ALONE.
Not enough convincing reasons are shown to explain the Skywalker's decision to abandone his sister, friends, whole Republic and Resistance, even if they all get killed during his exile. That decision, and the decision to kill Ben, is not in line with Luke's character from the previous movies.
Not even ONE information about Snoke's background, long-term plans, source of his power, etc.? Unbelievably how they wasted that character....
Finn and Rose parked their spaceship on the beach of the casino planet, where it was easely seen and reported to the police, although they came there on a secret mission and should have landed on some hidden spot. That doesn't make sense...
Finn and Rose enter the casino dressed in their usual clothes, although they don't want to draw attention to themselfs. That was so naive and stupid... Would not be a better idea if they pick something to wear similar to those rich people around them? Rose is wearing dirty mechanic clothes when they enter the casino...
Finn and Rose are releasing "space horses" from the stable, but not the children-slaves.
Finn and Rose are trying to escape from the casino planet as soon as possible by riding "space horses", although they still didn't completed their mission (they didn't enlist help from a codebreaker). Why? As far as they know, the fate of the Resistance dependes on finding the codebraker, but they just flee...
On the planet Crait, Rose and Finn have relaxed, slow romantic scene and they share a kiss, while the army of gigantic AT-ATs in front of them are firing on anything that moves, and the First Order is just about to kill all their friends. Also their "love story" was totaly unnecessary and uncovincing.
How is Finn (who is dragging Rose's body) able to cross the great distance back to the Rebel base after that, without being attacked?
Leia survives WITHOUT A SCAR massive explosions that killed everybody else on the ship's bridge, and she also survives vacuum of space (Jedi are not immortal, and without a space suit a Jedi / human would not survive for more than 60 seconds in space). Then she somehow moves herself through space back to the ship, while her dress is waving like the wind is blowing in space.
Luke gives Han's golden cubes (dice) to Leia, knowing they represent great emotional value for her, although he is aware that they will vanish in about 20 minutes because they are also "Force projection". Few minutes later Leia is leaving cubes behind when she escapes from the base, although our logic tell us that she would keep them.
Water ends up on Kylo's glove after "Force connection" talk. That looked completely out of touch with how the Force works in the previous movies. Same problem is present in the scene with Yoda's Force ghost, when he summons real lightning from the sky and therefore directly influences events in the real world (and then he laughs about that like a lunatic).
Kilo Ren is not suspicios when Luke holds the same lightsabre on the planet Crait as the one which was split in half shortly before that, when Kylo was confronting Rey.
BB-8 manages to disable guards by shooting pile of golden coins at them. Silly...
BB-8 is piloting AT-ST walker alone AND he is firing its cannons with great precision in the same time. 4 hands were needed for that in the "Return of the Jedi"...
Why all armies in the galaxy don't use "hyperspace torpedoes" to ram spaceship fleets of the enemy, like Holdo did with the Resistance's spaceship?
Chewie, R2-D2 and C-3PO do almost nothing during the movie, they are there only because the movie should "feel" like a Star Wars movie to the older fans.
Too much unnecessary jokes and humor, and too much Porgs - just to please kids who will buy Star Wars toys later...
Poe's phone-prank at the beginning of the movie was cringe-worthy. That was the first sign for me that this movie may not be so great as I hoped it would be.
Phasma was again completely wasted character, without any purpose in the plot (other than to boost sales of the action figure).
RIPOFFS FROM THE ORIGINAL SAGA - 3 examples:
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"The Empire strikes back": Surface battle on the remote white planet, complete with AT-AT walkers, low flying rebel fighters, secret rebel base hidden under the surface, trenches, rebel cannons, etc. (Battle oh Hoth)
"Return of the Jedi": Kylo (Vader) brings Rey (Luke) to the Snoke (Emperor), while Rey (Luke) is hoping that Kylo (Vader) can be turned from the Dark Side. Snoke (Emperor) shows Rey (Luke) how the Rebel fleet is destroyed while they speak. Many parts of the dialogue are almost the same.
"Return of the Jedi": Millennium Falcon is chased by TIE-Fighters through the mines of mineral planet Crait - that scene is almost exact copy of the chase through the Death Star in the Return of the Jedi, where we also had TIE-Fighters chasing Falcon through similar tight spaces and obstacles (they just painted them red in this movie).
There are many more reasons why this movie is a failure... If you go to see "The Last Jedi", turn off your brain, banish all hopes, and just enjoy beautiful cinematography. At least they done that right.
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Do you remember a time that Star Wars films were cool and they had actors that weren't wooden toys. So do I while Disney has created some great movies over the years. It's 3 Star Wars films are not and this last attempt and resurrecting an old franchise has fallen on death ears. While children that have not watched the films are treated to disney at it's so called fiWe remember the scenes that made the movies like the death of Luke's aunt and unkle in episode 4, Han frozen in episode 5 Luke's struggle against the dark side in episode 6.
While there is some great flash and bang scenes and generally what you might want from a Star Wars film. It's missing something like the connection to the hundreds of books that got spawned from the series. Great job mr Abrams for being to lazy to read the continuum and leaving the writing to writers or the so called hacks that wrote this story.
The fact is this movie is a sad representation of what Star Wars really is. Fans expect a Star Wars film not the next Pixar film involving buzz light year as Rey and woody as Finn. Not even the 3 new mains of the film come to our attention like the names Carrie fisher, Harrison ford and co. I'm not saying not to watch the film just don't expect to see the Star Wars the we love on the screen
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Leia can suddenly use the force to shield herself from the vacuum of space?
Did they really have to show Luke milking that weird creature?
The love story between Finn and that chubby asian girl felt forced, and not natural at all.
Snoke was a joke. No details on his origin. And he gets tricked rather easily by Kylo.
Everyone in Snoke's ship hanger died upon impact except Finn and his love interest, who magically survived without so much as a scratch.
Phasma died rather pointlessly as well. Just like Boba Fett in RoTJ.
The resistance fleet is supposedly faster than the empire's but is never able to get far away enough to prevent snoke's ship from shelling it?
Luke's death served no purpose......none! He did not need to die from exhaustion. And on that note, since when can force wielders project a physical form of themselves light years away from their current location.
7 out of 9 found this helpful.
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1/10
A car accident of a movie. Luke deserved better than this
Some of the things wrong with this movie, and there's a lot. Too many to list, but here are a few:
>Poe takes on entire fleet and Q U I P S Hux to pieces right after the text scroll
>Snoke suprises Hux and Hux slips Three Stooges style
>antagonists are supposed to be revered yet they are reduced to lauging stocks in the first few minutes (besides Kylo)
>Admiral Holdo was out of place
>Superleia doing a Merry Poppins impression. ANY other way to show her force powers would have sufficed
>Phasma comes back real quick to die again? Waste of character
>Artoo and 3-PO doing nothing again
>the handful of rebels versus an entire fleet is becoming
>Luke doing the shoulder brush and the theater applauding (cheesy)
>the overall plot of the film being one ship with a 16 hour forcefield and they'll run out of fuel. Really, the whole plot revolves around a snail's pace Chase where the bad guys are just behind them, but for some reason can't catch up
>Maz giving instructions in the middle of a huge gunfight (waste of character)
>Yoda showing up an acting a fool ( more cheesiness)
>the relentless quips, star wars has small jokes, but there were so many it was unbearable. The jokes sounded like they belong in gardians of the Galaxy or Independence day, not star wars!
>the callbacks to Empire and ROTJ wre subtle at first but went too far in the end
>Snokes death ( hugely wasted character)
>Rey "trained" for two days before stealing books because we all know you can become a Jedi by taking a weekend training class
>Yoda suddenly agreed despite telling Luke to train as many Jedi as he could and pass on his knowledge
>Yoda was also ok with destroying an ancient jedi tree for a prank
>Luke being portrayed as a cowardly grumpy hermit who we don't even get to see in action.
The Last Jedi's timeline?
-Force Awakens ended with the resistance ready to evacuate and Rey giving Luke in saber so in Theory it starts straight after.
Then as Leia and purple haired lady told us their ship had only 16 hours of fuel and Finn and Rose had to stop Snoke tracking them before time runs out.
That plot ran on for at least 2 hours of the runtime.
Meanwhile Rey appeared to be on Ahch-To for days but realistcally it would have been a few hours at most, because she was on The Supremacy at the same time as Finn and Rose at the end.
Then the rebels + rey + first order go to crait and literally get less than a few prep hours before the battle starts.
This movie is a rip off of speed & oceans 11 with a dash of pirates of the Caribbean. It does not deserve the title of Star wars. The plot comes off as horrible fan fiction; my 6 year old self could've written a better script. This film didn't do any fan service at all or answer all the nagging questions we've had since the force awakens, which I feel was a good movie. I left TFA feeling energized with a plethora of questions and mysteries to solve. I left the last Jedi feeling depressed like I just found out I've been cheated on in a long term relationship. My heart is broken, I'm sad. I wish we could go back and pretend like this movie never happened. I'm all for new direction, but this was sloppy, misdirected and intentionally giving the finger to fans.
Mark & Carrie, Luke and Leia, do not deserve this.
7 out of 9 found this helpful.
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I went to the cinema like a huge starwars fan, expecting Disney went back to an awesome series of movies. We had The Force Awakens, a remake from A New Hope, to introduce us with new characters and so on... So The Last Jedi will be an amazing new movie, with new history, with new plot twist, to get hooked up again in the story... Well, nothing from that happened
I'm making an effor to like this movie but I can't, there is no story, there is no big plot twist, I felt pretty empty when it finished. Overall a bad movie :(
Cmon Disney, you got an amazing story to develop, unlimited cash to do it, the biggest amount of fans in every movie, don't let us down with this
7 out of 9 found this helpful.
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Why would you hand the reigns of the biggest film of cinema history over to a man who has no previous experience in the genre or franchise and allow him to have sole creative control?
The film is a long, boring mess. Does no characters justice and wastes itself on plot lines that go nowhere, have no arc and do not belong in a Star Wars film.
7 out of 9 found this helpful.
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A completely empty movie made for profit on a generic PC hollywood formula
There is very little good to say about it. The movie is void of any significant story or dialogues, it lacks purpose and vision. Its rather an obvious and obnoxious mix of studio wishes for toy sales and trying to please as wide an audience as possible. So many things wrong dont know where to even begin.
First of all, Jar Jar, the ever annoying horrible Jar Jar from previous movies at least had a purpose as a (very poor) comic relief character. The fluffy penguins in Last Jedi on the other hand are 100% transparently there for no reason but toy sales.
The action trumps everything in the movie. I have nothing against good action but come on. And the characters are so blatantly cliche and repeating themselves. Luke, a seemingly wise Jedi, perhaps fed up with everything but how does that make him a miserable, cold, heartless bast*ard. All of the characters are so black and white, its mind numbing.
A good movie is a good movie, be it a simple comedic Thor Ragnarok or a thought provoking Matrix. But the Last Jedi is nothing of that, its a heartless product almost made by a (quality) hollywood generator machine working based on a formula of most prevalent cliches today and popular ideas/values. Also of course the SJW crowd had to have their say making all heroes,general,admirals whatever women and male hero black. And then throw in an asian sidekick,they mustnt be forgoten,that would be rasist.
Its pathetic. The race or sex of characters shouldnt be forced,it should serve the story. It does anything but that here. It wasnt story first here. It was the marketing guy, the censor, the SJW representative and toy company. Only THEN came director,story,character.
Expect no sight or smell of anything original, thought provoking, tabboo breaking or good moral quandries.
Just a lot of empty happening for 2 hours.
7 out of 9 found this helpful.
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Dear George Lucas I am so so Sorry for what the Exec's at Disney, Lucasfilm, J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson have done with your beloved Star Wars Universe. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now the worst production in the Star Wars Universe. Yes it is even Worse than the Star Wars Holiday Special. I am shocked how quickly J.J. Abrams has been able to ruin both the Star Trek Universe and now the Star Wars Universe. How are these movie studios still hiring him? With all the Star Wars Material, Books, Fan Made ideas out there I have no idea how they came up with this horrendous story line. I know the Force cannot die, but the Star Wars Universe just did
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What'sCant add anything more than that has already been said.
So much wonder has been destroyed by the Hollywood tripe since I was a 6 year old watching Episode IV on the big screen. Can someone please tell me whats happened?
20 out of 32 found this helpful.
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I for one enjoyed The Force Awakens. It had heart, energy, awesome new characters, caught up with most old characters, lightsaber battles, then we were left with tons of questions. The mystery behind it all was thrilling to me. Yes it wasn't the most original plot, but in my opinion JJ had to be under insane amounts of pressure bringing this franchise back to life. I feel he did star wars right, he seemed to care and it ended up being a Star Wars movie.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Everything I mentioned above can not be said about The Last Jedi or Rian Johnson. It absolutely pains me to say that. He literally put more effort into killing everything we love about star wars and everything that was great about TFA then he did killing off everyone that died in this movie. It's insanely obvious that his goal was to crap on everything JJ did with TFA. The deep maybe almost creepy obsession with Darth Vader, scrapped. The mystery behind Luke's lightsaber calling to Rey, scrapped. He literally ruined that cliff hanger at the end of TFA and the mystery I just spoke of by having Luke toss the lightsaber behind his back like it was his way of saying "JJ, see what I thought about that". I see why it was smart to avoid R2D2, C-3PO, and Luke in TFA. But in TLJ Rian avoids the droids like they were aids with cancer, did the same with Chewbacca. I just don't get that. They were thrown in just to say they were in the movie basically. Snoke, what a badass character, or he seemed that way. He was creepy and evil looking. Sounded evil and creepy. Where's he from? Where's he been? Why now? Why Kylo? How kylo? Nope, let's kill him off as he's talking about how he can't be killed???? Rey, is her dad Luke?? Is she a Kenobi??? Is she a Palpatine??? Why was she left?? Nope, her parents were just some dumba** alcoholic morons who traded her for McDonald's. Phasma, I thought we got her to make up for Boba Fett, nope, killed off by a janitor who just got out of coma. Knights of Ren, nope. Princess Leia has a Star Lord moment then quickly turns into superman instead of a little rewriting and letting that be her death. Luke also had his own superman moment and then a matrix moment. BB8, I love that droid, but BB8 to the rescue every 20 minutes??? Luke's death had basically no meaning out emotion to it. Also Luke played with creature tits, went fishing while he lived with walking fish. Del Torro, actually, I'm going, I've already put more into this then Rian put into TLJ. So g'night.
15 out of 23 found this helpful.
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To sum it up, that is the first time in my life I have left a Star Wars movie and felt depressed and sad. Normally these films are so much fun and full of positive energy, but Last Jedi is just the opposite. It is pointless and effectively killing the whole saga for "legacy fans".
The Good
The acting, the special effects and the score. From the technical point of view, Last Jedi is a master piece and will literally blow you away. It is amazing, how good effects can be. Mark Hammil and Daisy Ridley are superb and everybody else is trying to keep up. Carrie Fisher is heartwarming and here scenes with Luke are among the best you'll see this year. The lightsaber battle is also among the best in Star Wars and one of the best action scenes I have seen in a while.
The Bad
Everything story related, in every single moment the movie fails to deliver. All expectations old Star Wars fans have, are gutted. In the end, everything the old saga and JJ put in place, is dismantled. Literally so, heros and villains are as dead by the end, as is the new republic, the resistance and everything magical George Lucas ever put in Star Wars. The movie ends with a spoiled child with anger issues ruling the galaxy and a few people on an old piece of junk. How do they get there? Through immense plot holes and most likely Rian Johnson saying "naaa to complicated to resolve, lets just kill it off". The whole "slow chase" makes no sense at all, the all-powerfull new order just can't order two star destroyers to make a short jump to lightspeed to put them in front of the resistance fleet? Really?
The Ugly
Apart from the milking scene and some awkward humor (a phone joke, really?), everything related to Poe and the Canto plotline. Poe single handedly destroys the meager resistance fighter force by disobeying orders. Admiral Holdo kills off, what is left, by simply not telling anybody about her plan. Seriously, that is not how military works, especially not in a resistance where trust between people is everything. Last but not least, Lukes storyline and everything force-related. No need to go into detail, Mark Hamill said already everything you have to know.
The Verdict
For fans of the old saga, this is 1-2 star movie. Depends on how much you enjoy the effect work. For people starting with TFA and no idea what Star Wars was about, maybe 5-6 stars, depends on how bad you think, the plot holes are.
15 out of 23 found this helpful.
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From the very first scene you realize this film is a whole new direction for Star Wars where jokes and fun scenes trump the story, the universe and the plot.
The force awakens left some really interesting questions but all of them are incredibly unsatisfied answered. Like Rey's origin, who Snoke were, what Luke actually did and so on.
The plot is ridiculously. It's like Mad Max Fury Road in space - they are on the run from the First Order who, from the first time in any Star Wars movie suddenly, and with no explanation, are not able to catch them, and they have shield power strong enough to withstand their lasers.
Flint goes on the most ridiculously rescue mission ever in a movie and with no respect of the time pressure and fooling around like a chicken without head.
Everybody looked forward to watch Rey get some badass jedi training. She was told to breath. Wow.
The rebellion is once again destroyed with only 20 survivors left and no one willing to help them. It makes you question if there are any resistance left at all (except some boys guarding cows) or if the rebels are literally now just terrorists trying to destroy order in the Galaxy.
As all other reviews describe there are no character development and they die like birds getting hit by a plane. Their introduction and role are forced (like captain phasma) and noone ever really play an important part for the story, maybe because there are not any story left.
The 4th wall were broken several times even by characters as Luke for the sake of cheap laughs. Why?
Too many movies think that the bigger and more action the better the action. It's so wrong and I think everybody just want solid raw action like District 9 and the lightsaber fght from TFA. And I think they somewhat tried that but failed so ultimately with boring and forced fight scenes instead.
There's a lot of funny new creatures - if you like Harry Potter you will like them. But they overshine the star wars feeling.
Only positive Star Wars thing was Kylo getting some force lightning and lightsabers used tactical as you have always wanted to see.
They had it all in their hands but dropped it when the icecream wagon came.
15 out of 23 found this helpful.
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Confused, devastated, sick inside. What happened? Loved TFA, and Rogue! How did Rian get this so so so wrong???? My childhood died with Luke. While Mark Hamill played the part he was asked to play so masterfully, how Luke was written in this movie, was a total let down to his legacy. Shame on you Rian! You can claim to be an old school fan all you want! But you just proved to be a very bad film maker! And Disney, selling us down the river for Merchandise and profits? You need to take a long hard look in the Mirror Kathleen Kennedy and never do this to the fans again! NEVER!
15 out of 23 found this helpful.
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4/10
Critic reviews tell you nothing if you're a true fan
All in all, this was not a good film. Rian Johnson tried too hard to appeal to fans, to his inner white boy teenager (by trying to make us feel empathy for Kylo Ren), and to echo the amazing grit and character introductions we saw in TFA. With so much of his focus on these aspects, it appears he forgot how to write a good plot while not twisting characters in ways that don't make sense to fit what he wanted.
Again, this movie is what Rian Johnson wanted and thought that we as fans wanted. He failed to give what I view as true character development and honestly, the plot is right back where we started but now Luke is gone and a character we had no time to form a bond with (Holdo) is gone and were missing half of the resistance. Johnson tried to make up with his lacking skills as a director in the humor department. People were laughing every 5-10 minutes (literally). I don't remember laughing that much in ANY meaningful Star Wars movie (including Rogue One, which is one of my personal favorites).
Conclusion:
Reylo fanservice (needless shirtless Kylo Ren - sorry Adam Driver nothing personal just I'm not in the mood for uncooked chicken these days)
character assassination of Luke (who was well aware of the pitfalls of the Jedi yet gave into the fearmongering that ruined the order in the first place in trying to kill his nephew)
sidelining of important POC characters such as Finn, whose role served nothing in the movies also he didn't get to see Rey until like the last five minutes
lack of character development... they haven't changed or learned from their experiences... Star Wars is about the relationships. That's why we get so attached is we see ourselves in them and quite frankly I felt nothing. I didn't even cry.
amazing cast, poorly executed dialogue (under the instruction of mastermind RJ)
Sigh. That's all. Sigh.
15 out of 23 found this helpful.
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This was a pretty poor effort for a Star Wars film, probably the worst I have seen, bar the holiday special. It strayed too far from the original Star Wars formula, the things that made the films great, and as a result it just didn't fit in that universe for me.
It tried to be a hammy comedy where every second comment or reaction was an opportunity for a gag. The original trilogy got the comedy moments perfectly balanced, with just the odd throw away comment or expression from Han that kept it suitably light and entertaining. We didn't need a joke or cheap one-liner every other sentence. I actually felt like they put pauses in to let the jokes sink in for the slower members of the audience, who I really felt this film was really aimed at.
Hux was a buffoon, consistently incompetent and not plausable as a ranking member of the order (influenced by Boris Johnson no doubt), that introduction to him falling for a crank call would have been more in place at Moe's tavern, not saying it wasn't funny but it killed the Star Wars vibe before it had even developed. When the bad guys consist of an idiot, a whiny teenager and a man made of used chewing gum, who dies half way through, it doesn't seem like there is a lot for the goodies to stress about beyond their own incompetence.
Another great thing about the original Star Wars trilogy was the pacing, a little action here, a little plot development there, build the pace up to the action scene, bring it back down again. They were pretty masterfully paced, few films can match them, and this one certainly didn't. It dived straight into the action with a space battle in scene one, and basically never slowed down again. They literally dived from one action scene to the next throughout the whole film, with only the Luke and Rey scenes giving any change of pace, a beautiful balance of manic and boring. They should probably have made this over two or three movies, to get it all in with proper pacing, character development and a storyline that makes you care, or better yet, just not bothered.
There was lot's of action in this film, far more than the original movies, mostly in that matrix style with zooms and slow mo bend backwards to dodge lightsabers type fight sequences, which were already getting old fashioned by the late 90s. They can still look good if done subtly, but these, like so much in this film, were not subtle, they just seemed to be in there as if someone was working through a checklist of things that make a movie good. A checklist that lacks anything to do with storyline.
Eventually when it came to the end I was actually quite pleased. Then it didn't end, after the finale there was another action scene, followed by a finale, then another action scene, then...I was getting pretty desperate for it to end by then, it just dragged on.
Final note, there was a bit of cuteness overload. We can't say that teh original trilogy didn't have that, Ewoks anyone? But it was a bit too much merchandising. For the young kids we had little things that are a cross between a guinnie-pig and a penguin, and for the slightly older kids foxes made of crystal-meth, or something like that. Anyway blatant merchandising opportunities.
In summary...not much to say, I love Star Wars, but this one was pretty *****.
43 out of 77 found this helpful.
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STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI is what you call milking the cow when there is no more milk to give.
Don't worry there are no spoilers here as there is nothing to spoil. It also goes to show how crooked the industry is when critics are giving this movie 80 - 90% if not more. This was the worst Star Wars movie I have ever seen, even the George Lucas prequels were better than this trash.
Seriously, 2.5 hours of pure 100% rubbish.
Never the less the movie will go on to make huge money for good old Disney and we all will buy into the hype again in 2 years time.
I have nothing more to say, other than the next time i binge on Star Wars movies my binging will end with Rogue One. Not watching this again.....EVER.
23 out of 38 found this helpful.
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I love Star Wars. I'm a huge fan. And i really loved Star Wars VII. But man, this was the most boring Star Wars movie. Almost no character development, boring action scenes and lame, forced comedy. It had some great shots and scenes, but overall it's a very dissapointing movie. I never imagined i could give a Star Wars movie such bad rating.
23 out of 38 found this helpful.
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3/10
Please Take a Risk...... Someone?......... Anyone?
I'm struggling to understand the plethora of positive ratings and reviews for TLJ.
As a stand alone sci-fi movie, TLJ hits many marks and could be quite enjoyable if viewed objectively.
Therein lies the problem. The Star Wars saga is a very personal subject to so many people. It has spanned generations. It evokes childhood memories and family Christmases. It formed the platform for a whole life of 'Geek-dom' for many of us, and will never be replaced or replicated.
I just thought it was, quite frankly, dull. How much screen time was spent looking at Carrie Fisher's one and only facial expression? Her acting ability was limited to say the least and although we absolutely needed a concrete link to the past historic saga, why focus so much on her?
The whole movie was once again played out in a tried and tested format: Rebels are in the minority and on the brink, a few heroes step to the plate and risk all to prevent a major and irreversible tragedy. All the while, a story about the power between the light and dark is played out to various degrees of effectiveness. You've seen it all before.
I think my biggest complaint was the lack of a real menace with sinister edge. This aspect is what absolutely nailed the original movies. The Emporer and Vader would have me struggling to sleep at night. Snoke and Ren just don't hold the same level of darkness. They don't scare me. Their power doesn't leave me in awe.
We needed more Dark Side development in this second installment. Where's Snoke's back story? His Sith title? We barely saw him in FA and now's he's gone without hardly a whimper. Not good enough.
This movie has been 100% 'played safe'. After all, what director will risk their reputation on taking a risk with the biggest ever movie franchise? Their stock would plummet if a failure. We had this with FA.
This ranks as joint last with PM in order of ratings. At least PM was slightly redeemed with Darth Maul.
TLJ was cute and fluffy, clearly attempting to capture a junior fan base away from Marvel and DC.
Hardcore fans of the saga prepare to be disappointed.
24 out of 40 found this helpful.
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It is a period of Walt Disney. Rebel script writers, striking from a hidden base, have won their next victory against the Great Movie. Pursued by Disney's sinister agents, Star Wars fans race home, custodian of their stolen dreams that can save the Epic and restore freedom to the galaxy...."
....
....
....
Help us, Lucas-Wan-Kenobi, you are our only hope!
25 out of 42 found this helpful.
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3/10
You go in to see a Star Wars movie... But get a sloppy directed Disney movie
When I went to the theater to watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi I was expecting an awesome adventure that Star wars always seemed to deliver to us before (Except the Attack of the clones). But somehow it fell flat on its face, to say that this was a great movie would be a crime against humanity! J.J. Abrams lifted Star wars out of the prequels so it could become something better. But Rian Johnson kicked it back into the DIRT! The first act was good, I was engaged and excited... Untilllll Leia, who somehow learned how to use the force suddenly saved her self from death. That brought me out the movie! Then it regained my interest, everything was going great, the tension was building up, the plot was falling into place. Rey goes to Snoke, we get a couple minutes of Snoke torturing Rey, then asked Kylo to kill her. What does Kylo do!? Turns a lightsaber besides Snoke on to CUT HIM IN HALF! Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea!? After that, you think Kylo was done with the dark side but nooooooo. He goes right back and becomes the new supreme leader. And Rey, she just helps her friends and is exactly where she was at the end of the last movie. Luke was the worst tragedy of this film by far, he goes out by using the force to have a force hologram thing show up in the battle to distract Kylo. After that, he dies! WTF!!!!! They really needed someone to supervise this movie, because Rian Johnson made this move a complete wreak. There is a lot more I could have talked about but I'm done for now... Don't watch it!
26 out of 44 found this helpful.
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1/10
This ruined everything great about the Force Awakens
I just don't know what to say except, the critics were either paid off by Disney or just don't care about Star Wars. This is the only time ever I have felt the need to actually create an account and review a movie, because it was just that bad.
The worst things about this movie:
1. Snoke. Perhaps one of the most interesting characters ever in a Star Wars movie gets killed off for no reason whatsoever without the audience actually getting to know who he was or how he came to be so powerful. Why the f* didn't Luke do anything about him if he knew he was poisoning Ben's mind? Didn't they truly learn anything from the earlier mistakes of the Jedi?
2. Luke. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? Rey finds him using a map, whose origins are conveniently left out of the movie (it clearly wasn't Luke that created the map as he makes it pretty darn clear he never wanted to be found), only to get no training whatsoever or any help at all for that matter. Yoda shows up and tells Luke they shouldn't lose Rey like they lost Ben, but Luke never sees or meets Rey again after that point. He just disappears, which again is never explained. Why the f* didn't he disappear earlier if he never wanted to be found? So what was the whole point of having Luke in the movies? Was his only job to distract the first order so that the resistance fighters could escape?
3. Everything else. Phasma, the chase, the subplot, the characters, Rey, Knights of Ren (never mentioned), children with force powers, Poe, etc., but you probably get the point.
Anyone involved with the script should be banned from ever creating another movie in the lives.
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It's hard to imagine a studio being THIS stupid, THIS unwise, THIS disrespectful to a loyal fanbase that goes back *forty years*.
Rey is even more of a Mary Sue in this one than she was before. She easily puts Luke Skywalker on his rear end. She effortlessly floats several tons worth of rocks, when Anakin and Luke had to struggle lifting much lighter things even after they had received training from Jedi masters. Rey don't need no stinkin' training! She's a girl, don'tcha know! "The Force is feminism!", right, Kathleen Kennedy?
This movie is a 2 1/2 slow motion car chase. Allegedly, the New Order ships aren't as fast as the Resistance's, so they can't catch them at sub-light speeds. And the Resistance ships can't go faster-than-light more than one more time because they are running out of gas. Thus, we get the aforementioned 2 1/2 slow motion car chase. And yet, the whole movie has the two sets of ships stay the same distance apart. Why aren't the Resistance ships pulling away, if they are faster? And the New Order ships have plenty of fuel, so why don't they have a couple of ships jump ahead faster-than-light and head the Resistance off? Because then the movie would be over in 3 minutes. Which, to be honest, would have been better.
There are repeated attempts at humor that fall flat and don't fit with the main tone of the movie.
There are a string of abandoned subplots and unsatisfying answers to the teasers from The Force Awakens. It's as if someone said, "Want to know a secret about ___? Here are some clues. Come back in two years and give me some money and I'll tell you." Then, two years later you hand them your money and they say, "There's no secret, sucker."
This movie pushes identity politics out its wazoo. We get it. There's an empire of white men who must be overthrown by women and people of color. You're so "woke", Kathleen Kennedy and sock puppet Rian Johnson. You're such heroes. You're really sticking it to the man with your "art." Now, go cash your checks for millions of dollars, written and signed by powerful white men that you happily serve.
Snoke's quick and unlikely death was such a waste. Does Disney plan to have Thanos get stabbed in the back in the middle of "Avengers: Infinity War" so some Grima Wormtongue-like figure can put on the gauntlet? That's the equivalent of what they did with Snoke. Instead of a Luke vs. Snoke and Rey vs. Emo Ren epic light saber battle that would make Star Wars history, Disney chose...this. Rey don't need no man, right, Kathleen Kennedy?
Leia Poppins: the dumbest thing I've seen in a movie since...since...I'll get back with you.
There is no vacuum in the Disney Star Wars galaxy. There is, however, earthlike gravity when you want to drop bombs from bombers that travel at about 3 miles per hour (Maybe the Resistance should consider faster bombers, by the way).
Admiral Purple-Hair's first words to Po were a snide rebuke for mansplaining to her. Did that make you giggle, Kathleen Kennedy? 'Cause this movie is all about what you like, right? Then Admiral Purple-Hair refuses to tell Po (the guy who blew up Starkiller Base a couple of days before) her plan, which resulted in the stupid casino side plot, which, in turn, resulted in the entire Rebellion (minus one small ship) being murdered as the helplessly ran away. As the ships are being blown up one by one, Purple-Hair stands watching, slack-jawed. She FINALLY decides to act when her own death is clearly an inevitability, and manages to save about a dozen people out of the entire Resistance. Way to show what will happen if "strong women" are put in charge, Kathleen Kennedy! We should definitely get right on that! Kathleen, YOU are Admiral Purple-Hair. You have been given command of Star Wars. but your arrogance and self-concern are causing everything you are supposed to be saving to be destroyed. You are a failure because you can't do what great leaders have to do: elevate their responsibilities above their own egos, preferences, and self-interest.
The introduction of Positive Body Image Asian Fangirl was bad enough, but to then use her to attack rich people just because they have money made her even more annoying. Feel the Bern! So, is she objecting to rich people like Kathleen Kennedy? Rich people like the ones who run Disney? Hmm. If so, maybe she's onto something.
Positive Body Image Asian Fangirl's concern about freeing a stable of animals, but not the slave kids who work in those stables, seems a little odd. Come to think of it, I guess that IS kind of realistic. There is still slavery in our world (trafficked in primarily by "people of color", by the way), but female celebrities ignore that and take their clothes off to protest eating meat...because human nakedness helps animals somehow.
The New Order has a scanner that can detect cloaked vessels, but they only turn it on when someone tells them there are cloaked vessels nearby that need detectin'.
Positive Body Image Asian Fangirl celebrates her sister's self-sacrifice, benefits from Admiral Purple-Hair's self-sacrifice, but stops Finn from sacrificing himself...by being willing to sacrifice *herself*...because that dumb man is doing War wrong. "Silly Finn, it's not about sacrificing yourself to save those you love, it's about sacrificing yourse....Hey, look. They're killing our friends with that cannon you were about to destroy. That's sad. Oh well, let me give you a kiss (stop looking so uncomfortable!) and then you can drag my hefty body back to the cave. Hmm. I wonder why the enemy ships aren't shooting us, since we are literally right in front of them and unprotected? That's nice of them."
I could go on and on and on.
But those things are NOTHING compared to the absolute crime that was committed against one of the most iconic characters in science fiction movie history: Luke Skywalker. Not only was his behavior completely uncharacteristic, but his fight scene against Emo Ren was a sham and his death was utterly meaningless. Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson were entrusted with the character of Luke Skywalker and they completely betrayed that trust in virtually every decision that they made. Not only that, but there is good reason to believe that they betrayed the actor Mark Hamill, as well. Footage of Hamill before the movie premiere shows him happy, even giddy, about the movie. Footage of him afterward show a man who looks shell-shocked and confused, and he looks at Rian Johnson with a look of incredulity and loathing. I believe that Luke's death (a digital fadeout, remember, not an acted out death scene) was added without Hamill's knowledge.
This movie is a travesty. Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy need to be kept as far away from Star Wars as possible. If we're lucky, the earth will open up and swallow them both.
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1/10
It's a disney family comedy for a weekend movie night.
For everyone who doesn't know Star Wars, and just wants to see a comedy late night. I don't even want to write down the list of disappointments in the movie, because it would be longer the than number of the actually good scenes.
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Was very disappointed with this movie. It appears that the characters were so sporadic, they resembled a Frat Party gone bad. Nothing seemed to be linked together in this film. It was almost as if you were watching 3 movies with 3 story lines. The typical Disney "quirks" trying to make jokes in the film were very disappointing and extremely out of context with the initial Star Wars series.
The most disappointing part of the film is that it seemed the 2 historic characters, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill roles appears to be an afterthought. Something of trying to hang on to the legacy with a thread. They were completely out of context and were almost irrelevant.
I feel like this movie should have been gone differently, and that since Disney has been involved, the movies have lost their creativity and sense of purpose. They obviously have spent more time and money marketing the "Brand" rather than working on a good story line.
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Two stars for visual effects only. The story is garbage. Plot holes, character actions that make no sense, little or no backstory revealed, some of the most outrageously stupid things I've ever seen even for sci-fi, no explanations given for where or how some of the characters came to be in the story. Horrible writing, terrible movie. Disney should remove the film from theaters immediately, reshoot it entirely with a better written story, apologize for this giant piece of crap and give free tickets to new version for anyone that paid to see this one. DO NOT GO TO THIS MOVIE IF YOU ARE A TRUE STAR WARS FAN. You will be disappointed. You have been warned!
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2/10
Could any of these actors carry sitcom or High School Play?
Mark Hamill ... Really one dimensional,type cast as Luke forevere
Carrie Fisher ... Looked like she was out of rehab..ahh physically rehab
Adam Driver ... Really?...Darth Vader the 2nd.That was the best that Disney could do for a personal friend of a friend at the expense of fandom.
Daisy Ridley ... Attacks the camera with frenetic mugging.
John Boyega... Jar Jar minstrel show
Where's the next Denzel Washington?
Oscar Isaac ... Who?
Poe Dameron...Who?
Andy Serkis ... Who?
Lupita Nyong'...Token short Asian chick banging down relationship racial doors.
All forgettable that the fan base is stuck with & will apologize & justify because the cult cant believe that the at Emperor Disney has no clothes.
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I am still stunned at how jaw droppingly awful The Last Jedi is. It truly is one of the worst movies I've ever seen! No character development, nonsensical plot, poor continuity (e.g. the Resistance stated that being tracked through hyperspace was impossible, yet the Millenium Falcon was tracked through hyperspace in Ep.IV), plagiarisation of the previous films, etc, etc, etc. I can't believe how this pile of sh*te ever managed to make it to the screen. No doubt that Disney will keep the Star Wars gravy train a-rolling, but I for one won't be boarding again!
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OK. Here is my summary of STAR WARS - A BAD JEDI movie
The movie starts out with an Sprint to T mobile call, which as we all know, has really bad communications.
However, this is just a ruse because we all know that the Empire uses Death Star telecom (known as ATT) which is used throughout the galaxy.
BUT WAIT!
We discover later in the movie there is another telecom company known as THE FORCE communications. (aka Verizon) this is what Rey and Kylo use to talk (can you hear me now. Yep galaxies and galaxies away. Kylo and Rye used THE FORCE FACETIME APP on the Metaclorian WIFI from Verizon.
This is the only thing that binds the two stories together.
1st Story:
This is the story of OJ Simpson being pursued by LAPD for 6 hours at 35mph down a highway. But it is IN SPACE.
The 2nd part of the movie is a CRAP attempt to recreate the Dagobah training that Yoda did for Luke
but instead of a SWAMP it was Paradise Island. Yah Luke isn't stupid.
However, Rey learned NOTHING except how to sleep on a rock outside his door for 30% of the movie
Chewie did a Cameo and ate chicken. With the 13 herbs and spices and Chewie wasn't sharing.
Then there is the "cave" scene, which was a Harry Potter rip from the chamber of secrets. Looking into the mirror of desire wanting to know his parents but in Reys case. NOT! Rejected!
But she can span her fingers. like cool 60s beatnik teen. Yeah daddy-O
The story was to draw Luke out and he never did. He didn't even have his FORCE (he suppressed it) because he knew better. That old Jedi wisdom I guess.
So, after 2 hours of "hot pursuit" Dukes of Hazzard line without Daisy.
The Rebels end up getting caught (blown up). Hell, that Vice Admiral purple haired twit watched them for a good LONG SEC and then decided well I guess the herd is thinned out enough. Hmm, let me try this... Atomic batteries to power turbines to speed. LIGHT speed slash and crash.
Not much in the way of things Disney typical adds of chars for selling purposes so I am okay with that.
The FX were AWESOME and that helped detract from the story.
Oh, wait WHAT STORY? WHAT PLOT? WHAT ANYHING?
Sadly, I could not connect with any of the characters like I did with Eps 4-6. Even Luke was to distant. I think the whole point of these new movies is to kill the old for the new. But the new what?
Last, I would recommend it to everyone just because I am bias and I love STAR WARS even if it was CRAP.
The critics must have gotten paid by Disney to give it a 93% vs Fans 56% on rotten tomatoes .
You might be saying to yourself, "if it was so bad why did it make so much money?" Simple, people needed a fix for Star Wars and die-hard fans will watch garbage no matter what. Heck I did.
This is written with love from my brother.
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After the disaster that was Episode VII, Disney proves that they can still make millions with utter trash.
Please save your time and money and DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!! I could not decide whether the plot armour or the humour was more ridiculous. This movie doesn't deserve to bear the name "Star Wars"!
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Disney, You should be proud of Yourself - this blatant, mindless and disgusting flick of Yours led me to write my first IMDB review and receive 1/10 rating.
You've done the impossible: You've almost killed a very lucrative franchise, with loyal fanbase, with developed Universe, with likable characters that were shining during last 30 years.
You know, I've thought that Episodes I-II were just childish, poorly written and bad. Jar Jar Binks, silly racing scenes just for arcade games, all of that. But with Episode 8 You've showed us:
We do not care about SW legacy (despite what our PR guys are telling You). All we want is money. We will put undeveloped screenplay to production, even with plot holes at size of the Death Star.
We were unable to produce new likable characters the viewer can be linked to and accept them as a new "trinity". We will not do character development - only scream and tears on forced drama moments. Grown-ups will act as children during a school show. Damn, we will even fail with R2-D2 and C-3PO moments.
We will badly utilize beloved characters and sentence them to the very stupid deaths because we do no know, how to use them properly.
Yes, looks like "Rogue One" was exception, not the rule.
Yes, we will hint You with the main villain during Episode 7, but do not think about some backstory - You will receive none.
We will insert shirtless scene just because we can. Why not?
We will buy critics or force them to public "excellent" reviews.
Even visuals and space battles are not so enjoyable anymore. Bombers with bombs a-la World War II? Seriously? X-Wing vs Dreadnought? Sometimes enough stupidity is enough. This is exactly Your case.
You see, Disney, if even such a good guy as Mark Hamill himself being vocal about how poorly his character was handled in the movie - this is not just a bell ringing, this is a death bell obviously.
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The movie was just garbage from the first scene to the last. Cheap plot-twists, unbelievable characters, not to mention that the whole story does not make sense. Any hopes for a worthwhile restart of the franchise got destroyed.
Wow Disney, wow.
It is as if you actively tried to make this as ridiculous as possible, ridicule everything Star Wars stood for. It has the same flaws most super hero movies have these days. But super hero movies just need to be entertaining. Star Wars never was just about entertainment. It always aspired to be more. Well, not anymore.
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This movie is a disgrace to film making, a complete and utter disaster to anyone who loves movies and Start Wars in general. I will never buy a thicket again just to be humiliated by a bunch of hungry money loving Disney vampires. Those who loved the movie are generally speaking brainless aliens seal milk loving people who enjoy milking upright puppets. And Disneyland in denial? WTF, they should fire all script righter, directors and that idiotic CEO. Nothing makes any sense in the franchise anymore, its like a lazy dream with no recall heart. Should have been zero. Boycott Disney, they don't love their job, they are lazy corporate vampires.
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Rubbish. A disgrace to the Star Wars Saga. Its story was soul-less and shallow. There was scant little onto which an intellectual thread could be latched. What I disliked the most in TFA was the constant regurgitation of old ideas, plots and scenarios, cheap and mass produced attempts to use nostalgia to recreate the magic of the original trilogy. This time around they kept it down to an almost tolerable level but were clumsily mish-mashed in with a cargo freighters' load of plot holes and twists that infested the movie like drifting space junk. Keeping the viewer engaged for two and a half hours does require a pretty great script and this one certainly wasn't. There were moments that felt like the Empire Strikes back but no sooner did you begin to settle into the train of the story (after several failed attempts and more than half way through the movie) than a plot hole, twist or gag jumped out of light speed and crudely slapped you in the face. I left the movie theatre feeling I had just stepped off a cab ride across the city with a lead-for-feet-and-hands driver at the wheel.
I like to think that Rian Johnson is a fine film writer and director and that in TLJ, he was tied down to a strict contractual brief from Disney to produce a mega-bucks earner for a younger audience that will ensure the financial success of future installments, shoot-offs and merchandise. After all, isn't that why Disney purchased Star Wars in the first place? In this current generation, they don't need to waste time wiriting up even a half-baked story for a new Star Wars movie to sell. Just throw in ample CGI, a few choreographed fight scenes and silly characters clowning around in any random order. The film critics who gave the movie positive reviews : you can tell us - Disney paid you all handsomely didn't they? This leaves the fans of the original trilogy, those old dreamers who can't stop moaning about the good ol' days - they're no longer in the easy-money formula so riddance to them - and easily done for our galaxy contains something far more powerful than the force : it's called the dollar.
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Not worth paying for, they made star wars in to a comedy movie, for no reason, this is 100% the worst of alle the movies.. atleast Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace had som Lightsaber Battles.
I never thought I'd say this, but...
maybe it's time to give star trek a chance..
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Was expecting an excellent and fully fleshed character development and history of the Snoke, Kylo Ren, Rey and the Knights of Ren, but alas none of these burning questions were answered - imagine the plot that could have been. instead, i got 2.5 hours of a cat and mouse chase of the rebellion and the first order. one word describes this movie - POINTLESS.
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First let me start off by saying I have loved star wars since the beginning, watching it the right way with the originals first and then to the prequels. I love the complete feel of the movies mixed with the rich story line and somewhat cringe worthy but wonderful dialogue.
Here are the reasons for the three star rating:
Snoke: The new Jar Jar character. No background, no story, just an ugly toad.
Leia: Apparently can avoid death while maintaining 10/10 flying form through space? Get her a gold medal and call her Ms. Universe because she can do something no other Star Wars character can. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this. If this was legit, then the previous movies would've had lightsaber duels in space and all that jazz. Give me a break.
Fin: Just have some balls and let the character die the way he wants. I was so excited to see him about to sacrifice himself. What a guy, and a great way to go out but nope. Taser girl comes from left field and "saves the day". Nice.
Knock off version Red Guards: What more do I have to say, cool weapons...sure maybe but it is all just trying to one up the originals and grab some attention.
Luke: "Man up and vanished like a fart in the wind."...literally. This character has been the face of Star Wars for decades and thats how he goes out? That should be illegal. Any other way...the blue milk alien killing him would've been better.
Kylo: Get this man a shirt. "Holy Uncanny Photographic Mental Processes!" (Batman 1966)
Comedic Relief: It seemed to me that the movie tried too hard to be a action comedy. Some parts the jokes seemed forced, while other times the script copied itself with some of the same jokes again and again.
There were some areas of the movie that were somewhat enjoyable, like the nod to the Millennium Falcon flying through the Salt Caves (mimicking episode VI with the Death Star) and the scene with the resistance troopers preparing to fight the new generation AT-ATs, a slight nod to episode V on Hoth.
I don't want to hate on this movie. Disney tried their best. It just didn't feel like the Star Wars I have been use to. The originals have their feel, the prequels had their feel but these new generation movies play into the market of action comedies all too much. The problem lies within a very similar story line to the originals, with the new movies trying to better them which can't be done. The Rebels and The Empire were a part of the universe and time that was special. Now there is The New Order and The Resistance which is really just a knock off version of the originals. Try for a new conflict and try and come up with some original pro and antagonists. Maybe that would help and create more of a new gen feel with some originality mixed in. Not the "one up" culture.
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2/10
40 years and loved ALL Star Wars movies but not this one
J.J. Abrams set up a really good potential 2nd movie in this trilogy. I loved The Force Awakens. So much excitement, suspense, lighthearted in moments, tragic moments, but still very gritty SW feel. Rian Johnson dropped the ball so badly it hurts. I did NOT go with any preconceived "fan theories", just expected another good movie. This feels almost completely disconnected from TFA storyline.
I will say I am VERY happy to hear JJ Abrams will be back for ep 9 and to him I would say "Help us JJ, you're our only hope".
For a mindless Netflix bottom feeder movie this would be really good. The visuals are great cinematography. Individual performances are fantastic by some of the actors. But the film does not hang together for me. It is a film that involves people in space but is not the Star Wars I know. The desperate ham handed forced attempt by Johnson to MAKE fans let go of the past SW experience ( in my mind to set up his own future trilogy) has the feeling of a sudden car crash vs. allowing fans to say goodbye to the past elegantly while embracing the future at the same time. Same with the excessive corny humor. SW has humor for sure, but always well placed and not overdone.
So many poorly written parts that make no sense if you have any depth of knowledge about SW.
Out of 2 hours and 30 minutes or so I can think of a few things that made me laugh and one or two moments I found intriguing or exciting. Most was just "what?"
This was a bad fan fiction story to me. I wish so much JJ Abrams had done all 3 of this trilogy to keep the continuity, themes, flavor, and respect he showed to the fans and the characters in TFA. I hope he blows the doors off ep 9 and winds up the Lucas Skywalker saga with class and satisfaction for more fans.
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I'm not going to rehash what everyone had already said. But this movie just missed on almost every opportunity to be watchable. It's diluted politically correct trash that should NOT be allowed to carry the Star Wars mantle. Everyone involved should be embarrassed.
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I watched them all, as a fan who went to the cinema at the age of 7 to see the "first" one, which wasn't really the first. At this epsiode, I always had the feeling that it was nothing else but one of the better parts of a SciFi-TV-series, the ones you always have during a season... but it was never a Star Wars episode to me.
The Kylo Ren and Rey scene infront of Snoke ... we had a very similar thing before on the Death Star with Luke, Darth and Palpatine.
Another aspect why I prefer Scifi to Fantasy is, that Fantasy movies can always come up with new abilities and powers that solve a solution, which you could not think about, because you were not told about them... a major problem for me in Harry Potter plots.
Luke gets killed while realising his presence by using the Force, but Leia suddenly wakes up after the worst explosion with an intact body (no signs of dismemberment)... don't be surprised if in one episode all Jedis from the previous episodes reincarnate, because a plot writer comes up with the brilliant idea: Jedis can do that, we just did not tell you before.
I am also fed up with broken characters... yes there are liked by critics as they are those roles that make it easier to distinguish between a good or bad actor, but don't create such a character at any price...
I've seen a depressive Wolverine, Batman, Hulk etc. but why is so much time wasted on showing the Lukes current state of mind, which we can all guess and feel implicitly... it is Star Wars, still a fairytale showing the fight between good and evil.
I could go on, but works calling... another wasted opportunity...
Sad, after last year ... Episode 3,5 was, in my opinion, the best of the latest ones... Let's see...
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As a star wars fan see really sad to say disney killed star wars....the only star war i will recognize is episode 1 to episode 6, and sad to say rouge one is much much better then this crabs......now i got totally not interested on upcoming episode....
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Just what we always wanted, a 40 year old saga with heroic archetypes and a good vs evil story with an enormous religious-like following to be utterly deconstructed in some hyper self-aware meta episode of community set in space! Honestly, you just have to be really intelligent to understand how refreshing it was to subversively upend all the beloved tropes and characters Star Wars has brought to us for generations in a giant middle finger to the fans and the lore! I loved how the defiantly optimistic, brave and loyal Luke of the original trilogy was replaced by a disgusting space cow milking hobo who almost killed his nephew because he was afraid! Nailed it! I don't even need to touch all of the other entirely necessary, coherent and cohesive plot points and almost fourth wall breaking events! Seriously I'm so glad that Rian didn't watch the OT, the prequels or apparently even TFA because how else we would get such a FRESH cinematic experience?
Laughing at people defending this movie. The same people that say it was refreshing to have such an (apparently} important character like Snoke unexpectedly killed off like that without a hint of a backstory will be the same ones defending the decision to reveal he was just a force apparition all along in the final installment.
Please Rian if you're reading this direct a sequel to The Lord of the Rings. I can't wait to watch Frodo and the gang become unlikeable husks of their former selves with zany finger snapping zingers and to see how the Fellowship's journey ultimately ended up to be just a huge waste of time!
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Episode 7 set up all kinds of very important questions, and we were all waiting patiently for some answers:
- Who are Rey's parents? Where did they go? Why did they abandon her? Why does lukes lightsaber call to Rey? Why was she dreaming of Luke's island? Who is Snoke? Where did Snoke come from? Who was Snoke's master? How did Snoke end up in charge? How did the First order become so powerful? WHO are the knights of Ren? WHERE are the Knights of Ren? How will they end Leia's story (after Carrie Fisher's death)? What ancient wisdom will we glean from Jedi island? What has Luke learned after all these years of study, and what can he pass on to Rey?
The answer to all of this? A giant MIDDLE FINGER to all the fans. Seriously... no answers whatsoever for ANY of it!
- From Jedi island, we got cutesy porgs and a sulking, pissy Luke stomping around like a spoiled brat. Then he burns all the ancient books and refuses to teach Rey anything. Well... he gives her a 5-minute 'Jedi 101' meditation session with the obligatory 'feel the force all around you' stuff. After that he gets scared and tells her nothing.
- We learn literally nothing about Rey. There's a sad-sack sales pitch by Kylo Ren who tries to tell her she's an utter nobody. Well... she's a nobody to anyone in the galaxy... except him. He is of course trying to use her worst fears to lure her into becoming his sidekick. But that would explain nothing about Rey... of her awakening... her dreams... Luke's lightsaber, etc etc. It makes no sense at all.
- We learn nothing about Snoke... except that he's petty, not very bright, and easily tricked. He dies with no real fight, and his guards end up putting on a better fight than he did.
- We learn nothing about the Knights of Ren except that 4 of them may have trained under Luke. But where are they? Are they dead? Are they out there running around somewhere? Are they still on Ren's side?
- As for the First Order, we see a vast and powerful military armada... led by complete idiots. It bumbles and stumbles around, while their biggest, meanest ships get pounded into scrap metal by tiny little resistance ships. Apparently, a single X-wing is a decent match for a vast 'Dreadnaught' class super destroyer, and capable of disarming it with a few well-placed blaster shots.
And perhaps the BIGGEST BLUNDER ever committed in sci-fi... It's a blunder that drops a serious flaw into every film ever made in the entire Star Wars franchise! If you're a fan, you might want to sit down for this:
The rebels are being pursued by a MASSIVE flagship... this thing is HUGE... many kilometers long. So the rebels are almost out of feul, and evacuate their cruiser. One woman stays behind, turns it around to point it at the First Order flagship, and goes to lightspeed. It literally shreds the much bigger flagship, cutting it in half. So... HOW DOES THIS RUIN ANYTHING?
Well, WHY did the rebels and the empire (and now the first order) wage all those epic space battles with 'conventional' weapons... when all it takes is a hyperdrive and any crummy old ship to take out pretty much anything in existence? Seriously... they showed us that you can destroy the biggest, baddest warships ever built by simply pointing ships at them and making the jump to light-speed. It's like a nuclear option. So WHY bother with all the huge battles? Why bother building star destroyers, or even a death star? None of it makes any military sense if your average trader could point his piece of junk ship at you and take you out... or better yet, leave a droid to do it? Think about this for a few minutes and you'll see just how many holes this pokes through the very heart of the Star Wars universe!
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First of all, these are my own opinions.I watched whole saga more than six times except rogue one and the force awakens.If I disappoint you I'm truly sorry.
The film was totally disappointing and it's waste of time.It's not what I expected.I thought they take lessons from The Force Awakens disaster, but it's worse than The Force Awakens.While I was watching the film I was extremely bored.Nothing was exciting.In almost every movie there was a feeling that is connect you to film, but in this film there was non.The only thing they've done is earning money with the title.But the real thing what they've done is humiliate the film.The film is losing their legendary and the value.I think the solution is not continue to this.Stop making films over the saga.You should've start making solo movies.I mean like Life of Obi Wan or else.With that you ain't ruin the scenario and maybe you can fit it with scenario like rouge one by the way in the last three movies so far, the best one is rogue one.Even the solo movies are may complete the missing parts of saga.Believe it or not it was most effective way.Well, these are my opinions like I said it in the beginning,I hope I don't disappoint you.Wheter I like it or not I'll probably go to the next episode.I hope it'll better than the others.
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Rian Johnson trying to be super different. And/or Disney/LFL complicit in his intent.
Basically, the film veers away from classic SW tropes and mythology. Johnson doesn't understand SW in his treatment of who/what Luke Skywalker is. He broke everything JJ Abrams tried to set this franchise up for, with call backs and tie ins to the OT. Johnson ignored or pulled away from all that. There are no space battles, ground battles, lightsaber duels, "I have a bad feeling about this", and all the other things that identify and resonate with this pre-established franchise. The actual storyline itself is poorly written. The basic plot and sub-plots. There is no scope to it. It's a slow-speed chase thru space, with a lot of deus ex machinas, plot holes, and unessential plot threads. The film is littered from start to finish with far too much silly humor, inappropriate to the situation, or character, far too much flippancy while trying to be deep. Doesn't work at all.
Cinematography-wise -- there are a number of fantastic shots and sequences, but largely Johnson tries to be too stylistic, with awkward camera angles and constant jarring close-ups. The breadth isn't there.
Acting-wise -- Adam Driver is magnificent, so is Mark Hamill. Oscar Isaac pulls off his role. And Daisy Ridley has her shining moments too.
The film on first viewing is a major disappointment. Jarring. Shocking.
The film on second viewing is better.
You really do need two views to get a good grasp of exactly how this movie sits with you, as a long-time SW fan. But the end result is that it's a big letdown.
My new SW Rankings....
Tier One
ANH, TESB
Tier Two
R1, ROTS
Tier Three
TPM, AOTC, ROTJ
Tier Four
TFA, TLJ
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"This is not the way the Force works", Han Solo tells Finn in The Force Awakens. This statement couldn't be more true for a lot of stuff we see happening in The Last Jedi: Leia surviving the deep freeze of space vacuum and flying back into her spaceship like some kind of Marvel superhero; Force users projecting themselves across the galaxy, not simply as holograms but also physically (Rey & Kylo touch hands, Luke's lightsaber clashes with Kylo's, Yoda's ghost burns down the tree); Rey and Kylo still being able to connect telepathically after Snoke (who supposedly was the one who created the mental bridge between them) gets killed; Snoke not being able to read Kylo's true intentions and dying like a Dark Side rookie, even though he earlier seemed to be way more powerful than his apprentice; Kylo and Rey (both carrying unprecedented raw strength) having a hard time to fight a bunch of pretorian guards (who might be well trained and armed but don't have any Force powers whatsoever); and, perhaps most importantly, Force sensitive nobodies needing absolutely no training and experience to reach a level Obi Wan Kenobi never managed to even dream of. None of those things make sense, even if we accept that the Force is "so much bigger" than what we had taken for granted so far.
Force discrepancies (and disturbances) aside, there were many plot holes and awkward storylines in this movie: why does the First Order fleet follow the Resistance remnants "out of range" (occasionally firing a blast or two, while waiting for them to run out of fuel) when they are perfectly capable of surrounding and easily destroying them? What's the point of Finn and Rose going all the way to a casino planet (amidst a crucial space chase), only to find someone else than the guy they were looking for? (and what a waste to use Benicio Del Toro for such a shallow and stereotypical part). Why invest on heroic actions that don't pay off? (like not destroying the -super slow moving- canon, or Rey not turning Kylo back to the Light side). Why should we care about Vice Admiral Holdo's sacrifice, when she had so little screen time? (for the most part of which we were led to believe she is a coward and a traitor). How come Kylo Ren bought Luke's decoy when he saw that he magically survived all that firepower and was using the very same lightsaber that was cut in two just a few minutes ago? Who the hell was Snoke? Seriously, you can't build up the hype on such a mysterious super villain in Ep. VII just to get rid of him that easily in VIII, especially when you never tell us where exactly he came from and how come he is such a powerful Dark Side user (without ever being a Sith Lord or something). And what's with Luke's 'hologram' having a freshly trimmed and dyed beard that made him look like Chuck Norris in the Expendables? It was so distracting (for no reason) that the emotional impact of him standing up against the First Order walkers and redeeming himself was greatly minimized.
The whole story seems to rely entirely on plot twists for the sake of plot twists and (well made) action-packed sequences for the sake of pop-corn consumption. Perhaps all the hype with the red color in The Last Jedi marketing strategy didn't have that much to do with blood or Sith lightsabers, rather than the color of a huge herring, that was elaborately constructed just to troll Star Wars fans across the universe.
As for the comedy, yes, it was way too much (to the point of making the movie look like an expensive Star Wars parody), but didn't bother me as much as the rest of the logical fallacies (that are still fallacies even in a sci-fi movie). Adding to that Luke's character development (Jedi Master turning a loser hermit that milks alien cows after having cowardly and unsuccessfully attempted to kill his own nephew) makes The Last Jedi insulting to the millions of people who were expecting to watch a true heir to The Empire Strikes Back dark legacy. Even Luke's death carries little emotional impact compared to Han Solo's death, and Luke was the protagonist of the original trilogy and the key factor in how the handful of Resistance members (his sister included) escape. Not to mention Rey's secondary involvement in that escape (Chewie does all the crazy flying himself and all she has to do is lift some rocks after Luke and Kylo's final confrontation is over in her absence). Oh, and guilt-ridden Chewie turning vegan because of a porg's watery eyes? Please...
We can complain as much as we like for some of George Lucas' creative decisions (Jar Jar included), but at least the first 6 episodes of Star Wars were bound together by a coherent vision. What appears to have happened in this new trilogy is that Rian Johnson didn't like that much the storyline and characters that JJ Abrams and his team had created, so he decided to waste key heroes and villains, make fun of others that fans hold sacred, and eventually release a film that even though it looks like it belongs in the Star Wars universe, story-wise it belongs someplace else entirely (which is not even a feel-good Disney universe).
The only reason I was so generous in my rating is that I'm way too much of a Star Wars fan to trash The Last Jedi completely, plus the fact I intend to watch it once more, in case I suddenly realize it all makes sense now and I was the one with the problem because I had expected something totally different.
P.S. The one story element in this film that I found positive is the political allegory of the rich profiting from war at the expense of the suffering poor. However, even that could have been conveyed without the cheesy Oliver Twist dressed orphans that have Force abilities they only use to play with brooms.
12 out of 18 found this helpful.
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I was fooled by the professional reviewers again. While I do think this was better than The Force Awakens and Rogue One, I'm still hugely disappointed by it.
For roughly an hour and a half I was enjoying this. It wasn't perfect but it was a big improvement on the previous. The acting and dialogue were generally much, much better than before. Daisy Ridley is much more likeable this time because her character isn't just a Mary Sue. It was great to see Luke Skywalker again, because for me he's what Star Wars is about. But he's very different in this film. Aside from a few jokes he's pretty miserable.
The special effects and the space battles were really well done. And the build up to Rey finding out who her parents are was good. But the revelation itself was a huge letdown.
The film then built towards a great final act. But that's where it suddenly became predictable and really really boring. The way Snoke was disposed of was so obvious, it's amazing that only he didn't see it coming. What a waste of a potentially good villain.
But then rather bizarrely just when you felt like the film was about to finish they carried on for another 45 minutes. It was like watching A New Hope, only right after they destroy the Death Star they fly to Hoth and tag on the first 45 minutes of Empire.
So after initially enjoying it, I couldn't wait for it to end. As second films in a trilogy go, this was more like Attack of the Clowns than Empire Strikes Back.
And Finn didn't seem to have a purpose in this film. They just kept giving him little sub plots to keep him in the story. And what happened to his sidekick at the end was woeful.
Very disappointed.
12 out of 18 found this helpful.
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1/10
Such a terrible movie, Disney has put nail in the coffin for this one
All we have wanted was explanation for the plot from ep VII. ep VII was bad, and this one should have made things much better, but oh boy, was i ever so wrong. This movie is terrible. No character development, no story, cringy jokes and worst of all no backstory or explanation for anything that's happening. Everyone, Luk, Leia, Snoke, Rey, they all had terrible terrible scenes that completely ruined their characters, i can't believe it. I was so angry when the movie had ended, i almost cried because i don't want to hate Star Wars, i love Star Wars, but this, this thing has ruined Star Wars experience for many people!
20 out of 33 found this helpful.
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Last Jedi IMO sits (barely) above Phantom as the worst Star Wars. Apparently this director is who is going to be ongoing. Argh. Too much comedy, too much cgi, stupid subplot, FLOATING IN SPACE LEIA!!!! A ludicrous middle story for the CODE BREAKER, Snoke is just a plot device with no back story, shirtless EMO conflicted villains, silly bird things, modern superhero karate style saber fight scenes, a lame Luke death.
I suspect the scene with Leia will be the 'nuke the fridge' 'jump the shark' moment on the internet once the hype dies
20 out of 33 found this helpful.
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Such a horrible movie with so stupid characters and situations. Everything good, that have been started in "The force awakens" (which was not so many) have been ruined in this episode. Ryan Johnson literally have fucked every intriguing moments and questions that have been raised in "The Force Awakens". A hole movie is like a big and bad joke. The worst movie of the hole series. I just can't understand, why people like it:(
20 out of 33 found this helpful.
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Critics are giving this abortion high marks because they don't want to be accused of racism, sexism, and whatever else comes from not supporting the 'new direction' of the S(J)W franchise.
A couple of years ago, it appeared that a 14yo girl saw the original Star Wars trilogy and decided to re-write the original 1977 film as a fanfic with herself as an über-powered Mary Sue who instinctively had the powers of a Jedi and more of Han Solo's piloting skills than he had in his own ship. Not only that, but she had perfect skin, teeth, and hair despite living on a desert planet, orphaned at a young age and scraping by on scrap metal sales. She had no scars, body marks, burns or anything else--she was a flawless little princess in an extremely hostile (yes, I deployed to the Middle East in the early 1990s) environment. The rest of the story we know, because that fanfic was turned into a movie, The Force Awakens.
The Last Jedi is the fanfic her daddy wrote, to make all the mean people go away by playing fast & loose with forty years of preexisting lore so that it made his baby girl even more impressive. The easiest thing in the world is to look at an established lore and say "that, plus me, times infinity," which is what they did with Rey AND Snoke (which is the kind of name a child gives a snot-based villain).
We're required to believe that the First Order has all but destroyed the Resistance, but just like The Party's propaganda against Immanuel Goldstein in 1984, the former are only portrayed as clumsy buffoons against the latter's pluck and daring. I guess they were trying for a "girl power" angle on the Resistance fleet, with two women in charge. But when male villains are comically inept--and the girls still run away--it turns female empowerment into a farce because there are no real stakes against an incompetent opponent.
We're required to believe that Luke Skywalker tossed aside his father's (and later his own) lightsaber--the only remaining item of the good in the man--as immaterial.
We're required to believe that a neophyte has all (if not more than) the knowledge of a Jedi master, without training, and that she came not from force-sensitive parents but from random civilians with no unique traits. Didn't we already have this character, named Bella Swan?
There's a useless middle section about the evils of wealth and animal abuse which does not belong in the story. A single line from Laura Dern's vice admiral could have saved us this tedium. Nostalgia Critic calls this a "big-lipped alligator moment," but this is easily 1/4 of the film--it serves no purpose other than filling time.
We're required to believe that the man who led the Rebellion, destroyed the Death Star, defeated the Emperor, brought Vader back from the Dark Side, and restored order to the galaxy has become a cowardly recluse because ONE student started going bad. This is the sort of wish-fulfillment a teenager writes about himself after being kicked out of school. We also learn that Yoda was available to advise him as a force ghost, but chose instead to undermine him and destroy the legacy he spent 900 years to build. It's a bit like that godawful trend in Marvel Comics where the "classic" hero meets the new SJW version, has an epiphany and realizes that the latter is a better product, and that he (the classic) should bend the knee.
We're required to believe that the snot-based villain predates the Empire and is more powerful than Palpatine, but his evil consists mostly of saying "I knew that" and making snarky remarks at his emo apprentice, which undermines his own credibility and sets up the "your overconfidence is your weakness" strike you see coming ten miles away.
We're required to believe that the Resistance's survival will be threatened because... well, in The Empire Strikes Back the Imperial fleet couldn't bombard Hoth from orbit and sent walkers instead. But no such barrier exists here and the land-based attack just drags out the run time.
It's obvious that this poor imitation of a Star Wars film was intended to provoke emotions in people who can't maintain intellectual consistency from one moment to the next, but want to be associated with something greater than they are capable of handling.
Han's gone, Luke's gone, and Carrie Fisher can't reprise her role. That leaves Lando, Chewbacca & the droids as the last vestiges of the original series for Disney to throw under the bus for Episode IX: The Final Cash Grab.
5 out of 6 found this helpful.
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I am very easy-going and easy to please when watching movies. I enjoyed The Force Awakens. I enjoyed Rogue One. I even enjoyed The Phantom Menace and the Clone Wars.
I like Rey, and she was the one enjoyable part of this movie, but watching her master major aspects of the force with like 6 hours of non-training was a bit much to swallow.
Overall, I detested this movie. Nothing makes sense. The characters, both good and evil, are dumb as bricks, and woefully underdeveloped. The plot is driven entirely by calamitous or serendipitous coincidences--there is literally no point to almost anything that happens in this movie. The physics are ridiculous even by Star Wars standards. The jokes aren't funny.
Finally, and possibly most importantly, what the writers did to Luke is unforgivable. That character was not Luke Skywalker.
5 out of 6 found this helpful.
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2/10
One star for the acting, and one star for special fx.
This movie was completely pointless....neither the plot nor the characters are really in a place different than they were when TFA ended. We can't be distracted by ridiculous new creatures and flashy special effects. This was a long, drawn out, meaningless movie. Finn, who was (imho) the most important and original of the new characters introduced in TFA, was given a pointless *side* plot for what? To devote more time to telling Kylo Ren's lame back story? There was little to no rising action and I couldn't even pinpoint the climax of the plot for you because it was such a mess. So much of the hype going into the movie (who are Rey's parents? who is Snoke? etc) was quickly dismissed. Amazing actors like John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran were seriously under utilized.
I give this move 2 stars: one for the acting of John, Kelly, Oscar, and Carrie because they are all amazing and their presence alone would have made me more than happy to see this movie but they were either under utilized, given demeaning plot lines, or both, so I can really only add one star for them. And one star for the special effects team because they did a really good job and it's not their fault the story was so bad it was up to them to make the movie entertaining somehow.
I'd also like to say that I'm sick of all the patronizing humor in these movies. Or really every new movie in general. It's very contrived and honestly off putting. There's a difference between genuine camp and unoriginal, stereotypical "humor" which is more often than not inserted into the most bizarre situations that it manages to achieve an even greater level of tone deaf and unpleasantness. This sort of "humor" is in a lot of new movies so I guess I can't really fault TLJ for it but still. I'd hoped Star Wars would be different.
Disney/Lucasfilms listen up!! If you want to make a good Star Wars movie you should check out fan theories. There's a lot really great stuff out there!!! Pay those people for their incredible and inspired ideas and storytelling. That's a movie I'd probably see more than once! This one? Maybe if the DVD comes to my local library and every other DVD is checked out that day.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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No charm, and a jumbled superficial grand mess. Harrison Ford played a handsome rogue, and, like Sean Connery as Bond, the story was rounded with a bit of wry wit. Here, the attempts at comedic relief and wit are misplaced and rough.
There is simply no genius in the script. I cannot say it's the direction or production, it's simply not a well-formed story. Things are happening too fast, too expectedly and without development. Even Yoda makes a bland nonsense appearance. Luke acts very unJedi-like and even trite.
It's just bad and forgettable, and, at 2.5H, I must say it: I could not wait for it to end. You don't learn anything, you don't feel anything, and you're not suspended by anything. With a good story, it could have been a magnificent production. But, it is not a good story, it is a bad story with some hooks to perpetuate the series.
When I left the movie, I thought I would be alone; lo and behold I am not.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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Leia can fly now. You can use the force for Skype. Kylo is bipolar and also a little bitch. The directors had no idea what to do with Finn so they gave him a boring side mission that ended up being pointless. Terrible jokes at the worst possible times. Plot didn't advance at all. Why were the villains so laughably dumb? There are so many other things wrong with the movie.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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While The Force Awakens wasn't perfect, I still thought it was pretty good. I also loved Rogue One, to the point I saw it 5 times in the box office. The Last Jedi though? I don't plan to see it again. What happened to the serious aspects that JJ Abrahams gave us? The serious movie that Rogue One gave us. Why did TLJ revert back to George Lucas-style campy humor???? FFS, this movie was just a step away from giving us Ewoks and/or Jar Jar comedic effects.
The initial space battle scene was great, I think. The special effects there were magnificent. But by the time they got to the casino, I was really starting to not care anymore about whether or not they made it.
And then there's Luke and Rey. Again, weird forced comedy.
Oh, and could we not have had some explanation as to who in the hell Snoke was? How did he become supreme commander?
Ugh. I'm just hugely disappointed on so many levels. As a fan of Star Wars my entire life, this movie is just soul crushing.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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When the credits began to roll in the theater, the audience gave a standing ovation to the film, while all I could think of was "Why?" This movie wasn't like Force Awakens where it left me wanting more and making me wonder what comes next; all this film did was make me wonder why? To its credit, I did like some things about the movie; it had a strong opening scene with an entertaining space battle, and sassy Luke Skywalker I enjoyed, but that's about it. The biggest issue with the film is the plot. I know this is all probably leading leading somewhere in future films, but nothing really happened here. Luke became one with the force, Snoke was killed by Kylo Ren, and the resistance took a serious hit to its numbers and equipment. Like I said, I'm aware its likely all leading to something, but at least when Empire ended, all we could talk about was "Is Vader really Luke's father?" "How are they going to get Han back?" and after Attack of the Clones (as bad as it was) we could say "Well at least the giant Jedi battle was cool" "So this is how the Clone Wars began" and "that's how Palpatine grew to power." In the car ride home my friend and I were trying yo find things we liked about the movie, one of my telltale signs that a movie wasn't good. When I first saw Star Wars as a kid, I knew what I liked about it, I didn't have to think of reasons to try to like it. When I first saw Force Awakens a couple years ago, I knew I liked it, even if it was a large callback to A New Hope. Many things in the film have no place, especially the side plot with Finn and Rose (and I liked both of their characters) that could have been written out entirely, as it has no impact on the films in anyway. It was kind of like in Revenge of the Sith, where they knew Obi-Wan needed something to do until he fought Anakin in the climax, but they didn't know what he could do. Another big plot issue I had was killing Snoke off. After the Force Awakens, he was easily one of the top two enigmatic characters along with Rey, and with all the theories of who he could be, where he learned to harness the force, and how he lead the First Order to power were all debunked in less than 5 minutes of screen time. When he was killed, the entire audience clapped, while Just threw my hands up and wondered "Really?" He could have survived and the plot after his death could have remained unchanged. This film's biggest downfall was TRYING to have the character driven plot and emotional payoffs, and it fails miserably at that. This was the first movie I've ever seen in a theater where I almost asked for my money back, and what hurt the most was that it was a Star Wars film, my favorite series of movies ever. I love the Harry Potter films, I love the MCU films, but they don't even come close to how much I love Star Wars. I was hooked ever since my dad showed them to me in the mid/late 90's when I was 3 years old and was immediately hooked. This is not just a bad film, it was an absolute insult to Star Wars fans everywhere. That isn't a knock on director Rian Johnson, who has had some films I enjoyed in that past such as Looper, but this is inexcusable by Lucasfilm. We trusted them and they failed us.
P.S. Porgs are NOT annoying as Gungans or Ewoks.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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It was the best looking, worst movie of all time. Unbelievable. Some parts were amazing but more than two thirds of it were painfully bad. It felt like watching a dark comedy, not Star Wars.
It should have been titled "The Last Sh*t", because it's the last sh*t I'll ever give about Star Wars, if they keep going down this road.
The film was littered with political agenda and left/right orientation bias. Equality and diversity is fine and power to them for adding it, but keep the real world political overtones out of Star Wars. It's a galaxy far, far away for a reason!!!
God damn Mary Poppins Princess Leia!!! Body floating in space, close up, beautiful sendoff. Leave it at that and we have some great motive for the others now to rally together... Nope... What in the name of everything that is sacred was that atrocity?!
A fuel crisis in a Star Wars movie. Fuel. Let that sink in...
Flying at lightspeed can obliterate the Dreadnaught and about half a dozen full sized star destroyers, wtf is that nonsense. They could have just used droids to fly at lightspeed into Death Star or Starkiller Base... Save millions of lives.
The bombers... The bay door only opens with a goddamn remote control by some bloke up in the cargo bay????
The rich Monte Carlo space people were terrorised by Finn and Rose because of slave kids and animal cruelty... or some rubbish. Are we supposed to wait around for 20 years for the slave kid to become a Jedi? Is that what it was?! Sorry, but no...
That bloody useless pink haired Admiral Holdo, who wasn't wearing any military fatigues by the way!!! (Tarkin would turn in his space grave) Holdo and her merry band of resistance leaders were absolutely terrible and inept for the most part.
We don't care about the sh*tty new book storylines and we don't care if she was Leia's best friend from childhood. If she's in charge of a military movement, then behave like a proper military leader, not this rubbish cloak and daggers nonsensical dogsh*t.
Not a single tear shed for Admiral Ackbar, the pro-feminist tone throughout suggests that because he's a male alien, he doesn't matter so we carry on like it's no big deal?! Not to mention all of Poe's scenes portrayed as a reckless man who does what he wants, when he wants despite causing the deaths of others.
Anyone who agrees with me will be targeted and labelled a number of things such as being a misogynist etc. General Hux is an "alt right" buffoon by all accounts, "let's make the galaxy great again" etc etc...
If you insist of putting a male or female person in power roles, make them respectable and treat them as such. This was pathetic. Where are all the central alien characters if we are being equal here????
This entire story arc was horrendous. They can't catch up to us but we can p*ss off to another part of the galaxy for what appeared to be at least 6-8 hours, fly back and they still haven't been able to catch up with the carrier ship. Omg. Who green lit this crap?! And why are you allowed to kill Star Wars. You absolute cretins.
Wasting the best and most famous character by having him die from having a stroke while sitting alone on the rock. Why?! Force ghost in the next?! Why?! You should be ashamed of butchering this film.
Luke f##king Skywalker does not spend 20 odd years in exile to "redeem" himself by astrally projecting himself across the galaxy to buy the others time in their moment of peril, only to die of exhaustion alone on a rock afterwards. Nonsense!
Luke Skywalker is a badass who will never give up, no matter what the odds are, you cretins. You insufferable a##holes. What is the point of having him as a force ghost?!!! Just for the sake of it?!
He would have gone to the bitter end to try and stop Ben Solo from going to the darkside. He would have been respectful of the force and the history before it. DO NOT CALL IT A LAZER SWORD ffs.
The dawning realisation that the Skywalker sage ends like this is sickening. The fact that the Star Wars universe will no longer have a Skywalker descendant is appalling beyond reason.
You've sh*t all over what was possibly one of the greatest scenes in a Star Wars movie, the end scene of The Force Awakens, only to throw it all away. Pointless.
Rey's parental lineage arc was another discarded afterthought it seems.
The most interesting villain since the Emperor was treated to a few short scenes before being cast aside like a worthless peace of sh*t.
Chewie is no more than a two bit side gag. You've murdered Star Wars to peddle your agendas and force this rubbish upon us. Take it seriously ffs.
They've made a complete mockery of all past Star Wars lore. Slapped the fans in the face with the bad jokes, poor tone throughout and pointless deaths of beloved characters.
Star Wars fans of old are not the target audience anymore it would seem. No more Jedi's or Sith. No more Lightside or Darkside. Focus on peddling a whole new line of toys and product placement, who cares if the film is dogs*t... The shareholders have to eat well after all!
You're going to get blockbuster romps through space with lots of instant gratification and little substance. Eat it up and say thanks folks.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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Disney at it again. the last jedi left me with a empty heart hoping that this was just a dream and not an actual movie. i was really hyped only to find out that my favorite luke skywalker killed off in an unethical way. the writing is off, its just ohhh but Reviewer gave it high rating but its disney they have tons of money.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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1/10
Save your money. This should've been played on Disney Channel.
I have been an avid Star Wars fan since I was little and although I disliked portions of the prequels, I never gave up on Star Wars and cringed as much as when I watched this movie. Everything about it was terrible. Nothing made sense. Why were they following a ship for 9 hours and trying to look all menacing when they could have flown a couple tie fighters and blown everything up. Terrible directing and terrible plot lines. Nothing made sense. The Star Wars cartoons and animated series had a better story line than this movie. Disney only cares about selling plushed animals of chicken birds and crystal foxes. If you, like me, thought The Force Awakens was too corny and giddy, this one beats that right out of the park. The First Order was supposed to be the most feared organization in the galaxy and yet they are run by kids and an egotistical dis-proportioned troll. They didn't explain anything and instead gave Leia flying witch powers. Why did they have to ruin Star Wars?
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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Poor plot, mediocre characters, poor continuity and unanswered questions.
I like Luke, his character isn't too bad, the end of him was worthy and expected in a similar fashion to Obi-Wan.
Main characters - Kylo and Rey - maek your minds up, how good are they with the force? One minute they are super strong, the next, they are having trouble despatching Snokes guards, yet why would they care to fight - their leader has just died?!
Leia and the space situation - hmm...ok, she would have been obliterated by the cannon fire first, but not a scratch on her, dies then 'uses the force'....yeah, ok..
Who's Finn's new girlfriend? He didn't want her, cold emotions, yet he feels compelled to be tankful to her, he should have died with honour in that massive cannon..she had no reason to be able to all of a sudden fly anything and be a hero.
And when they were about to be executed, why were they the sole survivors from the light-speed wreck? Then Phasma turns up a long way away yet she was right there a minute before!
Yeah, all the very disappointed fans are right to be annoyed at this. It could have been so much better but was lacking so much..Disney have pretty much put the final nail in the coffin. The thing is - where the hell are they going to go with this next? There is nothing left to build upon. They will just throw more weka characters from unknown origins in the mix, again diluting the original ideas. George Lucas must feel sick. Bad, Just, bad..
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I am severely disappointed. In all honesty, I really enjoyed the Force Awakens. The new characters were lovable, it had a good balance of old and new so it appealed to all audiences, and it had that classic "Star Wars" feeling. I left the theater in 2015 feeling hopeful for the future of the saga, thinking that The Force Awakens had set up a ton of potential for the characters and story.
For two years, I looked forward to The Last Jedi. And...well...it's bad. Really, really bad. If you enjoyed it, good on you, but here are my opinions:
In short, the plot is nonsensical, incoherent, slow, and does not match up with the films before it. There is an injustice to nearly every single character involved--it's clear that Rian Johnson cared more about being edgy than he cared about the story or its characters.
I'll start with Rey. In episode 7, she is shown to be an intelligent, strong, independent character with her own story. She is set up to be this huge special mystery character. None of that is present in episode 8. She is turned into a de-powered, gullible nobody (literally, after 2 years of this parentage debate, her parents are just junkers? It's anticlimactic and a boring cop out). Her entire story revolves around Kylo, and the decisions she makes don't make any sense. It's annoying and unfair to her character.
Next, Finn. For a character who is SUPPOSED to be the leading male protagonist, he is incredibly sidelined. He was one of my favorite characters of The Force Awakens, and he gets sent on some pointless B plot that gives him no development whatsoever. Not only that, but he doesn't share a single line of dialogue with Rey. Really? Critics raved about John and Daisy's chemistry, they spent the entirety of the Force Awakens together, and in this one their relationship doesn't develop at all? Very poor writing decisions regarding a character who had great potential.
Poe's personality does a complete 180 as well. He goes from a brave yet kind leader to an arrogant hothead who risks his fellow soldier's lives for the sake of glory. What's up with that?
Snoke even gets the short end of the stick. They set him up to be some all-powerful, mysterious villain, but het gets axed in two seconds with no explanation on who his character is. Nice.
Leia spends half the movie in a coma. She deserves so much better. There is so much I want to say regarding her, but I feel like that sums it up nicely.
And finally, Luke Skywalker. Nothing enrages me more about this movie than the treatment of Luke Skywalker. There is not a single aspect of this portrayal that does a shred of justice to the character we know and love. He is robbed of his personality and stripped of everything he's meant to stand for fundamentally. His biggest traits, compassion and love (especially for his family), are all but absent from this movie in a way that makes no sense and disrespects his character entirely. They advertised a great relationship between Luke and Rey, but not even that happens. There is no resolution. His story in this movie is weak and receives no justice. He is one of the most legendary characters of Star Wars, and this is the treatment he gets. I don't know who this character was, but it was not Luke Skywalker. Not at all.
I honestly do not understand the good reviews that critics are giving this movie. Yes, the visuals were stunning and the acting is well done. I will give it that. But for me, the integrity of the characters and story are far more important, and this movie fails that on both fronts. I am incredibly sad that this is the outcome.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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Ive been a star wars fan ever since I watched the first star wars movies as a child. I grew up with Luke as my hero. I loved The Force Awakens and was dying to see The Last Jedi. The waiting was killing me!
Then the day came, I went and saw the movie as soon as it released in the theaters. Without putting out any spoilers, all I can say is - I left with a feeling of emptiness. Rian completley destroyed Star wars for me and the characters I loved.
This movie was the biggest mistake and dissapointment I have ever felt.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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How could you do this to us? I am 43 years old and have been a faithful Star Wars fan for almost 4 decades. At the end of Episode 7 they finally find Luke, who is already a Jedi Master .... Our hope was to see our great Hero confronting the First Order ... And we are not given more than a scared old man, and without hope to see our hero fight a last battle with his lightsaber. They are all stupid who made the story and those who authorized it ... Without doubt the worst Star Wars movie of all. You can not imagine my disappointment after 2 years of waiting. After Rouge One - which was magnificent - my expectations for episode 8 were very very high. I don't want to spend money on this franchise anymore.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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Saw the movie tonight on opening night and I can't believe how you can have an entire theater cheering for Luke's arrival to save the Rebellion, and thirty seconds later have that good feeling torn out of you. Those cheering fans of five minutes before, left the theater, heads down in silence. This was a total disservice to the character of Luke Skywalker. Did the writers of this movie even SEE the first three movies and what Luke's character stood for?? Luke was a hero to millions of us growing up, and to see him written off like this is horrible. Shame on you Disney.
8 out of 11 found this helpful.
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I can not believe we can make this sequel a big shit, there was so much better to do with Rey, Snoke, Kylo ren and luke. This story is a total nonsense about what we could have after the force awakens.
I feel so sad now I don't want to see the star wars 9 ....
Thx for nothing Disney and kathleen kennedy ...
40 out of 73 found this helpful.
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3/10
Oh boy did Disney mess this beautiful franchise up!
It is a big let down for anyone who is a true star wars fan. It doesn't do any justice to previous star wars characters form the old trilogy and it butchers the new ones. The writing fluctuates from barely bearable to god awful and they introduce a new character which is unimportant. There are a few stories going on at once and one of them ends up meaning nothing to the story!
24 out of 41 found this helpful.
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The script of this movie was god awful. Seriously it already has ruined the trilogy. The best way to explain it is the stereotypical "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed". They really missed their shot in this trilogy of having a cool villain like plagueis or really anyone, but they decided to do Snoke who did absolutely NOTHING COOL besides sit in a chair and babble around. I have been a lifelong fan and this movie seriously made me very sad. I have so many more things to say such as Leia force powers were dumb af, or all the pointless new characters with zero plot development and poor casting, and all the other typical Disney screw-up things
13 out of 20 found this helpful.
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2/10
Rian Johnson and Disney have destroyed Star Wars as we know and love it...
Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were fantastic... The Falcon was great... Rey was good... but they flushed the official cannon down the drain. Snoke, Phasma both tossed aside like they were unimportant... Phasma, who had her own parents killed, killed her own brother in cold blood, and even killed the guy who saved her from the planet she was on, was killed by a janitor. Snoke, who even Thrawn feared... who was supposed to be this incredible dark presence in the Unknown Regions... gone... only a few hours after telling his would be killer he was a weak boy in a mask... All of the mystery of that entire region of the galaxy, tossed out. If they want us to see the movies, read the books, watch the shows, they need to keep the story intact. But they didn't. Rian Johnson totally wrecked it all. Rey's lineage... nothing. Luke's reaction to the lightsaber... junk. The only part of the story that holds true to the spirit of the originals, and the canon, is just how awesome the Falcon is, and how great of a pilot Chewbacca is. The rest is junk. The suspense was all for nothing.
13 out of 20 found this helpful.
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1/10
Real title for this movie: Star wars the first PC, comedy
11 problems with this movie. Warning, they contain spoilers/
11. Disney might have paid for good reviews, for this movie is not a 8.5 stars, its more like 8.5 death stars.
10. Force Skype
9. Virtual lightsaber battle at the end.
8. Psuedo pod racing scene with animal rights angle.
7. Over-the-top feminist themes intensified.
6. Continued hatred and exclusions of white males in the cast, unless cast as evil.
5. Snoke was a strong, strong character. Why kill him off so easily?
4. Only 3 lessons of Jedi training?
3. Porg.
2. The movie started off as a comedy. The jokes were funny, but Star Wars is NOT a comedy.
1. Leia survives being sucked out into space without a space suit on.
13 out of 20 found this helpful.
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Seeing this just after midnight on the opening night with a IMAX full of super fans, and then sharing in mutual facial expressions of WTH am i watching? Leaving the entire room confused at the end.
The Force Awakens, loved or hated by many people at least felt like a Star Wars movie, it also brought the potential for many interesting future storylines, Rey's parents, a good few more films to follow with Snoke being very involved, these and many more cool premises given up on, amongst Thor Ragnarok style jokes (which worked great in that film),as for this one, true we all laughed a all the funny bits in the cinema, but with each new smart quip/'your mum' joke, it felt more and more less like the Star Wars universe and more and more like a Star Wars Spoof movie, i even expected a bit of fourth wall breaking from Luke possibly looking into the camera and dusting off his shoulder ...
13 out of 20 found this helpful.
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This was my greatest fear when Disney bought the franchise: that Star Wars would loose it's soul.
This movie has more in common with Fast and Furious and Guardians of the Galaxy than it does with Star Wars. Characters are cartoonish, the dialogue has been watered down and the plot has so many holes you can see right through it. Having said that, both of the other franchises I compared this movie to have made hundreds of millions of dollars, so I guess this movie will also fare well with the masses, for the same reasons: action packed, stunning visuals with an easy-to-digest plot.
13 out of 20 found this helpful.
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3/10
Im going back to make sure its really as bad as I think
Theres really nowhere to start but i will try.
Far far too many little "jokes" in the film, yes a few is fine but this feels like forced comedy every 2 minutes.
The death of certain main characters is just passed over in seconds.
It fel so Disneyish with so many cgi creatures in there for them to make into toys to sell on.
The whole casino side story was a complete waste of time.
Im gutted, huge huge star wars fan and you have done this to the series. Rogue one was literally a breath of fresh air (10/10 film) and you have dragged star wars back into the dirt with this drivel
27 out of 47 found this helpful.
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Rian Johnson, clearly wasn't a choice for a movie of that magnitude. The movie edition was terrible, jumping from scenes to scenes in a very amateur way that kills all the drama.
The movie steal good ideas from other movies but in a way that makes you fell uncomfortable (and sorry) for watch it (Matrix Luke I'm talking about you), and I'm not even talking about the humor relief scenes, which makes me wondering if George Lucas was allowed to add scenes to the movies again.
So, I'm not judging it as a Star Wars history, but as movie. And as a movie it is ridiculous.
97 out of 193 found this helpful.
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I am a big fan of Star Wars, just as reference I really enjoyed the force awakens, but this one if just not good
Where the movie fails?
* repeating lines from other Star Wars episodes but not at the right time, even making the moment feel in between awkward and silly
* not preparing tension or building characters
* it leaves the door open for a saga of unlimited episodes where it will repeat all over again
* Luke Skywalker is not convincing, sorry, big fan but the acting there was not up to anything, maybe the plot was just lame?
* porgs? these little creatures are a weird mix of puss in boots big eyes and chicken/rabbit but they can fly the falcon millennium! it´s cute and fun for little kids though, so if that was the intent ...
* the plot or the story is boring, plain, it has some moments but that's it
* couple really non sense scenes that won't spoil here
Can someone write a good plot and save it?
I had high hopes for this film, it was entertaining but not really good, overall the movie feels like a mix of couple episodes but bad mix and just leaving the doors open to do more of the same and to make more money - not cool
47 out of 88 found this helpful.
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I dislike the director. I've seen his other films. I don't like them. He doesn't respect his characters. He doesn't respect the story. Anything can happen. And unhappen. Did that really happen? Oh, no. How funny. It didn't. Oh, no. How sad. It did. Wait. Oh, no. ... By and to anyone. For example, in one film, Mark Ruffalo seems to be dying, but then jumps up and does somersaults. But then maybe he really is dying. Because nearly dead people can jump up and do somersaults just to fool other people into thinking that they're really fine. So, maybe he isn't dying. We never really know. Although we see other characters and then (I think) we're supposed to think that maybe we do know. But we really don't. I mean, it's a movie after all. He really didn't die. He really wasn't near death. So, he really could do somersaults. Although it might have been a stunt double. ...
We learn something about the relationship between Kylo and Luke. But then, maybe that isn't true. Wait, no, maybe it is. Or... maybe it isn't. ...
We learn something about Rey's parents. Or doooo we? ...
Wow, what a neat new character. Oh. Okay, well it was a neat new character. I guess that person didn't sign on for multiple films. Wow, what a character I don't care anything about. Not to worry. Probably won't live through the end. Oh. Okay. Well, maybe that person did sign on for multiple films. Not that all good characters died and all mediocre characters lived. Old and new, some died, some lived. No apparent reason. I suppose they just rolled dice to see which ones were which. Some characters don't even get killed, they just stop living. Seriously. They weren't in a scene where they could be killed, but they hadn't signed on for another film, so ...
At one point, one character, in a discussion about both dying and turning to the dark side, said (ambiguously?) that no one is ever really gone. Gone ... to the dark side? Gone ... dead? Gone ... from the films? Recall from TFA, they put Phasma in a trash compactor just shortly before the whole place was destroyed. So, did she die? If not, how did she survive? And what about anyone else who seemed probably or even definitely to have died?
The Force training manual must be really short. Recall how Luke went to Dagobah and left before his training was complete, but when he returned, Yoda said that his training was complete. Well, he might have been the person who received the most Force training ever. By far.
There must have been six times when I thought the movie was ending with a cliffhanger, only for something random to happen that would lead to, oh, okay, I guess this is where it ends. Nope. More. Oh, here's where ... Nope. Still more.
And when the end does come, we might think, okay, none of the characters we've seen will be in Episode IX. I mean, lots of living people left. But the end has nothing to do with them and seems to be leading to another completely different story about completely different people. Maybe its just a lead in for another spin off. But it's weird to end the story that way.
There was the usual SW type humor. Almost. Sort of. Apparently, Luke was written as if someone had seen Hamill in interviews and thought they'd just let Hamill play himself. If you haven't seen him in interviews, let's just say, he isn't a Jedi Master. Think Liam Neeson, Alec Guinness, and Yoda. He's the opposite of that.
Four stars because I expected it to be as bad as the film with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis, where, for example, they cut off body parts of a guy so his future self, who has come back from the future to the present, will lose body parts and come back so they can kill him, rather than just killing the present guy, which would just kill the future guy, which is someone else does later in the movie. That film made no sense. Sorry, if you think it did, it didn't. Happy to explain all the serious problems if you ask. Nothing in this film was offensive on that level.
It's really sad to see that so many people like this film. If this is what people like, we're just going to get more it. And that means no real quality. And now that Rupert Murdoch is a major shareholder of Disney, it's scary to think of what is coming. Maybe the evangelicals are right and these are the End Times.
14 out of 22 found this helpful.
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The biggest problem I have with Episode VIII is...
"If you choose to face Vader, you will do it alone. I cannot interfere."
Because he is a force GHOST! That (once) meant he can't physically intervene in the "real world".
In TLJ it seems that force ghosts can do everything they want. Cast lightning, fight Kylo Ren. etc.
So Obi-Wan was a liar, or the script for TLJ invented new Jedi powers?
You decide.
42 out of 78 found this helpful.
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I've noticed a common trend reading reviews on this site and that is to disparage people who's opinions differ from your own. Quite silly at this point to see that if you hated this movie it's because you're a Star Wars fanboy, and if you liked this movie it's because you're a Star Wars fanboy- this is beyond stupid and just not how it works.
According to countless reviewers here if you dislike this movie then you are "whiny" and "nit-picky"... um, no- people who dislike this movie dislike this movie and are simply stating their opinion! How are you any different when you are whining about the whiners! This movie didn't just come out of nowhere, it is a sequel in a massive franchise and people have expectations... if you order a pizza and it arrives with mayonnaise instead of tomato sauce then it's hardly whiny or nit-picky to have a problem with it. To give us something different is fine, to trample it with no respect for the source material is a different story which seems to be the situation here.
I personally had no expectations for this film considering that The Force Awakens was just a soft reboot of A New Hope... however the only interesting questions TFA offered up are all dashed by this new film, in the same way that Alien: Covenant completely ignored any compelling questions left unanswered in Prometheus. This movie seems to have little connection to the previous films other than the basics and it should all be clear at this point: all Star Wars films after the original three were made TO MAKE MONEY. The sudden over-inclusion of Chinese people in these films is TO MAKE MONEY now that Hollywood films have been OK'd by the Chinese government. Disney doesn't care about Chinese, blacks, or women- they are simply doing whatever it takes to try to get everyone's dollar.
I don't need to describe the plot or anything else really, it's all been said, I'm mainly writing to offer up a big middle finger to everyone here who feels the need to insult people who's opinion differs from their own. If someone likes this movie I'm not going to claim they have been paid by Disney (though it is possible unfortunately), nor am I going to say "did we just see the same film?" It's so dumb- even my own best friends have opinions that vastly differ from mine and yet we are still friends. I dislike movies that I used to like but I'm not going to write a review calling my old self a fanboy or worse insults as so many do here.
Also I've noticed a lot of people claim the events in this movie are "canon" and therefore must be accepted- sorry, no... I don't need to accept this crap or the crap prequels as part of my Star Wars experience anymore than I need to accept Ridley Scott's lame explanation that the almighty deep space xenomorph was actually created by a man-made android (spoiler for a different film- sorry!). If these movies can't even keep their own lore consistent then the word cannon is meaningless anyway.
This movie is soulless at worst and muddled at best and that's my opinion- don't like it? Then go write your own review and whine about how I'm a whiner.
15 out of 24 found this helpful.
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Could the script get any more puerile? It felt like it was written by a bunch of 12 year old Fan Boys, and this makes it a chore for the more mature movie goers. And it is far too long with a lot of very unnecessary scenes. Watched in a theater very obvious young Star War fans but no cheering, applauding or any other interaction from them at any point in the movie. Chatting with several outside after the movie finished the general comment was - disappointing!
35 out of 64 found this helpful.
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4/10
Weird , Gloomier , Flawed , need much better than earlier Star Wars epics
Almost the first and half screening is more to fantasy drama with too long dialogues of bridging the storytelling, while overall much more to be improved comparable with most science fiction Star Wars epics & trilogies that always provides new space technology ideas of weaponries and vehicles with wonderful nature sceneries ; The Last Jedi is not having more creativeness including remarkable characters and with almost many similarities predictable stories and the similar amenities ever had made , and seems it is made most purposely for targeted China market aims.
And surprisingly there is no extra post-credits scene in the closing film as if The Last Jedi is having drained of story overall as well out of its production within-off budget (as usually Star Wars provide it in its screening history , whilst Marvels mostly also have it recently).
Even worse than The Force Awakens and Rogue One, it's losing touch cinematic & positive stories with favorable surprises usually innovatively created before by Lucas teams ; consider Disney should be having all the resources needed.
Some kids are yet able sleeping during watching the film as offering standard only limited typical space cinematic of star wars (innovative) actions.
Though having its new complicated release marketing rules and earlier enthusiastic promo to see it soon after watching Wonder (2017) ~ eventually it's sadly first ever feels that Star Wars new 2017 release is preemptive presumption entering the non favorable trend similar to Jurassic Park (1993) declining into 3rd Jurassic Park III (2001) and better Disney should fix it in getting much more Box Office as well much better Opening Weekend ; if necessary getting Lucas back with Spielberg also capturing wonderful Indonesia natures ; consider its more than 40-years epics history.
Please create better Star Wars as well do not disappoint Star Wars fans after these long years :(
32 out of 58 found this helpful.
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Like The Force Awakens the film leaves me apathetic. I don't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it either. It's well made visually, but ultimately feels very shallow. Rey is still a perfect mary sue that can do no wrong. Kylo is still a whiny emo man child who hates everything and everyone. Snoke is wasted. Luke is kinda diminished as a character in this. The story surrounding Finn/Poe/Leia/Rose feels so pointless, like it busy work until they move to the "arena" to watch the spectacle of the ending. There are good bits here in there, but they seem to ultimately serve a anticlimactic and boring conclusion that doesn't do much in moving the plot anywhere far after the ending of the last movie.
17 out of 28 found this helpful.
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This movie made me long for the days in which Jar Jar was the worst decision of the serie.
It's basically bad for the entire duration without any redeeming moments.
The fact this movie has a score of over 8 (at the time I'm writing this) proves two things for me, the majority of voters are fanboys who don't remember what starwars supposed to feel like and that the crowds are getting easier to win over
17 out of 28 found this helpful.
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While I do agree with the other reviews in the sense that the movie is stunning, creative and beautiful, and the acting is superb, I still can't ignore the massive amount of plot-holes, we encounter during this movie...
1) Snoke, the main villain, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, and how they didn't use him, nor explain him in any way. While I am satisfied, that they didn't turn him into a replacement Palpatine, I can't help, but feel saddened by how they cut him off (literally) from the movie, without any proper introduction. We see his extreme power with the Force, and we see him as a scarred, deformed old man, with no mercy intended for anyone. Yet, even though there has been two years worth of theories and conspiracies, it isn't explained in the movie who he is, how he has gotten so powerful with the Force, nor how he was able to connect Rey to Kylo without knowing, where she was...
2) The dreadnought, the ship that could take down fleets, seen as a massive victory to the Resistance, served no other purpose than to display Poe's already proven skills as a pilot and reckless nature. His demotion had no effect on the plot, as he was still outranked by Holdo and she would still have the ability to ignore him. Furthermore, the dreadnought's "Death Star-like" weak point, where a single bombing run could take it out completely seemed a bit too convenient.
3) Leia's immediate mastery of the Force, saving her at the last minute, despite us never having seen anything like that from her at this point in the movie. Seemed a bit too convenient, and is not looked further into by the characters, nor is it explained at any other point. And yes, I am aware of the fact she would've inherited the same powers as Luke, but we aren't told if she even trained beforehand...
4) The codebreaker/slicer, who Finn and Rose were intended to recruit in the casino, wasn't used in any way, despite Maz (who served absolutely no purpose in the film) praising him to the skies, which lead to them conveniently meeting someone else with more or less the same skills, who'd betray them, and then run away, with no closure whatsoever on that point.
5) Rey mentioning how Luke having cut his connection with the Force, yet he is able to project an image of himself across untold distances. This one doesn't bother me as much as the other things, but it is up there...
While I do hope a lot of these things are explained in the ninth movie, I still find it annoying how many of the things, we have been looking forward to finding out, aren't even touched upon properly...
17 out of 28 found this helpful.
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Plot: what is there is full of holes. Story: is not advanced overall, in any way. Disjointed. Part of it is irrelevant to what is supposedly going on. Characters: don't behave like themselves. The Force: just make it up as you go along. The future: what future, EVERYTHING that was teased about or characters that you've invested in, is either dead or irrelevant.
I got the point of this movie, blow up the past, blow up expectations, blow up the characters, nothing matters. You're correct, the franchise no longer matters. Why is there going to be a third movie?
And who okayed Johnson to direct a SW trilogy?! Certainly not someone who cares about the SW franchise, characters or lore.
It's Over.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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If this were any other movie it would be a mediocre movie as a star wars movie this awful it has effectively killed off the whole storyline one movie too early. The script from the start was weak as was the plot. The characters kept saying weird things out of character for a star wars movie they seemed to like the word spark a lot. It looked like a star wars movie, it sounded like a star wars movie it was actually pretty lame and I will join the many legion of fans that have been gutted by this and the force rebooted. We waited 40 years to find out what happened with the Skywalker saga only to be spoon fed this load of tosh.
They tried to patch up holes in the first movie with one liners, you were upset Kylo how did you let a girl with no light sabre training beat you in the last movie blah blah and throw in comedy one liners all over the place and cute little critters to merchandise no doubt.
The script is so bad and the story so off the mark that you can't help thinking that whoever wrote it has a) never watched star wars b) doesn't know the story of star wars and c) is an idiot
Do Disney even know that there's another movie left they've killed everyone off. Snoke the big bad get's cut in two by Kylo with hardly a thought and the rebels sorry resistance (to me they will ALWAYS be the rebel alliance but not to Disney) are down to their last 12 men. Pity Po has survived he's a very very lame ass character they have jammed him in at the expense of Fin and Reys story they should of stuck to their guns and killed him off in the first movie, but no of all the idiot,s pointless lame characters to make it through Po's still there. Luke doesn't teach Rey anything other than the big hole is evil she goes in anyway and then Luke vanishes like Mark Hamill with a huge pay check off to the Bahamas.
Disney has turned this into a weak poorly written load of junk just like the game Batttle Front 2 they've just put out.
IMO if you're new to this franchise watch Rogue one then episodes 4 5 and 6 and tbh maybe even episode 1 and then skip the rest.
That's me done with star wars no more games or movies gg Disney a 40 yeah fan who doesn't want to watch anymore of your train wrecks.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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Sadly this film was completely underwhelming. The Last Jedi didn't stand much of a chance considering JJ ruined any chance for the trilogy to be good but TLJ didn't do much to try and change the course of the new trilogy. There were defiantly many routes Rian Johnson could have taken but decided to copy and paste from the Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. Same plot, same scenes, and the same characters.
Finn and Rose managed to distract and bore me to the point where I almost fell asleep and then after they fail their mission you come to realize that their mission was 100% useless. It was a terrible plot to begin with and then you realize it brought zero value to the movie. Snoke has maybe 5 minutes of screen time and is killed by Kylo in a blink of an eye. Is Kylo supposed to be the villain? You take one look at this guy and you just can't help but crack a smile. Adam Driver as the main villain is laughable. I guess Disney didn't want to make an intimidating bad guy for the kids. Rey, OP as ever, finishes her "training" if we can even call it that in a few seconds. The biggest thriller Disney was able to put together was a 10mph space ship chase, give me a break. Luke's character is just horrible to be blunt. When Mark Hamill said he disagreed with everything they did with Luke, he wasn't wrong. There is one scene that I almost walked out on and it was the scene where Leia gets blown up into space unscathed with no gear on and wakes up to force push her way back onto the ship. I couldn't believe that happened, I almost left the movie. That scene alone was a -4 stars.
Don't go see the movie in theaters and wait for it to come out on DVD. No need to rush to see it. The best word to describe the movie: underwhelming. JJ ruined the trilogy to begin with so I didn't have high hopes for The Last Jedi. It didn't disappoint with the terrible cast, characters you can't relate to/care about, copy and paste plot from the original trilogy, and an overall eh performance as a whole. I did feel it was better than The Force Awakens but so is every movie so that isn't an accomplishment. I defiantly won't be seeing the final movie, which we already know JJ is incapable of making the trilogy wrap up successfully, so I am extremely disappointed to say that this underwhelming movie is as good as it will get in the new trilogy. I gave it a 4 overall mostly because I was feeling generous but couldn't make it any better. Sorry Star Wars fans Disney failed us.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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For a Star Wars film, there was waay too much joking. No emotional depth to the film. They could have explored more about the Force and the connection between Ren and Kylo, but nope. Or explored Snoke or Ren's background. Nope. Nobody really died except Luke and it was more like half-assed see ya around kid???
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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Ever since I was a small child, I was fascinated with Star Wars. I vividly remember the first time I saw the movies in the cinema when they got a rerun in 1997. I was and still am in love with Star Wars. I grew up with it, watched everything, read the books, played the games and collected the toys. To me, Star Wars is more than just a movie it is my Childhood and still a very important part of my life.
When I first heard the announcement that Disney bought the rights to Star Wars and more movies were on the way, I was excited for new possibilities. The Force Awakens, despite its flaws and similarities felt like a Star Wars movie and played homage to the older movies. J.J. Abrams managed to create a successful entry point to a new trilogy with likeable and complex characters, charm and wit. It was the start of something great, the necessary similarities set the boundaries for a successful continuation.
The first part in the trilogy left me wondering what would happen next, who are Rey's parents, how could Supreme Leader Snoke seize power. I was excited for the future. Fast forward to the current day, I have seen the movie twice now and I am heartbroken and confused as to how it could go so wrong.
The movie starts with a dire situation for the Resistance their ships have been found and are faced with superior numbers from the First Order. The foolish but likeable character Poe Dameron faces off with a Dreadnought to gain enough time for the Resistance to escape. This already starts off one of my major gripes about this movie. The dialogues and the forced slapstick humor just does not fit the grandeur of this movie. The conversation between General Hux and Poe is laughable, but not in a good way. The joke at the expense of Hux discounts the seriousness of the situation and this slapstick runs like a common thread throughout the movie. The Last Jedi resembles other Disney projects such as the Marvel Franchise in this regard; every action has to be commentated with a joke, because of fear that the viewers could lose interest in the subpar storylines.
While the battle is developing, the Resistance manages to attack the Dreadnought with their Bomber Squadron and destroying it in the process. Unfortunately, nobody told Director Rian Johnson, that Bombs should be floating in space, but gravity is ignored in this instance.
In the subsequent battle, Kylo Ren and two Tie-Fighters destroy the bridge of the main Battleship of the Resistance. The whole leadership of the Resistance, including Admiral Ackbar, is wiped out, except for Leia that is hovering in through space in zero gravity. Leia then escapes death by using the force to fly through space with her best Mary Poppins imitation to get back to the Battleship, in what can only be described as the most unreasonable and unrealistic moment of the whole franchise. While she has shown that she is force sensitive in the past, this felt like a cheap and unnecessary way to advance the plot. It also doesn't have any influence on the advancement of the overall plot whether she lives or dies, but would have been a good opportunity to send of the late Carrie Fisher.
In a plan to escape from the grasp of the First Order, Finn and Rose Tico, a crewmember of the Resistance, set forth on a journey to the planet Canto Bight in order to search for a code cracker that will insure the Resistance a safe escape. The whole scene felt more like it descended from the Harry Potter franchise than Star Wars, gone are familiar alien races and they get replaced by money loving caricatures of society. The whole Plot felt like it tried to lecture the audience and Finn and Rose had no on screen chemistry. This part could have been cut from the movie and would have made it a stronger movie overall.
At the same time, Rey finally meets Luke Skywalker on the Island, where the first Jedi once lived. We get to know more about the reasons why Luke decided to live on this desolate island. This storyline overall felt authentic, but has one glaring issue that goes against everything the Star Wars franchise stands for, the creation of Kylo Ren at the hands of Luke Skywalker. Fearing the imminent turn to the dark side of Ben Solo, Luke raises his Lightsaber to strike down a sleeping Kylo Ren. Luke Skywalker, the most powerful Jedi that brought balance to the force, gives up hope to kill the Son of his best friend Han Solo and Leia Organa, his own sister, despite infringing on the very principle that defines a Jedi. This is an unreasonable character trait that does not fit the Luke Skywalker that everyone grew to love from the original trilogy. This part of the story had the same weaknesses that plagued the rest of the movie; important scenes were ruined with slapstick humor that was not fitting the tone of the situation.
Later on, Rey confronts Snoke and Kylo Ren on their main Ship and ensuing scenes are very well orchestrated. Still, Supreme Leader Snoke feels like a missed opportunity. We do not get to know how Snoke obtained his position or even who he really is. He is depicted as an almost almighty deity that feels untouchable, but his hubris is ultimately his downfall. The Choreography and visual effects are top notch and the movie starts to drastically pick up from the moment Rey steps food on the First Order Ship.
Finn and Roses plan to save the Resistance fails, but BB8, that seems like an unstoppable killing machine in this movie, safes them once more whilst controlling an AT-ST, after single handedly beating multiple guards back on Canto Bight. The mutiny subplot between General Holdo and Poe is going on at the same time and their performances and believable character traits make this one of the highlights of the movie. While I liked this subplot, the whole problem could have been entirely eradicated, if Poe and Holdo talked about their plans. The scene ends with Holdo sacrificing herself in order to save the last surviving escape pods, by ramming the Resistance Ship into the First Order Ship, but only doing so, after basically killing of the vast majority of the Resistance Ships. The magnitude of the exploding First Order Ship gets reduced again by slapstick humor and dialogue that feels completely out of place. Captain Phasma, an intriguing character from the Force Awakens, that did not see nearly enough screen time, does not get used to the full potential and finds death without ever achieving anything meaningful.
The final battle happens on the salt planet Crait, the Resistance surrounded by the First Order and Finn and the others go on the offense with some speeder like ships. Finn is ready to sacrifice himself in order for the success of the Resistance, but gets stopped at the last second by Rose, that selfishly decided she was more important than the chance of overall survival, despite highlighting over the movie, that solidarity and believe in the Resistance is crucial.
Luke Skywalker appears as an Illusion, unknowingly to Kylo Ren and manages to buy enough time to get the Resistance to safety. He finally manages to find peace and balance with the force and dies in the process.
Overall, the Soundtrack, the Sound effects and the Visual effects are stunning. The action is great and if this is enough for the average viewer to be entertained, this movie can be ideal. The problems start with the implausible and the shoddy dialogue and leave much to be desired. Some characters get fleshed out, while others seem to be forgotten. The chemistry between Finn and Rose is simply not there and the movie would have been better without the whole love story in it. I can´t imagine that hardcore fans of Star Wars can be happy with what was achieved by Rian Johnson, he does not seem to be the right guy to lead the next trilogy. Unfortunately the positive aspects do not manage to redeem the glaring issues of this long awaited second part in the sequel trilogy. I left the cinema feeling disappointed and I am now less enthusiastic about Star Wars future movies.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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First of all, if I had to summarize the whole visual effects experience in one word, it would be "Wow". Just... I was genuinely impressed by the work of Industrial Light & Magic.
Unfortunately the magic ends here for me. The plot in a nutshell was a weird mix of episode V and VI with some side stories that didn't really go anywhere.... way too many characters, the plot was all over the place...
Far from a bad movie, but my least favorite Star Wars. I believe this episode deserved a better director and screenwriter.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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Quickest explanation for folk just scanning through the reviews is:
Wanted to walk out of the cinema after 20 minutes, but was too embarrassed - the dark theatre was hiding my shame.
The main story Arc was a joke & spat in the face of EVERY space battle that came before.
The side stories were no better. Poor Finn will always just be a 'nearly' character.
Outside of a space ship Poe has as much appeal/presence as a Moisture Vaporator.
Snoke started off well but you know how that ended.
The Praetorian Guards couldn't guard a fish supper from a blind dog.
Too many gags & in the wrong places - it felt like a sitcom, it was like watching the Golden Girls in space with lots of Disney filler crap CG characters.
Cant get into the main villains - they've not grown as characters at all. In fact, Hux's character regressed badly after showing decent signs in the previous outing.
The potential was wasted not giving Luke a bigger role. & I'm kinda fed up with this whole 'Apprentice Arc' rubbish in the SW universe.
So much wrong with it that I'm not going to go into EVEN more detail. People need to be fired ASAP. Starting with the director - from making any more SW movies.
So ashamed!!
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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I gave it two stars for the Space penguins. Their hysteric and frightened face expressions are literary depicting my feelings when I figured out that I gave my money for watching ''The Room'' of Star Wars movies and SF movies in general.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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5/10
Awful: Terrible plot, lack of character development, and a wasted opportunity
It is frustrating to witness the complete inability of Disney to produce a decent script from such wonderful source material. Episode VIII is plagued by scattered story line, plot holes, lack of character development, and a notable waste of actors and roles. It's few redeeming qualities are to be found in the special effects, decent dialogue, good acting, and overall production value.
9 out of 13 found this helpful.
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1/10
Absolute Trash!!!!! Disney should offer refunds. No, seriously.....
Absolute waste of time and money. What was the whole point of this movie? Takes place over a 16 hour time frame and the movie droned on and on for what felt like that long, skipping from one random scene to the next without making any sense. Disney must have paid off a lot of people to give this movie more than 1 star. Now don't me wrong the special effects are cool and all but if you're an actual Star Wars fan or enjoy plots that make sense you're going to be mad if you spend money on this. Wait to bootleg it in a few weeks.
18 out of 30 found this helpful.
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Ok, I promised myself I will stop going to the movies for the whole year of 2018, this was the last straw, Hollywood churned a lot of garbage lately and I'm sick and tired!
Stop giving them your money, maybe they will learn and stop making this type of garbage.
The cute ice foxes from the trailer were nice tho.
19 out of 32 found this helpful.
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Just got back from the cinema and one thing is for certain; this movie did not live up to my expectations. As a Star Wars fan, episode VII seem like a masterpiece after watching VIII. After waiting two years I had high hopes (possibly too high?) from great cliffhangers that were answered with many short and pointless scenes.
The whole movie went on with a high pace. There were zero "inbetween-moments" were you could land and build up feelings for the next part. No depth or lore for me to dig into. It didn't really feel like a Star Wars movie to me. Sure, there were many great parts that I enjoyed watching wich I will get to later. But they never managed to build up any emotional attachment.
The absolute worst part about the movie for me was the all the wierd cutting in scenes. So many times they left (very important) scenes, with say Luke and Rey, and showed another side of the story with e.g. Finn and Rose. Like I said, all my expectations from VII gave me hopes about much longer and emotional scenes with deeper attachment.
Lets start with Luke and Rey. I wanted to see more conversation here, a slower start. But there was no time for that, cut the scene and get on with the other guys. Sure, they have never met and don't know eachother. But this was such an important part for the the movie and the fans! Main roles of the whole saga finally meet and it felt somewhat pointless. All the cutting in scenes made it hard to connect.
Snoke was awsome, from what they showed. Superior, powerful and fearful. I was suprised to see him go down so quickly. He was the supreme leader! I was expecting more. For me, his role in the saga was too big to just whipe. And now Kylo is left as the villain? I'm not convinced here.
The ending scene(s) with Luke was very good. For him to come back and play hero for a while was great for the movie. The movie did suprise me in a good way sometimes like the ending with Luke. But yet again - the cutting in scenes, please, just let it play! When Kylo was about to go all-rage on Luke the movie finally got my emotional attachment and excitment (...) but ofcourse, they put the whole scene on freeze.
The movie wasn't great. Unfourtunatly I have no longings for the next episode, no cliffs to hang onto, just disappointment and slight confusion. Too much jumping between scenes. Too fast paced. Not many Star Wars feelings from this movie. The approach feels different...
The movie wasn't too bad either, I enjoyed it. Epic battles and action that wasn't too overwhelming as it could have been. The porgs were cute, but didn't add to the story. Feels like a typical inbetween movie. I was hoping for more.
19 out of 32 found this helpful.
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The Last Jedi for me was a disappointment. I went in expecting it to be a great Star
Wars movie because the critics said it is a great Star Wars movie. I would rate it somewhere between Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith. It does not live up to the original trilogy and was considerably less emotionally engaging than the Force Awakens. Rogue One puts it to shame. The only real thing it has going for it is that the scenes are visually spectacular.
First, the story is unoriginal and is a mishmash of stuff we've seen in previous Star Wars and other films. For example, the Rey/Kylo confrontation with Snoke in his throne room was a far inferior version of the Palpatine/Vader/Luke scene from the Return of the Jedi. The apparently climactic battle in Crait looked just like the Hoth battle from Empire Strikes Back. The entire sequence of Finn and Rose and their escape from the casino planet reminded me of the prequels (and ends up to be completely useless for the plot line). Finn and Rose and BB8 sneaking onto Snoke's ship disguised as First Order officers was a rehash of the same scene from Rogue One.
The last stand of the Resistance in the old base on Crait was a poor rip-off of the Helms Deep scene from the Lord of the Rings. The last remaining Resistance cruiser trying to escape from the First Order by making multiple light speed jumps was just like Battlestar Gallactica (the remake). And the First Order, with it's massive star destroyers and weapons can't even get close enough to the Resistance cruiser to blow it up? And Luke showing up in the final scene to battle Kylo Ren only for Kylo to find out Luke is just an apparition? How many times have we seen such scenes? I'd rather see Luke show up in person and kick ass. That would have been very satisfying. But then, Episode IX would lose it's main villain. OK, so it was just a plot device?
I didn't like the characters much. Rey and Kylo are fine and the actors are convincing. Yes, Hamil does a great job, but Luke is basically reduced to a pathetic character in a depressive funk who goes off to die on a deserted island (populated only by a bunch of CGI creatures) because his new Jedi academy is destroyed by Kylo. Doesn't seem to be like Luke or any hero. Hamil was right that he disagrees with everything Rian Johnson did with his character.
Snoke? After all the speculation about who he is, he gets killed off after 10 minutes of screen time so we never get to find out (or Disney was so intellectually lazy, they didn't even bother to come up with a convenient back story). So he ends up just being this decrepit, deformed old man who happens to have a menacing voice.
Rey? Yeah, Ridley's a good actress, but after all the fascination about her parentage (is she the daughter of Luke? Kenobi? Even Palpatine?), she ends up being just the daughter of Jakku junk dealers? So why does she have such tremendous force powers that she can take out 10 of Snoke's personal guards and move 500 boulders to free the resistance? Maybe this won't be explained either in Episode IX.
Rose? Why did they cast an unattractive, overweight Asian woman as an uncompelling and unconvincing character to become Finn's side kick and love interest?? Because they had to give something for Finn to do and Disney figured that after casting a bunch of white actors, a black and then a Hispanic actor, they needed to cast an Asian actress to solve Hollywood's diversity problem? Believe me, as an Asian American, I have no problem with Asians being cast for major movie roles, but not when they serve as token minorities.
Leia? The critics said Carrie Fisher did a great job (they had to, I guess, out of respect because of her passing), but she spend much of the movie doing nothing important (with an apparent speech impediment) and mainly looking extremely concerned and worried. Then the rest of the movie, she is in a coma. Great way of utilizing an iconic character!
I guess if the critics had panned the movie, I might have walked out saying "it wasn't that bad, it was actually entertaining." But since they raised my expectations to such an extent, I could only leave with a sour taste in my mouth.
10 out of 15 found this helpful.
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This is a movie I really wanted to like. I went in with moderate expectations though as to not be disappointed. I still was. It totally ruins the magic that I felt The Force Awakens was able to find. It didn't even feel like a Star Wars movie. Shall characters, laughable dialogue, and plotting issues that really bog the entire thing down.
I never thought I'd clamor for the days of Phantom Menace, but I'd rather watch that movie again than suffer through this convoluted mess! Worst Star Wars movie to date. Just a total waste of time and a big let down!
10 out of 15 found this helpful.
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Star Wars has been a staple in my life since my childhood. Every movie, game, book, and toy I have collected and cherished. Until now. This movie was more than a terrible let down. Honestly, from a life long Star Wars fan Save your money and don't go see it, If you do wish to see it wait until it comes out for $5 to rent on amazon or google play. It's honestly worth the wait, you will only be dissaponted in the end.
10 out of 15 found this helpful.
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I have no idea how this made it through scripting, story boards, and early screenings. With no one once standing up and saying "What the hell is this crap? This isn't Star Wars! This comes off as a Comedy Central special, and no Star Wars fan will ever accept this as an acceptable story"
I'm sure some youngster, that has never seen another Star Wars movie, is probably going to watch this, and think it's the best movie they have ever seen. But they will grow up, and go back and watch the real story from Episode 1 through to Episode 7, then get back to this one and ask themselves "What Happened".
Not the worst movie of all time, but in my opinion, not worthy of existing in the Star Wars universe. This should just be the end of a 2 part arc. Wow... just wow.
JJ has a lot of work to do if he's going to try to somehow put all the tooth paste back in the tube after this mess.
10 out of 15 found this helpful.
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1/10
No Laws of Physics, No Danger, No Characters, No point
I've never been a Star Wars maniac, but I've enjoyed all of the movies for the most part leading up to this one. Here are the reasons this movie sucked out loud, and why there will probably be a worldwide outcry for the movie to be deleted from the record and be remade.
No laws of physics: Again, I'm not a Star Wars scholar, I've only seen the movies, but even in a sci-fi world, there has to be SOME consistency with laws of physics so we can actually feel a sense of danger for the characters. Now all of a sudden, if you are a main character, you have no problem surviving in space without a mask. You can make a skype call anywhere in the universe if youre a main character. Your spaceship can be tracked through space and time at lightspeed, but for some reason cant be shot at from short range. And falling into an interdimensional artsy-fartsy cave for 15 minutes is a substitute for actual Jedi training.
No danger: Rey needs to infiltrate the most high security evil ship in the universe. Does she have a clever plan--nope. No plan? No problem, because there is no danger/no consequenses to any action in this movie. Need to kill a powerful boss who can read your mind and connect skype calls across the universe? No problem, just count on him to not be reading your mind literally 2 seconds after he demonstrates he can read your mind. Want to survive your ship being blown in half and you being in space without a mask? Just fly over to the ship like Marry Poppins.
No characters: Luke being an old depressed broken man undermines all the lessons taught throughout the original series about how wisdom and doing the right thing will lead to salvation. Rey's character teaches the lesson that you don't have to work toward your goals and put in effort to improve, just be born with the force and be kinda a nice person and boom you're ready to fight the most powerful evil in the universe. The purple hair lady was nothing less than a completely useless mute who would rather let people die than explain herself. This again, teaches a horrible lesson--you need not possess any real leadership qualities to ascend to leadership. Snoke also was just boring, generic, and "bad". Vader was feared, admired, commanded respect, and had a purpose and a goal. Contrast Snoke with a truly evil, dynamic character such as Heath Ledger's joker. And Emo Kylo Ren is an embarassment. Somehow even though he's taking massive amounts of testosterone to get that buff, hes still a soy boy.
No point: All of the previous points being combined--if you cant die outside of committing suicide, and you have the power to make skype calls and do artsy interdimensional shape shifting--why do a bunch of resistance characters need to bother being chased through space? Why doesn't Ren realize that 5 more minutes on that skype call with Cuck-lo Ren and he would have dropped out of the First Order and taken her to a My Chemical Romance concert?
Overall, this movie just sucked out loud. Maybe if you're the modern-art type, or maybe are into heavy drugs you can enjoy the visuals of this movie, but anyone who actually likes plots, characters, stories, and earning power rather than waking up lucky, will want to use the Ace Ventura plunger on themselves after watching this pile of warm garbage. I bet this will be the first movie in history that is scrapped from the record books and completely remade.
11 out of 17 found this helpful.
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Take the original Empire Strikes Back, then strip away pacing, character growth, sense of good vs evil, proper, flowing story development and, most important of all, originality, and we're left with what is effectively a sequence of Star-Wars cliches without a reason to give a damn about any of it. There just wasn't any sense of menace at all in this, Kylo Ren being reduced to more of a side character with moments of telepathy. All this leaves an emotionless hole for 2 and a half hours full of countdowns to being obliterated by yet another powerful weapon while the good guys hastily cobble a plan together to escape again (usually involving one small ship evading all the bad guys. You've seen it before).
For the record I enjoyed The Force Awakens.
26 out of 47 found this helpful.
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4/10
Disney does what it does best and that is selling it....
Just got back from the theater and i must say that this is the nail in the coffin for this franchise for me. I have no other word than this. I bet it will do great at the box office but As a movie it is bland. There are so many things that went wrong and it would take me many hours to write everything i felt was done wrong. Sorry.
34 out of 64 found this helpful.
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The reason for it is:
That all men are either evil, triggerhappy, greedy or total stupid.
Whatever the men does, it ends up being the wrong one.
Even Luke Skywalker's legacy, Rian Johnson succeeds to Ruin.
All the women are smart heroines.
Whatever women does, it ends up being right.
So when I left the cinema, I was in doubt if I should be ashamed of being a man?
Am i as man really that bad??
Anyway, This is starwars longest movie but also pure plotline the shortest.
The only Real positive thing about this movie, is that it's really beautifully Cinematography and one, maybe two wild twist.
Ofcause the actors did well with the scrips they had.
PS: The movie also just tells that rich people are some stupid pigs.
41 out of 79 found this helpful.
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I cannot seem to wash the taste of Star Wars fanboy cock from my mouth!
So far, Disney has only shown that they wish to keep fanboys happy rather than further expand the Star Wars Universe.
Personally, I enjoyed the prequels. I did not have the same aversion as all the fanboys. Perhaps it is because of my generation, but it was quite evident (for me, at least) to see the story of Anakin and his final redemption as the key story of Star Wars. The prequels expanded the universe and added some answers, whilst also leaving behind some mystery (if albeit having some poor dialogue and CGI).
Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are completely cheesy, cliched and exist in E.7/E.8 purely for the fanboys outrage over the prequels supposed 'breaking of tradition'. Well, I personally do not care for your love of individual characters romanticised over years. I am interested in seeing Star Wars as a tapestry of primordial mythology expressed in an innovative space opera. To me, this is what Star Wars is about and why it has such an appeal.
Don't get me wrong, this movie still contains some elements of the struggle of ones recognition of Self. But any philosopher/mythologist/esotericist could easily point out the large flaws in this movie.
If we ignore the mythological side of the movie and focus upon the more objective elements, you are left with very cheesy dialogue and overuse of attempted humour leaving you to cringe throughout.
What was good? The sets and costumes are just beautiful! The contrasting colours make for a highly enjoyable visual feast (however, the Yoda CGI and dialogue was incredibly poor. Think of the cheesiness of the original trilogy Yoda x 10!). There are some 'new' elements being teased for further exploration (ie. Kyber Crystals).
It feels like I may be the only person in the world who thinks so, but I really wish I could see what George Lucas had planned for these movies as I am sure he would have maintained a balance between the Star Wars Universe and a mystical space opera.
6 out of 8 found this helpful.
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This may be the worst Star Wars since Attack of the Clones. It was very slow paced with little pay off in the end. Also Disney found a way to completely crap on the original trilogy and its legacy. If you are a true Star Wars fan you will not like this movie.
20 out of 35 found this helpful.
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Yes, there are a lot of small things that annoyed me. The marmot-penguin hybrid things, for example. (But then again: remember the ewoks?) Or Leia suddenly having strong Jedi-powers. (Remember Fin being able to fight with a light saber?) Or the fact that no one said "I have a bad feeling about this" (or did I just miss that?)
But I do not want to go on about these, as I am sure that you will read a lot more about it in other reviews.
So, here's my main impression. I expected the movie to be as bad as TFA. (I rated that one 3/10.) And it turned out to be better than that, even correcting some of its major mistakes. Here are some examples of what I mean:
1) They did not build a fourth death star. Finally, they stopped.
2) Gollum just doesn't cut it as a sith lord. They realized that and killed him off quickly.
3) While I still cannot take Kylo Ren seriously, at least he got rid of that ridiculous mask.
4) And given the cornerstones of Kylo's story set in TFA, they managed to give a little more depth to it. And honestly, I do not see how there could have been a lot more. Remember, he is that child, that just decided to be evil, because his grandpa was... for a while. (Compare this to Anakin: he has a whole trilogy to explain why he turned evil!)
5) How lame would it have been had we found out that Rey is Kylo's sister or cousin or whatever? Finishing that thread in the anticlimactic way they did, was the right move.
So, given that the trilogy started so very poorly, I think this was nearly the best one could do. It still leaves the trilogy hanging in midair though, the main villain being dead and Kylo Ren being just an angry child and all. But after this, I will go and watch episode IX in cinemas as well.
20 out of 35 found this helpful.
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We both feel like we should make this a short and direct review. The moment the film starts it gives us at least a 10 minute action scene, which is actually very entertaining, but then after that it goes directly downhill! All the same characters from The Force Awakens return to The Last Jedi, including loads of new characters. The story leaves off exactly where the last one left off Rey (Daisy Ridley) finds and meets Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). It had the perfect opportunity to impress not only old school Star Wars Die Hard fans, but new Die hard fans. It just didn't impress me Jay And Nick (The Autistic Reviewers).
The writing is just lazy, it's as lazy as you can get, and the directing was pretty bad. Even the late Carrie Fisher (May her soul RIP) looked like she was bored while acting in this film. Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill were the only ones that were any good, and even they were struggling with the horrible script. It was great to see Mark Hamill again, but he hardly had any screen time which was very disappointing. The other characters including the new ones were just annoying and completely unlikable. They brought nothing new to the Star Wars Franchise. All completely forgettable characters. The CGI was pretty bad, the fight scenes hardly go for more than minute. The old Star Wars will be the ones that stay with us forever. The originals are instant classics.
I know loads of critics really took a liking to this film, but Jay And Nick weren't really into it. And the fact there was no Carrie Fischer tribute (except during the credits) proves that everyone involved here were just being lazy. Possibly the worst Star Wars to come out. 4/10 2/5 stars.
20 out of 35 found this helpful.
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1- How can a rebel cruiser destroy first order star destroyer by jumping to light speed.If it is possible than you can destroy all first order fleet by remote controlled ships.
2-How did Finn and Rose made it to the cave after rose saved Finn from death bey crashing him with hear flying motorcycle? I remember they were very far away from the gate of the cave and they did not have any vehicle.
3- How did Snoke did not sense that Kylo Ren was moving the light saber?
20 out of 35 found this helpful.
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I'm not sure what movie the critics reviewed. Their rating made me think this would be a good movie. I thought.. okay, the new characters from TFA can be developed... Nope.
The movie is disjointed and characters are wasted. I waited and waited for something to happen, some feeling, some excitement but the movie just dragged on to the end as the resistance ran out of gas... Nothing.
Save your money.
14 out of 23 found this helpful.
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After watching what seemed and endless movie, I was left wondering... What was the point of the movie? What was the plot? Where's the story? Because there wasn't any! It was a combination of bad ideas + more bad ideas in a not very well thought plan. There were a lot of explosions, dead pilots, and cool effects, but Star Wars should not be a movie that relies on that instead of its story. So sad.
14 out of 23 found this helpful.
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1/10
utter crap - leia acting like super girl in space (spoiler)
POOR, POOR , POOR I WANT MY MONEY BACK
1: leia surviving space and then flying WTF
2: Snoke oh so powerful dying instantly WTF
3: 1980's joda puppet (all budget for cgi spent on pointless space battles)
4: pointless storyline!!!
i will not be looking forward to next one
14 out of 23 found this helpful.
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I've been at every movie premier since The Empire Strikes Back. The Last Jedi battle's it out with Episode 1 & 2 for second worst ever. The Force Awakens was great but this current episode/chapter crashes and burns. It is like they found Lawerence Kasdan's evil twin to right this movie!! Jedi history is forgotten and Intergalactic force skyping is in full effect. All the male character's are presented as childish, incompetent, ignorant or evil !?! There is more attention give to campy funny scenes than actual plot development. From out of no where Jedi Masters are obsolete and training is no longer needed and all Force skills come preloaded for Rey!?! Disney creates a Star Wars feminism movie with a dash of politics with the only thing missing was a bumbling Ray Romano. If the roles were reversed between male and females, outrage would ensue throughout the media. I feel very bad for Mark Hamill.
The Two major storyline cluster bombs are;
1)Luke could not bring himself to Kill Vader (a child killing Dark Sith Lord) but led him back to the light; but was willing to murder his nephew in his sleep?!!??!!
2) None of the Empires ships couldn't just simply light jump ahead and destroy the fleeing ship?
If you have a fond childhood memory's of Star Wars this one will put a dent in it for sure. Disney/Commercialism/Politics finally kills the Last Jedi. "Han shot first!"
15 out of 25 found this helpful.
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I was so disappointed when I left the movie earlier tonight. This is my first review here. I almost feel like Star Wars has been ruined. I wanted to love it but can't. I feel like Star Wars is over. I wanted to ask for a refund on my way out. The 8.1 rating it has at this moment has to be fake.
17 out of 29 found this helpful.
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Which brings me to this short review and opinion. Stunning CGI and Sound Design? Yes, Space Battles and Laser Swords ? Yes, Starwars inside? Ehm, err , who produced it? Ah Disney. Here we go. Different receipe: Inappropriate jokes, empty plot lines with no synthesis, while using the framing of episode V Empire strikes back and giving in some hipster PC feminism, ehm pardon, strong female characters and dumping the most powerful force users for what message? That fairytales dont sell anymore and u have to bloat it with political messages and empty plotholes?....Come on, maybe im an old fart, that cant accept the remake of Starwars for the New Generation and their values, but I still think that this movie is rather a soulless one. Btw what i also asked myself was: Is the mass of a Dreadnought enough to make bombs usefull in weightlessness. And i want back some Boba Fett, not that polished Cylon Trooper. Its Christmas, come on....
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It's not the best star wars film indeed, nor the best film of all time, but for me it's a very good film, one of the best of the year. this franchise has always been loyal to it's theme that is good vs. evil. sometimes the good comes from the evil side and vice versa. but in this film, the moral value is even more expanded. there's a lot of conflict about good and evil, virtue and vice, also what's best and what's not best in every plot of the movie. I also find one character that is very interesting. he simply doesn't belong to the good nor evil, he is either above or below that, he call it "a system". i bet he will get more screen time in the last installment because that character just opened a lot of possibility to another direction about good vs. evil.
the visual are as great and crative as The Force Awakens and Rogue One. and i like that Rian Johnson still using the practical effect even though the Yoda scene looked like a muppet show lol. i wish they could mixed it with CGI, maybe his eye, or mouth movement, or a blowing hair, something like that.
my conclusion is, it's an expensive blockbuster film with an expensive conflicts and moral question. and the third act is just amazing. looking forward to the next installment
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2/10
2 hours of hackneyed plots and reminders that men are pigs.
Plot summary of The Last Jedi: Why Women Should not Be Allowed to Serve in Combat
Kylo Ren learns legillimency and sings a stirring rendition of Let It Go as he urges Rey to realize that she's never going back; the past is in the past.
Luke worries that the Sorting Hat put him in the wrong house and is further disturbed when he learns that Rey can speak Parseltongue.
Rey turns down Luke's offer of occlumency lessons and instead goes down into the cave to seek the Mirror of Erised. There she learns that there is no secret ingredient, it's just her. Then she finally agrees to be the Mockingjay.
Leia leads a rebel army highly trained in displaying Mockingjay pins, scolding Po, and preventing men in general from acting heroically.
Her first mate, Dr. Ellie Sattler, confirms that woman inherits the earth because females are motivated by love and not just by the desire to look heroic.
Finn shamelessly tries to look heroic by flying his own ship into the Alien ship's primary weapon and celebrating the rebellion's Independence Day. He is thwarted by a woman soldier who, after stopping him from saving them all, lectures him to save what he loves, not kill what he hates. Then she sings A Little Fall of Rain before sort of dying.
Po spends the whole movie spraying toxic masculinity and being scolded by Leia and her lieutenants.
The film is periodically interrupted by public service announcements from ANTIFA and PETA, reminding us that it's good to steal from the rich to help the poor, and that meat is murder, respectively.
Chewy becomes a vegan.
Luke meditates under the peach tree of sacred wisdom before burning the dragon scrolls. In the film's climax, he re-enters the endless war drama in the form of a propaganda film that establishes him as a legendary action figure, sparking kids across the galaxy to enlist in the army while displaying their Mockingjay pins.
Leia is hit by a fatal blast from the First Order's new genetically modified ship, then reanimates in the vacuum of space. The mitichlorions converge to propel her back to her rebel ship, pausing only for a waterskiing excursion so she and this series can officially jump the shark.
21 out of 38 found this helpful.
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After watching this movie (twice, now), a certain Firefly quote has been ringing in my ears -
Simon Tam: How do I know you wouldn't kill me in my sleep?
Malcolm Reynolds: If I wanted to kill you, you would be awake, you'd be armed and facing me.
Luke Skywalker, the Jedi who redeemed Vader, who threw away his weapon when facing Darth Vader and the Emperor, would never think of igniting his lightsaber while his worst enemy is asleep, let alone Ben Solo, his disciple and nephew, child of his beloved sister and friend, who could never have entered the Dark Side as deep as Vader did, at least the movie never went out of its way to try to make us believe it.
I am a very tolerant fan, ready to enjoy anything they give us. But what Luke did, I can't find a way to justify. Apart from my own family, Luke is the one I loved longest in my life, I am not ready to despise him. Judging from the relatively nice ending Rian Johnson gave Luke, he does not intend to disgrace him. I think Rian Johnson respects Luke as I do. It's just that they were not able to come up with a plausible reason why Luke went into hiding. I never had my hopes high enough to expect them to. But I never thought they would do it so wrong.
Apart from Luke, they did not make good decisions with other characters either. Poe in TFA was an eligible team leader, but he behaved worse than Ezra Bridger in his decisions in the Last Jedi. If he fails and learns something from his failure, it would be called character progression. But no, we don't see him reflecting on any of his mistakes, instead, we see Leia and Holdo exchange praise for him. Oscar Isaac is a powerful actor. To make Oscar Isaac so annoying indeed says something about the script.
The Emperor in the OT was not a very full character, but his death was the rebirth of Anakin, and also showed Luke's power in the light side of the force. The Emperor was a sufficient symbol of evil in the mythology (not to mention the added depth in the prequels and in the Clone Wars). However, Snoke's death feels so unsatisfying. What did he do to Kylo Ren? What about his scars and disfigurement? How did he come to command the First Order? We haven't really known Snoke, and his death does not signify anything. This could probably be redeemed with later storytelling. Maybe it signifies Kylo Ren's point of no return to the dark side? But he seems to be on a redemption arc because Rey's agenda for the better part of this movie was to try to redeem him. You could also argue that Rey shut out Kylo in the end of this movie. But who knows? This movie does not seem to have a resolution. Empire Strikes Back ended on Luke knowing the truth, Attack of the Clones ended on the beginning of a war. Being the middle of a trilogy does not mean it can have no resolution.
I think Rose and Vice Admiral Holdo are great characters. But I'm in no mood to like them when old favorites are butchered so pointlessly.
I also disagree on that Luke explicitly calling the Jedi a religion. In TFA Lor San Tekka could be said to belong to a religion that believe in the Force. But such a term from our world feels so restrictive when applied on the core mythology of Star Wars. I understand we old fans should not act snobbish and think what we think is the right interpretation. But I truly think this is an unwise choice. If a casual movie goer says so I wouldn't mind.
Rey's turn from anger to empathy with Kylo would be hard to believe had it not been Daisy Ridley's earnest performance. Adam Driver is phenomenal. I am very disposed to love Mark Hamill. All the cast is great. The pace of the movie is a little bit dreary at times but overall good. I appreciate their intention to give Luke a peaceful and purposeful ending. However all of these cannot cover the blatant bad decisions mentioned above.
Farewell, Luke Skywalker. I wish The Last Jedi didn't exist so that I can continue projecting my best wisdom on you and be inspired by you.
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4/10
The Disneyfication of Star Wars... (a few spoilers)
It saddens me to write this, but as much as I was looking forward to this movie I found it to be generally disappointing. I'll keep it brief-
Too much "comedy". Right from the get-go, it tries to be funny. But it just isn't. Honestly, there were a few very funny moments, but I felt like they were accidental or ironic (Kylo Ren shirtless got some good laughs. Reminded me of Sting in "Dune").
The plot is pretty weak. The battle scenes really didn't make sense. Apparently Star Destroyers can't overtake Rebel transport ships at sub-light speeds because they're "smaller and lighter". Tie fighters don't like to get too far away from their star destroyers, even if the Rebel ships they're attacking are practically defenseless. One X-wing can take out all the guns on a "Dreadnaught", which is basically a star destroyer with MORE guns than usual. The subplot of Poe, Fin and Rose was unnecessary, and could have been completely eliminated if Admiral Holdo had just given one more detail about her plan. Instead she decided to let everyone think they were sitting ducks. And Princess Leia pulls off a move that would make Yoda jealous DESPITE THE FACT THAT SHE ISN'T EVEN A JEDI. A lot of questions and plot points from TFA either didn't get answered or just got written off. Where did Snoke come from? Who are Rey's parents? Apparently it's not important, so don't worry about it. It was laughable. The more I think about it the more ridiculous it seems.
Too much "social justice awareness". I know I sound like a jerk for even suggesting this, but I found it a bit distracting. I like strong female characters- I think Rey is a GREAT character for example- but I felt like they were trying too hard to inject too many female characters. For some reason the Rebellion is very diverse, with many women in leadership roles, but the Empire is just a bunch of mean white guys. Oh, and rich people are the worst. And even wookiees shouldn't eat meat. Good grief.
That's it. I'm sure kids will love it, but any older fans who were hoping for this generation's "Empire Strikes Back" are going to be sorely disappointed.
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-Kylo Ren was a genuinely interesting character and the actor did a great job in portraying his battle between the dark and the light.
-Carrie Fisher delivers a brilliant performance.
-One or two moments when the film manages to recreate the magic of Star Wars
The cons
-Many boring characters that serve no purpose to the plot.
-Complete disregard to the universe and rules established by previous movies.
-Plot lines that end up being inconsequential to story.
-The art direction and cinematography moves away from any other star wars film.
-The humor is very "marvel like" every character has to have several one liners that take away from the seriousness of the story.
-Unlike any other star wars movie.
Conclusion
If you are a fan of The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy then you might enjoy this film, however if you are looking for a good Star Wars movie then I'm afraid that "This isn't the film you're looking for"
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I have never walked out of a Star Wars movie feeling so utterly disappointed. I still cannot shake the feeling. I wanted to write this review last night, but decided to sleep on my thoughts. The direction this movie was taken in, both with characters and plot, leaves you scratching your head. It is like they were focused on making a blockbuster movie and forgot it was a Star Wars movie.
(Warning Spoilers)
All the talk about Ryan Johnson being a huge fan of the saga had me feeling comfortable that he would do the franchise justice. However, you are left wondering how much of that is true. It seems like he didn't really know the character's backstories and took them in directions that didn't even makes sense. For example, think about the lengths Luke took to bring his father back form the dark side. He was willing to give up his life trying to redeem his father. Now, fast forward to Ben Solo. Luke sensed the dark rising in him, to a point he believed was nonreversible. Luke has a sudden inkling to kill Ben. He even ignites his lightsaber. He doesn't follow through with this though, but it still leads Ben to destroying everything Luke had built. So, we go from Luke willing to die to save his father, who had already been entrenched in the dark for years, to him ready to almost kill Ben solo, who had not even turned yet???? That does not make sense! Who signed off on that character backstory? The real Luke would have done everything he could to save his Nephew.
These types of plot holes persist throughout the movie. Strange scenes that don't make sense, like Leia can survive the vacuum of space without dying? The exposure to the vacuum of space is death in just a handful of seconds, as your blood and other body fluids boils off (This is called ebullism). She was not even conscious, so there is no argument that can be made about her using the force to protect herself.
There is a love story forced on us between Rose and Finn, which is not built up at all. Their arch is so flat and pointless to the overall story, you are just left scratching your head when Rose Kisses Finn at the end of the movie. Much of the movie feels rushed and parts are forced in. Characters are disposable and poorly developed. For example, Snoke was built up to be this huge villain, yet he hardly has any screen time and is killed off so quickly.
The biggest disappointment with this movie is with Luke. They did not do his character justice at all. Although it did not seem to fit his character, I had initially not minded his standoffish personality at first. I had imagined the story would bring him back in some redeeming way, however we are left with him never leaving the island. He uses the force to project an image of himself to Kylo Ren. On its own, this is a pretty neat power, yet we never get to see Luke do anything substantial on his own. Fans who have waited nearly 40 years to see Luke in action will never get their wish. We will never get to see Luke ignite his green lightsaber and fight the First Order. Instead you are left with his robe floating in the wind as he disappears into the force at the end of the movie.
Now the original 3 are gone and the feeling you are left with is emptiness and anger toward Disney and Johnson, who cared more to make a blockbuster than a Star Wars Movie.
7 out of 10 found this helpful.
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3/10
So wrong and disappointing that it can't be saved by the few positive things
Short version: TLJ is an extremely long, sluggish, slow-motion chase through space, with some really good CGI, boring and pointless subplots, annoying humour, disappointing answers and choices and a script that adds absolutely nothing in terms of plot, by the end of this film we are almost where we left at the end of TFA.
Long version: as a Star Wars fan I feel deeply disappointed by this film. I know the hype was extremely high, the expectations were great, so many questions left unanswered, masterfully done trailers. But TLJ is so bad on too many levels.
The plot -
I can't guess why they had to deliver such a sloppy, puerile and lazy script. Most of what happens through the film leads us just nowhere, it's pointless. The main plot goes something like this:
First Order: Follow them!
Resistance: - We have 10 hours of fuel left...
FO: - Kill them!
R: - We have 8 hours left...
FO: - Destroy them!
R: - 6 hours...
FO: - Annihilate them!
R: - 5...
The Finn/Rose plot is pointless, we follow them for most of the movie in a journey to a casino city - which, by the way, is original and exotic as a fish in the sea, it just looks like a scene from a James Bond movie with smoking-wearing, champagne-drinking aliens - and, when they finally come back, Pink-wig and Leia tell them "ok, kids, stop pestering around, we have a different plan". It just doesn't make sense, it doesn't let the characters grow or change nor the story progress in any way.
I liked Ray and Kylo being connected and talking, but the way they did it was so wrong, it just looked liked a telepathic Skype call.
The Rey and Luke plot? Luke doesn't want to teach Rey, she finds herself somewhat attracted by the dark side, she ends up in an interesting, psychedelic cave and she suddenly becomes a powerful force user without any training at
all.
The humour -
We're being force-fed unsuitable and cheesy comedy for the whole film here. Perhaps it wouldn't be so annoying if it just wasn't too much. Poe Dameron prank-calling and bullying general Hux (I mean, he's a general of the First Order, not a high-school nerd)? Two main characters being arrested for a parking violation? A guard slipping on coins shot by BB8? What's next, banana peels and farts? Did I watch "Star Wars VIII" or "Spaceballs 2: the search for more money"?
The characters -
The major disappointment is Snoke. In TFA he's been introduced as an extremely mysterious, utterly ominous and dark character, a dangerous, devil-like figure, an overwhelmingly strong villain. For two years people have been speculating about him. Who is he? Where does he come from? What's his background, his story? What does he want? How did he seduce Kylo Ren? Who are the knights of Ren? How did he take over the remnants of the Empire? And then, after all that, all he does in TLJ is pointlessly dying like an idiot. No, answers, no plot, nothing but plain pointlessness.
Phasma is still great at being useless.
Yoda, the mighty and beloved Yoda, he appears just to behave like an escapee from a psychiatric hospital and set afire everything he believed in. Why? Even him did they ruin. At least they had the decency to use a puppet, like in the original trilogy.
Poe Dameron: I like him and I understand he's supposed to be a space version of Tom Cruise's Maverick, but he lets most of the Resistance fleet be destroyed just to show he's cool. And he gets just slapped in the face for that.
Leia flying through space like a galactic version of Mary Poppins? No, please. And the only thing she does in this film is fleeing.
Rey. I really like Rey. But why did they have to hint she might be connected to the dark side too? It just doesn't feel right, she radiates sheer goodness from the very beginning. I love when the positive characters show some dark sides too, they feel real and complete, but here it's been made in the wrong way: Rey can't have a bad side, while Kylo can't be have a good one. And then, how did she become so powerful without training? I know she's a badass character, while Luke was just a boy who spent his life repairing flush toilets on Tatooine and, despite being the son of Anakin, he needed to train with Yoda; but it's seems all too easy for her, she just decides she'll be force-lifting rocks and she becomes a powerful force user.
And I understand this was supposed to be a film about survival, about having to run for your life, but all the sacrifices seem exaggerated and bloated with undelivered pathos. The first female Asian bomber sacrifices herself, admiral Pink-wig sacrifices herself, Finn wants to sacrifice himself, Rose sacrifices herself to save Finn and almost succeeds to die with an annoyingly cheesy line, Luke sacrifices himself in the end (did he really need to die after force-projecting himself on the battlefield?).
There are more disappointing things, but to sum it up, the script is painfully lazy, the plot pointless, the humour is annoying, the characters have a lot of wasted potential and their stories don't progress almost at all, the most interesting mysteries and questions from TFA have been thrown away like garbage. This film can't be saved by the nice CGI and the good performance of some of the cast. I understand that the wanted to take the saga in a new direction, nobody wanted to see "The Empire strikes back again, and again, and again...", but that's definitely not how it should be done. I really hope that Rian Johnson will stay away from the Star Wars franchise for the rest of his life.
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3/10
This Movie ruins everything we know and love about Star Wars!
WARNING SPOILERS!!! Positives and Negatives about "The Last Jedi"
Acting, Movie Score and Special Effects are the only reason I give 3 stars for this HORRIFIC tragedy of a "Star Wars" Film. I really set my expectations low after TFA.. which was better than this one believe it or not. But man oh man I did not think it would be this bad.
Negatives... The Plot and Storyline... Why does it feel like a completely different movie than TFA or Rogue One, which was so much better by the way. Maybe it's because Rian Johnson took everything we learned in TFA and threw it out the window. No mention of the Knights of Ren at all. Luke's Lightsaber might as well have been a paperweight because he just throws it over his shoulder in the beginning... the stupid casino scene that felt like Star Wars and the Great Gatsby had a baby, and oh my GOD the comedy.. WAAAYYYYY too much comedy. And the first order chasing the rebels until they run out of fuel.... THAT'S the best they could come up with?? Good grief, Disney needs to learn from Rogue One and George Lucas and just go back to what we know and love about Star Wars. There wasn't even an epic lightsaber battle at the end. I honestly don't know where else they could go after ending like that. There are a lot more but i'll leave that for you.
Positives... As a fan, I can't sit here and review one of my favorite franchises without some positive feedback. As for all of the Star Wars movies, the special effects were out of this world. The "Salt Hoth Planet", as I call it, at the end was pretty incredible. The explosions and space battles were superb. Even the acting, besides the comedy, was incredible to my surprise. Let's not forget John Williams score. He truly is a master when it comes to Star Wars music and how it should sound.
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2/10
Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie is NOT good - SPOILERS? - Kind of
Wow, I am so disappointed in the story. I get where they were trying to go with The Last Jedi but it did not get there at all. Holes in the story and too many assumptions are only a few of the many issues that plagued this movie. I love the franchise and I was 5 when my dad took me to see the original Star Wars movie at the theater. I feel like they treated Snoke like Darth Maul, a gimmick. They also tried to make Luke feel like Obi wan but a sadder version. I thought there was going to be a huge fight seen on the ground like in Empire but the new Walkers were just for show. In the end (not the real end) it made me feel like the way I felt in The Departed but now they have to do a part 9. The visuals are great except for a couple of scenes (hence the 2 starts) and I like Carrie Fisher's final performance. They could have cut at least 30 min off the movie and it may have made it a little better. *sigh* But hey we all have our opinions right? Disney, if you are reading this, I could definitely write and direct a much better Star Wars film even though I have zero experience. I'm just a fan that has watched a lot of films.
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I, like many other Star Wars fans went to the midnight screening of TLJ the other day, I was unbelievably excited and couldn't wait for it to start. When it eventually finished after 2 and a half hours I was in disbelief, it was terrible.
So much was wrong with this film so I'm just going to attempt to sum it up now:
Snoke was built up to be a great, evil, mysterious and force sensitive being. TFA left many fans questioning his origins and we were all eagerly anticipating this movie to shed some light on the matter. He's shown to be very powerful, throwing Hux across the room through a hologram and using force lightening on Kylo Ren, as well as this he could manipulate the force to create a connection between Kylo and Rey something we didn't see even Palpatine, Yoda or Vader do. He seemed like a great antagonist and I was personally hoping we'd get to see him in action preferably in a lightsaber battle with Luke which would've been great. Alas he's killed off stupidly. This all-powerful being, who's presumably a Sith Lord fails to notice a great, big lightsaber turning next to him nor does feel Kylo using the force to turn it. So all the fan theories ended being for nothing and Johnson gives the fans all a middle finger. Snoke had the potential to be a great villain but he's well and truly been wasted. Kylo, for me isn't a good enough stand alone villain as he isn't inherently evil like Snoke, and because he just comes across as an emo teen going through a phase rather than a Sith. This makes the film a lot worse as you need a top class antagonist especially in a film like Star Wars.
The humour was a big deal for me as well. In previous films it felt more naturally produced with the likes of Han or the droids getting laughs. In TLJ its forced and unfunny. There is even a "Your mother" joke for goodness sake. It takes all the seriousness and tension out of the film and are often inserted into scenes which don't require any humour whatsoever. Also general Hux was made the fall guy, in TFA he seemed like a great villain, in TLJ however he's ruined as he's often the victim of these stupid, unnecessary slapstick jokes and is now merely an incompetent fool.
They ruined Lukes character. I'm supposed to believe that the guy that turned Vader to the light side would even consider killing his nephew, its preposterous. He doesn't seem to give a toss when he finds out Han is dead, and it seems unlikely that he'd just leave Leia and everyone else with the plan of never seeing them again. Also if your going to kill him off, give him a good ending not just dying of exhaustion. It seemed bizzare that he'd want to end the Jedi Order and essentially betray Obi-Wan and Yoda. He went through so much to defeat the Empire, but all of a sudden he just can't be asked to fight them anymore it's BS.
Fin doesn't develop as a character and I wonder what his role in the film is, he just seems insignificant and pointless and seems to be going nowhere.
Rose character is shit. Her sister looked like she'd be a much better side-character.
The casino city was just Monaco.
Half the aliens look like something from Rick and Morty, one had 6 tits and just looked out of place.
Porgs and those ice fox things is just for merchandise
C3PO R2 and Chewbacca are pointless.
There was a horseback ride through a casino in a Star Wars movie, wtf was that about.
No cliffhangers, nothing setting up for next episode
Yoda ghost was his puppet from E5/6 his character came across as crazy like in E5/6, would've made more sense to be the Yoda from E3 as he'd be in his prime as a Jedi and wise and all that. Probably would've been better to use Anakin ghost as Luke was conflicted like Vader and its his Dad fgs.
Complete disregard for the prequels, sure they weren't great but there are some positives from it, whats happened to the Senate? Surely would make sense to make reference to Courascant, its the capital of the galaxy and central to the running of the whole galaxy.
No lightsaber V lightsaber battle
The ships going after each other dragged loads and became boring
Rey just became a Jedi in 3 days, Anakin needed decades to train
Leia flying through space was bollocks, should've died
Reys parents were no one such a let down and a cop out
Would've been better to kill off Fin with that cannon thing would've been a shock and very effective
Phasma wasted again
Romance between Rey and Kylo is stupid and feels unnatural as does Fin and Rose's romance
Not told how the First Order actually came about
Liberal, messages about animal cruelty etc Star Wars is not the place for these messages
Scene with Rey in the dark side hole thing made zero sense and could've been much better
Overall its just a HUGE HUGE letdown.
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When I saw the trailers my heart sank as I wondered, did they make the same mistakes of the prequels? Then I saw the professional reviews come out claiming "Best Star Wars since Empire" or "Best Star Wars Ever. That's it. It's that simple". Wow was I let down when I found the answer to my question was a resounding YES and that all these glowing reviews were completely wrong. Totally disappointed.
7 out of 10 found this helpful.
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I was really hyped about this film. I went to the cinema with expecting to see something that would blow my mind.
I could already imagine they revealing to us how powerful Snoke really was, who was he in reality and why he should become like an emperor to young Kylo Ren. He was killed in the dumbest way ever, fooled by his inexperienced and underpowered apprentice. This was not what we expected at all, we needed someone to stand a strong position in the dark side as does Luke in the Jedi ways. So I'm hoping that he will come back in some way in the future instalment. (I have the theory that he is Darth Plagueis, so he can bend life at his will and that's the way he'll come back)
Rey character's development could also have been exploited massively. However, they killed our expectations by revealing the dull obvious origin of her parents. They could have said any of the crazy theories out there, that it would've been better than this. Normal people? If the skywalker saga is continued in these last two films only having Kylo Ren as the blood carrier, I will cry until I die. Also, we were expecting a massive training and to see Rey become the jedi they lead us to believe she was meant to be, but they dissapoint us yet again. She then, trainlessly, moves massive rocks which even Luke couldn't have handled while being trained by Yoda. So, either there's a lie and her lineage is way stronger than what we are told by this film, or this is a massive error in the plot. I hope the first one is the correct answer.
So, what did this film gave us? I believe that we were left with nothing, it all started with a relatively small fight with a few first order ships and the remaining of the rebels, and it finished with fewer first order ships and even fewer rebels soldiers. Nothing decisive in any side. Then, force wise, we are left with the weak, unstable and whiny Kylo Ren (not even a real sith) representing the dark side, as once Darth Vader did, and Rey representing the light while not having been trained at all. So yeah, we can't expect as much of these two underdeveloped characters in the ways of the force as we could expect of Luke and Vader y return of the jedi.
Luke and Leias characters are ok, but both are showing abilities in the force never seen before. Leia either breaths in space or can hold his breath for a long long time, which would make sense if she was jar jar's daughter. Then the way she flies through space, what the hell is that? And Luke's ability to fool everyone in Crait was amazing, but never seen before. If this has a reasonable explanation, such as him learning this from old jedi books or something like that, it would be fine. However, i doubt this will be the case.
Last but not least, we have this misterious kid, who could have been promising, if he was introduced at the beginning of the film. But now, he only has one film to develop as a character, whilst Rey had two films and isn't a jedi yet. So, I will not put my hopes in this kid.
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What a mess. Implausible in so many scenes, no pressure, no Storyline, no Rythm. Its not even a Star Wars Movie in parts. Ships playing Hide and seek on the side strip, so much time gets wasted for a boring Plot construct with a Casino (!) It is unfortunatley really the worst SW since Attack of the clones
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As the most die-hard Star Wars fan who saw Episode 7 as a brilliant movie, I cannot for one second understand how this is 'The best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back'.
This movie was down right terrible for a number of reasons and it makes me think that the Disney machine is in full work mode, paying for good reviews. Here's why I think it was bad:
The Luke/Rey dynamic: Episode 7 spent its entire time finding Luke. When Rey arrives to get training in Episode 8, not only does Luke not care but... He doesn't even care about not caring. He's not the teacher that we all expected him to be - that's fine. Then at least pursue the opposite of that which is trying to drive Rey away. He doesn't even do that... He just watches her from a distance while she somehow develops great lightsaber techniques. How did she do that? He most certainly didn't deliver anything important.
Luke Skywalker himself: oh my god. This hurt the most. Luke just became some funny character. Grotesquely milking this weird animal, fishing and forcing the worst humour. There honestly isn't much to say about him because that's all he was reduced to....
Leia: she gets blown out of a ship - that's cool, she's dead with her body floating in space. Then all of a sudden she's in touch with what I presume to be The Force and floats back to the ship? It was so cheesey, even by prequel standards.
Why the hell does everything disappear?: this one really bugged me towards the end of the movie. Luke appears out of no where inside the new rebel base (theres one way in and the other back entrance is blocked until Rey comes and clears it). He hands Leia some bracelet and goes to fight Kylo Ren. When Ren strikes him, it turns out he's actually some sort of mind projection - that's cool. So after his projection is struck down by Kylo Ren, we cut back to the island where Luke actually is. And then, he disappears. He's dead, that's it. The bracelet disappears to and so does some other stuff.
The sub-plots: The Finn sub-story and the Poe sub-story were just boring and dragged the movie out. I found Episode 8 trying to do so many things and because of that volume, it didn't get deep into anything.
There are so many more negative things to say so I'll end on a positive:
Killing Snoke scene: this was amazing. The way Rey and Ren handle the guards was so good and Kylo zaps one guard quickly while he's in a headlock just got me pumped.
... For the anticlimactic ending that is The Last Jedi... If people perceive this to be a good movie, I'll accept that. We all enjoy different things. But to say it's the best Star Wars movie since Episode 5 takes things to a different level and really makes me think that the critics must be coerced into writing outstanding reviews, because its so unrealistic that anyone would put Episode 8 on the same level as Episode 5.
7 out of 10 found this helpful.
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Princess leia could be a force sensitive but shes not a zacksnyders superman.......
And who the hell was snork?? Breaking cliche is good thing but its about something else......i dont want to buy another novel or comics to understand the whole story......it was so unkind.
And how about that chubby mechanic chick.
Before saying, im asian and i am not a racist. But this bullshit is so awefull. She does nothing on main plot. And also her sympathy to an racing animal was useless..... no, gotta say that finn and rose was useless in whole movie
And hyper space jump kamikaze.... Wth??? When did the mechanism of HSJ has changed?? Wasnt it jumping in to another dimension? How can it make a big giant space bullet? If it was possible, why didnt every body use HSJ bullet by using droid....... it ruined every past starwars stuffs....
Luke has been a real fool.... Now adays Jedi masters tries to murder its apprentice in the bed?? And he use Vr to make time for his friends to escape and now his gone becasue he was so tired using Vr?? Why did you have to make somany fans hero to foolish old man?? Serieously what the hell is wrong with your people.
If dead yoda could make thunder lighting, wth anakin and obiwan and qwaigon is doing? They could help resistance if they had power to do something in real world.
You ruined my fanboy heart.
Im a fan across the world far away from states. Somewhere in asia. And that fucking disneys pollitical correctness shit is so annoying.
7 out of 10 found this helpful.
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Nothing will ever capture the excitement of going to the cinema to see the original Star Wars movie for the first time but it is always good to see how the franchise has developed.
There are some enjoyable things in this latest episode. The performances of Daisy Ridley and Mark Hammil are good. The scenes between them are far and away the most interesting aspect of this film. To be honest I could have done without all the space stuff and just had a two hander with them and a decent script.
Carrie Fisher had little to do.
John Boyega was uninteresting and flat.
Adam Driver made more of his part than the writing might suggest,he is very good.
Domhnall Gleeson seems to have some criticism for his role but I liked him in the part, however one of the issues I have with this movie is that the baddies weren't in anyway bad enough, they were just slightly annoying.
Supreme Leader Snoke is, frankly, rubbish, and possibly the least intimidating evil presence ever seen. His throne/court/chamber/whatever reminded me of The Masque of the Red Death.
There are plot holes aplenty, but happy to ignore most of them as the story trundles on.
The space battles looked like the space battles did forty years ago.
The light saber fights were being done with swords by Errol Flynn years ago.
The jokes and asides? Really? Humour is good but some of these lighthearted moments really jar.
Some of them were just too stupid for words.
The introduction of various animals is as unnecessary as it is cynical in terms of merchandising. (Porgs - utterly pointless)
Mrs Tiggywinkle must be spinning in her grave.
The music is unrelenting (almost) and consequently loses it's dramatic impact when it is needed most.
When I saw the ending I thought "please no!"
This is definitely a Disney movie and for Star Wars fans that is not a good thing.
This will be the last Star Wars movie I go to the cinema to see.
7 out of 10 found this helpful.
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Honestly I wanted to like it but it's literally the worst Star Wars movie made yet imo. If you're even a casual fan who perhaps liked TFA your going to start to wonder while watching if maybe this isn't real and your simply having a bad dream. And then perhaps you'll wake up and go see the real The Last Jedi. But when it ends you realize the true nightmare is that it's real, all of it.
7 out of 10 found this helpful.
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If you're just looking for a good time, The Last Jedi is an excellent movie. Its extremely entertaining and well made as a film. As a huge star wars fan though(who bought tickets months before its release) its the worst in the franchise. The story just ruins every character, everything that happened was just a complete disappointment / anti-climactic. It is very poorly written in relation to the saga of 8 films it just followed. There is now nothing for JJ to work with for Episode 9.
18 out of 32 found this helpful.
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9/10
Have an open Mind, This is not your Fathers Star Wars
I should start by saying if you're an unwavering star wars fan who can enjoy the prequels then you will be able to enjoy this movie. Seeing how most user reviews are 5 or below i feel most will disagree with me, but here goes nothing.
Leaving The Last Jedi i wasn't sure what to think about the movie. That's not saying that i wasn't happy or pleased with what i saw, its just the movie gives you so much to think about. The tone was great and the pacing felt fine with the exception of one story arc. Most the Humor landed, and some didn't. Some things felt really forced and some felt natural. If you come into this movie hoping to see a remake of Empire then you will leave disappointed. This movie stands on its own legs as it should. It explores new aspects of the force that we've never seen before. But what i really like most is its unpredictability. In multiple scenes my mind was racing with the thought of whats going to happen now. It takes so many twist and turns along with some big risk that I think pay off. So if you haven't seen this movie but you're a big star wars fan id recommend seeing it so you can have your own opinion about it. Not everyone will be pleased with this movie, and again you have to have an open mind about it.
58 out of 121 found this helpful.
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10/10
A fresh new beginning with the potential for a new direction and ideas. Loved it.
The Last Jedi instilled the same excitement, awe and wonder I first felt when seeing A New Hope back in 1977.
I agree with Luke and Kylo. It's time to forget the past and to move forward.
I think it telling that the audience demographic who rated this movie the highest is the under 18 crowd. This is the group that will keep the SW dream alive. It makes me happy to see the wonder in their eyes. My grandchildren haven't stopped talking about the movie. That makes me happy.
The negative opinions seem to come from old, hard core fans who are never satisfied. They complained about George Lucas' prequels and now they complain about the latest offerings. Frankly I don't think they know what they want.
My advice, forget the hard core, impossible to please critics, and see the movie for yourself.
61 out of 128 found this helpful.
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I didn't want to give this a 1 star just because I can't bring myself to do it, it's like saying you hate your child when you actually don't but are very mad at that child. Well, I'm very mad right now. I don't want to go on a rant and say all the things I hated about it, I'll just say that I was very disappointed. The Force Awaken is definitely much better. Now I worry about how in the hell are they going to end this trilogy the right way when this particular film was such a mess. The story was all over the place. It felt like they couldn't make up their mind about what story they wanted to tell.
8 out of 12 found this helpful.
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Rian Johnson really did a number on Star Wars, and it's not in a good way. First, the nonsensical premise of this film: the rebel fleet gets in over its head against the First Order, turns tail and jumps to hyperspace. The First Order fleet follows, and then it's a chase until the rebel ships run out of fuel because the First Order can track them through hyperspace. That's the main plot of the film: get away from the bad guys, and it's not super interesting.
The rebel fleet runs at sub-light speed and instead of splitting up and going in different directions, the fleet stays together to make them one giant target for the First Order guns. Yeah, brilliant tactician work it isn't, but Mr. Johnson thought that would be great for a plot. It's not. The First Order behaves stupidly as well by trailing the rebels instead of having a few ships jump ahead to blockade them. So that mess of idiocy is the backdrop.
Meanwhile, Luke and Rey are learning Jedi smackdown techniques on Luke's private island, and Finn and new girl Rose hatch some ridiculous plan to find a slicer to hack the First Order tracking system. Did I mention Finn and Rose just fly away from the rebel fleet on a ship to carry out their plan? Yet another ding-dong writing choice.
While Rey is training for a few hours with Luke (apparently he's developed a patented Learn-to-be-a-Jedi system that works instantly), the fleet is running away and Finn and Rose are working on recruiting their slicer. Then everyone goes back to put themselves in harms way and let the movie drag on some more until a climatic battle on Crait. And Luke pulls a remote-control Houdini to delay the battle and allow everyone to escape. That's right, Luke doesn't actually show up to battle, but he's there in spirit. Wonky.
To wrap up, we've got a waaaaay too long script, screwed up main plot, and a few interesting side scenes. Not good. The best part might be the Star Wars universe and the flavor of lightsabers and stormtroopers, but other than that, the writing is a mess.
8 out of 12 found this helpful.
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1) The writing is truly atrocious, from narrative coherence to characterization and dialogue. Like a 14-year-old writing dodgy fanfiction.
2) It completely retcons TFA, making it a worse movie in the process as well. Fuck up your own film all you like, but that's low.
3) It disrespects both most of the characters and the actors by giving them nothing interesting to do or no real development or anything to real to sink their teeth into. Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill gets the shortest end of the stick. And that's just unacceptable.
4) Even the visuals are hollow from cinematography to FX (did IL&M have a bad day or was that on Johnson too?)
5) I genuinely don't understand why this was allowed, why the Story Group let this happen. Poor JJ Abrams has a real ordeal ahead to salvage what can be salvaged of the Skywalker saga. If it can even be called that anymore.
8 out of 12 found this helpful.
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The Force Awakens was really good and so I had high hopes how this chapter would be continued.
There are a few visually and sonically and even conceptually amazing parts in this movie, like the Casino land with the races as well as the bombing scene and some fight scenes.
However, overall the movie was disappointing after a very promising trailer. Too many smiling faces in here where death is all around, a Yoda that looks like a comic copy of the real one, a lot of face time for Skywalker and Leia, whereas their acting is not strong enough to pull it. But most of all the dark side of the force is a joke. That is not what Star Wars is about, to make the bad guys look silly. This dark side is not a force to be reckoned with.
Too many funny creatures too. I like a laugh but overdo it and it's la la land.
No thanks. Despite the great pictures in this movie, I want the real Star Wars back please!!
8 out of 12 found this helpful.
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An incredible tribute to the things that made the original trilogy great. It also is everything I would want and more from a Star Wars movie. With just the right balance of darkness, action, and light hearted humor I loved it from start to finish. Go Watch and dont believe the hate
48 out of 99 found this helpful.
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7/10
Legacies, Characters, Acting, and Interest Lost by Rian Johnson and a Horrible Script
I was excited for this Star Wars. I drove to my local theater through plenty of snow and traffic with some friends to see a movie I'd greatly anticipated.
Walking in, I felt good, watching the first ten minutes, a high-paced action scene akin to great space battles before it, with great piloting by Poe, timely comedy and sacrifice scenes to boot that brought a new element of sympathy to the random characters we see die that we rarely spare much of a thought about. Had the whole movie been similar to this or even at least have the action scenes follow this mold, I would give this an 8 out of 10. Unfortunately, the final 140 minutes were a narrative mess without any direction or meaning.
Let's start this with some things I really enjoyed about this movie. The acting was fantastic, and you could tell everyone playing their characters really channeled their best efforts into this project. The score was fantastic once again, and so was the cinematography and special effects. The action scenes are well-choreographed, for the most part, and they didn't shove callbacks to the original trilogy as much as they did TFA.
However, once you get past the talented and passionate actors, effects workers, and John Williams, you find a movie truly lacking in the elements that made Star Wars such a great trilogy in the first place.
I'm glad to see many reviewers also believe that the comedy in this film was sub-par. You never saw the on-the-nose forced humor from this in Empire, A New Hope, or even Jedi. Yoda burns the ancient Jedi scriptures as a joke, and then Luke, despite literally 30 seconds previous he was about to burn it himself, gets mad and tries to save the books. He also throws his lightsaber away when Rey hands it to him, which was cheap. There are just plenty of quips and one liners that aren't needed, to summarize.
So many characters from The Force Awakens, the original Trilogy or even introduced in this movie are wasted by a script that doesn't know what it wants to do. Finn does nothing in this movie, besides almost run away, have a casino subplot that made no effect on the plot, and fight Captain Phasma for 1 minute. (Phasma was once again criminally wasted, and then killed off.) Maz could have been used in place of Guillermo Del Toro's shabbily introduced and shoved out character, but she was relegated to one scene where she fights off something we have no idea about. Yoda comes in for five seconds and does nothing except crack a few one liners and do what Luke was about to do. Snoke, who was intriguing, mysterious and incredibly powerful to the point where he senses his apprentice's intent? Just some nobody who gets killed off in a manner impossible not to see coming. R2-D2 served no purpose in the movie other than say hi to Luke, Chewbacca was basically some dude who flied the Falcon and couldn't speak, and while Leia actually was treated well in this, her god-like come back to life scene was astoundingly confusing. Poe was used to a serviceable amount, and had at least some character development. Laura Dern's admiral character was perplexing in many ways. She could have told her crew about her plan, rather than not say anything before she loaded the transports which rightly provoked a mutiny. She also waits until most of the ships have been shot down before reaching her plan to go to light speed and destroy the ship. Rose, played by Kelly Marie Tran, was interesting. Her character as a nobody in the Resistance who has seen friends and family die only to see her supposed invincible heroes disrespect that was something that could have been worked with and I hope that unlike many characters from TFA that we see her again at some point in a significant manner. General Hux also could have been used more than he was and was given little to do other than get intimidated by Snoke and Kylo.
The entire subplot with Rose, Finn and the Codebreaker only dragged the movie far longer than it needed to be and could have been shortened greatly with little effect on the movie, or even cut out entirely, since the tracking of the ship no longer was deemed necessary. Also, The Force Awakens leaves off on the Starkiller Base being destroyed, and then resumes in TLJ with the Rebellion being on their last leg, almost completely destroyed with no explanation for how.
Obviously I have to talk about the major deaths in this movie. Rather than kill off Leia respectfully, as she will not be in episode 9, or even in the scene where her cabin gets shot out and she climbs back into the ship somehow, they kill Snoke before anything is revealed about his origins, character or how he got to power. Luke's death, while interesting and needed to close out the plot TLJ was trying to tell with the end of the Jedi, epitomized the wasting of Mark Hamill's talent and love for this franchise. We never know why he gave up so suddenly, or why he wouldn't even contact anyone important from the original gang. Instead, he becomes an unhelpful and resenting hermit completely unlike Ben Kenobi.
Rey and Kylo Ren have the closest thing to character development in the script. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley were once again fun to watch and kept you on your toes, with their narrative of projecting to each other, to their fight scenes. However, Kylo goes from refusing to kill Leia, killing Snoke and helping Rey to immediately fighting her and making power grabs for the First Order. Once Luke's lightsaber explodes, we never see Rey again until she's in the Falcon again with Chewbacca, even though we never see her running away to get in the ship, or boarding it. She also does barely nothing in the final scene, where she definitely could and should have.
Overall, this movie could have been one of the best movies this franchise has seen, yet instead it only barely holds itself up above the prequels. This is the worst Star Wars movie since Revenge of the Sith.
9 out of 14 found this helpful.
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I left it a couple of days to ponder over my final verdict of the film but after long deliberation I am finally giving it the rating it deserves as my lowest rating for any Star Wars film, that's right lower than The Phantom Menace. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't go into detail but I do wonder if Rian Johnson has ever even seen a Star Wars film. This film just feels bloated with so many action scenes and unnecessary scenes it just ruins any plot he has tried to squeeze in there (not that there is one). Ruined story lines that JJ managed to put in, in the Force Awakens, and the gags, don't get me started on the gags. Not needed and just plain cringeworthy. I'm not doubting that a lot of people with completely disagree with my opinion. But that's what it is, MY opinion.
The film left me nothing but disappointment, maybe I need a second viewing, yes maybe I do. But all the things that bothered me from that first viewing are still going to be there. And for this reason I worry a lot for the direction that Kathleen Kennedy and the Disney brand are trying to steer this main arc of the Star Wars story in.
Rest in Peace Star Wars.
9 out of 14 found this helpful.
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I was so excited after The Force Awakens to see the next saga of our main trio of heroes, Poe Finn and Rey, and even more excited at the new character of Rose and the roles that Leia and Luke from the OT would bring.
However I was severely disappointed. This movie was just 2 hours of Rian Johnson's fanboy-boner over Kylo as it flopped and trampled over all the other characters' motivations and arcs. And I'm pretty sure Rian has never seen the OT because whoever was in this movie was NOT Luke Skywalker.
9 out of 14 found this helpful.
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I can't quite believe the hype this movie is getting from professional critics. It almost feels like people have agreed that any technically well-made film with the Star Wars name on it has got to be a great film. Well, let me be the party-pooper by pointing out the fact that, to me at least, the emperor is strolling around town butt naked.
Just like "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One" before, this new exercise in flogging the dead Star Wars-horse relies way too heavily on fan-nostalgia and countless elements, moments, shots and dialogue lifted straight from the original trilogy.
Whether it's bigger things like the Rey/Luke relationship, which is a carbon copy of the Luke/Ben or Luke/Yoda-relationship, or small details like Luke meeting R2 after years and years, which is a straight rip-off of a very similar scene from ANH where Obi Wan is reunited with R2 on Tatooine.
And that's a real problem for someone like me who grew up on the original films: I went into TLJ having avoided spoilers completely and yet I could predict the "plot" at almost every turn. And before someone brings up the word "homage" or George Lucas' infamous quote about poetry and rhyming: This goes way beyond that.
The whole movie is a mish-mash of the three original films - most elements come from "Empire" though - and to me it felt like the screenwriter went through a checklist of original elements he wanted to plunder and cram into this new movie.
Whether it's the separation of the main cast, our young hero getting training from an exiled old Jedi-Master, a land-battle on an ice/salt-planet involving speeders and AT-ATs, the force ghost of a former mentor appearing for a talk with the young Jedi in training or a big confrontation involving a powerful, disfigured arch-villain, his apprentice and our young hero - there simply isn't much that is new or original in this film.
And all this gives the new SW-films a certain taint - these aren't stories a writer/director wants to tell, these are business-endeavors designed to cash in on nostalgia for a series of movies from a long-gone era of film-making.
I guess it's like one of the more critical reviews I came across said: The franchise is a hostage of its own legacy. As long as enough elements from the old films are shown on screen and as long as the poster says "Star Wars", people will go watch these movies. God forbid they would decide to make a Star Wars film without any references to the Empire, the Death Star or Darth Vader. Which is kind of understandable from a business-perspective, considering what these films cost to produce. From a creative POV however, this is a pretty sad state of affairs.
I just wish someone at Disney would grow a pair and dump all the original-trilogy-baggage and decide to start a brand new saga from scratch. Don't these people want to tell their own, unique stories? Where would, say, the arts be today if every painter after Leonardo da Vinci had decided to simply re-paint the Mona Lisa over and over again...?
5/10
9 out of 14 found this helpful.
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Porgs are cool but The Last Jedi is not particularly good. It's better than say Attack of the Clones because it doesn't look like a video game but I don't get the reviews dubbing this as an intelligent movie because it managers to avoid any answers to any meaningful questions.
It is really disappointing movie for somebody looking for answers to really anything Star Wars lore. It has some good fan moments but after The Force Awakens left viewers such a high-note with the return of Luke Skywalker - I left feeling empty and wondering if they just should have left it all alone.
The legend of the rebellion and childhood hero for so many Luke Skywalker is a broken man who unfortunately has not learned too much in his time in exile despite tracking down the original Jedi temple, texts and scrolls he apparently hasn't read them or learned too much which I find completely puzzling and frustrating. He has no new revelations, we learn nothing new about the force from Master Skywalker who doesn't seem to be all that wise at all. I wanted something new, some new revelations about the nature of the force, the Jedi and how it began. Unfortunately we learn nothing here from the ultimate Jedi and its so frustrating.
Don't get me wrong, we're treated to a great performance by Mark Hamill but I wanted Luke Skywalker to be great and wise and in the Last Jedi he just isn't. I mean at all. I'm all for the broken lone samurai type loner who is shamed but this is the hero of the original trilogy which is by far the moat revered and while Luke gets his redemptive moment, it merely serves to 'pass the torch' to the younger cast which is so contrived and obvious.
I must admit I had really high hopes for this film. For nostalgic reasons and as much as I really liked the characters in The Force Awakens it's the original characters who we all fell in love with and seeing them treated like this is. A means to simply pass the torch to younger actors is really disappointing. The Force Awakens did it right with Han Solo because it elevated Kylo Ren's villain status enormously while this was just a generational hand-off for the sake of it.
This is all made worse by the real-life and very tragic passing of Carrie Fisher who is back in her final performance. Just knowing she won't be there for the next episode stings even more so now after this one.
The problem with this story is Rey and Luke are at it's center and the dynamic needed to be fleshed out way more to make her a worthy successor to Luke Skywalker and the question of her parentage is one of the most disappointing parts of this whole entire story. It is just such an unsatisfying answer and a massive wasted opportunity.
More wasted opportunities lie with some of the characters. Supreme Leader Snoke's characters 'moment' was a shocking but ultimately empty. We got no backstory and nothing clever to bind the saga together. He is literally just a 'bad guy' that just appears out of nowhere and corrupts young Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren.
Captain Phasma is another throwaway character with nothing to do at all as is General Hux, who just provides comic relief. Are Disney doing this in purpose?
The other twists and turns lie in the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey which does manage to keep you guessing for a time as to where their allegiances will end up. Again both are really good in their roles but its not enough to save a lackluster story.
Bright points are Carrie Fishers last performance. Oscar Isaac's ace pilot Poe Dameron is back and joined by Laura Dern playing newcomer Admiral Holdo. Their story and their interaction is one of the best side stories that completely pays off in a very Star Wars way. I loved Poe Dameron's energy and enthusiasm in this just like I loved Finn's in The Force Awakens.
Unfortunately Finn's journey is far less compelling now. He is joined by actress Kelly Marie Tran who plays Rose Tico and a friendship/ possible romance ensues but it's all very cliche and nothing to write home about nor is the much-hyped Canto Bight scenes which resemble something more out of a Harry Potter movie than Star Wars. Though Benecio Del Toro's is good in his little role.
Ultimately The Last Jedi is a lost opportunity to tie in the Skywalker story (aka the Star Wars story we all fell in love with) together in a satisfying package.
I think Disney have tried to throw one too many curve balls this time around for curve ball sake and they're way off. Shocking twists are one thing but I remember leaving The Force Awakens with so much optimism and hope. I wish this were different but I feel robbed. Like there is no steam left in this story and nowhere else to go that I'd enjoy.
9 out of 14 found this helpful.
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I came back somewhat disappointed from the movie.
The story itself is quite OK, but there are really scene's where I was thinking "WTF?"
Thinking about the scene were Leia "floats" in space to go back to her spaceship (or when she "welds" the door open during the mutiny).
The part where the rebel ship "cuts" the spaceship from Snoke (that is like 10 times bigger?) in two, and 99,99% of the stormtroopers dies except captain Phasma, Finn & his Chinese buddy. Even if I have to say this scene was pretty "wow", having no sound for about 5 seconds and afterwards a huge bang.
Also these stupid jokes should not be included in a Star Wars movie imho, I don't know if this is due to the Disney influence but doesn't fit for me.
Also these little "pinguins / birds" like are at the end with Chewbacca in the Falcon is probably a nice marketing character that will sell as hell in a plush doll.
Special FX are of course stunning, the location of the last fight scene is also very nice, same with the one of the battle with Rey & Kylo Ren with the burning cloth falling down in pieces.
I won't say it's a bad movie, but it's just not "epic" enough I think to be a Star Wars movie, I preferred Rogue One for instance to this one.
9 out of 14 found this helpful.
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I found the comedy in The Force Awakens, very welcome, but here it mostly falls flat. You get a sense of, so much time is wasted on nothing... and the pacing is off. Sure you open with fight scene, which could barely hold my attention, so i had hoped for more character development but no, just fight scene which did not fill thrilling... to this point i ask myself what was the point of what i watched... no worthy villain in this so it feels angst ridden,
13 out of 22 found this helpful.
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This was the 2nd worst Star Wars movie of all time. Attack of the Clones (aka C-SPAN documents 'The Republic' still holds the title of "worst"). It story line from the previous movie was chopped. How did we get from the end of the last movie where the Republic defeated the First Order and destroyed their main battleship to the First Republic controlling everything in the Empire except one little remaining outpost in what seemed to be just a couple of weeks? Did I miss something? And as for the humor - it felt like a mix of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and Spaceballs. All that was missing was Pizza the Hut and some rum.
Snoke you have got to be the WORST Sith Lord I've ever heard of....
But you have heard of me.....
13 out of 22 found this helpful.
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Juvenile. Immature. Empty. Forgettable.
New Star Wars make new trilogy of Lucas look good. At least in them there are lows and highs, but highs were really good. This movie in its better moments are only okay.
10 out of 16 found this helpful.
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Basically the whole movie was about a general called Snoke ruling The Empire and he is trying to use the power of Kylo Ren. Meanwhile, Rebels are trying to forge a new colony and find a new planet to message other rebels for help on their adventure forming their empire from the beginning. Also Rey travels to the secret Jedi Island in a secret planet where Luke is located at. Rey asks for Luke's assistance on controlling her powers to fight with the Empire. Snoke knows this and connects Kylo and Rey with the force to find Luke and kill him. His plan is to kill the last Jedi and take the whole control around all the major galaxies. After Rey gets her training she goes to meet up with Kylo Ren and change his side. Snoke captures and tries to read the mind of Rey to find Luke's location. Kylo kills Snoke and tries to change Rey's mind and recruit her to his side. Rey refuses and fights with Kylo. And the war continues...
All in all, we see many familiar faces in this movie like Princess Leia, Luke, Yoda, Chewbacca and many others. I thought that the visual effects in this movie were great but the storyline is bad and needs more work in my opinion. The concept "Empire Strikes Back" is nowhere to be seen in this movie. Personally I didn't quite liked it because it seemed childish and a little off story.
11 out of 18 found this helpful.
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9/10
WTF is wrong with you people?! It is a good movie! :D
Won't post any spoilers, but reading all these bad reviews: I just have to set this straight.
First of are any of you fans at all? Do not sound like it, it borrowed from the old movies in a good way, while it was it's own thing.
It is visually stunning for sure, the music is of course awesome!
It is ALOT better better than TFA.
Think many of these negative review are just there too belittle the movie.
It is cool to hate every movie beyond four to six... You people...
Rian Johnson did not fail, he did really good!
Everyone I talked with at the movie theater liked it, none rated it under 7/10.
I walked out of the movie theater more hyped than I where going in.
It was creative, it was a Star Wars movie. If you have a open mind and heart when you go see it; you will enjoy it
PS: What happen to Luke is a nod to what happens in the original three.
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Disappointing, takes the fairly compelling questions of The Force Awakens and either squanders them or gives unsatisfying answers to them. Considering what JJ Abrams did with Lost, he probably had no answers in mind for the questions that The Force Awakens posed to pass onto Rian Johnson. And then rather than trying to address those answers himself Johnson decided go a different direction from Abrams, and also distance himself from classic Star Wars.
What's left is poorly timed jokes, a mediocre OJ Simpson chase main plot, poor treatment of Luke Skywalker, and a missed opportunity to give Leia a noble and creative death instead of introducing Laura Dern to do it.
So to anyone who hasn't seen it, I'd just say it's not a terrible movie, but temper your expectations. It's certainly entertaining at times, it's certainly surprising at times, and a few scenes are very good. But it doesn't hold together as a coherent Star Wars movie, at all. And it almost actively disrespects original trilogy Star Wars.
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1.Way too much humor in the last Jedi than it needed to be,
2.Killing Snoke off leaves the story with no real sense of danger for the last film as Rey is already able to beat Kylo Ren with no training what so ever.
3. Finn and Rose sub plot is completely pointless and could have been avoided if Laura Dern told Po the plan from the start.
4. There were some good story plots that were setup in the Force awakens that i was really hoping to see, such as dark side training with Snoke and Kylo Ren, however in the last Jedi these were completely ignored.
5. Luke Skywalker is one of the most beloved characters in the Starwars franchise and in order to pass the torch to the next generation Rian Johson needed to handle his character very delicately and give him a send off that the fans would love. I think this movie fails to do that.
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1/10
Just don't bother. This would've been straight to DVD without Star Wars attached to it's title.
"In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way."
First off, I'm well aware of all the negative reviews here on IMDb. That being said, their grievances are warranted if, and only if, Mr. Abrams and Mr. Johnson didn't have something more devious planned all along, only to be revealed in Episode IX. That being said, here's my take on it all.
Deep, complex, brooding, machismo Kylo Ren stumbles and matures in this space opera designed to get you mad, but also to get you thinking. (I apologize if most of this review ends up being massive spoilers for Episode IX.) This appears to be setting up Ren for an epic humbling when he discovers his lineage to be that of the irrelevant. Ever wonder why Kylo looks nothing like Han or Leia? That right! He was most likely adopted. His redemption arc could truly be one for the ages! Our heroine, on the flip side, is only coming to grips with her lineage issues fueled by a well-timed misinformation reveal, only later to find out she is actually the granddaughter of the Emperor. He has found his way back and is posing as Snoke to create a training tool (Kylo Ren) for his all-powerful heir. Women do not get enough chances to play dark, complex, and totally unexpected villains. What a treat for Daisy Ridley to get to bring this all to fruition! And what a job she is doing! There are hints of suppressed darkness in almost all of her scenes. Adam Driver's Ren conveys the exact opposite beneath his vicious exterior. He conveys an obvious love for all things Grandpa Vader which must, of course, also include his long, but satisfying redemption arc. You definitely see the parallels between Hayden Christensen's Anakin and Driver's Kylo Ren.
As for the other characters, I genuinely liked them. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were both excellent. As for Leia in space, I wouldn't have chosen to include that scene, but it's up to personal tastes. There is no ambiguity in Fisher's portrayal of Leia. She is good, and she is wise. Mark Hamill's Luke this time around is nowhere near as easy to read. Is he Dark, or is he Light? I have absolutely no idea. Poe, Finn, and Rose are all likeable and, for the most part, competent. The Officers in the First Order were mostly wooden and were not really intimidating.
Okay, I do acknowledge that I infer quite a lot about where the writers are heading on this journey. This is one scenario that makes sense to me. The only one that doesn't is Rey is omnipotent and benevolent, Snoke was no one of importance, Rey's parents were nobodies, Kylo Ren is pure evil and intimidating instead of annoying, Han died for nothing, Luke is weak and super strong at the same time and died for nothing, and the Light has finally brought imbalance to the Force in its favor. If a majority of this is their actual intent, then it just plain sucks.
"I can feel your anger. It gives you focus. Makes you stronger."
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If it was not for the special effects which are stunning and for the fact that this is a Star Wars movie, this movie would get a razzie (or several). For a moment I was wondering if they paid for the script to be written by a 10 years old. There are so many plot twists that are unecessary and incredibly bad...
Add Snoke coming and going without any reasons, Luke dying with no reasons, Leia dying and coming back to life for no reasons, none of the characters bringing any sense of semblance to the movie.
Stopping there but this is awful.
Don't know what Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson were thinking but this will stay as possibly a franchise killer.
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3/10
This could very well be the biggest (and worst) geek disappointment of the year
As a geeky kid, I grew up loving Star Wars (Not the prequels) and Star Trek. The stories of the Skywalkers wreaking havoc across a galaxy far, far away drove us all crazy. This is where Episode Eight falls short. This is a spoiler laden review, so read at your own behest.
Let me start with Finn, the most irritating character since Jar Jar Binks. He's whiny and predictable, something that wasn't quite visible in the previous movie. All he cares about is Rey, and we all know how that's going to turn out. There was no reason for Rose and him to go to Canto Bright. Then there's Poe Dameron, whose fight scenes were amazing. There will be an entire generation of kids who will grow up wanting to be him rather than Tom Cruise in Top Gun. But it's quite sad to see his character fall into the same trope that Top Gun created- a trigger happy flyboy.
I really don't know how Rian Johnson ended up killing the wrong twin. I would have been really happy to see the Princess fly into Snoke's ship rather than sacrifice the newly introduced Holdo (the lady from Jurassic Park 1). That would have been a heroic end to the character, and would have made us all teary. When Luke became one with the force, it had everyone shouting "What the Fuck!" in the cinemas. He was literally at the height of his power, projecting himself onto a different planet in a different star system, and fighting with the lightsaber like back in the day. There was no physical harm he came to, and there was no reason for him to die. Luke Skywalker was the reason I went to watch this movie, and now there's nothing that will draw me to the next one. Also, why was Yoda less believable as a living thing than in the prequels. Come on Hollywood, with today's technology you could do better than this.
Now we come to "Ben Solo". He still hasn't come to terms with everything that he was subject to. Oh, what torture it must have been to be born to Leia and Han. Why was he shirtless in that scene (At this point Jack Black is sexier without a shirt)? Also, why was he that close to Rey? It's the worst thing in the current trilogy by a country mile. It was literally like Lily Evans falling for an uglier and less powerful Severus Snape. The mirror scene on the island was exquisitely shot, but it basically led to nothing. They literally destroyed the potential of Rey's character by making her parents misers who drank themselves to death on Jakku. It doesn't explain how she's strong with the force or how she ties into the larger plotline. Which brings us to the next character- Snoke. Andy Serkis is terrifying as always in a role that offers absolutely nothing he can work with. Look at it this way, Snoke is as exciting a character as Emperor Palpatine with the screen-time of Darth Maul.
This is by far the most disappointing Star Wars movie since the prequels. I am not kidding, even the horrible 3D animated movies have a stronger plotline. I give this movie a 3 just for the visuals, the action-sequences, and the costumes, but I'm appalled by the way such strong characters were handled in a movie with such potential. I literally cannot believe I waited two years for this.
My current ranking for these movies stands at- Episode 5, Episode 4, Episode 7, Episode 6, Rogue one, Episode 3, Episode 8, Episode 2 and Episode 1. The animated movies and series fit in somewhere before Rogue One.
Mr. Abrams, if you ever do read these, please come back for the next movie. I think I speak for the entire fandom when I say that I may not be looking forward to the Han Solo solo movie.
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This was like having a bad dream the night before that it sucked, and they did a bunch of things you hated in it. Things they would never do. Things you realize would be stupid once you wake up, and get back to the real world. Except this isn't a dream.
This movie was awful for so many reasons.
The humor was painful, and inappropriately placed. I didn't mind the gag with Poe messing with Hux even. It fit Poe's character. Humor just as silly popping up randomly for the rest of the movie was grossly out of place though.
If you didn't catch I have this marked SPOILERS, here's another warning.
Why the hell did they kill Snoke? In such a half-assed way as well! A predictable, mysterious return on his part in Episode 9 would actually save a lot of face for the current state of the franchise at this point. His death cheapens the whole concept of the First Order. A concept that was already stretched as thin as it could be, without some detail revolving around Snoke to surface, and truly explain their quick rise to power.
Leia in space? Not mortally hurt by the blast that put here there in the first place? A blast that killed everybody else on that bridge? Then she subconsciously uses the force to survive and get back in. Just leave this whole part on the cutting room floor. It was completely unnecessary. It seems like a dirty trick because they knew people were expecting her to die. Then she doesn't anyway. They also seemed to ad no real damage control to set up the next one for her passing. (Rest in peace you crazy, amazing, legend of a woman!)
They did not progress the story of the trilogy at all. Snoke was killed. Luke died. (Just about the same way Neo died in the Matrix now that I think about it. Just... sigh.) We learned nothing more about the new path the Star Wars saga is currently on. Oh! Right. Rey's parents are actually nobodies. It will be nice if that's dispelled in the next one as well. Who did she think she was waiting for on Jakku? That concept carries so much weight in the previous film to just be pointless.
I hope the next one can save all the bad things about this one. Perhaps Disney/Holleywood are trying a trick a lot of TV shows use these days. So many times a good show these days can end an episode in a WTF kind of way that all falls into place in the next one. If not I don't know what to say. It's better than Episode's I and II. Like that really says much.
I don't understand what Rian Johnson was thinking. I really don't. I thought Looper was great. Ozymandias was one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad. Maybe Disney micromanaged the hell out of it. It kind of seems that way. Regardless, I could not have imagine I would end up this disappointed, and sort of pissed off at this movie. Episode 3 didn't even disappoint this bad when Vader yelled "Noooooo!" and that was that. I have learned to like that film, but it was a bit of a let down as well.
Overall, my only hope now is Episode 9 is poised to make me look like a fool in this review. I can only hope.
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3/10
Possibly my least favorite Star Wars movie *SPOILERS*
The night before I saw this movie, a close friend of mine who had seen Last Jedi said, "Possibly the best Star Wars movie ever." Even still, I went in with no expectations because I've found going to a movie with high hopes tends to lower my overall opinion of said movie.
I found the movie to have many issues, including:
-An discontinuity with other Star Wars movies. Many factors were inconsistent. For example: Leah, who had no force powers in the previous films, suddenly was able to use the force.
-Luke's "death" was ridiculous and unnecessary. Why did he just disappear? Not only was it disappointing, they didn't even explain it well in the movie.
-Most of the dialogue was written by a middle schoolar. There were so many cheesy and just stupid lines that I was surprised they actually got into the movie. Star Wars, the most funded movies by the richest movie studio had such a trash script - it's shocking.
-How is Rey as skilled in using the force as Kylo when she's had virtually no training? This was also odd in Force Awakens.
-Snokes death was cheap. They should have had an epic fight scene with him instead of the random red dudes.
-It didn't answer who Snoke was really or his background.
-Finding out Rey's parents were random bums was a letdown. That from a series that has repeatedly mentioned family being a factor in proficiency in using the force (the best Jedi's dad was the best Jedi...)
-The light speed kamikaze thing was cool but why was that never used in earlier battles? Could've taken out the death star much easier...
-And suddenly the force can be used to project oneself and touch people? Lack of consistency there...
-Oh and you can make people have illusions with the force and put thoughts in their heads even if they are competent with the force?
Anyways, the list goes on but I am stunned that the script was approved because that was the problem here. The actors did great and the visuals were amazing.
Advice for the person who creates the next Star Wars: Re-watch all the Star Wars movies and create something that doesn't violate the basic tenants of Star Wars and has the essence of what people love about it: spirituality, romance, humor, groundbreaking sci-fi, philosophical dialogue, amazing plot-twists - just good writing... I am still a Star Wars fan and the main reason I didn't give this 1 stars is because the main actors did excellently.
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2/10
Story and character? Doesn't matter - just spin a profit. Good job, Disney, destroying this franchise for it's true fans.
My head is still reeling with disgust with what I've just witnessed from TLJ. Just a heads up, I'm going to SPOIL the hell out of it with this review, so stop reading now if you haven't seen it. But in my opinion, don't see it, if you loved the original trilogy (or even the second trilogy and last two movies).
This film was clearly made to "flip the bird" at the old enthusiasts and usher in the "new breed" of SW fans that don't know any better. That's the best way I can describe it.
First of all, plot holes abound in TLJ. The filmmakers didn't seem to care, apparently.
Where to begin... Let's start with Kylo Ren having Darth Vaders mask and ashes. Where we last leave Luke in RoTJ, he burns his father on a funeral pyre on Endor. Some 20 years later, Kylo Ren retrieves it and is worshipping this burned mask and has the ashes. How? It never rains on Endor? Was Luke bragging endlessly to his fledgling "Jedi's in training" extensively about where and when he burned his father's body? But we'll get to Luke in a bit.
Ray enters this hole that's strong with the dark side, according to Luke, and after she exits, we learn nothing more than the fact that Rey found the coolest house of mirrors ever.
For the writers: Screenwriting 101, never introduce an extraordinary event unless it was somehow foreshadowed earlier.
Princess Leia's command post, upon her ship, at one point, is exploded by a laser blast from an enemy ship. The explosion is destructive enough to hurl her body into vacuumous space (in one piece, mind you). If this wasn't bad enough, she's still alive, with no air and a body rapidly becoming an ice brick, however, a character who never practiced much with the force or showed any signs of being strong with it, is able to survive this by pulling (flying) herself back to safety. Then is able to continue on with a mere gauze wrapping, after what seems to be a few hours later... come on! It not only was a stupid concept, it looked stupid. Poor directing and writing. Who pitched this idea and who agreed to it?
Next, Rey has been droning on about her parents for two movies. I thought I had this one figured out, she is clearly Kylo Ren's brother. Han and Leia are her parents. Wrong! According to Ren, her parents were mere peasants. This may still get resolved, but if he's right, then he and her have no business having these intergalactic Jedi Facetime calls with one another. This wasn't introduced as something that non-relatives could do in any of the movies. But the jury is still out on wether he was telling her the truth or not about her parents. So, I give the writers a rare pass on this one... for now.
Using all those storyline similarities from TESB and RoTJ is cheating, no matter how you look at it. The writers know that we want to see stuff we're familiar with, but it got absurdly too close to the other movies. Rey, for instance handcuffed and brought to Snoke with Ren present, while Snoke shows her the destruction of her resistance fighters is pulled right from RoTJ, only without the dramatic build and triumphant score. I didn't seem to care. Then Snoke is killed by Ren, because Ren has the power to turn on a light saber that's sitting on the arm of Snokes chair, while Snoke thinks he's sensing the other lightsaber will be ignited to kill Rey. Dumb.
Let's talk about Rose ramming her ship into Finn before he can suicide himself into the New Order's laser gun. Could've killed them both, easily, thus defeating the point of what he was trying to do with the suicide mission. But, okay... whatever, maybe she's not bright.
Let's get to Luke, because I'm dying to get it off my chest. WTF??? I've lived my whole life with this character... this hero! The motivation for 7 older movies led straight to Luke and his importance in the galaxy. He grew from whiny farm boy to a fearless zen hero. I'm sooooo sorry, Mark Hamill, for what they turned Luke into. I'm not even sure myself. Crotchety old man? Supposedly, he denounced and blocked the force years ago, in fear that Ren would find him. Fear is not a characteristic of a regular Jedi, not to mention a master. He would not be afraid of his nephew, nor would he consider murdering him. This is so far off-base that I cannot justify or forgive it.
He barely seemed to care when Rey said that his sister needed help or Han was dead. He just wanted to carry this burden of failing his nephew around with him. He refused to train Rey, and even when he actually did decide to help her, he was only going to teach her three lessons. None of them involved him having her doing any cool physical things, like flips, or technique. Apparently she's so good, she already knew this stuff. But he did proclaim that the Jedi's were done, so that is in alignment with his lack of support.
Then Yoda, finally, slaps some sense in him (God knows where he's been for 30 years), clearly he could've offered guidance to Luke when Ren left to serve Snoke. Oh, by the way, Yoda now has the gift of initiating fires from beyond the grave. That could've come in handy when Luke was battling the Emperor, I'm sure.
Let's not forget the books... Luke wants to burn these unknown books, that have never been referenced, but it's okay, Yoda stops him... only to burn them himself. ??? Who writes this stuff?
But here's the whopper! Luke now has this strange force power of being able to become a hologram somewhere else in the universe and visible to all. He has his last moments with Leia, who cannot sense that he's really not there. He's able to give her Han's physical dice from the Falcon, that, mind you, we've never seen before. She cares so much about these dice that she loses them moments later and Ren picks them up, just before they vanish into thin air. All this was done so that Ren realizes that Luke wasn't really there. It doesn't matter anyway, because Lukes trickery in doing this was coward. He never put himself at real risk by showing up to face Ren, well that's not entirely true, because the act of becoming a hologram ends up killing Luke. That's right. This new trick, costs you your life for some reason. Once again, writers, screenwriting 101, don't introduce new tricks without foreshadowing, otherwise it's Deus Ex Machina. Hologram Jedi's could've reeked havoc in other movies if they knew how to do that. Why does it kill you? You would think this spiritual meditation would be good for a Jedi's soul.
So the resistance is saved because they couldn't move rocks without Rey's force powers or Luke to cause a diversion. Luke dies an anti-climactic, confusing death, without having to leave his meditation rock, which leads me to think, why not let him die more valiantly? After all Luke has done for the rebels and now the resistance, Rey and Leia seem unfazed by his death.
I need to stop now before I really tell you how I feel.
All in all, the film had potential to be able to bridge the gap between old and new storylines. Disney was unable (and unwilling, it seems) to try, however. They seem to feel that they'll make their money on the fans who don't know or care about the past movies. If that's how you want to play it, then fine. Enjoy your pointless, uneventful, mediocre new franchise. My faith however, is lost on you. Thanks for destroying an icon in American cinema. I hope the box office gross is worth it.
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Even though I have enjoyed the latter day Disney-owned Star Wars films, I always questioned their legacy - Every nuisance and essence of Star Wars comes from George Lucas, good and bad. Jar Jar Binks came from him but so did the light sabers, R2D2 and the juxtaposition of all the pop culture and myth elements. Only he could have pulled it off. The premise behind all the new films ( 'George Lucas ruined Star Wars; if we cut him out and let gifted people do it, Star Wars will be great again') therefore sounds false to me. That's fan fiction. Fan films.
Which brings me to The Last Jedi. Whereas The Force Awakens (Again, I like it) often feels like a checklist of what the fans want to see (made by fans for the fans), Episode VIII is the other end of the spectrum - an ego trip for a fan that wants Star Wars his way, which goes horribly awry. Remember fans being furious about Lucas making R2D2 flies in the prequels? He is doing the same thing with the Force on this one in much worse and idiotic ways.(if the Jedi from previous films can use the Force the way that's displayed here, lets just say many limbs and lives would have been spared.) Remember all the plot lines and relationships from The Force Awakens that are being set up for the future films? Most of them are being discarded in the most callous, trivial ways. And don't get me started on light speed - if it has the effects like it is seen here, Return of the Jedi would have ended in less than an hour. Heck, the rebels should have won before Episode IV!
The actual plot (no spoilers here) is one contrived plot overlapping another (over another and another)- 'Rey is strong with the Force' is pretty much the one-for-all excuse for her miraculous skills and triumphs. (Count how many hours she is in actual training when you watch the film) For some reasons, the new Star Destroyers can demolish rebel battleships like toothpicks but incapable of attacking small unarmed ships. HUH? A major character showed up casually to console another here in a major cameo. That's nice. Except why did it take so long for him to do so? When he only chooses to come out now after all these years (or decades), those words of wisdom feel more like a laughable 'NOW you tell me' moment than a heartwarming scene.
And the characters here are just as unbelievable (and boring). (Kylo-Ren has out-whined the Skywalker family of whiners in a long shot in this film) The romantic relationships creepy and nonsensical.I won't give examples because a) I don't want to divulge anything, and b) I honestly don't remember much of them in details, even though I only saw the film 2 days ago. That's how forgettable they are. And that's a first on a Star Wars film for me. And I hope this will be the last.
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I think the only thing I enjoyed in this movie was yet another phenomenal score by John Williams and fantastic performance by the orchestra performing it. The two stars are for him. Unfortunately there's only so much a person can do...
I've never felt betrayed or insulted by a movie until last Thursday.
I can't begin to fathom the arrogance and disdain of Johnson to completely destroy the foundation that J.J. laid out for this trilogy.
Sure TFA it was a reboot of A New Hope, but for me J.J. had left so much in place for this to be a stunning and thoroughly thought provoking experience. I'm utterly devastated that he didn't sign on to lead all three movies.
TLJ failed miserably and not only that, in failing so miserably it has taken the third movie down with it too. I can't imagine what can be done to salvage the trilogy after this abomination ... and to be frank... I don't care.
I don't have any questions after this movie - there is NOTHING intriguing to mull over and talk about with like minded fans for the next two years. The narrative arc is dead and I don't care about any of the characters or have any idea or care for what might become of them.
Nothing but disappointment.
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I grew up with the prequels and you can imagine my bar for Star Wars movies is set low already.
The Force Awakens (TFA) is unoriginal and mediocre. The Last Jedi (TLJ) surprisingly surpassed that by turning Star Wars into a huge garbage compactor fire.
Spoilers
1. The laziest plot and galaxy
In short, it's a 150-min story about the rebels slowly escaping (hmm) from some big bad ships. "We have to TAIL the rebel ships and do NOTHING until they run out of FUEL". Yes, this happens in a universe with light-speed hyperdrives and the greatest evil military force in the galaxy.
2. A middle-finger to TFA and fans
The last episode leaves the audience with cliffhangers and questions that deserve to be solved. TLJ smartly deals with those by not dealing with them at all. Luke throws away the blue lightsaber. Rey is a nobody. The most powerful Snoke is murdered after playing some tricks. Same for Phasma. JOB DONE.
3. Anticlimactic plot holes
Oh boy the geniuses behind TLJ successfully fuse the two movie problems together and deliver the maximum mind-blowing effect:
- Finn and Rose travel to another planet in the middle of a chase like going out and grab a beer. So the First Order does not care actually? Why not sending out the escape vessels or at least the "sparks" sooner?
- All those mysterious Jedi classics are burnt for no reason - wait the ghost Jedi can cast lightning bolts now? No wonder Obi-wan said it's unimaginably more powerful to be dead, as they can just show and light you up anywhere, anytime.
- Rose proves love maybe an even more powerful force in the Star Wars universe as it suddenly boosts her ship (the Force can't do this), making it way faster and able to catch up and ram into Finn from the side. Apparently Finn is trying his best and going full speed already, but his love is not strong enough.
- And for that hyperspace suicidal attack, that is going to make millions of dead captains suddenly cried out and wonder why they hadn't thought of that, and inspire the First Order to scrap all future super weapon plans - we are going to see giant space rocks (probably with autopilot) and hyperdrives mashing things in Episode 9.
There is so much to rant but I will suppress my anger and rebel by not giving money to any Star Wars products anymore until they make a good movie. We must bring balance and justice to the movie market.
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I noticed it through the entire movie, but when it was over i really knew it. It didn't feel like Star Wars.
The action was good, but it didn't feel like the films from the original trilogy. It was just a bunch of CGI, from all the canons on the Star Destroyers to the weapons of the Praetorian Guards.
Snokes death... What??? I was really looking forward seeing his full strength, if he was stronger in the force than other dark siders. We saw him light Kylo up once, he moved Rey and he read her mind. Rey force pulled Lukes lightsaber from beside Snoke, Snoke grabbed it by the force, dinged Rey in the head with it, and put it back. Then Kylo just turned the lightsaber towards Snoke and turned it on, slicing him in half. Such a dissappointing scene.
It felt like there were too many jokes, for example when Poe was speaking with general Hux, when Luke just threw the lightsaber over his shoulder when Rey gave it to him.
When Leia was blown out of the ship, and suddenly just reached out with her hand and started to float back to the ship, it felt really weird. She just stood by the door, and in the next scene she was almost dead.
I didn't like when Yoda appeared. It felt forced, and I didn't really understand why he needed to appear. It would've been better if we only saw the backside of his head, not the whole of him. Kind of feel the same way about Leia in Rogue One.
What was awesome was Luke's fight with Kylo in front of the walkers. We saw his awesome lightsaber skills, and his moves were truly awesome. It was really cool when we saw that it wasn't actually him fighting, it was some kind of force ghost (?) and then seeing him float over the rock on Ahch-To. Though I don't understand if Kylo killed him or if he transformed to a force ghost by himself, guess we have to find out in the next film. And by the way, the last scene with the kids playing, I don't know if that had anything to do with the plot, but one of them could use the force to grab a broom, and then we saw him with a Jedi symbol ring.
When I exited the cinema with my friend, we both thought the same thing: disappointing. Rey's parents seemed to be such a huge deal, but turned out to be no-ones. Snoke turned out to be easily distracted, the humor wasn't really used the right amount. There were no emotions, like there were in The Force Awakens. You felt sad, happy, exited. In this one I only felt disappointment.
21 out of 40 found this helpful.
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Wow so Disney bought Star Wars to be Mickey's litter box!
Wow out of 15 of us that came back from seeing the last Jedi only 1 thought it was just ok. The rest of us were disappointed beyond belief. And what's more is that my expectations weren't high because I didn't really care for the force Awakens, but I thought maybe with the director of looper at the helm, the film might be ok. How wrong I was. I no long have it in me to sit through another Star Wars film. Some of my friends were in tears and not in a good way, their emotions expressed disappointment, disgust, anger, outrage. No matter what any critic says there was no originality in this. The force Awakens ripped off the original Star Wars, the last Jedi ripped of scenes from both the empire strikes back and return of the Jedi. I simply cannot in good conscience recommend this atrocity to Star Wars.
15 out of 27 found this helpful.
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So, so painful to watch. Star Wars: The Last Jedi will evoke many of the same emotions as the 2016 election in the US. It has all of the contrived inauthenticity of the Clinton campaign, and all of the infuriating brainlessness of the Trump campaign. Disney has absolutely destroyed a once-beloved franchise. Don't get me wrong - this film will make it's money, but at the cost of the franchise's spirit. Storytellers are needed for a new generation, and it's time to say a fond farewell to Star Wars.
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Star Wars is getting so lost the more movies they roll out
I've never written a review for any movies ever, but Star Wars has always been a special place in my heart. However, the film disappointed me so much that I just got to write a review bout this film.
To sum it up for the bad rating is that the franchise tries hard to capture the brilliance & core aspects of the original George Lucas trilogy with modern film making & Michael Bay explosions but somehow messed it all up.
The force awakens is ok to say the least but doesn't take the movie too seriously as it's filled with cheesy & cringe worthy dialogues.
The last jedi instead just don't make any sense anymore. The plot twist in the film is very cringe worthy, the characters are very misplaced & badly portrayed, the plot is just crap like they've really run out of ideas, the new ideas & lore of star wars that the producers tried to introduced is pretentious & failed miserably.
In the end, The last jedi just don't make sense & very cringe worthy, the movie is just for die hard star wars fans and even they will be disappointed by how messed up this film is.
The only plus side are the actions scenes and sound effect, nothing else. Rest is total crap.
Only watch it if you have nothing better to do and just want some time out with friends & family, if not just wait for the movie to be release on the internet, save your money.
15 out of 27 found this helpful.
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There was no warmth in this movie. It did not move anything forward, and doesn't get you excited about Episode 9.
Some jokes where too much. And some of them just don't belong in a Star Wars movie (flat iron).
Also the scope was pretty weird. It felt like a brawl on the schoolyard between two rival classes.
There was good stuff in it. The opinion scene was amazing and left me thinking "Damn this is gonna be f***** awesome". But it wasn't.
Overall I feel like I saw an mediocre filler Episode of an okay series.
19 out of 36 found this helpful.
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A lot of critics said that this movies is the best star wars since empire strikes back....
wow! what a bold statement for a star wars movie that so inconsistent and soulless. when all the previous star wars movies story formula were building up the climax, last jedi on the contrary did the opposite way.
After leave the cinema, as a star wars fan my emotion is full of anger and fear... as you know that emotions would lead you into the dark side....without further ado these are the pros and cons
pros
great opening scene ( this could also be the cons)
great cgi
superb soundtrack
cons
the beginning scene should be on the climax scene
it has one story that u will see from the beginning with many boring side quests
last jedi makes TFA character's building up pointless
so many pointless new side characters that overwhelm main characters spotlight
no character development
luke skywalker final scene is like a bullfighting
all the hype surrounding this movie based on a lie(snoke, rey's parents, phasma, bb9-e, del toro's character)
there is no climax on the final act
the twist is there is no twist
star wars's lore felt like it is out of control that makes me afraid that marvel would add star wars into MCU
there is a thor in this movie
6/10
gg Rian Johnson
i am clouded with fear towards the incoming new trilogy
13 out of 23 found this helpful.
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Don't understand the good critic reviews, they are probably paid by disney.
can't believe they're getting rian johnson to direct a new trilogy; get gareth edwards! gareth edward's rogue one was the best new star wars film, last jedi makes no sense, dialogues were bad, and most plot points were still very conventional (made too much convenient sense). no character arcs for main villians and just not realistic film in the context of star wars and this space opera genre.
18 out of 34 found this helpful.
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6/10
It was okay but like TFA feels a bit by the numbers
I got the chance to see it last night at the European premiere.
It was a great night (and my first premiere) but it certainly didn't offer me any real emotional satisfaction. Yes, it was entertaining, there were some moments when I gasped out loud at how cool something was or clapped at an action that a character did yet it did feel a little baggy in the middle.
There was some rather heavy handed virtue signalling within it where you just felt the creep of being educated/lectured to rather than being entertained. There were also a couple of scenes where the credibility of characters abilities were a little strained.
As I said it had some memorable moments but for me it wasn't as mesmerising and raw as Empire or as rewarding as Return.
39 out of 83 found this helpful.
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Spoilers Ahead>>>>>>>>
What a disappointment ... I thought i had seen the back of the Bad Star Wars Films with the Prequel Trilogy, But during some scenes of TLJ i thought that The Prequels were masterpieces. There are so many attempts at humour and a lot of it is misplaced and awkward , The Blue Milk, The Shoulder Dusting....
Its a shame what was teased in TFA has not been expanded on at all here.
Overlong and Drawn out in the Middle, This must be the longest , slowest space chase ever put on screen...
12 out of 21 found this helpful.
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For film fanatics like myself, The Last Jedi is a great film for people to see, regardless if they've witnessed the originals or not. On the other hand, if you've never seen the original Star Wars films and are just a casual moviegoer that have thought of the promotion for this film as being an action-packed thrill ride, then I'd have to warn to stay far away from this 2 and a half hour motion picture. It's very hard to review this film without getting into specific plot details, but that's exactly what makes this film worth the price of admission alone. For nearly every reason a film fan should be excited about a movie, here is why The Last Jedi is a must see as soon as possible.
Before dropping you into this world with our characters, there is text at the beginning that will fill you in on the history of the events in the past and what has taken place during the past time. But even though that information is given to you, your experience just won't be the same without having viewed the first film and remembering the emotional core of it. Rey's character uncovers mysteries and secrets from the past, inevitably involving Kylo and the First Order while training with Luke. Quite honestly, that's the plot in a nutshell and the specifics of the film will lead to ruining your experience, so let's get technical.
If not for anything else, The Last Jedi benefits from some of the best cinematography I've laid my eyes on in years. From the addition of the seamlessly blended visual effects, to the mind- blowing scenery constructed by the entire art department, I have nothing but praise for this film. Whether or not you find yourself enjoying your experience, the visuals alone should have you applauding, due to their incredibly detailed nature. I personally found the overall film to be magnificent, but when certain scenes were dialogue-free and asking you to gasp at the imagery, that's exactly what I was doing, as I feel many audiences members will.
Again, without giving anything away, once Kylo, Finn and Poe enter the picture, the way both stories sort of interconnect was brilliant in my opinion. It does justice to any loose ends that fans may have wanted in the past, as well as create a new story to gawk at in the process. With a terrifically restrained performance by Adam Driver, you'll find yourself sucked into this world as a fly on the wall, as he uncovers mysteries about Snoke. With the addition of Mark Hamill giving one of his most sincere and memorable performances, as well as Andy Serkis in a role that really took me by surprise, this film was cast to the nines from beginning to end. Some may complain about Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie not being included as much, but I felt as though the served the story quite nicely.
In the end, this movie aims to impress Sci-Fi fans and Star Wars fans across the world, but I feel as though the people who will be looking back on this as a possible classic or at least one of the best sequels ever made, are those who've had the pleasure of indulging in the greatness that is 1980's Empire Strikes Back. I don't say this about films very often, especially when talking about sequels, but I haven't been this immersed in a theatrical experience in quite some time. This is definitely a superior film than the previous, it's one of the better films of 2017, and I'll be revisiting it very soon. The Last Jedi is getting a lot of praise and awards consideration from critics and film goers across the world, and every bit of it is deserved. Aside from being very long, this is pretty much a perfect film if you don't try to nitpick how it connects and certain questions that aren't blatantly answered. If you know what type of film you're in for, or you've at least seen the original and enjoyed it, I can't recommend this movie enough.
138 out of 332 found this helpful.
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Not the explanation we needed for key characters , no point watching most of the first 60 mins of the film very boring , however on a positive after the first 60 mins some good plot twists.
20 out of 39 found this helpful.
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Waiting was definitely worth it! The Last Jedi perfectly fits into the well-established atmosphere of Star Wars, but at the same time it is different. Rian Johnson's revenue is clearly visible. Unlike The Force Awakens, where it was set to be more secure, here the director allowed himself to insert entirely new things that make up the big universe of Star Wars.
The movie is noticeably darker, as was clear from the release of the first poster, the trailer and the ad campaign. Seeing that the movie is darker, which is not a minus, even makes it more interesting, because the last such movie was Episode V. Of course there are many fun moments that can not be missed.
The fans will be happy because things they've been waiting for years become a reality in this movie. Every fan will be happy with the movie. The way our well-known galaxy heroes interact with those who build themselves are shown in an incredible way. In this way the universe is expanding.
The Last Jedi answers a lot of questions, but there are many unknowns that we will not know until 2019.
I dare say that The Last jedi easily enters my top 3 Star Wars movies and is also one of the best, if not the best, film for 2017.
195 out of 482 found this helpful.
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This movie was fun, exciting, and expanded the Star Wars universe more. Since when has Star Wars been about answering all of the nitty gritty questions of how the force and the universe work. When people are upset about that, I am astounded that they "expected more" explanation from the series. Since the prequels, people have been crying that there was too much revealed, and not enough mystery, as there had been with the originals. I for one am glad that we are introduced to characters who aren't fleshed out here, that leaves room for the imagination and the extended universe to delve into. I've seen some reviewers complain that the movie is too slow, some that it is too scatterbrained, but I think the nuance of the movie outweighs either of these. Also, no spoilers, but I think that what they did with each character felt good, and by no means did I feel cheated by the movie. I loved the questions it left unanswered and the new questions it posed, and am excited to have months of speculative discussions again.
56 out of 126 found this helpful.
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7/10
Good sci-fi action movie, but it's simplified Star Wars
Overall I enjoyed 'The Last Jedi', great spacebattles, fx, nice jokes and several unexpected plot-twists that made the movie an enjoyable ride,
I'd definately watch it again, but I am unsure how to rate it against the other Star Wars movies. It's better than TFA and the first two prequels, but other than that I'm not sure.
There were several things I found unsatisfying:
All strong characters happen to be women. All male characters have some obvious weaknesses/flaws. Although I don't mind strong female characters, this movie went to an extreme.
Most new characters of the new trilogy are just underdeveloped., but particularly 'Poe' is awful. He doesn't seem to be one bit distraught after having lost so many friends in battle (mostly due to his own desire to blow things up).
Snoke appears to be extremely powerfull, but who is he? And he is killed off really easy, making him in one of the most unsatisfying villains of all time.
The New Republic is gone and The First Order is the dominating power, yet is pre-occupied with a handfull of rebels (1 cruiser + some support ships). The size of the Resistance is just pathetic. In the original Trilogy it was already difficult to comprehend why the Empire is so concerned about a handfull or rebels, but this is just ridiculous.
Captain Phasma survived the destruction of starkiller base, only to be killed off in a stand-off by Finn, just like the badass riot-Trooper in TFA. Very unsatisfying.
The whole casino-world sub-plot was unnecessary if the admiral just told Poe about her plans
Carrie Fisher's death was a shock to all of us and I imagine they wanted to give her lots of screen time, but storywise they have created a crux as there were two great moments to end Leia's character arc in a satisfying way. She miraculously survived the first attempt and at the 2nd moment, she should have been the one to stay behind on the cruiser. They already said that Leia won't appear in SW IX, so apparently they'll kill of Leia off-screen, which would be abysmal.
Kylo Ren said that Rey's parents were unimportant people. I assume he was lying, otherwise Rey's existence is just as unsatisfying as Snoke's.
Things I particularly liked:
Kylo Ren's character development. Snoke said exactly what everyone thought about his character and it was nice to see him making his own choices instead of being a puppet.
I became a bit annoyed by a growing desire of fans that 'Neutral-alignment' would be the best alignment, instead of Sith/Jedi. I'm glad Disney didn't yield to this lackluster nonsense, but kept the Jedi as the main protagonists (Rey's took the sacred Jedi Tomes with her).
cool plot-surprises.
If it wasn't a Star Wars movie, I'd say it was a good Sci-Fi action flick, but being Star Wars, I found it lacking: the main downside of this movie is that it does not feel like an adventure that Star Wars is supposed to be (like the original trilogy & prequels). It's more like a small part of such an adventure streched out to fill 150 minutes.
It's basically a simplified Star Wars and lacks the world-building scope that George Lucas created with his two Trilogies.
33 out of 70 found this helpful.
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Sorry Disney, Star Wars is not a joke! I see it like a bad remake of The Empire Strikes Back with better effects but no heart, Only Daisy gave me a good performance, not even Mark moved me; anyway... "Help me, George Lucas. You're my only hope"
19 out of 37 found this helpful.
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This movie, "The Last Jedi", is completely detached from previous star wars movies, both in plot and in character development. The Luke Skywalker here is not the Luke Skywalker appeared in the Star Wars Trilogy. The plot is irrelevant to the first seven episodes, and looks like a spin-off.
Even if we treat the movie as an independent movie, it fails in almost every way. The storytelling is boring, especially in the first 90 minutes. Most of the scenes are ridiculous and groundless. For example, the notorious Snoke just dies in a second. If he were so weak, how could he have become the supreme leader? Also, Luke just dies for no reason.
All in all, fuck Disney for destroying the star wars series.
5 out of 7 found this helpful.
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Honestly don't even know what to say, this is probably the worst star wars film ever.
Leia can fly, predictable destruction of a brand new spaceship. a 'dreadnought' and overall just a mess. Also ruined my favourite character Luke
5 out of 7 found this helpful.
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We already knew that Star Wars hated the evil Nazi's, but now it seems we're supposed to believe that Luke and co were communists all along, and not the freedom fighting westerners on the other side of WW2. The evils of capitalism are on full display here, and all this without the rouge smuggler solo to give us a sense that making a dollar is OK.
Yes this apple has fallen far from the tree. Luke is a washed out old man? Leia is a general who has zero military qualities and is more like a mother? The greatest evil in the universe, who can put thoughts into his disciples minds isn't very good at reading minds all of a sudden? The empires defenses have gotten way softer, and they are much stupider with their tactics? Girls don't need any formal training to master the force, and can inherit it from basically anyone?
This list goes on.
All in all this is an overly complex story, lacking in the charisma and awesomeness that made Star Wars the greatest movie event of all time.
Trust your feelings, and don't bother.
5 out of 7 found this helpful.
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I really wanted to like this film. I thought that Force Awakens was a reasonable effort at moving the saga forward for the new generations, providing that the many questions it posed were resolved. Snoke was an intriguing character and I was sort of invested in Rey, whilst desperate to understand the source of her immediate, untrained power, and why she could best arguably the closest thing to a Sith heir the galaxy posed in Kylo Ren. Didn't care much for Po, seemed fairly underdeveloped, and perhaps a little more for Finn. Who is he?
The Last Jedi was definitely a spectacle, to it's credit. It was funny in places, although now I'm not sure if the humour was in fact a device to cover up the fairly convoluted plot. The first act was pretty great. Seeing Leia suspended in space (in that scene) and returning to the ship was exciting. All that said, I think it's easier to highlight my problems with the film with a series of questions I'd like answered since the film ended, after I had been struck with a strong sense of disappointment and regret for the franchise:
Why is Rey so powerful? Still?
Who are we actually meant to be rooting against? Supreme leader is dead, Kylo is conflicted (and dare I say it, actually quite likable in this film). After the destruction of Starkiller base in TFA, and the recent presentation of the pitifully tame First Order and General Hux, where is the sense of foreboding and underlying menace? A film is only as good as it's villain, and there isn't one anymore - or at least one that presents any real danger. (I understand them trying to play the GOT style moral ambiguity and grey areas but this is not executed well, in my opinion). Who cares if Rey can now lift a million rocks if there's no driving force behind it all?
How can people review this well, and criticize Lucas for his poor dialogue in the prequels? It seems like some lines, such as "Salt...", were entered just to remind the audience in the final scenes that the setting wasn't snowy Hoth, to avoid Empire comparisons.
I'll summarise my other issues:
I'm sorry, although I appreciate the diversity, I don't believe Finn and Rose's relationship or chemistry
Captain Phasma - who cares. Defeated in less than a minute. No payoff. A glorified toy.
Underwritten or badly handled characters; why do I care about Po (impulsive jerk), Hux (comic relief useless supervillain), Chewie/R2D2/3PO (pointless fan service appearances), Luke (Really? A disgruntled, stubborn old man who easily changes his mind/30 year motivations, and does some reluctant force decoying before returning to the force. Great. The hero of the Star Wars saga everyone.) Codebreaker (Who? Why do I care?)
For one reason or another, all the major moments missed their emotional impact/the mark substantially for me; no gut punches. Fairly emotionally sterile.
A true visualisation of a DISNEYFIED Star Wars; the film was marketed to be a dark reflection of the Saga, and was ANYTHING but. No consequences. Humour in the wrong places, surface level on all levels, introducing little boys and girls as the next Resistance fighters. Adorable, needless creatures (more toys). No real evil presence. After Rogue One I thought Disney may be changing their tune. This film was made for A - a popcorn flick audience, and B - 10 year old boys/girls.
CLICHE CLICHE CLICHE - Case in point, "The spark is lost". *Look down solemnly. *Spark in eyes. "Luke!?" *Luke appears in shadowy alcove.
What pains me a little is that no-one really seems to be comfortable confronting this film. I am convinced, with a equivalent film of different stature, without a hyper-billion dollar corporate, commercial pull behind it, that people would be ubiquitously highlighting the glaring issues it has. The film opened to huge critical acclaim, and I don't for one second believe that these a portion of reviewers haven't been paid off. I refuse to believe that mankind can be so shallow, and genuinely satisfied with the continuation of the saga in this direction, with all the glaring plot holes, underwritten character development and foggy motivations that everyone in this movie has.
I may just be wrong, expecting too much of a saga that is may now essentially just be Fantasy Science-Fiction made for children to sell toys. I am willing to accept that perhaps everyone else is right and I am just not the right audience for this film - but I'll have nothing more to do with this beloved Saga if that's the case for the future of the franchise.
I'll leave you with this: http://www.gamesradar.com/5-questions-star-wars-force-awakens-left-us-spoilers/
It's called 14 questions that The Last Jedi NEEDS to answer, I assume to avoid audience frustration. I counted 2/3 that were even half-addressed.. Given that this reputable company, "Games Radar", quickly changed their tune after the film's release to basically lick it's arse, presenting 12 new, often unrelated questions to be answered after seeing the film - I'd say it's a good reflection of the inability of a review site to criticise such a commercial behemoth.
The force was weak with this one. I'd go as far as to say that in retrospect, a year from now, this may well be the new Phantom Menace, and the nail in the coffin for the Saga for life-long fans (especially knowing Rian is in the helm for the foreseeable future). It makes you long for the prequels and George Lucas' grand ideas and foresight. I feel like Harrison Ford will be pleased he's out, Mark Hamill will soon confirm his true colours and of course poor Carrie is already lost.
Dark times indeed.
5 out of 7 found this helpful.
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I won't talk about the movie as a Star Wars history, since me as a big fan of the universe I will always have a good impression of it, instead I prefer to analyse it by his technical characteristics ....
Rian Johnson, simply showed he wasn't match for a movie of that magnitude. The movie edition is awful, jumping from scenes to scenes in a very amateur way, killing all the tension and drama.
More than the poor edition, the movie steal ideas from other movies but in a bad way that makes you feel embarrassed to watch it (Matrix Luke, I'm talking about you).
For the last, the humor relief scenes are too childish, what makes me wondering if George Lucas was allowed to add scenes in the movies again.
18 out of 35 found this helpful.
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I hate this movie. I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan. This franchise has crept into every corner of my life at some point or another, so please believe that I am a fan. I just want to add to the many other voices who have already said it better than I could: this movie is an abomination, shameful and a sin.
Burn in HELL Rian Johnson!
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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This is the worst star wars movie that I have seen, and I am including the ewok movies on TV when I was a kid. So many other reviews already capture everything that was wrong with this film that I will spare the details. Essentially Rian Johnson (who apparently never watched or read a star wars) and Disney took a big dump on my childhood!
They had everything they needed to make a great film and instead chose to burn the star wars franchise to the ground. The acting was fine but the plot and character development and just the lore of star wars was completely ignored. I dont see how I can EVER go to see episode 9! As far as I am concerned 7 and 8 are heresy and never to be mentioned again. I contemplate burning my copy of TFA so that I might completely forget they ever happened.
Disney had so much material available to them that they could have made some great sequels. I refuse to EVER see another movie written or directed by Rian Johnson. Disney has ruined this franchise after being handed everything they need to make great movies from George Lucas. Mark Hamil I am so sorry but you, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher deserved so much better. The best thing Disney can do now is apologize to us for the last two films and reboot episode 7!
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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Great kids action movie if you don't know anything about Wtar Wars.... Blasphemous rubbish if you do. A lot of easy choices made for shock value at the expense of the originals. Poor writing for easy payoffs. An absolute disgrace and disappointment in my opinion.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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It doesn't even feel like a Star Wars movie anymore. Terrible writing and directing. Story has so many plot holes it's ridiculous. The only positive is the acting is very good. Disney is destroying the best characters while imposing the agenda of girl power and equality. Don't get me wrong I'm all for both of those things but to be crammed down our throats at the expense of the greatest movie franchise ever is very sad. They ruin Luke. Leia all the sudden is a potent force user. And R2 and C3Po get about 10 mins on screen. No wonder Mark Hamill hates the direction but he's right as long as it makes money right kids. True SW fans will look at this as an abomination and new SW fans who know nothing of George's amazing story telling skills will like it. At least JJ followed the New Hope blueprint and it still felt like a SW movie. This is just utter trash with so many things wrong it leaves you shaking your head. Please bring back George so he can try to salvage this otherwise SW is doomed. I've never been more disappointed in all my life. Rien Johnson should be exiled from anything SW related forever for this garbage. Anyone who liked this movie please watch George's movies again and tell me TLJ feels like a SW movie. Franchise ruined.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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The only way to save Star Wars now is this: In the next episode, one of the characters from the original movie wakes up from a terrible nightmare. As it turns out, he/she was hit in the head in a bar fight, and while unconscious, had this shocking vision of what the galaxy could become in the hands of cynical, untalented, mediocre people who only care about money and a politically correct choice of actors. People who know absolutely nothing about stories, or even logic for that matter. This is not the end of Star Wars. This is NOT Star Wars.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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First I want to say that I wasn't one of the people that hated The Force Awakens. I thought it was a good opening act. It was good to start out with a bit of familiarity and I didn't have a problem with them copying from episode IV.
That being said, there is something incredibly wrong with this movie. The amount of things I could point out and criticize are pretty much innumerable. Whether it's the fact that Snoke's character turns out to be completely and utterly pointless... or whether the first order ends up being led by a brat.... or the resistance being a bunch of love-able care bears(I mean pretty much 90% of the lines that are uttered by members of the resistance has something to do with hope or optimism or the light).
Seriously I can go on and on, but I'm not. TBH I'm just incredibly pissed off and I don't understand how they could fuck it up this bad. I think a lot of Star Wars fans do indeed have overly high expectations... but with this they definitely aren't wrong.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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I cant say "The Last Jedi" is a bad movie, because is not, definetly not a 1 star or even a 8 star movie, I´m not surpriced for those high scores anymore, because its a Disney movie, and just for that they have an instant 7/10, for me a 6/10, but I have to contrarrest that score, because they are killing the substance and replacing it for quantity.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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What I watched wasn't Star Wars. It was a sloppy attempt to get rid of all the things people loved about the movies (not even doing it subtly, Luke throwing his saber, Yoda burning the tree, hell, you even put Kylo Ren voice your jealousy of the old films with his "let the past die" speech) and replace the characters we loved and have bonded with with shallow mockeries of them, mockeries that, no matter how talented, do not have the necessary depth for fans to relate with (a by-product of your hasty, non cohesive script, which was more focused on copying films 5 and 6 in a non linear way, so as to not "raise suspicions", as if we are that stupid not to notice) and adding non-stop juvenile jokes after every scene that had the faintest chance of actually being good (therefore ruining the feeling). I grew up watching Star Wars and I feel sorry for what it has become. I am always open-minded and positive about new additions to already beloved stories, but this time I have no qualms to admit that, from what I've watched so far, for me Star Wars has truly ended with Return of the Jedi. And I honestly believe that every person's imagination is capable of continuing the story of a galaxy far, far away in the most creative way, all it takes is some actual love for the story, love you obviously are not capable of feeling.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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The mainstream media really liked this movie.....wow.
No explanation given for how a kid picks up a lightsabre and wields it
like a Master Jedi or how she uses Jedi mind tricks.
Like me picking up a scalpel and doing open heart surgery.
Snoke - next to Rey - the biggest mystery from the Force Awakens. Incredibly powerful with the force -built as a super villain - but no backstory given how he came to be or who he was. At all. Nothing there.
Comedic punch line - the teenage boy ( Kylo Wren ) - who could not beat a girl who just picked up a lightsabre - kills Snoke.
Luke - does not want to train Rey and he wants the Jedi to end. And is serious as he goes to light the sacred texts ablaze. Only to be outdone by a Yoda who reappears as a force ghost - to brandish lightening, in the real world - to destroy all of the Jedi texts. ( presumably some of which Yoda dedicated his life to )
Luke then dies after making a hologram of himself on a different planet?
He dies on a rock from fatigue?
It is like a bad dream.....
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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I've never been disappointed like this in a Star Wars movie before. Even the prequels... sure, too much of that dialogue was poorly written, too much of the acting was poor, and then there was Jar Jar... but the story was still rich. The Last Jedi is somewhat the opposite of the prequels in that way. The Force Awakens was mostly great in a lot of ways, even tho it had some big flaws I was willing to overlook (like the oversized Death Star ripoff able to suck on a sun and spit out a single blast that impossibly spreads out to magically destroy multiple planetary targets, and some other stuff). But, this one now... Good Grief! Where do I start?
I want to split points out into positives and negatives, but too many of those points sorta fall into both categories; like the comedy. I laughed. It was funny. But, maybe a little too funny. I don't want to judge it too harshly for that. Then there's the too-obvious girl power angle thrust into the whole thing. I don't want to sound anti-girl by any means, because I'm not, but it's getting ridiculous. For Star Wars. And it's distracting. Traditionally, Star Wars was historically a boy's movie, generally speaking, and that was always a little sad for me because I always found it hard to relate to anybody who didn't love Star Wars (relationships have gone south over this), so I am somewhat glad the series has boosted the female appeal, especially since I have two daughters. But they're trying too hard. That purple haired lady couldn't die off nearly fast enough for me; way too much of her and her confusing useless distraction. I love the character of Rey (she's awesome). I like Rose. But, the character of Phasma, for example, is totally useless to the story. Just Disney trying to do what it does best: making more money by any means possible. And that last phrase could basically sum up what I think they're doing with Star Wars. Just enough fan service to keep the loyal old base (like me) coming back for more, and then a whole lot of other junk to get everybody else's money that George Lucas didn't capture previously.
Going into the show knowing Carrie Fisher (God bless her beautiful soul) is no longer with us, I kept looking for her end to come in the story. And it was equal to watching that first Southpark Christmas episode, waiting for Kenny to die, watching him approach several deadly situations that turned out to be nothing, and he lives past the end of the show. There were so many opportunities to work Leia's death into this movie, but she just keeps going on and still lives, character wise. What the heck are they gonna do now?
We still don't know who the heck Snoke is, or was. And that's kind of a vitally important question needing to be answered. I guess I can live with Rey's origins turning out worthless (assuming Ben spoke truly) but it's a pretty big let down, and it doesn't feel natural. I don't believe that was originally intended.
Then there's Luke. The last hope (for this trilogy). What he became was pretty weak for our greatest hero, and it just ain't right. And what the heck happened at the end? He really couldn't have been physically present for the big showdown? And now he's dead. He was the best part of the movie, even if they did cheapen his character... he was still the best thing this movie had going for it.
And now I have to ask myself: will I go and see the next one? or cut short my losses and just try to forget this movie ever happened. Chances are, I will have to see for myself how this ends, like it or not.
I just hope the professional critics are pleased with all the money they clearly got paid for their rave reviews to hype it up for Disney. And I hope even more that Disney will pay attention to all the real reviews by the real fans that matter and do their best to fix this tremendous mess up for the next one.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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3/10
2,5 hours of another remake for gags and for ruining a universe
Star Wars is a special place for me, where science fiction meets the era of knights, high-tech or mystical things meet the seriousness of the faith in something you cannot explain. After the disappointment caused by the prequel trilogy thousands of fans asked the filmmakers to make Episode VII more like Star Wars. Let it be dirty again, forget politics, don't be childish and ridiculous, let only some of the characters be funny, and respectfully let the Force be as it was in the original trilogy. I think that J.J.'s crew followed these instructions well and the fans liked the result. However, it brought some new warnings and requests to life (such as "don't copy the plot twists of earlier episodes, because you'll make Star Wars boring"), but I think this wasn't the moment when the makers of this episode were listening.
So, I think The Last Jedi told me nothing, but took 2,5 hours away of my life. The resemblances to the story line of The Empire Strikes Back, the many unnecessary and silly gags (made by much more serious characters), the way that ordinary things (like fueling a space ship, or the freezing cold of the space) is suddenly so unexpectedly important that these problems represent the main plot of the story, the fact that you won't learn anything new about the main antagonist (who supposed to be much-much bigger and stronger (even more important?) than any bad guy in the Star Wars universe before)... I couldn't keep up counting how many times I "facepalmed" myself during this movie. I liked only one character's evolution and decision to defend the rebel fleet from the certain death, it was unexpected and beautifully developed/visualized. But the rest...
I had big expectations and curiosity, and got nothing but boredom and frustration. The visual effects were nice. But for God's sake it's an episode of Star Wars... it's not just VFX.
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2/10
A true disappointment to the true fans of the saga
I've seen many movies, i've loved many and i've hated fewer.
But "The Last Jedi" is the first time i can say i am thoroughly disappointed by a movie.
While "The Force Awakens" set up an interesting (if questionable) continuation this aberration of a script is the ultimate piece of proof that once a franchise leaves the hands of it's creator, it's done for.
Yes, the movie is shot magnificently, the 3D effects are great, some shots are indeed Oscar worthy, but none of these achievements can salvage what Disney has done: it turned Star Wars into a cash cow.
The characters we all grew up loving are being assassinated, most egregiously of all Luke Skywalker, a true hero and a beacon of light, is portrayed as a broken man, a coward too afraid of a padawan when he himself stared down and redeemed Vader.
Leia coming back from the dead in an insult to both movie lovers and fans. Instead of immortalizing our princess in a death so iconic it could've entered in the history of cinema itself, a deus ex machina of the mightiest degree pulls her back.
The other characters don't get developed and keep falling into the same clichés.
The movie is TEDIOUS (yes i do have to capitalize it for emphasis), the pacing is atrocious and there is no sense of urgency at any point, even when the script attempts to create tension and urgency it falls flat on it's face.
The running time is padded by pointless sequences and Benicio Del Toro's character probably exists only to pay off some debt owed to him.
I could keep on writing indefinitely, but i honestly can't, Disney killed Star Wars.
This is not Star Wars, this is a Disney princess movie.
Nothing more than a beautifully shot HORRIBLE script.
This should have been called "The last Star Wars".
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After the movie I was like "WTF did I just watch". So much cringeworthy scenes, bad humour with Poe Starlord and awkward transitions. nothing is resolved, nothing is achieved. Stuff happens, but no progression. No new ideas. No nothing. An overall bad tedious experience without a cliffhanger like TFA oder TESB. Do I want to know more? Yes. Do I care? No. And is this the Death of the franchise? No. Star Wars is to big to fail over one bad movie, but it has cancer. And it grows.
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Cringey humor: Pointless
Adding hundreds of women for the sake of diversity: Pointless
The new female lead (Rose) that buddies-up with Finn: Why should we care about her?! Pointless.
Snoke being so evil and bad he just sits in a chair like an old age pensioner and then dies: Pointless.
Bringing back Luke Skywalker without giving him an epic lightsaber fight: Pointless (and wasted opportunity).
Leia using the force to magically fly through space back to safety: Pointless.
Luke Skywalker drinking green milk from the breast of a creature on the island: Pointless.
Robots ironing uniforms: Pointless.
Making the evil empire or whatever they are called these days into something so stupid that it defies logic: Pointless.
Awful writing and dialog: Pointless.
Multiple storylines leading to nowhere or nothing of importance: Pointless.
Making out that Rey's parents are a major plot and then it leads to nothing: Pointless.
Laura Dern's purple-haired character: Pointless.
Kylo Ren taking off his shirt: Pointless.
Captain Phasma's moribund departure: Pointless
The casino scene: Popintless
Adding cute characters just to sell merchandise: Pointless.
Having a main story line about spaceships not being able to move for the entire movie: Pointless.
Killing off Luke: Pointless.
"Oh, by the way, Admiral Ackbar died also": Pointless
Multiple anticlimatic storylines: Pointless
Rian Johnson: Pointless.
Disney: Pointless.
6 out of 9 found this helpful.
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Where do you start. Ok its bad. Its not fair to compare to the original 3 movies but this movie is so disappointing all by itself
Story line - what story line. The rebels ships get chased slowly down for 2 hours, while Luke hides on a planet drinking Elephant Seal milk straight from the teet. Leia blown into space but lives, Luke's death by...? still dont know what happened there, Snokes ability to read Kylos mind but forgets and gets killed by him, Rey's sexting / out of body communicay with Kylo touching hands and asking him to put a shirt on. The battle scenes where needless, didn't make sense with massive losses, The flash back scenes like a who done it tv series. Come on! Since when does Star Wars do flash backs!
Then there is the politically correct stuff.
The over representation of female generals and leadership, the Rose character boy or girl (?) the anti gambling scenes at the Casino, Anti big business statements, the animal liberation scene where they released the horses, the vegetarian scene with Chewie. (Yes I'm still talking about Star Wars 8)
The movie has no pace, no compass and it just feels like they through it together as they went. There is just nowhere to go from here but more blah.
Oh the worst scene has to be when Leia says to purple haired general "may the for.....oh I say it enough...you say it", "Ok may the force be with you, always" Yuk!
Disney! What have you done!
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Leia accurately summarizes the state of Disney film-making. While, as a big-budget mainstream picture, it's incapable of being offensive or terrible, The Last Jedi tries so hard to be appealing to so many audiences that it never gets around to being good.
There are deeply troubling problems with both the plot and characters of The Last Jedi. These are apparent right away, as Poe, the remake of Harrison Ford's rebel with a cause, begins the movie flatly delivering a series of bad jokes. I emphasize "bad". It's not that the jokes are cheesy; the original trilogy contained its fair share of that. It's the unbearable throwaway groaners that are the common stock of Marvel movies and are slowly infiltrating the rest of Disney's output in the name of pleasing the crowd. And it wouldn't even matter so much that the jokes were bad, if they had at least the redeeming feature of reflecting some aspect of Poe's character. They do not. Instead, these generic lines are split almost evenly among the cast, and even the film's most dramatic moments and serious characters are regularly stripped of their power through a misplaced gag.
And this tone-deafness of the film is just the beginning. Rian Johnson never quite manages to achieve a single coherent character arc in The Last Jedi. For sure, decisions are made, but they're never motivated, and we're left feeling as though our heroes end up where they do for no better reason than the plot's demands.
The plot itself is too full of holes to be called formulaic. Ships and their captains sit around doing nothing in the midst of battles, characters disappear from one place to reappear unexplained in another, and a solid third of the plot turns out to have no real bearing on the rest of the story. If this were Guardians of the Galaxy, one might be okay with this, since in Marvel films the narrative is merely the vehicle for the delivery of humor. But this (one would have hoped) is not a Marvel film.
It's not all bad. The movie is technically well made, with really excellent sound design and great additions to the canonical Star Wars score. Daisy Ridley shines, really reaching above the script she's given. The subplot featuring Ridley and Ren stands out as the one truly good part of the film, capped by an excellent set piece. And Laura Durn turns in a remarkable performance in support of a minor character.
Go see it; you were probably going to anyway. But prepare yourself. This is Disney's cash cow now, and they'll milk it for all it's worth.
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What is this film trying to do? I thought it was a hot mess. It had some great things in it (pretty much everything Rey and Luke; some of Kylo's stuff, some space fights) but a larger proportion of things (slapstick, poor cgi, nonsensical plotting, underwritten AND overwritten characters, overlong) that were truly woeful. If the criticism of TFA being too like ANH was equivalent to asking for central heating and getting a lovely antique wood burning fire fitted instead, TLJ is like the fitter listening to your concerns, then coming back and setting fire to the whole house. 4 out of 10. and thats generous!
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After the awful Episode VII, things could only get better. Barely.
I went in with low expectations and those weren't even met.
The Force Awakens set the bar very low for sequels to the original trilogy. The Last Jedi just squeaks above that low bar.
Heaps of characters and creatures you don't care about. They're there for no reason.
If you're looking for any background on Supreme Leader Joke...er...Snoke, forget it. All the hype around that character added up to absolutely nothing.
Leia's space "adventure" was ridiculous.
Luke is a wuss. What happens to him at the end makes no sense at all.
At least Daisy "mouth agape" Ridley is less annoying in this movie than she was in the first.
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1/10
Disney had no plan for its last wars trilogy.... they are just winging it as they go!
Look at the Marvel Cinematic Universen; the core narrative, seem to follow the same trajectory they started with in the first place. Everything was building to the great Showdown which is going to be Infinity Wars.
The first Star Wars trilogy you can watch it as if you were watching as 7-hour film with a consistant story line. ( No need to mention the Lord of the Ring) force awaken establish the theme and story and made some promises to be totally broken in the last year Jedi as if the maker of the movie are telling us forget the two years old movie completely we're building a new star wars buy taking a huge dump on the Force Awaking.
And since when are the critic or braising a movie with this much plot holes and and main characters how betrays their character traits, all the time. You don't give this higher rating to a mediocre movie at best.
After seeing this one on theater I felt that I dont want to see any nee Star movie ever again let the franchise dies.
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I'm writing this review just to make something clear: whether you are a SW fan or hardcore fan or not, whether you know the SW lore or not, this movie is a very mediocre movie that presents itself as a stand-alone crappy story with bad acting and bad scripting. The TLJ is a movie that sells itself as a sensation at first sight but then on next day makes you wonder what the heck you saw: A very hollow movie with a story that makes no sense and lacks of ambition. I fear that there is a formula at Hollywood to film the latest movies to attract the audience very similar to the one seen in The Expendables or Avengers: Age of Ultron, Justice League, etc, etc. One liner dialogues, stories that make no logical sense, not even in fiction, characters introduction to show some portion of a story that may or may not follow further, the killing of a hero character such as in Alien:Covenant between film, stupid humor sense that is not even adequate even for kids. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Luke's character story was a tragedy, and it makes look that the entire Skywalker family story is a complete tragedy and failure at the end. What a waste. The rest of the movie is just product to sell stuff upgraded for the current trend. I think these new SW movies have no soul. The story is just random pieces glued together, the dialogue and humor is not adequate for the SW universe. The awesomeness of Jedi/Sith lightsabers duels is no longer available in these new movies. Yes they touch new ground, I must agree on that, it is just that new ground is a very mediocre stuff with no good story, no character development and no art.
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I watched this movie twice before finally making up my thoughts. The more i think about this one the more i felt empty and angry at the same time. You can enjoy this movie if you're simply want to see some space ships fighting, some aliens, thrown in, random politcal correct messages without any connection to the splot, some Marvell humor and no story telling at all.
Of course there are quite a lot of bad movies out there, but nobody really cares about Transformers after watching the crap, right? This is different with Star Wars. This franchise connected so many people all over the world from all countries, ethnics, both male and female. What this movie does is to completely disconnect people and ruins almost everything Star Wars stands for. And in addition to this it also ruins it's legacy.
I am not a hard core fan, i did not read any books or comics, just saw the movies. I did not really like the prequels, but at least George Lucas tried to tell an original story, but failed in execution. Episode 7 was okay as a reboot and Rogue One was my hope, that Star Wars can grow up into a great adult space epic, since although the story of R1 wasn't that good, the tone was excellent and catched everything i hoped for. Also the characters were believable if you consider the short screentime they had.
In The Last Jedi it seems, that they tried to put everything into which needed to be in a commercial sci-fi kids movie, please some fans, include as much twists as possible just to the sake of surprise plus add the most obvious and cheap political correct statements possible. Yes, you can do that, but you need a really good plot, a vision and a perfect directing to match all these things together. And this is where you completely failed, Mr. Johnson.
This movie is a desaster in story telling, pacing, tone, character development and also disrespectful to the legacy of Star Wars. It's an insult to both Star Wars fans and good movie makers in general.
For me, this is the end of Star Wars. I wish this episode never happened and would be wiped out of the trilogies.
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1/10
Made a User after a lot of years on this site just so I can write this
So I went in expecting the reviews and the people on the internet to be wrong, after the first scene I felt a disturbance in the force, never have I seen such butchering of words, such childish acting by most of the actors and unbelievable merchandising or wh*ring with the franchise, that is supposed to bring younger kids "?? WTF
Also WTF is up with the plot holes I mean, my wife that has only seen 1 Star Wars movie knew most of the plot holes.
This is a disgrace.
Thank you Disney for ruining the world of cinema, fuck off.
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This movie, apart from major plot holes (a whole side mission to nowhere for no ultimate reason), some laughably bad scenes ("Leia Poppins"--you really don't ever want to scar your brain with that image), and deus ex machina contrivances everywhere (BB8 solves many problems instantly), has a serious problem with characterization. Rey has no backstory. (The movie takes pains to point out that she has no real story--weird.) Kylo is not intimidating, just a dithering weenie. Worst of all, Luke is no longer Luke. If you make the mistake of seeing this one, you'll find out what I mean. They absolutely trash Luke, the hero of the original trilogy. That's just mean. The movie is boring whenever it's not frustrating. Yeesh! All of this adds up to a movie that is actually WORSE THAN THE PREQUELS. Do not waste time, money, and your good faith seeing this at the theater. If you want to take the family out over the break, Jumanji (surprisingly) and Coco are both very good.
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I can say 2 positive things about the movie:
It is Star Wars and some details were original.
On the other hand:
Feminist political bullshit check
Idiotic multi-cultural sidekicks check
Ridiculous love story check
Attempt at being funny but ruining the mood check
Weird / bad plothooks and character decisions check
Zero character development check
Ruining Luke Skywalker check
Ruining pretty much everything about Star Wars check
2 out of 2 found this helpful.
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The plot was slow and terrible they spend most of the movie with Luke switching his mind of whether to train Rey or not and stuck with the rebel ship runaway from star destroyers to avoid dying. I mean it I swear it blinked and missed part of the movie. I honestly felt that after the resistance made it to the planet after escaping the star destroyers that the movie was suppose to be over. I also would like to point out some other issues which I will list below:
1. They sketched out every "dramatic moment" where a character is either about to die or is facing a problem (such as when Rey is talking to Kylo)
2. Rey's training wasn't much of training at all and in the darkside of the planet(the black hole) Rey did not confront her darkest fears, just a kongo line of Reys
3. Captain Phasma makes a return, only for about 5 minutes, so she was bait for people in the trailers (overhyped character)
4.A number of unanswered questions about Snoke, youtube theorist came up with many of theories such as who Snoke is, Disney didn't give any answers in the movie and killed him in his first real appearance which leads me to....
5. Snoke's death, I was kinda hoping for a fight and a more satifying death scene
6. Not a lot of action, the most of the good action (how little there was) took place at the beginning and end of the movie
I came here to see a Star Wars movie but to be honest I thought it was more like Star Trek. This movie does not deserve all the money it is making, just think Disney is taking more money from the movie theaters for this!
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And that is saying a lot. Because even Blade Runner 2049 was a long movie but it did not feel boring.
The movie has feel of being boring from the very beginning. They have also gone with sort of Gender equality (Many women in top decision making and executing function of the rebellion) but I think that degrades the movie even more because of the lack of action associated with it. The characters are heartless and soulless. You don't care about any single one of them (Not even Luke Skywalker) which is surprising because these are good actors. The most disappointing part of the movie was the action involved which is truly little to speak of despite it being a Star Wars film. I did not like The Force Awakens that much. But compared to the Last Jedi, Force Awakens is Cherry Pie.
It all boils does to the Story and the execution. It looks like a decent attempt tell something new but falls drastically short of good execution.
Totally disappointing (I liked the little Luke Skywalker twist towards the end though, and probably the best 10-15 mins of the movie). But overall you can give it a skip.
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As a star wars film, its horrible and riddled with plot holes. Obviously the staff aren't fans and don't know anything about the characters.
It was as if a horrible script was handed to a good director. It was visually pleasing and the crew was great but the story was appalling.
As a huge fan I don't even consider this canon. Every person I talked to was equally displeased. C- , I am so upset.
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George Lucas is truly a genius. After seeing The Last Jedi I will never again mock Lucas' vision for Star Wars. I will watch the prequel trilogy with a new appreciation. I won't roll my eyes at the lame humor, or laugh at the horrible acting, or mock the bad CGI and Jar Jar Binks (okay, I'll probably still do that). The Last Jedi has done what I believed to be impossible. It made me long for another George Lucas Star Wars movie. Right now I would give almost anything for his version of episodes 7,8, and 9. I can't help but think this was George Lucas' hope from the start. He somehow knew the only way to win back the fans (and make a quick buck) was to have someone else ruin Star Wars worse than he ever did. And that is exactly what happened. Now George will be remembered as the hero, and Disney will be remembered as the villain who gave us The Last Jedi, aka the worst Star Wars movie of the bunch (and there are some clunkers in that bunch).
On a more serious note, TLJ is truly a dreadful movie. It sucks out any of the magic that was left over from The Force Awakens, and left me feeling indifferent about Episode IX, which is something I never thought I could feel about a Star Wars movie. When the Force Awakens came out I did not enjoy it as much as other people seemed to, mainly because I hated the way the movie destroyed everything won in the original trilogy. No one else I talked to seemed to notice this because the movie WAS fun, and exciting, and it was Star Wars again dammit, who cares if (spoilers) Han Solo was killed by his own son, and Luke was off on some island doing nothing? Star Wars was back! Well, it's back again, but this time the movie lacks all of the fun, humor, and mystery of The Force Awakens and it is hard not to notice how atrocious this movie treats the Star Wars lore, mythology, and most especially Luke Skywalker's character.
Staying true to it's predecessor, TLJ continues destroying the original trilogy one scene at a time. Luke might as well be a new character, Chewie and R2 are in about four scenes total, the force is used in ways that are questionable at best, laughable at worst, and I'm left wishing Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill never agreed to be in these movies. But TLJ does not just ruin everything about the original trilogy, it also ruins everything good about The Force Awakens. Instead of building off of the foundation the first movie created, Rian Johnson (who is somehow getting his own Star Wars trilogy after this mess) decided to take a bulldozer to it. If you had any questions after watching TFA, you will probably be disappointed by something in TLJ. Legitimate plot points have been glossed over, or literally tossed aside as if Disney were mocking their own audience's anticipation. This is mostly done for the sake of shock value, and while there was at least one scene that was genuinely surprising, it just rings hollow because this movie gives us no reason to care about anything.
Where is the heart? The plot of the movie is nonexistent, and the "new trio" we all liked in TFA is split up for 90% of the film. Finn's character, who had such promise, is wasted in a pointless story-line and paired with an unnecessary character. Poe, who seems more and more one dimensional, is pitted against another unnecessary character (Are you seeing a pattern here?). Even Rey does little more than chase Luke around on an island for most of the movie. Rian Johnson seems much more interested in Kylo Ren than any of the heroes. He does his best to make Kylo sympathetic, but it's too little too late. The scenes between him and Rey come across more comedic than anything else, and in the end the story-line turns out to be just another wasted opportunity to explore something interesting. But you would think there must be something interesting in a 2.5 hour movie, right? Wrong. The movie could have been under an hour once all of the pointless scenes were cut. Why this movie was aloud to be so long is beyond me.
To sum this all up, I can no longer feel anything but fear when I think about all of the future Star Wars movies Disney is making, and I really wish George Lucas never sold his creation. In a heartbeat I would go back to the days when all we complained about was who shot first, and why the 'yub nub' ewok song was taken out and Hayden Christensen was put in. Most of all I want to go back to a time when The Last Jedi movie did not exist.
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There is no way this can be CANON, after all that garbage you Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm made us follow, about Phasma, Leia and specially LUKE, after all points setups in the preview movie... you just showed us, the fans, a huge middle finger to our face,
I will never pay a fu# penny for a CANON material after this garbage fulled of plot holes and inconsistent script about classical characters and also new characters!
I DON"T CARE about the fan-fic from the internet, I was just following the stuffs you sold to us and you manage to throw all the opportunity away!
This movie is splitting the fans because of your own bullshit decisions.
Where is the Loremaster for this? Have you never learned nothing from Marvel cinematic universe so far?
I just didn't gave you 1star because the image is gorgeous as the same for the soundtrack, but the STORY is pure garbage and I can't believe no one who earn millions of dollars there couldn't figure out a better story, I would fired everyone involved in the creation of this story.
THIS movie seems that was made by someone who NEVER watched Star Wars before, specially the Ep. IV, V and VI and couldn't play along with things established by the previews director's story... It is a totally waste of characters, lore and time. I can't believe Rian Johnson fu# up this movie so bad... I just hope JJ Abrams can manage to save this beautiful franchise after this GARBAGE.
2 out of 2 found this helpful.
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The only good scene that seemed to have some consistent thought behind it was the R2-D2 scene, that's about it. The rest, trash. Story was terrible, went nowhere, insulted anyone with have a brain. Want Rian and Disney to know I and every other Star Wars fan I've talked to is just sick over this movie. What were you thinking? Why did you hire this guy? Ugh.
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The virtues of this movie run a very short list. The cinematography and CG were spectacular - the space battle scenes and final scene on the red salt planes were excellent. Some ideas such as the ability of Rey and Kylo to communicate were interesting. The scenes with Snoke were really good up until his premature death. Luke/ Kylo Ren back story was good but could have been developed a bit more.
There were numerous plot elements that lead to nothing or were underdeveloped. Also things that didn't make sense/ were a Deus ex machina(thought this might be expected from a Star Wars movie).
(1) Leia being blown into space and inexplicably using the force to bring herself back on board the ship. If she wasn't going to die, why bother with this? She was out of action for a mere 30 minutes, so?
(2) The chrome storm trooper Captain Phasma. A character who sparked interest but dies after one scene.
(3) Supreme Leader Snoke, probably the most interesting character, dies without us learning anything about him. Where did he come from? How did he form the First Alliance?
(4) The character of Rose who added nothing to the plot and was apparently only there to fulfil a diversity quota. Ok, maybe she saved Finn from committing suicide.
(5) The let down from all the hype about Rey's parents and then learning they were 'nobodies'. Admittedly this could have just been a lie from Kylo Ren.
(6) General Hux was so extremely incompetent, I cannot believe he wasn't already executed.
(7) Kylo Wren was also pretty damn useless and seemingly only driven by spasmodic rage. Nothing calculating about him whatsoever.
(8) How the hell did the codebreaker learn about the transport ships?
(9) The extreme convenience of: the codebreaker to free Rose and Finn from their cell, the planet they pass with a nice rebel base on it, the ship to allow Finn and Rose to escape from the collapsing First Order ship (those these elements might be seen in another Star Wars movie, I suppose).
(10) Luke's ethereal appearance at the end, just for him to die anyway: why?
(11) Yoda, apparently a figment of Luke's imagination, is somehow able to conjure lightning. Also his insouciant attitude to the seemingly important ancient texts because, you know, Rey already knows everything.
(12) Rey playing the ultimate Mary Sue. I'm sure she could simply defeat the entire First Order by herself
The whole character of Luke was a huge let down. His complete lack of Giving a
Fuck was quite boring and his apparent fear of Mary Sue was laughable.
Apart from these facts (and more that I am currently forgetting), the plot was generally compelling. However, the thing that really prevented me from getting engrossed in this movie was the artificial, forced humour which sapped any semblance of seriousness from the characters' situation and made it clear they were just reading from a script. The very clear political message was also a little bit annoying at points, but I could have forgiven that. Overall I am quite disappointed with this movie that had quite a lot of potential.
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God...this was disappointing. After the release of the decent Episode 7, something bigger, better, was expected. This was supposed to explain everything that happened in Episode 7; develop characters, further the plot, etc. Instead, the complete opposite happened. Who approved this garbage? The plot was so amorphous and badly executed that it left me wondering if this movie was even necessary at all.
The new characters introduced like DJ and Rose were pointless and did pretty much nothing to further the already doomed plot. Older characters like Snoke and Captain Phasma, formidable in TFA, were weak, dull, and again, wasted. And of course, because he is so hell-bent on changing everything JJ Abrams established in TFW, the director killed the one interesting villain in this movie off in one scene so ridiculous it was painful to watch. Isn't Snoke supposed to be more powerful than anyone before him? He couldn't see or sense the saber moving towards him? Come on.
The only thing inciting some element of joy was Mark Hamill. Of course, Rian Johnson ruined his character too and killed him off after him doing next to nothing.
That being said, the pace of this movie was torturous and slow, and nothing actually happened. Don't waste your money on this.
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This is so bad I could actually cry. I review it as a 5 just because I don't wanna be a hater. But this is terrible. Not only is a terrible Episode for Star Wars, this is a terrible movie. This is wrong in so many levels. Childish. Predictable. The first half makes no sense. Then, you get some intereseting plot lines but overall this is a MESS.
I read an article saying some fans wanted this movie to be erased from the canon and I thought "Must be a few crying babies". Now I kinda get it. If Episode VII was insipid, Episode VIII finally destroyed everything. They didn't understand the original characters. The new ones aren't coherent at all. Some of them are completly unnecesary. Poe Dameron was the only memorable character from Episode VII and they also screw it on this film with that prepotent facet.
I got tired of the bad dialogues too. The film started with obvious explanatory quotes, then you got that petty conversation between Hux and Poe Dameron. Too many "funny" moments, too many creatures with no charm (except for the crystal dogs). Even the filming techniques were sloppy. This is Disney, not Star Wars.
All the people who defend this film tell "You can't handle something new". I don't understand what's new about this film. Again, it got so many elements from Episode IV, V and VI, and even from other classical films or sagas.
The only charm the movie has is actually the last seconds, with the kids being the hope of the rebelion. I've literally never been so pissed about a movie before. Thank you for destroying Star Wars.
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This was supposed to be the film that propelled the saga forward into a new direction??? What was wrong with honoring the direction and legends it started?! All this movie does is crucify a heroic character we all loved from childhood, and then leaves us completely unsatisfied with Rey's storyline. Are we honestly expected to believe "anyone" can be a Jedi?? Disney needs to stop controlling this ship! It's not supposed to be part of the "Disney Princess" history. What a shambles!!
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Good bye Star Wars. I grew up with you in the original trilogy of 77, 80 and 83 and loved you then. I cherish memories of that original trilogy. I suffered through every Star Wars film after that in the hopes that someone could 'capture the essence' of the original trilogy which was excellent story-telling and dangerous and heroic adventure among unlikely friends. In the Force Awakens. Rey, Poe, and Finn have chemistry but these characters need a worthy story-line.
The Last Jedi fails miserably in delivering an actual story and killed all my hope that Star Wars can be saved. The Resistance evading the First Order in space is not a sufficient plot. Little sub plots like trips to another planet to find the code-breaker completely fall flat. Rey's time on the island ... Luke Skywalker is a depressing mess, skulking about because he failed one pupil. Even Obi Wan Kenobi kept the faith despite Darth Vader.
No wonder Mark Hamill complained Skywalker's integrity was not upheld in Rian Johnson's depiction of his character. He actually said the Jedi should end? Come on now. That is sacrilege in this universe!
Although I had hopes for Rey, Poe and Finn in Force Awakens ... their dialogue didn't work in the Last Jedi. It was at times cheesy and elsewhere too simplistic. Really really disappointed. I drove home feeling sad .. which surprised me .. until I realized The Last Jedi is the last Star Wars I'll ever watch again.
Rian Johnson should not be writing/directing Star Wars, plain and simple.
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Force Awaken is way better and that's saying a lot. The way they wrote Luke Skywalker is completely wrong. He's completely different from the old movies. There are many other shitty things about this movie, but that pissed me off the most. The movie made no fucking sense either. LAZY and SLOPPY writing. And worst of all for a Star Wars movie, it was no fun. No joy in this movie, just explosion after explosion, death, betrayal, murder. If I saw this as a kid I would be so fucking sad and confused afterwards. They try to put in some humour but it's usually out of place and it doesn't help dispel how joyless this movie is. I'm a pretty patient moviegoer (big fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey), but this movie was a slog. I checked my watch multiple times. It's not that it was boring, I just didn't care, and there was never a break in the action. More explosions, more "drama", more betrayals. This movie was one huge run-on sentence.
What a disappointment! Don't waste your time and money on this garbage. I had hopes for the franchise, but after Rogue One and now this, I'm DONE.
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I genuinely thought i was hallucinating when Luke threw the light saber,a scene that retrospectively destroys any emotional impact in the final moments of the force awakens,final moments that will now forever just be the build up to an appalling joke.The humor,for want of a better word,is just incredibly un star wars like,and happens at the most inappropriate times.Humor is vital in any star wars movie,just not when its used in this way.While there are positives, such as cinematography,some good dialogue,action and performances(Hamill in particular),they are not enough to even come close to saving this movie,a movie that is borderline disrespectful to hardcore fans,and a movie that signals the end of me ever giving Disney another penny.
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1/10
Disney managed to ruin the best franchise in movie history!!!!
I don't even know where to start, because there were SO MANY things wrong with this movie, but let's start with the OBVIOUS... Carrie Fischer is DEAD, and these morons had a PERFECT chance to kill her off, BUT they decided to turn her into a Superwoman/Mary Poppins that can survive a HUGE explosion and fly through outer space... She is still alive at the end of the movie... Mark Hamill is ALIVE, but they turned into a whiny, scared emo, and then killed him off at the end because he got too exerted projecting himself across the universe ala Loki from the Thor movies... Rey is now the ULTIMATE warrior and even though she has NO TRAINING in the ways of the Force, is now more powerful than Luke??? Just another liberal attempt to portray women as being so powerful... Ren??? He's an emo Emperor in the end... These idiots used way too much comedy throughout the movie, and in stupid places where it didn't fit at all... This movie was a PATHETIC excuse for a SW movie and the director should be shot!!! They shoved sunshine up our areses for MONTHS about how good this movie was going to be, and then completely gave all SW fans the middle finger and destroyed what was the BEST franchise in movie history!!!!
I've been going to Star Wars since the first one in '77 when I was 9 years old... When they came back with Episode I, I started buying tickets for the Thurs premier, and then 2 days later... While I & II were soso. I went to Episode III five times in the theatre... Rogue One, even though it had all new characters, I thought was real good in joining Episodes III & IV PERFECTLY, so I went to it five times also... For this movie the ONLY reason I didn't get a refund for my Sat show was because my son came home from college and I wanted to go with him and see what he thought of it... He thought it was pretty bad too... So guess what??? I didn't spend one CENT on anything SW this year for Christmas, will not buy ANYTHING SW ever again, and sure as Hell will NOT be going to ANYMORE of these disney atrocities!!!! It doesn't even deserve 1 freaking star!!!!
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1/10
Not even worth torrenting while suffering from severe diarrhea
I've been a hard core fan of Starwars. They are one of my most favorite films.
I'm very excited to watch this latest installment only find disappointment. After watching the movie I got a feeling that Disney is killing old characters to give way to new characters.
But they do this really badly. There is really no connection to the original story and the morality of the original set of characters. This last jedi feels a lot disconnected to the original starwars.
Also, there is a lot of confusion going on. A lot of things still being left unanswered after watching this film.
I'm expecting more. But a bit of sad to watch this. I'm not going to watch future installments of Starwars on big screen. I would rather wait it to be available on Netflix.
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It is now a full week since I watched the film, and still I'm conflicted about its merits. On one level it was a good, standard movie - a little over-long, but entertaining. But at a deeper level it did not feel like a Star Wars film. There was an emptiness in the storytelling. It lacked the soul and heart that defined the original trilogy and, to a lesser extent, the prequels.
Having allowed my thoughts to settle during the past week, I rate The Last Jedi as a 2.5 out of 5. It is an adequate film, but somewhat lacking. My views on the positives and negatives of the film are below.
SPOILER ALERT: The remainder of this post discusses aspects of The Last Jedi, including plot and characters. If you intend to watch the film and don't want to know what is in it, read no further.
The positives:
The cinematography on the whole is well done and gives the movie a quality aesthetic; many of the sets and location shots are a joy to view and well framed.
Likewise, the space battles are more interesting than in some of the previous installments. The battle engagements are shorter, more focused, and the special effects are beyond fault.
The interaction between Luke and Rey is fascinating and insightful, up to a point - because there was plenty of scope for more to have been achieved here - in particular in relation to Luke's torment and why he had taken the path he did. Mark Hamill's acting is magnificent and one of the film's highlights.
And then there is Kylo Ren's uneven relationship with the dark side of the Force, so dynamically portrayed by Adam Driver that he overshadows Rey as the most interesting protagonist on the screen.
The developing story between Kylo and Rey is now clearly the signature theme for the trilogy, and it made for the most compelling on-screen interactions.
The throne room showdown was memorable (albeit, with the proviso below regarding Snoke).
Leia's no-nonsense final flourish that puts Poe in his place, twice.
A blisteringly brilliant standoff as Luke faces Kylo and The First Order's ground attack AT-ATs.
The negatives:
There's no real hero. Rey is surely meant to be the heroine of the piece, but she is unengaging and that is worrying two films into a trilogy. Her background and deeper motivations remain opaque. It is hard to really care for a character that you know so little about. The classic hero's journey is absent from Rey's character. All the interesting development stages have been left out. Also, she lacks emotional empathy, other than the edgy interplay with Kylo. It might be that this is all by design. We have one film left to find out.
As mentioned in the positive list Carrie Fisher's performance of Leia was fine, but there was potential for more. For example, when the communications operator reported that the call of help had been received at the outer rim but no one was responding, had it been shown, the sadness on Leia's face could have been a showstopper, particularly when immediately followed by Luke stepping out from the shadows. As for Leia's flying through space scene, the less said, the better. I'm fine with the concept - but what we got looked ridiculous.
The new charactors have not developed in any compelling ways. Finn looked the most promising, but his side adventure with Rose was underwhelming and a drag to the main narrative. Poe has yet to fulfill the potential he showed in The Force Awakens.
Chewbacca was a bit player. The meeting with Luke could have given something; that moment when Luke realised Han was no longer around. But the moment was squashed.
Luke's finale was uneven. There was the brilliance of his emergence from the smoke during the AT-AT standoff, but his ultimate departure missed a beat. Considering the film's nondescript ending, it was a shame it did not climax at, or around, that moment. If only the movie had flipped to the Millennium Falcon departing with the rebels and then back to Luke on the rock, the sunset, the empty cloak. End.
The bad guys. Are there any? General Hux is a shallow, ineffectual baddie who from the get-go is the fall-guy/punchbag for Snoke and Kylo. As for Snoke, so much potential thrown away with his highly anti-climatic demise. Who was he, where did he come from? Perhaps there's a bubblegum card that can help.
The film creaked under the sheer weight of its palette of characters. I had a hard job feeling connected or invested in the fate of most of them. The scripting left out the humanising elements.
Plot holes. So many, including a slow-motion space chase waiting for ships to run out of gas when it would appear simple enough to have a few star-cruisers head them off. And the casino subplot was weak and added little value to the main narrative.
Reflecting back two years to The Force Awakens, that was a fun and action-packed romp. Yes, it did retread past movies in the series, but it could be forgiven this as it was the scene setter for the new trilogy. The Last Jedi should have been the consolidating episode, but it failed to establish an emotional tether with the main protagonists.
The handling of Luke's character is questionable, and Mark Hamill has said so in blunt terms in interviews during the past two years. While I acknowledge the realigning of his character arc is a valid development (though not the only one), it cries out for some exposition. The Last Jedi missed that opportunity. I hope the next and final installment rounds things out.
Finally, I question the decision to not have the trilogy planned in some semi-structured way. I have read that director Rian Johnson scrapped an outdated draft of what Episode VIII might look like, and wrote his own version picking up from where JJ Abrams left the storyline and characters at the end of The Force Awakens. This "pass the parcel" approach to story sculpting must have some bearing on the disjointed feel of The Last Jedi.
And the film was longer than it needed to be. A sharper focus and editing would have made a big difference.
As I watched the quiet departure of the audience from the cinema at one of the early sold-out showings, to me it was a sign that this movie lacked the knockout stuff that many have come to expect from the Star Wars universe. As I mentioned earlier, I left the cinema not feeling that I'd witnessed a Star Wars film. It wasn't the same. There were too many diversions, too little depth, and too many unsatisfying gaps. It may be that Episode IX will deliver the answers that will cast The Last Jedi in a more favourable light. All now hangs on that 2019 release. Back to you Mr Abrams.
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Rian Johnson did what I never assumed that could be possible. He killed the legacy of Star Wars!
He murdered parts of my childhood with something nobody ever could consider as a good movie and for sure not to be a Star Wars movie.
With every valid dispute about the quality of the prequels at least these were Star Wars movies.
The last Jedi lacks with a real story, full of plot holes and ridiculous jokes all over the film.
When look appeared at the end with the rebels I was saying to myself, if they get this right to give him a badass heroes ending then I am willing to accept all the desaster story before... but my prayers were not heard.
This is not "the last jedi" this was "the last star wars movie" ... up to now I have no will to even think about watching episode IX.
The killed star wars, they stole parts of my childhood and killed a legathy from over 40 years. Just fu*** ubelievable!
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Second "Star Wars Holiday Special". Last jedi is a cartoon for small children. Colorfull parody of Empire Strikes Back. There is no plot, no storyline in "Last Jedi", there is no characters in "Last Jedi", there are yellow pokemons, pink hairs grandmothers, mongolian young girls and lot of others funny creatures and situations which make children and women laugh.
Its hard to say if this is the worst star wars movie since "Star Wars Holiday Special" (its very similiar in structure and idea of making star wars comedy for children), because "Phantom menace" & "Attack of clones" were also very bad movies. One thing which You can say for certain its that movies of star wars series are or very bad or average at least with only three exceptions New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of Jedi (of course in original theatrical versions, no special editons after 1997 !)
Lucas said : "Its well done" - Vader said: "Now his failure is complete"
Dont waste any more of Your money on disney-star wars-rubbish.
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I'm a fan of Star Wars ever since I saw the first one in theaters in 1977. I liked The Force Awakens, even though I had some serious questions about Rey's Force Abilities. After all, it takes years to train a Jedi. I think everyone assumed she had to be related to some famous force user to be that powerful. The Force Awakens lead us to believe that she was. NO, shes a nobody. I Call BS!
Snoke, is a powerful sith. NO, his apprentice cuts him in half like he's the trainee. I Call BS!
What this film does to the Character of Luke Skywalker is terrible. This film takes a big dump on Luke! Luke, who was so optimistic he would not give up on his father, saved his father from the Dark Side against all odds. Now we are to accept that Luke is some looser recluse who would actually consider murdering his nephew while he slept!!?? I Call BS!!!!!!
Princess Leia. Up to this point in the movies we've only ever seen the slightest indication of force abilities in Leia. She could sense things. Now, we see her cheat certain death. She displays a Force ability we have never seen the most powerful Jedi or Sith display. And it looked stupid! I call BS!!
Weaponizing Light Speed. We never need to have a space battle again! Just send out a droid in a ship and have it light speed jump into the enemy. Boom! Battle over! I call BS!!
We see the First Order chasing the Resistance for hours when all they needed to do was let a ship jump ahead and come at them from the other direction. I call Stupid BS!
Stupid comedy thrown in all over the place. There is actually a scene where a spaceship is coming in to land with mist spraying down. It turns out to be a Steam Iron coming down to press a uniform. WTF. Is this a parody I'm watching?? Utter BS!
This movie is a disaster. The only positive things I can say is the special effects looked really good and the sound track was good. The acting was good. Too bad the lines and story were crap!
I honestly feel like they have done irreparable damage to the Franchise.
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Disney trolls attack the day before release and on the first week with 10/10 ratings. Disney pays IMDB for promotion to troll us fans and then the fans/actual humans o watch the film and it is crap.
Rian Johnson = Jar Jar Abrams = Kathleen Kennedy = accounting department hos
Disney and Star Wars are like a Jew and pork they just don't mix.
With everything in these so-called Star Wars the opposite of the concept of Force and Jedi teachings and the films being Disney joke skids it is time to boycott forever. So so so sad
*just look at the top keywords for this or TFA and compare with other Star Wars
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1/10
If they to bury the saga, a little respevt could have helped
This is truly a very bad movie, which makes a strong effort - and suceeds - in destroying all the storyline of the previous Star Wars movies. It is still unclear to me how it was pssible to make a movie that intentionally disrespects every single one of the long term fan of the series.
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This movie was the dumbest I've seen in a while, it makes you question who take those big decisions. It's really strange to see that this movie is still rated at 7/10 on IMDB and have a high score on other websites despite seeing that every reviewers and persons I know are rating this movie way below 5, as they should. Disney should spend more money on writing and less on advertising, marketing and buying off influencers.
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It had the same premice of every SJW riot/"protest" white people are Nazi's and let the old star wars burn. It had 3 cameos of the star wars flicks in the movie and that's the only reason it got two stars. Disney destroyed it with non funny shit jokes and cute little birds that somehow became friends with uncharacteristic chewy, the whole movie was clunky with no real storyline, and at every pause of action (what little action there was) was a check your privilege white men moment. Luke... they ruined Luke to the point that it's not worth the time to explain the disappointment of his character. They even changed it from the empire to the first order! What! Lol it was huge "F you" to any fan of star wars.
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OK, after watching Star Wars for 20 years, playing video games, reading books, comics etc., well congratulations Disney, in just few years You ruined perfectly good franchise that entire army of writers, besides George Lucas, created for 40 years. I cannot figure out how some people could write perfectly good stories of old expanded universe, but You have an army of well paid writers, and all you can come up with is characters with no back story, no history, with names like I am watching Teletubbies or something. Main character doesn't even have last name.
About the story in this movie, well did someone over there even tried to write screenplay, even tried to use it's brain for just one minute to find out that there are so many plotholes, so many stupid decisions, I believe that 10 year olds can write better story, it would be little childish but more creative. For me old expanded universe is masterpiece in comparison to this cheap remake.
Good bye Disney, you should have should have stick with Mickey, Goofy and others, that is what you do best, as long as you keep making Star Wars, for me your version of Star Wars doesn't exist.
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1/10
As Usual, all the money went to Special Effects, not good writing.
It's a pity to waste good actors on re-runs. If I wanted to watch Empire Strikes Back, again...I'd watch the original. So disappointed in this offering. Much of the dialogue was
muddy...and the many characters making sacrifices had no story for them....(The Resistance General for one.)
The lovers' relationships weren't fleshed out, nor was Ray/Solo connection explained properly. It lacked any soul.
Guess you just cannot "go home" again. The well was very...very...very dry.
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Worst movie ever made. Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.Worst movie ever made.
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This is absolutly not a Star Wars saga episode. Disney is continuing to collapse the saga with this chaotic mix. Just as in the last episode, the writers, the actors, the director made a terrible wok. Marc Hamill was great but they made Luke's character as joke. Disney made their usual culture destroing work, i just waited when the characters will start to dancing and singing... This movie is bad joke what looks like Star Wars but its just another scifi. After you left the cinema you feel nothing special as you should, youl feel just nothing...
I give 5/10 as a movie and 1/10 as Star Wars!
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If this was a standalone movie, sure, it's ok (kind of, I guess). But it's not a standalone. It's part 8 of a 9 part series that started in the 70s, and this movie completely ruins the entire direction, mood, and style of the previous 7 films.
Not only does Rian Johnson direct it like he's never seen any of the other Star Wars movies before, he clearly gets lost in his own ego as he attempts to discredit and completely change all that's come before in an attempt to leave a personal stamp. Mark Hamill himself fundamentally disagreed to what Rian did to Luke, and Star Wars has now been completely altered. Not even JJ Abrams can salvage what's left after this movie ends with next to no plausible victorious outcomes for the protagonists.
From incredibly anticlimactic moments that had been built up for two years or more (multiple of these moments) to completely pointless and time-wasting subplots that literally have ZERO impact on the story, to new characters who are boring and forced, to ruining existing and established characters beyond recognition, Rian Johnson has put the franchise in a horrible situation that they will find hard to recover from, especially with only one movie left in the original saga.
The prequels, with their horrible script and bad acting, now look like Oscar winners in comparison. The prequels' plot was at least consistent, with a specific focus, direction, and mood. The Last Jedi ruins all that has come before and will leave you numb at the end of the movie, crestfallen and wishing we'd all stopped after Return of the Jedi.
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But there were misplaced jokes, weird and meaningless character interactions, and very little plot development. The plot they spent time building in the first of this series was essentially trashed using the new ideal of "out with the old". I don't disagree with the direction star wars is going, just with the execution of this film. Better dialogue, scenes with intention, and some damned seriousness would go a long ways for me in this series. You can have a serious film while still absorbing new generations of fans Disney.
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It has taken me a week of mulling things over for me to finally come to conclusion that TLJ is about as good as Revenge of the Sith. What was Rian Johnson thinking? The plot is all over the place with no cohesion to it. While TFA was criticized for being derivative of A New Hope, it felt like a Star Wars movie and JJ Abrams paid homage to the OT. I didn't like Rogue One at first but it grew on me as a stand alone feature in the Star Wars universe and it is way better than TLJ.
** SPOILERS **
One of the worst parts of TLJ IMO is the whole Maz Kanata/Code Breaker/Casino sequence. It is completely pointless and reminds me of a mash up between the Hunger Games and The Matrix: Reloaded Key Maker motorcycle chase. Its whole purpose being to make the movie longer while adding nothing to the plot at all. What's worse is it reminds me of the over use of CGI in the prequels which made them so bad.
Why were a bunch of new Force powers introduced with little to no back story? Leia may be the daughter of Anakin/Darth Vader but she has never used the Force in ANY appearance up until this one when she Mary Poppins her way back onto the ship. Long distance Force teleconference between Kylo and Rey and then Luke Force projecting himself across the Galaxy? This isn't a Marvel superhero movie yet it was treated as such.
There was inconsistent character development and traits. Poe just wound up turning into some macho blow everything up guy instead of being Leia's trusted Captain and Leia never would have kept Poe in the dark as to her plans. Johnson just seemed like he wanted to create drama for drama's sake like some insipid Soap Opera by creating tension between characters where there was none and it was not needed.
The Porgs or whatever the hell they're called only appeared so Disney could sell toys to children this Christmas.
The Lizard nuns on Luke's planet are yet another example of characters existing for no other reason that an attempt to provide cheap humor and seemed out of place, especially since Luke's whole purpose was to isolate himself from others.
Also, you can't have a good Star Wars movie without the involvement of Droids in a big way. Here, BB 8 and R2-D2 were more like footnotes that just had to be put somewhere rather than integral characters. And BB-9E didn't even have to appear at all since it essentially did nothing except look suspiciously at a moving box.
I have watched the OT, TFA and Rogue One numerous times and will continue to. However, TLJ I can only see myself watching it a 2nd time when it comes out on DVD/Netflix and then never watching it again since it just doesn't feel like it belongs in the Star Wars universe (just like the prequels).
The best thing about TFA was that it wiped the stench of the prequels off the Star Wars universe. TLJ brings that stench back.
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Forget even bothering trying to deeply analysis the film, it is absolute garbage no need to dig any further. The story and script are completely to blame, disregard the music, directing, acting, or anything else important. There is no way to make a good movie with such an utter dog shit story and script. I have never written a script or a story but give me 2-3 months and I guarantee you I could come up with something better than these morons did. They give you zero reason to like or care about any of the characters outside of the label "Star wars" being slapped on the movie so it could sell. All the villains weren't scary at all. Snoke has no backstory, no real reason people should fear him and then he just gets killed within seconds to just prove he was not much of a threat to start with. Kylo Ren is a mess who loses to someone with no training on the first time they pick up a lightsaber...are we suppose to be concerned about this guy? Like seriously how can you even consider him as a threat he is pathetic. Then comes general Hux which is guess is the best of them because he does destroy some stuff, but his dialogue just makes him look like a clown too. Also Snoke repeating untapped potential is annoying as hell and makes the phrase meaningless specially since both of the people referenced have done nothing to deserve it. Huge budget for crap story, build movies around good stories not just name brands. They could have completely abandoned the original cast and just brought something completely new in the same setting and it would have been way better. They are trying too hard to makes sales on nostalgia instead of an interesting story and setting like the original.
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1/10
Disney killed the Star Wars franchise. Disney vomited The Last Jedi. I rate this move with 1 star, because I cant choose less than that.
Mark Hamill was right. It doesnt matter if it is a good movie, as long as it makes money. That is what Disney has done with this movie. He told Rian Johnson he was against every decision he made, and so am I. This movie is against all that Jedi's stand for.
Not only it is a bad movie, but also it has killed the franchise. To me, this wasnt Star Wars. That ended with the 3 prequels.
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This needs to end... Intellectually exhausted and lacking thrills, 'Last Jedi' will make tons of money yet is more proof this franchise has been pimped out to the point of embarrassment. I didn't care about any of characters nor the outcome... I simply wanted the movie to end. No one clapped at the end and the conversations I overheard from audience members were of disappointment. This movie is "The Empire Strikes Back" without the thrills and excitement.
Disney will keep rehashing this tired franchise until movie goers finally signal they will no longer attend a movie out of love for nostalgia. I have nothing to say to recommend this movie other than if you need a reason to waste some money and time out of the house this can be your excuse.
Some of the things in this movie are simply cheap looking and headshaking... It looks as if some of the characters are rejected Muppets and special effects from 1978.
I only went to this one due to an EMAX theater opening... EMAX is amazing, the movie is not.
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The entire culture of screen watchers has upgraded. What most Star Wars fans seek is an all inclusive world that is open to endless possibilities. They find this now in shows such as Game of Thrones. The ambience and nostalgia was passable in episode 7 because it had a good director who understands that what people are after are characterisations. If they want battles they'll play video games.
By following a formula not only are you just repeating what we have already seen, the producers are in fact going backwards. This is a producers movie. Making sure all the boxes are ticked to sell products.
And the script is terrible, the constant ham acting is atrocious. Also the director seems to be taking the piss out of star wars itself!
When I went to see it day after it opened, no one laughed at the awful attempts at jah jah binks like humour.
There is literally not a single new element in this film.
At least some of the terrible films in movie making history attempted to be bold. This is so bland, so unoriginal that it's worse than being rubbish.
2 stars because some of the costume makers, actors and artists involved seem to care, unlike the producers who are CLEARLY only in it for the money.
Even the children at 8 years old had 'seen it all before'
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Twenty questions from The Force Awakens that Last Jedi totally ignores. If you're going to make a sequel, shouldn't you continue the story your predecessor began? This is why The Last Jedi sucks so much: 1. Who was the old man at the beginning of TFA? How did he have a map to Luke? 2. Why was there a map to Luke? Who made it? Doesn't its existence mean Luke wanted to be found? 3. How does Rey know how to fly a spaceship like the Falcon better than professionally-trained Stormtrooper pilots? 4. Wasn't it too coincidental that Han was flying in the very orbit of the planet where the Falcon was being kept? Was he in fact keeping an eye on Rey from afar? Why would he ask a stranger to be his co-pilot after just meeting her? 5. How does Rey know the Wookie language? 6. Why did Snoke emphasize that BB8 was hiding with "a girl?" Why did Kylo react the way he did by saying "What Girl?" Doesn't that imply they know of her and her powers already? 7. Why does Finn defect after being trained his whole life as a Stormtrooper? Is he Force-sensitive? 8. Where did Snoke come from? How do Luke, Leia, and Han know him? Why did they let him influence Ben Solo? How could he influence Ben to turn against his own parents and family? If Han and Leia knew Snoke was manipulating Ben, why did Luke only learn of his evil mind that one night and try to murder him? 9. Where did this First Order come from? Why is the galaxy welcoming another authoritarian dictatorship after clearly celebrating the birth of a new democracy at the end of RotJ? 10. Why did Leia's Resistance have to be so small and on the down-low? Why couldn't they openly declare themselves an army of the New Republic fighting the potential rise of a new evil empire? 11. What happened to the Knights of Ren? Weren't they supposed to help overthrow Luke? 12. Why did Captain Phasma give up so easily at the first hint of danger? 13. How does Rey know the Jedi mind trick? 14. What is Kylo's obsession with Darth Vader? Why would he admire Vader when he knows from his own parents and uncle that Anakin Skywalker turned back to the light? What about Vader is he trying to emulate? 15. How did Maz get Luke's original lightsaber? 16. What's up with the scene where Maz asks Han, "So who's the girl?" and Han looks her in the eye and the scene cuts away. Further implication that he knows something secret about Rey. 16. If Rey is just a nobody, then why would Luke's lightsaber "call" to her? Why does Rey have the vision when she touches the lightsaber? Why is Obi Wan's voice a part of that vision? 17. Why does Leia act like she knows Rey when they first meet? A general hugging a perfect stranger? Weird. 18. Why does C3PO have the red arm that he's so self-conscious about? 19. Why does R2D2 awaken the moment Rey is in his presence? 20. Why did Luke run away? Help me if I've missed anything. God this movie sucks as a sequel. But, hey, it had good cinematography, right? (vomit)
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1/10
When darkness rises...The worst film in the saga comes to meet it!
First off I would like to say I really enjoyed the safe but cool (TFA) I was so hyped to see where Rian Johnson would take what JJ started.
And as little as 5 mins into this move I could tell it was going to be a mess..50% of the scenes in this move don't feel like Star Wars at all....the other 50% was just huge errors that I do not agree with at all....The flying Leia scene set the tone for what was going to be a disaster movie.
Horrendous choices for Luke were the final nail in this films coffin...never have I been so depressed while watching a movie,let alone a SW movie!
This will be the first film I have been alive for tht I will not have a repeat viewing...and also the first I will not buy the blu ray for...
My one Christmas wish would be for Episode 8 to be re-made and the true hardcore fans given the movie we deserve.....and Luke/Mark Hamill given the movie he also deserves...
I disagree with so much of this movie it would take me hours to go through it scene by scene....But Snoke was just wasted in my opinion....Knights of Ren wasted again (nowhere to be seen) Phasma also wasted....I could go on and on...Not to mention the fake romance just thrown in the movie for good measure with no weight...chemistry...or reasoning behind it...
I felt part of my soul slide away during this movie so my final rating 1/10
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1) Rian Johnson is clearly a better director than JJ Abrams and as a result the movie's flow and pace were much closer to what a Star Wars film should be.
2) A few genuinely good dramatic moments in the third act.
3) Of the OT stars, Mark Hamill aged the best and puts in a solid performance.
4) Not all of the humor is cringey. The movie did get a few chuckles out of me.
5) The light saber battle in the throne room was the first competent light saber action in Disney's Star Wars.
6) The Porgs were fun and cute. Surprisingly, I didn't hate them.
Cons:
1) Although Star Wars continues to improve on a technical level, the genesis of its plot and themes continues to be an abysmal mess.
2) Rey goes to get trained by Luke and, unsurprisingly, there's barely any training. What's the point? We already know she can do anything and anything she can't do now, she'll figure out in the moment she needs it.
3) Ham-fisted political themes are ham-fisted. (Funny how Revenge of the Sith took flack for this but The Last Jedi isn't.)
4) Most of the jokes in the movie are eye rollers. They were the kind of jokes I'd expect in comic book movies or a CW show, but certainly not in Star Wars. The audience seemed to eat it up, but it won't age well. Even if you liked the jokes, they don't match the tone of the movie at all. The Resistance is on death's door and Luke has been reinvented as a cynical, defeated hermit who no longer believes in the Jedi, but the movie can't go five minutes without someone cracking a joke!
5) What happened to Leia in a certain dramatic scene in space was more cringey than every misstep in the prequels combined.
6) The Snoke storyline was a joke. We know nothing about him, he becomes a Bond villain for 5 minutes, then he dies like a punk.
7) In the absolute worst use of Yoda ever, he shows up in ghost form, burns the old Jedi temple and tells Luke "Don't worry about Rey, she's got this." This is not at all a hypocritical departure from his insistence to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back of the dire importance of completing one's training before facing a Sith master.
8) Rose goes from "you're a traitor Finn" to "I love you" in 90 minutes, without even being on screen together that much. Talk about rushed, cliche romances.
9) Finn is now the dumbest character in Star Wars history. Jar Jar Binks has more character integrity than Finn. In TFA he went from "Not going back to Jakku!" to being trusted to complete Poe's mission because... ???, to wanting to leave the Resistance (again) that he never really joined, to sticking it out and fighting because he likes Rey and Poe, two people that he's only just met. That Rey, Poe, Han or anyone else trusts him when he keeps showing he can't be trusted is completely ludicrous. Similarly, in The Last Jedi he attempts to bug out on the Resistance at the first opportunity, then moments later concocts a plan to help save the Resistance (which fails) and that's the limit of his relevance. It basically amounts to the fact that you could cut Finn and Rose out of the entire movie and it would not make a single bit of difference to the plot.
10) Hoth 2.0 only with salt instead of ice (more copy catting.)
11) The force is evidently no longer a spiritual discipline that people train long and hard in order to master certain useful skills. It's now just magic that works because (reasons) and allows lazy writers to do whatever they want even if it doesn't make a lick of sense. This is true of not only the aforementioned Leia incident, but how Snoke links Rey and Kylo and what Luke does in the finale.
12) The parade of dumb titles continues. "The Force Awakens" made no sense because by definition the force is an energy field that can't go to sleep and to the extent it did "awaken" in one character, it was done in such a vague way that the title isn't pointing to anything tangible. "The Last Jedi" also makes no sense because it's specifically pointed out in the finale of the movie that Luke Skywalker will NOT be the last Jedi and given Rey's stance on the need for Jedi, there's no reason for us to assume that she will be the last either. Maybe start giving your titles some thought? Make SOME attempt to give them meaning? Oh, who am I kidding... it's 2017 and Disney is making Star Wars movies by committee.
13) Luke never gave up on his father even though Darth Vader was more manifestly evil and way more intimidating than a dozen Kylo Rens, but we're supposed to believe he gave up on his nephew that easily? What they did to Luke's character in this movie is a travesty.
14) So by the end of the movie we have a bunch of dead major characters: Luke (who apparently died from using the force too hard? lol), Admiral Ackbar, Commander Purple Hair, Snoke and Captain Phasma. The one major character who probably should've been killed off (Leia) wasn't. But in terms of the plot, what has changed? The Resistance is a lot smaller, their fleet was decimated and they no longer have a base. The Empire is still the Empire, but as a faction they literally only have two major characters left: Kylo and Hux. When the call went out, the Resistance got no support, so what are they going to rebuild with? What is all of this nonsense supposed to set up for the next movie?!? I don't envy the writer of episode nine.
The thing is, I liked The Last Jedi marginally more than The Force Awakens, but I can't give it a higher score because it has so many problems. I felt I was being somewhat generous in giving The Force Awakens a 5/10, but it feels like the perfect score for this film. The Last Jedi gets many of the forms right, but the substance of Star Wars is nowhere to be found.
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5/10
When a Jedi makes a long distance phone call he runs out of minutes?
Inside joke, that will be really funny to you after viewing the film. Or you'll hate me for it, and all the many things they did wrong with Star Wars. For starters the film still fails to establish Kylo Ren as a monumental threat, his character simply seems to devolve throughout the film, and further shows what a whiny child he is. Mark Hamill's acting is awesome as expected, but the writing for his character leaves a lot to be wanted, especially towards the end. Ray remains unlikable although her acting seems to have improved a lot from the 7th entry (Open eyes wide... all the time... Now this is acting!). I struggled to like any of the characters throughout the film, and any scenes with significant impact were greatly soiled by all the misplaced humor throughout the film. When the film ended I walked out in awe at what the film could have been, and what a great missed opportunity it was. The film could be worse sure, but it fails to be a decent Star Wars film, and with the sub-par writing it failed to even feed into my nostalgia, even with all the starpower of Mark Hammil throughout the film, it failed to do much with his character, and was overall a major disservice to its large and dedicated fanbase.
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8/10
Johnson's fresh touch and Hamill's magnificent performance make for a film which is thrilling, clever, funny and heartbreaking at its best moments
I attended an advanced press screening of the movie a few hours ago. It won me over! And bear in mind that I hated "The Force Awakens" (honestly thought it was a Episode IV rip-off). Here, director Rian Johnson doesn't play it safe, and it pays off. If I must point out a certain highlight, it's without a doubt Mark Hamill's performance. I really admired his ability to convincingly convey so many different emotions throughout the film; hats off to this guy. I'll be rooting for him in the future.
After I had seen "The Force Awakens", I figured out I would never like a new Star Wars movie again. Boy, was I wrong. I loved "The Last Jedi"! This film had clever humour (there was a certain hilarious moment between General Hux and Kylo Ren that I couldn't stop laughing at; you'll totally know when you see the film yourselves), good cinematography and great characters (just see how developed Benicio Del Toro's minor character is) that I could care about. It also had a very good plot for the most part, with many unpredictable and surprising elements. The action was good, and the fighting scenes even better (great choreography).
Although the ideas weren't always original, the experience felt real. Therefore, I often struggled to control my emotions. It was the ideal farewell to Carrie Fisher.
I mean, what more could I ask for?
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Just seen "The last Jedi" it should have been called the THE LAST STAR WARS EVER... I'm a fan of all the previous franchise movies and this made me question if the writer or the director the ever watched the prequels? Sadly this was a epic disappointment.
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7/10
Can we pretend this film never happened and try again?
It's basically like someone took Star Wars, really watered it down, then added some Marry Poppins, Las Vegas, Avenger 'humor', oh and then then turned the force into magic.
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First of all, let me alleviate the concern that this film is a rehash of Empire Strikes Back by affirming that it is indeed not. The Last Jedi is by far the most original, surprising and exhilarating Star Wars film since the Disney-Lucasfilm acquisition in 2012. It's also a high point in the Star Wars saga, and I have no doubt it will be remembered as one of the most consequential chapters in the Star Wars mythos in the years to come.
Which is why, I must implore audiences to please please please for the love of God, avoid spoilers at all costs. If you're a fan, and if you're reading this before going in, then I can assure you that spoilers will most definitely affect your movie-going experience, as there is quite obviously a lot that happens in this film that has so effectively been kept under wraps for the same reason.
The Last Jedi could not have been what it is without Rian Johnson. It's very clear he's a massive fan of Star Wars, and this film is honestly more like an impassioned labor of love. His writing, the way he's directed this film, it all shines as some of the best I've seen this year. This is also a beautiful, beautiful looking film with what is quite possibly the best cinematography and visuals of any Star Wars film ever made.
It's also incredibly well acted- Mark Hamill absolutely kills it. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver also perform their roles as Rey and Kylo Ren perfectly. The rest of the cast is sound, and Carrie Fisher in her final role is every bit the Leia we've come to know and love, and then some.
The score by John Williams is wholesome. There's really no other way for me to describe it. A wonderful mix of brand-new as well as familiar motifs and themes. Despite the great score and visuals, however, The Last Jedi manages to make your jaw drop several times with some of the most surprising moments in the saga thus far- there's a line that Luke Skywalker says in the film, that is the title of this review and is most definitely applicable to this film: "This is not going to go the way you think." And that it is not, Rian Johnson has assured that with this story that's continually unexpected, a story that indeed changes the way you look at these films, which is precisely what it shares in common with The Empire Strikes Back, and that's every bit a good thing.
I am incredibly lucky to have watched this movie premiere, but I truly think it's a lucky time for Star Wars fans all over. Watch this as soon as you can and try your best not to be spoiled. Of course, if you're a fan, you won't need convincing.
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Go watch it if you're a fan of Star Wars! Judging from the overall reaction of everyone, you will either love it or hate it, but either way go and judge for yourself!
Personally, I loved it and feel it's the best one so far. What they did with the story and how different it is from any other Star Wars Universe plot is EXACTLY what I have been wanting for forever now. As someone who is as obsessed as every other fan boy and girl, I personally feel this new direction and overall feel is exactly what was needed. What they did with the original trilogy characters I felt made them more realistic and relatable, and no longer the larger-than-life legends they have been, and I appreciate that. It has me super hyped for the new trilogy directed by Johnson!
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Director: Rian Johnson
Release Date: December 15th, 2017 (US)
Runtime: 2hrs 32mins
Pros:
Pure Star Wars experience -
Best to watch this expecting nothing -
Feels like an epic -
Many shocking surprises -
Countless jaw-dropping moments -
Fantastic editing -
Looks gorgeous -
John Williams' music -
Brilliant acting -
Rey and Kylo's continuing character development -
Mark Hamill's phenomenal return -
Carrie Fisher's heart-breaking final performance -
BB-8's continuation of awesomeness -
Adorable and hilarious Porgs -
One of the best action sequences -
Outstanding visuals -
Top-notch spectacle -
Rian Johnson's direction and screenplay effect to the story -
Humour still holds up -
Cons:
One character needs more development
Short thoughts:
Star Wars: The Last Jedi takes a bold and risky direction in the new era of the galaxy far, far away leaving me with no idea what will happen next in Episode IX. At the same time though, it brings more memorable highlights, fantastic looks and continuing to grow characters old and new. It was a jaw-dropping experience.
TVChannels98 Rating: 9.5/10
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2/10
Proof again no 1 man should have so much of the SW storytelling weight - not even Lucas
Fan since '77, and I really wanted E8 to be great, maybe the best one yet, but I had to fight my fan bias and see it honestly, which was a pain. Unlike E7, it felt more akin to the prequels than to the original trilogy.
Without spoiling it, great effects, action, music, set pieces, creatures, but I'm looking more at storytelling credibility, arc, beats, and escapism vs. sociopolitical commentary. There were a lot of things in there that just took me out of the moment and demanded too much to be believable.
Many of the twists and surprises didn't feel like credible fantasy but just flying by the seat of his pants and half baked. Rey's origin? Snoke's backstory? The tipped hat to the older generation felt obligatory and somewhat forced, and was not as moving nor affecting, because it wasn't believable. And Canto Bight kinda bites - detour into a different cinematic universe; that and other moments did not really feel like SWU. With spoilers, a lot more could be said, e.g. inserting "pageturners" into the lexicon - like that character was about to whip out a cup of Starbucks and copy of the NYTimes.
If I turn off my brain and just go for an action ride, 9 stars. But there were just too many conveniences, too much luck shoved at us, too much fuzzy logic, too many pauses to have a deep moment while the world's burning down around them, and to me the social commentary was too thinly veiled - again, felt more like a prequel than OT. A key ethos of the SWU is classical escapism with the commentary more buried. This bordered on partisan political puff. Rian please.
Great production values, but please bring back someone like Larry for the script. Rian pretty much tied off or trashed the threads he and JJ opened in E7, which IMHO, even if it was highly derivative of E4's story beats, was still a comparatively better told story overall.
I'm surprised Kathy's giving Rian a whole other trilogy. Looper was a better film. If so, I vote to make it 'anthology' rather than 'canon.' E8 was a wasted opportunity on multiple levels.
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1/10
"Wait a minute... this isn't my world... DISAPPOINTED!!" -Hercules
I usually never write review but this movie is hurt me physically and mentally, so i feel i just have to.. Im not going deep because many professional reviewer did before me, i just wanna throw my voice somewhere for the hope of change...
The story and the scripts are so stupid, i just dont understand how this is being allowed. I feel the whole movie created just because to sell more retard porg toy for the kids... a two and a half commercial basically.. and i dont wanna be that "salty" guy but the people who say this is the best star wars movie of all time are blind or paid. OFC the visuals on the top, cool, YAY!... But its so empty... just empty..
Overall 2/10 just because Mark Hamill.. He is awesome.
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3/10
Not bad as a stand aline film, terrible as Star Wars.
I am a life long Star Wars fan, from having the toys as a kid to the wallpaper that covers my dining room now (no joke) I love it, so it pains me to say I have just left the cinema rather dissapointed.
SPOILERS FROM HERE!
From the start it's wrong, The New Order are made to look like daft prats thanks to an attempt at family friendly awkward humour and this humour is a theme that occurs a lot through the movie - when did this become a Star Wars thing?! The more I sit and reflect to write this review the more I am angry with what I have just watched, visually it's brilliant but a lot of key charecters died and I don't feel I know any more about this new part of the franchise than I did by the end of TFA (quite a sad achievement for a 2hr 30min movie), there's a lot of action but what was it all for?! Why are Rey's parents suddenly nobodies? Who was Snoke? Why did Luke just fade away suddenly? Why did BB8 sticking his whole head in that electric circuit achieve anything?! What was the point in Phasma?! Why did Rey go through that whole mirror scene to not schieve anything?! Why was this movie so bad?!
I feel like the new director had an open goal and was passed theball but dropped it. I may even need to redecorate my dining room.
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8/10
"This is not going to go the way you think". Damn true Luke!
THE GOOD
Well that was most certainly a shock! After the phenomenal Force Awakens, The Last Jedi had a lot to live up to, and it most certainly delivered the hype in terms of story, characters and twists. It gave us some excellent development on the existing characters like Finn, Kylo, Leia and Luke, as well as giving a great new character in the form of Rose. The acting is excellent throughout, particularly from the veteran cast members. Looking back, Daisy Ridley as Rey was one of the weaker actors in The Force Awakens, but absolutely bring her A-game in the new film, running the whole range of emotions to incredible effect. As excited as I am for JJ to come back for IX, after this film Rian Johnson deserves to make this new trilogy he's announced.
The big worry about this film was the same as the last, being that it was looking too much like other films in the original trilogy which I'm happy to say it most certainly isn't, it's created it's own tight, self-contained story which could quite easily have been the finale. But being the midpoint it leaves a lot of threads open to be resolved in the next film. Without spoiling anything there are three major twists, one of which is going to either excite fans or majorly annoy them. I for one am excited to see the ramifications of that particular twist in Episode IX. It's really difficult for me not to give spoilers, but one minor thing without saying too much is a familiar face comes back and it's one I was really happy to see when things were going downhill for one of the leads. A lovely little surprise!
There are a lot of action set-pieces in the film and most of them deliver in terms of excitement, special effects and even some humour. When it came to the quieter moments, talking about the lore of the Force, Rey wanting to find out who she is and the connection between her and another character, the staging and effects reflect that fantastically, bringing a scene very reminiscent of the Mirror of Erised from the film Harry Potter.
One of the controversies of the films was Mark Hamill's reaction to where Luke Skywalker, as a character was going, with him disagreeing on a moral level. It's easy to see why he would think that given how the film plays out but given what the character went through with Kylo Ren, I understand the arc Luke goes through and leads to a wonderful climax involving him, harking back to a scene in the very first film.
THE BAD
Porgs....so many porgs...
Only joking, I didn't mind the porgs, but there were some moments of humour that really didn't need to happen, including the odd line between Kylo Ren and Rey.
A couple of characters who were hyped really don't get their time to shine, one from the previous film and one introduced here. They're not bad but definitely deserved more. It's probably the main problem with the film in that there are so many characters we have to care about and some of them get neglected, particularly in the storyline involving the Resistance on the run from the First Order, which runs far too slow for my liking and is made that way in favour of the thread involving Finn and Rose.
There's also a scene with Leia that I'm still not sure what to make of, it's a bit of a weird one.
THE VERDICT
For this generation's Star Wars it is definitely the most shocking film so far, and an absolutely incredible sequel to the Force Awakens. Do I prefer this film to VII? Not quite, but it's incredibly close. A fantastic film, and a wonderful send off to the late, great Carrie Fisher. We'll miss you Princess.
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Fantastic, not giving it a 5/5 just because one story line that goes too long for my taste.
The film gave me something i wasn't expecting: the feeling of surprise.
As a long time die hard fan of the saga who saw Star Wars in theaters in 1977 5 times, i just love the emotion and the feeling of uncertainty this chapter brings to the saga.
4.5/10
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Horrendoues movie that is just a bit better than the abysmall TFA. Useless villains. no plot, no logic, no light saber duels, stupid gags that feel completely out of place, all actions defying the logic and rules of the world established in the previous 2 trilogies.
The initial space battle is good, the final battle - even though calling it a battle is an overstatement - is beautiflly shot, and we have 2 good supporting characters - the rest are completely wasted.
The movie completed the butchering of the great Lucas saga that started with TFA. We have a great Skywalker story, a good spin-off (Rogue One), great TV animated series - but we do not need more of this junk.
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With each release of a new episode of the Star Wars saga, the problem is the same: should we judge the film for what it is or should we consider it the gear of complete saga?
The advantage of Star Wars 8 is that the answer is the same answer in both cases: the movie is bad. Indeed,The Empire Strikes Back ... sorry ... the last Jedi, is clearly not the long-awaited film. It is a total aberration, a film devoid of meaning, and especially devoid of soul. It is from the writing of the scenario that the soul of the film was destroyed. The writing of the film has been visibly reworked so as not to fall into any of the theories provided by the fans on the net. Purpose of this manipulation: to surprise everyone because no one expected the result provides. Real result: a collection of anomalies, dementia and contradictions more unjustified than the others. The scenario tries to revolve around the creation of multiple links between the characters. These links being very badly brought and exploited within the film, it is the complete scenario which undergoes the consequences. The old characters are sluggish and try (especially badly) to pass the torch to the new generation, new generation that finds its place in the saga only thanks to the presence of the older generation. This is how the film is lost in an unfounded articulation giving rise to one (if not more) of the worst scenes of the entire saga in which a character having nothing to do here, whose VFX does not even have the merit of being a minimum worked, finds itself in a situation which haven't to exist, based on a dialogue having no interest.
To simplify the film clearly does not know where he goes, he tries to guide the viewer through a pseudo-metaphysical dialogue in order to take him from one scene of bravery to another (scene of bravery which having ability to put the Battle of Geonosis for great art). The film is only a rather uncomfortable gateway between the failed primer of a new saga and the next chapter which have the weight of the mistakes of it on the shoulders. Like a bad King, the film will not prevent the maintenance of the monarchy: 1, 10, 15, 20 ... other films will follow this one with more or less success ... Star Wars is dead, long live Star Wars ...
Star Wars - the last Jedi is all that and not much. But in the end, it's especially not good.
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I frequent IMDb, but I have yet to submit a review. This film however left me no choice but to exercise this feature.
For starters, I, like many individuals, am a huge fan of everything that is Star Wars. I wasn't a huge fan of Episode VII, but it wasn't by any means terrible. Rogue one on the other hand, to me, was able to capture the "feeling" Star Wars always made me feel. On the contrary, The Last Jedi didn't sit well with me.
Episode VII wasn't without flaws, but it was promising. It left us with things to look forward to. Among other things, we, the audience, had Rey's encounter with Luke and Snoke in general to anticipate.
These aspects of the new trilogy, while implemented with good intentions, were futile. Anyone remotely familiar with Luke Skywalker knows the way he behaved in this film is far from accurate. This display of a worn, beaten man is not the Luke I know, and even Hamill has been transparent about his opposition to the direction they took. Snoke, a mysterious leader we all were teased with, got hardly any screen time. Not only that, but his demise was an absolute waste. His identity is never disclosed, and we don't really see him in battle. It's almost as if Disney told us there was a delicious home cooked meal waiting for us, and left us one, maybe two, bites in the fridge.
The entirety of the film revolves around, yes, a chase. I'm not here to bash the film, but considering the run time this seems well, unfair to the audience. I don't know. I don't consider myself an expert by any means. I realize that a lot of work goes into these films, and any film for that matter; however, despite how beautiful the film was visually, this film, to me, was for the most part void of substance.
The comedy felt forced, and so did Hamill's performance. The film, again to me, was rarely organic.Throughout the movie, the audience would uproar in laughter, and at the end, everyone clapped. I'm glad others felt fulfilled, but I didn't and I don't think I'm alone.
To my knowledge, what we are experiencing is a new wave of Star Wars "fans." Individuals unfamiliar with the lore, and just there because it's "cool" or a trend. The culture, to me, has been impacted heavily by Disney's contributions. It's almost as if we, those actually knowledgeable of Star Wars, are the seldom few rebels of our real world.
Again, I am not here to bash Star Wars, and I think that says a lot considering rather than be angry, I'm just disappointed. If you plan on seeing The Last Jedi, I'm glad to see them succeed, and if you enjoy it, I'm happy for you.
6 out of 10 found this helpful.
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This movie is very hard to rate. It is pretty cool, have several of great scenes, the cinematic is great, the directing great, the acting great, BUT the movie still sucks.
I will not do any spoilers so you need to find out what I mean for yourself, but as my headline reads: this is a decent/okay/good movie, BUT it is a crappy Star Wars movie.
In general the twists and left turns do not work. The main reason they do not work is because the movie is just okay. If the movie had been fantastic, the twists would probably not bother me as much.
I am very 50/50 on this movie, so the closest to objective grade I can give this is a 4/10. The fan in me want to hand out a 1/10, the movie critic is closer to 7/10, so I did sort of a middle ground and gave it a 4 out of 10.
I probably need to see it again to give it justice as far as critique goes, but I am not going to pay any money for this ever again. From that you can probably draw the conclusion you need.
6 out of 10 found this helpful.
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I really don't know where to begin here.. I wasn't hoping for much and i sincerely believed it not possible for the second part of the 3rd trilogy to be worse than the first but boy ow boy was a wrong about that. This movie is a huge slap in the face of all true fans of the franchise. I was born in the early 90' so i was immune to the criticism that the prequel trilogy received and to an extent i agree with a lot of it but still - the cast was awesome, we got the most epic lightsaber battle in duels of fate and answers to questions asked decades ago. And when TFA was announced i was ready to cry. I have read most of the SW novels and played practically all but the most recent games which isn't to say i am a special snowflake, but that i am like so many of you a HUGE fan of everything that makes Star Wars what it is (far above and beyond Lucas' vision) because what does make this universe great is and always will be it's fans.
P.S I was going to make review as solid and well rounded as possible but after realizing what a stupid endeavor that would be i decided to go free style so please enjoy :)
******PLOT*******
There is only one thing that can be said about the plot - Disney. To think that having access to virtually ALL the creative people in the world who could make this movie not just a success but a piece of art worthy of the name and then to come up with a "high speed pursuit" which makes absolutely no sense considering the setting is despicable. The parallels between "The Last Jedi" and "The Empire Strikes Back" are beyond obvious. The end sequence was forced so they can squeeze a few more completely ridiculous CGI effects and extend the movie's length for whatever reason (they happen across a rebel base long abandoned but completely functional.... sure..)
******RANT********
I will just start pointing out things that make NO sense at all, not just from a fanboy point of view but from one that is based on actual common sense
1. One X-Wing versus a capital shit and makes it - sure it can happen - if all the New Order's officers and crew were on drugs. (spit in the face of Tarkin and the imperial war machine)
2. Bombers in space... i'll let that one sink in ... has it? .... Someone should've told the writers about the lack of gravity in space.
3. One surviving to finish the job and then blow up cliche. No need to expand here
4. They can "track them through hyperspace" - one question - HOW? Anyone? No? Ok i guess the target audience was 9-12 year old kids that don'e actually care about trivial things like explanations.
5. They have enough fuel to get outside the range of their... what? The idea that a weapon like a plasma/laser cannon is going to be ineffective at a certain distance is ridiculous to say the least. Again the question lends itself to the situation - WHY? No answer still.
6. They have enough time to go to a distant planet god knows how many light years away and back? No.. just no
7. Token Asian actor with the Token black character to make sure it's politically correct. I have NOTHING against people of different ethnicity being included but this one was forced into the movie in an unforgivable way. Her character literally felt like eating the shell of a boiled egg. It's like the producers never watched Rogue One to see Chirrut Imwe - THAT is how you introduce a character in the SW universe, regardless of their ethnic background.
8.You will NOT get any answers regarding the following:
- What is significant about Rey's parents? - Nothing - they were drunkards who sold her for booze.
- What is going to happen to Phasma's character development wise? - Nothing she dies
- Who is Snoke and what is his past, his relation to the previous movies, his powers? - Don't know - he dies.
- What great secret did Luke go to find on that distant world? No secrets or big reveals - he went there to die after convincing himself he failed Ben Solo.
9. When they decide to launch the smaller transports from the last Resistance ship in order to escape Leia says some thing to the effect of "they (1st order) won't bother with the smaller ships" . One question - WHY? Why the hell wouldn't they? And moreover, why didn't the first order send out Tie fighters to destroy them in the first place?
10. When the admiral lady (Laura Dern) decide to stay behind on the ship (to literally stand and watch them out the window for most of the sequence) one question was screaming in my head - WHY DIDN'T THEY LEAVE THREEPIO? Or another droid for that matter. Surely the life of a renown Admiral in the ranks of the resistance is a lot more precious that that of any droid. But no... if they "kill" Threepio there would be no end to the children's cries..
11. That is NOT how faster than light travel works and NO it wouldn't cut through the ships the way it did and also WHY didn't they think of that in the first place?
12. That and many many more....................
In the end it doesn't matter. Those of us who love the universe know why we love it and will keep loving it for those reasons. Read Timothy Zahn to see what a true first order should look like in the hands of a tactical mastermind like Mitth'raw'nuruodo and learn about Leia and Han's children and their fate. Read Karen Traviss to see the universe from the perspective of the soldiers that fought the great wars of the movies. Play the KOTOR series to better understand what the relation of any being and the force is. And of course play the Jedi Knight series to actually receive the story of what happened to the Jedi Academy Luke founded.
There is a lot more to say but there would be no point. There is no hope for the movies anymore but there is yet hope that more people will get to know the EU and experience what SW is all about.
6 out of 10 found this helpful.
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Well that's it for me. I am done with Star Wars. This movie is an insult to true fans. (No Spoilers) They could not have tried to ram the Rey and Kylo connection down our throats if they tried. Luke deserved so much more. They really screwed Mark Hamill with the ending. The shirtless Kylo and Rey conversation was hysterical. Such complete trash. I really believed Rian Johnson was better than this and had such high expectations. It's not hard to kill everyone off. Rey's lineage was a complete let down. They want to push that mushy "anyone can be important not just Skywalkers" theme. This is STAR WARS. Star Wars revolved around the Skywalkers! Now we have some half Skywalker dork named Kylo and Rey from "Nowhere." They literally said Rey's parents sold her for beer. TWICE in the movie. Mark Hamill I am so sorry. They could have used you so much more in better ways. There was barely any action. The ending sucked. I don't care if it has a 93% score from the "Movie Critics." They are not the real fans. We the people are the real fans and we got let down. That is why the audience score is dropping! You should be ashamed of yourselves Disney. And to Mr. Lucas, you are officially a sell-out. You sold your vision and creation and basically you soul for money that you CAN NOT take to the grave. This is not your vision. Your prequels were at least creative and unique. This movie plot was a complete joke. I understand 4 Billion is a lot of money but you sold your creation, your like purpose, and your vision to some lady (Kathleen Kennedy) for Disney to create this absolute complete crap. Disney you suck. George Lucas you sell-out you suck. Rian Johnson you suck. J.J. Abrams (The diet coke of Steven Speilberg) You suck as well. I know the money is pouring in and that is all anyone cares about anymore. With all your money you can't buy integrity, but apparently you can sell it. You un-creative money hungry bastards. You ruined Star Wars. You ruined one of my favorite things in life. Congratulations on your big money success, you played yourself and screwed your fans in the process.
6 out of 10 found this helpful.
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This is probably the first review I have ever done for a movie but as a die hard Starwars fan I feel the need to express what I have just watched
Firstly a bit of history, I love Starwars, I brought up with it and my son is now following in my footsteps. When the new films were announced bringing old and new cast members with it, we could not have been happier.
The Force Awakens did not disappoint, everything a Starwars movie should be with loads of unanswered questions for the sequels to deal with. Most importantly I thought wow, they have set Luke up brilliantly for the next one
Mark Hamill (who understands Luke better than anyone) then comes out and says he disagrees with everything they have done for The Last Jedi - not a good start
Is it enjoyable? Yes, it certainly is an entertaining film and my son will love it. I am torn, part of me wants to have loved it but the other is disappointed for the following reasons
The plot is weak, following a cruiser until it runs out of fuel!?! Whoever wrote this and approved it needs firing
The subplots, the Finn one is pretty pointless plus I feel they gave Poe far too much screen time. Also why have they tried to bring real world politics into Starwars? Its make believe for crying out loud
Snoke was setup brilliantly in TFA so why kill off such a badass character with no history of where he came from etc.
Luke, the hero has been resigned to a grumpy old hermit who cannot be bothered to leave his island
No full blown lightsaber duels (a Starwars first if I am correct apart from Rogue One). Ren and Luke don't even trade blows!
Rey is a nobody! After all the teasing in TFA about her parents this is pathetic
Ending with a small boy looking out at the stars!?! What the hell!?!
I easily could expand and go on but here is the main problem - Starwars fans have over the years heard certain things from Lucas that has given them (me included) a rough sense of what is going on and what should happen. So what did we want?
Luke to be a badass Jedi! Lucas has always said Luke is the most powerful Jedi. When he stares down the AT-ATs at the end I was expecting him to block the laser blasts and then have a huge duel with Ren. Or he should have come face to face with Snoke. There were rumours of him taking on the Knights of Ren (don't get me started on them not being in it) in some super duel. Nothing, all we get is a 'force projection' and he kicks the bucket. That one hurts the most
Snoke to be a genuinly 'Emperor' type villan and reveal his backstory (or at least some of it). Nope they just decide to kill him off in a pathetic way
Rey to have a history from someone like Kenobi or Palpatine
An actual lightsaber duel (the one with the guards doesn't count)
Ultimately I feel for the actors as they have done a great job with a crap story. Rian Johnson clearly does not understand Starwars and I worry about handing him a new trilogy.
Hopefully further answers will come in the next one and we can all pray that JJ can sort out what is quite frankly a mess
I have given it 5 stars as the fan in me cannot go lower - this hurts though, a lot!!!!
6 out of 10 found this helpful.
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Now I'm not a big Star Wars fan at heart, but after being treated to this not out of my own pocket, I just had to come and see if others were agreeing with how bad it was. Because you sure as heck can not be trusted to believe the press and review sites these days.
Surely there's some conspiracy where they just throw together a movie with a bunch of bad cgi, pay off some journos for good reviews and then laugh behind everyone's back at how much money it makes. Utterly criminal. No sane person could find this enjoyable.
This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And the only movie I've ever been tempted to walk out of. The pace, the script, the absolutely laughable plot. Man how I feel bad for you diehards who have been slapped in the face with this garbage.
Just one example of the ridiculousness that plagues not only this movie, but movies in general these days with their nonsensical garbage is below. Yes it's a movie, but you can't rewrite yourself out of such stupid situations and expect your audience to suspend their belief.
Here we go: they arrive at the mountain stronghold. No way out. Clearly, it is stated and setup that this is it. 3PO confirms. No way out. Period. The impending doom is upon them. Only one way in and out. It is made painstakingly clear. What could possibly happen next?
Then of course. Out of nowhere. After writing themselves into such a turdy stinking hole with no way out.
"Oh yes look. It is possible to get out. Turns out after all there is a way out. Pschye! We had you there huh. We'll just write our way out and you can suspend your disbelief. But wait, there's more.
The same plot device then ties up the other horrendously laughably ridiculous Jedi training, who is now a pro rock mover after her 6 seconds of rock moving introduction training. Jobs a Gooden let's go to the pub, I bet they thought.
This is the exact same garbage used in spectre, where it is described that if the brain drill thing touches bond's head he will be killed instantly. He then gets probed with it extensively to the head, magically doesn't die and comes out of it hunky dory.
Again, it's a movie, but treating your audience this dumb and trying to make up for your bad writing into a corner is just not on.
6 out of 10 found this helpful.
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I have loved Star Wars for a long time. I wanted to love this movie. Now, I'm just angry.
Star Wars has always been about telling an epic story that anyone can identify with, in a universe that is so exciting and rich that we are transported there. The Last Jedi is none of that.
The story is so buried in hackneyed humor and forced agenda, that the few moments that actually succeed at being genuinely entertaining are strangled out.
When you see what they've done to Luke Skywalker, it breaks your heart, not because it is poignant or intentional, but because it is so low-brow. He is turned into a coward and a buffoon. Leia is so stately and soft, she bears no resemblance to the fiery freedom fighter that strangled Jabba with her own slave chains. She was a bad-ass, now she is milquetoast.
Throwing in a few poorly made puppets doesn't make it feel like the originals.; it feels like pandering. You can make good animatronics, make them. What people like is that they feel more real than CG. But the lack of realism in the CG creatures and environments just proves that what the film really lacked was a decent artistic eye, and instead went for splashy colors.
The entire storylines of Fin, Poe, Leia, the Resistance, General Hux, literally everyone but Kylo, Rey and Luke, were completely uninteresting, and ultimately just felt like an excuse for more bad jokes. This didn't feel like it was made for adults, or children. This feels like it was made for producers and marketing.
9 out of 17 found this helpful.
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Following the Force Awakens which was both a critical and fan hit, Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi had the highest bar to climb, and it manages to go a lot higher than the its predecessor. Rian Johnson's touch has elevated The Star Wars franchise by daring to take risks, and taking our beloved characters to a new level.
This is a unique Star Wars film in its story telling aspects, in its humor, and in its style. This will drop as many jaws as I assume The Empire Strikes Back originally did. This is also the most beautiful Star Wars movie to date, with breathtaking Cinematography, Fight Choreography and Visual Effects. But Most importantly, all of these technical aspects are only there to elevate the gripping story and character arcs that Johnson has created.
The Last Jedi is absurdly entertaining, gripping, and is also a mind bender. It will trick you, confuse you and ask you questions, only to pay them off and answer them in the most surprising and satisfying way possible. None of the main characters are one sided, as Rian Johnson manages to make you feel empathy for all of its characters, specially the main Villain, Kylo Ren. He remains a strong antagonist who is conflicted, but driven and you could say the same about our hero, Ray. Luke Skywalker is handled masterfully, and that's all I can say about him without going to spoilers. So much happens with him that is surprising, but fitting to his character. Mark Hammill shines bright, but the brightest star is the Late Carrie Fisher, as General Leia. It is difficult not to feel emotional every time you see her on the screen. She plays her iconic character as well as ever, and could not be in a better movie as her last.
The Last Jedi has grand emotional gut punches, followed by great action sequences, including my all-time favorite _and for a lack of a better fitting word the most Badass_ scene in the franchise. However just like any film it has its flaws and I can summarize my main problem with the movie in one word: Porgs. These cute birds are only there to be adored and are only there so Disney can sell Toys, which we know brings a surprisingly large amount of revenue to the studio. In Contrast to the Porgs, I loved the cute droid BB_8 because he as so much purpose and he is vital in the story. The story also loses some of its emotional build up in one particular heavy scene towards the end, to throw in a joke which felt forced and unnecessary. Happily these two minor complaints get lost in this fantastic story. This is truly a great film, and you don't have to be a Star Wars fan to love it. Rian Johnson's different vision for this movie, has made me a lot more optimistic about the future of Star Wars, and his original trilogy.
49 out of 126 found this helpful.
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I loved this movie.
The fans are disappointed because 30 years of imagining how things would turn out didn't go their way.
To that I say eat shit. I've been a die hard fan for nearly 40 years, George Lucas loved the film. You're all idiots for believing a film can deliver what's personally inside your imagination.
59 out of 155 found this helpful.
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The story is excellent and you will not believe some of the twists and turns of it. Everyone is unbelievably great but Mark Hammil steals the show. Great practical effects. John Wiliams score shines as always. I have many things to say but ill let you watch this amazing movie. Yes, its that good!
157 out of 448 found this helpful.
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This movie is an epic fail on a massive scale. One of the worst movies i have ever seen in my entire life.
No plot no decent acting ( except a bit from Oscar Isaac )
I am also amazed how Hollywood script writers lack immagination.
they are constipated and all they do is to steal ideas from the past sucesses of others and try to present them as new.
Ladies and gents. Just Dont go to this movie and prevent any one who likes Starwars to see it.
Cheers
5 out of 8 found this helpful.
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Bombers... in space, literally dropping bombs... vertically... in space, after... one... fighter... destroys point defence... of a whole dreadnought. And that's just in the first 3 minutes of this movie, the rest is even more nonsensical (unbelievably much, much more). I'm actually speechless how bad that whole mess pretending to be Star Wars was. Honestly... I'm lost for words O.o. Part VII was bad, just maybe, just slightly, just perhaps, better (or at least more entertaining) than the prequels - although definitely more repetitive - but this... this is, in my opinion, THE WORST, Star Wars movie EVER (period). I just want my illusions about franchise and two and a half hour of my life back :(. Shame on You Disney, shame , shame, shame.
5 out of 8 found this helpful.
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This movie is bad, forget how you may feel about Star Wars, this was just a bad movie compared to every movie ever made. Sitting through this movie was like watching a never ending commercial, so very painful, but hoping if you endure you will get rewarded with things getting better only to see things get worse. Big money is trying to squeeze every penny out of this brand and does so in a very brazen display. Even all the critics seem to be on the pay roll as all there reviews are good and all the reviews from real people are bad, so sad. I hope the back lash to this affront serves as a example of what to never do when making a movie. This is a sad day for Star Wars fans. At this point all we can do is warn our friends and families to stay away.
5 out of 8 found this helpful.
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2/10
WORSE THAN FORCE AWAKENS AND TOTAL DISAPPOITMNET!!!!
Honestly I feel very sorry for this movie, no plot, didn't feel like a star wars movie. There was a moment during the movie that I said to myself Am I watching Star Wars. A great universe for over 30 years has been killed by Disney. I was expecting that was gonna be better that the force awakens, but it was worse. For me the saga ends in Episode 6. Disney gave more emphasis in Star Wars Rebels and Rogue One instead of Episode 8. Mark Hamill was right, they should have been followed the advice of Lucas for both 3 films. I was expecting to see that Rey is Luke's daughter, and also who the FUCK is Snoke ? It's obvious that critics are lying about the movie. They can't say that this is the best movie in the saga. The same bullshits they were saying when the force awakens come out. I can't understand the fact that some people wanted Star Wars to look like this. Anyway no matter what happens in Episode 9, even if Rey is Luke's daughter, the saga ends for me in episode 6. A superb action form Carrie Fisher as Leia and Mark Hamill as Luke.
ADVICE: DON'T GO TO SEE THAT MOVIE, THEY ONLY CARE FOR MONEY.
Star Wars 1977-2014
5 out of 8 found this helpful.
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Disney made a movie as bad as Lucas 2002 Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Even with incredible special effects and great cgi creature they still made a movie has boring has Star Wars 2. I'm in pain because I wanted this movie to be so much more I was so hyped after how good Star Wars 7 turned out. It had so much it could of done but it stayed on a weak story and was awful.
Acting: 4/10: The chemistry we had in Star Wars 7 was not there at all the actors seemed to be done with the movie and din't bring shitto their roles. Mark Hamill really needs to give up on Luke .... his lines were terrible!!! Oscar Isaac was so annoying all we wanted was him to shut up! Daisy has done an amazing job on me letting go of her character because I'm just so done.....Adam Driver wasn't as bad as the others but we know that doesn't say much. The rest was okay ..... I said okayy
Directing: 3/10: The runtime doesn't help at all it too long and boring. The movie is super weak the directions was bad and the way the story was craft was ridiculous....... the movie has the same goal for over 2 hours .... the film doesn't move at all for 2 goddamn hours!!! I'm really done with talking with the directions décisions it make me so freacking mad.
Visuals (cgi): 10/10: One thing this Star Wars really succeeded in was it's visuals, they were stunning and the creatures on the Island that were introduced were charming and brillant ! This was a Valerian and the city of a thousand planet with a bigger budget! They were mind-blowing I felt like a kid watching all the stars!
Characters: 6/10: I'm being gentle most of the characters were let down but some were interesting such as amazing shirt cameos from beloeved characters a great emperor and some really good looking animals and just like always drones are the coolest. Plus we had some cool looking clones such as Captain Phasma! But in the end our main characters were adapted really badly and left us with a nasty tastes left in our mouths.
Enjoyment: 4/10: I was so bored it was so long and messy I could not really enjoy it and It makes me really sad because this movie had everything to be good which it wasn't Star Wars 7 was so good and left us so hyped and it prepared itself so well for sequels too follow which I now don't want after this movie. Disney you guys made a fan loose hope on Star Wars. And even I'm the theater no one was actually really enjoying it .... no one seemed to love it it was so quiet it felt so dead ..... And when I was in theater for Star Wars 7 everyone was so happy and shared their love for the movie it was fun!
Watch it for your kids but for your own good prepare to be let down by this movie ....Anyway thank you for reading my review....
5 out of 8 found this helpful.
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As a star wars fan... this movie was painful to watch... do yourself a favor and just watch any other movie, nothing to see here. They destroyed the characters and anticlimactic.
5 out of 8 found this helpful.
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10/10
A near perfect star wars movie.....one of the best of this series......
From all aspect this is by far the most attractive movie of star wars series to me. Not that i haven't seen all the movies , rather i am a real fan of star wars movies and i have seen all old and new movies very attentively. Also enjoyed those as well. But to me this is the movie of near perfection and ultimate action to go for.
This movie is about a suspenseful united adventure of rey and Luke with other companions after their entry to jedi world. This adventure is full of twist and turn and sets a real exciting space opera of high voltage conspiracy , actions including different space instruments and arms, and overall a composite world of fantasy and drama. Their adventure brings many past secrets to light and many hidden facts are revealed by this.
The movie is not absolutely concerned with actions and fantasy but it has a good build up of story around a very good plot and the acting as well as the direction , special effects are reasonably well performed.
Those who like to watch fantasy movie will obviously like it. But it is the star wars lovers who will enjoy the most.
119 out of 337 found this helpful.
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Leaving the theater, I didn't have the same euphoria I had after seeing The Force Awakens for the first time. The Last Jedi is an exhausting, at times dense, entry into the saga. It is also the best since Empire.
I really enjoyed how personal the movie was, most of the characters spend their time kicked and down. It may sound boring, but I was fascinated to see these characters at their lowest. I really connected with Poe, helplessly waiting for death, he's a character whose answer to everything is to jump in an X-Wing and blow something up, and the movie takes that away from him. The situation allows him to grow from a hotheaded pilot into a true leader.
The film develops the parallels between Rey and Kylo Ren, hinting at a mutual respect, maybe even love for one another. They are the light and the darkness, the yin and yang, the balance in the Force.
Luke's first impression of Yoda seems to have had a strong influence, he has gone into exile to die, refusing to join the battle out of fear of doing more harm. Failing Kylo Ren was Luke truly losing, and in that failure he is able to let go of his arrogance and fear, and rises as more than a Jedi Master.
I was intrigued by Snoke in the last film, but really enjoyed the direction the character went in this film. Leia's space walk was odd at first, her Force use has always been a subtle and rare thing. I think she unconsciously saved herself, and it wasn't an easy thing for her to do as she immediately falls into a coma after.
The Finn and Rose story line seems to be considered the weakest, and I would agree but I did enjoy the scene where they rescued the horse-dogs. The events of that plot make a statement about inequality and shows us how important the Resistance and hope are for the galaxy. I wonder if Johnson's new trilogy is hinted at in these scenes. I really liked the character of DJ as well, he brings a perspective outside of the good vs. evil box usually presented with Star Wars.
The Last Jedi is a great entry for the series, focusing on its characters and giving us something different within the spirit of the franchise.
17 out of 38 found this helpful.
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I thought the movie was on the whole well made but the plot essentially ended up going nowhere. Multiple times this movie went to great lengths to justify a plot twist to then just go back on it.
Kylo's arc was interesting and the justification for his characters past choices and his decision to turn against snoke was all great, to then just throw it away and make him 'bad' again. When Leia said she was tired of watching heroes die I was ready to accept her heroic death to save the resistance, but no we will throw away Holdo, a new character we only semi care about. When Holdo looked like she might be a traitor, no she just kept the plan from everyone for no good reason and put her own plan in danger (from the DJ arc). Finn was ready to die for the resistance and save the base but no he just got saved and the massive cannon put a tiny hole in the door. Heck even the 'ending of the jedi' was thrown away by a 1 second shot of the books just in a drawer in the Falcon.
Luke's arc was a satisfying end to a great character despite him 'choosing' to go and not be killed by anything in particular. Even though he never actually trained Rey at all.
Whilst the film was a visual spectacle and an enjoyable ride it took neither the plot nor the characters anywhere interesting despite setting up these twists. Kylo's bad, the resistance are all together ready to rebuild, Rey is still powerful without any training. The questions we had went not only unanswered they were just swept away. Snoke was a powerful nobody that didnt matter. Rey is a powerful nobody. The Knights of Ren werent mentioned at all. All the good guys are fine and noone died. I really want to like this film but I am just not compelled to watch the next instalment as I can't see it going anywhere interesting. Overall I'm just dissapointed how tightly wrapped up in a bow the whole thing is.
TL,DR: The film itself was enjoyable enough but the plot doesn't develop our characters or even change their circumstances from the last film. Lots of interesting questions went unanswered or didn't end up mattering. On the whole left me uncompelled to find out where it goes. 5/10
8 out of 15 found this helpful.
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5/10
Disappointing but at least it has good action. (Spoiler-free review)
I am giving this movie 7.4 out of 10 stars but I kind of want to give it 6 out of 10 stars. The film looks great, and OMG the space battles are freaking awesome and.. that is about it. This is a spoiler free review so I'm going to try my best here. The acting is a mixed bag. Some of the actors are brilliant and others are sort of just there; but I'm not sure it is the actor's fault or if the fault belongs to the fact the story doesn't make you care or connect with some of the characters. It is hard to explain without spoiling things. The movie starts out great however the middle drags like a mother thanks to a subplot which is just meh. There are major things that happen, major things that are discovered and I am almost tempted to watch the film again just to see if eliminating the shock factors deflates the film even more when it comes to plot. Here is the thing, I am just going to come out and say it; I think the current trilogy (and extended SW universe) has no direction at all and each film they put out changes based on fan reaction. Say what you want about the prequels, at least they had a strong core story (Episode 1 is weak, Episode 2 is one of the worst films ever made; just so you know I am not a prequel fanboy). These new films feel like they have conveniently gelatinous core elements holding them together which are expendable based on viewer reaction. For example, if fans go completely insane and demand Episode 9 be a romantic French comedy shot in black and white - we are going to get just that. There is no backbone. Story wise this film is a bit of a jellyfish.
53 out of 141 found this helpful.
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The Last Jedi is a cinematic garbage. It felt like I was watching a Star Wars parody and not a legitimate episode in the saga. There are stupid and misplaced jokes in almost every scene. Even the quiet scenes are mocking everything. Luke is milking an Elephant seal and then squirts blue milk into his mouth. Chewie is roasting a Porg while other Porgs watch in sadness (Supposed to be funny in Disney's view). This film felt like some weird acid trip. There is no story to follow, it's 2 hours and 40 minutes of pure nonsense. They ridiculed every aspect of Star Wars that we love. The Force now works like a galactic Skype to make calls between Rey and Kylo Ren. The elevator scene where Kylo Ren takes Rey to the Snoke's throne room is pure shameless ROTJ ripoff ! She is handcuffed, Snoke removes those with The Force and shows her a space battle outside the window and tells her how rebel friends will die etc. I mean it was beyond ridiculous. Like if a little kid grabbed some Star Wars toys and started playing with them. The action was pointless, way too frequent and boring like hell, just trash flying on screen and things blowing up. There is no character development, no emotional resonance that would actually make you care about the characters. There is no back story, nothing is explained, the characters are as shallow as you can imagine. The Star Wars feeling is not there at all. If a film does not take itself seriously, then how can the audience do it ? It really was like Robot Chicken Star Wars spoof or some weird Star Wars Holiday Special. At Disney they mocked everything about The Force, about Jedi philosophy and Jedi training. Suddenly everyone can use The Force because in Disney's view it's just some crap to move things around, lift people in the air or make a free intergalactic call. George Lucas put The Force into the movie to awaken some sense of spirituality in young people. Jedi knights are like samurai or daoist or buddhist monks. It takes a lifetime of discipline, hard training, acquired wisdom and the deepest commitment to become a Jedi and to use The Force. It takes Rey about one short meditation session to become a Jedi. What they decided about Luke Skywalker is a blasphemy ! It goes against all his moral values and beliefs of a true Jedi Master.
The Force Awakens started a downfall for Star Wars when they decided to not continue the story but to do the silly rehash, soft reboot of the original trilogy. George Lucas wrote a story for 7,8,9 and at Disney they betrayed him and threw it into the trash telling him: "We want to do movie for the fans." George Lucas is the only one intellectually capable of making a Star Wars film. He is the creator, so he understands it the best. He worked hard to make every SW movie different, with new spectacular designs, new story elements etc. Each time he created a new universe, a visionary masterpiece and infused it with mythological, spiritual, psychological and political themes. Star Wars was always made out of many themes and dealt with issues each of us is facing in our daily lives. SW is not about space ships, action or blasters like they think it is at Disney. It's much more complicated than that and Abrams, Johnson or Kennedy clearly don't understand a thing about Star Wars. Disney just ruined Star Wars for good. Don't support this garbage. Star Wars episodes 1-6 are canon and 7,8,9 just silly fan films. God how I wish George Lucas made 7,8,9 with his story and his vision ! The Last Jedi was probably the worst blockbuster I have ever seen. The same thing happened to Marvel movies as well - just garbage action all the time and no story or character arch. For the record The Shannara Chronicles TV series felt 1000x more like watching Star Wars than this Last Jedi piece of crap. In Shannara they worked to establish the characters and the audience cared about them. It had tons of mythological elements as well just like Star Wars. But most of all it had a STORY ..... What Disney did to Star Wars with their corporate greed can't be forgiven !
Watching Star Wars was always a great form of escapism and inspiration. It taught us lessons, sparked our imagination and expanded our views about the mysteries of the universe and our place in it. That was before the dark times, before the Disney.
4 out of 6 found this helpful.
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This movie isn't consistent to other SW episodes: they didn't explain anything, like why is Snoke so powerful (he is not) or who are Rey's parents and why she has so much midi-chlorians to be so powerful forceuser.
The clumsy and amusing tone of narrative(because of unnecessary humor) breaks suspension of disbelief, so do a lot of plotholes and weird decisions of scriptwriters. The plot structure (as whole it is unpredictable, it's nice) is OK, the character development is OK, but it makes plot even clumsier and worse. Why did they make whole casino plotline?
Luke's behavior also seems to be strange.
Visual part is quite cool, there is some epic scenes too, but plotholes and humour and absence of any willing to give us understanding of what and why is going on in the Galaxy make this movie far from 10/10
4 out of 6 found this helpful.
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Granted, Lucas made a mess of the first 3 films.....but the decline of Star Wars looks like it is final. I really didn't like Force Awakens either as it was just nonsense and same old plot. This is just more PC crap - as you have Asian, black ,white, women leaders.....kid toys, be strong, commit suicide to save the others, blah blah.
But ultimately, the fact it tries to be everything to everyone is the failure. I liked the review Disney is the Death Star as their points are very much mine too.
But I think my childhood obsession has moved on without me. I may not see the last film in the theater. I just don't really care anymore.....
4 out of 6 found this helpful.
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As a hardcore fanatic Star Wars-fan I was looking forward to a lot of powerful moments. I was really let down on that part.
We had our hype built up by the Meeting with a capital M in the last moment of The Force Awakens.
We had our hype built up about Rey origins.
We had our hype built up about Snoke's identity. Who was he really?
And we had our hype built up by Boba Fett 2.0 AKA Captain Phasma.
These were only some(!) moments where the filmmakers had a great chance of creating something epic. The powerful epic dialog between Rey and Luke was replaced by an grouchy old man not a single bit interested in his unknown visitor giving him his very old lightsaber, which he just throws away. Funny moment....
Reys origins was completely underwhelming. So was Captain Phasmas death. And the mere reason for Snoke to even be in these two movies. Up until his death he did not really contribute with anything that affected the story line. Think about it.
Meetings between characters was underwhelming over all. When Luke finally meets Chewie and Leia again he is just kind of "oh hi again. Long time no see". Again, a big opportunity missed by the creators.
Hope you like porgs... There are going be a lot of porgs. Everywhere. All the time.
Hope you like slapstick humor. There are going to be a lot of slapstick humor. All of the time.
Above all, this movie had no "Star Wars feel" to it, as the original trilogy, and even Force Awakens and Rogue One had.
Even though this review might sound very negative, I still think it is a good movie. My rating of this movie has gone down more and more, as I think of all these missed opportunities and mistakes mentioned. I will always be biased towards Star Wars, I have an unconditional love for it. But I'm also very picky about it. There were some moments I loved in this movie, and technically (as a movie) it was still good. Not great. Not great because of all these weight downs in my opinion. I just can't give this movie a high score simply because it's a Star Wars movie (which I'm struggling not to).
So in conclusion - 5/10, an OK Star Wars movie but could have been carried out a lot better.
4 out of 6 found this helpful.
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I am no movie critic but I will tell you one thing. This movie is fantastic. Why?
Firstly is it unpredictable. It's filled with scenes that blow you away of pure unpredictability (is that a word?). The Force Awakens was so similar to a New Hope that you knew how it would end up. This movie is ITS OWN and that is just amazing. The actors are amazing. Kylo Ren is in my honest opinion the most interesting character in the saga. The humor was good, as it should be. Action scenes amazing. Everything really?
Oh and stay and enjoy the end credits. The best part is actually there.
Only thing I dislike is the things from the old movie they force into this one because "big fanboys need something to clap to moments". MINOR SPOILER: You see Leia's old hologram being played by r2d2 at some point, amongst many things. The movie is too good for it to need these moments. That is just my opinion but it didn't take anything away from the experience.
Anyway no matter if you're a fan or not, you'll love this movie. Highly recommend.
44 out of 116 found this helpful.
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9/10
I was not a big fan of Star Wars Series. But now I am!!
My husband is a fan of Star Wars and he finished all previous 7 movies. I started to watch Star Wars with The Force Awaken in 2015. To be honest, that one did not catch too much of my interests. Still, for my curiosity on those characters' relationship, I went back and watched Star Wars Original Trilogy. Although their scenes were not as vivid as recent years' works, they had a good story. However, I just felt enough with these 3 classics and did not continue on Prequel trilogy.
This year, I went to theater with my husband again for The Last Jedi. As a Christmas gift to him, we went to a Fan Events which provided early opening on Thursday evening at 6:00 PM with beautiful card collections. What I want to say is, this time, Star Wars finally caught my eyes and seized my heart. I got the beauty of space travel with all those stunning scenes. Every single frame is a piece of art. I can also feel the chemistry developed between characters. The action scenes are full of tense too.
How about plots? I should say it is not perfect but still good. It does have some plot holes but did not too stupid to accept. And I like how the way the story turns. One minute you thought there was no hope. Another minute a door for surviving surprisingly but reasonably opened. When you thought everyone was safe and it was a chance to relieve your nerve for a little bit, desperation caught up again. My heart was tightly bend with Rebel Alliance and care about their ending on this journey. It was so breathtaking that I was not even willing to blink my eyes! I enjoyed my 2 hours in the theater a lot. It is like riding a roller coaster if you watch this movie without any spoilers.
I will recommend my friends to the theater for this movie definitely. It is holiday season and people deserve some excitement.
16 out of 36 found this helpful.
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I'm not a huge fan of the series, but I have seen all of the major films and got the references scattered throughout The Last Jedi.
The film is alright. Minimal character development, enjoyable combat and dogfight sequences, and a story continually trying to tie-up it's ever expanding plot holes. The acting is fine, the dialogue not so much. Expect the Marvel trope of undercutting serious moments with "witty" one liners and jokes.
If you're a fan, you've probably seen it by now. If you're an outsider like me, check it out in IMAX for the space battles or rent it later on.
13 out of 28 found this helpful.
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8/10
The Last Jedi is an original movie unlike The Force Awakens!
I want to start with saying The Force Awakens was not just the worst Star Wars movie I have ever seen. It is the worst movie I have ever seen in my whole life. So some of you may have bad expectations from this movie because of the first movie of this trilogy. Don't be afraid, it is not going to be a waste of your money or your time. It is definitely worth to see!
During the movie, some of the characters has their own conflicts. We see that it is not that easy to be the bad or the good. Making a choice between two sides is never really easy. I think this is one of the things that makes us human. I loved to see this conflict inside the characters during the movie.
The story is above the avarage. I don't think this is the best Star Wars story or movie but The Last Jedi has a different style. You will be shocked in some scenes. This movie made me feel very excited for the final episode of this trilogy.
The Last Jedi is way better than The Force Awakens and you really need to see this movie. You won't be disappointed. Star Wars is back!
45 out of 120 found this helpful.
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That movie was HORRIBLE!!! It was like the script was written by a bunch of 12 year old kids and half of them had never seen a Star Wars movie. Weak story; weak character development; weak battle scenes; weak everything. The music was excellent as always from John Williams. However, this movie does not compare to anything from the other Star Wars movies and was just plain garbage. It really adds nothing to the overall Star Wars story and basically makes the cherished characters out to be lame shadows of what they were. It's like all the actors were constrained. Not a good movie at all. If this is the new direction for Star Wars movies, then I'll go back to the books that were much, much better stories.
7 out of 13 found this helpful.
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I was rather hopeful this would be a great film. I wasn't really a fan of The Force Awakens (I liked elements of it) and though still not perfect I preferred Rogue One to both TFA and TLJ. The Last Jedi is a bit of a mess, is too long and has large swathes of it that should have been removed to keep up the pace.
At least this film isn't copying a original trilogy episode and has it's own story, the problem is a lot of the film is irrelevant. Finn's story arc may as well not have existed and purely served as a means for furthering Poe's character progression, this could have been done without wasting all that time. As someone who hated John Boyega's character in TFA because of only being present for a joke (e.g. why is someone in sanitation part of Kylo Rens landing party at the beginning). I still don't like that his character is underdeveloped and misused at every given opportunity. And the Jokes have become too much, the humor of the Avengers sold characters to people who wouldn't have normally seen those films but copying that template for Star Wars (and every Marvel film) is getting really old, really fast.
Luke's arc I didn't mind too much, but again, it was a bit overstuffed and ham-fisted. Mark Hamill does the best job of anyone involved in this film, selling their inner turmoil (closely followed by Adam Driver); however his script is pretty terrible.
I enjoyed the big set pieces, had a couple of genuine laughs but came away feeling that this film ultimately missed a trick. The final act is the best part and has a couple of really great action sequences. There was a moment however where I'm pretty certain that after seeing ice fox like creatures running around on what looked like snow, someone in a board room said "this looks a bit like Hoth" and to avoid any comparison with older films, a soldier was written in to tell us it was salt. All in all moment kind of sums up the film, what would look cool, what would sound cool, what will make us more money beyond the usual fans, put that on a cinema screen for us please and just forget that there is actually a story some people wanted to watch.
7 out of 13 found this helpful.
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As a life long Star Wars fan and filmmaker, I can honestly say that this is the single worst movie ever made in the history of film. I did not like one single element of the film and it was a disgrace to the Star Wars legacy in everyway possible.I was shocked and appalled to my core. The is a Star Wars geared to a lost generation.
9 out of 18 found this helpful.
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Watching TLJ was like watching a made for TV Star Wars special (think Family Guy or Simpsons style) and did not feel like an authentic addition to the trilogy and overarching series. It contained so much bad writing, bad directing, and bad special effects that I think George Lucas secretly ghost-wrote it for Rian Johnson. Every character we love become flat and uninteresting and seem to lose all personality traits that they had in TFA. I'm being genuine when I say that I think Rian Johnson has never seen The Force Awakens (the movie he made this sequel for) let alone an actual Star Wars movie. I hope that Disney and Lucas Films can somehow retcon this entire film.
(The most enjoyable part of the film were the crystal critters and the porgs.)
10 out of 21 found this helpful.
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4/10
Absolutely stunning visuals but average to poor writing..
First of all, do NOT believe the bad user reviews on this site. The vast majority of the downvoting that you see here has been organized and executed by an army of online trolls on some alt right sub-reddit forum, and to what specific end? Shame on them all.
Back to the film. I'm a 59 year-old original Star Wars fan and I loved it. I saw it with my 20 year-old college son who loved it, too. The audience at our midnight showing loved it- there was enthusiastic applause at several points and at, of course, the end. Thank you, Rian Johnson and the entire cast and crew of "The Last Jedi" for creating an incredible movie experience for fans young and old. No spoilers here, just go see it!
20 out of 49 found this helpful.
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Episode VIII is very enjoyable. It is the type of film you could easily go back to any time, sit down and watch and easily binge watch in a marathon (the way star wars are meant to be watched).
Im not going to deny it, some parts of the story line leave a bit to be desired, some acting too is a tad weak in areas and just doesnt feel as genuine as it could. There are characters in this film which just pop up, have next to no development and are suddenly part of the mix and the film acts like we should relate to their feelings. But realistically none of that matters.
I have grown up loving the star wars films for what they are and what they are is a great Sci-Fi action movie franchise that makes you imagine and smile and this film does all of those things. I laughed, I sat on the edge of my seat, i jumped and I felt like it was real. This film has great battles, fights, scenes, graphics, tension, sound, music, characters and 100% adds something to the franchise as a whole.
I have read about 15 other reviews and they all come back to one thing - its not like star wars used to be. Well im sorry, but times changes and so should the story line of star wars, new concepts have been introduced in this film and its no longer as black and white and previous episodes. All the main ingredients are still there, just put together in a different way and I loved it. Also - dont forget this is the middle episode of three, therefore a lot of the strange story developments in this, im sure will make sense in episode IX.
If you love Stars Wars for what it is in itself unique universe or if you want to watch an absolutely brilliant film, with blasters, aliens, lightsabers and some weird force thing that lifts rocks. Watch. This. Film. Its great. I will be watching it again and again, many years to come.
14 out of 32 found this helpful.
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I didn't hate it. It was just disappointing for many reasons which I won't post here. I know a lot of Star Wars fans are critical of any movie except the original trilogy, but I actually liked Rogue One and Force Awakens. I wanted to like The Last Jedi. But there were so many flaws to me that it just didn't fit at all with what they set up in TFA.
6 out of 11 found this helpful.
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This is a good film, really good effects and the story overall is on point. There is a lot of symbols and things you can think about after watching the film. Watched the whole SW films, even the cartoons and I've read some of the books. I can vouch for this film, it is good, it is now in my Top 3 Star Wars Films.
I hate the fact that everyone wants to get the same feeling from new SW films that they got when they first watched SW. Now, don't get me wrong but you already know all the things about his universe: the jedi, the sith, lightsabers, the light and the dark side etc. You expect to get the same everytime? Life is changing and so do films. Accept the changes, some may seem a bit off but just accept them. Don't rage because Leia did what she did. Don't rage because your beloved characters are slowly gone from the story. New guys are coming. In a decade or so, all your 'beloved' characters will be gone and guess what? That's life and you gotta accept it. All the future films will be made with roots on Skywalker, Obi-Wan, Yoda etc. It's not like there is a brand new Star Wars story that defies everything they told to us until now.
Go watch it. It's good. Ignore the bad reviews.
16 out of 38 found this helpful.
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Short review to simply raise awareness of the crazy die-hard fans hating on this incredible movie...
Amazing character developments, dynamics and interesting Luke. We get to see many new areas of the Resistance and First Order, to finally unveil how the balance in the universe stands. Overall this movie is daring and challenging to the usual fan, but that is what makes it SUBLIME!
A film is supposed to have a surprising plot and to draw the viewer closer, to simply get fooled and overwhelmed by the plot twists that may occur. Expect Star Wars as the original, and you may be disappointed. Expect an exciting universe full of untold secrets and new storylines? Prepare to be thrilled, by not only the entangling story, but also the actor performances, CGI effects, plot lines and cinematic effects! (If they're even called that, English is NOT my language)
So shoutout to all dem Ster Wers fans hating on this movie for being different! You're disgrace to filmmaking as a whole, this movie hits all the right notes within the production spectrum, but simply fails to live up to the usual Star Wars tragedy? Shame on you for loving original Star Wars and not movies in general, be more open-minded please!
If you disagree with my stand point, remember: "If you strike me down, fans. I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
20 out of 50 found this helpful.
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I'm as much of a fan of the original trilogy as anyone is. I also dislike TPM and AOTC as much as anyone else. But unlike a lot of people, I enjoyed TFA and TLJ. Why? These movies tackled new ideas. They show how easily heroes fall. They make the audience believe that none of it matters. Everything has to collapse at one point. TFA set up as many cliffhangers as TLJ took down characters. The last two years were spent, wondering who Rey and Snoke really were. But TLJ showed me that they didn't matter. Snoke was just another wannabe Sidious. Snoke was blinded by his own power and confidence and it resulted in him predicting his own death. It's about time Star Wars got off of sucking the "Evil Dude rules and Jedi will take him down" d***. This is something different. Both Ren and Rey are two opposite sides of the same game, of trying to create a better order in the galaxy in their own twisted ways. Rey was a nobody, who came from nothing, and she knew it all along. She just kept it buried, deep down. Ren has powerful Skywalker potential in him, and all he's trying to do is restore order to the Galaxy, even if it means killing his own father to submit to the Dark Side to do it. And the mind talking sequences are beautiful. When their minds bridged, their opinions were challenging each other, about what the situation really is. Okay too much philosophy. Back to square one. Star Wars The Last Jedi is an amazing movie with visual effects stunning as ever. The twists in the story are heartbreaking and unexpected. The story is flawless, and extremely awesome. I feel that Star Wars fans need to lower expectations and stop following the Hate Bandwagon. Nothing will ever be as great as the Original Trilogy. But that shouldn't mean that they bash on every little detail in the new ones, and comparing them to the Originals. 10/10. I will watch it again, and again, and again.
13 out of 30 found this helpful.
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In the Force Awakens, it felt like a remake of the old movies. This time the plot had some uniqueness. I think most of the negative comments here are just fans that take it too seriously, like it's some sort of a bible, where the plot needs to make so much sense. If you are just looking for a fun movie, with good humor, and good action, you will enjoy this one. If you want to find things in the plot that doesn't make sense I'm sure you can find that as well, but I think it's true for most movies.
13 out of 30 found this helpful.
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I saw "Star Wars:The Last Jedi", starring Mark Hamill-Kingsman:The Secret Service, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Carrie Fisher-Charlies' Angels:Full Throttle, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Adam Driver-Logan Lucky, Midnight Special; Daisy Ridley-Murder On the Orient Express_2017, Star Wars:The Force Awakens and Andy Serkis-The Planet of the Apes movies, 13 Going on 30.
This is the second, or middle, of the third trilogy-or episode eight-that follows the 2015 Star Wars:The Force Awakens. This is also Carrie's last film appearance-she died last December-and there are no CGI enhancements of her here. It is all really her on screen. They also continue the grand tradition of the opening scrawl catching you up on what is going on. It picks up right where the last installment ended, with Carrie/Leia leading her defiant rebel resistance fighters in a retreat from the evil First Order and Daisy/Rey just finally tracking down Mark/Luke, trying to get him to help in their fight. She also wants him to train her in the use of the Force. Adam/Ben/Kylo is getting a performance review by his boss, Andy/Snoke, about his lack of winning-this frustration causes Adam to get rid of his helmet. There is a connection between Daisy and Adam; they each want to turn the other one to their side. There are also some deaths of characters, both good guys & bad guys, and a few good cameos-I remember seeing Benicio del Toro and Justin Theroux pop up. There is a new cute animal, a Porg, and there is a fantastic, hold on to your seat, lightsaber fight in Andy's headquarters. It should satisfy your action needs for a while. The only problem that I had was the way they would jump from scene to scene, back and forth, just when something was getting good. I know, it was supposed to be showing how things were happening simultaneously, but I wished sometimes that they would stay with one scene a little longer before jumping to the next one.
It's rated "PG-13" for sci-fi action and violence and has a running time of 2 hours & 32 minutes.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and would buy it on Blu-Ray.
9 out of 19 found this helpful.
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Where Episode VII introduces us to the new trio who will be front and center throughout the new trilogy, it is Episode VIII that shows us who they really are. Each character is tested throughout the full length of the film, not only against their enemies in the First Order but, more essentially, against their own flaws and misgivings. We experience these trying moments alongside our newest and oldest heroes and the fascination we learned in Episode VII gives way to real love. As someone dear to me said, it is a movie about meeting our flaws and failures with courage.
Almost as critically, Episode VIII upends the questions Episode VII left us with and it does so by providing us with the answers we need, if not the answers some may want. This movie is nothing but answers earned after hard exploration and so the only question it leaves us with is "What happens next?" Which is, in a time where predictable twists whose sole purpose is to pander to an audience raised on having their most shallow theories held up as equal to actual creative work, exactly the question a story of this calibre should be leaving us with. It tells us everything and leaves us knowing nothing, with the promise of more to come.
Episode VII was a good Star Wars movie, truly a good one, but Episode VIII is the first truly great Star Wars film in a long time.
15 out of 36 found this helpful.
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After the initial viewing I felt a little let down as The Last Jedi seemed a little confused and left more questions than answers but after a second viewing (3D this time which doesn't add much to the visual experience) questions are answered and the plot becomes more enjoyable and makes more sense.
There's 3 main story lines which eventually come together to set things up nicely for the final instalment. Some characters like Snoke could've been used more plus a bit of a background story would've been nice.
There's the usual spectacular Star Wars set pieces and lightsaber action and some of the dialogue is spectacularly cheesy. There are plot holes but hey ho it's not based on fact is it!!! It certainly isn't a stand a lone film and a viewing of The Force Awakens would be beneficial as TLJ carries on straight from the end of TFA. Overall it's a very enjoyable ride!
16 out of 39 found this helpful.
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9/10
Nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans...
Let me start by saying that I am an HUGE Star Wars fan.I have seen the movies,read the books,the comics,played the video games,listen to the audio books,purchased merchandise.I have done it all,for too many years really.After the prequels hit,everyone was angry that they "werent true to the original trilogy" and they wanted "something faithful to the franchise".So the Force Awakens comes out,a movie that can be said to be a Tribute to the original trilogy,Disney's message to the fans that "We are back to our roots".Guess what happens.Everyone is angry again.This movie,fithful to the originals,got shunned for the same exact thing the fans were asking for.
Now on to the Last Jedi.They listened to us again.We didnt want a copy paste of the old movies,we wanted something new.And they delivered EXACTLY that.
Nearly EVERYTHING this movie showed us was unexpected.As a huge fan,knowing all the lore,even I couldnt predict this.
And I loved it so much.
If The Force Awakens' message to us was "We are going back to our roots",The Last Jedi's one was "And now we re moving forward".This is a NEW Trilogy.It isnt about Leia,or Luke,or Han Solo,these are things of the past.And the movie showed exactly that.Luke is a bitter old man because of what he went through.Because of what he went through,Kylo Ren is who he is and is in constant war with his inner self,while Rey is just lost in all these things about "Fate","Destiny","Heroes" and just wants to find her place.Luke,Leia,Snoke,even Han from the previous movie,they were a stepping stone for our new protagonists,just how they should be.Even the side characters,like Finn and Po,we see them that not everything can be romantically heroic and successful just because their cause is noble,and that the galaxy is more gray than the black and white they though it to be.
And despite it all,Star Wars Fans are STILL angry about this movie that delivered only NEW things,the movie that did EXACTLY what they wanted after The Force Awakens.
Why?Because NOW that isnt what they wanted.They wanted Luke to come flying like a god and sweep it all and everything to go oh so well.Pfffff.
I tell you this,if this movie was like TFA and looked similar to the original trilogy,everyone would still be mad and there would still be an uproar.I can guarantee it.
Star Wars fans will never be satisfied with the new movies,they dont care if they are good or not.If it isnt their favourite Fan Fic,they will reject it.
In the end,nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.
But dont be a part in all this drama.Go and see this movie,it is definitely worth watching.And if you love Star Wars,as I do,I recommend you even watch it twice.
18 out of 45 found this helpful.
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This review is spoiler-free meaning it does not contain spoilers, but I will genuinely share with you how "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" affects me as a movie fan, as a Star Wars fan,.. and whether or not it does what it's supposed to do. Audiences around the world tend to agree with the statement that "Empire Strikes Back" is one of the best sequels ever made, well, I think "The Last Jedi" can easily take that honor now. This movie is astonishing and spectacular. It pushes many of this franchise's familiar elements to their limits and it really digs deep into the key characters and brings forth everything that stands out about them. Writer/director Rian Johnson is an impeccable storyteller.
The story picks up after the events in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," by this time the First Order grows stronger as it corners the resistance to an impossible situation. Poe Dameron, Finn and Rose come up with a plan that could work but time is of the essence. Meanwhile Rey is doing her best to convince Luke Skywalker to join in on the fight, but Luke doesn't want to be a jedi or a master, let alone the resistance's final hope.
Ok, so if you're wondering what happens with Kylo Ren, Rey, Poe Dameron and Finn and how they affect each other this time around, without giving it away, what "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" does is essentially flesh out these characters. Not only will you get to know some of their history and their background and what truly compels them, but this time they're also facing some very difficult choices. And the film also lays out judgement on some of them, it puts an end to some parts of the story that doesn't need to be continued anymore in the next episode. And what's brilliant about the story that Rian Johnson has crafted is that it makes you the audience think that each of those characters has their own respective path that they're going on, you expect them to see it through but bam, other plans take over but turns out these new unexpected plans actually make sense to the overall arc.
Johnson wants these characters' personal journeys to be a refined in the fire type of journeys. Each revelation, each aspect, brings them one step closer to being the lead stars, front and center of this new trilogy as the old icons take a step back further away from the spotlight. Speaking of whom, it's so awesome Mark Hamill be Luke Skywalker again, he has a bigger role this time, such a larger than life legend, and Hamill actually gives his best performance in years in this one.
I know that a lot of fans consider "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" to be more or less a rehash of "A New Hope" and I don't blame them for thinking that because to a certain extent, it was a rehash. But it's a necessary one because after the super boring parliamentary-heavy prequels by George Lucas. So it was important for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" to remind us that this franchise was once super fun and exciting. So because that problem was taken care of, so now Rian Johnson doesn't need to do such reminder anymore with "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." It is not a Empire Strikes Back rehash. Rian can freely do what he does best, similar to what he did with "Brick," "The Brothers Bloom," and "Looper, and that is to further explore the possible consequences of the characters' decisions while at the same time amplifying everything you love about Star Wars, it even brings back some familiar faces. If you've always been fascinated with the force, this movie emphasizes the force all the more. If you miss Carrie Fisher, this movie has heavy dose of general Leia, if light speed gets you stoked, there's plenty of those here, and if you're a big fan of jedi mindtrick, boy does "Star Wars: the Last Jedi" have a big motherload surprise for you or what!
Such incredible breathtaking new locations as well, especially that vast salt land in Bolivia that serves as the backdrop for the planet Crait. The battle sequences in this film are pulse-pounding, explosive and intense. The light saber fights are thrilling, you just get enough of it, you'll be begging for more, you'll want the film to display more of those laser swords in action. The way the new characters integrate themselves with the stories of Kylo Ren, Finn and Poe Cameron is quite seamless. Whatever conflicts amongst them or their collision only lead to some of this film's most heroic moments which are highlighted by the remarkable sound mix and sound editing. This is a movie that entirely looks and moves and feels and breathes like a Star Wars movie with an Oscar level deeply affecting drama that stays with you long after the end credits roll. The force is strong with "Star Wars: the Last Jedi."
-- Rama's Screen --
49 out of 143 found this helpful.
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6/10
They keep moving just out of the range of our guns
The original Star Wars, now 40 years old, was always presented as a complete but fairly sterile universe. We enjoyed the heroics of the first 3 films, but were largely nonplussed by the CGI laden effects of the next 3. Like the last film, this is a return to form.
And however enjoyable this romp is, it effectively admits that there is nothing much more that can be done with the franchise at the moment. The film is probably as entertaining as any of the other Star Wars films, and even shows occasional flashes of strong film making. But the fresh stuff cannot quite escape the weight of it's own familiar format.
The Star Wars pieces are deftly moved about in grand sweeps, but with surprisingly little outcome. The character arcs seem strangely un-epic.The humour is deployed well, but just serves to reduce the size of the characters, because there is little counter-balancing in tension. At no time do we learn anything new about the Star Wars universe, or anything about where we are today in the real world. It is stuck in a fixed moral code. The attempted theme of renewal splutters along careful tramlines, and just about keeps the show on the road.
Overall the film is satisfying, and is more than just filler for the video games and McDonald's toys, but it needs something fairy strong to make it anything more than an echo of what it was.
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The story collapses into a corner with no where for the resistance to go (ineffective leaders and equipment don't get them very far, outside of self sacrifice). The new characters are literally left now going forward to figure it out (whatever it is) for themselves. I wouldn't expect any real help from the prospective janitor Jedis. I cannot believe I am typing this, but the porgs deserved a better movie.
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1/10
Star Wars: The Last Jedi - A Steaming Pile of Bantha Poodoo
I can't believe how profoundly disappointed I was in this film. After allowing it to ruminate for a little while, I've decided to write this review from two aspects: One as a film in general, the other as an eternal Star Wars fan.
As a movie, this was an incredible failure on a scale far greater than other installments (Attack of the Clones is remembered fondly after seeing this). I can't blame the actors and actresses, and in fact, I am quite a fan of them. They are probably the only good part of this project. It would be like blaming a messenger for what they delivered. What Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy created is in no way quality cinema. Characters were so poorly developed that both their names and roles are hard to remember: While I love Laura Dern, I'm not entirely sure what her characters purpose was, aside from slightly snide remarks to our hero, Poe; Rose (?) I think was the name of Kelly Tran's character, a poorly written, yet major portion of the storyline, she has some form of slave background and emotional ties to a sister we know nothing about, as well as holding an amulet made of something that does nothing other than conduct electricity; Supreme leader Snoke is never explored, explained, or in any way built upon from the previous film, and is ended in such a hilariously anti-climactic way I actually laughed out loud; Benicio del Toro plays a strange mix of his character from Snatch and the Collector from the Marvel Universe, and does literally nothing of value. Rey, Finn, and Poe get no profound treatments, with Rey receiving incredibly lame news about her genealogy. The killed Luke, who is now a big cry baby rather than former saviour of the galaxy, and let Leia live? Leia also becomes Mary Poppins in one of the saddest scenes ever made for Star Wars; yes, far worse than Darth Vader's 'Nooooo' from episode 3. Several scenes were clonal remakes of the old trilogy, in rapid summative succession they are: Reys meeting of Snoke, mirroring Luke and Palpatine; At-At type walkers on a desolate white surfaced planet, attacking a large wall, just as in Empire, except they make the distinction that it is salt and not snow (Ha); Luke and Rey running around an isolated planet just like Yoda and Luke, including an underwater X-wing (Thankfully, they don't go as far as raising it); A remake of Mos Eisley spaceport (again)(including a plain English rehash of Sir Alec Guinness's famous scum and villainy line, said by Rose). The list goes on. Annoying, constant comic relief in the form of awful CGI creatures (Porgs?) made me want to return to the time of the Gungans. The tragic pace of the movie formed by droning dialogue and superfluous landscape shots makes you aware of the full 152-minute run time of the film. You're left with the realization that the movie progressed nothing at all, and it literally ends the exact same way it began: Rebels running from Imperials.
As a fan, a person who has expended much capital on Star Wars merchandise, and a lover of sci-fi, this is a horrid abomination for the once fantastic Star Wars universe. Once a rock-solid bastion of great storytelling (except the prequels), richly developed locations and characters, and a seemingly never-ending depth of possibility, the Star Wars universe is now a gross, warped Disney monstrosity. The movie played out like a childish episode of Star Wars Rebels. A single x-wing destroying all external cannons on a dreadnought, a single bomber destroying said dreadnought, four rebel ships fleeing without the other first order ships firing a shot, and the continued puttering, foolish tact and strategy employed by the First Order, makes you disbelieve that this faction could ever control the galaxy much less develop super weapons. Why is the First Order fleet slowly chasing down a cruiser, firing pot shots and picking off transports one ship at a time? Why wouldn't a few of these ships simply jump in front of the rebels and cut them off? Why is fuel suddenly a concern? Why wouldn't the rebels jump their smaller ships into the First order fleet instead of letting them get run down and destroyed? Why are villains still terribly monologuing?! Snoke is super powerful but can't sense (Or notice) a lightsaber rotating directly beside his hand? I can type for days but It just makes me more and more confused, saddened and disappointed.
Anyways, save your money, it'll be on Netflix by May the Fourth. I couldn't possibly cover all the issues here and I'm already rambling too much. So, that is my review, this movie is essentially the Battlefront 2 of Star Wars movies. Until Disney can make a good film, I would suggest not paying for more Star Wars shlock.
5 out of 9 found this helpful.
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Just got back from the screening, it's 01:00 and i'm tired. This film has me deeply dissapointed, so much so i'm writing this as a self-help piece to myself
Straight off the bat, this film is packed with comedy moments, so much so you expect each sentance to end in a gag. Not just the descrete Vader is coming look scared, the full on we're the bad guys but were kinda rubbish let's make it all funny. Everytime the First Order are about to destroy the last remaining rebels (which in this film is about 8 times) they take their sweet sweet time and guess what? They don't suceed. It's liteterally a copy and paste jobby when it comes to Poe's story line.
Fin. Useless. Film turns into the bloody Grand National, with a Leprechaun and a fat 'multi-beasted' opera singer. I honestly can't even bring myself to even go..into...tha...muc.....WHAT?!
Where is the mystery gone in Star Wars? Ray is NOBEDY, Snooke is NOBEDY. So what do I have to look forward to in the next film? More hands reaching out.....great
Wacky Del Toro and the one guy who is taking this all mildy seriously Adam 'less emo' Driver put in good performances as does Mark 'Milkshake' Hamill
Ginger'brows and 'Not-Hermione Granger' take me right out of the film. Is it the accent? And i'm British!
This review like the film, isn't good and doesn't make much sense.
5 out of 9 found this helpful.
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I was one of the people who though that The force awakens was really good, a bit to similar to A new hope and not really a 10/10, but still a really good movie. I couldn't possibly be more excited for the upcoming movie that was supposed to be set in two years, and so, here we are. I'm going to skip the parts about the fact that the opening was "unrealistic" and that it was stupid that you could crash into stuff when you jump into light speed and no one haven't done it earlier. I can honestly live with that.
What I do have a problem with though, started when 1. Leia seemed to be dead as she was draged out in the middle of space to float around the stars and SURVIVES and nothing is mentioned about it when she is full restored after a couple of hours. What the hell was that? That has literally nothing to do with Star Wars. Leia is force sensitive, but that doesn't make her Superman.
2. Please, let C-3PO be the only comic relief if we now have to have one in Star Wars. The fact that they tried to create funny moments as if Star Wars was some stupid comedy movie was just annoying.
3. WHERE WAS HANS FUNERAL. THEY LITERALLY MENTIONED HIM LIKE ONCE? MAYBE TWICE
4.Who was Snoke? Anyone who knows? Because I sure as hell don't. This was supposed to be the first orders version of the emperor, but we know nothing about him. Before we learned anything about how he came to the power or anything at all about his backstory, Kylo kills him. Right after he has mentioned that he can see everything in Kylo Rens mind.
5. Who are the knights of ren? Why aren't they in the movie or not even mentioned a single time?
6. Why is the whole Finn+Rose plot even in the movie? Why did the planet they went to fit more into Harry Potter than Star Wars? Why was the guy with the red brooch the only one who could fix their problem, but two seconds later he wasn't? When did the dude who's name I don't even remember talk to the first order? Why was Phasma beaten so easily by Finn, she was supposed to be the commander of the first order troopers?
7. Why didn't they kill of Leia? I loved Carries performance, but how are they supposed to explain that she's gone in the next movie? They can't just kill her off in the credits before the movie. Would honestly just have liked it better if they would have let her die when she was draged out in space. Then we wouldn't have to suffer through the lame space scene with her in the beginning.
8. The fact that Reys parents are some random poor scavengers is bullshit. Why would they leave her on Jakku and take of in some really big ship and never come back? And why would they make such a big deal of it in the force awakens if it really doesn't matter.
God, I'm so annoyed. This movie had so much potential but the bad writing just ruined it all. I'm not going to deny that it had some good scenes though. And the battle down at the base was really cool, I did really enjoyed watching that. But it was definitely not good enough to save the entire movie.
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7/10
90% safe and marketable mediocrity, 10% interesting ideas
I'm not going to tell you whether it was good or bad, this is for you to decide. I will just try to share my experience. Spoiler-free, of course, yet there is not that much to spoil in this episode. The movie was mostly predictable for a sane person.
Right of the bat, the first scene of the movie sets up the tone - this is a comedy. Nothing has to be taken seriously. Every strong or dramatic moment will most likely be ruined by a corky comedy scene to lighten up the tone. The studio does not want you to get upset, you know.
This also features a lot of improvisation. If you have seen Thor Ragnarok, this comes very close to that movie. I think the director believed that this will make the characters more grounded and real, yet it's just annoying most of the time. You're trying to get invested into a scene, and the movie takes you from your seat and shakes you up: "remember, no getting invested". Maybe it just doesn't work for me personally, IDK.
As the main plot developed I found myself mostly confused, lots of "what?" moments occur, things I could not explain to myself even though I'm not new to SW. It also features a couple of additional subplots only one of which I found interesting, not going to spoil it though. New characters were introduced, mostly to make the movie more marketable and to bring more "diversity". You can see corporate decisions behind this - no chances at sexism, racial discrimination or anything trending right now, maximum safety. This is a second installment with the new characters and yet I still can find myself rooting only for the classic ones, and there are not that much of those left. Due to some unfortunate real life events, I'm afraid the next episode will lose those as well, maybe I'm wrong though. It is also interesting how Chewie just doesn't work as a standalone character in the absence of Solo.
The acting made me question my understanding of the franchise. Hux, while being Hitler-like character in the 7th movie, now completely turned into a cartoon character or a parody by Charlie Chaplin. Rey's emotions and facial expressions are still indistinguishable, as well as Kylo's TBH. Poe and Finn come closest to having a real character arc and yet the movie still finds a way to throw that to the ground.
And this is where my main grudge with this movie lies. There were some really interesting and creative setups throughout the movie when the it baits you into thinking that the movie is going to get serious and do something unexpectedly good with the characters and the story. And then it just falls flat on its butt. Spoilers keep me from giving you examples of what I mean, but I'm sure you'll see those as well when you see the movie.
Overall, I wasn't too disappointed, I was mostly sad. If this is the Star Wars for the new generation, I'm happy to stay with the old one. Visuals were pleasing, space battles were well made, but this is not exactly what I'm looking for in SW.
P.S. Merch placement got really out of hand in this movie, I get it that these new creatures were made for the purpose of making money, but man they like to shove these into viewer's face.
21 out of 55 found this helpful.
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I give full credit for the Telegraph's review of this film when I paraphrase them here: this is more Star Wars as you never felt it, than Star Wars as you've never seen it before. The film feels different to the rest of the Saga, largely in a good way. It does a far better job of developing the characters than The Force Awakens. There are some terrific scenes between the central characters. I will admit, however, like Ep7 the film does not do enough to develop all the characters. Phasma is again completely under-utilised, and now supposedly gone forever. Laura Dern's character also deserved more development. A waste, in my opinion, of a fantastic actress, despite her heroic, epic demise.
Plot-wise, this 'long arc' focus does, in my opinion, draw attention away from an immediate plot line. The film feels somewhat empty at times; quiet. The Saga is meant to display that the Empire/First Order and Rebellion/Resistance is all that matters in the Galaxy, but this films makes it feel like no one out there cares anymore, and I didn't like that. It makes the whole conflict/war feel a bit pathetic and civil rather than intergalactic, adding a new layer of complexity to the Galaxy's politics that frankly wasn't very comfortable to accept.
Overall: a good film, with some of the Saga's best battle sequences. The film asks and deserves to be thought about before concluded upon. Encourages you to think and attempts to step outside the Saga's style/existing rhythm to benefit of what comes next. Overall quality character development, same good dialogue as before, and persistly good acting by the central cast.
12 out of 28 found this helpful.
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I'm a huge-ass starwars fanboy, and I will now list everything wrong with this movie.
ONE: This was not an exact copy of the original SW saga. I mean, we all loved Force Awakens BECAUSE it was pretty much the script of New Hope copy-pasted but with the character names changed and cooler special effects added. That's the only reason we loved the movie, and of course we expected this new movie to be the EXACT copy of Empire Strikes Back, just like FA was a copy of New Hope. Unfortunately, Disney tried creating something original instead! I mean what year do you think this is, 1977?!? Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - has done an original script in Hollywood in approximately 15 years for a very good reason, and you can see that reason reading all the reviews written for this movie: nobody - and I really mean NOBODY - wants to see original stuff, it makes my brain go hurtyhurt!
TWO: Like many have pointed out here, Luke Skywalker is no longer young for some reason. I mean, we all came to see this guy who looks like he has had an ever-lasting hangover for the past 50 years, assuming he would be the same fun-loving adventure-seeking little brat we all got to know and love back in the day. Yet somehow, SOMEHOW, they DARED to make Luke have had personal history, disappointments and even some tragic personal developement over the past decades. HOW DARE THEY?!
THREE: We are not told information about useless things that we do not need to know. Sure, when the original Star Wars trilogy came out, we weren't handed much information about any of the characters either. We didn't even know Emperor Palpatine's name until we started reading some extra background stuff. But back then it was okay because movies were about the ORIGINAL STORY, and not so much about what was the exact background and family origin of each character. But nowdays, as we all know, not only are movies supposed to be extremely non-original, they also are not supposed to contain a "story", but rather information. When a character appears, it doesn't so much matter what (s)he does in the movie, or where (s)he takes the story, it is more important to know the background and his/hers whereabouts in the past, and his/hers parents as well. And even though I hate to spoil it, we really don't get to know who Snoke's parents are AT ALL! Unless we are revealed in Episode 9 that Snoke's father was really Boba Fett, I really have to say that this all kinda sucked hard.
All in all, I would agree with all the other reviewers, that the script of this movie was indeed not copy-pasted from the original saga, and thus this was a very very bad movie indeed. Stay clear of this if possible.
13 out of 31 found this helpful.
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When I went to watch this movie for the first time, my expectations were very high. Because I am a huge fan of the original trilogy, but also the marketing.
I also assumed it would not be as magical as the first three movies. That is impossible to match anyway.
And this movie deliverd it for me! Here are some of the great things about it:
the acting was way better than in The Force Awakens;
the special effects/CGI were near perfect;
the story was similar to The Empire Strikes Back, but had some great
unexpected twists as well. Along with some nice suprises;
there were some cool new things I never saw before in the previous movies.
For example: I really liked the new creatures (what they did and were used for);
the jokes were funny;
the music/score/soundtrack gave me a great nostalic feeling;
the space battles and fightscenes were hugely entertaining;
the old and new characters worked very well together.
What I found a little less great:
the music was amazing, but for me there was not enough new material. There
was some, but nothing memorable;
some moments were implausible and some made no sense. But hey: it's Star
Wars! If you want realism, go watch something else;
if you are completely new to the franchise, I can imagine the whole thing could
be utterly confusing. Because reasons.
Every great movie has it's problems, so there is no sense in nitpicking and look for other flaws. I have watched it three times already, and found it near perfect.
Over all, I was hugely entertained. You either are familiar with what I call "the Star Wars feeling", or you are not. Describing it is impossible.
But if you know it, you should really watch this movie! And if you don't, you can still enjoy it.
13 out of 31 found this helpful.
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I have been a longtime Star Wars fan and I did not care for the prequels at all. I think this was a very satisfying entry in the Star Wars Saga. I have a few issues with the story and some of the plot choices, but overall, Luke's portrayal in this film is one of the best character arcs to take place in the whole Saga.
I also like the themes introduced in this film that upend a lot of assumed Star Wars ideas about the Force and the Jedi. I like how Luke has learned as a character from the failures of the past and discovers what he should be passing on to a younger generation of force sensitive persons.
My biggest issue with Star Wars has always been its skepticism about redemption. There is this fight between a view of persons who enter the dark side and can never be brought back and those who believe they can. I seems the default in this series is that characters cannot come back from the dark side, except in a rare occasion.
I will not talk about spoilers but I will say that my concern I mentioned above has to do with the direction they are going with the character of Kylo Ren.
IN SUMMARY:
I really enjoyed watching The Last Jedi. It takes the series in unexpected directions. Die hard fans may have a problem with some of these choices. But, I think in the long run, we are going to be glad the series opened itself up to some new and deeper ideas about the Star Wars mythos.
+One of the best lightsaber exchanges in the whole series of eight films.
+Lots of surprising story directions.
+The Force and the Jedi are taken in new directions.
-Kylo's story direction after this film and how people view him.
-Story execution for Finn's character and its effect on the overall pace of the film.
-How they handle the Snoke character.
-How they address the question about who are Rey's parents. (this one is more tentative because of how it is addressed and some ambiguity remains.)
As a piece of entertainment, The Force Awakens is better paced. But it doesn't take any major risks with the story and rehashes a lot of Star Wars movie tropes.
The Last Jedi is a more mature film that challenges you to think of things differently and opens up expansive possibilities for the Star Wars Galaxy!!!
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10/10
Johnson hyperspace jumps the space opera to bold new terrain
The most passionate fans among us are treating this like how Empire was treated following the smooth, tightly structured self-contained A New Hope. It's divisive. The Empire Strikes Back was, too, originally for some of the same reasons.
It hyperspace jumps the saga to a brand new central conflict, which is no less complex, compelling or controversial than the conflict of a sadistic genocidal maniac trying to convince his freedom fighter son to become a murderer alongside him. Make no mistake about it. The relationship building between the young, idealistic Rey and the manipulative Ben Solo is every bit as ancient in myth and fairy tale though and that's why it will work universally everywhere just as the parental conflict did. This new conflict though is a big part of what is dividing people. Star Wars was a fairly masculine entity until recently. Oh, sure there are tons of female fans but they have been outnumbered by males for decades. That's changing with this saga and a lot of men seem to be interpreting this as a threat to what they hold dear. They shouldn't. It's more respectful for Star Wars to leave the perfect father/son story of the original trilogy alone rather than try to carbon copy it with cousins or whatever else many fanboys out there wanted to happen.
The central conflict change around another aspect of Space Opera would already anger some but Rian Johnson's decisions for Luke Skywalker is the single biggest controversy of them all. It shouldn't be. Johnson studied Carl Jung and created the perfect psychological exploration of an aging hero who's had a lot of pain and suffering in his life and relatives of military veterans who've struggled with issues of guilt and purpose after duty will find a lot to unpack.
Mark Hamill delivers the performance of his life as the middle-aged Luke. Fans forget that this was a character who'd previously chosen to jump off a ledge and into a ventilation shaft in a move that felt more like a suicide attempt than an act of heroism in the Empire Strikes Back. Johnson is well aware of each of Luke's weaknesses psychologically and crafted a beautifully touching tale of grief, of accepting that each of us is capable of a moment where the Dark side called out to us and we listened and later regretted. This is a story of accepting your faults and stopping to deflect and project your own regrets and mistakes onto others or other groups. It's about taking responsibility and ending excuses and accepting that the mistake was part of who you are. Not your favorite part. But part of you. Yoda helps Luke to realize this and to accept that although he, personally, felt he had caught himself from crossing a line it was completely rational for Ben Solo to feel that the line had been crossed and that his Uncle had permantely given up on him. Johnson channels Kurosawa's Ran by revealing the scene from multiple perspectives. Somehow I think Lucas himself would have liked that artistic choice.
Rian Johnson similarly tests each of our heroes in this and again misty in psychological ways. Finn's loyalty to the cause is tested by a man who believes it's stupid to commit to any movement and by a woman who is making the kinds of sacrifices for him that he'd make for Rey. Poe Dameron's training and belief in the importance of chain of command is tested after his bravado and arrogance leads to devastating consequences. Kylo Ren's belief in the Dark Side is seemingly tested the more he spends time with Rey and it's clear that she has become his biggest weakness as he continues to grow as a villain.
The world-building and creature designs reach new highs in the Last Jedi with a mixture of practical effects and CG that will have you feeling like it's the 1980s all over again. The tone throughout also forgoes the Christopher Nolan grimdark era of self-seriousness that the 00s ushered in and takes us back to a playfulness of 1980s filmmaking that you forget you miss until Back to the Future, or Return of the Jedi, or Big Trouble in Little China comes on and you realize how much more fun and daring filmmakers used to be with tone.
Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars without combat though and the Last Jedi delivers several sequences that are among the best in the entire saga. The Praetorian guards battle. The mine sequence. The Miyazaki-inspired Falthiers running free. Luke's return to the battlefield. And honestly... sooo much more.
The Last Jedi is a 10 out of 10 for me alongside A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. These are the 3 best films in the saga for fans of the magic and zaniness of Star Wars. Grimdark fans will prefer Rogue One's realism and nostalgia for the terrific ending of Return of the Jedi will help others see past its flaws but for me this is the third best film of the saga and one of the best action adventures released past 2000. Emotional, thought-provoking, personal, funny and magic... I hope you still have enough childlike wonder to let it into your heart and keep your cynancism or preconceived notions of what Star Wars needs to be out of your mind. If you can do so you just might realize that this is what Star Wars needed to evolve.
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10/10
Unique but still has the Star Wars feel. Visually amazing.
I am a die-hard non-elitist SW fan. Sorry to hear that some of the elitist SW fans were disappointed, but what do you expect? Not every SW film can be just like the Empire Strikes Back. It's like if too many ideas from the original films are borrowed, it's a strike against the film; in contrast, if the concepts, characters, etc. stray from the original feel, it's also another strike against them. I guess I am not sure what people are looking for.
Anyway, end rant about that. This movie was exciting, just as I'd expect from a Star Wars film. There is no shortage of awesome fight scenes, wielding of light sabers and other interesting spacey weapons, nor any shortage of space vehicles. There were so many scenes that were so visually pleasing, I nearly melted in my seat. Artistically speaking, it was top notch.
Adam Driver was maybe my favorite part of the movie. Kylo Ren's character really developed in this film, which I appreciated...I felt he developed beyond just the angsty emo kid that we saw in The Force Awakens. And, Driver really played it well.
I also especially loved the strong women/heroines in the movie. Although The Force Awakens already had that going for it, I felt it was more emphasized in this movie. Sorry to all those who are apparently offended by women being heroes or whatever, but it's 2017, so it might be time to crawl out of your cave rather than bash a movie for *gasp* letting women lead the action for once.
I loved Finn as I loved him in The Force Awakens. And, me being a fan of very cute things, I was excited by the introduction of the porgs and the vultpexes. The porgs are maybe not everyone's cup of tea, and I can understand the criticism that some have...but I personally am too in love with their cuteness to be even slightly bothered by it.
Now, being that I loved it, I am not saying that it's not without flaws or...maybe, not even flaws but frustrations for the viewer who has questions and wants them answered. There are still many unanswered questions, and maybe a couple of inconsistencies that were slightly annoying.
I am not sure that the answer we were given about Rey's parents is the truth, and if it is, it is both a mix of being a let-down, as well as it is a relief to know that the story didn't follow an incredibly cliche and predictable approach. That being said, it's not so much an issue for me, as it just leaves me feeling conflicted. Maybe that was the point. Maybe that's a good thing. I think maybe I will have settled whether it's a good thing or not when the next film comes out.
Snoke was the one thing that I was pretty disappointed about. Not only do we still not really know who he is, where he came from, etc... the way in which he was killed, although surprising and exciting, didn't really make sense. It was hard for me to figure out how he could have not seen it coming. And, we didn't really get to see a whole lot of what he was all capable of, as well as learn anything about his character before he was executed. This flaw wasn't enough to make me dislike the movie or give it a lower rating, however, it was bothersome and I hope that some of these questions are somehow answered in the next...although I'm not sure how gracefully they will be able to do tie that in. All that being said, I was relieved that they took the quick turn that they did, with Kylo seemingly having turned, only to reveal that he had a darker ulterior motive. On. Point. in that regard.
Luke's death at the end was pretty anti-climatic for me. So, that was a bit disappointing. I appreciated the creative approach taken to his "stand-off" with Kylo Ren. but then he just looks into the sky and disappears? And, then there's some sadness in Leia's face, a mention of it between her and Rey...and that was it. I mean, it just didn't make me feel much of anything... it was just kind of like "that's it?" Again, not a movie-ruiner for me, but I wish I would have felt a little more emotional about it, and the way it played out just didn't get me there.
This movie was Star Wars, but it was also very unique from any other SW film, including from the Force Awakens, and I appreciated it. Personally, as much as I want to feel the Star Wars feel, I also don't want to watch the same movie over and over again...so I was really grateful that this movie took some bold approaches and didn't follow a predictable path. And that is precisely what made some of the issues excusable for me.
13 out of 31 found this helpful.
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You know that old expression, "don't make mountains out of molehills"? Suffice it to say, a vast majority of the harshly negative reviews of The Last Jedi present a whole mountain range of issues where only molehills exist.
Often, when I'm researching whether or not I should see a movie, I rely on user reviews to make that decision. Rarely do I put much stock in what the film critics have to say. This is the first time I can remember in recent memory that, the critics actually got his one right and the fans didn't at all.
Having read a ton of negative reviews, I think I could put most of the upset , blatantly negative reviewers into one of four categories; (1) those how cannot see the forest for the trees, and thus get hung up on a few broken and miss the big picture; (2) those who are holding too tightly to the old Extended Universe; and (3) those who maybe thought this was the last Star Wars movie ever and wanted every question answered.
The Last Jedi skillfully sparks a newness unlike any movie in the Star Wars series. For the first time since Return of the Jedi, Star Wars feels fresh again. And that's a very welcome change, after being on the treadmill of knowing exactly what was going to happen for the past 5 films (since The Phantom Menace).
While this film is imperfect, it's incredibly strong. There are twists you won't see coming. There are moments when everything we thought we knew will be put to the test. There are moments when you'll have to sit all the way forward in your chair due to excitement. Challenging moments, humbling moments, sobering moments, human moments.
I think Luke Skywalker himself could sum it up better than I:
"This will not go the way you think."
And that's the best possible thing.
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10/10
Luke Skywalker: This is not going to go the way you think!
Once you can truly Accept what i quoted in the Headline, you can have a great time with that movie.
Honestly i dont think it is a perfect Movie...BUT ... i dont care. The Moments of Shock and awe made up for some of the weaker plotlines.
I really like the Beginning of the Movie, then it kinda slows down...at one Point i was actually asking myself "where is this going? is actually something gonna happen?" - well and then it happens. and once you realize you are within the last act, you do not want to miss a beat. the last 45 mins i was mostly shocked or in awe. I can understand why they have signed Rian Johnsen for the next Trilogy. I think his work is visually the most impressive perfomance i have ever seen in a star wars movie.
After seeing the Movie for the first time i was really conflicted and not sure how i should feel about the Movie. The way the Story unfolds and the Things that happen were so unexpected. When i went out to the Theatre the next day to see it again i realized i was super hyped. i had let go of my initial expectations and could enjoy the StoryTHEY were telling. on my second viewing i enjoyed the movie much more.
The acting is great. seriously! The writing is good - not flawless at all. First i was confused of the plottwists... by now i love them. It is so not what we all expected (what was a Major complain on TFA for many fans). John Williams is good as usual even so i had higher hopes.
The Visuals - i dont even know what to say. BTW i am not talking about CGI. I am talking about cinematogrophy, directing, the sets, the visual expierence when the Action unfolds. 3 Days ago i could not have imagened something impressive like that.
I rate this movie 10/10 not because it is flawless, but because it has plenty of These Star Wars worthy - Jaw dropping Moments. And that is what i want from a Star Wars movie.
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I am a die hard star wars fan and I came into this movie with somewhat low expectations. I never thought I would see a star wars movie that I would enjoy as much as the movies in the original trilogy. I was wrong. This movie has it all for star wars fans. Incredible performances by the old crew (especially Mark Hamil). It had intense fight scenes, suspenseful moments, great story, and overall it was a different kind of star wars movie. I guess that it is why I see so many negative reviews about it. Yes it doesn't "feel" like one of the original movies and there never will be another movie like that. To me it seems that people can not get over this fact. This movie was something different, something better. And I hope that future movies will continue this trend of being bold and trying something new.
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I'm a huge fan of Star Wars, ok. I won't go long on this.
There were so many stupid things, bad story twists and (again like in Episode VII but a bit less) repeating of the original trilogy that I simply can't say anything but that The Last Jedi is the dumbest Star Wars movie of them all. No kidding, it's worse than Episodes I and II.
Graphics are cool though, as well as Luke Skywalker scenes. As a matter of fact, Luke and Leia scenes prevented me from giving it a 4 or 5 /10. Thank you, Mr. Hamill, for your good work. Thank you, Mrs. Fisher, we will always remember you.
Huge dissappointnment. Again, like Episode VII, it would all be fine if it wan't a Star Wars movie. But it is, and Disney failed the fans again.
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I went to see the movie at the European premiere last night.
The movie spent too much time introducing new creatures and places, which in the end did not contribute to the story. This reduced the amount of screentime for actual character development. Which is nescessary when you add several new characters, and expect the audience to care about them.
In the end, the movie came out as a filler episode of a sitcom. A lot of stuff happens, but nothing of value happens. In quality it is comparable to Attack of the Clones.
9 out of 20 found this helpful.
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I just got back from watching this movie and I really enjoyed this one. I had goosebumps through several scenes and thought it was better than Force Awakens for sure.
There were some great fight/battle scenes, plenty of action, good characters, and it tried much harder at being it's own movie instead of being "Member berries" like Force Awakens did.
I didn't like Kylo much upon first watch of Force Awakens, but he is amazing in this movie. I like where they went with all the characters, really.
The thing that got me the most as a negative was a few JarJar-level silly scenes thrown in that totally kill the mood of the film. This is a darker movie, more serious with some typical "Star Wars" light hearted moments. Then there are some totally silly scenes it looks like a third grader threw in.
Overall I loved it and can't wait to see it again. Hopefully someone makes a cut with a few of those comical scenes left out so the movie can keep the mood it deserves throughout.
This is the best Star Wars film outside of the original trilogy.
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8/10
Much more emotional and comical than it appears, "The Last Jedi" is an unusual follow-up in deified Star Wars canon
The most successful, celebrated and cherished franchise of all time is already here brimming with brand new, groundbreaking and laudable proposals, stamped in the story by a potential filmmaker who has achieved the impossible: get the endorsement of Lucasfilm about to conceive another radically different trilogy, with characters, scenarios, approaches and themes never seen before; he calls himself as Rian Johnson and is here to stay.
"The Last Jedi" is titled the latest entry in this huge galaxy. Dynamited controversy arose at the time when it was announced officially and publicly the name of this episode, causing hundreds of suspicions and therefore theories that connected and disconnected hypothesis about whether a possibility would be provided to find more than one Jedi in the tale. Did they allude Luke Skywalker as the last one? End the Jedi? Who are Rey's parents? What has the real reason Kylo Ren murdered his father? Is this movie featuring a new lightsaber color? Will Finn and Poe have a more personal relationship? Thousands and thousands of attractive questions came up on the web daily, Internet-using fans who theorized about the possible course of the second part, in which most of their questions have been solved.
Again, we return with Poe Damen as a daring pilot on a suicide mission, undaunted and over-confident along his army with the goal etched in his head: Fade the Dark Side. The first good thing to come to light about this character is that, with respect to the seventh installment, we have the pleasure of witnessing an Oscar Isaac more mature, just as fearless and less superficial, partly thanks to the increase of his time on screen; Resistance well-liked pilot gets the treatment he deserves for honor, although he remains a grateful time inside his spaceship struggling, he has the opportunity to guide the crew momentarily; likewise, Guatemalan actor's performance is human, charismatic and certainly charming. The second narrative arc corresponds to Finn and a brave new rebel played by Kelly Marie Tran. The duo embarks on an epic adventure almost like a buddy movie, fulfilling their function of fighting face to face with the aberrant amount of ships and enemies that stand in the way of the Light Side. It's important to underline the romantic impact that the couple gives, an interesting and fresh play that benefits from the good feeling that each actor permeates their characters. To close the narrative trio and, clearly, no less fundamental, is Rey, exactly in the same place where the previous flick ended. She is there to receive a formal training in order to, in one way or another, be enlighten by mighty Skywalker's force, as well as gets answers and holds the last Jedi's purpose high and proud: Start a new, focused and well-directed revolution. At this point, writer-actor Mark Hamill's character has more weight, teaching Rey the true meaning of the force through directives, keys, and advices that will turn her into the last great hope, one to which the future clings fearfully. Luke's living arrangements and reasons for the choice of hiding in such off-the-radar island are emotionally diffused, also, much of the conflict originated between the light and the dark side is clarified, allowing the introduction of old acquaintances with the aim of breaking down, once and for all, this war in the galaxies, we all know the ending. Although the first and much of the second act Rey shares the screen with Mr. Skywalker most times, there is a portentous narrative technique that connects her, in a very original spiritual way, with Kylo Ren. This pessimistic-thought, morally ambiguous and dictator boy shows an openly unaccustomed human perspective, it's perceptible in his eyes of neglect, loss and sorrow, Ren is stuck in a grey world, his actions are not fully dominated by wickedness and rancor toward Skywalker, in the same way, with the help of we witnessed, he exhibits an inevitable connection with the Light Side that leads him to strike up a certain relationship with Rey, he doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to defend, however, over time, his heart is in cold, vileness and hatred, while his soul tries to emancipate, be honest and repent, his brain and heart are in full discompassing.
Watching Princess Leia Organa on screen for the very last time breaks everyone's heart, with every scene running something inside of me was really happy, but at the same time, something inside me was deeply sad to feel like I was saying goodbye to a loved one. The narrative arc of the princess is still based on women's empowerment, a peaceful warrior woman, in the heart and kindness of an unfading lady. I consider modern audiences will remember her by this last performance, full of hope, power and strength. It should be mentioned that although she's simply perfect within the story, this is not fully closed, IE everything looks as if she was going to be at the close of the trilogy, an alarming signal because Disney confirmed not resort to CGI to bring her back, then what will they be doing?
As an advice or a warning, there is a great surprise factor - of the many - that will replace the death of Solo in the previous installment, IE, this flick keeps shocking cardinal events for the course of the story that will leave you on the edge of your seats, with an analogue or more powerful impact that this one of Ren hurting his father's torso with a vengeful lightsaber. What is this obsession Mr. Vader has for killing characters with lightsabers?
Regarding the new adds in terms of characters, three roles are those that stand out in importance and presence. The first one is the aforementioned Rose Tico, a three-dimensional maintenance worker introduced in a key point and although it presents absolutely nothing of her past, she stars one of the most poignant and deeply romantic scenes of the franchise. The second one concerns Golden-Globe-nominated Laura Dern, who, thanks to Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, must be placed at the forefront of the Resistance. Her tenacity and courage make this woman a fundamental character for the progress of the story, while on the way delivers a sophisticated, determined and as always superb Dern. Finally and personally the most unexpected participation is Puerto Rican Benicio del Toro's performance. Surrounded by complete secrecy and theories, DJ, the character played by "Sicario" actor, is a kind of intergalactic mercenary, corrupt moral, an expert in deciphering ultra-confidential codes. Currently, one of the most potential roles for following installments.
Technically, just wide-open eyes. The creative journeys the film proposes are irrefutably evocative, captivating and professionally realistic, enabling a thorough immersion in the voyage. Cinematography doesn't go far from its predecessor, however, it's important the radical change that gives Steve Yedlin for the pictures; Camera angles and movements (characteristic of the films) harmonize different technical components of the film, making a drastic improvement at the cinematographic level, the movements are more intimate and personal, there are a greater presence of close-ups, fast and dynamic movements in the battles and dolly variations or precise approaches in situations where more than two characters are on screen. The costumes keep the trend and the gigantic art team does a neatly magnificent job. It's known that this department designed a catastrophic amount of new creatures, many of which were left out of the movie, however, the few strange-animals seen are peculiar, original, unpleasant and engaging. A film of universal importance in cinema world cannot afford to insinuate the presence of green screen in the pictures, perhaps it's due to my congestion of knowledge a little more advanced in this type of features, maybe yes, however, there were whole sequences where I could only focus my attention on the dissonance between actors and background scenarios, I saw the green or blue screen, not literally, the contrast, in my view, is perceptible, nothing serious, but very detectable.
John Williams, the always perfect John Williams. Master in compositions of sound masterpieces, the score manufactured for this film is, without hesitation, one of the most melodic, portentous and powerful of the entire franchise. Staying on traditional strings, the composer manages to beautify each scene with his traditional symphonies, melodies that are masterfully joined with the advance of the story. Ineffably, I had an inexplicable connection with the soundtrack of this feature film, it was something wonderful to listen again the emblematic anthem of the saga at the beginning, that made my heart stop, an act that would be repeated a couple of times later. Bravo, Maestro.
Rian Johnson's "The Last Jedi" leads the spectator placidly into a legendary voyage of lies, revelations, and transformations motivated by an unexpected comical touch, an important social message, first-class performances and an unforgettable score, sadly, the script doesn't end up being perfect and although it manages to resolve many of the unknowns of the previous installment, doesn't propose others as a substitute, any of them is sufficiently suggestive to keep in suspense the devout fanatics during two years before the arrival of the last movie. With unaccustomed twists in the genre, risky but well-received decisions, Johnson makes his official letter of presentation to the galactic universe, one in view of knowing the new trilogy that is in the hands of the promising filmmaker. Without fear of being wrong, the director will get great things for "Star Wars" future, for now, has created and delivered a great Christmas gift: magnificent action sequences, moving performances and a more acute and intimate analysis of the already legendary characters: We love Rey, Finn and Poe.
10 out of 23 found this helpful.
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10/10
Very impressed. The Last Jedi is mind-blowing and superb. Almost speechless.
The wait's finally over. I saw The Last Jedi in its open premier and in all honesty I'm pretty speechless. It pretty much surpassed my expectations and delivered a ton of jaw-dropping moments. There were multiple scenes that were breathtaking and eye-opening. Let's talk about the film.
I don't have much to say in regards to things I disliked. I'm certain that there are only two or three things I didn't particularly like, and even at that, they're nothing in comparison to all the epic things showcased in The Last Jedi. The visual effects are tremendous as always; acting's superb (Hamill's portrayal of Skywalker now is fantastic.); choreography and cinematography are at their absolute best; the dialogue's solid; the tone's a bit darker but also relatively light (it's pretty much balanced if you ask me), and it's brilliant; the surprises and twist-esque scenes are wonderful; and overall, the film's genuinely outstanding.
I thought The Force Awakens was good. It has nothing on this. Pretty much everything about this surpasses The Force Awakens. Notably, I preferred Kylo Ren in this one than I did its predecessor. Adam Driver's awesome as Ren once again. I also preferred and liked Rey a whole lot more in The Last Jedi. The character development's good and strong. I'm almost certain I liked every character in this one more than I did TFA, but they weren't bad then by any means. This one's just mind-boggling. Unbelievable.
I do feel, however, that it'll divide audiences. I'm sure a lot of people will dislike the film for their own whatever reasons, but I know for a fact that so many people will also like or love the film. Since this is a spoiler-free review I'll go no further with detail, but to conclude I'll say that this is my tied-favorite Star Wars film alongside Revenge of the Sith.
Definitely amongst my favorite films list and that's based on only seeing it once; not even saying that just because of how hyped I was for the film or the fact that I've just seen it and have came away with a post-Star Wars high, but because it truly is that good. It doesn't disappoint.
The Last Jedi. 10/10.
21 out of 57 found this helpful.
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I've been in love with Star Wars since I was 3, and sometimes you love things even though they're stupid. People wanted The Last Jedi to be that same stupid plot they've been in love with since 1977, and it wasn't. People expected Luke Skywalker to hop in his X-Wing, go blow up an even bigger Death Star, and get a medal while everybody claps at the end, and that did not happen. Instead we got a very strong, independent movie that wasn't trying to emulate the success of it's predecessors. While some of the hardcore fans pan this movie for not being the same thing they've been watching since 1977, I think in the years to come it will be remembered as a high point of the series, because this is the movie that broke tradition and let Star Wars be something new.
I enjoyed the film, a lot, and if you were a fan of the Extended Universe, you'll love it too, because it feels just like a good EU novel turned into a movie. This is what the Sequel Trilogy should have been from the start. The stakes are high, not because the not-empire has some dumb new even bigger planet destroying weapon to blow up rocks that the audience doesn't care about (thank god), but because every character in the film legitimately feels like they are in danger, as the resistance is brutally chased down and destroyed one ship at a time by the First Order. I absolutely loved the film because it was fresh, the enemies felt dangerous, and it had me sitting on the edge of my seat from start to finish. I know some fanboys will cry today, but I have no doubt that years down the line, barring IX being absolutely amazing, this will be the go-to movie for the trilogy.
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Stop joking, I have to be serious now. I felt teased from the first minute, to the last.
Here's some bu****it you can find in this abortion of movie:
1)A phone joke in pure Scary Movie style;
2) Ok, it's a sci-fi movie, but the bombers that drop bombs such as in WWII... In the space? I didn't know that there's gravity in space;
3) Leila resurrects and flies into space: an awful mix between Superman and Marry Poppins;
4) Luke launches the his elder lightsaber in the sea, such as in comedy by Laurel and Hardy;
5) Luke from a mature and reflective character, being transformed into a rebellious, obnoxious and pathetic old man;
6) Luke shrugging when " the camels" end up shooting him;
7) Luke winking in camera, like John Belushi in Animal House;
8) Non-stop jokes and moments of humor inopportune, out of place and embarrassing;
9) All villains totally dumb;
10) General Hux who's not scary; he's even teased by his soldiers and brings others comedy moments totally out of place in a Star Wars movie;
11) Kylo Ren, should be the super villain of the trilogy; instead, he is a nefarious kid who fails to be respected by his subordinates and is almost killed by some species of ninjas that are not mastering fully the Force;
12) Snooke, should be the mind of the First Order, everyone wondered what was his past etc...
Is dismissed ridiculously, immediately after giving the impression of being very powerful. Perhaps they didn't even know how to justify this character;
13) Captain Phasma...A Character just invented only to sell silver plated soldiers, totally useless for narrative purposes;
14) What is the meaning of a person staying on the rebel ship just at the very end? Once you have to sacrifice, why do you not immediately make the kamikaze move, instead of getting dozens of ships destroyed in a useless pursuit?
15) Being given of the vast fuel supplies of the empire, why do their ships not increase their speed a little bit? Are there only light speed and snail speed in the galaxy?
16) Rey was a padawan for less than 10 minutes;
17) Rey already mastered the Force and the use of the lightsaber; she was born learned of course;
18) The Force used such as Skype-calls;
19) The movie starting with Rey and Finn looking for each others; then the arrival of the "chubby Rose" is enough to create a new magical love triangle? Guess who will Finn finally choose of the two?! Can't wait to see it...
20) Finn and Rose saved, by pure chance, from the bad copy of Lando Calrissian, and in less than 6 hours they manage to fly on different planets, escape from prison and get to the ship of the First Order;
21) An immense clump of characters, useless, except only for Disney's merchandising;
22) The nuns frogs;
23) The screaming chickens, repeatedly;
24) Luke, who dies of heart attack after doing the spooky ghost;
25) An ending that never comes (unfortunately);
26) Flashbacks that do not exist in original Star Wars, 'cause they are not Star Wars;
27) Forced scenes, shot specifically made to subvert the very few interesting ideas of Ep. 7
28) Stop, I'm tired
29) Leia flying in the space.
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Far left narrative where every male character is made to be horrible and need a female to "fix" their problems. Poe entire subplot is about "toxic masculinity", Luke it made more whiny than he was in The New Hope, and Fin was turned into a coward in his first scene. Rich are made out as pure evil villains, and the poor as saints.
All scenes seemed ripped off from either Empire or Return.
6 out of 12 found this helpful.
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3/10
Good space action flick with some marvel vibe, but a very weak Star Wars film
One of my least favorite star wars films of the saga. Rian Johnson clearly didint understand the Star Wars Universe and made a good action film with a marvel vibe, but a shallow star wars film. He even manage with destroying the best things that Force Awakening let us wondering. The films feels empty. The action film fans will like it, but for the real star wars fan it will be very dissapointing.
6 out of 12 found this helpful.
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The latest installment in the Star Wars movie universe takes it back to it's origins with a fun, enjoyable space ride. Sure there are some slow moments and corny moments but Star Wars was always about adventure and fun and this movie has loads of it. If you want more serious SW drama just keep watching Rogue One or ESB. A lot of the things that happened in this movie I expected to see in Episode IX not in this one so it makes me wonder what will be happening next...
19 out of 51 found this helpful.
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8/10
Inconsequential storyline dampens what could have been a masterpiece
This film would have been a masterpiece if it weren't for the completely inconsequential adventure we're forced to take with Finn and a girl named Rose. This detour achieves absolutely nothing in the movie: none of the action or story development is of any consequence whatsoever to the larger plot or themes and to add to the tedium of it is that the settings and special effects in these parts are completely amateurish and juvenile. Honestly, they feel like the prequels. Any producer worth his or her salt should have cut that storyline altogether, thus trimming the film back by thirty minutes and letting it be exactly what it is otherwise: a well-paced story with an awful lot of heart and wisdom graced by powerful performances and breathtaking visuals. The Finn and Rose storyline will keep me from seeing this over and over again.
That being said, I'll definitely watch it at least twice more in the theater because honestly everything else is pretty much perfect. Ren and Rey, Rey and Luke, Luke and Ren - the scenes in the throne room. Wow! I loved Poe's storyline and the entire chase between the First Order and the Resistance was spot on.
But nothing, no nothing, was ever more beautiful than the ultimate showdown of good versus evil. The final 30 minutes of "The Last Jedi" are as perfect a piece of film making as it gets.
Maybe I'll just purchase a movie editing software and cut out the whole Finn/Rose adventure altogether. Then I could enjoy over and over again a 2 hour masterpiece instead of a great, but flawed, 2.5 hour epic. Truly, and unfortunately, none of Finn's storyline would be missed in this otherwise flawless film.
8.5/10
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7/10
After the fanboy rage died down I almost laughed... this was actually very clever...
After coming out of the theatre I was more than willing to rant and rave and agree with all the haters... but on the walk home I came to a starling conclusion. This movie is not Empire, it is not a New Hope as the last one was similar to it represents the point where something we have all grown up with and lived with for so long... has changed... and BOY did we hate them for it.
*** SPOILERS ****
In fact the more I thought about it the more I realized they were TELLING US what they were doing all the way through the film:
"We must destroy the old to create the new"
"we cannot continue to keep looking back"
"It is time for the Jedi to change"
"Its how we win, stop fighting that what we hate"
"You can't run off and be a hero"
(paraphrasing)
Luke who we grew up with turned out to be nothing more than bitter old man who was as human as all of us. You can't always win by finding the good in them and pulling them back from the brink - some people just want to watch the world burn.
Sometimes there is no fantastic origin story - there is just a lost scared little girl whose parents were idiots, and are now dead.
Sometimes the "big bad" is just a tall dude in a dressing gown who got killed halfway through the movie.
There was no heroic sacrifice to save the day... there was just a dude going to kill himself until he was slapped away. (OK, with a ship ;) )
... and sometimes all both sides of a war vs good and evil do.... is make money for people on a planet who drink and gamble it all away.
I wanted to put a low score as I hated them for doing it to me, forcing me to face the fact that this film was never going to meet anyone's expectations - but then, it never could.
The force awakens was a purposeful homage to star wars, the last jedi ripped star wars open and left all the fans raw inside. But like a trip to the dentist it was something which needed to be done. All the old guard are gone and what you are left with is something to start anew with, start fresh... and I have no idea how they are going to even do it... and it excites me....
With that realization in mind I scanned my mind over the film - removing what I was staring at the screen and HOPING to see, with what actually there was.
... and you know what - it was a pretty good film with fantastic fight scenes. it was not the best in the world but I would enjoy to see it again 7/10
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I've finished seeing the film an hour and a half ago, utterly shocked. I could not decide whether I liked the film or was disappointed. I'm serious: this film can really give serious doubts on their capacity of judgement.
What I think many people could be afraid of, is whether this film is similar or not to V.
I did not see many, very little similarities, in fact. More similarities where there with VI, if I must say, but any similarity to previous film dissipated in the final 45 minutes. It is also to note that such similarities are very slight, especially when compared to what seen in VII.
Let's start with the technical aspect, which was obviously outstanding. I really liked the overall style and the various choices made by Johnson there. Special effects where great, especially in aspects I didn't expect, that of the practical alien characters. I cannot but praise Johnson's techincal capacity in directing action, in the photography and much else.
I am still not sure about Johnson's capacity in story writing. There was an entire story arc, which, although included some very great scenes, ultimately had quite a few plot holes and unhappy solutions. I'd like to point out that I noticed aforementioned plot holes after quite a few discussions, so it's not that I'm like those reviewers that see plot holes everywhere. But I have to be honest, the story arc that follows the Resistance was not outstanding at all.
On the other hand, the backbone of the film was truly outstanding. I won't spoil anything, I will only state that a new light is shaded on the entire course of Good vs. Evil, of the picture you get of the prequels, and much else. Some very bold story decisions where made, unexpected at all. Ultimately, a very interesting outcome is provided for a possibly strong episode IX.
Finally, having seen it, I find VIII very divisive. I can understand both those who praise it and those who will hate it. It was certainly better than VII, but I'm not yet sure if it lives up to the OT, even though it sometimes seems even better than aforementioned films. But when it does not do so, it becomes at moments a quite bland film, especially during the arc that focuses on the Resistance. If I have to choose, I'd say it is a good movie.
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10/10
The Last Jedi - Just as Mind-Boggling As The Others!
As I sat back in the comfy leather seats and watched the star-dusted opening credits roll out in front of me, I reminisced about what it felt like watching the Star Wars series for the first time. It has been a long time since that happened and my only hope was that Star Wars: The Last Jedi would be just as mind-boggling as the others. Shame on me for ever doubting the legendary billion-dollar franchise, because (spoiler alert): It is!
If you haven't seen the previous installment, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, then I highly recommend you grab some friends to watch it with and get yourself back on track. Otherwise, you will be in for a big surprise. For those who have seen it, then you know that Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) makes an iconic return to the big screen and this time, with a vengeance. Luke went into hiding, undetected, to the Porg-infested island of Ahch-To to die. Rey (Daisy Ridley) has a mission to bring Luke back to fight the Resistance as war is once again brewing against the First Order. Millions of porg-encounters later, Rey finally persuades Luke to lend her his knowledge in combat, leaving Luke unsettled by the strength of her powers.
This time around, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) leads the Resistance due to unforeseen circumstances. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Holdo go head to head as he refuses to follow Holdo's rules. This creates major conflict in the storyline, as some things don't necessarily go as planned during combat. We are also introduced to a new lead character, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), a maintenance worker that guards the escape pods. She bonds with Finn (John Boyega) as she takes him to her wealthy home of Canto Bight. Though, there's so much more to this planet than meets the eye.
Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) remains high and mighty, just for show. It's evident that he hides something deep within, something he cannot control - a slight hint of compassion. After a head-to-head conflict with Rey and Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), the film finally reveals who he truly is.
Now that you have an idea of what the film is about, let's talk about the magic that goes on behind-the-scenes. To be quite honest, the writing has its lows. There are moments when the audience would let out an uncomfortable laugh due to the awkward, juvenile jokes that we know certain characters would never say or do. It felt somewhat out-of-touch with the Star Wars franchise, especially since they are thrown in during the most serious, suspenseful scenes. Despite that, the rest of the screenplay is groundbreaking. It gives the audience what they want and what they didn't know they needed. Also, the cinematography is phenomenal. Shooting in locations such as Ireland and Croatia, the visual effects team make it seem as though they are off in a galaxy far, far away, without straying from its natural beauty. Special effects, as always, are mind-blowing. It's nearly impossible not to fathom light-sabers being real. Top it all off with detailed costume design and award-winning acting, and you've got yourself a masterpiece.
Ultimately, Star Wars: The Last Jedi exceeded far beyond my expectations, and I urge you to go out with your Jedi Knight robes and light-sabers and experience it on the big screen. I give it 5 out of 5 stars and recommend it for ages 13 to 18 as well as adults. It opens December 15, 2017 in U.S. theaters so, go check it out.
Reviewed by Michelle C., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic. For more reviews by youth visit kidsfirst dot org.
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10/10
The last jedi is the best star wars movie since Empire strikes back in my opinion
The last jedi has definitely my favorite star wars movie since disney bought lucasfilm. Ep 8 is also the most surprising movie of the saga since empire. It is the funniest one by far, which you would not expect from seeing the trailers. there is definitely some beautiful shots in here that i will definitely consider as my wallpaper. Very beautiful movie, especially the fight scenes and lighsaber scenes.
Brilliant work Rian Johnson.
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8/10
Deceptively slow and a bit muddled to start, but stick with it and The Last Jedi will reward you with boldness and brilliance to think and talk about for days.
The middle film in a trilogy is, almost always, a tough one to pull off. Its predecessor gets to introduce characters and ideas and themes; its successor gets to finish off the tale and tie up all the loose ends. Often, this awkward second movie ends up treading water, padding out a story without the benefit of including either its first chapter or its last. For a while (quite a long while), it feels like writer-director Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi has fallen prey to this very syndrome. Fortunately, he pulls it all together in the film's final hour, firing off a series of crackerjack narrative twists that are as surprising, heartfelt and spectacular as anything you'll see in a cinema this year.
The Last Jedi opens right where The Force Awakens left off. The First Order remains hellbent on extinguishing the remnants of the Resistance, led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Attempts to evade the military forces commandeered by General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) cause friction among the rebels, as the charmingly impulsive Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) clashes with flinty war hero Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern). Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) tries to drag the legendary Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) out of his self-imposed exile - but finds him broken and bitter following his failure to keep his nephew, Ben Solo a.k.a. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), from turning to the Dark Side.
The first 100 minutes are the strangest - and potentially most offputting - thing about The Last Jedi. For much of its first half, the film feels almost as if it's been stitched together from a handful of very different movies. It may open on an exhilarating intergalactic space opera, but it also dives deep into the shifting moods of an existentialist drama (featuring a 'hall-of-mirrors' sequence straight out of a drug-drenched arthouse flick), before landing smack in the middle of an odd-couple road-trip comedy.
That's not to say Johnson doesn't handle this peculiar patchwork fairly well. He unearths moments of heart and heroism as his characters wage war amongst the stars, and he quite effectively plumbs the dark depths of Luke's despair and Rey's desperation to understand her place in the world. There are moments of quiet joy and sensitivity, too, on the mission undertaken by Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (charming newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) that otherwise comes across as a bit of an unnecessary detour. Johnson even keeps proceedings chugging along by infusing the film with a sly humour - courtesy of MVP BB-8 and a flock of adorably annoying Porgs.
Nonetheless, the film does suffer, at least initially, from this awkward mish-mash of genres and tones. As Rey follows Luke up yet another mountain, or Finn and Rose bond over a stable full of soulful space horses, it's hard to shake the feeling that The Last Jedi is stuck in a holding pattern - busy and yet slow, overstuffed but also sluggish.
Thank goodness, then, that Johnson makes it all come together beautifully as the film enters its masterful third act. Suddenly, as the many disparate story threads spin into one another, the movie roars into heart-stopping, spine-tingling life. Choices and sacrifices are made. Alliances crumble in the face of ambition. Final stands are taken. Goodbyes - hard ones, sad ones, final ones - are said. While it's best not to give much more away (this film's most heart-wrenching twists are experiences unto themselves), suffice it to say that every element of it works.
Johnson also draws excellent performances from his cast. Hamill's raw, powerful turn as a man haunted by his failures is easily one of his finest yet. He sells Luke's trepidation and tenderness, hinting at a broken heart that's somehow still whole enough to care. Ridley has settled more confidently into Rey's bones, while Driver continues to add shade and colour to what could easily have been a one-note antagonist. Together, they make the moments their characters share, from the distinctly odd to the unbearably tense, believable.
There is, of course, a thread of bittersweet sadness that runs throughout The Last Jedi because it is, by default, the final film starring the deeply missed Fisher as the iconic Leia Organa. It's not quite a fitting farewell to a beloved character - the film leaves little doubt that Leia would have taken centre stage in Episode IX if only it were humanly possible. But, for what it's worth (and it's worth a lot), Fisher lends Leia what she always has: a rich, glorious mix of her own unmistakable strength, light and humour.
All in all, The Last Jedi is a remarkable achievement. It may take a while to really get going, but the pay-off for toughing it out through every twist and turn is tremendous. Johnson's film doesn't simply make a compelling case for giving a trilogy's middle installment the benefit of the doubt. As it draws to a close, The Last Jedi also explores and explodes Star Wars mythology in ways both reverential and revolutionary. Simultaneously an ending and a beginning, it's going to be a tough act to follow.
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This movie has its flaws, as do a whole host of other Star Wars movies, but it is not a bad movie.
Tonally, it's pretty different from most of the other films in the franchise, but that doesn't make it bad. Star Wars is about adventure and wonder and amazing characters, all of which are in this film. Rian might not have stuck to the formula, but boy was I refreshed at a fresh take on a property that can so easily fall into telling the same story over and over again in the name of "poetry" (no offense, I love Star Wars more than anyone).
If you liked the characters in The Force Awakens and want to know each of them on a better level and actually grow to care for some of them, see this movie. If you want to know more about the force and explore more of the galaxy than the usual 4 or 5 planets we visit, see this movie. If you like stories that make you think beyond just sitting and consuming mindlessly, see this movie.
If you're reading this review to determine if you should see this movie, you're probably not a die hard Star Wars fan and won't be as insulted as everyone else leaving reviews here if it doesn't turn out like you thought, and if you're a die hard Star Wars fan and you are reading this review to determine if you should see this movie, don't let anyone else's opinions on this sway you. It's what you think that counts.
Watch it for yourself, and if you like it, great, if not, sorry, but let's not forget the wonder that is Star Wars by getting caught up in the little details. Celebrate. Go see it with people you care about. Love the movie together. Hate it together. Star Wars belongs to each of us.
All I ask is that you walk into the theater with an open mind. Try and get rid of expectations, because boy does this movie resist expectations. Have an experience, and don't let a movie make or break your year. There's so much more to life.
Well this got much more serious than I thought. Guess all that's left to say is, "May the Force be with you."
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9/10
The most "STAR WARS" of all Star Wars... but not what you expect! *No Spoilers
I've been a Star Wars fan since it first came out in 1977, so basically, all my life.
I am also a huge Sci-Fi movie fan.
I NEVER considered Star Wars to be a Sci-Fi movie. For me, these movies are Western movies, Samurai movies.
The original Star Wars drew its inspiration from Kurosawa movies. Unfortunately, back in the 70s, Lucas had just a couple of millions to realize his vision on screen.
THE LAST JEDI is just that: big budget Samurai-War-Western movie that takes place on alien worlds.
It brings the essence that inspired the whole saga to another level. It's the ANTI-prequel movie. It will anger Star Wars fans that read all the books, the comics and see Star Wars as Sci-Fi flicks.
It will confuse A LOT of viewers... children will often be lost with that one.
It is gloomy, full of symbolism, artsy...BOLD.
I never felt that way about a Star Wars movie since parts of Empire Strikes Back...and not in a "cliché" way.
It has some POWERFUL and MEMORABLE scenes that will leave you speechless. That will stick in your minds for a long time.
Characters arcs are fascinating and SO WELL WRITTEN!
Actors are on top of their game.
Mark Hamill's performance is a TOUR DE FORCE. Easily the performance of his career.
Like I said, some fans and casual moviegoers will hate the movie.
I have the feeling that 10 years from now, it will be seen as one of the best Star Wars episode ever, maybe even the best one of the bunch.
In conclusion: THE LAST JEDI is a VERY personal experience. Don't let yourself influenced by reviews... STAY AWAY from spoilers... Watch THE FORCE AWAKENS first... and for fanboys and fangirls... forget about the Extended Universe or whatever story you built in your mind for what happens after Return of the Jedi.
In my humble opinion (and it's only me)... my favorite Star Wars movie ever. This one and Blade Runner 2049 brought me this year some memorable and original movie moments that I have never seen in a cinema.
It's a mix of: Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Slaughterhouse 5, Kurosawa and Unforgiven.
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1/10
Are WE the problem? - a review by a fan who hasn't seen the movie yet.
In the immediate aftermath of the shambles that was The Force Awakens, my closest friends and I (also huge fans of the SW universe), having had all our worst fears materialized (and more) by the overhyped Episode VII, decided that Disney's Star Wars will not see another dime of our money ever again. To our minds, we are, at the very least, a part of the problem, as we keep rewarding garbage movies with our attention and hard earned cash. Nevertheless, in spite of our better judgement, we had gone to see Rogue One as well. Surprisingly, we ended up feeling disappointed in equal measure, in spite of the fact that we expected the movie to be first class garbage, which says something about how low the bar is now set, and even more about how terrible the movie itself actually was. Still, what was frustration and anger after Episode VII morphed into tired resignation after Rogue One. Fool me once, and all that...
True to form, in the next few days, I am sure to break my promise (again) and actually pay money not only to have my dreams crushed (again), but, what is infinitely more important, see the legacy of one of the greatest stories ever told, desecrated beyond recognition and beyond repair. Is nothing sacred anymore?
But, I digress. The temptation to bash these new installments is too strong. Indeed, talking shit about them has brought me an inordinate amount of pleasure, in some twisted, masochistic sense. That's more than the movies managed to do, anyway.
My point is - are WE - the people who are disgusted and almost insulted by these movies - the problem?
On the one hand, I refuse to believe that any self-respecting adult (or even older child) can watch this movie and not see it for the shallow, insipid, offensive garbage that it is. It's not so much that I refuse, it just doesn't compute for me that anyone can actually not actively hate it, let alone enjoy it or think it worthy of even the faintest praise. (I'm looking at you, critics)
On the other hand, as single-minded the user reviews might be, how many of us are actually here? Couple of hundred? This movie will have been seen by tens of millions of people by the end of its opening week - do these other people actually like it? Or are they not just motivated enough to spend their time ranting online or elsewhere?
Are we - the people who repeatedly give their money to watch this - the ultimate enablers? Do the film makers look at the turnouts and conclude that the movie is a success? Does a ticket paid always equal endorsement/satisfaction on the part of the viewer in the mind of the film makers? If so, are they right to think so? And if they don't think so - then what do they think? Do they just not care, as long as the money keeps rolling in? Are they right not to care? Why should they care, if not even George Lucas cared enough?
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Well, the wait is finally over and I must say that this film THE LAST JEDI is a much satisfying sequel to TFA. Director Rian Johnson has taken the Star Wars franchise to a whole new level. Visually Stylish and Very good.
It takes me back when I was 7 years old and my Father took my older sister and I to see A New Hope late 1977. It was a childhood experience that I will never forget. If you are a die Hard SW Fan you will understand this.
Now my review, Yes it is a Star Wars Film and I must admit that I was very anxious to the aging Jedi Master Luke Skywalker which was played to the hilt by Mark Hamill. I was feeling sad because this was Carrie Fisher's last performance as Leia Organa. The dialogue and humor was cheesy as with all the SW films as I expected. As for the other actors in the film they were good Especially Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac. The space battle scenes took you to whole new way we watch Sci-Fi Films. Great cinematography. Yet, it is confusing with lots of plots and twists but as I said earlier you must see TFA lots of times. And it raises a few questions and opinions on what's going to take place in Episode XI. So, You must pay attention to this Film. The music is much stronger composed by John Williams. Again, Yes it is long but it is worth it. I know before seeing this film there are critics and Fans already Bashing and tearing it. Lastly, Yes, the film does parallel to THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. I liked THE LAST JEDI and I'm looking forward to Episode XI. So, my rating is 8.5.
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10/10
The Most Visually Stunning and Character Driven SW film of all-time
Rian Johnson has delivered a very different Star Wars film to our galaxy. One drenched in symbolism, heroism, character failures, and awestruck visuals.
Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, and Daisy Ridley provide some of the best acting performances of the entire series.
Over time, Ach-to and Crait will become as famous to SW fans as Endor and Hoth.
Canto Bight sequence could have been edited better. The time spent there seemed fine, just wish Finn and Rose did something other than get thrown in jail and ride giant horses. Missed opportunity to have a Lando cameo. BB-8 slot machine was great tho.
Leia flying in space was just ill-timed. Felt like she should have immediately forced pulled back to the ship, but her being out in space for 30-40 seconds didn't seem like she could have survived.
The Rey/Kylo fight scene versus the guards and the Holdo lightspeed sequence are two of the top moments in the saga.
RIP the caretakers cart.
Long live Porg mania.
Yoda is a rockstar.
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Pumpa pe pepepepi pe pepepepi pe pepepepe.. :D The Great, Legendary, John Williams' One of The Best Themes.. This is the First thing you'll hear when someone says "Star Wars", Isn't it.? ;) And our Desi awards stole even that :P
First thing first, when I heard about Princess Leia, Carrie Fisher, I just couldn't believe the news. I was so shocked. Then & then, I decided to watch this movie if no other reason but to give my respect to Carrie. She was The Best. May her Soul Rest In Peace. She did Fabulous work in this movie. Salute to her.
Now, the story isn't going ahead much. I'm a Spoiler-Free reviewer so I'll not spoil anything but the movie definitely could've been better if written well. General overview which every Star Wars movie has in the beginning, In a galaxy, far far away...
Only one group of Resistance, a Spark, is there to fight the Supreme Leader. Meanwhile, Rey is trying to convince Luke Skywalker to train her so that she can control her Force, Light, & be able to fight Kylo Ren. Everything beyond would be Spoiler, So, Just Chill, I won't spoil it.
Now, performances..
~ Daisy Ridley did Awesome job as Rey.. Just FYI, She's The Last Jedi.. Sssshhhh, don't tell anyone.. ;)
~ Oscar Isaac, Ma Man, Poe.. I'd love to watch him again & again. Just Fabulous Actor.. Poe is the New Han Solo ;)
~ Adam Driver, Kylo Ren's struggling character played well. His character could've been written better.
~ Mark Hamill, in the beninging :D (I just remembered that video :D ) He's Pain in the A, eventually he becomes less pain in the A ;)
~ John Boyega, Finn, He's Alive :) Supported well.
~ Andy Serkis, Snoke, The Supreme Leader.. So Awesome He is.. You know what I did here ;)
~ Domhnall Gleeson, General Hux, Ohh Poor him :D
~ Lupita Nyong'o as Maz Kanata, Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma, Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Holdo, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Jimmy Vee as R2-D2 All did Very Well..
Last but not the Least, BB-8, I just Love It :D
On the Whole, The Last Jedi is The Best Entertainer you get at the Year End.. Don't Miss It ;)
My Rate for The Last Jedi is... *drum rolls*... AWESOMETECULAR (Yeah, It's Stolen :P )
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My expectations were modest, and the movie surpassed them. Better then previous, even.
Seen all the SW movies number of times and being a fan of the saga (playing KOTOR and reading countless stories happening in the expanded universe) this movie properly moves forward with the story George invisioned. Dialogue could be a bit better at some places, but overall the movie was really good. Movie also had a couple of small funny moments that were subtle enough to not ruin the seriousness and anticipation of the plot, pleasant suprise there. Original cast - the return of Mark Hamil really adds to the whole thing for me, though he may not be the best actor on the planet. The soundtrack in Star wars movies is always good, but this movie really has a number of good variations on "Leia & Han Solo" theme, it was beautifull.
for all the Star wars fans I say: must see
for the stuborn SW fans that whine at everything that is not the original trilogy I say: go watch your original trilogy DVD for the 53th time and stop complaining
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10/10
Now I can confirm my losing hope on humanity.Thank You The last jedi for this exposition.
One of the most intelligent and audacious act by a director, the movie reeks with intelligence and craft, and has finally transcended the genres , questions and conflict between good and bad. Has its flaws, but the highs have towered in the visage of magnificent turrets upon the lows. Best star wars episode after new hope and empire strikes back.The composition of scenes and themes were dazzling.No one did stuff in star wars that has been attempted in this film.May The Force Be With Us.
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What an incredible ride from start to finish! Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed TFA. However, I was hoping the next two movies in the trilogy would be more unique with their storytelling, and take us to some new places and ideas as opposed to TFA's safe approach. Thankfully, The Last Jedi doesn't disappoint in this regard. Not only does The Last Jedi do some unexpected things with its characters, but it also manages to expand our understanding of the Galaxy, and the role that every person can play in its narrative.
Story-wise, it keeps you engaged all the way through. Director Rian Johnson found a way to keep the pacing very tight, striking a nice balance between non-stop action and quieter character moments. It also manages to keep you guessing at what will happen next. All of this is further aided by the fantastic cinematography throughout. This is by far the best looking Star Wars film to date.
The writing for the characters manages to be very well done as well. Every character has their moment, and every character has a chance to expand our understanding of who they are. Some of them are taken to places you wouldn't expect either. This will probably also be where some fans find issue with the movie though. Some bold choices are made, and they won't work for everyone. But at its core, the writing is well done and inspired, even if controversial at times. I believe that over time, much like Empire before it, more people will look back in favor of this film's choices.
While the movie feels like a success in every way a Star Wars movie should be, it succeeds the most in the themes it tries to tell. It's a Star Wars movie that reminds us that everyone has a role to play in the fate of the Galaxy, no matter how insignificant they seem to themselves or others. And it's a reminder of what it means to keep moving forward, and become more than what we were. Sometimes that means finding strength we didn't know we had. Sometimes that means letting failure teach us. Sometimes that means knowing when to take action, and also knowing when to take a step back.
Ultimately, this movie has everything I could ask for from a Star Wars film: Great characters, great action, engaging story, and imagination at every turn. As Luke Skywalker says, "This is not going to go the way you think." As it turns out, that's exactly what makes this movie special.
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I laughed, I cried; I gasped, and cheered; I often sat on the edge of my seat. There were predictable moments which reverently honor the heart of the Star Wars saga, and altogether unpredictable moments where I was pleasantly surprised. I frequently had to pick my jaw up off of the floor after scenes in which I stared, mouth agape and eyes wide, taking in what unfolded before me (And one of the greatest lightsaber fight scenes of all time). There was old and new, and both served to make this an immersive and exciting experience. This movie made me feel like a child again, stepping into a world full of unknown creatures, characters, and circumstances, wishing I could be part of it.
Also, if you want a general sense of how fans felt about it, I will say I've never heard people cheer out loud for a movie this many times before. Disregard these internet trolls leaving 1-star reviews - people loved this movie!
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9/10
A revolutionary turning point for the new trilogy of Star Wars
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is finally here and this highly anticipated movie does not fall short on good storytelling, awesome space battles, great characterization. This movie is great in many ways, and fortunately tells a good story without having to repeat itself unlike the Force Awakens did with a New Hope. Yes, there are elements in this movie that are similar to Empire Strikes Back but it is not because of a lack of originality, it is to provide good star wars nostalgia for the older audiences, pay homage to great pop culture characters such as Luke Skywalker and also not try to be a new thing without forgetting what came before it originally. The Last Jedi seems to be its own thing in a good way and explore areas of the Star Wars universe that have not been explored before. As always, great acting from the cast especially to Mark Hamill for an excellent performance as Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher (Rest in Peace) who was able to portray Leia Organa in a great way for one last time.
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8/10
What's with the hate? (mostly spoiler free, skip point two if you don't want any)
I loved this movie. I don't get why its so divisive.
Let's look at the main criticisms, shall we?
1. "Rey's a Mary Sue." They explain this in the movie. It's still a little far fetched, but not anywhere near as bad as people are saying. In fact, I think that, if anything, Rey's too week here. Despite being seemingly powerful, she doesn't really do much force-related stuff. Also, she doesn't go off having "perfected the art of the force." She's still inexperienced at the end, and only left to save Ben Solo.
2. "Snoke goes out pathetically." That was the whole point! They have chosen to make Kylo Ren the villain of the next movie. I really can't say anything except that people are complaining over nothing.
3. "Too much forced humor!" Didn't notice nearly as much as people claim, and even then most of it isn't that in-your-face.
4. "Too much forced commentary!" Again, nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. Yes it exists, and yes, its pretty obvious, but it isn't shoved in your face that much (it's obvious, but it's in the background), and it's only in one or two scenes.
5. "The subplot is an unnecessary plothole!" Technically, this is correct, but it still works. I personally enjoyed the side characters (except for Benicio Del Toro's character, who has so little screen-time they forgot to give him a name), and the subplot isn't that bad, it's just unnecessary. Why is everyone making a big deal over it?
In conclusion, people are overreacting. It's a flawed movie, but why is everyone calling it things like "The Worst Star Wars Movie Yet" or "A Betrayal to the Legacy?" It isn't those things, it is simply a mostly good movie that has some flaws. Does it completely live up to its critical acclaim? I wouldn't say it's quite that good. But I certainly would not say it deserves a one star rating. If you think this movie sucks, than just quit complaining and make your own movie.
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I thought this film was far better than the previous two. Luke Skywalker returns (this is kind of a big deal) and Mark Hamill does a great job bringing the character back. He deserves a lot of credit for his work.
This is the first Star Wars movie I have seen since The Return of the Jedi where there were actual stakes involved in the jeopardy of the action scenes. Basically, characters had clear goals and there was suspense over whether characters would live or die.
It is not a perfect film, there is some trans-media marketing at work so not all questions are answered. Some storylines happen for convenience - but there is a lot of good stuff in the film. Highly recommended.
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I had to write a review seeing so much hate in the comments section.
I am not as big a star wars fan as some people claim to be, but star wars still forms a very important part of my childhood, and i have really fond memories of waiting for star wars reruns when all this Netflix and hulu weren't available.
I watched the prequels when they came out all of them were underwhelming, except the Light-saber duels, i don't think i like to remember them for anything else. When the force awakens came out, it kinda made me smile, but that was also nothing incredible, nothing new.
When i watched this, it was after a long time I had those feelings which I did when I watched the originals the first time during my childhood. When the movie finished people gave it a standing ovation and thats really rare for any movies, where I belong.
But going by the hate comments this movie is receiving on IMDB, i came to the conclusion Star Wars fans just cant be made happy. When The Force Awakens came out, they were unhappy it was too much like the old, when the last jedi came out they are complaining its too much different from the originals. People are complaining that Rey's parents are a nobody, isn't it the star wars theme that anyone can be force sensitive, was Yoda born into a force privileged family, even during the force awakens, it was the journey of Rey trying to find her parents that was emphasized rather than the actual identity of the parents.
People saying Snoke was a nobody, why did they have him killed. What was the point of keeping him on, it would have been too much like the original trilogy, the scene in which he gets killed shows the conflict in Kylo and how much he wants to be like Darth Vader.
People are just stuck into their original movies are masterpieces mindset. Some people might not like this movie as it is natural, but to compare this movie to Jar Jar Binks, to say this movie is worse than Phantom Menace is just ridiculous to say the least. For me this is the 2nd best movie of the Franchise behind the empire strikes back, and that too because i have too many fond memories of that movie from my childhood.
Just watch this movie with an open mindset and you will absolutely love this movie, it does not have one dull moment in it.
10 out of 25 found this helpful.
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10/10
Character driven with strong performances from the cast
This movie isn't going to be for everyone, especially people who had major head canons going into this. I loved the experience. This movie was way more introspective and dark for a Star Wars movie, but still keeps that Star Was theme of hope running throughout, even when things seem bleak. Also, it was beautiful. And sometimes silly, because it's Star Wars.
This is not science fiction, it's fantasy in space, so leave your expectations at the door, because this movie isn't wish fulfillment, nor should it be. It's telling the midpoint of a story, which is going to be the darkest point in any series, so naturally it doesn't resolve every issue (and it never should, does anyone actually remember how ESB ends?).
Even as someone who really enjoyed TFA, this movie felt very different and there was definitely more to pick at, character-wise, which was great. But I don't think it's going to change any minds, but some people like to make up their opinions before actually seeing a movie. Don't let other people's perceptions color your own.
See it twice. This movie has some amazing shots that are worth seeing in the theater for a second time (when reactions aren't so knee-jerk).
I loved the experience, the creatures, the silliness, the introspection, the darkness. It was a lovely experience that reminded me of some of the content from KotoR, which was thrilling to me as a fan. Rian did a great job here; the writing is fun and snappy and he pushes the characters beyond what I'd come to expect from them, which was great to see. Highly recommended.
10 out of 25 found this helpful.
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If you like Star Wars, you'll really like The Last Jedi. If you don't, you won't. It doesn't do anything to bring new fans into the fold, but it does reward the faithful with some of the most masterfully acted performances in Star Wars history, at least in film.
It also gives us some of the most well-crafted visuals of any Star Wars film since A New Hope. Leia, Poe, Rey, and even Kylo Ren get moments that could be pulled from the movie and used as movie posters in their own right.
Now to the details. If you were wondering if Rian Johnson would pick up the threads JJ Abrams laid in The Force Awakens and run with them...well, the answer to that is "no". His solution to those problematic threads is the same solution for the Gordian Knot - he simply cuts them off so the franchise can move forward. This movie kills its darlings with the precision of a lightsaber - cutting off the thread and cauterizing it so neatly that if JJ Abrams can find a way to resurrect them in the final film, I'll be very, very surprised. The map to Skywalker? Not even mentioned. Luke's saber? Destroyed. Rey's parentage? Who cares. Finn's parentage? Never even mentioned. Snoke's identity? He's just Snoke. Almost every bread crumb from The Force Awakens is tossed out on its bum unceremoniously. And you know what? No one in the audience seemed to mind, cos most of that stuff was uninteresting anyway. The interesting stuff - the conflict between Rey and Ben, Luke's return, Leia herself, the growing bond between Finn, Poe, and Rey...that stuff is expanded upon expertly.
The Force is expanded upon in creative new ways in this film, though not to the extent of, say, The Force Unleashed (if you have any idea what game I'm talking about you have my sympathy). The Force is shown more as a living thing that doesn't choose sides, but is simply there to be used. Life, death, chaos, order, they all exist side by side in the Force and it's humans that choose sides. It seems very much inspired by Knights of the Old Republic and the concept of a Grey Force User, but it seems Rian closes the door on that at the end of the film, almost instinctively understanding that future directors probably wouldn't pick up that thread. It's too bad, as the concept is one that would have elevated the franchise beyond it's limitations and into some of the grander concepts of the Extended Universe.
Kylo Ren's growth as a character is masterfully played in Adam Driver's hands. He is no longer the "emo Vader", but a broken and conflicted character all his own, and the arc of his growth is put firmly at the forefront of this story. The cataclysmic confrontations between him and Luke both in the past and in the present are vibrant and compelling, and the reasons for the mistrust and anger - on both sides! - are explained perfectly. Seeing Hux bow before Kylo but still try to flex his power and authority was entertaining, and I'm sure that conflict will come to a head in the final film. You have two brash young men both suddenly given unlimited power over one of the grandest military forces ever assembled (in this canon), can't wait to see how their conflict screws all that up.
Yoda's appearance was so welcome and unexpected that the audience in my theater burst into applause, then went silent for his lines. For a puppet, Yoda sure knows how to deliver a command performance. His lines throw back to the original trilogy so anyone who was paying attention will get how important his visit with Luke is in this film.
Now, there are a couple of points where the movie falls flat. Finn and Rose's side adventure basically accomplishes nothing, and we aren't given much to show Finn as the battle-hardened Stormtrooper he's supposed to be. He's had two movies now where he's been largely sidelined and made ineffective, I'd love to see him get his "moment" in the final film.
To those complaining about the comedy I can only shrug my shoulders. This is probably one of the heaviest Star Wars films in terms of content...there are so many genuine, emotional moments (especially, surprisingly, between Ben and Rey) that a little levity was welcome. None of the jokes were eye-rollers. None of the jokes stood out as out-of-place winks to the audience. No, to this viewer the comedy was sprinkled in just enough and was largely situational, much like the original trilogy. Even Yoda's humor was a welcome throwback to his first appearance in the franchise.
There were a lot of moments in this film that I found myself genuinely applauding, more out of sheer exuberance than "oh this is when everyone applauds". The ending sequence with Snoke's ship and the Republic ship going to lightspeed...well let's just say it's not something I imagined I would see in a mainstream Star Wars film, and it's played perfectly. Cheers from the audience afterwards and with good reason - it was an epic finale, even though it felt like a pre-mature sendoff for what could have been an interesting character. Luke's re-appearance also garnered welcome applause, as it was both subtle enough and epic enough to be genuinely moving. There were at least five applause breaks in the theater I was in, none of which felt out of place. Genuinely thrilling moments are hard to find in the cinema these days, and The Last Jedi delivered quite a few.
I could go on for hours about this film but I'll summarize it with a word that came to mind immediately as the credits rolled - captivating. If you're invested in this universes and care about its characters, this film delivers many, many scenes and moments that will stick with you after you've left the theater. Other than the lengthy sequence in the middle on the casino planet, The Last Jedi is a treat and keeps you engaged by forgetting about the "nostalgia button" and offering surprising story-telling choices that largely work every time.
10 out of 25 found this helpful.
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This film as absolutely insanely amazing. The best Star Wars by far and my favorite movie ever. Just think about something for a second. There is 286 user reviews at the time that I am writing this. Do you think that that's all the people that went to watch the film? NO! 99% of the people that are coming out of watching this film have come out feeling like I am. Absolutely stunned by how amazing that film is. But 99% of those people coming out of the film will not feel the urge to write a review to the film. However 99% of those that come out of the film and somehow hate the film (still don't understand why) will feel the need to write a review.
So my message to you is to ignore these bad reviews. Go and watch the film. And thank me later.
Enjoy :)
21 out of 62 found this helpful.
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In the ever intense world of Star Wars junkies and mere film fans the new Star Wars films sans Lucas are a lightning rod of negativity and second guessing. I liked Force Awakens, but Last Jedi easily blew that out of the water. Is it an amazing film? No, and it did not need to be but it is well written, acted (well outside of Rey and a newbie character) and actually has a designed plot. Were there twists? Yes. Were some predictable? Yes. The answer is did they pull them off? For me, they did, for others, evidently not. The main problem with the film is the middle of the film seems to drag a bit, although it does because it sets up the final act. I loved Luke's necessary presence in the film, the unexpected humor and the script as a whole. Hamill who overall always seemed the weakest actor in the past (despite still being effective) truly here nailed it in my opinion, and where the film may have lacked at times, his presence lifted it high above when they needed that heavy lifting. The latter surprised me to be honest but I thought despite some plot points and pacing that were a bit much, thrown in with a new over the top, annoying character the film was easily the best since Return of the Jedi. Of course, the trolls and die hards will vehemently no doubt disagree, but that is their right. A fun film that to me was well written and plotted out with a great performance by Mark Hamill.
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Yikes. Heteronormative much? Star Wars 7 (aka Force Awaken) led us diehard fans to believe that there was a budding romance between protagonists Finn and Poe Damoron. We waited anxiously with baited breath in hopes that we would finally get to see a genuine male/male (interracial) relationship on the silver screen. Star Wars was going to finally break the mold by presenting viewers with a gay couple we could root for but instead Disney pulled a classic bait-and-switch. I guess they had to cave into the demands of all the homophobic people that are in charge of things right now so they could convince their backwards manchild audience to cough up fifteen dollars. Fingers crossed that Finn is just doing this for appearances and Poe is actually the object of his heart's desires, but with the way things are going lately I wouldn't be surprised if Disney/Lucasfilm decide to churn out more exclusionary trash for their overwhelmingly straight white male gamer audience. The believability of the film is strained further by this forced cishet "romance". Finn is way too hot for Rose. It would be more believable if her character was trans, but again, that wouldn't play well with Disney's "core demographics" (aka BLORMPF voters aka the real life First Order). Disney will not be receiving another dollar from me after this stab in the back. I was literally shaking when I saw the on-screen kiss. I had to explain to my four bi-curious nephews (all of whom are under 8 years old) that it would be okay and that in the end the good guys would win. But in this age of Drumpf stealing our internet, I'm not so sure...
6 out of 13 found this helpful.
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From the beginning (was the title text done the old fashion way?) Rain Johnson forces Star Wars back into the emotion and into relevance while leaving behind crowded CGI heavy scenes!
I never cared how many 3D spaceships a multimillions $ super computer could cram on a screen, but understanding the battle on screen, getting the enormity of the odds made every single sacrifice count!
EMOTIONS!
And remembering to live and laugh whenever you can, despite the dire situation!
This movie is full of simple but great moments...
I won't spoil it, but Mark Hamill's Luke is the hero we need in this saga! He really is!
I know he had issues with this directions but honestly it is perfect!
24 out of 75 found this helpful.
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8/10
God forbid a movie does something different and goes beyond expectations...
*****Contains spoilers about plot twists and stuff so go away*****
This review is mostly about the stupid fans that go on about how bad this movie is and are really bad at criticizing the movie
This movie currently has a %53 on Rotten Tomatoes...
The My Little Pony Movie has a %80 and this just isn't acceptable...
Can people get their heads out of their heads and be reasonable for a second. This movie is currently being criticized for doing stuff different and "destroying Star Wars". God forbid the movie had creative minds behind it and was written excellently (at least for a blockbuster I wasn't asking for The Godfather and I didn't get it but the script is amazingly good still)
These are probably the same people that criticized Force Awakens and Rogue One for being really predictable.Are you kidding people? Are you really butthurt over really good plot twists and change in Star Wars dynamics ? Do you need to know everything about a movie before it comes out ? Is this where the movie industry has come to. I'm seriously baffled because of these mindless reviewers and I'm siding with the critics for once. I'm more baffled at the people that give this movie 1 star. 1 star? are you joking. Even if you didn't like the plot or the changes, you gotta admit the acting is the best in the series, the visual effects are stunning, the movie has great direction (thank you Rian Johnson you beautiful beast), the soundtrack is also awesome, the action is probably the best in the series.
So I'll like to go against some stuff that people got annoyed with
Leia using the Force? - Even tho we haven't seen Leia use the Force for lifting stuff but she was clearly Force sensitive because she is the daughter of Anakin and does have the Force to help her out.
Luke's character ark. -People are talking about this while Yoda literally did the same thing after ep III where he went to hiding in Degobah
Snoke wasn't explored well. -As much as I kind of agree with this but Snoke's character was already weak and as mysterious as he was he was pretty much a placeholder for Kylo to get in power and It gave us one of the most intense scenes in the series
Porgs? -I don't think much people are talking about them but they are awesome and adorable need one immediately
So please criticize movies reasonably and give actual good criticism.
10 out of 26 found this helpful.
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Disney is getting strong on the series, both in good and bad. The movie was very entertaining and delivered lots of nostalgia for an old fan of the originals like myself. The movie made me feel great suprise in many parts, as there was so much new eye candy to be discovered. It kinda makes me understand all the positive critics reviews out there.
HOWEVER... the faults of the movie are too obvious. Instead of the godfather type epic moments that the fans of the originals loved, we get a modern marvel style disney action movie, with too many goofy jokes. Damn I wish they would have opted more for credibility instead of cheap laughs.
As a die hard fan I wanted to love the movie, but Im forced to admit the Lukes death was biggest piece of bad writing in movie history. It makes simply no sense that he was for example not killed at the battlefield by Bens saber. Death of the biggest action hero of all time should be made epic no matter how. Death for simply exhaustion... how ridiculous. I feel they tried to make it meaningfull so hard to convince themselves that it was a good choice, it came out even more awfull. Just proves nothing is sacret and the movie business is exactly that - a business.
Also Luke standing all the lazer fire from the walkers was so powerfull scene, just soon to be told to the cheering viewer, that this actually happened just because he was a hologram. What a let down!
9 out of 23 found this helpful.
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I really enjoyed this movie, despite its many flaws. Anything under 5 stars is just neckbeard edgelords trying to be cool.
Aside from the prank phone call near the beginning of the movie, most of the humour was great, and got genuine laughs from the theater. The action was fantastic, though, most of the universe's physical laws change from scene to scene, which does get distracting. The galaxy has definitely shrunk since episode 4-6, they cross the galaxy in a matter of seconds rather than days.
The plot was far from airtight. Okay, it was a sieve with a few holes you could fly the falcon through, but overlooking that, the emotion and character arcs were what really hit home for me. I think they took too much from Rogue One, however, it felt like they had characters needlessly sacrificing themselves just to get more of a gut punch, but it didn't need to do that, and it started to feel cheap as the hours went on.
It's also long. 150 minutes long. I think with the help of a better editor, they could have trimmed a lot of fat, and tightened things up. As it was, my row was a constant stream of people going back and forth for bathroom breaks in the second half and my back was killing my by the end. It also had more endings than Return of the King. This is probably a result of having too many characters, and splitting the party.
All in all, it won't stand up to much scrutiny or nitpicking, but if you go into it looking for a fun star wars movie, you'll have a good time. Bring some tissues, too.
8 out of 20 found this helpful.
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This movie, whoa!!! My second favourite movie of this decade sitting just below Andy Muschietti's adaptation of IT released earlier this year. Everything about it was amazing. The director really nailed this movie really well, the acting of the characters especially Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). They both deserve Oscars for this movie, great job!
With saying that, I must also say that it was an emotional film, being Carrie Fisher's final film before she passed away last year, and watching her performance made it really sad because it was so good aswell
Rest in Peace Carrie:(
30 out of 101 found this helpful.
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2/10
There is a reason there is no buzz about this film
This movie was terrible. There was no advancement in the story line of Star Wars. The characters are all inconsequential, even in death. The women in this movie are all superhero amazing, and the men are bumbling idiots. Take that as you will. There is a new twist on the cantina scene, but I found it mind-numbingly asinine. The movie lacks continuity, and plot lines that are introduced go ... no where. On the plus side, I saw some (two) cool things with an X-Wing, but then a really dumb one for comedic purposes. However, I also saw a spacecraft use gravity bombs. Yes, gravity. ... In space. There is more ridiculousness that happens in space, but I won't spoil it. But, it was truly a jaw-dropping, WTF moment in cinema. It made me wonder if the people who wrote this script had ever seen a Star Wars movie before. The only possible way it could've been worse was if the Klingons had shown up, or if their warp drive needed more dilithium crystals or something. I saw Star Wars in the theater 40 years ago. I do not intend to see Episode IX, even on cable. I no longer care what happens in this story. Disney has ruined it.
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I have seen it twice. I recognize that Rian Johnson had a difficult task, and lots of people were expecting TLJ to meet the standard set by ESB. I was not. However, I was also not looking for a movie that rehashed every plot point in ESB and ROTJ (to the point of parroting back dialogue), without even developing the new heroes we had come to love from TFA. As a female fan, I was excited to see the vulnerable, nuanced character of Rey in TFA, and spent the last two years defending her from "she's just a Mary Sue" detractors. Well, bad news, in this movie she actually is a Mary Sue. (Speaking of Mary Sues, when did Finn learn how to fly? A major plot point in TFA revolves around the fact that he can't, and now he can just hop in a cockpit and all's well?)
At its heart, TLJ doesn't want to be a Star Wars movie, but it fails to take us in a new direction, or any direction. The plot and characters are stuck in place (literally). Prolific jump cuts make it impossible to build any tension and effectively diffuse what little there is. John Williams' score is actually tiring and tonally out of place with what is on screen. The short shots allow no time to develop musical themes, so we're basically reduced to "Is Rey on-screen? Rey's theme is playing." "Is Luke on-screen? Force theme." "The Resistance? March of The Resistance 1000x!!" The soundtrack is like dessert all the time, and leaves you feeling sick.
My dislike of TLJ does not stem from being a butt-hurt fan with wish fulfillment issues. The few things lauded as gutsy in TLJ were actually telegraphed in TFA and I was on board with them. A particular aspect of Luke's past did not sit well with a number of people, but I was pleasantly surprised and felt that it worked. I won't say that TLJ was good just because it touched on a couple of interesting things that were teed up for it. This movie has almost none of the threads from TFA, none of the heart of ESB or ANH, and none of the mythos that underscores the whole franchise. It's just a poorly edited, hollow exercise in irreverent predictability.
2 out of 3 found this helpful.
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Couldn't be more disappointed.
If your a true Star Wars fan I advice you not to go and watch this film as it is the biggest slap in the face to any fan. The combination of Daisy Ridleys Mary Sue character and Adam Drivers moody teen impression made it the worst film all year. Not many of the other characters faired better with awful story telling and screen writing. If you have watched any other Star Wars films I recommend you not to watch this as it is a very, very poor film. And lacks any qualities of the previous films excluding the force awakens which was equally terrible or may have been a tiny bit better. I cannot stress enough how bad this film truly was.
2 out of 3 found this helpful.
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Probably the worst Star Wars film ever. A travesty. An absolute disgrace. Look at Mark Hamill's facial expression after the movie premiere-he was totally shell-shocked. Luke Skywalker, the man once called 'A New Hope' is now a fear filled shell of a man. Stupid plots-what's the point of the Rose character? And Finn? Been a star wars fan since the first movies. Passed the legacy onto my children. Disney is intent on killing the legacy for money. Why did Geo Lucas sell the franchise? Won't be watching any more-I'll stick to the books.
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2/10
This is in no way a true Star Wars film.. Just random marvel film with SW charc
Being a movie lover and a writer, you go in a cinema with higher expectations and a different view then your average movie goer. so when i got the chance to see this film on its opening weekend, I was so excited! But unfortunately for me and a lot of Star Wars, and genuine movie fans we were let down. This 8th film in the franchise feels and views nothing like its predecessors. The film lacks in every aspect. It continuously changes its genre from being a drama, action, comedy... Its
flow always get broken up, and is always all over the place.
Then there is the whole scenes and unnecessary plot adjustments that dont make sense. The characters are becoming so ridiculous and pointless at the same time. Finn has no character progression what so ever. Ray literally had no training in the Jedi ways, as she never even had her 3rd lesson with skywalker, but took on the red guards and Kylo Ren.
Not to mention Luke (him selves) has done a complete 180 turn to what his character was in the original films. Luke Skywalker opened up and nearly had the most corrupted Sith kill him as he converted Darth Vader to the light side. Luke was the beacon and the most pure association of hope, but in this film they make his character completely different, which doesn't make sense.
I just don't want to even mention Chewy or Snoke. Why were they in the film? They added or did nothing to the story, replace them with another character and nothing changes. The rebels are still being chased by the Order, Kylo is still bed, Rey is still "learning" and everything remained the same.
I feel like I can write a whole essay on all the different levels this film failed. Story line, character development, terrible dialogue, complete waste of scenes. The Casino part was the worst.
I just hope that J.J can at least do some damage control in the third film.
The only good thing about is the visual effects. This film felt like Guardians of the Galaxy or super hero film rather then Star Wars film.
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5/10
Lowbrow humour and out of place social commentary make the franchise falter
This review was motivated by the sharp divide between critics and moviegoers. After viewing The Last Jedi, I also feel that the film suffers from a number of flaws that professional critics have surprisingly dismissed.
The main issues I have with this film are the following:
1. Lowbrow humour
Put bluntly, the humour ruins The Last Jedi. Comedy is not such an easy aspect of film-making, especially when incorporated into an action film. Too many jokes make the story feel superficial, and inconsequential. As is the case in The Last Jedi.
Some filmmakers handle comedy well (Steven Spielberg), some master the art of wit so well that the humour feels smart and seamless (Joss Whedon), some elevate it to the rank of art (Edgar Wrigth) or transform it into a crossbred genre of its own (Matthew Vaughn).
On the other hand, in The Last Jedi, the jokes feel childish (ranging from a mamma joke, to the portrayal of Luke milking a creature with an unsubtle and puerile visual symbolism). They are also too frequent. The entire first act is reduced to a series of lowbrow gags that lowers the stakes. This makes the supposedly serious events that follow much less enthralling.
I don't want to be mean toward Rian Johnson. I understand the risk he took by making something different. But I don't think it helps anyone when critics praise poorly written comedy. At best, we could say that Johnson has a particular style of humour, one that may not suit everyone. Or it could be some studio directive; many have pointed out to the resemblance between Last Jedi and recent Marvel films (Disney owns Marvel Studios). Yet, regardless of the target audience, low quality humour is always worse than a carefully crafted script.
2. The social commentary feels insincere
In a sense, I would have liked to praise the director/writer for evoking economic inequalities - a (tedious) story arc follows Finn and a new character on a casino planet, with obvious references to the exploitation of camel jockeys in the real world. However, when the message comes from a billion dollar franchise that aggressively markets its products to children, this just feels out of place. If not, completely out of touch.
Moreover, it's hard not to assume that the character stressing these economic ideas, Rose, was included in the film to appeal to foreign markets and boost profits, which makes the whole commentary sound even more hypocrite (whether it was the intention or not).
One can make a similar comment about a male director/writer offering views on the place of women in the ranks of the rebellion. It does not ring true in The Last Jedi. (To reassure those who claim the film may have "feminist" undertones: on the contrary, the treatment of gender issues is heavy-handed and unconvincing. There is nothing to "worry" about because nothing meaningful or relevant is brought to the script.)
To some extent, I did enjoy the ambiguity with which Johnson portrayed the relationship within the chain of command (the Poe Dameron/Vice-Admiral Holdo struggle). I don't view it as a gender issue at all, but as an opportunity to study the relations of power in the workplace, like Star Trek did so well (see TNG's brilliant Chain of Commands or Lower Decks episodes, for instance). Ultimately, however, this idea does not lead to such a satisfactory conclusion in The Last Jedi. Like many other aspects of the script, it is not fully fleshed out.
Some casual viewers may ignore the irony of having a billion dollar media empire producing a film that complains about inequality, and it's fine. However, I think many will feel that something does not sound true in the story.
3. The fight against the First Order feels vapid
Perhaps because of the poor comedy and the phony aspects of the script, it's very hard to feel anything about the fight between rebels (or the Republic) and the First Order. You can only stretch the same idea so many times.
Rian Johnson decided to tear apart the Jedi mythology, but as a result the background fight that remains, which we are supposed to care about, feels extremely shallow.
The film would be improved by giving the viewers a sense of what is at stake. There is no need for plain exposition to achieve this. But understanding what the First Order is after, what remains of the Republic, is the bare minimum needed for viewers to give a damn about what is going on. Nothing is offered in that regard.
Consequently, the battles feel shallow, reduced to a spectacle of special effects with characters having little that is genuinely relatable. I've rarely felt less engaged by a Star Wars movie in the past.
It seems that Johnson had an idea in mind that could have been interesting. That the divide between good and evil, the First Order and the rebels, was not as obvious as it seems (as illustrated by the revelations from the codebreaker). But this idea is never fleshed out either; in the end, it is pointless for the conclusion of the film, which returns to a typical battle between the good guys and the bad guys.
4. The treatment of Luke
I won't dwell on this, because fans have discussed the issue a lot (not to mention, Mark Hamill himself). Luke Skywalker is out of character in this film. The background story of him and Kylo Ren is tonally inconsistent with what we know of the character, and the rest of the franchise. This makes it difficult for a viewer to maintain any suspension of disbelief. Especially since there were hundreds of possibilities to write a compelling story about him.
The positives
I'm seriously struggling to find positive elements for this film. It boils down to two things: the score, and the visual effects. But a film cannot be reduced to that.
There is a nice final battle between Luke and Ren, sure. I also liked the development of the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey. But the latter does not lead to any "big moment" or emotional payoff that would make this development worthwhile.
Verdict
Overall, the negatives outweigh the positives for this film. The Last Jedi is tonally all over the place. The comedy is not well integrated. And major issues undermine the plot. Some interesting ideas are planted here and there, but never developed to satisfaction.
The film is so uneven that it's hard to compare it to other entries in the franchise. In a sense, the Last Jedi feels like a large budget school movie with an unpolished script. J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens shines in comparison.
Because it throws the mythos out of the window without replacing it with anything substantial to feed on, I can understand why so many Star Wars fans hated The Last Jedi.
2 out of 3 found this helpful.
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I have tried so hard to like this movie...I have watched it two and a half times.....on the third viewing i walked out on the Luke flashback sequence.
I could not stomach another viewing of one of the most iconic characters in movie history turned into cheap laughs (throwing the sabre)...(milking god knows what lol) and a twist tht really doesnt make any sense when u think of Luke's life...Not just do i find the whole idea of it absurd.....i also found it to be poorly executed...i sensed the darkside in my nephew so i thought ahhh why not.....i'll just kill him in his sleep.....cause reasons...lol
this movie could not of taken Rian Johnson more than an hour to write....Snoke kill him off can't think of a good backstory for him....Rey's parents hmmm whats the most simple bland reason i can think of...? i know randoms!...Phasma she can just die sweep her under the rug too....And what about Luke...what's he been upto since ROTJ? when not trying to kill his nephew in his sleep.....he milks aliens....And as Rian Johnson clearly has not seen TFA the Knights of Ren are also just hung out to dry.....because he would of had to you know think about stuff and come up with actual ideas.
I am a huge Star Wars fan....but i have to admit i absolutely loathe this movie...i feel like it is an 2hr 32 min torture movie for the die-hard fans...if i was Disney i would do the right thing and get JJ to remake this horror show....because as it stands this movie leaves a huge scar on the franchise.HEARTBROKEN
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This movie was lost from the beginning.. What was a great build up from the last episode was completely destroyed. Ray's training and was pathetic, more like nonexistent, the conflict within her (if any) was poorly portrayed. A hole in the ground...really? ...Felt like I was watching The Ring again. Most of the characters felt like they were lost and didn't have a clear role or purpose in the story, as if they were just squeezed in there without any transition. Many contradicting points in the movie, Leia's replacement...whatever her name was...complete idiot turned into hero...doesn't give the character any redemption the way it was done. Even the way Luke appeared felt fake, oh maybe because it was. Nothing was done right in this movie.
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Hollywood abused and exploited a storied Star Wars franchise to pathetically attempt to brainwash society with its moronic, crude and blatantly obvious political undertones. Instead of staying true to the Star Wars roots, the creators of this film opportunistically infused this film with ridiculous, condescending and contradictory messages about female empowerment and multiculturalism. I came to watch this film to be entertained. Instead, I was nearly puking on the matriarchial messages that Hollywood has been spewing for the past few years now with other movies such as Rogue One, female Ghostbusters??, Wonder Woman, etc.
To give you a few examples - Admiral Holden(?) - Female - is lauded as a hero for sacrificing herself and going down with the ship. On the other hand, Finn and Poe are portrayed as dumb, reckless, douche-bag fools for willing to sacrifice themselves and scolded and slapped(!) (where are the outcries of physical abuse?) by female characters (whom I thought were absolute jokes).
Despite Hollywood seeking to be "progressive" with its millennial, multi-cultural cast, it continues its racist streak of not casting any Asian men (save for Master Yoda of course).
This film was an absolute waste of money and time and I urge you all to not watch this movie because otherwise, you are just throwing more money into the racist, feminizi, hypocritical, decadent and greedy machine known as Hollywood.
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Horrible, just horrible. The acting, the script, even the visuals were lacking in comparison with the last 6 (and I cannot believe I'm saying the prequels were better, they were terrible).
Disney has just utterly destroyed Star Wars. I can see why Mark Hamill is upset with this. I can't believe the others weren't. They humiliated the Skywalkers. And I do mean ALL of them.
Star Wars deserves better. How it EVER was able to get as high a rating as it has, I will never know.
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I just watched a horrible and dumb Star Wars movie, probably the worse of them. All my expectations were high for this new episode, and I believe it was the same for many people. Star Wars Force Awakens left so many good plots and mistery to the sequence that this movie had all the potential to be great. But all that was wasted by the hands of Rian Johnson. Seriously, you just turned Lea into a fucking Superman (Mary Poppins), transformed Rey into a Jedi master with little to no training from Luke, which you killed in a meaningless scene at the end of the movie. My last hope was the unknown character, evil supreme leader Snooke, which could be the perfect, enemy for Luke, and yes, you killed him without any explanation about his story and who he is, why even bother to create him?
There was a lot more wrong things in this movie, but I won't dwell on those, I'll just finish with this last sentence. Disney killed Star Wars by allowing Rian Johnson to write and direct Star Wars episode 8. I will not watch any other Disney Star Wars movie ever again.
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I can't tell you what a let down this was. Come on Disney, you treated Rogue One so good. Now you go and ruin it all?
This franchise has lost touch with it's former essence.
They can't use the force.
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This is my first review after years in IMDB, and just wanted to let you know that Disney has finally destroyed the Jedis saga. The movie is totally pointless and a mixture of canned jokes for young kids and copy/paste scenes of the saga.
I suggest you to avoid this crap and use your money in other better movie.
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If you know me in person, you'll know that I enjoy Star Wars. I'm no hyperfan (I'm yet to speak fluent Mandalorian) but I like to think I know my stuff. At least compared to the average cinema-going audience. It's because of this that I was rather nervous for the upcoming (and since arrived) Star Wars movie. The Force Awakens had left a poor taste in my mouth, and nothing else Disney had done with the property was giving me confidence. I was expecting perhaps a 5/10; the trailer was well edited, and I do adore Mark Hamill. That isn't to say I didn't want it to be good; I wanted it to be great. I was hoping that my expectations would be blown from the waters of Manaan, and be left ecstatic in anticipation for episode IX. In case the past tense didn't give it away, this wasn't the case after viewing the movie.
For this paragraph, I shall give a brief review without spoilers. Overall, in my questionable opinion, i'd give the film a 3/10. That may change over time, however. When I first saw The Force Awakens, I found it a disappointment. Upon repeat viewings, I grew to despise it. Hopefully, that shan't be the case with this instalment. I give it such a low score, as I feel it failed on almost every front. I felt the majority of the film was devoid of depth, and apart from a few minor sequences, only sought to pander to the audience. If you enjoyed The Force Awakens (which you are entirely entitled to do) you will most likely enjoy The Last Jedi. With that said, I shall now move onto a more in-depth discussion, almost certainly featuring spoilers. Proceed with caution.
Following the iconic, almost 'jumpscare'-like introduction and credits, I found myself nervous. Our heroes are evacuating the Resistance base, but already the acting left a lot to be desired. When making a film, your first scene should arguably be one of the strongest in the running time. It needs to captivate the audience, and pull them into this new world. Instead, I found myself laughing at various Extras. I appreciate they aren't the focal point of the film, but for a multi-million dollar movie, I expect better. This opening action sequence also highlights a primary issue with the movie: There is very little to be invested in. The characters in peril, aside from the late Carrie Fisher's Leia Organa, and Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron, are all strangers. There are a few returning characters sprinkled throughout the film, such as the unfortunately iconic Admiral Ackbar. Unfortunately, they are unceremoniously dispatched in a big CGI explosion. I appreciate that most viewers don't know, or care, who they are, but these characters are decades old in real life.
We witness a then-stranger sacrifice herself to destroy a 'Dreadnaught', then it rarely comes up again. This is surprising, as the character is revealed to be Rose Tico's (Kelly Marie Tran) sister. We are given a few scenes of the character crying for her sister, and frequent shots of a medallion, but not much else. The medallion comes into play later, but it could quite easily be removed from the film entirely, without making much difference. Much like Finn and Rose's subplot, actually.
This time around, I found John Boyega's portrayal of Finn to be far less grating. The acting was toned down a little, and he became far more bearable. Of the returning characters (besides Carrie Fisher) I found him to be the most improved. That's unfortunate, as his entire subplot could be deleted from the film. Finn and Rose are on a mission to find somebody capable of disabling Snoke's (Andy Serkis) ship's sensors temporarily, allowing the Resistance to flee. In the end, however, they fail. Not only that, but the plan is entirely forgotten. Instead, Admiral Holdo (portrayed by Laura Dern) sacrifices herself while going into hyperspace, aimed directly at the aforementioned ship. The only reason Rose Tico seems to exist is for a clumsy romance subplot to be squeezed in at the end.
A returning issue from the previous film is the comedy. Star Wars as a franchise is no stranger to humour, but yet again, they overdid it. It seems as though Disney is imposing a joke-per-minute rule. If it isn't up to par, it won't be made. It happened in the MCU, and it's happening here. I can't take scenes seriously when the characters themselves don't seem to, and that really hurts the film in the long run. Worse still, the majority of the jokes aren't even funny. Perhaps half of my audience laughed consistently, which isn't good enough if you have to derail the plot to achieve such a result. The writing of this film was, quite honestly, abysmal.
There was many baffling lines from the film, though one of my favourites was "You murderous snake!" howled by a furious Daisy Ridley. I don't feel her acting has improved from the last film, which is an enormous shame. She continues to overact, shouting almost every line in which she is impassioned. If this was a play at the West End, it might work. It isn't. The poor script, coupled with weak performances from actors, made this film feel closer to a fan project than an officially licensed cinematic venture.
One actor who didn't seem to falter, much to my relief, was Mark Hamill. Though at times I felt he struggled with the poor script he'd been given, he was relatively consistent throughout. Luke's character had the most depth portrayed on screen, only rivalled perhaps by Kylo Ren. Adam Driver brought a believable sense of vulnerability to the failed Jedi, and oftentimes he came across as the reasonable one. At least when playing opposite Rey's over-impassioned roars.
In case it wasn't apparent, I personally despise Rey. Ignoring the frequent debate on whether or not she's a 'Mary Sue', her character is simply insufferable. She hasn't seemed to earn any of her many talents, and she continues to act as if she deserves the world. Or galaxy, I suppose. Even while on the literal brink of death, she continues to talk. Snoke wills her into the air, as if she were a puppet, and she still makes demands as though she's oblivious to the situation. I feel no tension when the character herself doesn't seem to notice the peril she's in.
Speaking of Snoke, he was one of the weakest elements of the movie by far. That isn't to knock Andy Serkis's work. The voice is fantastic as always, but the character was almost entirely pointless. He gets killed in what feels like the end of the second act. It isn't a dignified death, either. There was no duel, or showcase of strength, nothing. He was just surprised, then carved down the middle. The film seemed rather confused about it's rating. There was full on decapitation during what I would consider the best scene in the movie (the battle with Snoke's guards) yet it was still rated a 12 in my country. I'm certainly not complaining; if anything, i'd like more amputation and the like. It just seemed odd how literally thousands of people died during this film, and we're never given a moment to dwell on that.
The pacing throughout the film is non-stop. You never get time to appreciate John Williams' score, or enjoy the cinematography, or anything. There's always something happening. In a shorter movie, that could be fine. When you have a 155 minute running time, however, you can notice a problem. It might have simply been because I was taking notes, but by the end of the film I was exhausted. Not due to how powerful the meaning was or anything of the sort (in fact I don't think you learn a lesson at all). It felt as though they were trying to cram in various ideas, when the film really didn't need any more content. Perhaps they felt they were struggling to deliver on the base premise, and sought to cover it with more dazzling effects and such?
There was additionally a myriad of minor issues, each adding up to a death of a thousand cuts. Each one alone could be forgivable, but all piled into the same movie, it's difficult to ignore. I may cover those in another post, as this review is already rather long.
Finally, I shall quickly talk about the settings. There's bland spaceships as expected. Also, Luke's island has some natives. The Porgs (whom I was promised weren't annoying, I was lied to), and some odd maid-like beings. They seemed to live to uphold the temple. Finn and Rose also go to a casino, but it's terribly boring. Apart from the various aliens, it looked like a building from Earth. Say what you will about the prequels, but at least each area felt like another planet. Snoke's ship seemed rather odd. There was a pure red background, causing each character to seem terribly out of place. Whether it was a greenscreen or not, I don't know, but I am quite sure it was a terrible design choice. Finally, there was the planet of Crait. While, for the most part, it was a barren wasteland, it had a few shining features. One were the rather adorable crystal foxes which actually served a plot purpose, unlike the Porgs. Second, the decision to have the surface of the planet be white salt, with red earth beneath it, led to some fantastic visuals. Whenever something broke through the surface, brilliant reds shot to the sky in a sand-like cloud. It almost looked like jets of blood, as though the planet itself was bleeding.
To close, I feel the film, though showing potential, fell short of it's mark. If you aren't a fan of Star Wars, you may enjoy it. Of course, you may also be terribly lost by the end of the film. If The Force Awakens and the trailer interested you, i'd recommend checking it out. If not, I'd suggest saving your money, or wait until it's on DVD.
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3/10
This Film should be treated the same as other bad films
This film was a mess with a tone that took me out of the experience every chance it could with bad jokes. pace of the film was draged down by parts that did nothing to advance the story . Mark was the only good actor in this film the rest are just bad. .Also there were to many plot holes that made no sense .Don't see this movie wait to rent it on redbox were you only have to pay $1.
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I watched this movie last Friday, with high hopes of getting all the answers to the questions I had after watching The Force Awakens. It had been 2 years since that movie was released, after all. I felt we, as viewers, deserved to get at least some questions properly answered.
I walked out of the cinema, feeling very confused and underwhelmed.
This movie, on it's own or as a part of a trilogy, isn't good. It's watchable, sure, but it's not good. The plot is...boring. The space shuttle runs out of fuel and the rest of the movie is about the rebels trying to get to another currently inhabited planet, that conveniently lies close to their vessel? A character never seen before, which the movie set up to be a traitor whilst Leia was out, sacrifices herself just to save the rebels? Since we don't know anything about this character it didn't make any impact. While we're talking about Leia - since when can she Force fly out of space back into the ship? How the hell did she just enter the ship through the front door without everyone nearby being thrown into space? This will never, ever be explained, as it wasn't addressed in the movie after it happened, and Carrie Fisher sadly passed away after filming of this movie had wrapped up. So they showed this character having incredible powers and everyone were like "oh, cool." Why make that happen if you're not gonna bother explaining that? We've never seen Leia do anything like that before.
Then we have the main villain, Snoke. I feel so sorry for all the fans who had these amazing fan theories posted on the internet. They had these good questions we all needed an answer to. Who is he? Where is he from? Is he really more powerful than any other character? All this work these fans put into analyzing every single scene with Snoke in The Force Awakens - for nothing! You would think this movie would at least give a hunch of who this character is. But NOOO, instead they kill him off in the most absurd way possible! I would have accepted if this happened in episode IX, as we would've then gotten some decent development for the character, but now he was killed off before he even got to be a villain!
Don't even get me started on Luke. His character was totally wasted in this movie. Not to mention he acted out of character for 95% of the time! He doesn't use the force a single time during the entire movie (unless you count the ending), despite being the last jedi AND training Rey. He doesn't even touch his father's lightsaber, which Rey brought with her. Instead he throws it off a cliff, resolving the 2 year old cliffhanger we got in The Force Awakens in the worst way possible. He passes away at the end of the movie without having gotten any redemption at all for almost killing Kylo Ren. I would've understood that he died if he had done that whilst doing something heroic. Now he went into battle as a hologram, and vanished into thin air on the same island he'd lived on for so many years. So he died alone. People needed his help for the war against the First order and he barely does anything before dying? It was a big mistake killing his character off in this movie. It should have happened in the next movie, if ever. Now we won't have any of the human characters from the original trilogy in Episode IX. It was part of the attraction of this new trilogy, a bit of the old, a bit of the new. And to be honest, these new characters aren't interesting enough to carry the movies on their own. Not in my opinion, at least.
What was the dark hole on the island Luke lived on? Why was it an important detail? Nothing happened while Rey was down there. It could've been cut as it was totally uninteresting and provided no answers. The reveal of Rey's parents was a total cop-out. Nobodies? It was hyped up that there was something special about her parents, and in this movie that rumor is debunked as if it was nothing. So underwhelming.
The sideplot with Rose and Finn was so boring to watch and brought nothing to the story. It was as if it was impossible for them to find something better for Finn to do, so they made him do just SOMETHING. So silly. When Rose sacrifices herself to save Finn, they make it look like she dies. But then Finn says she needs medical help? Did she die or not? It was never addressed. How did Rose fall in love with Finn so quickly? They barely talked about personal matters, if at all. They hardly knew each other.
Even if it was fun to see, Yoda's cameo made no sense. How did he burn that house down if he's dead?
I can give this movie some good points too. +1 for great CGI, effects, space battles, acting and soundtrack. That's about it. The movie is way too long and does a poor job at using it's time correctly. I am so sad and disappointed. Force awakens was better and made more sense.
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Movie sucks on every department: story, script, dialogue, character, acting, visuals, political correctness.
The only thing this movie really shines is in bringing people to pay for that piece of garbage.
BTW Disney pay people or their employee to write shill reviews, because it is downright impossible to get 7-8/10 rating, in an objetive nor subjective manner.
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As a fan of the original Star Wars series, I'll say I did not enjoy Star Wars force awakens. Star Wars Rogue was an improvement. But Last Jedi takes the series all the way down to rock bottom. It make's the prequels look like classics! I actually miss that prequel star wars now. How can a director be put in charge of a cult series that is so ignorant of the fundamentals of what makes Star Wars so entertaining.
This movie should be wiped and the next installment of the series should pretend this movie did not happen.
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I went into this movie with high expectations after TFA, and was quite a bit disappointed. First I will start with what I enjoyed -
1. Film had a good start, the look of the CGI and and starcraft looks great.
2. Story begins with a decent setup and interesting characters to get us into the action and story
3. There is some good performances from the cast overall, I thought the acting was enjoyable.
Now for the things that I think kind of messes up the film -
1. The length - this movie should only have been 90 mins, there is so many boring and unnecessary scenes that just drag on and on. How many minutes of bad guys screaming "Fire the Canons" and "Destroy that ship" do we need over and over ad nauseum? After halfway I kept hoping the film would end but it just keeps going and going - the last battle scene on the planet felt like purely to sell new toys of the lame ski-speeder and walkers. Same with the horse scene in the casino, it felt pointless and made a ham-fisted point about rich people and war.
2. The desecration of Luke - this film hates Luke Skywalker and does its best to make him out to be a complete jerk and pokes fun at star wars fans and people who look at him like a hero. Its painful to watch your childhood hero parade around like a parody of himself full of the '2017' self aware ironic humor which goes out of its way to break the 4th wall. By the time he does anything good in the film you already hate his character as much as the director and it comes across like a 'who gives a damn' moment. Shameful.
3. The plot - once you realize the entire movie is based around a bizarre space chase scene moving at a snails pace, it all starts to fall apart. They try to explain away this boring slog by saying the resistance ships are too fast for all the New Order ships even though the new order probably has many more fleets to call in to block them or cut them off. There is so many parts that make no sense. How did they manage to ride around these horse things through walls and with perfect control around a casino? When Snoke is killed why does no one care? His guards dont call in to report his death? WTF??? When they find him dead they are just like "whatevs" and move on like snoke is a nobody? Yoda shows up to burn Jedi books with lightning? Luke fights using an astral projection but it kills him.. or something or he just takes off because hes a jerk or something I guess. Leia can fly through space? The list just goes on and on.
Overall its an OK movie at best that is obviously aimed at the kiddos with some cool visual effects. As a long time Star Wars fan it comes across as a confused mess that makes out Luke to be the bad guy.
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Some movies plainly have all the wrong people working on it , the last Jedi is not one of those movies. The cinematography was good, the graphics were amazing, the acting was like a cancer reducing Chinese herb, choreography was impressive what made this movie so horrible to go through was its story structure.
It doesn't finish or Go through its own ideas, which is bizarre for any movie let alone a movie that you expect to be good and it doesn't feel like a smooth sail. Like the director was so scrutinized by some external fellow that he had to self edit, which I think and assume was much more than a regular movie or even tfa.
If you don't know enough, the purple haired lady was a very bad character filled with a plothole. I don't know why the fuck her and Poe's storyline didn't come to climax.
Ultimately we all have to think that Disney is playing some sort of mind trick on us mortals because people are seeing this thing multiple times.
Anyway my conclusion is please don't support this soul draining company, go watch Netflix.
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The only reason I am writing this review is because I could not believe how terrible Star Wars the Last Jedi was. I became a huge fan because of the Force Awakens so I was soo looking forward to watch LJ - and I did....and I wish I didn't. Story is soo weak, characters were underdeveloped, the ENTIRE Fin and Rose sequence was trash, they did not give justice to Luke and sooooo many many more Cinema Sins!!! I just feel so disappointed!
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Over the recent years Disney has been slowly though steadily revealing that the dollar and the agenda seem to be their most significant driving force. This film actually hurt many people's feelings, myself included. Sadly, Disney's true colors are beginning to fully show.
Strange business moves have been made by the present Disney, including selling the Star Wars rights to video game company EA. EA has created a quite violent video game (first-person shooter) where people play as Star Wars characters online and shoot each other with a huge assortment of weapons.
The world was made fully aware of this when investigations from various governments from around the world were begun recently. These show that people have to pay real money for the chance (this is the reason for these investigations as it is considered gambling) to win a prize. A child-friendly company should have no such dealings though this no longer the Disney of old.
Some scenes of space battles were spectacular though that only goes so far without a story to drive them. How many would go to watch a 2 hour computer generated space battle? Not many or that would likely be the type of film targeted by the company. Special effects will only go so far to cover up failures in ideas, writing, and ideals. The computer animation still looks somehow generally off and the spaceship models from the 70's and 80's look more realistic than these even all these years later.
There are many other things out of the ordinary at play here as well. Critics' reviews are astonishingly high, much moreso than warranted. Is there further foul play here as well?
The film pushes certain obvious agendas: feminist, political, and otherwise. None of these are advanced by the forced way which they are introduced. These agendas do not have any business in a Star Wars film and serve to undermine Disney's previous squeaky-clean reputation. Star Wars as a franchise has been completely trampled upon by these practices and the Disney brand has never before had this level of tarnish; likely so much that it's former lustre will never be regained.
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Episode VII was far from masterpiece, but it was very intriguing: they raised several questions that generate hundreds of fan theories, some of which were pretty elegant. Who were Rey's parents? Why she is so strong in force? Who is Snoke? How Rey related to Luke if he's not her father? Is there something special about Anakin's lightsaber? There was a huge potential to make some very unusual interesting twisted plot from this.
But instead in VIII they especially pointed out that all these questions were fake, only to intrigue viewers to watch next movie, there was actually nothing to ask, bunch of misleading. It really looks like mocking: Luke throwing lightsaber away, Rey's parents are some random drunks. They killed Snoke but said nothing on who he was. Seriously? Are simplest explanations the best here? If they would steal few random fan theories, not even best ones, it would fit much better in the movie.
I guess their idea is that Rey is like Kylo's twin-antipode in force, their balancing each other in force (like dark cave balancing old jedi settlement), and only one of them can be on the same side of force at the same time, so if Kylo will switch to light side then Rey will switch to dark side, like yin and yang of force. Perhaps they will finish up with creating some new "neutral" order, instead jedi and sith, that will balance on the edge of force. I don't like it at all, it should be not possible.
It is primitive populism: they trying to make it like any random person (Rey) can be super strong in force and even can use it almost without any studying like a master jedi, who were studying in force all life from less than 5 years old. So viewers can better attribute their selves with Rey. And after Luke and Snoke are both died there is nobody to train her, Kylo is same noob acting like he is 12 years old. So they have no logical way to fix it, she'll probably train by herself using stolen jedi books. In my opinion it is very bad message, before these episodes the massage was that you need to study for decades to be strong force user.
What you should wait from a new star wars movie is great lightsaber fighting. We have some of it only in the episodes II and III. Here we have only two noobs Rey and Kylo who fighting like kids. And with Luke and Snoke both dead we have no logical reason to expect them to be better with lightsabers in IX.
They removed lots of scenes with Luke, even one of his lessons to Rey completely, but instead they have absolutely pointless (literally, nothing would change without it) plotline with Finn and Rose similar to that of C3PO & R2D2 in original episodes. So it looks like in attempt to make movie "less white" both non-white actors in this movie are playing pets.
Whole plot is too simple, like bad copy of V & VI, it is almost primitive. Perhaps an only really nice scene is killing Snoke, but it is so unfinished without explanation who he was and leaves IX without experienced force users.
Luke's personality is SO different from original episodes, almost opposite, even if to assume that it is possible after all bad that he was experienced - it is still rather disrespect to original movies.
There are also tons of other non logical issues, huge basis for criticism, so I could believe that some regular viewers can rate this movie 8+, but it is outside my imagination how it ends up with such high metascore.
Summarizing, episode VII was not super good for me, but it was promising something very interesting in VIII and IX. Episode VIII is turns out to be complete disappointment. At first I was thinking that there is something to hope that they will fix it in IX. But after thinking more and more on it - I've expect nothing good from IX, without Luke they have no way to fix it in logical way, so RIP SW.
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1/10
Zzzz OMG this is an INSULT to the FRANCHISE!!! No Ideals or Allegories anymore..
Star Wars is officially dead. They've attacked their own fans calling them a "hate group" so I am officially giving up on Disney. Good bye and I hope you're company goes bankrupt. I hate you.
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Is that headline too harsh? I am confused about the plot of The Last Jedi. What was it? In The Force Awakens the plot follows Kylo trying to obtain a map to Luke's location. It is revealed in The Last Jedi that Luke tried to kill Kylo so makes sense that Kylo is trying to find Luke but where was that in The Last Jedi? It is not mentioned at all! This film is hugely disappointing, Rey's parents, what on earth are the scriptwriters at Disney paid for?? The reveal of her parents is pathetic. This is what they should have done, she should be Luke's daughter. Her Mother should have vanished from Luke without telling him she was pregnant and he could have given her some sort of identity necklace or something similar that she passed to Rey. The other main storyline in The Force Awakens is the force awakening in Rey. It barely progresses in The Last Jedi. She spends more time holographically talking to Kylo than learning from Luke. I give this two stars because in Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley the film has at least two stars.
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BOYCOTT DISNEY, THEY ARE KILLING STAR WARS
This is a battle between Disney VS Star Wars
For the first time in my life I was feeling shame that I was in the cinema watching a movie. I felt so desived! Its not that i havened see a bad movie in the cinema before but I knew what I was going to see something that is not going to be a masterpiece. But with Star Wars? Nope. I expect to see something that at LEAST its going to respect the 40 years of Star Wars legacy and the people who follows this myth.Instead of all this, yesterday I feld part of a company of brainless people that are manipulated by a company who sell garbages as cookies and we were the consumers. I watch Star Wars from the 80's that.'s was the Last Time. I call everybody else to sabotage this carbage cause two statements to be made. First that they cannot treat Star Wars legacy like this and second that they cannot sell everything even if this is totaylly nothing because we are stupid and brainless consumers that eat anything that the companies giving to them! Boycott this product! STAR WARS FANS ARE NOT STUPID! The truth is that here we really have a battle, the battle of Disney VS Star Wars!
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1/10
Greatest potential, worst execution. I've written a better script myself.
This was the only movie I was hyped for this year since Rouge One was just perfect. I am going to tell you my script for the movie since there are enough reviews about the problems of the movie.
This movie comes after the Force Awakens but I've few corrections for that movie:
Snoke is not the new emperor, He is just an underground mastermind that wants to control the universe by the force and Rebelion is actually the Republic that is still recovering from the wounds Palpatine has caused.
Script for the Last Jedi:
Snoke manages to drive Leia's fleet into corner and jams her comms to call help from Republic. Luke doesn't want to train Rey since he actually believes that Force causes more damage than good but then decides Kylo and Snoke should also die since they are sith. Trains her and Rey goes Kylos' place. At this point killing Snoke is a good idea but then in the mean time Kylo also agrees with Luke, and believes jedi and sith order should die tells Rey to kill the past(meaning stop the Force) but Rey's stubborn nature and her search of significance turns her against Kylo who wants to destroy the only important thing that matters about her. Thus ending up manipulating the Republic into thinking Kylo is evil and make the Republic and even Luke attack him(who has scarces resources than Republic. Meanwhile Finn destroys the Casino which is the castle for Snokes' operations. At the end maybe Luke dies believing in Rey and concluding with an actual good guy Kylo and Rey turning evil, concluding her to attack Kylo at the last movie. In the last movie Finn and Leia could secretly join Kylo seeing Rey evil. I know it isn't perfect and needs some work but better than this shitty million dollar worth movie.
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I am not an obsessive fan of Star Wars but...This goes beyond, way beyond...
The first thing I heard of the Last Jedi is: "When JJ abrams did read the script, he found it so good that he had regrets not to direct it"... Really?!
I think it was the contrary, he was maybe relieved not to direct this tasteless, mild and uncontroversial script, which destroys the Star War Universe and our Childhood Pop memories.
Poor Mark Hamill...
When you look at him acting in The Flash, you know he is a great actor. In this movie he is just a shadow...
Also, something else does bother me, destroying the last Jedi book. What message is that? Except displaying the fact that Ray Bradbury was correct.
In short: pointless story, bad sound editing, poor directing.
This is a boring movie, with a clueless director.
I wonder who is responsible for this mess?
Disney or Lucas Film?
I wonder if:
During the shooting anyone said that this movie will make the fans angry?
Did anyone replied: "the hell with the fans, as long as our P&L is balanced and we widen our audience".
This movie is a shame and a sad message for us, who grew up with the original Trilogy.
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I think that there is a very clear message that Disney wanted to put through with this film; they want money. And if that means sacrificing the quality of arguably the biggest franchise in the world in order to add Porgs or crystal foxes and unnecessary, poorly timed sitcom-esque jokes to satiate the taste buds of a younger audience craving for the next action sequence to happen, that's what they're going to do, and it's proven in the second film of the new Star Wars trilogy. But, seeing how Disney is now going through the process of purchasing Twentieth Century Fox, and becoming one step closer to monopolizing the entertainment business, they also know that they need to spend some money to make money. And I think the money shines the strongest in how this film looks. All of the sets are beautiful and crafted to the minutest detail. Every inch of the environment on the screen has something interesting to look at, helping to add to the fact that Star Wars takes place in its own universe and that other things happen outside of the plot given to us. Going off of how things look, the special effects were brilliant as well. Every explosion, laser beam, and alien in the film looks real. This made all three of the climaxes incredible. Aesthetically, barring the almost ubiquitous product-placement feel of Porgs, this film was almost flawless. And Rian Johnson really makes the mystical environments shine with thoughtful camerawork and interesting visuals. To top it off for positive comments, the returning characters, Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Poe (Oscar Isaac), Luke (Mark Hamill), and Leia (Carrie Fisher (RIP)) all gave good performances and I enjoyed the new characters as well, especially Rose (Kelly Marie Tran). I can also appreciate that Disney is bringing tasteful diversity to this movie in all of the new characters. Perhaps I'm being cynical because I think it might be in order to drive more cattle, I mean people, to see it because they feel it's a "progressive movie" they need to support, but I will try and push that out of my head.
But, all this money did not happen to buy a succinct, appropriate, and organized script, structure the film sensibly, and remove all the unnecessary scenes. This is just some speculation, but I am guessing that the production of this film was a little rushed in order to hit that Christmas 2017 deadline and get that wave of extended families who make going to the movies an entire event. I speculate this because of the money point, but more the fact that this movie was more than just a little messy. The tone, thematic elements, and just the generally cool things that happen is way unbalanced, and the whole 2.5 hour film feels very back heavy, probably from the fact this movie has three climaxes, of which the first was the best and the other two felt tacked on, making me check my watch multiple times waiting for the real end and question why they were even included. I think the way the film was structured helped contribute to this detriment the most. The way storylines were ordered felt like it was a 2.5 hour long sitcom episode where we have the main characters on the cruiser and everyone splits up and we follow each pair individually on their side quests. But, as time progresses in one storyline, it does not progress in another, so we essentially watch like three things that should be happening at the same time happen in chronological order so it gives the feel that time is passing at normal speed, but it really isn't. It surprises me that all of the events of this movie happen in only a day or two because the pacing makes it feel like a week has passed. This gives the illusion that the movie is actually a lot longer than it really is, and that's always a problem. I grabbed my coat at the end of the first climax and was ready to leave, but I was really confused when it kept going. Why not just throw all that other stuff into the next movie? It tied up really nicely at that point. Anyways, all the storylines converge in the end in a cool way, but the thematic message from each individual story does not come together in a cohesive light and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth as you exit the theater (not to mention that the themes are trite already). I feel that if Disney had given the writers and director another year or two to really iron out the problems in the script, this would have been a worthy step in the series. But even with the sloppy plot, it's only half a misstep because it looks so gosh darn cool.
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Seriously the worse movie I've seen in a long time. I guess all the star war fans must be hypnotized and oblivious to the shit dialogue ('The most unfindable place in the Galaxy' ... Seriously?! Unfindable? They couldn't come up with a better word?) And not to mention the most boring, senseless, long drawn out storyline that put me to sleep...LITERALLY... (I was woken up by the guy next to me leaving the movie... Smart move) and when I thought the movie was finally about to end.... IT KEEPS GOING!!! I honestly don't give a flying f*ck about the republic or the Jedi any more. They can all go into a giant orgy for all I care. I am never going to one of these stupid movies ever again. Seriously, don't watch it!!! Read a book, bake a cake, write a porno!!! Don't waste your time with this movie.
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How can this movie have 86 metascore?....it is by far the worst star wars movie, at least for me.
Leya flying in space and Snoke being cut in two are only 2 major and unforgivable issues.
I really don't understand the positive reviews, I really don't.
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All the male characters in Star Wars: The Last Jedi were portrayed as weak and foolish to fulfill one aspect of Hollywood's liberal agenda, and indeed, current liberal doctrine of ridiculing, belittling etc. as a way to diminish their adversaries status thus elevating themselves. Culturally such behavior is extremely destructive as it's motivation is hate. The movie portrays women as strong at the expense of men to such a degree that it sucks the fun out of a what should be a shared adventure like in the original 1977 Star Wars where a spunky Leia takes her would be rescuers blaster and starts shooting. Since Lucas was forced out of the franchise he created it has gone from reasonable to awful. There are no male heroes in this movie, just eunuchs.
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I cannot believe it. It is all the things bad in movies. Longer is not better. Slower is not more poignant. More explosions is not more excitement. This franchise is like watching an elderly relative deteriorate.
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1/10
No way this utter crap should be near an 8/10 - iMDB undoubtedly inflating score
I was not a huge fan of the Force Awakens, but JJ Abrams at least stuck to what made Star Wars great instead of injecting his own opinions and SOCIAL JUSTICE BULLSHIT because let's be honest, Rian Shitson totally did that, among other things....
Rose... Who gives a fuck? That scene when she sets that stupid animal free and says, "now it's worth it" Are you kidding me??? Your friends are about to be blown away, and they're relying on you to save them and you're happy about an animal that will be re-captured in the next 20 seconds, OH AND there are still hundreds of CHILDREN who are being enslaved. Jesus.
the Luke Skywalker scene's were absolutely idiotic and boring. "I'll give you 3 lessons"
lesson one: the force exists
lesson two: feel this rock
lesson three: ?
Snoke was meaningless... and did I mention Rose already? Oh yeah... next!
I can't say anything else other than that this was the biggest let down of the year... and it gave me no incentive to return to see it again. I'd rather watch Justice League because at least I know it would be shitty going into it.
Rian, YOU'RE FIRED.
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1/10
A Badly Written Badly Scripted Badly Cast Complete Mess Of A Film
This is probably the weakest film of the year. It managed to disrespect its own audience by ignoring the established conventions of this film series. Did no one do their research?
For example, it was the first Star Wars film to have bad language in it. The word 'bastard' appears in the dialogue. It was the first to have no proper pacing of the story or the scenes. It was also riddled with plot holes and poorly thought out from the start. Story wise, it didn't seem to follow the previous film in the series. Also several actors were miscast.
John Boyega was terrible in the film. He seemed to be having too much fun in the filming process instead of turning in a performance that respected the series and the audience. Boyega seemed completely out of his depth and turned in a performance that was completely devoid of any gravity. In fact he was just one dimensional and annoying from start to finish. So was Oscar Issacs who was instantly forgettable. He had no charisma whatsoever.
None of the characters were properly developed in this film and Luke Skywalker returns as a completely different character to his previous incarnation in the film series.
Sad to say but Carrie Fisher delivered the weakest performance of her career and talked like Richard Nixon throughout the film. Her character was never developed in these new films and it is impossible to empathize with her or any other character as they are just cardboard cutouts or shadows of something that has come before.
I was amazed that this film was ever released as it should not have been due to the poor quality. Disney don't seem to do quality control. This will be the last Star Wars movie that I attend. Good Riddance!
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What the heck was that opening comedy sequence? I don't watch any super hero movies as they are all mindless comedies. Now my favourite franchise has turned into one, what a total let down. The movie was peppered with pathetic humour which destroyed the Star Wars universe. That alone was enough, but on top of that we had a disjointed story line, meaningless scenes and legendary heroes dispatched without the kudos they deserved. I could go one but it is too painful. Disney should be ashamed.
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A post modernist take on Star Wars, which makes Rey the equivalent of a toilet bowl in an art museum. Now we know what a feminist take on Star Wars is like, apparently its like Transformers, but that wouldn't be fair, the robots have more character than the souless husks of "identity" politics we see on screen here. They even brought in a pink hair for good measure, because woman strong!
So congrats, nothing in the Star Wars universe is coherent anymore, now relativistic kill vehicles are a thing, who knew, now every Death Star has become redundant, why build anything when you can just kamikaze everything at light speed.
At this point the rebels #resist are little more than incompetent terrorists led by women, if the goal of these movies was to get me to root for the Empire, congrats, job done. I can only wish the Empire would win and put this shambling corpse of a franchise out of its misery.
Its not so much that the sacred was destroyed, as some people like to mischaracterize fan boy reactions, its that they took something good, something with potential, and they spat all over it with their progressive politics, throwing away things they did not understand had value because their ideology blinds them to human reality, even natural human interaction evades the progressives grasp now. These are people who believe everyone is the same, yet different, yet interchangeable, their incoherent world view and ignorance of tradition and history yields cultural destruction like this. The modern Mao's red guard are the Kathleen Kennedy and #imwithher types, and you are seeing now why they cannot be trusted with power.
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This movie should not be called: Star Wars the last Jedi. It should be called: How to ruin Star Wars.
First of all i want to point out something..
Who was the director of the original trilogy? George Lucas right?
Who was the director of this movie? Rian Johnson..
It all makes sense!
George Lucas should have been the director of this movie in the first place!
Now i will point top 5 reasons why i dont recommend watching this movie:
5. R2 D2 and C-3PO:
We usually see these 2 together chill and be happy in the original trilogy which i like! but in this movie they are both separated and we dont see them much at all! except we see a bit of R2 D2 and C-3PO.
4. Luke: This is not the Luke we know trust me! this Luke literally acts like a p*ssy, Weak and tries to refuse to train Rey many times.. and apart from this, he wants the Jedi's to end! i guess the dark side will win if this surely happens!.
3. Kylo Ren: He kills the Emperor Sonux meaning he was probably going to be good again but somehow he just wants Rey to join him in the dark side.. THEN WHY THE F*CK DID HE KILL SONUX FOR!? He wanted to be good but then be bad again!??
2. Luke dying: The way they killed Luke in this movie is so cheap! Luke is very powerfull and somehow dies in the most cheapest way ever!, i do not want to spoil this, sorry!
1. The plot: The plot is the main reason of all of this.. the movie has great effects and all but if it wasn't for the stupid plot i think many things would have changed..
Now i will want you to watch this movie.. because if you do you will understand what i mean.
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Quite frankly i didn't find it entertaining. The humor felt forced and the story is more and more directed towards kids. Far far away is the star wars galaxy where Vador cuts his sons hands off before telling him that he is his father or when Leila is taken as a sexual slave. Nothing shockig in this movie. I even challenge anyone who has seen the movie to give me an example of a memorable scene.
And the swords fight are unimpressive which is a big let down ( at least the Phantom Menace had that)
So to sum up : This new Star Wars is first and foremost for kids between the age of 9 and 14 who haven't seen the first 6 movies.
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Before delving into my main issue with The Last Jedi, I want to congratulate Disney and the main writer Rian Johnson on ripping off the movie Speed (you know the bus movie starring Keanu Reeves) and doing so in a way that left a huge gaping plot hole in the middle of it all.
The events took place in a '94 Speed setting. The rebel fleet was running from the first order and would be destroyed if they ran out of fuel, because they would come in effective range of the pursuing destroyer's weapons.
First off, if the rebels were not complete idiots, they would have spread their people among all of their ships, which could then have spread out to different directions, giving the First Order a difficult choice as to what ship to pursue.
If the First Order was only interested in the rebel's capital ship, then the supporting ships could have jumped to hyper space. Also, they could have jumped into destroyer on auto pilot or with a droid as the pilot.
Instead they just flew until their fuel ran out and then died with their ships like utter and complete dimwits.
So there you go, a space sequel to Speed with a huge plot hole in the center of it all and that isn't even the worst part of the movie!
The main problem with the movie is that Disney (Rian Johnson) butchered Luke's character and with it, the Star Wars universe. Luke has always personified the Jedi and the light side in the clearest way possible, yet in this movie was portrayed as a weak old fool, who slipped casually into the dark side to incompetently (try to) kill Ben Solo, his sister's and one of his best friend's (Han Solo's) son!! What The Fudge?!
That's like writing a sequel to the bible, where we find out, that jesus is really a douchebag and the previous books were all BS. You wouldnt see many christians happy with that blasphemous piece of scribble!
If the best of the jedi is capable of such a thing, then the jedi are really a sorry bunch of hypocrites. Star Wars has always been about the struggle between the light and dark sides of the force. Now it's seems the dynamic has turned to muddy-light vs kinda-dark-because-misunderstood.
Disney - you are completely mishandling Star Wars and distancing yourself from it's fanbase, fix it, or lose it to ambiguity. Star Wars: the last jedi.. no, Star Farse more like it.
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This Movie shows that you do not need a story anymore. You trash something together that explodes all the times and that's enough. If represents the mindset of the modern viewers. They are not able anymore to follow a story longer than five minutes. In Vietnam where I watched the Movie most played around on their cellphones during it just looking up when some wild battle started. I would suggest you make a Star Wars Movie next without any story - just continuing battles and explosions. This one was near it already.
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Disney managed to gut the star wars series in one movie, they not only managed that with the lame jokes. Poor flow of story line, neigh the lack of a true plot or story line, but in the re-use of scenes barely re framed from the original movies. That made up the entire film! i hope they can some how manage to come back from the disaster they have made the series. Yet i doubt they can, RIAN JOHNSON wrote the worst star wars movie to date. If they allow him to write another one it is a horrible choice. The dialouge in the film, and even the plot line where it existed at all were horrible, i could keep going but i think any true star wars fan or even film critque would notice the same things. I have been a devoted fan for close to 30 years. Well they have managed to completly ruin that along with the star wars name. Lucas films worst decision ever was to sell to disney and allow them to cannonize and gut Star Wars how they have. Good luck to them and i think to only use left for any star wars anything produced by disney is to lite a fire.
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Over a the Disney shop, there are cute plush porgs and space horses. But where are the ginormous sea cows? A missed opportunity to squeeze some milk out of those proverbial teats, to be sure.
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...and crushes the new hope that J.J. Abrams gave us with his fresh yet nostalgic take on the franchise. I liked virtually everything about The Force Awakens, as well as everything else that Disney has done with Star Wars up to this point (SW Rebels, Rogue One). But The Last Jedi left me speechless for all the wrong reasons.
All the right ingredients are there: The new generation of Star Wars heroes that we've come to know and love in TFA, the old guard of beloved characters, the beautiful moments of nostalgia, the practical effects aided by sparingly used and excellent CGI, never-before-seen worlds, creatures and aliens... and yet, something crucial is missing.
One big culprit is the lackluster plot. It mostly comes down to a series of mildly entertaining, but ultimately pointless McGuffin chases. Only very few of the questions that were brought up by TFA receive rather disappointing and unspectacular answers. Two presumed-important characters die, but their deaths don't change anything of consequence. By the time the credits roll, we're essentially left with the same situation as by the end of episode 7.
It certainly doesn't help that too many plot points stretch the viewer's credulity to the breaking point and laugh in the face of the established internal logic of this fictional universe. Characters exhibit plot-convenient new force powers that no previous Jedi or Sith possessed, and the laws of physics are mere suggestions (more than ever before in this far-away galaxy). I'm no EU-versed hardcore fan, and I'm prepared to suspend a great amount of disbelief for a movie about telekinetic space knights with laser beam swords, but this was just too much. It's almost as if Rian Johnson said to George Lucas, "Loud explosions in space? That's nothing! Hold my beer and watch this."
Worst of all though is how out of character the cast feels compared to TFA. I can write off Luke's uncharacteristic behavior as a result of old age and personal tragedy, but everyone felt strangely off-kilter and less alive in this movie. Rey isn't as level-headed as we know her, Kylo is nowhere near as menacing and driven, and the few attempts to rekindle the light-hearted buddy cop dynamic between Finn and Poe fall flat.
Bottom line: While I understand why many moviegoers found TLJ entertaining enough or even refreshingly different, only few things about this middling effort felt truly like Star Wars to me. Unlike TFA and Rogue One, which successfully rekindled the magic of the original trilogy within a meaningful plot, TLJ is just another formulaic Hollywood movie.
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3/10
Good movie if you are a casual fan of the series, terrible if you loved Ep. 4-6
Looks good. Feels terrible. Disney destroyed everything about the lore I loved and it feels like they shit on my fav. character of the series. Also most of the characters that were newly introduced felt forced and some absolutely unnecessary. The plot holes I don't want to adress here, but the movie was so unlogical, that it was hard not to laugh on how bad it was. The whole cinema was laughing when someone screamed Mary Poppins at a certain scene. I maybe would have forgotten about it if they delivered at least on honoring the initial triology. Yes it is time to go on, but certainly not this way. This was the last SW movie I paid money for.
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This is by far the worst Star Wars movie ever made and the worst two and a half hour movie I have ever watched in my life. People have already said the problems - many - on this website so I won't go into details. For the people saying "fanboys" are the ones that don't like it and otherwise it's a great movie, I feel so sorry for you.
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I will make this short and spoiler-free. This film is an absolute mess. If someone wrote this script and it didn't take place within the established Star Wars universe, it would be immediately rejected as a mad collection of worthless sub-plots.
This is a series which has become completely engrossed with itself. The original trilogy was so fantastic because it told a simple story very well, with characters that we genuinely connected with. Now, I think the creators have taken their audience for granted (and hey, why wouldn't they, given the ridiculously excessive screaming nature of Star Wars fandom?), and reckon they can serve up the most convoluted, unfocused nonsense so long as there's plenty of explosions and nods to the original trilogy.
This franchise has gone precisely the way the Marvel/DC franchises have: annually pumping out pretty much the same big screen fare because legions of fans, especially kids, will definitely go and watch it. At least The Force Awakens was a pretty tightly made film - The Last Jedi is just stuffed full of head-scratching creative decisions.
Given that this series is nothing special any more, and given that we've had 3 recent films, none of which have been impressive, plus the prequels (at least The Last Jedi didn't reach those lows), I don't see why people still wet their pants in excitement for this series, which is now just a cash cow. But equally, I don't see why people are raging that this film has 'ruined Star Wars'. The series had already been turned to trash. Yes, it's sad every time we see beloved old characters and imagery milked for everything they've got on a soulless movie production line - but hasn't everyone realised by now that the Star Wars franchise is nothing but a money-making machine now?
Here's my advice: The Last Jedi isn't the worst movie ever made, but please don't give Disney your money by going to see it at the cinema.
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1/10
How could critics give such a high score to this garbage? We can't trust reviews anymore.
Dumb writing with full of plot holes. The moment when Leia started flying in outer space I was about to stand up and leave the cinema. And how could they not tell us who Snoke was? Where did he come from? Did the Emperor know about him? If he did why didn't he kill him (rule of two)? Who trained him? How did he become the "supreme leader"? Puppet Yoda in 2017 was painful to watch, this is not the 70's anymore and not even Muppet Show. They even fixed him later with CGI in The Phantom Manace. Rey should have teamed up with Kylo so the next movie could have avoid to be a total disaster. Fin should have died a meaningful death, guess Diesney wants to sell his action figures for a longer time. Even the animation series are better than this movie.
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After George Lucas's execrable prequels and the mediocre The Force Awakens, I've learnt to keep my expectations low for any new Star Wars films in order to avoid total disappointment. Having just seen The Last Jedi, it appears that I haven't been keeping them low enough.
The reasons for my loathing are the same as those noted in the countless scathing reviews here on IMDb, so I won't go into drawn out detail - suffice to say that the film frequently beggars belief, is massively bloated, defies logic and is full of misplaced humour (the worst moments being the horrible 'steam iron' gag and BB-8's handy coin launcher).
3 out of 10, solely for the impressive special effects. Writer/director Rian Johnson shouldn't be allowed within 12 parsecs of another Star Wars sequel.
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I saw the first "Star Wars" when I was a college student in the 70's, and I've never forgotten the sense of wonder from watching Lucas' first blockbuster, and knowing that movies would never be the same again. So when my family and I went to a nearly deserted movie theater last night, so soon after the movie opened, I wondered just what was going on. And then I watched the movie.
"The Last Jedi" makes all of Lucas' cringeworthy dialog, plot, and character development from Episodes 1 through 3 look like Shakespeare by comparison. It is painful to see what the Disneyfication of the Star Wars universe has led to. Take any ridiculously horrific plot hole that Lucas every created, multiply it by ten, and you won't come close to the mind-boggling canon-violating stupidity of the space chase / battle, or the absolutely pointless side plot with the visit to the casino planet. And as for the characters themselves? Except for some of the scenes between Ben and Rey, you won't care what happens to ANY of them. Live, die, whatever, as long as it sells Disney merchandise.
Disney has done to Star Wars what CBS / Paramount did to Star Trek: turned a beloved franchise into yet another money grab that is absolutely indistinguishable from the "Transformers" franchise. Lots of flashy special effects, lots of gee-whiz space battles and light saber fights, and barely a single memorable scene or character in the entire movie.
And by the way, the kid in the last scene did not represent the future of the Resistance, or the future of the Jedi. No, he represented Disney's "New Hope" of another generation of kids demanding that Mom and Dad buy them the latest overpriced Star Wars merchandise from Disney. Save yourself some money, and wait for SW:TLJ to come to cable. I don't think it's going to last much longer in the theaters.
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1/10
So General Leia's son is the new Galactic Dictator?!?
Did any character or scene show Leia being questioned or asked about her son causing so much death and destruction? Instead of Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker dying like a samurai he decides to blink out of living because he's exhausted or needs a vacation from milking space cows?? Some critics argue that that this episode of Star Wars shows that happy endings are something left in fairy tales but for Pete's sake, Star Wars is something that helps us escape the depressing and maddening real world for a brief moment in time. Kathleen Kennedy has hijacked George Lucas' narrative and turned it into something stupid and a large segment of the fanbase will reject her vision...Episodes 4-6 were the heart and soul of the Star Wars universe and always will be...
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Never written a review before, never wanted to until now.
This was a travesty of a Star Wars film! How could Disney do this to Star Wars and keep a straight face? No doubt the massive financial return will only lead to more of the same unless they take heed of the fan reviews and erase this from history.
All the hype for 'The Last Jedi' came from the trailers and the good will that the 'The Force Awakens' bought, a film that I actually really enjoyed despite the rehashing of 'A New Hope' themes (except for the Rathtar sequence). The best thing about 'The Last Jedi' was its trailers. After 'The Force Awakens' I thought that the prequels would be safely erased from my mind and the wound healed, until I saw 'The Last Jedi'.
What actually happened in this film apart from the Rebels, sorry, resistance changing base? What was the point of the whole Fin / casino / code breaker plotline? Why do we have to suffer the pointless introduction of attempted humour? Is it because they feel the need to cash in on the Marvel approach? Star Wars is NOT a super hero movie.
Star Wars is also not comedy. I don't want moments of conflict that should be dramatic spoiled by one liners or prank calls (e.g. the painful Poe and Hux conversation at the start of the film). I know its fantasy but Star Wars (OT) had some gravitas, mainly from the scenes with Vader or the Empire, and moments of well-handled emotion (Han and Leia in Empire) moments that were not spoiled with one liners or throwing a light sabre over ones shoulder or dusting said shoulder off, or rocks falling onto wheelbarrows. Humour is what '3PO is there for. I understand they need to move the series on, but not like this. And there's no need to write a defence into the script (or rub salt in the wound) by having Kylo state "let the past die, kill it, if you have to".
And of all the let downs and disappointments contained in this travesty of a Star Wars film, I think what they did to Luke was the worst. It was so completely unbelievable that this Luke was the same character from the OT and that he would act in this manner. Not a criticism I lay at Mark Hamills feet but at Darth Johnsons and the Disney Empire (maybe the real First Order determined to remove any last ray of hope ...)
My only hope is that JJ Abrams can restore some respect and grandeur to the franchise and not continue down the road that has been set by Rian Jonson.
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2/10
The Dark Side clouds everything. We warned you two years ago...
I remember how I felt in the opening night of TFA back in 2015: "What the heck did I just watch!?" it was a terrible experience. Disney decided to rip-off ANH in every way and I thought "this is not going to end well"... "you can't start a trilogy like this"
And... the sum of all fears resulted to be true in this sequel; this is by far the worse Star Wars movie ever (yes, included the PT)
TFA ended with a ridiculous (but enjoyable) scene between Rey and Luke looking at each other in the peak of a mountain with Rey handing Anakin's legendary lightsaber to Luke... well, fans waited 2 years to know what would Luke Skywalker do after 30 years...
Well... nothing. He tossed his father's lightsaber like if was a used condom. He's fishing while the remanants of the Republic/Rebellion, or whatever, are in their darkest desperate hour. He's sucking milk from a sea-cow-weird-alien-creature. He's a coward. He tried to kill his nephew during his sleep because he felt a tiny of evil on him (after he redeemed Darth Vader? seriously!?)... he's a failure. All what Luke and his friends/The Rebel Alliance achieved in the OT is fundamentally destroyed by Disney and Kathleen Kennedy.
The new generation of Jedi doesn't need any kind of help. And this is the main problem with this movies: Rey for example doesn't need help at all. She can fly the Millenium Falcon, she can use mind Jedi tricks, she can fight with a lightsaber in the first movie, she defeated a dark side user with 10 years of training and the most important thing: She's a confirmed Mary Sue in this movie.
That particular character sums the movie/script/the director/Kathleen Kennedy and everyone involved in this trilogy. They don't care about developing characters they don't care about Star Wars mythology, they don't care about what the OT achieved, they don't care about Star Wars... they care about money.
RIP Star Wars.
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If you have no idea about Star Wars saga you will like this movie very much, I am happy for you! If you know a little of it, well, this still looks like Star Wars, visuals, jedi's, dark side, lightsabers...all there, don't worry you will enjoy it at least half of the time! But if you are a Star Wars fan already, you will not be able to unsee the misuse of characters, plot holes, forced romance... this is poorly written and it tries so badly to cover it by having Kylo say: "kill the past if you have to!". Oh yea.
This could easily be a phenomenal transition movie, as it borrows so much from the original saga, you had Leia, Luke, Han, Chewie, R2-D2, C-3PO. I am OK with changing the direction and making a new start, its about time, but you should have respected the past, honour it, and make a skillful transition... This is how i feel.
Notice i don't say it is a bad movie. It is disrespectful, which is worse.
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It was this movie's duty to expand on where The Force Awakens left the state of the Star Wars universe, & also to patch many if it's predecessors plot holes.
It fails on every front. There is so much wasted potential here that it is heartbreaking.
*Possible Spoilers*
Every character in this film fails at everything they do. Both sides of the conflict are inept at their jobs (with the exception of Rey, who is as preternaturally gifted at everything as she was in TFA, without explanation. This destroys any interest in this character as there is no risk involved with anything she does.)The First Order is wildly incompetent at being an effective military force, as is the Resistance, who are plagued by some of the worst leadership ever created in fiction.
Instead of deepening & expanding the new characters that TFA introduced, brand new characters are needlessly shoehorned into the story, taking up screen time that would have been better used further blending the new heroes with with the legacy characters. This trilogy should have focused on making us genuinely care for the passing of the torch to these new protagonists, and it instead falls flat.
The humor is forced, clumsy, & unnatural rather than honest, poignant, & circumstantial, which was the charm of the original trilogy.
Disbelief is promoted rather than suspended by blatant disregard for grade school physics.
The movie is plagued by extremely lazy & uncreative writing throughout. It is a disjointed & illogical mess. Everything it tries to accomplish could have been acheived easily with some sincere, clever writing & the entire film would have been cohesive & epic.
I am flabbergasted that this script & final version of the film passed the creative filter at Lucasfilm.
They have alienated at least 50% of their fanbase. This is a dire situation for the franchise to be in.
If reports are true on how much extra footage was shot & how many different takes on these scenes is true, then I find it hard to believe that a better movie didn't make it to the screen.
A waste of time, money, talent, & opportunity.
Note: I created this IMDB account specifically to rate & comment on TLJ. I am not a bot or a troll, merely a very disappointed fan who has grown up with this franchise through it's highs & lows. This is a sad state of affairs for me.
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1/10
Disney are laughing to the bank cashing in on the Star Wars name
This is an absolute disaster Star Wars film. Disney are laughing all the way to the bank. I am never going to pay to watch another Star Wars film again.
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As Obi Won said, "many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." I was looking forward to finally seeing Luke Skywalker again and they were not true to his character. It's that simple for lots of fans. Plot holes, a slow chase between space ships, undeveloped characters and a lack of a great light saber battle are just some additional reasons. For anyone who was glad this movie changed the concept of the Force that's your right. For me, I wish they had done a true reboot instead of this mess. To quote Yoda, hate leads to suffering - 2 1/2 hours of suffering for some of us.
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So much wasted time. We're left with a whiny villain, a dead something that we'll never know where he came from, if he was a Sith or if he had some other power we know nothing about, a heroin that we still know nothing about (depending on if Ren was lying), an inexplicable Jedi death, presumably so Ren can be redeemed, after all he didn't kill Luke.
It would have been much more satisfying if Rey and Ren had flipped in Snoke's throne room. We've already seen Ren's hesitance and we Rey's pain. But hey. as long as Luke and Yoda keep burning books and Disney keeps pimping toys, there's only so many directions you can go.
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All Stars Wars movies get so much hype and deservedly so! Star Wars is one of the most iconic movie franchises ever created. As soon as the trailer for The Last Jedi came out, it exploded everywhere. The excitement just kept building and building, but this movie completely failed to live up to the hype. If I were to rank the Star Wars films, this one would be in the middle somewhere. It's definitely better than Episodes 1-2, but not even close to being as good as Episodes 4-7. It's about even with Episode 3. This movie has so many problems though... The plot and sub-plots are terrible, the jokes aren't funny (thanks Disney), and the characters have hardly any substance to them!
The plot literally consists of The First Order ships trailing and shooting at The Resistance ships from a distance. While that is going on for 75% of the movie, pointless sub-plots are developing. The sub-plot with Finn and new character, Rose, has no ramifications on the rest of the story. It didn't play in at all and went on entirely too long. The sub-plot with Rey and Luke on the island is left unexplained and just takes up time. The majority of that portion of the movie consists of Rey trying to convince Luke to train her/come back to help The Resistance fight The First Order. It doesn't lead anywhere at all and many parts are left unexplained or unfinished. Don't even get me started on Snoke. His character is the most confusing to me. The directors/writers/whoever have done a terrible job explaining who Snoke is. He is apparently some incredibly powerful leader who can just obliterate anyone whenever he wants (I didn't know that until I read another review). He is never introduced or explained in any way though. He's just thrown in the thick of the story and is the leader behind the First Order and ends up being killed off by Kylo-Ren after just a few appearances ??? It's really confusing and a terrible move on the part of the writers. As I mentioned above, the jokes were really bad. That's easily attributed to Disney's cheesy, children's comedy used over the years. It's a PG-13 action film, and it's like they tried to appeal to the 12 year old and under crowd with the humor. Not very smart.
The new characters are just not thriving as the old characters did in the original movies either. Han Solo, Vader, Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and more are all stand outs in the Star Wars franchise. But the new characters, Rey, Finn, Poe, and others just don't seem to be fitting in as well. This film made the characters even more shallow. The characters are spread out in different locations in the galaxy for most of the movie. So a lot of jumping around went on in this movie to get each character some screen time. But it was only for little snippets at a time. It's like you get a little insight on each character for a few minutes in a scene that has no point to the main plot, and that's it. The only character I will say they did a great job with is Kylo-Ren. Adam Driver, who plays Kylo-Ren does an awesome job. He plays his character very well, and adds a lot of substance to the movie. Other than that, you don't see a whole lot about the characters. The whole figuring out who Rey's parents are is getting real old too. They just keep dragging that crap on. Come on now. Are we really suppose to believe that her parents are some trash people from and irrelevant town? They kept harping on that throughout this movie, and it's getting annoying. That's basically the sum of Rey in this movie. If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll obviously go see this movie. But be prepared. You're most likely to be disappointed and/or confused.
With all that being said, I will finish by saying a few positives. There are some unexpected turns in this movie. I was very surprised on many occasions, and it really added some excitement to the movie. Also, as mentioned above, Kylo-Ren is a great character and is executed very well by Adam Driver. Overall I give this movie a 5/10.
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To start off, "The Last Jedi" was not the worst of the Star Wars films, but it certainly did not come close to being the best. Aside from some of the poor script writing such as the useless subplot of Finn and Rose, PC blew this movie to shreds. The one scene in particular was on the casino planet when Finn and Rose freed the horse-like creatures from the stable. After riding away on the creatures, Finn asks Rose, "Was it worth it?" Rose takes it's harness off and says, "Now it is." This line made me want to jump to my death. Not only did Disney make Rose the Jar Jar of this movie that we all know and hate, but what does animal cruelty have to do with Star Wars? It seemed like a cheap trick to appeal to feminists who won't even watch the movie anyways, so why was this in there? It contributed nothing and was there for a politically correct agenda. The only parts worth seeing was the battle between Rey and Kylo vs the Praetorian Guards, and Luke vs Kylo (until you found out Luke was a hologram, which was disappointing). The fact that they killed off Snoke seemed stupid, killing Luke was downright disappointing, and leaving Leia alive to pull a Mary Poppins (if you see the movie you'll get that reference) all seemed worthless. The only person worth killing in this movie is Rose, and I mean that with all of my heart.
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1/10
Misandry & contempt towards fans is now encapsulated in the Galaxy making this far far away from what it once was
This is a visually stunning film with bar a few CGI mishaps has some of the most beautiful cinematography ever witnessed in a Star Wars film. The sound and soundtrack not only harken back to the classical themes but showcase John Williams has lost none of his magic after the somewhat disappointing soundtrack to the Force Awakens.
And that is where the magic ends. Watching this film will leave Star Wars fans feeling empty and hollow. Immersed with Marvel style quips and slapstick comedy, characters that were set up in the Force Awakens as menacing, evil tyrants have been ridiculed to Monty Python clichés. Plot points and opportunities for exposition that were set up in the Force Awakens have been either overlooked or disregarded with jokes that after the initial shock leave you wondering what on earth you are watching - and not in a positive way. Such is the disregard for what went before in terms of plot points or sub plots that this film becomes littered with plot holes and inconsistencies - e.g. one character can use the force to fly through space but needs to rely on someone else to lift up some rocks to escape a cave?
While political correctness was always needed in the Star Wars galaxy (a galaxy with only one female and black character) this film has unfortunately taken it to the other extreme. If you are now a male character in Star Wars you are either a coward, a reckless cowboy, a melodramatic brat or comedic relief. Simply put if you are a male character in Star Wars expect emasculation or death.
Throughout the film misandry seemed to be the underlying theme which begs one to question who really did write this film - was It Johnson or was it Kennedy?
Making a film that panders to fans demands and expectations alone is not a brave step and certainly not the right one but to instead go to the extreme of creating a film that takes every opportunity to insult fans and the legacy is not the right move either. A complete desecration of the Star Wars lore, values and ideas that made it so magical and compelling e.g. family, good vs evil, destiny, prophecies, mythology etc. This is nothing short of an arrogant middle finger to Star Wars fans and George Lucas' legacy from Johnson and Kennedy and even more sadly, it's not a very clever one.
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Now before i begin this review, i would like to begin by saying how well written The Force Awakens was, and thank JJ ambrams, but on the other hand, his reboot for the trilogy turned into a comedy more than a suspense. Fans (Including myself) were over the moon as the first trailer for TLJ came out, hitting over 20 million views on youtube and no surprise here, beating Justice League. But, as we booked our VIP tickets before its release, bought a bunch of over-priced cinema food, and sat ourselves down in front of some geeks wearing Luke Skywalker costumes. We said to ourselves "This is going to be the best f****ing movie in all of existence...... that was before i realized that the movie was going to be a 2 hour and 30 min parody, surprised it wasn't directed by Malcolm D. Lee (Scary movie 5), but when all hope was lost, the action finally came through. We all got out of our well rested seat positions, stood up, and wanted to see what will happen with Rey, Kylo and snoke, but more importantly, if there was going to be some sort of connection between Rey and other characters...... NOPE! We were only introduced to Snoke in TFA, and we finally got to see his true powers as the most powerful sith in Star wars, but guess what? Rookie puberty boy Kylo Ren, used his weak force to slice Snoke in half, Yup, the Rookie becomes a complete Jack*** killing the thing which could help the darkside be victorious, well thats too late.
To conclude this, i want..... i need this to be remade, such a good franchise ruined by a few choices made by dumb characters. The director, you sir, are a monster even worst, a sith.
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This movie has lots of issues, some of which quite frankly are unforgivable sins.
Let's get something straight: Who you see in the move isn't really Luke Skywalker. It's somebody else with the same name. They're nowhere near the same character as the one we grew to love, I wholeheartidly agree with Mark Hamill's words when he told the director that he was "surprised how you see Luke Skywalker" and that he disagreed with every decision they made for him. It's an absolute sin for them to portray him in this way. Standing above a sleeping Ben Solo, igniting his lightsaber with intent to kill? Good joke.
The Force has changed. Dramatically. Now it has turned into Skype where you can have real-time communication as much as you want and even touch. Imagine if the Twi'leks could do that, it would boost the sex-industry to new heights in Star Wars.
A Universal mind-trick across the entire universe is also displayed which is utter nonsense.
Lastly regarding the Force, it has been built up as something that anybody force sensitive can just use without training. This is how they explain the kid in the end force pulling the broom so he can work, how Rey is so strong without training and so on. The Force is now something you can just do spontaneously since you're a kid. You just wake up and go around mind-tricking, pulling, pushing and doing whatever you want now.(Rey in first film). They've amputated one of the most interesting parts of Star Wars lore with this and it's quite sad.
Additional sins:
Phasma is -- once more, completely wasted as a character. Snoke got killed off suddenly by a cheap force trick and we don't even know who he was. Overdone humour where they can't keep a single section of the movie serious. Casino part of the movie was entirely useless. They've swamped the entire film with cute, small animals that the kids will want to buy.
The worst of it all: We're back to J.J Abrams now for the last movie. The magic of Star Wars is officially gone. As they say, all good things come to an end.
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So disappointed they caved in to ruin a great franchise. George Lucas gave it a great backhanded compliment and said only that it was "beautifully made" :) Ha! I guess they were too far along in the plot line when T won to back up and make something non-political.
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1/10
Boycott Disney and the one-liner feminist so-called Star Wars
Kathleen kennedy and the Disney hacks are pushing a feminist ugly woman grrrl power agenda but why should we pay for it?
You want us to watch the feminist ugly girl defeats all men and is better and best jedi etc? You pay us!
They are destroying Star Wars and shame on me and anyone else that allows Disney to con us out of our money.
Jar Jar Abrams and Paul Feig and Rian Johnson (whoever that is) and other castrated no-talents are officially on my boycott list as I am a true Star Wars fans.
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Good visuals, good acting unfortunately it a confused stumbling storyline, poorly structured, no character depth whatsoever. Do I need to explain the difference between being told something is emotional and actually feeling the emotion.? The former is what this film dishes out in bundles.. deliberately over sentimental scenes forced down your throat without you actually feeling a thing.. a poor attempt at copying moments that happened in other films but missing the point entirely. I'm actually too crestfallen to waste my time going on about the plot holes, cringeworthy comedy scenes, character assasinations and storylines that end nowhere with no interest of where they'll end up.. just a poor attempt that has done more damage than good. Wish I could say something positive... I liked seeing the kamikaze scene. But only because of the visuals.
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The internet is an angry place and it is a shame that rather than helpful and truthful reviews we are left with subjective bile. I want to place an honest review and I do not have my own agenda.
I am a great lover of the original series of movies, however, for Star Wars to survive in the 21st Century there needs to be evolution. This movie provides it to some extent. There is a very interesting character arc for Luke, however not as much development for other characters which needed it. Which is probably the reason I didn't go into 7 stars.
I was definitely uplifted by the end, however I did feel the trajectory and choices the movie made could have been braver in some instances.
In closing it isn't 1983, the story and characters have to live on and evolve and at some point the original fans need to realise with creativity comes pain in this slightly brave new world.
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The Last Jedi had all the potential in the world to not only revive a massive franchise, but to excel and be better then anything that has ever been filmed. The decision for the route which Luke took was so anti-climactic, we are talking about Luke Skywalker, one of the most single powerful beings in the entire galaxy. This story pretty much made Luke seem like he was nothing, just an older Jedi, a nobody Jedi ...... He could have become an amazing teacher, filled the story with so much more emotions and progressions. So much could have been done, but the vision of the people behind this idea of a movie was just terrible ..... Absolutely terrible
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Normally, I try to refrain from writing these, but I've got to get this out.
First, I'm calling out all you posers who claim to be Star Wars fans. If you're a fan, you want to spoiled. You want to know everything about the film, and I do mean everything. REAL fans want to know as much as they can about the film. So, if you don't want to be spoiled, then you're a poser. Period.
Second, if you look at this as action film, it's okay. If you look at it as a Star Wars film, words can't describe how much this is NOT Star Wars.
We get the opening crawl, but a word of warning, it moves a little on the fast side.
The film opens with a decent space battle. There's a lot of character introduction, most of them irrelevant to the film as a whole. Poe and BB8 are the only two characters you'll remember. We get a view of what I think was supposed to be a new generation star destroyer.
We then go to back Aucho-To( I think that's the name) where Rey and Luke met at the end of Force Awakens(by the way, cliffhangers are the worst ending to give a film), Luke senselessly tosses the saber out to the ocean. From here onfor the first half of the film, Luke and Rey basically debate several things; chief among them, whether Luke should train Rey. He eventually does, and amid what I think is a meditation sesseion, Rey discovers a hidden cove on the island which she later investigates, but the whole is rather pointless because it tells us nothing.
Amid these "training sessions" we get cuts to the resistance being pursued by The First Order through a series of low-speed chases. At this point, Finn has awoken from his coma. He reunites with Poe and joins forces and a new comer Rose. The two of them venture to a paradise-like planet to recruit a computer hacker. Must of this section will prove to be pointless later in the film. Finn, Rose, and this computer hacker(no, I don't remember his name because it's irrelevant).
Oh yeah, we also learn that Ren and Rey can communicate telepathically(plothole, yes, I know), and Ren attempts to convince Rey to bring Luke to Snoke. During these times, we learn that while Ren was an apprentice, Luke discovered how powerful the dark side was in Ren and tried to destroy him. Luke then realizes how powerful Rey is and feels she doesn't need training. As she leaves Auch-To, Yoda appears as force ghost and explains to Luke that the Jedi scrolls in the temple were useless.
After leaving Auch-To, Rey surrenders to Ren and taken to Snoke. For the next few minutes, there a lot of things here that are a letdown. Snoke's a appearance in physical form, Rey's parents, their connection on Auch-To, Snoke's death. For a brief time, Rey and Ren allign to escape Snoke's chamber. At this point, Finn and Rose have been caught by the First Order while on their "mission" and taken to some sort of superstar destroyer(they give the name, but it turns out to be irrelevant). They were soldout by the computer hacker. BB8 manages a distraction and everybody gets to escape, except Phasma. Finn and Phasma faceoff (he also fought like a little bitch in my opinion) and ironically Phasma is taken out by an anti-climactic explosion.
At this point, the Resistance has now taken refuge on a nearby planet and it's revealed to have an outpost from the old Rebellion. Here, the First Order attempts a final assault on the Resistance. The Millennium Falcon intervenes in a series of pointless maneuvers. I say pointless because the script loses interest in the chase. Yes, the script, not the audience, the script loses interest in the Millennium Falcon being pursued (again) by the First Order. In a vien effort of a last stand, Luke appears within the refuge and confronts Ren (here is one of few strong points in the story). Ren orders an immediate and complete openfire against Luke. Once the dust settles(figuratively), Luke is revealed to be unharmed, not even a scratch. Ren shows himself to Luke and the two engage in battle, but Luke is untouchable. At this point, two things are revealed here. First, Luke isn't really there. His force ghost is. Luke is still on Auch-To in meditative state. The second, the battle between Ren and Luke is disrtaction for the Resistance to escape.
Luke then passes on in the same manner as Obi-Won in A New Hope. We get some chatter among Resistance within the Millennium Falcon before the credits roll.
So, basically the first half of the film is slow and boring. The second half of the film doesn't exactly improve much. Maybe they should've attempt a reboot of Empire Strikes Back, it would've been better than this.
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1/10
You made me wait 2 years and you give me this? WTF
The real problem is not the existence of progressive ideas in any movie. The problem is that these are not real progressive ideas and the movie is objectively bad. This movie is caricaturizing and demonizing our ideas in an insidious way. And cultural elites (critics) are praising this. That's the insulting thing.
As a non-fan I didn't like this movie. I have zero nostalgia for Star Wars movies and I don't really care about if they exist or not.
Disney + hipster ideas + fake leftism + fake feminism + liberalism + star wars = TLJ
I sincerely hope this misrepresentation of progressive politics will not lead to a fascist backlash. But my observations are that it is going to that direction.
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My God. Where to begin? By far the worst Star Wars film ever made. It's almost a middle finger to fans of the franchise. Did they have a board meeting and ask "how can we completely flush the entire mythos of the original films down the toilet and completely destroy what Lucas left behind?" Obviously, critics were paid off by Disney to boost it because there is no way in hell this is a good movie on any level. I won't even mention the overt leftist propaganda throughout but you'll know it when you see it! *face palm*
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It had to be disappointing. If you think about it also the one before should not have been made. It was amazing when they announced the last 3 but now they managed to destroy an amazing part of history because one some one will tell you have you seen Star Wars having the last 2 in mind will just make it boring conversation. We can say that it ended with Han Solo. Could it be they can't create and imagine nothing else better then this or they needed a quick buck and put what ever came to mind stamped the star wars name and you know . Hope lucas is not proud of this creation and his name as never expected this from him.
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3/10
Luke's character was not from the original trilogy
There were some cool fight/battle scenes, but the portrayal of Luke's character as a broken man who gave up didn't match up with the Luke from the original trilogy. This really ruined the movie for me.
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Too long to be entertaining, too absurd humor. What they have done with Luke is a crime is totally OOC. The plot of Poe, Finn and Rose is a nonsense besides they use these interesting characters as comic relief. Rey and Luke are only used to tell the patetic story of the patetic villain and try to make us sympathize with him by bend our heroes into bitter OOC characters, in addition to the fact that the use of force has been completely invented. Neither the plot (which totally destroys the previous canon) Nor the characters are well developed. It is disrespectful to any fan who has invested time and money in the comics and stories that came out before this episode, to all the fans whose Luke Skywalker was their hero. And for those who say that it is innovative it has a lot of things from episodes VI and V in a mixed way. A plot twist is fine, make the whole movie with plots twists turn the movie pointless and useless and I will never forgive them for made Luke Skywalker die like a coward.
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I am a huge "Star Wars" fan. I love everything about "Star Wars." I love every film, book, comic, cartoon, everything. I really wanted to like "The Last Jedi." I wanted this to be my favorite "Star Wars" film. But I hated the majority of this episode. For the first time in my life, I left a "Star Wars" screening without a smile on my face. Many reviews here have said pretty much the same things. But I think it all bears repeating. This disrespects the entire legacy of the saga.
Every question we had after "The Force Awakens" is either thrown aside or answered in the most unimaginative way possible. To call this installment "underwhelming" isn't accurate enough.
Who is Supreme Leader Snoke? There were so many possible ways to answer this. There was so much they could have done with this villain. They ultimately do nothing with him. They throw him away. And the way they do it goes against everything "The Last Jedi" did tell us about his level of power. What a waste of a good Master Villain.
Who are Rey's parents? Turns out, it doesn't matter. It's not even the answer itself, but the way it is presented that is incredibly unsatisfying.
How will Luke react when Rey returns to him Anakin's Lightsaber after so many years? He tosses it aside and walks away without a word to her. I thought this was a cruel joke.
The main plot of this film is a slow crawl through space. The First Order fleet is chasing the Resistance for about 97 percent of the movie. General Hux's evil plan? Wait for them to run out of gas. I'm not kidding. The plan is to wait 18 hours for the Resistance ships to run out of fuel. That is so bland and almost laughable.
The subplot involves Finn and Rose (new character) rushing off to a Las Vegas-style casino world. The objective is to find a master "Code-Breaker" to help them break into Snoke's ship. They are immediately arrested for a parking violation (yeah, a parking violation, guys) and thrown in a jail cell. Here, they magically find a prisoner who can do the same job *only* the master "Code-Breaker" could do. So, they smuggle themselves onto Snoke's ship, but it doesn't matter. They are immediately captured by Captain Phasma and sentenced to execution. Now, you have to understand that this means everything they did for the past 45 minutes amounts to nothing. They got themselves onto Snoke's ship for no reason at all. The entire thing could have been cut from the film. Finn and Rose play no role in the outcome of the story. And Phasma? Remember when they promised us she would have a lot more to do in this film? She is only in one scene. Her big fight with Finn is over before it begins. There is no payoff to this whatsoever. And I like Captain Phasma! It is such a tragic waste of yet another good villain.
The worst sin, however, is the treatment of Luke's character. I'll put this as simply as I can--Luke Skywalker is not Luke Skywalker. This is somebody else we're watching. This bitter old man in no way resembles the Luke Skywalker we last saw in "Return of the Jedi." I don't just mean that he looks different. I know people get older. That doesn't matter. What I mean is, he is completely different in spirit. He behaves like no Jedi Master should ever behave. This is sad and it disgusts me. I felt betrayed as a fan as I watched the Skywalker legacy tarnished by Riah Johnson's poor treatment.
There is so much wrong with this movie. I can't even list it all. If I did, this review would be ten times longer than it already is. If you're a life-long fan of the saga, this movie will leave you feeling utterly disappointed and angry. I have no desire to see Episode 9. Save your money. Watch "The Last Jedi" when it comes on television.
PS: There is no Lightsaber Duel. Lightsabers never clash once in this film. There is a pretty good fight sequence involving Snoke's guards, but everything surrounding this fight will distract you. It's difficult to enjoy the battle as a result of all the odd choices bookending the scene.
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I had considered writing a spoiler review to highlight why I hated this film, but I would literally have to talk about EVERY scene; and this movie simply does not deserve my time.
I will say this though: absolutely woeful movie.
horrendous plot holes
inconsistent character motivations
destruction of complete character arcs
pointless over-use of CGI
There is basically no point watching this film, and if you have, you will understand there is basically no point watching any future Star Wars films.
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My husband and I saw this movie just a couple of days ago. Let's face it, the franchise is dead. They need to leave this old tired corpse buried. There hasn't been a good Star Wars since the first two original movies were made. Perhaps if Lucas would have continued right away and kept it fresh, it might have worked. But reviving it over and over again without anything really to say, and I mean NOTHING; makes no sense. There is literally no story here. I can sum it up this way for you: BOOM BOOM BOOM, POW POW POW, VERY LOUD MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS, muffled voices, BOOM BOOM BOOM, POW POW POW, VERY LOUD MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS, muffled voices, and so on. I was so bored I fell asleep during some parts in spite of the loudness to most of the movie. The problem is that at the end, they eluded to yet another movie coming...oy vey, they need to let this die! Unfortunately, with this repeated series of horrible movies, the original great first two movies are getting forgotten in this hot mess. Sometimes, you simply need to let the good movies live on as classics and stop ruining them with really bad ideas. If people would stop wasting their hard earned money on this crap, maybe they would finally leave it alone. Just sayin...
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Maybe my priorities are a little wrong but never have i been so personally disappointed with a Movie Director or a Company.
If 'Star Wars' was not in the title this movie would be a massive gamble for a studio and possibly a flop so why make something that so completely disrespects and throws in the trash everything that came before it (including TFA).
Damn you Disney, damn you Rian Johnson and damn you Kathleen Kennedy:)
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1/10
You'll enjoy this...if you're a 5 year old that is
You never get to care about any of the characters. There is no emotion, no humor, no respect for character progression, history etc etc etc it's downright depressing really.
I noticed Rian Johnson directed some Breaking Bad episodes (a series I absolutely love). Apparently he was responsible for that one episode in all those seasons I really hated: the dreaded "Fly" episode. God this guy is bad.
Let's start with the plot. Its a remake, its full of holes, its uninspired, its boring. Now for the "humor": it falls flat, just isnt funny, feels forced, and breaks with the SW style that was established for decades.
Characters. Just hopeless. Did Rian even bother diving into the history of the movies at all? Or did he just decide to spice things up by throwing everything that was established out the window for a fresh start. Horrible, absolutely horrible.
Within 10 minutes of the movie my friend yawned and told me he was bored. So was I.
This will be the last SW movie I have bothered watching. Shame on you Disney.
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I am sorry I have to agree with the people who genuinely dislike the movie for many reasons, and it is unfair to shove them aside as "haters".
Being a fan of the original trilogy from the early eighties on, I strongly believe the story deserved a better movie than The Last Jedi. The movie is flawed in many ways.
Yes, the movie is great in visuals, the sound is excellent, the music score is fantastic, but the story is well ... silly.
This is not about Luke dying somewhere along these movies, or about giving way to new characters for the new generation, that is all ok, I get that. Han Solo died in The Force Awakens, and we all understood. This is about a bad storyline that was poorly directed. It truly feels the story was written in a rush, and Rian Johnson was to stubborn to accept any advice (like from Mark Hamill). Rogue One had many re-shoots of scenes to make the movie better, and it produced very good movie. Why did no one at Disney realise that this story line was just not cutting it ? Why with all those resources you did not intervene ? Was it that they were too mixed up with the Han Solo movie problems, that they forgot to really evaluate the quality of The Last Jedi ?
I will not go into the errors in the movie extensively, it has been reported by many people now, but simply consider all the story plot-lines from the Force Awakens that where completely unanswered. People are now pointing to the box office revenues telling you that with that income the movie cannot be bad, but that is mainly because people are going to watch the movie to see their questions answered after watching The Force Awakens. They will be disappointed.
I think Rian Johnson was not the right person to write and direct the story for the simple reason that he is not as big as a fan of the original movies as for instance JJ Abram is. And that was required to do this. He should have listened to the people around him, like Mark Hamill. Mark Hamill concluded their dispute by saying "in the end it is just a movie". I think he was mocking Ryan Johnson, because he knows like no other it is not just a movie. People grew up with these characters and these movies. It truly deserved a lot better.
People are also telling you that people who did not see the other movies will probably think this is a very good movie. Maybe. But this NOT a standalone movie. This is not a Rian Johnson epic. This is a Star Wars story and it should have respected that, despite paving the way for a new Star Wars. You could have come up with so many bold stories keeping that in mind. Now it seems that they tried to get rid of the Star Wars history by making it a caricature.
The Last Jedi, could have been very good. There is many scenes that prove it could have been. The space battles are visually excellent for instance. But bad humour, plot-holes, a flat story, irrelevant plot lines, flat character development and many other flaws really leaves you asking why they did not come up with something better.
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2/10
Deus Ex Machina loaded moral Absolutism disguised as moral complexity
Once more we have a movie that has too many convient coincidences that allow the protagonists to succeed whilst being the purer than driven snow good guys. Far too often you see main characters face situations where they conveniently get out of them with skills they haven't developed and have no reason to have. 'The Force' seems to have become a convenient tool for deus ex machinas. The film also has a few moments where it pretends to suggest moral ambiguity, but that turns out to be a red herring as it doesn't even get explored and the movie largely promotes the heroes as the unimpeachable good guys. Painfully disappointing given how the movie was sold as the birth of the grey jedi
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Bravo Disney Corporation Inc and its accountant sith Kathleen Kennedy. Your apprentices (accounting assistants) Jar Jar Abrams and Rian Johnson have done an immaculate job trolling the fans and destroying Star Wars.
I wanted to add my review, however, to warn fellow Star Wars fans that this is not Star Wars. Moreover, say good-bye to a saga that I have followed for years, but will not anymore. Take your Disney jokes, one-liners, jabs and wisecracks and enjoy the cash you will get from six-year olds buying coca cola. I know you are talented at finding studio minions who will write this juvenile, nonsensical boring dross but in case you missed him the next Star Wars 'director' you are looking for should be Paul Feig. He is a studio minion and writes nonsensical 'female is so powerful she doesn't need continuity or sense or imagination' stuff. Good luck.
Over and out from this new so-called Star Wars and Disney
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With this movie they destroyed the franchise, maybe they are looking for a different audience, because if you grew up in the 80's then you won't find it as good as the original movies. Bad guys men. Men in Power bad, (supreme leader, kylo, hux) women in power good, Leya, Rey, holdo) Even poe was made out to be incompetent. I don't know where they are taking the franchise, but its not a continuation of the original. Its a rewritten narrative to pander to the views of todays audience.
This is a classic example of taking a great story and destroying it.
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1/10
Extremely uneven and insulting to one's intelligence.
This film was such a mess, it was the closest I've gotten in my 30 years of life to walking out of a theater. And I've seen "Inland Empire", "A Serbian Film", "The Holy Mountain", "Satantango", "The Human Centipede", "The Last Airbender"... the works. This film destroyed Star Wars, something I love fully and completely, down to the core. It blew up its foundations with dynamite and delighted in whacking its windows with sledgehammers.
If you hate Star Wars and dislike good, cohesive storytelling, you may enjoy this film. If you're a hipster, you may like this film. The Last Jedi is heartbreaking, mean-spirited, stupid, and stuffed with filler. The film's basic themes are "failure" and "disappointment", but they took this theme too literally. The film itself is a failure, in that in deliberately going against all of the beloved story elements, structural elements, character development, established world-building and lore, thematic motifs, and all expectations, they made a film that is, by its nature, contrarian. Many characters introduced in The Force Awakens have unsatisfying arcs. Many of the burning questions that film brings up are avoided are unanswered. The context in which this film presents many beloved characters and even the galaxy itself makes so little sense, it's bewildering.
But the most unforgivable thing about this film is that its version of Luke Skywalker in this film was NOT recognizable in any way, shape, or form as Luke Skywalker. Mark Hamill - bless the man for being forced to suffer through this and still turning in a great performance - even called him "Jake Skywalker" and said "he isn't MY Luke Skywalker".
There's very little actual plot or story in this film, and yet it's the longest Star Wars, in part because, at times, it attempts to be both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, only without earning any of the big moments.
I've been on forums and fan sites, and have had my pulse on the fanbase since this film came out, and even wrote an 8,000 word essay about the character assassination of Luke Skywalker. I've heard from fans who suffered, cried, felt depressed and confused, and even joined in my call to boycott Disney over this dreck.
Disney, if you're listening, you should have expected this. You played a dirty trick on your fans. It was essentially a bait-and-switch. If we knew that this film that was marketed as a very serious take on Star Wars was filled with dumb Marvel humor, subversive and mean-spirited jokes at the expense of the lore, frankly insulting story decisions, recycled plot points, and most especially, a complete destruction and emasculation of one of the most beloved cinematic characters of all time... well, suffice it to say we wouldn't have paid to see this film. It draws all of its power from its contrarianism, from its going against the grain and making shocking story decisions.
But it all depends on what you're looking for in a Star Wars movie. If you just like cool space battles, things blowing up, and the cute Porgs, you'll probably have a good time.
"The Last Jedi" probably one of the most divisive films ever made. Some will love it, and some will hate it. Personally, it killed any interest I had in the cinematic Star Wars universe. As a result, I'm going to boycott Disney and everything they do with this once-beloved franchise.
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This may go down in history, as literally the worst movie of all time.
Star Wars was a huge part of my childhood. Me and my siblings literally watched the original trilogy, until our VHS tapes wore out. No movie has ever left me feeling so completely betrayed.
I don't wish to include spoilers, but from the infamous "Mary Poppins" scene, to the total dismantlement of Luke Skywalker's character, expect to see no cringeworthy stone left unturned. This movie will disappoint you in ways you had never imagined was possible.
I can easily forgive a movie, for being bad. But whichever socialist committee wrote this "story", did so with intent and malice. They demonstrated a complete contempt for the original star wars universe, and for the fans.
Disney may argue that this film was very profitable, and therefore a success.
However, the massive - probably irreparable - damage to their Star Wars franchise has yet to be tabulated.
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This movie was full of garbage actions, let me sum some of them for you:
A dreadnought ship defenses destroyed by only one small ship. Then is destroyed by mines from a single bomber ship.
Leia aka "super girl" resists in space, no vacuum when she's pulled inside the ship, no other damage from space exposure.
A super slow chase, why not jump again in front of them?
Snoke is no one, he is so powerful that the emperor looks like his apprentice, but dies tricked by a frustrated boy.
The big "Resistance" ship turns around and destroys all "First Order" ships with a light speed jump, if this was possible why not use this method in "A new hope", no more Death Star, no more Vader in seconds, no reason to make the next movies.
All storm troopers dead on deck where Finn was almost executed, but somehow escapes and finds a ship to go to the secret "Resistance" base.
Luke had become a looser, beaten by guilt because he helped turned Ben (Kylo) to the dark side, no way, the old Luke would have tried everything to turn around him and then if not possible faced him like a man.
Rey is so powerful she is born a Jedi, no training is needed.
The last battle is done between super weapons against mining ships with no guns.
"The resistance" a joke, why fight if no one will help.
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I would say this is pretty bad because they ignored alot of big questions asked in previous movie as well as huge plot holes everywhere.
i will name a few things i think is wrong with this movie.
ignored all questions the force awaken left us with
untrained rey can use the force to move hundres of pounds of rocks easier than luke and yoda can move a tie fighter, she also spreads them to two piles so the cast can walk through them without breaking a sweat.
first order can't light spead ahead to blockade the rebels.
if they could kamakazi at light speed why didn't they do it right off the bat and let the rest of the ships escape in light speed?
casino planet is a big filler and adds nothing to the story unless that kid at the end gets recruited and turns jedi.
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2/10
Incoherent, a waste of characters and maybe even insulting !
First thing. No, I'm not a bot. I've watched the movie in the theatre, thought about watching it a second time, but I really did not like many things in this movie. So instead of giving Disney more of my money, I've came here to express my point of view.
The director ignored many aspects and plots from previous movies and novels of the franchise. Even from The Force Awakens.
I felt that many characters were thrown there just to be a mean to an end, even the big ones. Which I think it's not a big problem if you are making a movie in a new universe, or trying to push a new franchise/saga. But it can be a big problem on a well stabilished universe like this.
A lot of things that could have been or needed to be explained, are just ignored or like Rian Johnson himself later said "aren't important to the history", or "weren't important in the 70s movie".
They had an oportunity to make an amazing trilogy, where the old character passes the torch to the new hero and teaches her about the things that he did right and wrong, so she can become even stronger than him. And they could have done it in a way that feels respectful, nostalgic, coherent with the character and at the same time showing that he is not a perfect being.
But they didn't. And in my point of view, there are things in this movie that some Star Wars fans may find wrong, incoherent and in some cases even downright insulting.
Where are the true critics ? The ones that aren't afraid to tell that this is a horrible Star Wars movie and even harmful to the franchise.
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1/10
For £2 I would write you a better script then Rian Johnson
I feel genuinely sorry for the actors in this film. It is not their fault the film is terrible it is script writers. What were they (the writers) thinking? They literally put shame on Star Wars' legacy. Within the first 10 minutes you can tell this film is going to be awful with the terrible jokes that are more 'Marvel's Avenegers' then Star Wars.
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1/10
The Last (time I pay to see a star wars film) Jedi
I was kinda hyped and planning to see the film. The previous ones were excellent, even the prequels (all of them) because of their originality. The force awakens was well done and a great comeback for star wars. Rogue One was really disappointing since it contains a storyline we already know about.
Now hearing about The Last Jedi, I'm glad I didn't waste my money on it.
I heard the acting and visuals were good, but I also heard this film bins all of the subplots and character development from the force awakens (I still don't know about Snoke or even about Finn) and instead tries to make us wait for episode IX by giving us anticlimactic storyline. In this film, Luke throws away the lightsaber given by Rey in the last film and dies in the end because he's tired, Snoke, who is supposed to be the emperor-like leader of the first order, gets killed off in the middle of the film, and phasma is still an unknown soldier who battles Finn. This also has too much comedy (and this is supposed to be the darkest film!) This is possibly the worst Star wars film out of the 9 films. Watch Guardians of the galaxy for GOOD storytelling, not this. Star Wars is falling apart. We need George Lucas back. #BringbackGeorgeLucas
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I'm a huge fan, having grown up with all the movies in the saga. Yet I have never seen a movie or read a book where the makers/writers were so eager to kill off main characters in order to pass the torch to the next generation of heroes. All these needless and premature deaths left a bad taste in my mouth as the new characters are weak in presence and representation of the whole force/Jedi/sith equation. Obi, Lea, Han and Luke fought three episodes long to fight and overthrow the dark side's Vader and his Sith Master. Yet they and the new Sith Master were so weak, they all became undone in relatively no time at the hands of a kid in a mask. Unfortunately the hope has died for me for the future episodes since Rey and Kaylo and their illogical raise to power is too much to believe and take it at faith.
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If you are a fan of Star Wars, and all the lore and themes that come with it; if you have grown up with the original, or even the prequel trilogies then you will be left gutted and bitterly disappointed by this miserable farce.
The movie chooses to go off track, violating every single one of the plot lines set out by the Force Awakens to the point of trolling, and rips out all of the mystery and stuff that makes Star Wars so Star Wars. Instead of filling this now gaping void with an original, rich new plot line as it should have done with this approach, you are left with a sea of painfully underdeveloped characters, weak Marvel-style humor throughout and a desperately pathetic plot-line clawing to break its excessively long run-time.
The characters of Rey and Kylo Ren had their potential butchered without mercy. Instead of training to become a Jedi Knight, Rey is subject to watching Luke milk a spacecow and comically trotting around an island trying to hide from her. Instead of ascending to a deadly Sith Lord, or even rejoining the light side - Kylo Ren remains an emotionally unstable teenager with 0 development and has a temper tantrum every 2 minutes. The trade federation is honestly more intimidating than Kylo Ren.
General Hux, once a terrifying, power driven rich character with an arch of potential is now a comic relief punchbag , done with horrible execution.
Snoke is also killed off with no attempt at a backstory, despite the fact his absurd knowledge of the force and raw power clearly demands there is one.
The Knights of Ren are ignored - (to be honest nothing important is explained in the movie at all).
Finally, there is no lightsaber duel. No lightsaber duel. In a Star Wars movie. Unforgivable. Even the Phantom Menace had a lightsaber duel.
Disney have chosen to please shareholders rather than fans and will now viciously milk this saga for money as hard as Luke Skywalker was made to milk that spacecow.
Even if you know nothing about Star Wars at all this is still a dreadful movie due to the painfully weak directing, abhorrent 'screen play' and borderline unacceptable script writing.
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I find it hilarious that some people actually can tout this as a good star wars movie. I could only give it a good rating if it was either a star wars spoof or was a general scifi movie unrelated to star wars, and even then the science flaws would give me an issue. Please note that the following paragraphs will contain some plot information.(Spoilers)
Science Issues: So apparently in the star wars universe, there is no decompression when opening a ship's cargo hold to vacuum, inertial dampeners do nothing to reduce sudden motion, and a small woman can kick the frame of a ship hard enough to shake loose an item on an upper deck. Also, since when was the force usable as a space suit??? especially to one who is untrained in the force. Also, while i can see using a ship approaching super luminal speeds being used as a battering ram, since when did that slice apart over half a dozen ships outside the flight path of the ramming ship?
Science based plot holes aside, we have a mary sue who apparently can defeat the strongest of the Jedi with only one day of training and who is convinced she can turn the bad guy, who was evil and committed multiple murders as a child. Apparently she forgets that any padawan that he couldnt take to Snoke he murdered and burnt in the temple. They then waste the bad guy completely without manifesting him to his full potential as a villain. And to top it off, we have Phasma, this uber storm trooper, who could have been the new Boba Fett chasing the rebellion to hell and back, wasted in a fight resulting from a pointless mission to give the diversity hire character a chance to give their backstory, be betrayed by a man, and to marginalize the black storm trooper that joined the rebellion in The Force Awakens. She not only marginalized him in the mission, but in transit and on the planet for the final battle, stopping his heroic effort to stop the first order and a weapon whose full potential he knew. And finally, in like her fifth time in her life using the force, Rey lifts a freaking landslide of boulders, which by their multitude and weight seemed like a job Luke or Yoda would have found difficult.
In conclusion, even though the rebellion failed, we are supposed to be happy that it survived, even though 95% of the people that died could have been saved in a much shorter time if they had offloaded everyone onto the support ships, transfering fuel at that time as well, and then rammed snoke's ship with the flagship or if the had loaded everyone on the flagship earlier, they could have turned the support ships around and done 2 light-speed rams and then jumped away. No need for filler plots and honestly a better movie.
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Epic disappointment, and I explicitly tried not to get hyped, or read anything about it before seeing it.
The scenes was so messy, extremely predictable story, weird scenes, unbelievably misplaced attempts with funny lines in serious situations. Kinda like avengers, but really bad.
And disney's attempt at selling more merchandise, by adding that fucked up bird in the movie. I mean, it's comparable to a vuvuzela, and that fat bird will never fucking be able to fly irl.
Never again.
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2/10
A series of missed opportunities and aweful decisions
Unforgivable. How could they mess this up? I have too much to say - and it has all been said in the other reviews. I love Star Wars and as a 70s and 80s kid they are integral to my childhood - the Prequels were part of my children's childhood along with the original trilogy. Rogue One was brilliant. The bottom line is that this film (and in many ways Episode 7 too) proves how amazing the earlier films were - they cannot get close now - nothing iconic - nothing of depth or intelligence - all that Disney $$$ and they throw this film together - there was a possibility of a powerful film.... but this is unfunny, lame, cheap, wasted, embarrassing, lost, muddled.... and above all a real shame. The positive journalist reviews??? I guess that upsetting the powerful Disney Mouse and not getting invites to premiers and exclusives is career killing - again, a real shame. What now? Is the Han Solo film going to a toe curler??? Episode 9??? What is there to hold my interest??? A real shame. All is not lost - watched episode 4-6 this week and my heart and mind is restored.
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Me, a lifelong Star Wars fan from Holland was shocked and devastated to see how Disney and this malicious wannabe director Rian Johnson compeletely destroyed everything Star Wars stands and stood for..
I actually did my best to fall asleep during this movie because i just could not witness the attempted murder on the Star Wars universe and his legacy..
This was not a Star Wars Movie..this was a space comedy like Spaceballs or Galaxy Quest. I felt betrayed by Disney just as you feel betrayed when your wife takes of with another man.
So many plotholes in this movie that it would take days to analyze how on earth did they release this movie in this form..
Not to mention the character murder on several icons like Leia and the biggest hero of all, Luke Skywalker.
I just cannot believe that Mark Hamill agreed on the script of this movie..If i was Mark i took this script and threw it away in the thrash can.
Such a huge dissapointment to see how Luke is beiing transformed from an absolute hero and guardian of the force to a lowlife, grumpy, almost murderer of his nephew..
this is not Luke Skywalker! Do you hear me Disney and Rian?!
Star Wars as i knew it is death..i will moarn this couple of days..
They took something precious away from me..i will not forgive nor forget..
Never will i attend a Disney Movie again..
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Star Wars the last Jedi has been a hotly anticipated film for me. I love star wars like most people and could not wait to see it.....Imagine my utter disappointment at this film. I spent TWO hours AND THIRTY MINUTES seeing something that sort of looked like the thing I loved but the characters were some warped versions of classic characters. I did not enjoy the story and the overall feel of this film was very stop start in terms of the plot. So let's get into what I hated and what was eh okay....ish.
I'll start with what I loved. From a technical aspect this film is great. It's shot really well and has great use of camera angles, lighting and visual effects. There are some great little practical effects in the film that really help cement the Star Wars convention of the use of practical effects.
The Music in this, as in all the other episodes, is fantastic. It is so good to hear John William's score and shows him to be still the master composer we all love. The music took me into the story as well as It could.
Mark Hamill deserves a medal for his acting as I really loved the way he portrayed Luke regardless of how stupid Luke's story arc is. The late Carrie Fischer gave a brilliant performance and the BEST NEWS EVER....YODA IS FUC*ING BACK...as a cameo.
Okay those are the things I loved now onto the biggest let down of this movie...THE PLOT AND THE 22000 SUBPLOTS!!! There is the main plot with Luke and his training of Ray. This is supposed to be the main one however we get very little training from Luke and Ray just basically knows everything anyway. Honestly she is so overpowered the training is not at all necessary and most of it is just Luke saying "the Jedi must end" and that the force is bad.
Luke in this film is haggard, old and a completely different person to the one in episode 6. I won't give spoilers but it completely ruined the character for me and I felt angry at the way he was wrote. Ray as well is such a blank slate that I found her to have no character traits or development really. She learns nothing, and is even more powerful with no real effort, by the end of the movie.
The plot with Finn is just, in the end, pointless and the casino setting that Finn and generic minority girlfriend #1 goes too looks basically like and casino in Vegas...It is just not Star Wars. They basically have to find a hacker to hack a first order ship. This hacker is so obviously going to betray them that when it does come it made me shout DUHHHH in the movie theatre.
The other subplot is with Poe and the rebels trying to outrun a first order fleet at the slowest rate possible. This plot really slows the movie to a halt and just infuriated me by all the plot holes and stupid things that characters did. Poe doesn't trust the captain of the ship outrunning the first order and asks what she is doing. What's the plan? For some reason she tells his to get fuc**d and this leads Poe to take over the ship because of a lack of trust. WHY NOT INFORM YOUR CREW!!!!
The way all of these plots and characters work do not make sense in terms of the movie and in terms of the larger Star Wars universe. That's the big problem I have with this film. I'm not alone. Even Mark Hamill said it was not "his Luke Skywalker" and I just this everyone miscalculated in terms of plot and characters. The kicker is its such a long film and did not grip me or keep me emotionally invested for the two and a half hours.
I think the script writers tried too hard with this film and as Grand Master Yoda said "Do or do not there is no try"
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Why couldn't we see just how much knowledge and power Luke and Snoke had. They had so much mystery and potential and it was wasted!!!
Rey was a better pilot than Han. She's a better force user than Luke. She understands droids and Wookiees and can use force mind tricks... and she had no training. She made it into her 20's without doing things related to the force and now she can lift a mountain side?!
If you think about it, Luke didnt do ANYTHING the entire time. I kept waiting for something that the other movies had. Something amazing that would bring you back to the theater again and again. This movie had a few scenes that were decent: Kylo and Rey vs the guards maybe... The slow speed chase and the Finn and Rose plot line was pointless! A waste of screen time. I could write so much more, but others have covered it. I want to give it half a star out of 100 but this will suffice.
Oh, and a last thought: Walking out of the theater, I felt an emptiness. I had never felt that after any Star Wars movie. Is that what you were going for Mr. Johnson?
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3/10
Rian Johnson is an arrogant hack who doesn't understand Star Wars
Truly sad to see Rian Johnson handed a golden egg only to destroy it. This movie is only successful due to the coattails of The Force Awakens. Rian, don't think people like this movie on its own merits. They watch and rate it based upon the charactrs created by JJ Abrams and Kasdan. You created nothing, and ruined a storyline. You benched the most important character Luke, castrated his character, and foolishly killed him off without ever utilizing his potential to make this an epic film. You stole almost every scene you wrote from Empire and ROTJ. The Hoth opening replaced by salt, facing Snoke (Luke and the emperor) Dagobah (the island,which could have worked if done right) everything. You added stupid humor to try to placate Avengers and Guardians fans, throwing the light saber, the Jakku joke, Poe at the beginning sequence of act one. Star Wars is not a cheap flippant comic story but a serious epic with Luke as one of the most serious characters.
Then you wasted our time with a prequel worthy Jar Jar sequence at the Casino. That whole side story was useless and actually made me angry. Total crap. There should have been one team of writers for the trilogy, bad on you Kathleen Kennedy, you should have known better. But Rian Johnson not only does not deserve his own trilogy, which will undoubtedly be crap, he should become a plumber or a janitor and get out of making films. There is no excuse for this wreck of a film when you were handed a golden goose. You blew the Rey storyline, killed off another great character Snoke, Like Lucas did with Darth Maul who was the only good thing in TPM. And where were the knights of REN? Wow. No battle between Snoke and Luke, no knights of Ren, and Luke dies? Really? I'm not sure someone trying to ruin it could have added worse plot lines and twists. The only thing good was the Rey/Kylo dynamic, which again was created by Abrams and Kasdan. The dark side island scene with Rey was also a useless waste of time. Please stop making movies. The writing in Hollywood is so bad I almost don't want to see anything anymore. I just keep hoping against hope that intelligent creative people will be able to do something, but to no avail, the stupid reign supreme.
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What can I say, as I don't want to write this with spoilers.....The story line is not consistent with the past movies, but I guess there is nothing new there. It did hold my interest, but Disney sure plowed under a good story, and turned the hero into a spineless loser with a few moments of redemption near the end. I read a number of the not so favorable reviews, and agree with most of them, but I had other issues.
First of all, the movie is way too long. In the end there are so many conflicts, Disney wastes millions of dollars on effects that are totally unnecessary. Just one of those 'end of movie' conflicts would have been sufficient to achieve the same goal, even with their character crushing story line.
Second, the story line really did not acknowledge how much the destruction of the Star Killer base should have hurt the First Order. The rebellion takes out a primary element of the First Order, and it is the Rebellion that is suddenly weakened and vulnerable? Who writes this stuff? Who approves this stuff? I know it is a knock off of the first three movies, so I guess there is going to be another Star Killer Base in the last movie? I know its 'science fiction', but it would be much better if it could be slightly believable.
I do love the characters in the new movie, and I believe the acting to be top notch, but the script really leaves a lot to be desired. Fans new to the story won't mind so much, but those of us that 'grew up' with the original three movies feel as if we were shot in the back, and there are quite a few of us.
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I don't think I need to dive into anything further. If you have a brain and loved old Star Wars, then you will hate The Last Jedi more than anything else on earth. I just have to say, "Cry-baby Luke, Demi-God/Marry Poppins Leia, and Yoda, God of Lightning," and you will know I how I feel about this travesty. TLJ was certainly not a Star Wars film. I digress. How does this film have a score of 7.8? I have been through 500 user reviews... for every one 10, I see ten 1s. Most scores I have seen range from 1-3. Hundreds of the 500. Did Disney force all their employees to log in and vote 10? Kinda like that same theory that they had to have bribed all the critics at their premiere to certify the film fresh on RT. I feel there is some shady stuff going on here. The film had more plot holes than the last 50 films I have seen... combined. It was more off in tone and pace than a drunk orchestra. I am just very suspicious that the film might be receiving buffed user ratings. It is already rated lower than Episode 1 and Episode 2 on Meta Critic and RT by the users ... but a 7.8 on IMDB? Something seems shady ...
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Disney has sidekicks - annoying sidekicks. Now lousy chickens with big eyes meant to look cute have been introduced as a sidekick for Chewbacca. Noo!
Otherwise it's just more of the same: a once and future king/queen styled family up against an evil empire. That can still make for a good story. It's just that Disney is the real Empire that films such as these are up against. The starry eyed boy sweeping the arena and destined to be a future rebel ... had better stop dreaming, because in this universe he is really being duped. The black guy matches up with the Asian girl. Apparently, choices were made to not have him romantically intereract with the white heroine of the film. That's intrinsically racist. Sorry, it is. This film is meant to make your working life full of drudge bearable. It's meant to keep you in the Empire.
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If there has ever been a time I have been fundamentally disgusted with the Star Wars Franchise it's now. Corny love stories, poor lines and poor acting as in Episode 2 and 3 are forgivable, cringeworthy, but forgivable. A Terrible character like Jar-Jar Binks in Episode 1, while horrible in his own respect, at least had development, a back story and a compelling quirk (oddly lucky clumsiness which led people to speculate about what it means to be force sensitive). But this movie... This movie wasn't what I would call "bad" more so than a slap in the face for any new and old Star Wars fan.
No this isn't a gripe about the awkward diversity of characters (the stuttering Codebreaker was actually refreshing.). What irritates me is that there is no compelling character development. There is literally none. Rey doesn't learn any real lesson from Luke and decides to act rashly and impulsively. Her punishment? Ren kills Snoke. Ok? I know this is meant to be a big turn for Ren, but this isn't foreshadowed, it isn't built up. For instance Snoke could have literally said one line to Ren and it would have sated the supernerds and theory crafters as well as creating motivation for Ren, "But where my apprentice failed I will succeed you are not as weak willed as Vader this I have foreseen." -Camera cuts to Ren as he considers this statement and he squints his eyes. Here is where Ren begins to plot against Snoke during the Rey scene. BOOM easy, but that's the problem Snoke was never developed into a compelling or threatening character so his death just falls flat...
The story arc is centered around a "6 hour ship chase." Poorly contrived plot device that creates a TON of temporal inconsistencies especially when they overlap with the Luke Rey Ren story. Some of the scenes could have been reorganized to make more sense, but no Rian decides to insult the intelligence of the viewer and hopes that you don't catch on to how terribly inconsistent the timeline is. (Irrelevant, but at least one can argue about the speed of a raven/dragon.) Another big problem is the Codebreaker plot. Why in God's name was this allowed to be in the movie? It's so far removed from the story that it makes no sense. Not only that but the whole thing was rendered pointless. Thematically it makes sense and I get that, but I was left unable to suspend disbelief because of a few very major technical gaffs.
The justification behind the mission was that a fusion powered interstellar warship was "running out of fuel" and couldn't escape because a DREADNOUGHT was tracing its location. Wouldnt it make more sense from a time line perspective to let them continuously jump over and over desperately trying to find a hiding spot. I mean they were already out manned, out gunned and, because of the tracer, out maneuvered. So why not build the tension and build up the threat of the First order this way? It gives time for all ideas to be considered such as Poe's. When Poe and Finn's idea fails then the admiral -sic Leia proposes her own desperate plan for a final jump while having the cloaked transports launch towards the planet just as they leave hyperspace. While the plan is in motion Snoke taunts the resistance over a hologram as soon as the first order fleet jumps in. Leia then is the one to sacrifice herself instead of that crappy purple haired lady.
What really bothers me about the chase isnt just timeline inconsistencies it is that Mon Cal cruisers are slower than Imperial Dreadnoughts SSDs and Tie Fighters/Bombers are around 25x faster than them as well. A bomber fleet would have taken out the crippled ship in MINUTES especially one with no fighter hanger. Also literally dropping bombs in space? LIKE WTF ARE YOU SMOKING? Leia surviving space for over 2 minutes? WTF? And those godforsaken Porgs? Terrible CGI and too much screen time WAY TOO TONGUE IN CHEEK CUTE!
But the worst part isn't the technical gaffs and oversights, or the poorly developed characters, it's the directing and the screenplay. It was piss poor (as I have already attempted to correct). The ending, just like Snoke's death also fell flat.
Luke was gutted as a character. I don't mind the nod to Yoda's character by turning him into the "scholar" or "senile hermit" type, but Luke, being the "Last Jedi," is the only living conduit for the light side of the force. That and his Skywalker blood would make him a literal God. Luke should have had a renewed vigor after talking to Yoda and faced Ren either in person or in a much more dramatic way. Imagine Luke deflecting walker lasers with one hand and force crushing another set with his other as Luke deflects the barage towards Ren's walker Ren stops the lasers in place one after the other as he yells in a fit of rage (a potentially visually striking scene with time for a flashback to Luke's intended "murder" of Ren and maybe some Snoke lines), ignites his lightsaber and jumps out of the walker (the walker explodes while he leaps towards Luke, letting the suspended lasers continue their original path. In the aftermath, a lightsaber fight begins. Then after a back and forth filled with arguing about betrayal. Luke tells Ren, "I've failed you, but where I failed a new hope will rise." Cut to Rey lifting the boulders, "Strike me down, let the past die, but the future will shine even brighter." Cut to the battle "I am the last Jedi, but with my death there will be balance." Ren strikes Luke, but he is revealed to be a projection. Cut to Luke on the rock. Visibly exhausted he recovers himself and closes his eyes head towards the stars. As he begins talking cut to the resistance escaping. "This is the birth of a new legend-" Closeup of Rey smiling at the Falcon fade music and SFX cut to Luke- "and soon I will be forgotten." Silence as he fades screen cuts to black start credits.
HOW HARD CAN IT BE JESUS! RIAN IS A TERRIBLE DIRECTOR AND NEEDS TO BE FIRED!
I dont understand why the lightsaber battles have been denigrated. Lucas used them as a plot device to create tension during dramatic character development. Sadly this movie lost ALL TENSION and FAILED TO DEVELOP ITS CHARACTERS. IT FOCUSED ON HUMOR, VISUALS AND IRRELEVANT POLITICAL JABS (ie the casino scenes). IT ALSO BUTCHERS ALREADY DEVELOPED CHARACTERS BY FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGING THEIR MOTIVATIONS. TL:DR the movie is poorly directed, poorly written, ignorant of even the most basic of Star Wars lore, and, above all, I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth with nothing answered and no desire to see another Star Wars movie. I've never felt like that before about Star Wars even the trash of the prequels was better! I wish this movie was never made! I take is back this IS a "bad" movie 4/10 just because I understand what he was trying to do, but most people will just stare at the screen wondering why they hate it. The answer is simply poor writing and directing nothing more nothing less.
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5/10
Kylo says to Rey: "You need to let go of the past"
Any else see the irony? Disney don't seem to be doing any such thing. Whereas The Force Awakens was a blatant remake of "A New Hope" I feared this would just be a remake of "The Empire Strikes Back" but it wasn't quite that bad. It was more of a passable re-interpretation of the best episode in the entire series.
If Mark hated what they were doing to his character he should have forced a complete script re-write or threaten to pull out.
I thought the idea of trying to find a master code breaker character was a good plot line to take until they completely wasted the opportunity.
The other thing is that even though I am not fully up to speed on Star Wars lore, I still cringed at Carrie trying to play super gran.
I probably won't bother with the last film.
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1/10
The film decides to throw everything in the garbage.
The film decides to throw everything in the garbage, including itself.
Rey - makes no progress - weak acting - we don't care, and if we did, we are given nothig
Luke - legacy iconic character thrown in the garbage
Snoke - oh look... no more on him either.... thrown in the garbage
Finn - thrown in casino bin garbage , but who cares about this character?
Poe - useless, boring, sideplot
Yoda - !???! Force ghosts use lightning now and effect the real world?
Kylo - same thing.. no progress.... whine... smash helmet.. repeat
Lea - is now Supergirl
Plot - nothing happens in this movie. Except throwing everything in the trash so we can watch crappy characters in IX? I bet IX is going to have GHOSTS in the title.
Don't waste your money. Disney is for theme parks and old cartoons, not good movies.
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The reason why I give this movie such a low review is simply because it fails to follow through narrative/character mechanics any competent storyteller should employ if not intending the story to be some sort of bizarre postmodern project. I watched the film with friends as per their request on an opening night. Otherwise, I would not have gone so early. Coming out, I really wanted to like the movie, but something about it felt intuitively wrong. It seems that I wasn't the only one. I've done some reading on why people were disappointed, but, as I am not a die hard fan, I could not catch on to all the supposed plot holes. I am coming strictly from how the film is structured and how it defies tried-and-proven methods of storytelling, leading to a poorly executed entertainment product. Two points: Pacing and Characters.
1) Pacing
At very beginning of the movie, the story tellers introduce a sense of urgency right off the bat. The puny rebel fleet, which consists of one battleship and two support ships, after engaging with the First Order, are running out of fuel while the first order is pursuing them. Within hours, the fuel will run out and they will be destroyed.
However, the two intertwining story-lines, Rey/Luke and Finn/Rose, do not reflect the urgency at all. Rey and Luke are having a relatively peaceful time on a beautiful island, and Finn and Rose are commenting on how animals are mistreated and how wonderful the casino city is.
The movie defies the pacing mechanics ALL movies should employ: simply being consistent. If you introduce a sense of urgency, you must keep that sense of urgency in all subsequent scenes until the urgent circumstances come to an end. Likewise, if you introduce a sense of peacefulness, you must keep that slow-paced peace until a crisis is introduced. It's simple storytelling 101 mechanics even B movies that go straight to DVDs employ.
It is quite disappointing how the movie failed to do this one simple thing.
2) Characters
The flaw, which turned out to be quite fatal with the fans, is how underdeveloped so many of the characters are. In an already expansive cast of characters introduced by the previous movies, they introduced even more characters we are supposed to feel for. Namely, Rose and Admiral Holdo. Rose is introduced out of nowhere and begins to assist Finn. Yet the two characters don't have any "clinks" two or more characters must have in order for us to like them. See soap opera character interactions. Further, Admiral Holdo appears to be some sort of First Order spy, but turned out that she was a loyal rebel after all. This tension, which led to mutiny, is something that does not make sense. On a side note, she took the death scene Carrie Fisher should have deservingly had. What exactly went inside the director's head? Also, Snoke was introduced as the chief bad guy, but he wasn't even fleshed out over the two movies. Each movie must fulfill some sort of curiosity audience members have, while leaving some to ponder on. There needs to be, as the characters love to say, a balance.
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It was like they put no effort into the movie at all; seemed like a disjointed string of second-hand scenes from previous movies with few or no general themes or plot lines. Not only is it unfaithful to the previous star wars characters and movies (which does not entirely condemn the movie by itself) but there are so many plot holes and so much that does not make sense that I had to force myself to sit through the production. I wish I had never watched it.
Also: even the graphics looked terrible (and that's one thing you would at least expect them to get right).
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Well what to say, the force awakens was horrible but the last jedi was even worse. First of all, Luke dies. Are you serious, Luke and Han were the life of the Star Wars Franchise and now Disney fills it with a bunch of their own crap. This is a horrible storyline and Rey should have been killed. This movie was very cheesy filled with the most stupid sacrifices and if you look closely it relates to Episodes 2 and 3; Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Disney is out of ideas and has killed Star wars to make money. I'm done with Star Wars and you guys should consider it too.
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This summary, "Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers," is misleading. SPOILERS FOLLOW. He barely trains her at all. You don't see much more of that than you do in the trailers. The movie fails to follow up on TFA. Everything from the last film is just dropped, from Rey's vision to the destruction of Starkiller base, which although it just occurred moments ago, has had no impact on the First Order which is now position to snuff out the very few remaining resistance fighters, who are inexplicably referred to as the rebellion as if they aren't the government. Everything from the behavior of Luke to the lack of background of Rey, makes no sense. Why was Obi Wan speaking to her in her Force Awakens vision, if she's no one? Why did she see scenes from Luke's life? Why did Luke nearly kill Kylo Ren if he refused previously even to kill Darth Vader when he had the chance? As Mark Hamill recently said, the character was "not my Luke Skywalker." The entire movie is detached from the whole Star Wars saga. If major events form this movie are canon, then the whole rest of the saga is not. It was a bitter disappointment.
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And this movie was terrible and also I am not a bot or a made up review...the movie is a mess and has ruined it for me...I have no reason to watch any other spin offs or episode 9.
Too many plot holes and character choices just made this movie terrible...Redbox or RIP Blockbuster( man i miss them)
I feel bad for the movie theaters who were suckered into keeping this trash film in their larger auditorium for I believe 30 days..
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1/10
Horrible. If you love Star Wars, avoid at all costs.
Please stop defending the new Star Wars. It sucked. From a writing standpoint, it sucked. From someone who has loved Star Wars since she was 11 years old, it sucked. From someone who vowed to see it with the love of her life (we met in a STAR WARS ROLE PLAY CHAT ROOM, MIND YOU) and has been anticipating it for two years, it sucked. From someone who wrote fanfiction for Star Wars at the age of 13 with her best friend, it sucked. From someone who role played Star Wars in online communities for more than 20 years, it sucked. You can safely hedge your bets that I'm a huge Star Wars fan.
But I'm also a writer and an actor, and I'm going to dissect why this movie utterly and completely blew.
For those of you defending it with no true basis of source material - stop. It's a bad film. And it's no one's fault except the writer's.
The writer had WAY TOO MUCH GOING ON in this film (and don't even get me started on how badly the essence of the Star Wars source material was butchered). The Last Jedi was never put into a check and balance system that comes from having multiple writers, executive directors, or executive producers. Rian Johnson both wrote and directed the film - which is always a bad sign in this racket unless you're a die-hard Star Wars fan (and let's face it, even if you ARE, it's a rough racket - I'm looking at you, Gareth Edwards).
It felt like watching Fan Girl/Mary-Sue Clutter. I wouldn't mind Mary-Sue Clutter, except that some of the conclusions they came to for these characters are just abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous. I'm looking at you, Luke, Leia, and Snoke.
Character inconsistency is not okay. Ever. Please stop confusing character dynamics (or a "character arc") with character inconsistency. Stop. Stop it.
Luke Skywalker - a man who chose to save the equivalent of Space Hitler at mere weeks into his Jedi training (rather than kill him, mind you), now suddenly becomes afraid of the potential dark future of a young boy and is tempted to murder him? Really? We're doing this? MURDER him?! Not try to save him (which he has a knack for doing). Not try to reason with him (which would make sense as he's a Jedi). Not try to teach him (as he is his TEACHER). Not try to believe in his own student. Give into fear. Randomly. Out of the blue. Despite his entire character being molded around the uncanny ability to see the good in all things.
What. The. Fuck.
Look, I'm no Jedi, but even I know that killing someone just because they have the potential to be bad is a ridiculously psychopathic notion. Not a human flaw. A psychopathic, over-dramatic, completely baseless, utterly illogical notion -- especially for the greatest Jedi in all of Star Wars lore. THIS is Mary-Sue logic in the worst way possible. It was used for character assassination and makes NO sense for the character.
If someone took Frodo (The Lord of the Rings) and made him fall prey to the One Ring and become the dark ruler of Middle-earth, that is the equivalent of what they did with Luke Skywalker's character in this film.
It's not only completely stupid and the total opposite of what his character would do, it destroys the entire integrity, morality, and inspiration of a character we looked up to as a pillar of good (whether as children, or otherwise).
And I get it. You want to argue the whole, "Kill Your Heroes," theme. No. No. This is Hollywood. We don't kill heroes just to shit on fans. We don't destroy actors who have waited 34 years to be in a film. We don't NEED this, right now. We NEED our heroes. We NEED people to look up to. We WANTED it. We wanted to PAY for it. We wanted some happiness in these politically AWFUL times.
But no. We should just surrender everything over to the new Disney.
Why, oh why, oh why, couldn't you have passed the torch with SOME SHRED OF DIGNITY AND RESPECT to your fans?! SCREW this arrogant director! I have had it up to my ears with reading reviews of people saying, "Fans don't know what's good for them."
No, Hollywood. Screwing over your fans is how you LOSE MONEY. WE. PAY. YOUR. BILLS.
The movie sucked. Badly. And it pains me - a lifelong die-hard Star Wars fan - to say that. I now have to apologize for being a Star Wars fan.
Rian Johnson, a man with no notable love or understanding of the franchise, nostalgia, or thematic structure of Star Wars, got his greedy, pretentious hands on something I dearly love and arrogantly thought that his opinion superceded any and all source and supplementary material as an authority to overwrite 40 years of love and fan loyalty.
Fuck him. Don't see this film if you loved the original trilogy. Don't. You'll be so upset.
And that is just ONE of MANY HORRIBLE choices this stupid film settled upon. Well, not the film, the idiot director. I have never been so livid at a film in my life...and that might be because I grew up with these beloved characters, ideals, and stories only to see them ALL RUINED in a matter of THREE HOURS. You took my childhood and you crushed it in three hours.
I hate you, Disney. I hate you, Rian.
There. I've said it.
Don't see this filth.
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3/10
Johnson intentionally undermines all things Star Wars
There are so many negative things I could say about this movie. 2/3 of The Last Jedi is wasted on boring and unnecessary sub plots. The plot is contrived and does not flow at all. The whole movie seemed like a poke in the eye to anyone who has ever liked Star Wars. I understand not wanting to rehash old plots and tropes but Rian Johnson was actively determined to destroy everything "Star Wars" in this movie. I don't see how the main storyline can recover from this. For the first time in my life I walked out of a Star Wars movie not even caring what happens next. Rian Johnson has left us with nothing to look forward to. The Force Awakens and Rogue One were absolute masterpieces compared to this film. It was lazily written and poorly executed. There were a handful of redeeming scenes but they did not add up to a good movie. This was really bad; as in 'prequel bad'. I hated 2/3 of this movie. I don't know how Disney could let Johnson destroy their franchise like this. I left the theater shocked and disappointed.
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1/10
Another awful Star Wars movie, almost as bad as the Force Awakens.
New characters just aren't exciting. Not only giving the old main characters crappy story lines but also killing them off. Poor story line overall - the movie is hard to take seriously with all the "Disney kids" stuff.
Movie is just very mediocre and disappoint. A clown-crap-show.
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This movie seems more intent on making new "action figures" for sale rather than telling a story anymore.The Plot feels secondary, the acting is stiff and the characters seem made to appeal to ten year old kids only. This movie is proof that Hundreds of Millions in Productions and Promotions does NOT necessarily make a Good movie. Only rates 4 stars because of the impressive CGi.
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This movie was a huge disappointment. It was poorly written to say the least, with a scattered and broken story line, and badly timed jokes that didn't fit the feeling of Star Wars.
Rian Johnson seemed to be writing the characters with the intention of making them look as bad as possible. Most upsetting of all I think was the return of Luke Skywalker, who was not the wise Jedi master we all wanted him to be, but instead was a joke, and then died in a way that didn't seem necessary. Leia did not get the honorable death she deserved (I think it would have been perfect if she had gone in Admiral Holdo's place) Poe was made to look like a selfish fool. Even Rey, who he managed to not ruin, was made to look silly. Kylo Ren was the only character who I didn't disagree with the way he was written, although there was definitely nothing added to his character.
I thought he killed off way too many people in unnecessary ways, especially new characters who had too much potential. Phasma, who could have lived to be one of the best villains in Star Wars along with Darth Vader and Boba Fett, and after getting her own comic book series and book, was completely wasted in The Last Jedi. Supreme Leader Snoke, who was such a mysterious and intriguing character in The Force Awakens, was quickly killed before he could be fully explored. Holdo I think could have been a really great character in the future, if Leia had died in her place. Lastly, ACKBAR!!!!! Why did he have die?!!! I guess Rian Johnson was just trying to make us feel something to cover up the unmoving story.
All the intriguing questions from The Force Awakens were answered in anticlimactic ways. I honestly don't think Rian Johnson could have done a worse job.
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2/10
Did Disney buy reviewers off? How does this stinkbomb have a 7.7 IMDB rating?
Something seems off. If most hardcore fans hated this movie and were passionate about giving it a low score where are these high ratings coming from? It's not from the overworked moms and dads that are casual fans that's for sure. There is no way that these high reviews weren't planted by the studio. The fact that all of the professional critic reviews were also glowing smacks of industry bootlicking where critics lavish praise on a films so their news organizations aren't shut out of future Disney screenings. The Last Jedi shows what happens when a company builds up clout. This movie is an utter betrayal of the Star Wars fandom. Brought to you by an auteur director who seems more interested in splattering his weird ideas on screen with no rhyme, reason or research.
I gave it two stars because I liked the special effects and the Chewbacca scenes. The actress who plays Rey also looked sweet, she really cleaned up in the gym. To the film's credit the technical aspects of the film are great and the action scenes were a flurry, but everything else was a muddled mess. Where the heck were the storylines of Rey and Kylo even going? The telepathic sessions seemed like a behind the scenes Vanity Fair magazine cover shoot with the two, no important info was conveyed. What is the purpose of the First Order? They're not an empire? What in the world do they want? How come the Resistance, which apparently controls the galactic Republic, is so understaffed? It's like having the United States outgunned against Guam! And Luke. Oh boy. Who thought it was a good idea to turn him into a raving lunatic? "The Jedi must end!" Yea but the Sith are still around so what good does it do to actively destroy Jedi artifacts? Was Luke a Sith? He certainly was acting like one, particularly how he was led by his passions. All the throwaway characters. The absurd slo-mo chase that a few First Order hyperspace jumps couldn't end. The dead end plots. The weird Jedi powers that just show up unexplained, but could have been useful earlier if Luke wasn't so grumpy. The mirror of madness? The junk skis on salt that moved 20 mph that the bad guys couldn't hit!? And lest not forget Super Leia.
Anyway someone should investigate the source of these positive "reviews." There's no way this film be so decisive and remain so high in scores across multiple movie review sites.
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I am eleven years old. I am a giant Star Wars fan. My dad showed me Star Wars : A New Hope in October of 2015. I couldn't stop watching. For two days, I watched a trilogy a day. I bought Star Wars Battlefront 2015 (Ultimate Edition) and even Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017 and after micro transactions were removed).
I had watched Star Wars The Force Awakens on premiere night and Rogue One the day after it came out. I spent two years learning everything I could about Star Wars and the Force. I made theories about who Supreme Leader Snoke was.
Then the trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi landed. The movie seemed like your average epic Star Wars movie to me. My dad and I waited for the minute Star Wars tickets came out to buy them. We purchased tickets to an early screening at an IMAX. I waited and waited until ... the day finally came.
It was December fourteenth, 8:45 PM. Our screening was at 10:20 Pm, but I wanted to make sure we got good seats, so I asked my dad if we could leave at nine. I jumped up and down for fifteen minutes in my TFA hoodie. We left and made it to the line at around 9:20 PM. I waited in the cold, foul-smelling line for forty minutes until they let us into the theater.
After twenty minutes of previews, the movie started.
A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away ...
And the iconic Star Wars crawl started. Then, of course, there was the beginning of the movie. The moment Poe started making those bizarre jokes I knew I was about to be disappointed.
And I was.
From the corny jokes to the new animals made to be merchandise, this movie was horrible. Luke Skywalker didn't act like a Jedi AT ALL. And then Rey changed ALOT in just a few seconds, as The Last Jedi starts second after The Force Awakens. Rey was wise and Luke was acting like he was the one who was young and naive. A Jedi is supposed to have optimism and always fight for balance in the Force.
And then there was the whole force telepathy thing. If that existed all along, why didn't the Jedi use it in the prequels when communications were jammed?
Also, how comes force ghosts can make contact with the outside world now? That wasn't a thing before.
Anyway, I could keep going on and on about how Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a terrible movie, but I think you get the point. This is not my Star Wars.
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What can you expect from those Disney heathens? Their whole disgusting saga is like a curse! Born from the nosense hatred for the prequels, this movies seek to destroy everything the saga worked so hard to build. They are not ones of us. This is not Star Wars and never will be. Let this garbages be eradicated and retconneted out of cinema history.
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This entire movie was basically female diversity hires speaking and not doing anything cool.No action. Not even one single lightsaber battle. Absolute shit from start to end. Everyone was out of character, especially Yoda, who basically said that Rey was such a strong, independent, and powerful womyn that she didn't need to be taught and she "already knew everything."
Speaking of women, the rebel alliance is now so badly defeated that there's only like 40 of them left. You'd think after the 8th female commander led her squad to its doom, they'd realize that maybe -- just MAYBE -- women are shit at war and can't win to literally save their own fucking lives.
Rose.
Oh my God, Rose.
Worst character ever. Rose makes Jar Jar look like Darth Maul in terms of coolness. You can't do any worse than Rose.
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And, the hearts of my children. I was extremely skeptical when Disney first bought this precious empire but my heart was won by TFA and RO made me a believer. I went into TLJ on opening night full of trust and expectation.
Within the first two minutes of the movie I found myself launched into the stages of grief, beginning with denial: I actually felt confused and found myself wondering if the movie was starting out by showing outtakes from the filming. Surely, Star Wars does not open with yer-mom jokes.
As the scenes rolled by I was gripped with a something-is-wrong feeling that didn't leave me until the later that evening when I entered into the anger portion of the stages of grief.
I don't want to simply repeat everything that other devastated fans are saying. Simply put, Rian Johnson butchered this movie and has made a giant mess for J.J. Abrams to deal with. He made jokes out of serious SW elements; the Force, the Jedi, Luke Skywalker, Master Yoda, saying, "May the Force be with you," the sith tradition of wearing a helmet, etc. He needlessly killed off characters whom we'd only begun to get to know and from whom we wanted more; Phasma, Snoke, Holdo. He needlessly ended Luke's story and Leia, who deserved a noble hero's death is still alive to be dealt with later. The Skywalker lightsaber: destroyed. Snoke's disco robe: good grief.
The pace of the movie was bad, giving the impression of a slapstick comedy or, well, a Disney movie. Like watching a SNL skit about SW. The story was a mess with no clear beginning, middle and end. The force ghosting felt weak and unbelievable with Rey and Ren and disappointing with Luke. The conclusion-less, failed missions were disheartening. The major conflict was boring; seriously Rian? You can think of anything more exciting than running out of gas?
The one good thing I can say about The Last Jedi is that the fight scene with Rey and Ren was amazing. Too bad it was pointless and didn't actually accomplish anything.
I'm moving towards acceptance and taking the stance that this is #notmystarwars.
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1/10
Spaceballs 2: The Search For More Money (Spoilers)
There is a lot wrong with The Last Jedi. For starters Mary Poppins Leia--WTF! Like really, they turned Leia into a bad meme. Luke being the rock solid friends/family first no matter what into "oh I seen darkness in Ben, I'm gonna kill him in his sleep and then run and hide" Like really?? The same Luke that did everything to turn his father back to light and stood in front of the most powerful Sith Lord ever Sheev to prove he will go the distance to save his friends....that Luke Skywalker?
Other problem is Rian Johnson removed any interesting character from the trilogy(Luke, Phasma, Snoke) and left us with Vader wannabe(Kylo Ren) and female Luke(Rey) for a final battle in Episode 9. Didn't we see that movie already? Yeah so much for upsetting the apple cart and giving us something different. And we already know how lop sided this fight will be already. Without any training at all, Rey who does not come from the chosen-one blood line(Skywalker) but from nobody drunks, already equals him in power. She was born perfect, she is stronger then Luke without experience or training and can fly a starcraft equal to or better than Han with no experience in that field either. She rightfully deserves the "Mary Sue" tag. Rey is the Drizzt Do-Urden of Star Wars, unbeatable in every single way.
All Rian did was piss off the serious fan base with a worthless story full of plot holes and notify us that classic characters are good as dead(Luke, Ackbar) and new trio characters (Rey, Poe, Fin) have insane plot armor. Fin should of been dead so many times over already. Such a worthless character and a worthless quest in this movie. He could of stay in the coma until the end and actually sacrificed himself ramming the gun and that would of made this movie a lot better already.
The slapstick comedy at every turn and making fun of every moment even the serious ones cheapen the whole feel of it. Rian turned General Hux into a Trump buffon. Every time he stepped on screen he was made to look like an idiot but yet the Resistance needs to fear The First Order? Why, their leaders are idiots....such a joke. They turned Star Wars in a political motivated show, First Order = Republicans ran by dumb white males, Resistance = Democrats ran by smart females and minorities.
This whole movie had no point, all the subplots went no where and created no revelations or discoveries of any kind and at the end of a 150 minute movie they end at the same place they started prior to the slowest space chase in history....on the run from the baddies. You could properly watch episode 7 and skip right to episode 9 and say Snoke got bored and left after star killer base fell and Luke told Rey to go home and you wouldn't miss a beat of what The Last Jedi contributed to the story.
But I suppose Kathleen and Rian would just say this movie isn't for the die-hard Star Wars fans but it was made for the Marvel fans instead. And yes i would agree with that, it felt much more like Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 then any Star Wars movie I've ever seen.
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SPOILERS AHEAD
Luke milking an alien cow thing... what?
Luke dusting off his shoulder... what?
Ballistic trajectories in space... what?
Rey essential becoming a Jedi Master in a few hours ... what?
Space Mary Poppins ... WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!
I could go on and I will!
All rich people are bad
Jumping to light speed is a viable tactic for destroying ships
Bombs "fall" in space
Hux, the leader of the First Order forces is an incompetent clown
Luke, a Jedi Master contemplated killing his nephew
BB8 is annoying now
Electricity works like water to be plugged
Dice!
Space horses are saved but slave children are not
No back story given to Snoke
Captain Phasma bested by Finn and utterly wasted
I'm making myself angry now.
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First the barrage in space?? WTH you don't need to arch to hit the cruiser. It's space.... an object in motion will stay I. Motion... if anything it would gravitate towards that planet which was off to the side. We have weapons that can blow up solar systems and they use old bombs. Old school GRAVITY bombs in space. Even the x wine has some sort of energy torpedo. Speaking of which every ship goes light speed but they have these bombers which float in slower than a model t.
Snoke, HOLY .... why why why why. This was so pointless and disappointing. I understand the bad guy has to talk but he said straight up your going to die to ray. Not turn u but your going to die. KILL her. And he went out horribly.
Rey, wth you have no acting range no acting ability you just walk around like u know your going to save the universe. You have no training the deep cave scene was pointless and i dont know how you learned to move a mountain of rock. Like failed to raise the xwing the first time.
Finn is completely useless what does he add. Nothing. If anything I WANTED him to crash in to the battleing ram. You accomplished something.
Sigh luke... not enough space here but I hear you had issues with the director I feel u. He should have been fired.
Leia just apparently defies anything that has to do with space and how humans would died in it.
Poor humor left and right.
Vader and tarkin were bad arse and Kylo and hux are arse bad! Two most incompetent leaders in history.
Ok seriously you have to add race sex complete equality to the extent that you can sit back and say here's one here's one here's one. If anything it's way biased. Idc if 9 out of the top 10 rebel generals are women and the only male general is sent to the salt flats to die with the regular men buy You took it to the extreme.
The plot was pointless ..
. how did Kylo get past the cruisers shields to blow up Poe's xwing??? The whole premise of plot was getting past the star destroyers SHIELDS w a small ship which the sliced did.... how did Kylo get past the cruisers!!!
Lastly even the light speed attack was pointless! Why not take the empty medical cruiser or the corvette and light speed attack them???? You still lost both captains! Still lost both ships!!! You could have emptied them and cut two lines through the fleet!
This is just the start of what's wrong with this movie. I left feeling like I wasted 2.5 hours of my life which I could have used buying grocery's or cleaning grout in my tiles.
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1. Fail trying to do your best its acceptable but almost every choice in this movie was to follow the political propaganda. I have no problem with a pink haired woman leading something... but she cant lead just because she's a pink haired woman.
2. TLJ does not seems to be of the same trilogy of TFA.
3. I liked porgs and Rey is awesome.
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Our childhood is officially dead. Disney took care of it, by turning one of the most influential movies of all times into a brainless amusement for children with special needs. There are no new interesting worlds, there are no more breathtaking CGI and action sequences, masterpieces of design, nor some likeable characters and lines for quotations.
No, there's just market research, political correctness at any cost (black stormtrooper, his Chinese girlfriend), Mengele produced creatures (brontosaurus cows, chicken and gremlins hybrids, fish nuns and many, many more), paroding villains and no innovation at all. The storyline just doesn't exist and the new ''Star Wars'' movies are just a series of random events with no end and no beginning, raping the serious viewer or a fan with no remorse and no ending in sight. All the characters that raised entire generations will be exploited without a trace of shame and in the end, wasted with no real reason (Hamill, Fisher).
If ''Rogue one" was the lonesome spark in the dark ''Star wars'' universe, ''The Last Jedi''made sure it got smothered in a second.
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4/10
I understand you want to make the new era and bring in the new characters but this is ridiculous!
Why make this twist in the movie. I will totally agree with other reviewers, too much comedy. I understand that Disney wanted new characters but it can't happen in two episodes. To bring old crew only to kill them, they might as well kill them before The Force Awakens. You have to do what Lucas did. Rey needs Luke to guide her, train her, but from these two parts she needs no training at all. She can wield a lightsaber like a jedi master just by concentrating a bit - Bourne Identity? Also, Snoke is only a joke. Ok they are making the same plot apprentice kills the master like with Darth Sidious and Darth Plagueis, but it was too easy. Two characters that are completely left aside - R2D2 and C3PO. Two symbols of Star Wars are going to be disintegrated probably to repair BB8 if he gets shot or something.
In the movie when Rey goes to Luke for guidance and to help them defeat the first order R2D2 remains all the time in the Millenium Falcon not even trying to communicate with his master, and we all know that he is a "feisty little one!". How can that be?
There are lot's of mistakes in this movie that I can't even count them all. I can't give it a 1 star it wouldn't be objective, but it can't go beyond 4. I hoped that they wouldn't ruin the franchise but if they go along this way they surely will. I believe that they should have done only spinoffs like Rogue One, do some movies from Clone Wars, about history of the characters in the Star Wars like they are doing with Solo, Obi One etc., and remain in the story that has already been written and is great. In that way they would have make much better movies. Being a fan when I was 5 years old I can't say I wont watch them but it won't be with the enthusiasm I had before.
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Regardless of what you think of the prequels, they treated the original trilogy with respect.
Luke is made into a loser, and the Force is turned into plain magic instead of a philosophy.
We find out that Rey barely knows what the Force is, despite being able to do all sorts of Jedi tricks. And you won't see any real training here; her entire training is about 10 minutes or so real time.
This movie is almost a parody of Star Wars.
There is a slight chance this movie could be redeemed by the next film, but don't hold your breathe after this.
It's not a terrible movie (besides the Holdo/Poe plot), but it's not Star Wars.
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5/10
Not a great Star Wars movie & for that matter not a great movie in general.
My SPOILER-filled review of Star Wars 8 - The Last Jedi (SW8-TLJ)
* 5 out of 10 stars
* ranking of Star Wars movies (great to worse)
Ep5 Empire Strikes Back >>>> Ep4 A New Hope >>>>Ep7 The Force Awakens & Rogue One (like both equally) >>> Ep3 Revenge of the Sith > Ep6 Return of the Jedi >>>> Ep8 The Last Jedi >>>>>>>> Ep2 Attack of the Clones >>>>>>>>>Ep1 Phantom Menace
In summary, this movie is made for casual movie goers and not the Star Wars aficionado, nor one who values great story telling. Of all the live action Star Wars movies, only Episode 5 and 4 are great movies. The rest are popcorn flicks and home-theater reference scenes. But IMO SW8-TLJ even lacks great reference sound scenes. Ep2 AOTC was overall weak film but had unique sounds like audio black hole of Slave 1's depth charges.
If you enjoyed this movie then really I am happy for you. Star Wars is billed as event movie. This movie was a disappointment. My adult son holds Lord of the Rings in the highest regard. He was disappointed in the Hobbit trilogy. IMO, SW8-TLJ is like the Hobbit trilogy.
Complexity and shocks do not equate to great story. I feel the people who value the shocks in this movie do not fully contemplate this in the SW story arc. We are movie lovers on IMDB and for an event movie like SW8 TLJ to disappoint is why we are seeing negative reviews and the Rotten Tomatoes audience score >35% difference from professional critics score.
Some of my major criticisms of the film:
(1) Please don't imply it a new trilogy if what happened in Episode 7 and the Original Trilogy (Ep 4,5,6) can be completely disregarded.
Example#1. Leia-Poppins (or Leia Superman) scene.
In no other SW movie has Leia used the Force in physical way. Here she can survive the airless of outer space and Force her way back to the Raddus ship bridge. Here she can do the Superman-like flying because the script calls for it. Disregard all prior precedent. In part this is also lazy story device, IMO.
Example#2 Luke acts way out of character.
Please see the web link at end of this post for Mark Hamill's own opinions posted on Huffington Post. First scene with Luke is he receives Anakin's lightsabre from Rey and he chucks it over his shoulder. This was clearly done in part for big laugh and shock. The mood at time did not call for any humor. Already by then forced humor of Poe prank-calling Hux and FN=2187 leaking bacta fluid suit. A better more realistic action and in keeping with "hermit Luke" as written would have been: he looks at Anakin's lightsabre and hands it back to Rey with facial expression I do not want it and leave me alone. Rejection of the Force as Luke has done in SW8 TLJ does not equate into action of disrespecting his father who he fought at risk of his life to redeem in Ep6 ROTJ. Audiences also saw huge importance of Anakin's lightsabre in Ep4.
Another example of Luke acting out of character in SW8 TLJ : his fleeting thought of murdering Ben Solo while Ben slept. This is from same Luke who redeemed his father in Ep6 ROTJ?!
Example#3 Snoke is built up in Episode 7 to be one the most powerful (if not the most powerful ) Force user.
In SW EP8 TLJ they continue this idea and theme (e.g. he wields Force lightening on Kylo Ren in their first scene). He toys with Rey literally like she is a puppet. Then Kylo kills him and no backstory and no more Snoke; just another disposable character. I am first to call this movie to be made "Snoke and the First Order - A Star Wars Story."
Example#4 Rey is the ultimate Force wielder.
We saw her defeat a multi-years trained Force user (Kylo Ren) in Episode 7 though it was 2nd time she ever touched lightsabre. Excuse in that movie was Kylo was injured from Chewbacca's laser shot to his flank. Well Kylo is healed up in this SW8 TLJ and again Rey is the ultimate lightsabre user as she defeats her portion of Snoke's Elite Praethorian guards and assists Kylo as he could not. All this from self training on Temple Island on Ahch-To?!
IMO lazy story telling in having Rey advance to master Jedi lightsabre skill with effectively no training. Why did we even bother showing experience needed in Episodes 1,2,3 and 4,5,6? Rey is just born with it and has video game like "God mode."
Also Rey can force sense the good in Kylo and instructs Luke that Kylo can be turned to the Light side of the Force. She is the now the Master and not Luke because hey that is what the story calls for. Yoda in SW8 TLJ even mentions she has mastery of the Force. So what with Yoda's >800 years experience. Again video game like "God mode" for Rey.
(2) SW8 TLJ breaks the rules it establishes.
Raddus bridge blown out by Tie Fighter and all on bridge including Leia sucked out to space. Leia then wakes up from frozen state and Superman/Mary Poppins flies back to Raddus bridge (where again clearly shown there is no gravity and vacuum of space). She is seen by Poe and Connix (played by her real life daughter Billie Lourd) and they do not later ask her about this power. When Leia is back from Superman/Poppins flight on Raddus bridge, Poe and Connix open bridge door to let Leia back in. Uhhh....shouldn't Poe and Connix be sucked out into space? Of course they were not.
Rose Tico states she is pipe cleaner and Finn (FN2187 ) states he was floor moper for First Order in SW8-TLJ. And FN-2187 can't fly ship in episode 7. However both can pilot relic Crait fighters with ease and very well in SW EP8 TLJ.
(3) Way too many bad jokes/inappropriate.
For example Luke drinking green milk from nipple of Thala sirens, and way too long Poe prank calling Hux.
(4) For all the changes that Rian Johnson mentions, very unoriginal callbacks to prior SW movies.
Example#1 Dialogue of Snoke to Rey in his throne room on Supremacy is very similar to SW 6 ROTJ Emperor to Luke.
.
Example #2 Crait battle is like Hoth (even had new AT-M6 and some original AT-ATs).
Example #3 Millenium Falcon (MF) flying inside Crait cavern like MF flying inside Death Star 2 in SW6 ROTJ.
Example #4 Rey quits training (if can even call it training) with Luke and goes to confront Kylo and fails. In EP5 Luke quits training with Yoda and goes to confront Vader and fails.
(5) Canto Bight story could have been trimmed down 95%.
It appears the only reason for it was for FN-2187 and Rose to get ship past Supremacy's shields and establish Broom boy (Timiri Blagg) and make statement that rich people & military industrial complex are bad.
(6) Useless Poe mutiny story and stupid of Vice Admiral Holdo to withhold plan from Poe.
This is only 1/4 of the problems I have with SW8 TLJ. But the above are the major ones. I have seen in twice (2nd time with my two kids). They both rate it 2 out of 4 stars.
Sadly for me, I likely will have to move on from Star Wars. Let's hope JJ Abrams and the script writers can correct the SW story for Episode IX. FYI I do enjoy new science fiction since 1990 like (in no particular order):
"Children of Men"
"Arrival" (Amy Adams)
"Dark City"
Matrix (only first one)
"Minority Report:
"Moon" (Sam Rockwell)
"Gravity" (Sandra Bullock)
"Mad Max Fury Road"
"Edge of Tomorrow"
"Wall-E"
"Blade Runner 2049"
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2/10
Stars for special FX, but the soul is completely lost
Complete lack of respect for the Star Wars mythology, its characters and the essence of the films. Heroic 'knights/samourai' inspired movies about good vs evil loaded with self sacrifice.
Youtube is full of rants with all the things that are wrong with this movie, so I will not repeat what has already been said.
Apparently someone needs to start a Kickstarter to create a fan-supported movie or something, because it seems like no-one with passion, respect or knowledge of what Star Wars is was consulted while making this travesty.
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1/10
What do whiny sjw politics and animal rights have to do with star wars?
Now that I've had time to digest this movie I wanted to make a point to do a review. I've watched Star Wars ever since I was a youngin and LOVED everything about them. I wasn't a fan on the prequels, although, episode 3 was watchable for me.
What bothered me so much was that there were risks taken, but they were the wrong risks. The Last Jedi essentially followed the same plot lines as Return of the Jedi. There were so many missed opportunities to take it in a direction we've never seen before. I wanted so bad for Rey to turn to the dark side, because that would be new! Instead it was the same conflict we saw in Return of the Jedi.
I also hated the direction they took with Luke Skywalker!!! He was boiled down to a grumpy old has been only to turn into vapor at the end. I wanted the Like we say in 4-7 to return!
The casino?!? WTF!! I actually got stressed out when the plot took that turn.
It's hard for me to believe this has such a high rating, I think there's some shenanigans going on here!
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2/10
Star Wars characters have MASSIVE value, writers/directors must RESPECT them!
OK so here's the thing, if this movie stood alone, outside of the star wars universe, I would have probably said it was a pretty exciting watch. However it does exist in the Star Wars Universe and so directors and writers MUST respect it as such.
Star Wars characters have value..... MASSIVE value to fans that have been brought up with these films. This film as well as the Force Awakens (although I felt that was OK) has taken these characters that we loved and seems so super human, who never gave up and made them old, broken vulnerable people. Again fine if they were outside the Star Wars Universe. So you're telling me Luke, arguable the most positive character in Star Wars has given up all hope. But that's not enough right, he has to consider murder........RIDICULOUS.
Finn seems a little flat to me. Always running, scared. Do we not remember he was a Stormtrooper? Can he finally get knee deep in a battle with a blaster?
Rey was fine. Seems to figure the force out a little too quickly though.
Poe is a trigger happy pilot, can we not just keep him in the cockpit? Why must we have the constant learning lessons?
So the film itself looked great, was acted solid, a little simple from a plot perspective but at the end of the day I would have enjoyed it outside the Star Wars Universe. In the Star Wars Universe....It only succeeded in making The Force Awakens worse for me.
Conclusion:
Why are writer and directors taking Star Wars and trying to do it different? Why break down these characters we love so much? These broken down people are not the characters we watched. Not even close. They can be old and still be positive. They can be old and be wise. That can be old and still fight. They are trying to get us to accept these new characters as the future, and while they are fine in their own right, they could benefit from the old characters being done better....oh wait they've already killed off two of them.
Finally, please RESPECT Star Wars. RESPECT it's history. RESPECT it's characters. Quit turning your writer/director beret sideways and going all artsy fartsy, and use Star Wars correctly. RESPECT, please RESPECT.
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Chewie being deprived of dinner would have ended up in the deleted scenes with real editing - but in this case they put propaganda (eating meat, weapons dealers, racing animals and more) - so much awful logic - she was trained during the sort time their energy was being depleted and they were being attacked) - taking away the saving crippling sacrifice and more...
Blown up and floating in space but then wake up and pulls herself in?
So many logic fails! So many attempts to make something appear cool but threw logic out the window...awful awful awful.
I enjoy shutting my brain off, but too many times they crossed the lines from fantasy into stupidity.
I can see why people hated it and are demanding it be forgotten.
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If you always wanted to see Luke Skywalker be a wimp, Lea inexplicably become Superwoman, and a rebel commander chastise a fighter pilot for losing a few bombers so she can sacrifice the entire rebel fleet before finally fighting back then this movie is for you. If not I can sum it up the new Star Wars for you in one sentence. Men are weak and out of control and the universe would be better off without them.
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I like films. Actually, I really like films. I also really like TV and I really like novels. I like drama, action, fantasy, I like low-budget art-house films where nothing happens, I like gore-fests and I like psychological horror.
In all these genres, I have very high standards. Yet I can love a cheap-as-chips horror film as much as I love a glittering, star-studded Oscar winner. Why? Because every film should be judged on its own merits, in the context of what it is trying to achieve and according to the traditions of the genre in which it exists. If I'm watching a Malaysian action film, such as The Raid, I judge it on the basis that I should expect to see lots of seriously shot, highly choreographed violence, a simplistic storyline and some throwaway stuff about familial betrayal. If I'm watching a film about the nature of the interlinking of humanity with itself, the animal kingdom and the world, through the human senses, such as Upstream Colour, I'm happy with very little action but lots of juxtaposition of sounds, visuals and emotions.
And if I'm watching a Star Wars film, what I'm pretty much exactly looking for is a Star Wars film. The Last Jedi is not that at all.
The reason many critics love the new Star Wars film is exactly the same reason why so many fans hate it. The Last Jedi takes the very specific sensibilities of the original trilogy and throws them out the window. It takes a series of films that are, at their best, exquisitely made, ground-breaking genre pieces and presents us with an easily accessible, bog-standard sci-fi action movie. It appeals to the lowest common denominator (i.e. non-genre fans), and the critics run with it because they know how to evaluate bog-standard sci-fi films. The critics feel at home with The Last Jedi in a way they did not feel at home with, say, The Empire Strikes Back (which garnered lots of negative reviews upon its release). Just as they felt at home with Arrival in the way they didn't feel at home with Starship Troopers (the former being an arty film that happened to have a sci-fi theme, the latter being a film that both gloried in and yet also subverted a low-brow sci-fi sub-genre and confused the hell out of the critics in the process). The Last Jedi is a perfectly serviceable contemporary action movie, complete with diversity, messages and all that stuff. It ticks lots of boxes for the film critics. But unfortunately, the director is so enamoured with his big brain, he decided he didn't need to respect the source material.
It's rather disappointing that despite so many years having passed since Star Wars' release, so few critics appreciate where the artistry lies in the original trilogy. The simplicity of the stories, the casual, natural intimacy between the main characters, the purity (bordering on naivety) of the messages of film, the fact that everything is presented at face value and nothing has to mean anything more than you want it to... all these things are lost in The Last Jedi. In their place we have contrived relationships, forced messages, and a complete lack of authenticity. All well-and-good for a trying-to-be-smarter-than-it-is Disney flick, but just not good enough for Star Wars. The OT Star Wars was high concept film-making at its best, but what we have now is the opposite. The critics love low concept movies, which is fine, but it's not the point of Star Wars and they really should be able to understand that. Yes, the OT Star Wars films had their inherent limitations, but the people behind those films pushed up to the very edge of those limitations. The latest edition tries to do more by blasting the limitations away, but ends up achieving a lot less as a result.
The Last Jedi: 6/10.
Critic's response to The Last Jedi: 1/10.
p.s I've seen quite a few comments along the lines of "I never really got into the Star Wars films, but I love this one", even from some critics. To some, that means bringing Star Wars to a new audience, but in reality it just means selling out. Has cinema really become so artistically bankrupt that it's now seen as a good thing for a franchise -owner to burn away a highly-regarded creative work's foundation in the name of putting new bums on seats? No wonder TV is where all the talented creatives are right now!
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I think it is the consequence of most of the best gen-X storytellers coming from TV/Netflix world (Breaking Bad, Lost, Game of Thrones, etc). They have some really good ideas, twists, character journeys in their head. The downfall in this situation is that they are giving each creator a two hour window to do it. It doesn't work.
It is extremely hard to have a continuous storyline in a movie franchise, it is simply too long between films, and too brief telling. Its ok to give a wink to a past event or allow your characters to develop over time, but the majority of the most successful franchises (Indiana Jones, James Bond, etc) are just the same enjoyable characters having a new adventure. Any actual continuity is mostly in our heads.
This could have been a really great TV series. As a single film, its a jumbled mess. Too many climaxes, rollercoaster character arcs, and no time to enjoy any payoff we might have experienced along the way.
Feels like I just binge watched 8 episodes of a TV show.
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3 stars for nostalgic reasons it doesn't deserve even that.
The only thing that would have made this movie worse is if it was directed by Michael Bay, but at least the action seance would have been better.
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A visual feast above all else, this movie destroys so much of the beloved legacy that little else remains in its wake. Few reviews have been explicit enough to clearly articulate the final result of this film; one which is centered on a truly skewed vision, and executed through disrespectful treatment of the saga's core characters and themes. The manner in which the legacy characters are divisively portrayed in this Disney-helmed saga is so shocking that their very inclusion has been questioned by even Lucas himself (let alone a worldwide legion of fans). Whatever you enjoyed or loved about the original saga has been forever tainted by this film; the script's thin veneer does little to mask a strikingly seditious sociopolitical agenda that mocks its own legacy to the extent that it has totally alienated its core fan base. The central themes of a Star Wars movie has always been one of adventure, family-bond, and hope despite all odds - these are intrinsic to the legacy characters and the overall tale. The Last Jedi is the antithesis. It's delivery provides only disappointment, and a heartfelt sadness at how the beautiful legacy has been forever tainted.
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1/10
And I thought it couldn't get any worse than the prequels.
At any other time of the year Star Wars The Last Jedi would be avoided by word of mouth. This film is THAT bad.
But no. Tis' the season to be Jolly. And Jolly you will not be after sitting through this film. The whole thing is like a Star Wars brainstorm throwing experimental story-lines together very haphazardly. Its really the acting and use of the characters that let this film down.
If you are reading this, you have probably watched the film. And you also know who should still be alive or dead, and who should have faced off against who.
what a complete letdown and as every other real review says... not inspiring enough to want to watch the next one.
its got all the letdowns of a Doctor Who Xmas special.
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I think this is my first ever review but I generally love Star Wars so much that I had to vent and express my deep frustrations with this one.
After the decent Force Awakens and Rogue One (that Darth Vader scene in the last 10 min is epic!), I was ridiculously excited to watch this one. So, I went to see it the day it was released at midnight... and since then with every passing day, I get more and more angry at Rian Johnson and Disney. The Force is for SALE, clearly because this movie was made for kids and almost had nothing to do with Star Wars. It could have been a Marvel movie (no offense!) or any other blockbuster.
I will start with the things that made me cringe/hate it:
1. That scene with Luke Skywalker and the milk - Only a 5 year old would laugh at this
2. Poe Dameron being a stupid trigger-happy halfwit troll whose main lines in the movie were (Heeeeey, buddy!!!!). That scene in the beginning where he's trolling Hux was a horrible, it was forced humour and not in the right place of the movie. Way to destroy a decent character!
3. Princess Leia flew in space without a suit/mask...and survived - I mean, come on, is this a Superman movie?!?? We all know that she also feels the Force but flying in space?!?! That was a horrible decision. It was the perfect opportunity for them to kill off Princess Leia, to give Carrie Fisher are dignified exit and to make the storyline more interesting instead they decided to make her fly in space using the Force. No! No! No!
4. The entire scene at the Monte Carlo-esque planet with the anti-capitalist undertones. It was pointless with shitloads of Jar-Jar Binks type characters that didn't look like they belonged to the Star Wars universe and generally it was just pointless
5. Everything that they made Luke Skywalker say and do - see the milk scene reference above, him throwing away the lightsaber, the diminishment of the Jedi
6. The new character Rose - she had ZERO chemistry with Finn, who's supposed to be her love interest. Also, she's the most annoying character in the Galaxy, a super-eager school girl type. So bad, so bad. Not sure if the actress is bad or whether they made her act like that but it just makes you cringe all the time she opens her mouth.
7. All of the kids that were needlessly injected in the movie to create mass and kids appeal of the movie and everything else that was made to sell merchandise like the Rebel Alliance ring symbols, etc, etc.
8. The plot - it was just absolutely mindless - what they couldn't think of anything better than the resistance fighters evacuate their base when a First Order trakcs them, the First Order pursues them and fires at them until their shields go down, the resistance fighters escape, the First Order tracks them again?!!?! Seriously Rian Johnson, seriously?
9. Snoke - so, for more than 2 years we've been waiting for find out who Snoke is. He was supposed to be more powerful than the Emperor, more powerful than Darth Vader, etc,etc. Omg, not only that he does nothing but he's a galactic Hugh Heffner character prancing around in his super expensive robe for about 5min of the entire movie. Not to mention that he gets killed off almost without a fight while we're being told that he can read minds. Bad writing again. This was such a missed opportunity.
10. It simply didn't feel like a Star Wars movie and I wanted to cry
And if you're still reading my rant, I will now outline the small bits that I liked:
1. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are doing a good job with what they're given in terms of lines and that storyline is not bad but they should have just focused on that.
2. I liked the fact that Kylo Ren turning to the bad side was all a matter of perception. This was a very real and good writing because in daily life everything is about perception and the same people can see the same situation completely differently (Ahem, I'm sure many people will love this Star Wars movie :) )
3. I like the scene with Rey confronting her multiple selves. That was cool and dark and they should have focused more on that.
4. That white (salt) planet was visually stunning combined with the red dust/crystal that was underneath.
So, to sum it up, I liked about 20mins of a two and half hour movie. It's just so sad that all of the decent foundations that J.J Abrahms built were undone with this one.
I know this is just a movie but I love Star Wars and my personal moral beliefs are really close to the Jedi ones, so it's just really, really upsetting to have it destroyed.
TLJ sits very close to the prequels to me. I consider them and this a non-Star Wars movie.
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Why are so many reviewers on IMDB expressing disappointment?
Did these people not watch Jar Jar Abrams' The Force Awakens?
Did these people not know Disney's legacy as bad remake/reboot specialists?
Did these people not know Disney penchant for creating demand for Disney Store and catering to pre-teens (who drag along their parents)?
Having suffered through the cloned script and bad amateur actors of TFA who in his right mind would think the cast and crew would suddenly turn brilliant, defy the accounting department's Kathleen Kennedy and release a Star Wars that is a beacon of hope, dignity and entertainment?
Directors like Rian and Jar Jar and anyone associated with Disney are after the money but not willing to put in any integrity or continuity. Star Wars legacy?? It is like saying peace and love from Israel!
This episode was trite and made things easy by not explaining anything, but oh the Disney one-liners were intact!
This film was a dare by Disney that even was in-your-face with an honest title and yet people still horded into cinemas like obedient sheep.
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This movie doesn't feel like Star Wars to me. The original trilogy was a pulp adventure series in space. It had a light tone and an empathic main character that grew throughout every movie. The secondary character were more stereotypes with a twist: the careless Han Solo who always care in the end, the pretty princess who are really a badass. Even the villain, Darth Vader was ultimately not really evil.
The Last Jedi tries very hard to follow this style, only it fails because it doesn't understand why these choices worked. The end result is that the messages the movie tries to convey get lost, and even turned on their head. This can even be something so banal as a character(Rose) flat out saying how it important it is saving what you love just as she in actuality prevents Finn from actually saving everyone by sacrificing himself. This is simply bad storytelling and it is everywhere in this movie. So you have this on the nose exposition of themes only for it to be undermined at any point. If saving some race horse-like animals is important, then why not try to save the slave children that attend them too?
Theres a theme of failure, but we aren't really shown characters experience any failure with any emotional impact. And they don't learn much either. Luke has apparently failed Ben Solo and rejected the jedi and the force, but for some reason he is completely turned around by a quick conversation from yoda, that failure can be the greatest teacher. He then burns down the jedi tree as a symbol of destroying the past. Why didn't Yoda appear before and do that? Because it's just convenient storytelling and reason is thrown out the window.
The only constant in TLJ is this attempt to twist expectations, almost to the point of becoming meta where the movie could be interpreted to answer fan expectations the same way. Kylo tells Rey that her parents are nobodies and that is supposed to be really horrible for her to hear. But why would she care about her parent's social status? It's almost as if the movie directs this to the fans to answer their speculations. Rey would care about finding out information about her parents. And what kind of message is that to the audience? Where the intended message is that she can be great even if you are no one, or something along that line. But the result is that the message is that if your parents are nobodies then you are a nobody(even if it doesn't matter). All due to poor storytelling and lack of human understanding. It's mind boggling. I could write a book about moments like this.
In the end the story don't progress. Nothing really happens and the movie ends without pointing or setting up anything to look forward to. We are at the exact same spot where the move began. A few man down is all.
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Way too much going on. Too much humor. Too much political agenda. Too much forced sentimental moments. Too many failed artsy shots that didnt seem to be star wars style shots. Too many wasted characters who shouldn't have even been introduced in the first place. Wasted moments. Weird scenes that didn't fit in the universe. Disappointing dialogue.
Cant we just get back to classic good vs evil in space?
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Star wars TFA was a huge disapointmen, but aftre watching Rogue One which was a decent movie i had hopes that TLJ is going to be better it was the longest movie they had so many chances to repair episode 7 to write a story which makes sens so that we mayby look from a different angle on Ep. 7 and not this wihtout soul.
They dont care about storytelling anymore which was the best part of star wars, and creating complex caracters nothing really makes sens they destroeyd ewrything. I really miss George Lucas I am traying to foregt this there are only 6 movies...
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2/10
Cool Effects and Elements. Horrible Second installment.
I left the theater thinking this movie was a pretty fun ride but I just don't understand why it wasn't cohesive to TFA? The force awakens created new characters with so much to build on and honestly, I think TFA set this movie up for success. However, this movie completely ignored Starwars elements. It was almost if Rian Johnson never saw a star wars film before including the Force Awakens. He just ignored everything Abrams built. I love all star wars even most of episode one but this felt more like a Sci-Fi action film than a star wars film. I think visually it was amazing and the acting was pretty solid. I was okay with Luke being depressed but to the point where he never redeems himself as the hero we loved was a big slap in the face to fans of star wars and Mark Hamil who agreed he didn't like the way they wrote his character. Why wouldn't you listen to Mark Hamil? Look the movie had some amazing battle scenes like the bomber scene in the beginning and the Crait planet but does that mean it was a good movie that made sense as the second installment of the trilogy? No, it doesn't. The Fans are not gonna get everything they want nor should they cause we all have different opinions but to just ignore everything Abrams created in the first movie was really disrespectful. BIG TIME SPOILERS AHEAD>
So here are a few things that TFA left us with that should have set this movie up for an amazing story. Rey's parents, The Knights of Ren, Maz Katana, Snoke, Kylos Lightsaber, Luke receiving the Light Saber at the end, Kylo's training Snoke hinted at to complete his journey to the Darkside, Finns Health, and of course Poe Dameron's journey in this. This movie didn't care for any of this or creating any cohesion what so ever with The Force Awakens.
Snoke, although we didn't need to know who he was or why he came to being (we didn't know about Sidious in the originals) he was a major part of the first movie. His character allure that people loved, was just decimated for no real purpose other than to make Kylo seem a little more "conflicted". He created a link between two people which was new to the force world which was a cool element to this movie but he is simply killed by a lightsaber he couldn't detect 2 inches from him? He seemed extremely powerful in the force yet failed to witness the light saber next to him? That's just bad writing. I didn't care he died honestly it's just how he died that made little sense. Reys Parents you know I didn't mind that her parents were just nobodies it didnt bother me but what did was when she went down into the "darkness" on the Island that could have giving her and the fans some closure it ultimately just led to her feeling sad looking at herself. How cool would it have been to show her nobody parents leave her in a cruel way and her have to face that? Nope let's just have that moment instead it lead to nothing. That could have been an amazing turn for her character similar to when Luke is on Dagobah and has to face the "darkness" in the tree. They just didnt care to develop their characters other than Kylo which i liked alot in this film. FINN just wakes up as a funny joke walking through the halls with no development of his character even though it was suspenseful and meaningful in the last movie. Finn then runs into another character who I don't mind at all but it all seemed like it was forced and ultimately for nothing. Both of them were led to the casino scene which was really cool with all these different creatures some cute, some ugly, some interesting I loved it but it was all for nothing and that made it fall flat. Maz who was a really cool character from the first film gets a 30-second silly hologram scene tells Finn they have to meet this expert code breaker on this rich planet because he is the only way to get into snokes ship. So, once they get there they see the expert code breaker who btw looks like a really cool debonair type character I was excited for but he gets only 10 seconds of airtime cause they get caught which makes everything leading up to that point completely useless because it leads to nothing important to any of the characters development or the stories development. Which led to another character who could have been a cool anti hero but failed to develop into anything of interest. Waste of time for the audience and the characters. Look I can go on and on about how this film ignored the other film entirely or how it really ignored major factors from other star wars movies. This movie had some amazing scenes like the throne room and the space fights but it failed to develop the characters that Abrams created completely.
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There are three reason why anyone would leave anything above a one star rating for The Last Jedi and here they are as follows. Either the individual has no idea what makes a good film, the individual has been paid off by someone to state that this movie is anything other than complete garbage, or finally, the individual is not an individual at all, but rather a bot programmed to post five star reviews to help push Disney's destruction of the Star Wars legacy.
The problem is not just in the fact that The Last Jedi completely destroys what made Star Wars so great, but also in the fact that it is just a bad film, objectively. I mean, it is so bad that it makes the prequels seem good. I know this is being said a lot as of late, but that is literally what I was thinking as I watched this abomination unfold. Boring story and storytelling, old characters being killed off without any real closure (Luke Skywalker), while others are all but completely omitted from the film (R2-D2, C-3PO). New characters added for no other reason than to push new Disney product (i.e. story books being sold at your local Wal-Mart). Feminism and political correctness being thrown in your face and don't even speak to me about the Leia in space scene.
I mean it truly felt like I was watching a parody of Star Wars. It was that bad. There is so much more to cover, but if what I'm telling you isn't enough, then I firmly believe that there is nothing that will stop you from seeing what will undoubtedly bring the Star Wars legacy to an absolute halt. I can firmly attest that I will never watch another Star Wars film for the rest of my life. Thanks Disney!
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It makes episode I look like a masterpiece. Except for a couple of ships, and ripped off scenes, it has nothing in common with original Star Wars. The plot is ridiculous, characters are lame, and the feminist and animal lovers agenda is forced down your throat throughout the whole movie.
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Just so much stupid stuff going on from bombs dropping in space, characters no one cares about, retarded slap stick comedy, Lukes and kylos story is not credible, dont even get me started on Leias flying around in space scene which is probably the worst ive ever seen..
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With Disney at the helm, the Star Wars IP is just a vehicle for selling merchandise. Those little bird things from Achto were probably all ready to go on shelves before the film was even complete.
Can we talk about the main plot point? The rebels are down to a single ship and the First Order's plan is just to wait for them to run out of gas? Give me a break.
The writing? Terrible. Full of unnecessary exposition just to cater to the lowest common denominator. When Holdo explains the shuttle escape plan, Poe repeats it back to the audience just in case we didn't comprehend it 5 seconds earlier...
I could go on, but it's not worth my time. 1 star.
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The only positive from this movie is gained from the visuals like the space battles but other than that the movie is just damned awful. Johnson completely got the character of Luke wrong which has left me getting angrier and angrier thinking about it as the days go by. My lasting memory of this movie unfortunately is that Leia space scene....What were Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy thinking? Kennedy seems more interested these days on diversity and which strong empowered women can we put here or there instead of actually making a good film. What a waste of the teasers Abrahms set up in TFA
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I was really looking forward to this film, after watching Force Awakens it just set up this film perfectly to answer all those teasing questions such as Reys heritage, snokes background and possible future and beautiful send off for Leia (Carrie Fisher), Lukes involvement and how the years have advanced his powers as a jedi master. But sadly I was hugely disappointed and let down by this instalment I don't feel I got anything I was expecting from a Star Wars film and let me make something perfectly clear to all those who see change or a fresh new look a good thing, when It comes to expectations from a franchise that you have grown up with a have a real deep love for this change is NOT a good thing in fact it is VERY BAD the only thing I could liken this bereavement of a film to is having your parents spit/divorce when you are a very young age yes I will eventually get over this but it is a deep scar in my memory to which will never fully heal. I was under a false illusion to believe everything would stay the same in my safe little space bubble when all of sudden my world has been torn apart and I can not do anything but carry the wound and hope I will become stronger for it. The next film has to be astronomically good to have any hope of repair and I know you had your reasons Rian but I do not think you are up to the task
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I can almost understand why TLJ was written and directed the way it was - it attempted to subvert the Hero's Journey by reversing the usual tropes, which is fine. However, if you're going to do that, whatever replaces it better be good. Several major characters die in this movie, and because they're dead, I don't really care to see Episode IX, because whoever survived doesn't resonate; none of them really learned from their respective failures, which is replete in this movie.
Luke, one of the the last links to the old SW franchise, undergoes a rather complete character reversal, to an aged version of himself prior to meeting Obi-Wan: he's immature, afraid, and apprehensive. It's like he never went to Dagobah, never met nor trained with Yoda, and forgot why he fought so hard to fix what his father started.
Why would he be afraid of Kylo Ren? Why would he be afraid to train Rey? Luke lost a hand, was almost seduced to the dark side, but faced down both Vader and Sidious and came out clean. His motivations in TLJ made no sense. Inconsistent character development.
Yoda makes a cameo appearance, as the giddy version of himself prior to revealing to Luke that he's the most revered Jedi Master in history. Fan service and inconsistent character development.
I joked with my brother (who thankfully paid for my ticket to TLJ) that since The Force Awakens is A Newer Hope, then TLJ would be The Discount Empire Strikes Back, and sadly, I wasn't too far off the prediction. I disliked TFA because there was no tension, and I equally dislike TLJ because the tension was manufactured.
The entire subplot with Finn and Rose could have been excised, had Holdo told Poe what her plans are from when she assumed command. She could have said "I plan to use this command ship as bait, so let them track us"; had she said that, Finn and Rose would have no obligation to go to Canto Bight, and everyone could have been more helpful to continue the ruse, which would have made it a more compelling movie. Manufactured tension.
The unevenness of the technology was also jarring: The First Order can track Resistance ships though light speed (something that several characters remarked was nigh impossible/extremely difficult to achieve), yet they did. However, they then fail to close up the remaining distance to finish the job, resulting in the slowest dogfight in the history of galactic warfare. They'd rather take pot shots from behind, rather then send off their massive fleet of Tie fighters to surround the command ship. Manufactured tension.
TLJ suffers from an existential crisis, unable to decide whether to be a Marvel clone with scattered humour that destroys the tone of the movie, or a serious SW entry that tried (and failed) to build upon what's already known. One can almost see Rian's brain spinning in this ("I want to please the Disney investors, but I also mustn't upset the punters), so he released this garbled mess, complete with merchandise tie-ins (Porgs are 2017 Ewoks.)
Disney gifted Rian with another trilogy after this; I think I'll wait to rent those rather than pay full admission.
p.s. Leia does her best impression of Superman in this movie; it's a shame she didn't fly faster, because she could have reversed time.
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Having read spoiler free reviews here on IMDB and reviews from critics I tried to go into the cinema openmineded. That means I already knew this film was going to be really different from TFA. I didn't particulary like TFA because of it's onoriginality, so when I heard that TLJ would be wholy different, I actually looked forward to see it.
When I saw the opening credits, that feeling when you get when you watch a Star Wars movie got to me again.
I liked the first ten minutes of the movie, but after that it went downhill for me. Some scenes just felt out of place, others felt to long and my biggest problem is how easy things went, like it wasn't really well thought trough or something. I know it's Star Wars, Science Fiction and all that, but at least in the OT we saw Luke training with Yoda and his skills actually improving. In this movie and the last, Rey can just use the force without a proper training from Luke en is suddenly a skilled combat fighter.
Other points that bothered me:
Who the hell was Snoke? Like how could he be so powerfull? It was just like the director tought let's kill the bad guy to make Kylo Ren more interesting (missed a backstory!)
Hologram Luke. There has been written a lot about this character. And I understand the whole 'giiving the torch to a younger generation'. thing. But for Luke to go out in a way like that? He didn't really fight (exept for a matrix move) Plus suddenly he was a hologram. He didn't go off the Island for the whole movie. That really dissapointed me.
Rose/ Admiral Holdo: These characters felt rushed and I didn't really feel for them. Rose just felt like a fillerromance for Finn. And Holdo.. Why didn't she tell anybody about her plan? And that self sacrifice thing. Couldn't somebody like General Ackbar do someting like that, a character we actually know more than one movie? That scene wouldv'e made it so much more emotional. Now I was like 'oh okay'.
Yes I could talk about Leia floting in the air, the jokey overall tone, the underused Captain Phasma, or the Facetime scenes with Rey and Kylo. But I also enjoyed parts of the movie. Like I said I liked the first ten minutes, the character DJ (altough the whole betrayal twist was again poorly written) Poe Dameron, and it was good seeing Yoda again, altough him burning Jedi books felt a bit weird to me.
Overall, it's an unbalanced movie and I think the scenario is the number one problem (because the actors aren't that bad)
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Pluses: Mark Hamill's acting and special effects.
Minuses: chaotic plot and LOADS of quite blunt (if not primitive) feminist/animal rights/anticapitalist propaganda.
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It's just a really bad movie. It's too long, too slow, the plot makes no sense. The jokes are ridiculous, there are some sentimental scenes where I felt really uncomfortable and was thinking about leaving the cinema. One positive part, Adam Driver is a good actor and he does a great job, but even with that, the movie is not working.
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If they had congressional hearing into baseball doping...they need to investigate why reviews for this are so high. I just scoured comments here and looked at several *hundred* negative reviews...and found 2 positive ones. But it still has a 7.7? I've heard reviewers defending their reviews saying that bots account for a swath of the negative reviews...but I think it's the other way around.
There are several likable scenes...and the movie *looks* amazing....but it's not a good movie. Mediocre at best. That's the last time I will rush out to watch a Star Wars movie.
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Disney paid George Lucas 4 billion for the rights to Princess Leia and the right to re-brand Star Wars specifically for girls. I can't think of any other famous movie princess Disney did not already own prior to the Star Wars acquisition.
This movie is nonsensical socialist propaganda garbage. The anti-hero/hero meditates his way to final victory. Plot threads that go nowhere, a purple haired LGBT character. It was all so stupid. Did Finn not put enough African Americans in theater seats or sell enough toys? Because you ruined him in this movie.
Was this even a movie? It really felt like more of an agenda. Disney should be ashamed and Rian Johnson should never be allowed to direct a movie (any movie) ever again.
Will not pay to see this twice. Once was a rip off. Will not attend with friends or take my kid to see this garbage. After a 40 year love affair I am done with Star Wars and will do my best to make sure everyone knows this move was socially engineered garbage.
Go to hell Disney/Rian Johnson.
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2/10
Totally breaks with The Force Awakens (Spoiler Free)
There are some good things. There are some cool visuals, most of the acting is decent, and there are two or three interesting scenes.
The plot is a total disaster. They completely destroyed the characters introduced in The Force Awakens. Kylo Ren is the only interesting character left. The plot is terrible with just nothing of interest. It's incredibly boring and dull. Every time it gets to a point in the plot where there is a change in direction the movie consistently picks the most underwhelming and uninteresting direction to go in. The subplots are kind of at odds with each other and downright contradictory with the main plot. The lazy writing just has characters describing things that happened rather than showing you. You get the impression at the time that the camera is showing you what's happening on the back burner and the real action is off the screen.
I liked The Force Awakens and loved Rogue One. I bought copies of both movies and saw both multiple times in theaters. But this movie manage to completely ruin the trilogy and I honestly don't see how JJ fixes this in IX. I won't be seeing it again or buying it.
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Well suddenly I see it clearly movies are not there to entertain now and give to the viewer. They are hear to take. Disney not only pumping up the price compared to everyone else. They have taken Star Wars and turned it into a money churner and not the story we all loved. I see so many 1 or 10 reviews for me its not a 1 nor a 10 so I give it 5. Why well I saw so much bad reviews I thought I would not enjoy and actually I did for the most part. Seeing the first one in 77 in a cinema I feel part of the fabric of Star Wars followers. But now what I loved is gone to setup for 4 more movies. Sure this was going to happen but it felt cheap. (Spoilers from now on) Problems:
1. What is the point of Skywalker vanishing? Now nothing is left for me to watch anymore.
2. Give me a break with these porgs Jar Jar again pfft such a silly thing I mean nesting in the falcon OMG.
3. Cantobite sub plot needed yes but really there was no need to Tran.
Overall I was with this movie maybe a 8 till the ending. Probably worse than Seinfeld and that is saying something. Thanks for a great movie well mostly.
But Bye Bye Disney you have gone to the darkside.
Side note Rey, Kylo, Luke and Lei were outstanding. What a battle. I liked Luke's character right to the end its a shame really.
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I have given this 4 stars because the tension and character build between Rey & Kylo that was instigated by Snooke was amazing, a new twist to the force that worked incredibly well.
However, the Director completely destroyed Luke Skywalker as a character, Completely threw away the brilliant foundations the JJ Abrams set up in the force awakens, and was just completely let down by this episode.
The entire casino scene was ill advised and not needed.
I was looking forward to this so much, i had high hopes after the force awakens and rogue one as i enjoyed them and they felt true to the star wars model. This however, falls way short, i think the director was at fault for this and did not stay true to the star wars ethos.
severely disappointed
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Absolutely lame. In my mind the worst SW movie made. Sad way to end the franchise unless of course this pile of junk is forgotten and they start again. Definite Disney influence focussing on the 7 to 12 year olds. Horrible direction, over the top acting, rediculous scenarios.
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1/10
A movie made by the Dark side to generate anger and negativity
Unfortunately, this movie was not simply bad. It's much, much worse than that.. it was an outright insult to Luke's character and Star Wars as a whole.
At best, it was a parody.
But I will go as far as saying that Disney&co possibly intentionally wanted to generate anger and backlash... by the misleading trailers, by not following up on the good plots from the force awakens....and most importantly by destroying almost everything that made Star Wars as fascinating as it was...
They turned Luke into not only a failed Jedi master but also a monster who considered murdering the young son of his beloved twin sister, all this while Ben was sleeping! Really? I would say that this moment was the biggest sin of this movie, beside the many other issues, because it killed the very essence of Star Wars. No Jedi master would have EVER considered doing anything like that, no matter what. But sure, they had to that with Luke, who saw the good even in Darth Vader. Also, we all know that Luke would have never abandoned her sister like it was portrayed in the force awakens. He loved her way more than that.
If they so much wanted to do something totally different now, they could have just left out Luke entirely and respect the legacy of the original trilogy. But oh, I get it, Mark surely was needed to attract more audience.
And what this movie offered as a better alternative to the failed Jedi order? They made Ben saying that let the past die, kill it, if you have to" or something like that. This is just AWFUL. Especially as he is not even a real villain.
Oh and Miss Perfect, who comes from nowhere, done almost no Jedi training, yet she is ever more powerful, and she is always at the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. Her character is ruined and frustrating (and I'm saying this as a woman).
Then there was also that love nonsense with Rose and Finn at the end. So what was the message here? To let everyone and everything around you die just to save the life of your crush you've just met? (She couldn't know about Luke coming to the rescue) So, really??? I agree with those who say that Rose's character is much worse than Jar Jar was..
And the list is long. Which is a petty also because there were a few great scenes as well... or at least you were led to think so.
Going into this movie, i had no expectations at all. I didn't watch any single trailer or speculation or anything. I only found out later how misleading the trailers were. I was open for something good to happen. But even 4 days after seeing this shit, I'm still in turmoil. And in pain..
At the very least, this movie makes me embrace and appreciate Star Wars, as it was, even more. THIS WAS NOT A STAR WARS MOVIE, that's for sure.
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Everyone has already said everything there is to say about how bad this piece of trash movie is, So I will just say that I myself am one of the thousands who were insulted and let down by how Rian Johnson has dismantled characters and story lines that fans from around the world have loved all their lives, and in their stead, replaced them with sad, disjointed and pathetic versions of themselves, all in the name of "going in a new, fresh directions that hasnt been done before in the SW universe".
Which translates to - He made his own SW movie, not for the fans, but for himself, so that he could impress Disney and Kennedy and the war machine that has now become Lucasfilm LTD, and show them that, like Kylo says, "let the past die, kill it if you have to", and make a movie for the sometimes fan, and not the die hards.
SW for the millenial generation basically.
People who would rather have a cheap laugh and a dumb joke, rather than a good story and intriguing dialogue and characters.
And in place of those things, prefer visuals & hack jokes for their ant sized attention spans, to keep them satisfied and wanting more, until the movie is over and they can return to their "real" lives on Social Media, making and exchanging giffs and memes, etc.
The most shocking thing Ive read so far from is from someone who said "I loved this movie because I actually understood it and didnt have to watch any of the other star wars movies that I havent seen to know what was going on".
To some that equates to success, to me, it is complete and utter failure on so many levels.
The rad thing about star wars to me, has been that it has always been something I could look to have in common with someone, and in that way, we both knew and could discuss what it meant to us and why we loved it.
A "secret handshake" of sorts if you will.
And yes, I know and am completely aware of how commercial and global SW is, but for fans of the lore and the expanded universe, its been something we could hold in high regard and esteem and share it with other like minded people who were also passionate about it and wanted to believe in what they stood for to us.
Now The Last Jedi has turned SW into a slap stick, fart joke, logic-less mess, with things happening that dont feel like star wars and dont feel like what Ive believed in my whole life.
Which seems ironic to me, seeing that Force Awakens had to be re-written and shoot numerous times to make it "feel" like a star wars movie.
Same with Rogue One, but way more so.
And they already got rid of the guys who were directing Solo, due to "creative differences".
Same with the director for episode 9.
So to tell all those people they werent making movies that felt like SW, but to let rian johnson have & keep this garbage of a movie, despite huge re-shoots The Last Jedi had to undergo aswell, is just an insult.
Gareth Edwards would have made such a stellar movie if he wrote and directed it.
Hell, Lucas would have made a masterpiece compared to what is the Last Jedi.
This is what happens when people who's only agenda is to turn a profit make decisions, instead of people who actually want something palpable and sustainable.
The Dark Side that is Disney and Rian Johnson have won, its a sad day for the Rebellion and legions of True Fans.
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The Last Jedi - 5/10.
Amazing special effects + cinematography and GREAT character development for Rey and Kylo, with a few actually comedic moments. The Porgs were cool.
It tried so desperately to be funny, so many one liners thrown in, so much over comedic story and it didn't work - it felt so forced. The first hour and a half could have been condensed by so much, and there was a lot of needless parts. There were a few nice twists but so many new characters so I was unable to get attached to any, and it was so cluttered. Very underwhelmed.
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If you are of an age to have fallen in love with the originals then keep away from this. It is a ghastly "frankenstein" of all the bits of the originals that made us fall in love with them. Stitched together by a grim determination to make a quick buck or two: Poorly timed attempts at humour, atrocious acting, 'life wisdoms' clumsily thrust down your throat, bizarre diversions into minor-character side-plots, vacuous scenes of 'self-exploration', clumsy dialogue... The actual pain kicked in when a young girl - deserted for days on a clump of rock to learn an esoteric religion from an old hermit - seems to meticulously re-apply her make up each morning. Why? To empower women? To teach the little people the power of makeup? She is plenty-pretty already.
What they got right: They pleasantly introduced some technological advancements in the 30-some years between the two eras. Snoke was semi-interesting. Finally, Kylo Ren was above average.
But these are minor points. Hence I gave it 2 / 10.
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Never in my life I left a review for a movie, but this one is so disrespectful to all episodes in the history that I have to comment on this movie. I grew up with the movies back in the 80's and know every storyline by heart.
What I have seen now makes me very very sad :-( It manages to make all previous parts and saga of the force into a ridiculous believe (instead of adding a little bit of humor to the story).
Furthermore I have never ever heard a political correct statement (casino, guns scene Benicio del Toro) in a Star Wars movie ! This is ridiculous and should never be allowed. And then I can write 2 more books about everything that is wrong about this movie. From the technical point of views as in the story line. A whole movie about chasing another ship ?? Really the most worse story you can come up with :-(
I've waited two years for this movie.......you can even say 25 years after the return of the Jedi. I was so relieved to see the good start with the force awakens.......and now this crappy bad quality sequel. It made me really sad.
I think its save the say this was my last movie after 30 years........
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Wow... What a mess! The first 20 minutes, I was feeling very embarrassed for everyone on screen... Everything was so cringeworthy, looking and sounding like Mel Brooks Spaceballs... Then, I finally let go. I felt like laughing every 5 minutes.
This movie is close to what I would imagine a Star Wars movie to be if somehow producers had asked Luc Besson to do a reboot. It's basically a parody of episode V and VI. The Fifth Element meets Spaceballs really. In a way, this movie is amazing. It fails in a way I hadn't imagined possible. I had imagined a Star Wars made by Luc Besson, but I never thought I would actually see something as close to this concept being done. I always assumed some respect towards the franchise. But, here, it really feels as a tasteless practical joke directed at George Lucas or Star Wars fans.
Thinking about it, maybe the producers and director were trying to aim at Serenity's Josh Whedon type of cool smartass nerdy attitude... except without the "smart" part and the "cool" part feeling so faked. If that's the case, it's a stupid decision. But whatever they tried to achieve, it failed horribly.
The nerdy part is present in a distasteful way : those jedis feel like they're straight out of a video game. They're basically semi-gods, uber powerful; special fx can do anything, so let's just do anything. It's like making a movie based on the game "The Force Unleashed". I understand the point in a video game, as players enjoy feeling all powerful. But in a movie, it's just totally dumb; you're totally disconnected with the characters, you're not worried for them ever, as you know the Force will save them from anything. There are no rules, no limitation, anything is possible. So why would you care?
Kudos to the actors. I don't know how they could keep a straight face through all this. They do their best to be believable in an unbelievable movie.
Not everything is utterly( bad. Visually, the movie is often stunning, if you set aside the different cartoony CGI creatures and the atrocious digital Yoda. Some shots are actually truly epic. But I didn't appreciate them as I should have, as I had been probably laughing just before and just after. It cheaply uses settings that are reminiscent to the previous movies, but well, that's really not the worst this movie does.
This movie is worse than episode VII perhaps, but once you get past this grotesque failure, it becomes way more entertaining than episode VII. Ep VII failed as a souless poorly written generic copy of a poorly understood Star Wars IV. This one fails as a grandiose parody. It's very close to being the "Batman and Robin" of the Star Wars franchise.
Maybe it's time for producers to let go (and for Star Wars movie production to end). Star Wars should rest in peace now. It died with Episode VI a long time ago, in this very galaxy.
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And I'm not against a change of pace for the films. I loved the bleakness apparent in Rogue One. And I even really like TFA - I didn't realise it was getting so much hate.
But this is just bad. Terrible script, inappropriate comedy, bad acting and sub plots so pointless I actually considered walking out. All the questions asked of various characters from TFA are just thrown to one side and not a single character is developed with any real finesse. Backstory... what? That would take screen time away from Po cracking another gag!
I hear JJ is back for Ep9. I'm struggling to see how he can rescue this now.
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While i went in the theater without any background info, and expecting to have a fun time, i got annoyed probably first minutes allready: totally ridiculous scene with some attempt to humor, after some special effects but nothing that can really capture the feeling of "magic fairytale (in space)" that the first movies had.
so this feeling is totoally absent. the story in itself quite quickly becomes boring actually. there is not one character i can relate to
gone are days of Vader, the ultimate bad-ass
now we have some woman.... the boss of rebel fleet: woman; commander of fleet: woman: jedi knight: woman; then there is another woman running around in a mega boring plot evolving a casino - whic is, in a timeframe totally impossible
**rebel fleet has 18 minutes of fuel and are feeling with cruisers on top of them - byt the black guy and the chinese girlcan calmly fly off to a casino where we get some political lessons on weapon sales - and get jailed, escaped and back to the fleet - still all in the same condition --- utter crap**
this SJW mentality completely permeates this movie. in all star wars movies, this defintely is the worst one.
the previous one i simply didnt finish, it was also supremely boring, but it had less social-cultural boredom onboard.
this is the end of the series, it became politically correct en unimaginative
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When the credits rolled all I was left with was; how did they screw this up so badly?
The last episode practically wrote it for them with the vast amount of expanded fiction and fan ideas provided fertile ground for great storytelling, yet the direction seemed to reverse everything inherited from TFA and completely ignore this.
Despite the really bland storytelling, ill concieved plot and several unnecessary subplots there are multiple occasions in this film where the Director seems to totally suspend the laws of physics in order to continue the plot leaving me (and other audience members) quite literally face palming.
I'm sure most of you have already read the goofs section but I can't believe that glaring errors like this were allowed to remain in the final edit.
Not dying instantly in the vacuum of space aside; the last straw for me was when leia comes through the door without decompression within the ship and it conveniently cuts to the next scene.
This tells me they knew it wasn't done well but thought the audience would buy it any, a microcosm for the entire film.
Adding to this; the murderous turn Lukes charecter takes and then his predictable redemption arc, again to suit the messy plot, the entire film felt foolish and quite frankly a slap in the face from the Director.
Furthermore what truly worries me is the disparity between the "professional" critics and the audience.
Star wars belongs to everyone not just fans, Disney or the Director and if I were young again discovering Star Wars through this episode I really wouldn't be bothered with it at all. If this installment was aimed solely at small children who don't yet know about gravity, heroism and who love the sound of a porg screaming every few minutes, it was a resounding success.
Honestly unless you really must watch every SW episode I would miss this one out entirely as it just comes across as a very poor attempt to use the universe, characters and themes we love and respect as a financial unit.
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I've debated writing another negative review of this movie as there are so many out there already. However, the more I think about the more I feel compelled to write this as I believe that Disney don't care about the soul of Star Wars and instead have stripped away the mythos of Star Wars (the Jedi, the Force etc) in order to make movies indefinitely until they have milked the cow. Star Wars should have stopped at three movies and left the rest to our imaginations.
Firstly, I don't understand how so many people love this movie. Even objectively as a sci-fi/action movie it is mediocre. This is the plot of the movie:
Space battle
Rey/Luke "training" (no training actually occurs)
Space chase
Pointless side plot espousing how evil the 1% are (not that I disagree, but this was ham fisted)
Last stand on a salt planet
If this seems pretty threadbare, that is because it is. To add to this there are a lot of dumb scenes that people would complain about if it wasn't a Star Wars movie:
Bombs in space falling like bombs in gravity
Leia Mary Poppins scene (she was unconscious and how the hell didn't everyone else not get sucked out into space once they opened the door to let her in)
Holdo not telling anyone her plan (how is this good leadership?)
Rey being more powerful in the Force with no training (Anakin was an immaculate birth and was the chosen one and yet he was pretty average with the Force after years of training)
Rey being a better fighter than Snoke's guards who would have been training their whole lives (Rey is at best a raw street fighter + remember Luke was pretty useless at hand to hand combat after a week of knowing about the Force like Rey)
Rose crashing into Finn and them not being blasted into smithereens while travelling back to the base (they got back pretty quickly too)
Mediocre humour used at inappropriate times (some of the humour was good though)
Captain Phasma and Snoke utterly wasted
The main travesty though is what they have done to the mythos of Star Wars:
It isn't consistent with the standards of the universe as set by the previous movies
The Jedi while flawed were interesting and are an integral part of Star Wars. I truly hope ghost Luke actually trains Rey in IX to be an actual Jedi
The Force can't be mastered so easily. Hundred of generations of Jedi had to train for decades to display the proficiency that Rey does in mere days. Anakin was an immaculate birth via the Force and the chosen one and took almost a decade to be 10% as proficient as Rey.
Disney don't care about the core of Star Wars - they care about money. If they released this exact same movie and it wasn't Star Wars it wouldn't make close to the money it will make and the critics reception would be far less positive. Disney are setting this up so they can make an infinite amount of films (until the cow is well and truly milked) and to do that they have to make the Force more accessible and far easier to master as the current audience don't have the patience to wait for three movies for the protagonist to master the Force and to not be a useless liability,
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As a long time Star Wars fan I was left confused after leaving the theater and since then as the days have gone by I find myself hating it more and more. The plot holes, the blatant political statements, and complete disrespect for the lovers of the Star Wars series are just a few of the many problems with this film. While admittedly the movie looks very good and not everything about is the absolute worst, in its entirety the film is almost like a shot to the head for anybody who enjoyed what Star Wars used to be.
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A long long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away)
I can still remember how
That story used to make me smile
And I knew if I had a cape
That I could give those people an escape
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But December made me bummed
When social media gave the sum
Backlash on the doorstep
I soon lost all of my pep
I can't remember if I cried
When I saw Hamill, post-premiere, so wide-eyed
Something touched me deep inside
The day the Star Wars died
So
Bye, bye Star Wars Franchise
Drove my Chevy to the movies but the movie was lies
And them good ole fans were dressed in costume and lights
Singin' this'll be the day that I cry
This'll be the day that I cry
Did you write this book of hate?
Why give Luke such a whimper of fate
Did the Mouse tell you so?
Why could you not let go of your own ego?
And tell a tale with some real soul?
Instead, you spewed a dog and pony show
Who cares if Rose loves Finn?
And their fruitless trip to ol' Canton?
The crowd had plenty of boos
You didn't follow ANY of the rules!
I was hoping to find out who was Snoke
Turns out he was a common bloke
But, we're to blame for giving a toke?
The day the Star Wars died
I started singin'
Bye, bye Star Wars Franchise
Drove my Chevy to the movies but the movie was lies
And them good ole fans were dressed in costume and lights
Singin' this'll be the day that I cry
This'll be the day that I cry
Should've known that Luke was alone
Reading what he said in the Rolling Stone
Mouse Puppet gave him little dignity
Sure, the landscapes were so serene
Made me feel like we were in dream
Then the silver faded off the screen
While the crowd was mesmerized
The Mouse King killed their beloved prize
He dazzled them with bells and whistles
So the Falcon couldn't run the Kessel
And while Lucas said his name is Paul
May the Farce stay between you all
And we lamented in the stadium's dark
The day the Star Wars died
We were singin'...
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1/10
Social Justice Wars results in sacrificing quality for money
This movie was just plain bad. It felt like a B-rate sci-fi film with the star wars label slapped on it. Everything about this movie was off, or illogical. Characters choices were disappointing and dumb. It is as if they cater this movie primarily to the remnants of Hilary's campaign, relying on social themes rather than quality.
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The problem is not that Last Jedi and Force Awakens are vastly inferior to the original films; it's that, without cynically piggybacking off the original films, there would be no reason for these movies to exist at all. Not only has Disney has subverted and disrespected the original films' themes and strongest character, the new characters are bland and unmemorable. And the central conflict is an incoherently plotted rehash of the Rebels-vs-Empire dynamic. Also, while I was initially excited by the return of the original films' aesthetics, the "traditional" Star Wars vibe has come to feel like a sad, bland recycling since it's in the service of bad storytelling. Star Wars has become a hollowed out shell and, based on the Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores, people are starting to notice. Here's hoping Disney will course-correct, though I'm not counting on it.
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3/10
Was this a meant to be a joke? When is the real movie coming out???
I paid for a dinner and move. Dinner was $91 and I give it a 7. Movie was at best a 3 only because of Mark Hamill's acting. This is a horrible movie with no depth or story. Terrible acting and over done Hollywood stuffing PC down our throats. Horrible, waste of time, bland, straight to video movie. My son said he would have preferred to stay home and catch up on sleep and my daughter could not stop saying how bad Disney movies have become. Only watch it so that yo know how bad a Star Wars movie can actually be and not even come close to the original three. We're considering not seen in the next Stars Wars because of this movie.
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A solid 2 out of 10 star wars movie.
They took out everything fun from fighting to exploration to cool characters and proudly replaced them with endless boring ppl, stories and social justice cancer.
Everyone who took part in producing this hollywood cancer is an a grade a hole.
Easily the worst movie of 2017 and the starwars series.
A true contender tho for the best boring social justice cancer movie.
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4/10
Episode IX better treat TLJ as a darkside dream to fix!
The only way to fix this movie is for JJ Abrams to treat it as Rey having a bad darkside dream and then Luke pulls her out of the hole on his island and continues training her. Seriously Rian J totally destroyed Luke, the first universal hero. Why? And Rey had been built up so much in TFA but she was diminished in this movie as well. I mean you have Luke and hardly a mention of what happened to Han! And to have Luke, Leia, Rey, Kylo and Snoke that's almost all you need for a great movie. Why do we need almost identical in time commitment stories about a runaway stormtrolper, Finn, and an x-wing pilot, Poe? I would have liked to see more Bala-Tik, heck he could have replaced that dang code breaker dude. We didn't need Rose or Holdo. Rian destroyed all that was built up in TFA also. Anyway a very disappointing movie, they could.have done so much more! Let the Rogue One director have some movies, he did great.
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4/10
Thank God for Rogue One, because the original is officially off the tracks!
I'll try to keep this spoiler lite. Let's start things off with a positive note: Benicio Del Toro was the best character in this movie. But he was a minor off shoot character, so that should tell you a bit about the rest of them.
Simply put, Rogue One, has raised the bar of what a Star Wars movie going forward should live up to. This movie is "prequel bad". You know pod races and not great acting kind of bad.
You want to like it, because new generation of heroes, like Rey, Fin and Poe are interesting characters. But suddenly there are new powers of the Force show up in the movie that seem like convenient plot elements to get writers out of a corner they painted themselves into. (Watch out for a couple of spoilers here) What new Force powers you might ask...oh like two Jedi's being able to talk to each other across millions of miles of space as if they are in the same room. Or being able to project yourself across a galaxy to fight a light saber duel. And the oddest one, being dead one second floating among debris in space and then flying like Superman back to the safety of your ship. Huh? (end spoilers)
I told my kids that no matter what the reviews are, when a Star Wars movie comes out I have to go check it out to see for myself. I just can't help myself. However after this movie, I don't think I'll worry about seeing the next installment, if there is one. And I won't be adding this to the collection any time soon on iTunes when it gets released either.
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The only thing this movie accomplishes is the destruction of the Star Wars universe through world breaking plot holes, and contrived deus ex machina moments.
Any time something takes place that would further a characters arc it is immediately undone in a gotcha reversal. The entirety of the previous 7 films is either destroyed on purpose, or completely ignored.
The movie also happens to be a post modernist deconstruction of western cultural norms. It is political propaganda through and through, and will age horribly because of this.
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Anybody who grew up loving the original star wars movies will have issue with this movie I think, I can verify this by saying that everyone of my generation who had an interest in Star Wars, generally thought the movie sucked.
My kids loved it, and there in lies the problem with Disney and making Star Wars movies. They are aiming then at a large audience of everywhere from 4 to 70. But they have yet to learn you cant aim something at all demographics.
But hey, it will earn them a couple billion, even if it was bad and disloyal to the star wars universe(and I say this without being a fanboi, just enjoy the movies).
I mean, so many holes and nuances in the movie, but none more than the Rebel fleet running away (yet again) this time down to just a handful of ships, that all can apparently outrun imperial star destroyers (because the rebel ships are more lightweight, in space....), and despite there only being 3 Rebel ships left at the end, running away from the multiple destroyers, the first order fighters are too scared to engage because the cruisers cant cover them from that range !!!!!
I was not looking forward to this movie ever since episode 7 disappointed me, though I was happy it was better than episodes 2 and 3 (wont even mention 1 for obvious reasons). But then I bought into the hype a couple months before the movie, but was oh so bitterly disappointed.
Unfortunately, I now hold out zero hope for episode 9.
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It was terrible!
I tryed to sleep in cinema during the movie. To sleep! When I watched Star Wars!
Perhaps you should watched it just for fun but not for money!
This movie is strange mix between comedy, parody and drama. No one actors playing, have not a scenario, no ideas, no charakters.
Bad guys are young boy with emotional problems and one Disneys cartoons personage
Maybe it is the worst episode.
Dont make a new episode please, try to think about legend, fans and history. Do you really want to hurt us?
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It's hard to overstate my frustration with this movie. Its just plain bad - the pacing is awful, the acting terrible, the lines cheesy as heck, plot holes galore. At least George Lucas could tell a story and get the pacing right, despite the obvious cheese.
Reasonable minds can disagree on the substance of the movie. For example, I HATE what they did with Luke. Others might like that they made him a cantankerous old kook, one of the most unlikable characters in any movie I've seen. That's merely opinion.
But substance aside, its like a child wrote this movie. I walked out feeling exactly the way I did after I took my kid to see the Nut Job. Just a dumb kids movie. The only reason people are even bothering to pick this movie apart, like they probably wouldn't with the Nut Job, is because this is STAR WARS.
I waited 30 years to see Luke back in action and he appears in this train wreck of a movie, chock full of a 2 hour long slow motion space chase, dumb horse-rabbit-kangaroo things, an AWFUL stuttering Benecio del Toro, cringe-worthy EXPOSITORY dialogue and meaningless side plots. And the fact that *spoiler* Luke was a hologram...how unbelievably pointless.
On the topic of expository dialogue and plot holes - Luke comes back, greets the resistance and walks out to pretend fight. Wouldn't he tell them - "Hey, I'm a hologram and I'm going out there to stall so you can get away," Instead of just walking out? But that wouldn't have been suspenseful, so instead, we need the cheesy and awful exposition from Poe about how Luke must be stalling. I remember I wrote a screen play in 8th grade, and it was loaded with this awful type of dialogue because I had no idea how else to tell the story. It's amateurish.
I sincerely miss George Lucas. Maybe he can buy back the rights to Lucas Film and redo this garbage.
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The nice thing about the original Star Wars was that the movie as NOT Disney - it was new, original - it was Lucas Films! Now what we saw on the screen were just "tears with sugar" - a set of very cliche scenes, very annoying and disappointing.
Although the movie is over 2 and half hours, I did not feel as any of the characters was developed. Rather there was more disappointment and annoyance even about the old known characters. It did not make me like any character and I could not understand what makes them act the way they did and why they have feelings they had.
Another annoying element of the movie was that the only reason why there was a positive chinese character is to give a big fat kiss into ... for chinese government to get the movie shown on the Chinese market. Really, I respect chinese people, but the thought that they are just buying the market entry with this trick ruins the movie.
They tried to make the movie funny at some points, people were laughing in the theatre, but those jokes were too cliche and did not feel natural.
Hope the Last Jedi was also the Last movie in this saga and they would stop torturing this wonderful old story.
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1/10
Watchable for Star Wars fans, shit for everyone else
I went into TLJ hoping for a great film and accepting of a mediocre film because at least it's Star Wars. Instead, I got a boring mess that was completely unenjoyable at times. Just watch it at home or not at all.
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1. Kasdan's script was there as an adequate sequel to the episode 7 (of which Kasdan was a main writer) which was to provide some of the rightful answers like the background of snoke, Rey, and Kylo.
2. Disney, especially Kennedy was hurt by the negative review of episode 7 on its similarity to episode 4 and the lack of 'new elements.'
3. Rian was hired to provide this 'fresh perspective' to the series.
4. The set-up in the episode 7 was firmly there, so there was not much room for Rian to prove himself as a capable director to secure his future in the mainstream Hollywood.
5. Meanwhile, some of the fan theories actually found out the secrets (although nobody will confirm this officially).
6. Emergency meeting held: whether to stick to the original script or to revise it (It could be possible that at this point, quite much of actual shooting had already been done--maybe the reason for the poor pacing and illogical plot problems?).
7.Here, Rian got his moment. He proposed much needed 'freshness:' Episode 7 was mediocre; it was just a copy of an old episode; new audience need a fresh start.
8. First of all, let's kill Snoke to make Kylo a main villain to break episode 7's set up of new master and apprentice plot (another copy of the original). Episode 7's negative reaction will continue if we follow the old convention of trilogy. It is too late to make Kylo turn to light side and kill Snoke in episode 9. Applause!
9. Second of all, we don't need some special lineage to make a main character. It's the 21st century! Democracy! Chances for all! Let's make Rey just a common person with a sad background! That's fresh indeed! Bravo!
10. Thus, Luke should not live on through this trilogy. "The past should be killed completely for a fresh start." Let's kill him in this episode. Break the legend to give more opportunities to ordinary brave souls in the new franchise! Good idea!
11. And here Rian comes up with more ambitions: how about we making this 'fresh start' thing real? New trilogy! No more comparison to Lucas's original trilogies! OMG!
12. So, we need a bridge to legitimize this new trilogy in episode 8 (which was Rian's only shot to the so-called 'canon' story). So he came up with this Casino planet with new set-up reflecting current situation of our time on this planet Earth. Oppressed vs oppressor, have vs have-nots, war vs peace!
13. The new protagonist is this boy who happens to meet legendary heroes of the Rebellion: Fin and Rose! Let's make the ending of episode 8 with this boy!
14. Plus, we need another Han Solo for this new trilogy! How about this broker/hacker of ambiguity between good and evil! Let's cast Del Toro! He will take care of this new boy!
15. Ok, then for this new trilogy, Rebellion must be ended, too! Sure, let's mix out new trilogy ideas with episode 8! Let the rebellion become just another myth in episode 9!
16. Last problem: how we will end this trilogy? we still need episode 9! Let's call J.J. again. He safely started this trilogy, he is sure to end this safely, too! Fantastic! We finally have this 'new start' for this old franchise! Rian, just begin writing right now!
Below are some additional comments:
1. The main problem was this. In the OT, at least George Lucas had this story structure fixed for episode 5 and 6 before employing other talented directors than himself. On the contrary, in this third trilogy, it seems that there was no fixed story structure for the entire trilogy or the producers agreed to demolish one to support a new franchise idea.
2. Rian should be ashamed. There are certain movies that audience want to see for themselves even though they already know the whole story like the Lord of the Rings. It is ok to twist stories to surprise audience in his previous low-budget movies. He was really good at this surprise part and people loved it. However, in a franchise like SW, you shouldn't try that cheap trick to twist a plot just to surprise. It is even worse if your intention is just to deny all the great fan theories. Even if you decided to boldly go, you could have done it in more respectful ways. but.. oh yes, you already have your own new SW trilogy!
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1/10
HOW DOES THIS MOVIE AND FORCE AWAKENS HAVE A HIGH RATING?!
There is no way critics rated this bullshit of a film so high without getting paid or bribed. Look at all the complaints of the audience. Ever since Disney bought the franchise, all the new movies (except Rogue One) ruined the Star Wars franchise. I cannot take Star Wars seriously anymore.
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So I am a massive Star Wars fan but this review is written at a critic of a film not as a fan. If you're a big fan I'm sure you'd of seen it already if you haven't then I will share some of the film in this review
I can completely get why people aren't particularly happy about this film as a 2nd part to a trilogy you expect it to move the story a long with a plot and too have learnt more then the previous film but in this case that's not so you could watch The Force Awakens and the last one whenever is is released and not have missed a thing
Casting is brilliant each character fits the roles perfectly it's just they've not been given anything to act too. I saw the midnight showing and came out un sure so i went back 3 days later and watched again. I'd say wait for it to come out on DVD not worth your hard earned money!
Back to the film... as Star Wars films go the new ones in my opinion are just dreadful but in this one is the worse put them all Leigh is alive and Luke is possibly dead ? Snoke this character we know nothing about (frustratingly) is supposed to be all evil and powerful and yet is killed by a simple trick? How does that work any previous Sith would never have been killed so easily or patheticly which is a rhythm throughout this film a lot of jokey pathetic ness
If you're looking for action there's plenty in it but that being said the pointlessness of it is consistently making luke a miserable sassy old man is a crazy move. Some random female admiral destroys a whole fleet of ships by going into them at light speed, Finn goes on a pointless mission which involves more pointless people, Leigh now has the force or some power?crazy scene? Reys amediate succesion within the force is laughable she's suddenly some power and we know nothing about her still? The audience has been teased with un resolved questions from the first of the new trilogy and they've not been answered which I think angers people rather then leaving on there seat
My good part to this is that it's action packed, and the character Kylo Renn is a great difference to the Star Wars world finally a conflicted villain not someone all powerful and evil who wants to destroy the world instead a character who wants to portray that but is constantly battling mentally whether he's good or evil even after killing his father. This character is completely new to the Star Wars sega and I think is the best part.
5/10 not horrifyingly bad but not exceedingly good just wait for a dodgy copy or DVD
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This movie is the clearest and most heartbreaking example of industry betrayal of its fanbase and its actors. After seeing Mark Hamills face after the premier of TLJ you can see a man in utter shock. It was heartwrenching. Having now seen the film myself I feel the same way, they have taken a sledgehammer to the entire franchise, tactless, offensive and politically motivated this is a cynical deconstruction of the mythos and rich history of cinemas most revered franchise. Disney, LucasFilms, Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson will carry this stigma for the rest of the lives, they won't particularly care, nevertheless this is their cross to bear. I've never seen a film that left me more disheartened or angry at the industry in all my life. Horrible doesn't even describe it. Ideological crap spouted by people who should never be allowed to make a movie again.
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The sheer joy that I experienced as a eager 25 year old back in 77 on opening day for Star Wars is the opposite feeling upon leaving the theatre today. I am not going to go into all my reasons but suffice to say the plots are all just so lacking in the spirit and respect for what came before that George should demand his franchise back from Disney. I feel sorry for the young people today who have had to endure propaganda for the last year and when they peek behind the curtain is revealed a puppeteer. I am not a jaded older person I see many movies both at theatres and home and as this is not at all the worst I have seen it might be the most disappointing. Anyway you have been warned .
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Found this movie boring as hell, was not invested at all in any of the new characters since there is virtually no credible development. Total lack of any new/interesting mythos whilst simultaneously ending any further interest in previous star wars universe. Honestly could not wait for it to end.
This movie has killed any remaining interest in star wars, will not pay to watch any further movies. With a lack of plot, depth or character development, there is nothing left of interest here. Without the legacy of any of the previous films there is nothing of value left to hold audience interest. This was a pointless franchise ending mess.
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The Last Jedi is a movie where you have a 40 year franchise that cost over 4 billion dollars to obtain and burn it down. J.J. Abrams set up The Force Awakens as the foundation to be continued onto the next two films. An easy task for whoever helmed this project and build upon it. It was supposed to leave viewers anticipating what challenges these new characters will have to face while bringing closure to the original cast. That was not the case with this movie. Rian Johnson (with Kathleen Kennedys influence) took everything Lucas and Abrams built and demolished it to the point where there is no reason for the viewer to see any Star Wars movie in the near future. This movie is going to impact the Han solo movie and Episode 9 and that is a fact.
On top of all this they went out to deliberately humiliate every male character in this movie. It's like they didn't learn the lesson of what happened with Ghostbusters. I wouldn't be surprised if they took pointers from Paul Feig when writing this movie. Every scene that was built up as a serious moment began or ended with a joke. Characters were introduced and killed without the audience knowing who they are. We have characters going to places and returning with no main goal but to eat up screen time. There are story plots not explained and rewritten for brainless millennial's who are raised to not question or have an opinion.
These are the four easiest questions that were not answered in The Last Jedi.
1. Let's begin with who was Lor San Tekka and how did Kylo Ren know him? How did he wind aquire the piece of the map Leia was looking for to find Luke?
2. Who was Snoke and how did he become Supreme Leader of the first order?
3. Who were the Knights of Ren and what happened to them?
4. How did Maz Kanada obtain Lukes lightsaber that was lost in The Empire Strikes Back?
Spoilers- Reasons I didn't like the last Jedi and what I would have done different
1. General Hux returns as the center of all the first orders jokes. The way they treat this character is so embarrassing to watch that they were better off leaving him dead along with Captain Phasma who also was totally wasted in this movie.
2. Poe's arc in this movie made him out to be an asshole. His telephone joke in the beginning of the movie with Hux was nauseating. His disregard for General Leia and Holdo orders was also unlike this character. It's like the message they wanted to send was about men not being able to follow a women in charge. As Poe disregards general Leias order the bombers also do the same exact thing. What kind of general is this woman if everyone decides to ignore her? Did I forget to mention that he gets slapped by Leia for this just so that a few seconds later allow him to do it again. She later pulls out a gun at him and stuns him. What the fuck is going on? Then he contacts Maz Kanada who he never met in the force awakens. All of this shit should be removed.
3. The Finn and Rose Arc should be removed. They should have had their characters stay on the ship the whole time with Finn waking up right before they head to Crait.
4. Admiral Ackbars death off screne was another disrespect to the character. This was orchestrated to have Leia become Admiral and her secret lover Holdo as General who no one on the ship knew she existed.
5. Let's talk about Luke Skywalker and him throwing the lightsaber that belonged to the father he redeemed over his shoulder. This scene infuriated me to the core because the people who thought about this and wrote it are fucking assholes. It wouldn't bother me as much if there was some sort of dialog from Luke asking Rey how she got the lightsaber. Then Rey could have shown him a hologram of Leia explaining why she decided not to go herself and sent Rey instead. We next have Chewy knock down Luke's door and needs help from Rey to translate. Wait, What? Luke knows Chewy. Then Luke asks, "Where's Han"? Where's Han? That's your best friend you should have known by the force he died just like Leia did. This is another one of those instances where they make the male character into an idiot. Then they have him sucking Alien manatee milk to embarrass this character even more. All aliens should have been removed from this island. If Luke wanted fish he can use the force to get fish. If he wanted water we could have seen him gather it when it rained. We then have Yoda show up and burn down the tree where Luke stored his Jedi books. This time we have Yoda preventing Luke in seeing that he got bested by a girl, because at the end she winds up having the books and the last laugh on Luke. Then there's the scene at the end where he talks to Leia letting her know that he means business and is going to kill everyone out there. The reason this being true is because he gives her no plan of escape if he fails. Luke went out to meet the Kylo Ren and first order and crush them all using the force. Then I would have except Luke's death at this point. But he physically had to be there and not a fucking hologram which didn't make sense on why Kylo Ren was stupid enough not to sense it.
6. Rey and Kylo Ren have no character growth or Arc in this movie. Whoever wrote these two characters had no idea what to do with them. It's like they forgot they were force users and decided to fight a bunch of experienced guards physically. This fight went for far too long and it served no point. Kylo could have force choked all of them or have them all kill themselves with their own weapons.
So that's as much as I can muster at the moment. They really tried to insult my intelligence with this movie and failed. As for those who liked the movie and needed to see it multiple times because your brain was telling one thing and denial was telling you another you need mental help. But I leave you with why this shitty movie deserves the lowest score possible and millions of dollars lost. Star Wars is finally over. A nice finale with nothing left to look forward to.
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Unlike watching the previous episodes, this episode made me sleepy.
Good thing the picture is good, so still can be entertained.
Bad scripts make the story uninteresting. There are no heroes in this story. No criminals to hate. Going home feeling empty, less memorable.
There are no strong characters in this movie. The script about Luke is disappointing. Kylo Ren is no longer a bitch. He can even be funny with General Hux.
This is not Star Wars.
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I honestly believe the Phantom Menace had better direction than this travesty of an installment. The film adds nothing to the series, but instead undermines the powerful sense of mystery and anticipation that was set up in The Force Awakens. Instead of working on a coherent and entertaining script which worked on the great platform set up by TFA, it seems the film makers were more concerned about flaunting SJW messages...
What a disappointment of a film.
Other things to note:
-The childish and out of place humor... That opening scene with Hux and Poe over the intercom, that was just... bad, the type of humor thought up by a tween. It felt out of place and cheapened the movie.
-Superman Leia? what was that about? Cheesy. It made no sense... Even for Science fantasy that was ridiculous...
-Luke Skywalker? A cowardly, unhinged loner now? Since when? What a poor poor way to end a great legacy... Even Mark Hamill hated how it was written... He basically did nothing for most of the movie and then just vanished at the end... why?
-Kill off Snoke? Why?! Why build up this mysterious and powerful character, only to kill him off on a whim with no explanation...
-That whole side quest with Finn and Rose, why was it even necessary? Why is rose even needed in the story? It just felt pointless, and wasted a good 30 mins of the film.... This time could have been better used on any of the following:
1. A backstory of the Knights of Ren/ fall of Luke's jedi temple
2. Snokes background/ more development
3. Much better Luke story that doesn't seem him become this mess...
4. literally anything else...
Instead we get a preachy 'arms trading is bad', a boring chic flic love story and a Pre-quals era CGI chase... Nice...
-facepalm-
Redeeming festures?
Adam Driver's performance as Kylo Ren 10/10.
That Lightsaber battle... yeah that was pretty cool...
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After watching Rogue One I thought Disney were taking Star Wars seriously. The trailers for this movie gave the impression we were getting a grown up, mature film. Wrong!!!!!
Rian Johnson wants us to let go of the past, to grow up and move on from our childish enjoyment of the Star Wars movies. This to me is very ironic as he has given us one of it's most juvenile instalments. The Porgs and Horse things chase on the Casino planet are there only to please the under fives along with some very misplaced humor. This movie seems to treat long term fans with disdain, a Star Wars movie for people who either dislike or are indifferent to Star Wars movies.
In this poor excuse of a film we are given the explanation that Ben Solo turns to the Dark side because Luke tried to kill him in his sleep because of a darkness inside of Ben. Had anyone bothered to watch the original trilogy they would know that Luke would not be inclined to do such a thing as he was never frightened by the darkness inside of his child murdering father and chose instead to help him. Rian Johnson has explained that the reason for this is because even Luke Skywalker is still susceptible to the lure of the dark side and for a fleeting moment considered choosing the quick and easy path. To me this is also ironic as the writers seemed to do just that. Instead of writing a compelling and convincing reason for Ben Solo turning to the dark side and his dissolution with Skywalker, we're just told to accept Luke had a funny turn and everything went south from there.
In terms of plot, it's just a very slow chase through space. All the interesting stuff from The Force Awakens is jettisoned for uninteresting sub (par) plots, captain Phasma has pretty much nothing to do again and the other instantly iconic looking characters, the Knights of Ren, weren't even mentioned. Instead we get uninteresting characters that have no other purpose than to spout exposition because we're too dumb (or bored) to follow proceedings. Rey just seems to be there, Finn is given a rather unnecessary romantic plot line and sent on a wild Bantha chase, Poe is now an idiot and Hux a bafoon.
I got nothing from this movie that I couldn't have gotten from a Guardians of the Galaxy or any other Marvel effort. Rian Johnson has thrown away Star Wars' unique individuality and supplied us with something which resembles every other blockbuster. More irony this as he wanted to give us something totally different but ended up giving us more of the same. The ground work has been done for you Rian, all you had to do was expand!!
Unfortunately this movie has made a ton of money so they won't care.
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This move is unnecessarily padded. There is no reason for any of the B plots at all. They are not interesting, new characters are shallow and boring and what is most important there is no character or story development. This renders half of the move completely pointless and rather boring.
Trough whole movie is enormous number of unnecessary jokes that fell completely flat. There was one where I chuckled and that was more WTF moment than anything else.
Only thing that saves this movie is plot line with Rey, Luke and Kylo. Yes, the A plot is good, but is minority of the whole thing. Movie as whole is "Meh." and I think I overrate it only because its Star Wars...
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Okay. So I went to see "The Last Jedi" a second time to get it all straight in my head. Noticed some more details that were easy to miss the first time, such as more consistency (but also some more inconsistency) in the overall intent of the movie.
The big point of the movie clearly seems to be to transfer the heroic agency from the Jedi to the Resistance. The normal men and women (and slave children) of the Resistance are the true heroes, and will rise to glory in the next movie (where sympathizers from hundreds of systems will no doubt heed the call, accidentally delayed, no doubt, only by a small hyperspace traffic jam), rebuilding the movement, aided by Rey and maybe a few more appropriately humble Force users on the sidelines.
I continue to disagree with almost all aspects of the underlying philosophy of this movie, however, which has the depth of sage American high school instruction along the lines of "Pessimism is like a glass half empty! Optimism is like a glass half full!! Whoa, that's so profound!!" What we see so painfully clearly in "The Last Jedi" is a philosophical position regenerated in many American movies: that, given the choice between saving the lives of a large group of people who are not your personal loved ones, and the lives of one or two of the people closest to you, you should always and absolutely just save the few people (or the one) closest to you. Which is, of course (as Mr. Spock knows), WRONG. It proceeds from the bourgeois sphere of empathy which only includes your immediate family and friends. A true hero's sphere of empathy and understanding of human worth include ALL people equally; he does not make exceptions for those who happen to be his intimates.
This tendency reaches its most visible zenith in the scene where Rose kisses Finn while the portal to the rebel base explodes in the background. "Let's be selfish and perhaps even aroused while the people we were supposed to save die horribly in the distance." This is one of the most anti-heroic scenes of all time! It made me cringe, feel pain and go "Ew!" But it gets far worse: Luke's entire position in this movie is just another version of the same thing! Because he felt called upon to (almost) sacrifice one of his own intimates (his nephew, Ben Solo, for good reason), his reaction was to leave the rest of the galaxy in the lurch, rejecting his responsibility (and, initially, natural inclination) to help the Resistance against The First Order. He stopped caring about the many people who depended on him because of a traumatic experience with one person close to him. Which is weak and unheroic. As Mark Hamill knows, Luke Skywalker wouldn't behave like that on his worst day.
Now, stay with me for this next bit of Johnson logic. Rian Johnson's view (as perpetuated by Luke in the new movie) is that the Jedi are to blame for the rise of the Sith in the older movies. Like, the Jedi were not heroic *enough*; they failed ONCE after a stable 1000-year reign of the Republic, and this suddenly makes them vain and unworthy of their special status. BUT, these movies are also very much about the prophecy of the balance of the Force. The breaking in half of Luke's light-saber clearly shows that Kylo and Rey's powers are precisely equal. There can be no doubt that they will enter into a balance, a state of harmony (with the help of the Force Ghost of Luke), at the end of the next movie. Which all means that the Force guides people's destiny. Otherwise there couldn't be a prophecy which came true. If there are destinies, there can't be much free will. If there is no free will, then the Jedi cannot be blamed for the rise of the Sith. It's all just down to the Force balancing itself. So it's inconsistent logic to blame the Jedi. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE JEDI. Hence, Luke (and especially Yoda - talk about "shits and giggles"!) is behaving wildly out of character in this movie.
Then, to specifically examine the progressive value in this movie, let's look at the societies of the Star Wars galaxy. When the Jedi were great symbols of heroism, the nature of the societies didn't greatly matter to the artistic substance of the story. Because if great heroes win the day, the implication is that society will be reborn according to heroic morals. And in the old movies it was easy to interpret the Empire as the equivalent to our local imperialist hegemony: the exact capitalist society in which we live (which was also Lucas' original intentions, as per the Rebel Alliance being conceived as the Vietnamese of the Vietnam War). But if the heroes are just normal representatives of the given society, then their victory only implies the victory of that society's values. Therefore, the nature of the narrative's fictional society matters a great deal to the progressive content of the story. There are three types of society and concomitant values: right-wing, center and left-wing. Corresponding to: Slave economy (fascism and racism, now mostly belonging to our historical past), bourgeois merchant rule (current capitalism and profiteering) and classless, moneyless democracy (the heroic humanism that will emerge in the future).
Proper heroes, in order to be in any way progressively anti-establishment and provide role models for how we should evolve socially in the future, can only represent the last of these. But in a Star Wars universe without classic Jedi, the only society that the Resistance has any chance of achieving is the middle kind: the centrist, capitalist one. They live in a society where a slave economy still reigns in many places, and presumably/hopefully a new Republic would do away with that, but it is very clear from this movie in particular (but in fact also from Lucas' own prequels, in which it was established that the Jedi-run Republic's society was really just normal current-style bourgeois democracy and capitalism, which is inconsistent with the progressive symbolism of the original trilogy), that everything takes place on a capitalist premise. The biggest army belongs to those with the biggest pocketbooks: Good guys and bad guys equally exist on the premise of a monetary society.
Hence, the progressive level of this franchise can penetrate no further than to the level of centrism; it can never cross over into truly progressive (left, anti-capitalist, heroic) territory. It is thoroughly establishmentarianist, just like Disney, and can never be anything else, no matter how much it focuses on the "little people"; the slaves and workers and common folk. The story aspires only towards the end of slavery, and the attainment of current-style capitalist democracy (which is not genuine democracy but a heinous means of manipulating the ignorant masses) and is not anti-authoritarian at all.
These conventions also identify the franchise as entirely fantasy, now dispensing with any lingering pretentions to being science fiction. I hate that; I preferred looking at Star Wars as science fiction, since science fiction is always and inherently far more progressive than fantasy.
Conclusion: Since there is nothing progressive about the movies that follow the original SW trilogy, there is no artistic substance to speak of, either. Nothing to root for if you are a progressive - besides the sheer visual spectacle, that is, which is indeed magnificent.
I will emend my initial 2/10 rating of "The Last Jedi" to a subtly higher 3/10 because of the visual splendor, and because the movie, after all, gives us much to discuss. But one thing is certain: it truly is a soulless commercial product, intended, in the absolute main, to get bums on seats and keeping them transfixed with empty-calorie bread and circus. Bad, bad movies. But at least they are interesting to discuss - until, of course, the novelty of this, too, wears off.
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This is simply the worst Star Wars movie in history.
Disney have shown their contempt for the Star wars fans by turning this saga into a mess. Luke Skywalker and Yoda turned into cringeworthy characters, Chewy babysitting Disney's latest soft toys. None of the droids to much.
The film betrayed all that is good in Star Wars.
Disney are treating ANY CRITICISM with contempt. You will be called names if you dare criticize this film in any way.
Disney are killing off Star Wars. The fans are not just upset. They are angry about what has happened to the Story.
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Out of all the characters only one has a character ark the others are copy paste episode 7
They do not follow their own laws, watching the original series and episode 7 they give details about the speed of some ships, in this movie they forgot about it
To many jokes that turn into awkward scenes
The final showdown is like the first battle between Goku and Piccolo
They do not follow the basic laws of physics
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a lot has been criticized and I don't want to recap that. I'd like to add something on top.
The plot wrapped up:
Spoiler alert: the was absolutely not a single new idea in this movie.
The into text would have fit episode 4 if you changed first division to imperium.
The into ends with a small rebel ship vs an absurdly huge bad guy ship.
Exactly the setup of episode 4 intro. The rebels manage to destroy it with the last bomber hitting a target on that the whole ship explodes.
First off why are there new bombers? And why are they slow AF? And did noone realize that bombs don't fall down in space? Wtf is this? Solution: it's a CGI show off and tells a very small part of roses back story. In an absurd way though.
Then another big bad guy ship appears and the rebels escape. The division follows through, which was impossible to this day in star wars. But they can do that now I guess.
So the rebels try to fight but don't have a chance and try to escape. While staying under light speed. And so the division can't fight them because they are to far away and the rebels are faster. But they can't escape because they can be tracked down. So why is this ship not getting wrecked? It stays below light speed so why don't the division ships make a short jump and appear back in fight position? This makes no scene at all.
So poe does his poet thing to find a solution. Finn and his new friend go to star wars las Vegas and meet a bad guy version of Han solo, then proceed to do pointless CGI show off stuff. The picture design looked a lot like the pot race to me ( so it had similar camera settings).
Back poet mutinied to achieve nothing. Nothing at all, this while 45 mins were totally pointless. The bad Han solo vanished, poe didn't get any consequences, it was like it never happened.
So the rebels flee in the transporters and get shut. This useless admiral watches half of them die before she thinks I volunteered to stay behind and probably die, might as well do something.
While the first big bass guy ship was destroyed by magic gravity bombs the second one does get hit by this big ass rebel ship on light speed and it's like yeah in fine.
Meanwhile rey got a Jedi through 5 min meditation and the dark side is represented as a hole with black sea weed and a double mirror that works a but differently. No idea what that was, utterly pointless. So as the rebels get to that lucky station from the old days, the set up is 1:1 stolen off episode 5. They even pointed out that it was no snow but salt. So why do the snow troupers get used?
And that glider thing that was a cross over of the E5 glider and the pot racer? And that intergalactic cannon? Normally used as main guns on these star destroyer on steroids to destroy cruisers in one shot? Yeah sure let's put it on a battery and let it burn that "hole" in the gate.
OK Luke did nothing but self pity, he gets his big 30 secs and then he dies. The whole setup is exactly like Vader vs Kenobi. Teacher lost padawan to the dark side, does not fight him but dies instead while fainting the bag guys
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5/10
Star Wars this is NOT! Disney milking SW dry like Luke did that Alien!!
Waaaaay TOO MUCH forced Comedy that was very cringe worthy! TLJ abandons everything that is a Star Wars film. Kylo Ren even said to forget the Jedi, forget the Sith, forget the Empire and the First Order. Basically Forget everything that made Star Wars ... Star Wars!! Then start it over. Luke Skywalker deserved better! His character arc made no sense at all. The whole Casino "code breaker" part was FILLER. Snoke was wasted and Captain Phasma also wasted (she could have been a Badass villain, but she loses to wimp/ chickenhearted Fin). TFA promised us the start of an exciting new trilogy, but TLJ fizzled out. What a Dud "The Last Jedi" was. Too many Disney/ Marvel elements made their way into this movie TLJ. Critics must have received a generous amount of payola money $$$ to give Last Jedi Positive reviews!! SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF WALT DISNEY!!! SW Fans deserved better than TLJ!!!
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There is so much money in the game and this is what comes out? sorry mr.director and storywriters. this is a story my 9 year old girl can think of even better. get a somewhat good plot and star wars magic carries the rest. so easy. this is the worst i could have imagine.
only good thing is music and some of the visuals.
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While I was very entertained by the Last Jedi, I'm also a life long Star Wars fan who couldn't help but notice this movie spent it's entire run time trying to cut ties with the past SEVEN movies, by disregarding or blatantly insulting their plot lines. If you were hoping for any resolution or continuation of the SAGA, you may be disappointed as Rian basically throws it all out the window while telling you repeatedly to let it go and get over it. Isn't the whole point of a saga to continue the story throughout instead of just crapping all over it to be different?
As a movie, pretty good, but it blows my mind that they approved the changes in plot.
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Rian Johnson should not have been allowed to write this by himself. No narrative continuance of TFA, blatant mischaracterization of many of the main/ well loved characters, a lot of explaining what is happening in the plot through dialogue rather than showing. BAD.
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....I went to see Star wars 8 full of hope.... the 7 being entertaining.
Please, future Star Wars directors, send me a copy of your movie prior to screening it and I will make for you a complete free review you aren't able to have despite all these millions of dollars apparently.
First of all the movies is full of childish mistakes:
This piping technician Asian girl that become a pilot all of a sudden by the end of the movie,
This massive explosion that seems to have killed every bad guys except the 2 rebels but no ! Here is phasma again overthere, wait.. was she not next the rebels 10 seconds earlier etc.
Then, this quota thing drive me crazy. I was waiting from the beginning... So who will be the Asian representative here ! oh wait ... bing here she is. Check ! Where is the indian guy hum, punk ?!
Snoke death is so pathetic by the way..
I am 40 years old and fan of the 4/5/6 above all. One of the thing that was making Star wars outstanding I think was the muppets here and there. Chewbacca was a human being with a freaking costume. This is part of star wars DNA. In Star wars 7, I had this feeling the production was willing to come back using muppets. This episode 8 is literally eradicating my hopes about this. All is about 3D again, but well, wait 10 years and you will see how charming and realistic these will turn out to be. Please have a look at Star wars 1 and enjoy the 3D.
Star wars needs to be like Farscape, the TV show, hiring Jim Henson to perform all the aliens etc. These 3D characters are already not looking good now so it will be completely obsolete in a couple of years. What a waste.
Btw, what is wrong with the music ?! The soundtrack was just awful.
But above all the scenario... What the hell is wrong with the fact to have a proper scenario... What were you thinking giving that to this guy who basically did nothing ? It looks like a pale copy of the 5 and 6. The episode 7 was nice but one cons was the scenario copy/paste of the star wars 4... I would think that you would try to create something new and fresh for the 8th ? No, you decided to make some savings and copy the scenario of the #5... What the hell is wrong with you ?
There must be a thousands scenario out there on the web available goddammit...
I liked Kylo Ren helmet and his voice... Why ruining this piece of charisma...
Princess Lea flying like a witch thru space, ahahah I thought you would take this occasion to make her disappear.. that was a OK and easy solution, but no, she is flying like a witch back to the ship and for what after all ? I wonder..
Overall, it is boring and kept looking at my watch to know how close to the end we were...
Please note Star wars 4 budget was maybe 10 million dollars. It was tight, true but maybe that's what you deserve in the first place to force you to do a good movie instead of burning apparently everything in useless 3D etc.
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Why would you (RJ + Disney) want to be part of a franchise movie and destroy everything that people loved about it.
We all grew up and loved episod 4, 5, 6 and we learned to accept 1, 2 and 3. They all had their moments of ups and downs but stayed within the universe.
7 actually made me happy again, the storyline wasn't original but who cared, we were back where it all started and the questions left behind was good enough to keep us intrigued for another 2 years.
Han Solo was dead, how would Luke react when Rey arrived, what have he been up to, how would Rey develop, who is Snoke, who where the Knighs of Ren, who is Phasma, how will Kylo Ren become more powerful after loosing to a beginner, even though the story had holes it still was entertaining.
After watching 8 which by all means was a beatiful movie, I felt confused.
What went wrong here? The story and side story was a mess, this I can accept but what they did was killing everything that was made to be the foundation of Star Wars movies. The mystery, history thats been built up in 7 movies, thats atleast 15 hours of film being destroyed in 2 hours and 33 min. All because they wanted a reset so the fight between Rey and Ren could start from "zero" and add some worhtless comical scenes in.
Let the past burn, I would like it changed to let the 8 + RJ burn so we can get the movie we all deserve, but I am afraid its to late for that.
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Disney is destroying Star Wars. J. J. Abrams did a fairly good job with Episode 7 which was good, though Rian Johnson's Episode 8, just horrible! What is he trying to push here?
So much political correctness propaganda. Why can't Disney just stop pushing their politics and just make a good movie like they used to. Characters, animal rights, etc. etc. list is never ending! Almost on a regular basis there is a view something pushed on the viewer. So disappointing. You just want to enjoy a good film that compliments the last and prepare for the next.
Then the music in the battle scenes. Way over powering the scenes and sound effects. Would be nice to watch a good battle scene without just listening to some heavy music where you can't hear anything else happening in those scenes. Understandable it's good to have music, but in this episode, that's most of what you could hear in the theater in those scenes.
Here's hoping that Episode 9 isn't so disappointing!
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I'll start with this: I understand that this is a new iteration of Star Wars movies with new heroes needing to forge their own legacy and as an older fan, I am ok with this.
But with this passing of the torch, I would expect some respect to the legacy of those heroes/villains who came before and to the established "rules" of previous movies to be followed, or at least given valid reasons as to why they're not.
TFA, and especially TLJ, show that I expected too much. I'll go down the list. Please note, these are my personal opinions and I don't expect anyone to agree with them.
Characters
Luke - Complete and total character assassination. Our hero saved the galaxy, found out his father was a galactic jerk, lost a hand in the process, also found out the girl that's been giving him handies in the hanger bay is his sister, faced down a sith lord, redeemed his father (a killer on an unprecedented scale, children? planets? kill 'em all) but decides murder is ok when he senses his nephew may be hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then he gets butthurt and hightails it out of there because....shame? None of his previous motivations or goals amount to anything for this character now. We're kept on the edge of our seats at the end of TFA with Rey handing Luke his father's old lightsaber just to have him toss it over his shoulder, Monty Python style, when we first see him in TLJ. Then of course, we get to watch Rey follow him around his island while the Benny Hill song plays in the background. But hey, at least we get to see him drink Space Milk again, this time from the source. Oh, what's that Chewie? Han died? Oh well, life is crap. Next scene, please. How can Luke be so careless about the life of his friends yet feel motivated enough to isolate himself from the galaxy over his nephew and his students?
Rey - This character has been a victim of poor writing from the get-go. Her terrible origin story (J.J. "Whoa, who could her parents be?!! --- Rian "No one cares sorrynotsorry lol") and inexplicable ability to excel at everything makes her unlikable and even worse, unrelatable as the main hero. She even beats the crap out of a Jedi Master once he frustrates her enough by having the audacity of refusing her demands. The one good thing I can say about her is that Daisy's performance in this film was much better than the last one.
Finn - It took me some time to like this character in TFA, but he grew on me. Only for it all to be tossed away in TLJ as he essentially goes on an unnecessary side quest that lead nowhere and accomplished nothing other than showing off additional under-developed characters (Rose/Phasma/WhoeverthehellBenecio was).
Rose - Why. Not really needed, not really wanted. I don't dislike the character itself, but she is inserted into the movie with almost no explanation or backstory and we are just supposed to go with it. Ok, fine, at least give her some endearing characteristics. Should she play on her sister's death? Did the First Order run over her cat and she wants revenge? Nope, she's going to go a rant and make the movie preach at the audience ("I want to punch this planet in the face" "They are mean to animals" "War profiteering is bad." etc etc). Apparently the only people worse than the first order are the rich. And then when Finn finally gets to do something epic and take out the giant door-knocker, Rose screws it up for him. Why? Because love. Yeah, I don't get it, either.
Kylo Ren - Ok, the one bright spot of this movie. Adam Driver really brought this character home and displayed the emotional turmoil that Ben Solo is going through as he wrestles internally with his need to please Snoke and his feelings for his family and friends.
Leia - AKA Carrie Poppins - Pretty good up until she gets blown into space. What the hell is up with the flying crap? Really? Like I said above, I am ok with breaking the rules if there is a good explanation. Why not make her Force power more subtle and influential and be useful to someone whose main function in the world is a politician. Also RIP Carrie Fisher, you will missed and the world is a darker place without you in it.
Snoke - Remember the ominous bad guy from TFA? Welp, he's dead. And no one gives a crap because we never developed him. You can't tell your audience that a character is important, kill em off, and scratch your head at their lack of reaction or caring when you never built them up in the first place. His death has the same effect on the audience as Phasma's. None.
General Hux - Gone are the days of terrifying leaders of the empire. Presently we get childish and bumbling idiots playing with giant space toys who cannot help but get one-upped by cheeky star-fighter pilots.
Vice Admiral Holdo - Should have given this role to Ackbar instead of just killing him off, or hell, **TELL POE YOUR DAMN PLAN**
The movie itself:
The humor was badly placed and felt completely inorganic. Yes, Star Wars has humor in it. And some of it was cheesy, but it always felt correctly inserted at the right time, and mostly dry (ESB did it best). When the opening joke is Hux getting trolled by Poe, I couldn't help but roll my eyes and it only got worse from there. "Put on a shirt" was one of the cringiest.
The hyperspace cruiser as a weapon was amazing visually. Very impressed.
The throne room fight with the guards was beautiful and done well except for the part where the Jedis forgot they were Jedis and just decided to duke it out with their "laser swords." I guess Kylo is only cool with force choking red-headed step children.
Luke's scene with R2 about broke my heart because for the briefest moment I saw the old Luke and the glory he might still have achieved in that movie.
Yoda returning also brought a tear to my eye. Seeing a puppet as opposed to CGI was a good call. Too bad the dialogue made no sense within the context of the rest of the movie (let's burn a tree with some books, no wait, no it's cool, you have much to learn, by the way, you'll be dead soon ).
The final Luke/Kylo fight. What a let down. Visually appealing, yet lasts all of 3 swings of a light saber. And Luke doesn't even fight back because.... space ghost. Say waaaat? Oh cool, he is a Jedi Master after all! I wonder what he'll do nex... Ah crap nevermind.
I could go on and on with my issues with this movie, but what can I say? I must be a troll and not a life-long Star Wars fan who just wanted to see the OT cast sent off into the sunset with a bit of dignity.
At least Han was treated with some dignity in TFA. This feels more like Rian J looked at everything J.J did in TFA and said F you.
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3/10
First time writing a review on IMDB and its The Last Jedi
I was completely left devastated after watching TLJ. The Force Awakens was cool, nothing more, nothing less. I enjoyed the cinema experience and the hype. Now, years later and Rogue One (which was great btw) in between, I was more than ready for part 2 of that experience.
No, I wasn't ready. Not even slighly ready for what was coming for me. The things I didn't expect to see in this movie:
Lazy writing
Filler/ story lines (The Luke - Rey story and Finn's in particular).
The bad acting and one liners
Forced jokes
Unexplained placement of Pokemon
Character development of main charters or better said; the lack of it
Phasma and Snoke. Is this supposed to be a sick joke? C'mon?!
The lack of layers and depth
The rushed last stand and how it ends.
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3/10
One dimensional, visually spectacular film that betrays the OT's roots
Wow, just look at all those IMDB reviews showing this as a solid 8/10 movie, yet everyone who's actually typed a review averages about 3 stars. Got to be some serious positive Bot voting going on, or so many people on Disney's payroll.
If Star Wars is the OT to you then you will be hugely disappointed in this shallow film with throwaway characters that you have no emotional investment in. Disney can do a decent SW movie - more of the Rogue One pedigree please.
Most of the people at our showing on IMAX looked around 40-50 years old, fully invested in the OT. So many things wrong with this film, not a lot right:-
The use of "godspeed" (twice?) was ridiculous in the SW world - "May the Force be with you" would have been fitting.
Leia's spacewalk was ridiculous (seened ripped off from Guardians of the Galaxy Starlord's rescue of Gamorrah") - Surely if fully trained Jedi can withstand an explosion, never mind being expelled into the cold of deep space then Plo Kloon should have survived Ep3. This was a supposedly untrained Leia though.
Luke's decision to enter the Jedi equivalent of the Swiss Dignitas clinic (without having a compelling reason to end it all) was hugely disappointing, I noticed Luke's light-footedness on the salt-covered red ash, and thought it was just super-jedi light-footedness until the reveal.
Snoke's gullability in meeting his death - Siths are always on the lookout for their ambitious underlings trying to kill them off and take their place. Even more unbelievable if he really was previously Darth Plagueis who was done in by his apprentice Palpatine. A hugely interesting character dead before we got the back story.
The non-SW humour - especially the prank call. Following that jape, I expected Finn to knock on a blast door on Snoke's ship and run off after having left a fiery bag of dog turds on the doorstep for Hux to stamp out.
The Casino world was just a crap filler.
The completely wooden Captain Phasma performance (again). I hope she's dead so that I don't have to watch her in Ep9.
The whole fuel usage and picking off umpteen ships on the pursuit was just so Battlestar Galactica.
Finally, watching in IMAX, I was in constant fear of an IMAX moment when the resistance announcer was in prime screen shot. Thought I was going to get battered by her 80 foot nose, or be sucked up her nostril.
There were other things, but it was just a callamitous story wrapped in gorgeous visuals.
I picked up a special edition poster supposedly only given out opening weekend for IMAX showings on my way out - perhaps I can get my £19 back by ebaying it! :D
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Are Disney slowly trying to destroy the magic, the tension, the believability of character of Star Wars? With last year's Rogue One being such a fantastic movie I was hopeful of a return to form after TFA and the mistakes made to be rectified. But no, we return to the mess. The new lead characters, as good actors as they are, just don't make you believe in their plight against the evil First Order. Plot tangents that are just ridiculous and that Leia scene??? Luke Skywalker going from the most enthusiastic energetic Jedi to a grumpy old man? Yoda turning into a cackling idiot. Lara Dern's character smiling the whole way through her scene's. The ridiculous scenario of the "chase" with the ships, how can they neither catch up or escape? So sad to see my childhood movie heroes and heroines reduced to this.
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Recently saw the new Star Wars, went in with an open mind, thought the movie was a disappointment, not completely opposed to trying new things, but that's not the problem, the movie is just sooo bad....
1. Floating Leia
2. Slow Chase (what a hilarious/stupid premise for a movie)
3. Luke Skywalker being completely out of character
4. The stupid comedy (dead silence in the theater after most of the jokes ...)
5. Casino Planet
6. General Hux being depicted as a moron (wtf? have you seen Rouge One, Grand Moff Tarkin was intense, that's a real villian)
7. Zero continuity between The Force Awakens + TLJ
8. Stupid Disney animals that are clearly in the movie in order to sell merchandise (Porgs... ice wolves.....).
8. Plot hole after plot hole after plot hole, just read through any of the 1 star reviews and you'll get plenty enough to talk about. I've read alot of them, and in my opinion, most of them are very well written, and look/sound authentic to me.
I get that they wanted to send some political messages and push new ideas, in my opinion, do that with a different movie, go attempt that with Transformers or the Marvel Garbage or make up some other bran new garbage sci-fi movie. Why ruin a proper Star Wars reboot ?
I was fine with Admiral Holdo (although not how she ended up hiding info from Poe, anyone hiding info would've pissed me off), in fact I liked that the Vice-Admiral was female, as I do look forward to the day when more females are in positions of power and where things are more equal on planet earth (plus I have always been a fan of Laura Dern after her role in the original Jurrasic Park, just awesome). I also liked her final sacrifice (women give and sacrifice so much in this world). I was not opposed to the ending of the movie, the Skywalker astral projection, I actually really liked that part. I was fine with Skywalker dying as well. Last fight scene was the only decent part of the movie, I did also enjoy the Rae + Ben fight scene after the killing of Snoke.
Bottom line, I had a hard time getting into this movie, as it was so one-dimensional. To me the movie reeks of a director/writer/artist who thinks he/she can just splash around random module components (with each module potentially being a neat or cool idea) and then just slapping them together without any thought or flow to the movie. A true artist knows how to bridge independent ideas/thoughts together and produce a final product that is "whole". In fact that is what I believe makes a gifted artist. Rian Johnson doesn't have the gift (neither do I of course). I wish Gareth Edwards would've directed TLJ. I bet it would've been a much better movie (I was a fan of Rouge One).
Finally, all this talk of the "alt-right" influencing the ratings. This has nothing to do with the alt-right, the movie is just not good. That's it. Very confused as to how the critics rated this movie so high? Very confused.
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After the derivative mess that was Force Awakens, I was hopeful that Last Jedi would fill in the gaps and progress the story in an intriguing way. Although better then the preceding film, I was ultimately disappointed.
The scenery and effects were engaging to the eye as well as the mind without being burdened by excessive cgi. This approach brought back the unique feeling of the original trilogy, which was shot on location instead of inside a computer processor, therefore allowing the viewer to focus on the characters and story instead of the laser blasts. Surprising to me were the good performances of Fisher and Hamill, who provided a realistic balance to their characters -- even depressed and desperate people joke. Even BB-8, intended as comic relief, was likable and endearing.
However, the film is damaged, irrecoverably in my view, by too many characters that are thinly developed and sub-plots that slow the pace to a crawl, distracting the viewer. The ill advised "Casino Royale" side-trip, which adds an unnecessary character (Rose), stole screen time from the core of the story -- Luke, Rey and Ben's rationale for action and backstory. We are left with a result that much less than the sum of it's parts, and unconvinced that the characters would have acted the way that they did. The switch of who was expected to die was handled in a way that similarly unbelievable, and a bit cheap.
I give it a C, and demerits for a Hoth battle scene that exchanged salt for ice.
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3/10
Looks like Star Wars, doesn't FEEL like Star Wars!
My big problem with this sequel trilogy is that it invalidates everything that happened in Episodes 4-6.
The writers were just too lazy or afraid to actually think about an original story and 'The Force Awakens' starts at the exact same point as 'A New Hope'. So we spent three movies with the conflict between the rebels and the Empire and it was resolved in the end. But in Ep. 7 we start in the same conflict.
With the setup of 7 this movie tried very hard to not be like 'Empire strikes back' and somehow achieved that at the expense of the story. Not only was a super slow space chase uninspired but also very tedious. If the general lady told anybody about her plan Finn, Rose and Poe would not have had any reason to do any of the stuff they did.
Also when you look at the film from start to end you realize that the outcome of the movie is literally the start of the movie. The First Order is still powerful with just a new leader because Kylo Ren almost had this moment of redemption... but naah. The Resistance is still on the run with exactly one ship but I guess the spark lit the fire and they'll get a few more ships again.
Because they also decided to kill Snoke there is no real menace anymore. Rey could already beat Kylo so he's not really that intimidating. General Hux turned from Mini-Hitler to slapstick comic villain. And that is all that's left.
I am just very disappointed about the direction they're taking Star Wars to.
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Visual effects are stunning, and some of the trope deconstruction plot twists were amazing. However, I'm really disappointed with how the legacy of the Original Trilogy was handled. Yes, they needed to pass the torch and introduce new characters, but not at the expense of the character of the existing ones! Yes, Luke, I'm looking at you. Also, I didn't expect how small and close-quarters the action would seem. Everything is so close the star travel takes only a couple of hours at most? Where is the sense of it being STAR wars, as in, concerning the whole galaxy?
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As a lifelong Star Wars fan I cannot express the utter disappointment of this film. I will not go into all of the details of what happens in this movie, as many other reviews already have.
That being said, can someone please explain to me why the Disney 'Imagineers' making these movies have no clue what makes Star Wars, Star Wars?
Do they not understand that George Lucas's vision was to reinvent the swashbuckling movies of the 1930s and 40s by giving it a SciFi twist set in the spaceaged future? (yes I know it's technically the past)
There's absolutely no true protagonist in this movie. I get that we already know who we are supposed to be routing for but story lines switch from character to character and are meaningless. In Empire, we switch between Luke's training on Degobah, everyone on the falcon and Darth Vador. 3 story close lines that eventually combine in a highly impactful way. The Last Jedi, however, is all over the place. Seems as though they were so Hell bent on being SJWs they forgot about Star Wars!
The most glaring hypocrisy of all is how this movie rails against capitalism. Hello, this movie is clearly a commercial, CGI, non-story film produced solely to make billions for the Disney Corporation!
You have to hand it to Hollyweird. Only they can get away with this crap!
My biggest complaint with this movie, as well as the force awakens, is the total disrespect they give to all of the rules and lessons we learned about the force from the first 6 movies. That may sound corny or movie geekish, but the truth is most of these principals were Lucas's adaptation from actual ancient philosophies from around the world. The ideals of the force, the Darkside and the light, speaks to the basic premise of good and evil, loyalty, devotion, love, hate and heroism Something that all of us encounter every day. To turn this philosophical saga into some slapstick, CGI, video game, product placement, comic book movie is just a real shame.
My ultimate hope for these last three movies was to see the original cast all reunited. They didn't have to be the main characters, but it would've been nice to see them work together again to help the resistance. It could've happened in TFA but sadly Harrison Ford put the kibosh on that. So now with all 3 characters unavailable for episode 9. So, indeed, this movie was our "last hope"!
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I had huge expectations for this movie following the magnificent 'Force Awakens' two years ago. I can only presume the critics were paid to give overwhelmingly positive reviews because this movie stinks.
As a die hard fan (who even loves Episodes I-II) I came out of the midnight showing feeling deflated, which just shouldn't happen after a Star Wars movie. Rian Johnson has killed Star Wars.
Spoilers to follow
The movie opens inappropriately with an attempt at humour. The initial line is quite funny, but it's the very beginning of the movie - way too soon, and they keep the joke going for too long until it becomes awkward. The rest of the movie humour is very hit and miss. The Porgs seem to serve no purpose whatsoever.
Luke Skywalker is character assasinated! His opening scene is slapstick - throwing the Lightsaber away over his shoulder. Completely out of place and stupid.
The cringeworthy 'force sexting' between Rey and Kylo Ren "Can you put a shirt on or something". This is Star Wars, not Days of our lives.
But the true disappointment is Rian Johnson's complete failure to address the identities of Rey and Snoke. A complete cop out. Rey is nobody, and Snoke we don't even get to find out. He couldn't think of a worthy solution so just didn't try.
JJ Abrams spent the whole of Episode VII hinting at Rey's important origins. We didn't wait two years for this jibberish Rian.
I'm really hoping that Episode IX can reverse the worst failings of VII.
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Yes I am a Star Wars fan. I'm not upset because I want this to be just like the originals I'm upset as TLJ is just a bad film. I think most of the criticisms have been well covered on here already so I won't pick over them again. How could the Disney executives have sat and watched their finished product and possibly thought good job, well done to us??
Massive budget and unlimited resources and this film left my 11 year old Star Wars fan son quite frankly bored and underwhelmed. We left the cinema and he asked me Dad would you have rather seen A New hope tonight at the cinema or The Last Jedi, I told him A New Hope....me too Dad. Enough said.
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I don't often do reviews, but this movie angered me enough to spin up an account and write one.
First, the good: Solid visuals and effects. Some decent new characters introduced.
Now, the bad: Almost everything else.
The decision to turn Luke from a calm, wise Jedi into a scared, immature emotional train wreck was a bad decision. A slap in the face to those of us who grew up on Star Wars and made it what it is today. There is no scenario that can justify or explain what Luke was presented as in this movie. They could have gone in any other direction (making him insane, making him turn dark) and it would have worked better, this was the worst path. I understand the goal was to empower the new characters, but this was the wrong way to do it. Not really even debateable.
I can list about 40 things I was unhappy about with the new movie. It was just all over the places, filled with far too much eye rolling silly stuff, and nothing like the goodness that was the first 2.5 Star Wars films made.
I wasn't too happy with the job that JJ did with Force Awakens, but it was not bad in comparison to this, and had a number of good scenes and moments mixed in with some of the bad. This was just a bad movie, period. Script-wise, movie-wise, canon-wise, and failed to meet my expectations of a billion dollar initiative should deliver.
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This movie was just rubbish. I have no idea where to start. Does Rian Johnson hate Star Wars and the lore that George Lucas (and company) created? Or is he just trying to create a name for himself as the guy who turned the saga into a steaming pile of bantha fodder. The movie is boring and full of bad dialogue, awful forced humor, and bad character development (if it even existed at all). I think the biggest twist of all is that my kids aren't interested in seeing it again and have asked me to take them to see Thor: Ragnarok (AGAIN). Never thought I would see the day when Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie would make my kids lose interest in the franchise.
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I´m re-reviewing this down to 2 stars, as in to rationalize or justify my almost 3 hours torture session at the theater. Wow, Rian Johnson! You achieved it! You turned JJ´s disaster into an acceptable Star Wars sequel just by going so low with this atrocious piece of crap, so bad you deserve a new category of Oscar just for you - the "what am I doing here" directors award! And another 2 for Kathleen "Most Evil Sith" Kennedy and Disney "Real Death Star" Studios - biggest letdown in the gallaxy and greates achievement in destroying the undestructible.
It´s not that I´m a die hard fan in disappointment or nostalgia. This is really, really bad cinema in all senses. Technical, storyline, scritp, character, whatever. CGI sucks, continuity is awful, dialogs are stupid. And so on. Everything is so absurdly flawed I´m still in awe as to how could this pass up as it did. Almost nothing is saved here whether you´re just now getting to know Star Wars for the first time in your life, or you´ve been spoilt by the original, timeless, deep and rich trilogy.
That´s the state of the world: people are picked to great responsibilities without serious consideration. How could this crap come to be, from begining to end??? George Lucas deserves his share too for selling his soul do the devil corporation. I get it the sum was obscene, it´s hard to pass up and money talks and all... but he already had more than enough for half a dozen incarnations.
Maybe he didn´t know they´d take the Star Wars magic to the point of threatening his original masterpeice. But he´s still to blame, regardless, because how do you sell your biggest achievement to a souless company like that. Ego, ignorance and incompetence can destroy anything.
So if you want the real thing, the magic, the inspiration - stick to the original trilogy. If you still want an original story, some good, developed, decently treated characters and don´t mind a few goofs, Jar Jar, bad CGI and lots of stupid animals everywhere, you can endulge the prequels. At your own risk.
But forget this new trilogy, star Wars this isn´t anymore!
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Below is my justification for giving this a 1 star review:
I seriously thought that things couldn't get any worse after TFA. I was wrong. Thinking back to 2012 and how excited I was that the ST was going to be made and comparing it to how I feel right now is like the absolute worst feeling. I knew it as soon as Lucas started to be distanced from it, but like a dumb@$$ I held out hope. Luke was completely out of character and destroyed by Rian.
If JJ would actually use Luke in IX as The Master of Two Worlds and Crossing the Return Threshold then I might see some validity to Luke completing the Hero's Journey in this way. But we all know that there is no way that KK will let that happen or that JJ is that talented and thoughtful.
I seriously can't believe that the question leading to the ST was "Who is Luke Skywalker" and professional people and self professed Star Wars fans came up with this mess. It's like a really bad written hit piece to destroy a character.
Here's another problem for me. They took the greatest hero in cinematic history and turned him into a complete failure that gets schooled in the Force by some random junkbaby. Rose says before we even meet Luke that heroes don't run. Yet that is exactly what they had Luke do for years. If they wanted to go this route, they should have let Luke come back in TLJ with Rey, finish training her and help establish the order in IX, and then die like this at the end. They deconstructed Luke so much that Yoda lectures Luke about looking to the horizon like Luke hasn't grown since TESB. The whole point of RotJ was hat Luke had grown, matured, and gained wisdom and insight beyond that of Yoda and Obi-Wan. He also lectured Luke to pass on what he learned but died before he could. Mark was talking to CT about Luke in IX and they were on the same page, which is probably what got CT fired. Now they bring back JJ to finish the hit job on Luke. CT was probably going in the Luke comes back in the flesh level power/Master of Two Worlds motif. There is no way in hell that KK and JJ will let that happen. Mark told us that JJ ignored him and that he hated RJ's direction for the character and that they should have used GL's ideas and that all they cared about was making money. Those are his true feelings and I completely agree with him.
Rey is also ruined for me as a character as of TLJ. Tell us she is junkbaby from the beginning. No need for secrecy. It would have added to her character in TFA to know she was not related but waiting for her parents. I mean is stable boy's parentage going to be kept a secret and made a big deal of? My guess is that they wanted to intentionally give the impression that she was related in order to facilitate audience acceptance of her by all of the intentional parallels between her, Anakin, and Luke. Her perfect mary sue-esque routine was slightly annoying in TFA, but I thought that she would be brought down in TLJ like Luke was in TESB or Anakin was in AotC, but instead they make her even more perfect with no failures and able to do everything. She is without a doubt what people feared she was - a MARY SUE. Hell, even Yoda lectures Luke that Rey has more wisdom than the Jedi books he's been collecting. What a f#####g $#!+show. It was bad enough that she schooled Han on repairing the Falcon, learned force powers with zero training, and beat Kylo in a lightsaber duel, but to have pretty much no training (literally less than a day) and be put up on a pedestal as having more wisdom than Luke or ancient Jedi texts is INSANE and an insult to Star Wars and the modern myth Lucas created. Combine this with her thinking Kylo was a monster in TFA to school girl mind crush in TLJ and I have actually gone from liking Rey despite her perfection to actually hating this character. It's obvious that she can't fail in IX so there is no drama and she will have ZERO failures in the ST while they completely destroyed the OT3. Clearly this was a direction from Disney and KK to kill GL's work. White slavers indeed.
I didn't mind the new characters or the idea of Canto Bight. Some of the sequences there dragged out longer than needed. Mark was outstanding for his work with what he was given, particularly since we know he didn't agree with it. The OP Force use seemed more like a video game or cartoon than Saga rules. Hux and the FO as comic relief made this seem like Space Balls II more than Star Wars VIII. Poe's prank call drew groans. Not good for an opening sequence. The chase idea was poorly executed. We've never seen fuel being an issue before on one ship, let alone a whole fleet. Also, they could have jumped to different locations and split up. This chase idea works great in a WWII sub chase movie, but this is Star Wars and the FO could have just jumped a destroyer or two in front of the limping rebel ships and pinned them in. The crawl seemed to make it clear the FO instantaneously took control of the galaxy, yet it is said in the movie that it will take weeks to take control of the central/important systems. Milking the monster was not needed and got universal groans in the theater, as did Leia flying. People laughed at Leia. The SFX looked off at times. Ships, particularly X-Wings, don't move like that in the Star Wars universe. Yoda looked ridiculous and people actually laughed at it. The lightsaber effects were off as well. Fan films have better SFX than these and LFL did well in Rogue One so there is no excuse. The Holdo maneuver was executed really well though. I thought it was a nice place for the sound to drop. The whole Poe-tiny seemed out of place. Luke's flashback costume looked like a RotJ version in TFA/TLJ color scheme. It looked awesome and I hope they make that Sideshow figure. Speaking of the flashback, you have to be kidding me. From Luke lying about it to Ben's version to how it actually played out to Ben still looking like he's 30 years old, all of it was horrible. Snoke was a complete waste. So many threads dropped. They also could have used Lando in either Maz's role or as the target at the casino. I get what they were doing with the stable kids telling Luke's last stand, but continuing past that and using the stable boy as the end fell flat. If they would have cut from the kids retelling the story to the rebels meeting up with ships answering the call and assembling a new fleet, it would have shown Luke as a legend and that the spark worked. It would have really given hope. It would have also ended on a more Star Wars style ending. A huge complaint is that the movie breaks the established visual language established for the Saga films. Not a problem in anthology films, but it is jarring in the context of the Saga. It was the first Star Wars film that I have seen with people booing as it irised out.
I hope they publish Lucas' treatments in some form (which I'm sure they will to squeeze more money from the franchise) so that we will have access to the real ST and conclusion of the Skywalker Saga. The Star Wars Saga was released in May, had the 20th Century Fox Fanfare, and said Story by George Lucas. I'm not interested in this big budget fan fiction. I consider the DT (Disney Trilogy) and the Disney EU as nothing more than in-universe holodramas and holonovels (see Shadows of Mindor), similar to FDR: American Badass and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer in the real world.
I know that it doesn't matter, but I will never watch another Star Wars movie or series or buy any other non-Luke merchandise. My collecting that started when I was a kid around 1980 is now over. Congratulations BI/KK/JJ/LK/RJ, you killed my lifelong fandom/desire for new Star Wars content. We will never buy another Disney product, support Disney movies (except for maybe Captain America), or go to any parks again. I will never watch another movie produced, written, or directed by any of the above individuals.
I wish them the same level of success they afforded the OT3. For what they did to Lucas' vision, I simply hope that what goes around comes around.
#NotMyLukeSkywalker
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With the first scene of Luke and Rey - picking up exactly where TFA ended - I KNEW this movie was in trouble and definitely "had a bad feeling about this". So I'm in complete agreement with what Mark Hamill and many of my fellow reviewer have expressed: Rian Johnson got the characterization of Luke and some of the others WRONG.
Did Johnson ever (even care to) watch and study the earlier films, the original trilogy in particular? Or even Rogue One which, immediately after I saw it, I considered it a GENUINE "Star Wars" movie and an excellent prequel to "A New Hope". In fairness to this movie, it WAS good to see Luke, Leia, Chewy, C-3PO, R2-D2 and even BB-8 onscreen again. Heck, I even sorta liked the Porgs!
Here's my overall take-away from this film: What Luke immediately did with his old lightsabre forewarned the ever-downward trajectory of my hopes for TLJ the movie. But in the big picture - i.e., the 40-year history of the Star Wars iconic, canonical lore - it showed me that apparetly the Star Wars franchise baton has been wrongly passed onto incompetent and flippantly disrespectful "leaders" who don't deserve it. George, you shouldn't have sold out. :-(
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Only Disney could pick some no-name director off the street, let him write and direct one of the most pivotal films of my lifetime involving Star Wars and allow him to ruin it with a pathetic storyline, plotlines which don't even approach the suspension of disbelief because they are wholly not believable, scenes which deviate completely from anything Lucas would have intended for the characters, useless politically correct messages, ruination of characters and waste a monumental acting performance from Mark Hamill with a script that was beneath him.
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1/10
Can't Get It Out of My Head (and I really want to)
A friend of mine currently living in Italy has told me that she is not going to see this movie. Ever. I can stress enough how much I envy her. I think that's the right move to make if you, like her, want to keep your Star Wars memories unsullied. Nearly eight days after watching the film my mind keeps coming back to it, as the tongue does with a rotten tooth, trying to make some sense of the whole mess. The movie itself is not that bad - though it's sloppy and clumsy - but I hate it because of its pettiness. The first Star Wars movie was an act of love, George Lucas was able to breath new life in the very stuff "old" movies and "old" books were made of, and show how they could be valid for a new generation of cinemagoers. This hateful little movie ransacks Lucas' legacy (which is really the legacy of centuries) even as it ponderously proclaims the need to kill "the old". No wonder than that one of its central images is the burning of books. That an act that has historically signalled the rise of barbarism ( the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany) is viewed in such a positive light tells you a lot about the degree of confussion that went into the making of this movie.
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That's honestly what I thought the movie should have been called and after over 3 decades this movie doesn't give us the Luke Skywalker we were waiting for. Instead the trend of the new movies is to unceremoniously kill off beloved characters (Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Admiral Ackbar, and Leia in the next installment) with little fanfare and for no reason other than to push the new characters which we really don't have any connection to. Like everyone else, I have about the same complaints about Snoke being discarded 1.5 movies into the trilogy with no explanation to who he is or where he came from and the ridiculous trend of current Hollywood films trying to be inclusive just for the sake of it without actually paying attention to creating characters that you care about and find interesting.
I found myself laughing at certain parts of the film and not because of the intended humor. The deactivation of the ship's hyperspace tracking and casino planet storylines are throwaway subplots that wouldn't be missed if they were placed on the cutting room floor. They literally served no purpose to the overall plot except for giving a few of the characters something to do as to appear as if they are helping the other characters. The resistance makes a few huge mistakes that you wouldn't expect smart characters to do and the villains are either entirely stupid (Hux) or perform actions that make no sense (Kylo and Del Toro's "Codebreaker").
As bad as the prequels were I'd surmise that George Lucas could have done a far better job with the right people keeping him in check like the original trilogy had. Sorry Disney, you can pay off all the critics you like but the fans mark this down as a dud. You need to regroup and figure out some way to salvage this abortion in the last movie.
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30 minutes of the entire movie (cantobyte subplot) was completely unnecessary as it could have been avoided by 1 line of dialogue. Why would an admiral not disclose tactical operations to one of her senior captains?.....to put him in his "place"
Then when his actions ultimately lead to getting more people killed he recieved not even a lecture.....he commited mutiny that lead to people dying.....and now hes basically promoted to leader.
All of a sudden captains have to go down with the ship for no reason....they have autopilot, its referenced in the beggining of empire strikes back....they also have driods...
If hyperspace is weaponizable....why has it never been used and why didnt theu use it earlier when the medical frigate was about to run out of fuel.
Snoke is a throw away character after being built up so much in the previous film.
Reys parents are no ones after being built up by the previous film.
Kylo was obsessed with vader in the previous film to just abandon his idol because snoke called it stupid basically
Knights of ren are vaguely mentioned after being largely referenced in the previous film and again do not appear.
Lukes entire character is rewritten. Luke wont kill a father he barely knows because he believes he can save him but he will immediately jump to murdering his nephew in his sleep because he read his thoughts.....not even gonna try and save him.....
Rey has even more absurd mastery of the force than the previous film.....again without any to minimal training.
2 apparently powerful force users have trouble with imperial guards evem though they have both already shown they can easily manipulate the force to send them all flying throw the air or collapse their esophagus.
Since when does using the force drain your life....luke died from over exertion...? Or he was at peace and gave himself to the force?....even though they rebels and rey, greatly could bemefit from him.....nope hes at peace with his nephew falling completely to the darkside amd leaving his sister and friends in dire need of help....and his last stand isnt going to ignite a spark accross the galaxy if only a hamdful pf people witnessed it and he didnt stop them anyway....so he what inspired people to runaway using misdirection?....
Roses basocally tells finn she loves him after literally knowing him for about 18hrs.
There just so happened to be a master hacker in their jail cell that was there just to take a nap becaise he could have literally escaped whenever he wanted?....
The whole superman leia scene forgoes all basic understanding of physics and how space works and what happens to the body when exposed to space and a vacumm.....
Kylo was supposed to go complete his training but the film literally picks up or seemingly picksup right where the last film ended and kylo is there on the battlefield.
Somehow lazers lose effectiveness overdistance in space....also complete disregard for how sheilds have been shown to work in previous films. Also tie fighters were absolutely wrecking the ship and then pull back why?....
Snoke not having knowledge of his ships tracking ability
Roses speeder being incredibly faster than finns, allowing her to double back, catch up and get an angle to side swipe him
Finn drags rose back across a vast open battfeild and somehow make it back unharmed and before everything else happened.
They can call maz for advice but cant reach anyone else for help.....
Absolute waste of fasma again....
Mostly terrible campy jokes that felt very unlike star wars as they were forced set peices instead of reactionary quips to the situation.
Random stable boy with fairly good control of the force to just casually force pull a broom to his hand, never habing ever been taught what the force is amd how to manipulate/control it.
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Don't waste your time spending a night out to watch that crap. It's a REDBOX folks, at the DVD level to boot. Don't spend the extra dollar and half on the Blue-ray, it wont make any difference. Watch Rogue One again, it's cheaper now and a lot better movie.
A total disappointment. HORRIBLE! I'm saddened it has come to this.
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5/10
'...remember kids, it's not important if it's of high quality, only if it makes money.'
A few good parts but my advice to Disney / Lucasfilm / Kathleen Kennedy / whoever would be spend less time shoving your political leanings down my throat and check for plot holes before you start filming.
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I did not read any critics or reviews on TLJ before I watched it, I considered myself as a "light-fanboy", I grown up with the New Hope, cheered for The Empire Strikes Back, then frown and growl about the Ewoks and That nonsense of a battle of Endor.
So I went to the cinema with no prejudices with a smile on my face to see Luke and Leia, Chewie, all the old and the new characters and to ENJOY a good movie. I had a few question in my mind, episode 7 had left open some. Who is Rey? Who the hack is Snoke? What happened in 30 years and who did emerge the first order to a level to build a planet size death star in secret? Knights of Ren? What did Luke in 30 years as the last and most powerful living jedi to eliminate the ruins of the Galactic Empire?
If you did not see this bullshit (TLJ) be warned friend, You will not find an answer to any of those questions above. No answers but more stupid things, very cheap humor, wasting the precious time of the audience, and very, very poor acting.
Many 1star review listed all the bad things so I won't do it again. Shame on you Mr johnson and shame on Disney for mistaking Star Wars with a milking cow.
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So, this is my REAL review of SW:TLJ -- I am not a bot, I'm not fake, and I'm not hating. I'm just stating my opinion. The film was a GOOD movie, but not a good STAR WARS movie. A good solid Star Wars movie is "Attack of the Clones" for example. In my opinion The Force Awakens and Revenge of the Sith are Great Star Wars Movies. Legendary Star Wars movies are the first trilogy (IV, V, VI) only.
The Last Jedi takes nearly every wrong direction possible. Luke's character doesn't work from what we know about him in Return of the Jedi. I mean, he just goes into hiding? Just because of one bad moment with Ben Solo? I would have thought that redemption would have been his new motivation, not becoming a hermit. Leia, not having used the Force before, suddenly saving herself from the vaccuum of space is laughable at best. Plus, building up several plot points in the Force Awakens and then being NOTHING in the sequel does not make for good film-making.
Let's look at a couple cases in point - Rey's parents turned out to be nothing...literally nothing! So why the build up!?! Next, Snoke is made out to be a big baddie, then to be snuffed out by Kylo so easily! Such build up and then NOTHING. Fasma vs. Finn was pumped up to be and epic clash ... that wasn't. This should have carried onto the next sequel, for sure. We have the Canto Bight storyline with Bencio Del Toro that ended up being a big fat NOTHING-burger in the storyline. Next, Luke SkyWalker finally coming back to the Star Wars Universe, only to be killed after 1 movie (this one), and he wasn't even featured that much! What a tease!
So we have no trainers for Kylo Ren and Rey, yet we have Leia, who's alive, but Carrie Fisher, who's dead in real life. We have no Luke coming back, no more Mark Hamill, even though he could still play the role, no Supreme Baddies (like the Emperor or Snoke) and new characters that we haven't really emotionally connected with like Rose. What was Rian Johnson thinking? What a mess. The only good parts were the fight with Rey and Ren vs the Red Guard, the final fight scene with Luke vs. Ren, and the Vice Admiral using the main Rebel ship as a Spear (which has a HUGE flaw in using lightspeed as a weapon -- such a big NO-NO in the Star Wars Universe). The only good thing in the movie was the jokes -- *sometimes* they landed properly, but not always.
I'm sorry, I'm just done with this movie. What a disappointment.
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Visually stunning. Shallow and without any story or character development. Plot holes abound. They have traded the adventure and the essence of the original series for a cheap politically correct story that targets millennials. Main themes are that religion is bad, heros do not exist, and you can have great power without training and hard work.
This movie did not give Mark Hamill or Carrie Fisher the respect that they deserved. Mark Hamill plays a whiny, middle aged, broken man who should be in therapy. His entire character arc was wasted in this miserable film.
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It's like Disney was purposefully giving the middle finger to all the things that made the franchise popular. Star Wars has been co-opted by big money and populism. It will carry on as only a shell of what it used to be.
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Here are listed the reasons I hated this movie that felt like a bad fan-fiction with lots of plot-holes. This list is based on the list from the Angry Joe channel.
1. The Death of Luke is stupid
2. Luke's Legacy & Behavior are horrible.
3. The Death of Snoke is stupid
4. Finn & Rose's Subplot is the worst thing ever
5. Rey's Parents are Nobody
6. Death & Return of Leia (Superman)
7. Death of Phasma
8. Humor & Tone Issues
9. Dropped Force Awakens Subplots
10. Plot Holes (MANY)
11. First Order Fleet Chases instead of Destroys
12. Vice Admiral Holdo Sucks
13. A Single X-Wing can Destroy a Dreadnought
14. Why didnt Kylo notice Luke Projection
15. Knights of Ren Dropped
16. Kylo Ren & Vader Relationship Dropped
17. Rey Perfect Saber Techniques with No Training
18. Snoke doesnt know his ship can track the enemy?
19. Yoda looks weird! (and can control lighting?)
20. Rey happens to be at correct spot to save everyone and lifts all rocks with no training.
21. Why was Finn hurt if it has no ramifications?
22. Rose Falling in Love with Finn was Stupid!
23. Luke tried to kill his nephew
24. Luke reason for exile is stupid
25. Admiral Ackbar dies off-screen
26. Holdo has no reason to keep her plan a secret.
27. Lukes x-wing is there, but he does not use it.
28. Why using lightspeed as a weapon the Plan A since the beggining?
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Burn in hell you money-oriented, classic SW movie destroyers. I am talking to you Disney, Rian and all the paid Critics. It is not a hack, people just don't like the big mess you've done. The hacked reviews are Critics reviews, and the hack are coins engraved with Mickey Mouse on them. I hope no one buy your porg toys, and no one pay you to see this abomination called The Last Jedi.
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2/10
Change the name to space balls and I will give it a 10.
I am giving this movie a 2 because the visuals are interesting. If this movie had another name in front of it other than Star Wars I would have to say it was a decent but not great movie. Something like: space balls 2: the search for cash.
Or maybe:
Twilight 16: Revenge of the brooding darth emo guy.
The movie is a slap in the face to hard core fans who have read the books, played the games and have fallen in love with the universe and the lore. The writing of this movie feels like it wants to pull the characters out of the long time ago far far away and pull you right back into our overly politically correct, dumbed down humor world.
Unfortunately, The Last Jedi feels like it was written in collaboration between a kid who cannot seem to understand why grownups do not think he is funny, and someone who either has no clue about or has contempt for the the existing Star Wars universe. The writers do not develop characters and can't advance a coherent plot line. Everyone except the dead are in exactly the same situation in the end as they were in the beginning. Except for maybe the giant space llamas. Even Luke has gone from self hermit exile to self force exile.
The situational plot drivers feel like a bad sitcom scenes. The captain has to drive and go down with the ship even though we have all that cool auto pilot ai crap and robots who could have actually hit the center of the dreadnought or have instantly calculated a path to take out as many enemy ships as possible. Naaaa not dramatic enough for an underdeveloped character death right? I am still amazed they didn't have General Acbar yell, "It's a trap!" right before he flew out the window.
But then.
Why bother going into the Star Wars universe when you can just take Star Wars to Vegas. Craps tables , slot machines and all. And giant llama racing, cool cgi animal rights activism filler is much more important than spending time on actual character development. Who goes to jail for a parking ticket anyway?
Hell even the physics from other movies doesn't apply anymore. In previous movies one of the fastest ships in the Galaxy could not out run a star destroyer. But as they were whining on a star destroyer about never being able to catch the slow tugboat looking ships I was hoping dark helmet was about to run in and save the movie with ludicrous speed.
Watching the movie felt like a dumbed down Millennial rant on how old people are bitter and fundimentaly broken, teachers are useless, and kids and are good at anything they want to be and get a trophy without ever having to practice or train. And don't forget your portable safe space kids. So if you ever have to run out onto a battle field to say something to someone , everyone will stop shooting and forget they hated you.
Its funny how the most powerful Jedi ever, had to train for years to learn how to do simple things. However Rey can use the force right out of the box and do anything. She can beat down jedi with out ever having to train in the force. Its sad we did not know this years ago. It could have saved the jedi years of wasted time, or at least saved Luke from 8 months of running around flipping through a swamp with a frog on his back telling him he was not good enough. No wonder he was bitter right.
It makes sense to change the training a Jedi thing. Kids now days might not understand or believe the concept of having to train and work hard to be good at something. Yuck . Who would want to buy that toy?
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Well, that was just the worst. I think I've got a new most disliked star wars movie off all time. I think the first 10 minutes I enjoyed. The 2 hours or so in the after that I thought was an absolute trainwreck of epic proportion. Just awful awful acting and completely and utterly predictable plot (twists). Not to mention idiotic story line and unbelievable plot holes. Believe all the bad reviews you've read. It's really that bad. They destoyed Luke Skywalker. They destroyed the universe and worst of all made a joke out of the force. I'm also huuugely disappointed with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Hamill's acting was in my opinion as robotic as his hand, the worst I've ever seen and Carrie Fisher (RIP) just got that whole Ozzie Ozbourne off her head from all the years drugs, slurred speech and bad acting. I would not have believed anyone if they told me how bad those two would be.
Finn, awful
Rey, awful (maybe JJ should of made her cry again so she'd remember to act)
Rose, punch in the face awful
Kylo, pathetic.
Snoke I actually thought was the best character, and he was CG! But what a 5 minute waste of villain. And like we should think a Sith lord that can read the minds in the room can't tell a lightsabre about to poke him in the side? You know it's a bad movie when Poe was just the glimmer that shone in that entire movie. The rest just acted like they were in a bad B movie?
I hate to say it but rotten tomatoes is right in my opinion, just one of the worst in the saga. Specifically signed up here to join voices in the worst injustice ever done to the Star Wars universe.
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I usually do not write reviews on here, but after viewing this film almost a week ago, I feel I have to say at least this.
The trailer was so much better, I had my hopes up for one of the greatest movie going experiences of my life and well, that did not happen at all.
Rian Johnson probably didn't want anyone to see the trailer because they (Disney) made the movie look great and definitely unmissable.
Yes, I am an older fan, I saw EVERY Star Wars movie in the theater. I too, was not too thrilled with the prequels, but they were enjoyable in their own individual way, especially, to me, Sith. I did love The Force Awakens, It did just what it set out to do, Awakened the Force in ALL Star Wars fans.
It was wonderful and sad to see Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia (General Organa) one last time and I loved her performance, it worked for what she was given to work with herself. Mark Hamil tried to warn us to not set us up for disappointment, but I think the fans were so worked up that there was going to be no way out of that.
It's nice knowing he was not at all happy with where the new team took Luke and so it makes it feel , like he said prior to its release "that it's only a movie" a little easier to take. Though, it was hard to watch the fate of the characters we grew up with and loved. C3PO had about 1 minute of screen time, I don't really recall R2D2 that much but for one scene, Chewie was hardly in it as well. It was a let down. I wish the trailer sucked and the movie was great, instead of the other way around. I am not at all excited about the next installment, it will be hard without Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford in it and oh yeah, Mark Hamil.....goodbye galaxy far far away. It was nice knowing you. I'll always have Empire and at least I was born to see THAT film in the theater.
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This movie COULD have been the best Star Wars yet. There were so many fantastic things in this movie. For example: The sounddesign, the score, the digital effects, the acting, the worlds and visuals, some really amazing ideas of what is happening and how it is visualized, also some of the jokes are really fun.
HOWEVER, all of the above mentioned aspects of a movie are just used to carry the story. And this is one of the main problems in this movie. The Story is simply not that good. It has its twists and interesting ideas. Yet it comes with a huge pile of logic, physical and plot holes. I will list some of those holes later, first I want to know, how can such a hiqh quality movie production such as Disney deliver this kind of amateurish fails?
1. It's Star Wars, add enough good visuals and comic reliefs and the people will see it anyway, afterall its all about the money. (Maybe think about long-term damage too Disney!)
2. It's a different director and writer and they sure as hell didn't cooperate. It almost feels like Rian Johnson doesn't like JJ Abrams himself or his story and negated many points, only so now JJ can fix the broken story. Well good luck with that JJ, I'm glad im not in your skin right now.
Now to the amateurish fails: the many many holes. I will sort them, because there are so many:
1. Logical/Physical holes
In the beginning Poe attacks a Dreadnaught on his own. He shoots down all the turrets, flies through them ignoring space debris. 4 Other Star Destroyers are surrounding that Dreadnought and are not helping, not sending Tie Fighters or anything to help. Even after the super slow Bombers show up, they are not helping.
The resistance sends Bombers that drop bombs.. in space. Zero gravity, yet they fall, they are not shot, nor do they have any impulse. Also magnetic wouldn't work. Also the pilot is lying there without a mask next to an open bomb shaft. Okay.
Leia is on the bridge that is completely blown up, yet she stays unharmed and is catapulted into space. She seems dead, but after a time in ice cold space she awakes and flies back to the ship. Okay I get it, she can use the force, but how can she survive space? How could she have used the force while being unconscious?
Furthermore she flies to the door and they open it... You know space? Everyone would get sucked out immediately. But yea i guess that's Disney magic.
The Supremacy shoots Laser and they bend like artillery fire. That's not how Laser works. Tell me its anything else, but on the official Star Wars site I don't read any other armament that would suit bending/falling fire shots (It looks cool I get it.)
Finn decides to sacrifice himself, yet for some reason Rose, who was way behind can speed up so fast to interrupt him and crash into him. And they both survive and are NOT shot by the first order all the way back. I like what Rose says: Dont fight what you hate, rescue what you love. This is a good message, however Finn was trying to rescue the people he loves by destroying that ram.
2. Plot holes
The First order explains that they have to follow the resistance instead of shooting it because, they are not fast enough. How about sending out all Tie Fighters and Bombers and end it? Explanation of Hux: We cannot give assistant fire. Sure hundreds of Fighters and Bombers need assisstance vs. that little resistance fleet. Also the supremacy is superiour in every way, so they could just let the other destroyers jump into hyperspace and jump back in front of the resistance, easy win.
It is not very conveniently explained why Luke has become such a different emo-char. I get it he looked into the dark side in Kylo and was seduced to kill him for a second. Boohoo big deal, I cannot believe that this changes him in such a fundamental way.
If Luke doesn't want to be found, why did he mark his position on a map?
If supreme Leader Snoke connects the MIND of Kylo and Rey, why does Kylo have physical water on him after meeting Rey?
The dark cave where Rey goes into has NOTHING to offer. its just a technical experiment that adds nothing to the story or her character. What a dissapointing wasted scene.
Holdo doesn't tell Poe (which was one of the most trustworthy resistance members) her plan to evacuate the ship, because reasons?
Finn and Rose don't tell Holdo how the First order can track them, because? (Could be done via comlink when they were already on their mission to Canto bight)
Why was the Mastercodehacker with the red flower even introduced if he doesn't play any role in the movie? Why was there another masterhacker randomly in the same cell as Rose and Finn were put into? Why did he have a device to unlock the cells, why did he wait to that point to use it? Why are you thrown into prison for landing on the beach? Why do we need a Harry Potter looking stampede scene to free some random animals, that will get caught back anyway? This whole chase scene through the city is embarassing and pointless.
Why can force ghost Yoda ignite lightning in the real physical world?
I guess BB-9e scanned Finn, Rose and DJ, but it wasn't shown clearly enough.
Snoke can sense every thought in Kylo, yet he cannot sense, a danger nearby? Snoke has been built up by JJ in the last movie and shows his power this movie and later is just killed in such an unspectacular way, you wonder if this is a parody. If Snoke is still alive and it was a trick I am okay with that scene. If he is really dead it simply doesn't add up.
Snoke has pushed the conflict within Kylo, he helps Rey, doesn't shoot his mother, he kills Snoke and the red guards yet immediately afterwards he turns superevil, for scriptreasons. The only possible satisfying explanation would be, that Snoke is dead, thus his inner conflict is gone. But Snoke also connected Reys and Kylos mind and that is still in place in the end of the movie. So either Snoke is still alive, which makes Kylos character development unreasonable, or he is dead, which makes the lasting connection between Kylo and Rey not working. :/
Captain Phasma is immune to Laser, yet she still powers down the Shield of Starkillerbase in Ep 7. Captain Phasma is such a wasted Character in every possible way. Gwendoline Christie is such a talent and they put a mask on her and let her do stupid pointless things, just so they can write her name in the credits. What an amateurish shortsighted behaviour of Disney, its embarassing.
Holdo flies the Flagship into the supremacy, luckily all or most of the surrounding Star destroyers are also destroyed, how convenient. But she waits with that action until mostly all of the resistance transporters have been shot. Holdo could have been an interesting character that replaces Leia, but they wasted her on the first moment possible. Why not let Admiral Ackbar do that action? He was a legacy char that had to go, but wouldn't that have been a good way of doing it? Sigh. Btw. with that action Holdo could have killed Finn, Rose, DJ, Phasma, Kylo, Rey. But luckily its Disney so the main characters are untouchable Yaaay. Except for legacy Chars, they have to go.
They flee to Crait, only to leave the door open until the First order arrives and starts shooting. I get it Rose and Finn, must have gotten inside first.
Kylo not noticing that Luke is a force projection.
Rey has basically no human flaws. She is good at everything, without training. Just a little scratches from fighting with that lightsabre, because she was used to using a staff, would have been realistic and satisfying. But this attitude just makes her character so uncompelling. She needs any kind of flaw or struggle other than Kylo probably lying about her parents. I simply cannot feel for her, she is too good and perfect in every way. How can we humans identify with such a Mary "wonderwoman" Sue?
I am sure I would notice many more mistakes if I tried to, but I don't want to. This movie COULD have been amazing. I don't understand how those plot and logic/physical holes can surpass into a final product of this quality standart. If Disney is about to change one thing, it is the story writing. Give the authors more time, develope the characters and their decisions logically.
Storywise I can come up with a more interesting story in 5 minutes. Luke is teaching new jedis at a jedi temple. Kylo is still one of them. Phasma, Hux and Snoke are trying to find that location. Finn flees and still finds Rey. Together with Han they escape and Han knows where Luke is. But Phasma had Finn tracked so the Order shows up at the Jedi temple and Snoke twists Kylos mind to the dark site. Luke, Rey, Finn and Han can flee, also with some other Jedi pupils. Snoke collects Kylo and some other pupils and forms the knight of ren. In the second movie the resistance flees from snoke and supremacy. knights of ren rain terror and we have some lightsaber and force duels. In the last movie they have the starkiller base and Luke and Rey fight Kylo and Snoke in a quadrabattle with lightsabers and the force, after Luke and Rey managed to defeat the remaining knights of ren. Luke dies to save Rey and kills Snoke. Rey kills Kylo but uses the dark side of the force to do it. In the end we don't know what side Rey will choose. Its very vague I know. But is a 5 minute idea, that in my opinion is already more interesting that what we got here with Ep7 and 8. :(
Maybe Episode 9 can fix some of those plotholes or unsatisfying loose story arcs. Good luck JJ Abrams with Ep9, you are looking at basically nothing left and have to create something new. But its the last movie of a trilogy, I have no idea how you want to do that.
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I enjoyed the last Star Wars. If I remember correctly much of the action took place on the ground away from the space ships. With this episode so much of the film is set in the ships -- and accompanied with endless poorly executed CGI explosions. It just went on and on -- even cutting away from turgid meaningful conversations to show more rocket guns or whatever you call them missing their mark or bouncing off protective invisible shields. To be honest I tired of the film about a third of the way in. The two and a half hours dragged terribly. A yawn fest of yet more explosions or battle scenes that simply made no logical sense with some mighty bombers easily blown to smithereens while lots of fighters zoomed about like demented flies. And then there was poor old Luke Skywalker living in a stone hut on the edge of a cliff with some girl parked outside his door waiting for him to pop out for a spot of sea fishing so she could try to tempt him back to save the day. Boring..... And when old Luke throws a hissy fit and ignores her whining she engages in deep conversation with a bloke who is not even there. He dresses in black and sports a nice line in heroic scars. Go knows where he actually is -- but he ain't next to her that's for sure even though they stare meaningfully into each other's troubled eyes. Carrie Fisher sits down for most of the film, but does see it through to the end -- and then she's gone...... Look, any film that begins with Ade Edmondson dressed up like a pseudo Nazi having a rant with a wild-eyed carrot-topped geezer who comes from the let's-all--go-over-the-top school of acting is on a hiding to nothing. Follow this with a meandering script that gets lost in a nowhere land of its own making and you have a lost opportunity to continue a classic modern sci-fi tale into gleaming pastures new. Sadly this muddy field only contains a donkey...cue: loud orange explosion as said donkey goes off to meet its skymaker.
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Rian Johnson had every opportunity to make an excellent movie. Instead, he and Disney delivered a campy, goofy, and just bizarre train wreck that doesn't do any justice to the characters or overall saga. The pacing seems like it was determined by an 8 year old with ADHD, none of the major sequences had any real gravitas and instead are peppered with cheap slapstick humor, and worst of all, the film does no justice to the great characters that previous movies created. The whole thing just seemed like a cheap, farcical knockoff. There is no quality here. Utterly disappointed.
Furthermore, I'm utterly bewildered at how such an obvious pile of BS is garnering such rave reviews from critics, but lackluster reviews from the public.
Usually the reverse is true. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but is Disney paying off critics for good reviews? Something is fishy here...
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1/10
Please end the franchise if you are going to produce dreck like this.
This movie was an affront to the entire franchise. The Disney influence has ruined what could have been a smooth, logical and enjoyable passing of the torch from the old to the new generation. Instead, this film was a nonsensical farce riddled with inappropriately placed humor, illogical character decisions, and storylines that hit brick walls. From Leia's Mary Poppins routine to Luke's tossing the light saber over his shoulder and dusting himself off after a barrage of gunfire, and everything in between, the soundtrack could have easily been replaced with the Benny Hill theme music.But who cares, as long as the money's rolling in. Do whatever you need to do to merchandise your Porgs.
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My main feelings when leaving the cinema were of feeling underwhelmed and bored.
Very little happens in this film. It's essentially a long car chase in space. There's a pointless side mission to a casino planet where some racing animals get freed (but it's fine to leave the human slaves as slaves) and then there's a Hoth-like final battle with bigger AT-ATs (bigger's always better as we learnt from Starkiller Base). And that's pretty much it. Oh and some kid with a broom.
Snoke dies, Luke dies, Phasma is probably dead but they'll probably bring her back anyway, loads of Resistance members die.
I have no idea where they're going to take the story in Ep IX. The force-sensitive kid with the broom will presumably play a part, but it'll just be Rey vs Kylo as far as I can tell. I can't see how they can make an interesting story out of that.
Everything non-story-related was good, but the story is garbage. Is this the best they could come up with? The mind boggles.
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Stop trying to make excuses. I never thought anything about the female or cultural characters in this movie. It was just about everything else but that. Star wars is dead to me.
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1/10
SJW, MARXIST, LEFTIST wretched hive of scum and villainy
As a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy I hated this movie.
Especially all the bad attempts at being "funny". I don't want a Star Wars movie that has jokes for little 3yr-olds.
Just stop all this stupid slapstick nonsense when it isn't even funny.
Also don't introduce characters like Snoke or Phasma wenn they are just killed without knowing anything about them.
And stop casting actors only to make the movie more "diverse".
Nobody wants a "diverse movie". What people want is a "good movie" instead.
Also the movie didn't give a s*** about the last one (which itself was also not very good).
Basically it is a Return of the Jedi ripoff that has a stupid Hoth-like scene.
The movie is way too long for it's content.
I never thought I would hope for George Lucas to return. Oh my god that's how much I hated it.
Everything that Luke does in this movie is stupid.
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1/10
Disney FAILS and FRUSTRATES every intelligent person watching the film
This is what fans were afraid of when Disney took control. A lifetime of devotion destroyed in 2 hours and 36 minutes.
My 6 year old didn't hate it. So, that's why it gets 3/10
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As a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy I hated this movie.
Especially all the bad attempts at being "funny". I don't want a Star Wars movie that has jokes for little 3yr-olds.
Just stop all this stupid slapstick nonsense when it isn't even funny.
Also don't introduce characters like Snoke or Phasma wenn they are just killed without knowing anything about them.
And stop casting actors only to make the movie more "diverse".
Nobody wants a "diverse movie". What people want is a "good movie" instead.
Also the movie didn't give a s*** about the last one (which itself was also not very good).
Basically it is a Return of the Jedi ripoff that has a stupid Hoth-like scene.
The movie is way too long for it's content.
I never thought I would hope for George Lucas to return. Oh my god that's how much I hated it.
Everybody that Luke does in this movie is stupid.
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Yes, I may be an inexperienced 18 yr old dumbass, who has no idea how hard it is to make a movie, but I'm not incapable of telling apart a good and a bad movie. I saw the first six episodes and I must say, it should've ended with ep. 6 (3
originally). Ep. 7 and 8 just seem to be annoying repetition of the first 6 episodes, what more, aimed at young audience who, in most cases, haven't even seen the original movies.
To me it's no longer the battle between the rebels and the empire, but a battle between big movie making companies about who can make the most god-awful remake of a legendary franchise, such as star wars, and make themselves even richer.
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3/10
A mere shadow of the past movies ( not The Force Awakens)
Let me just start with the state of hollywood now. As mr.Hamill said in an interview,it's not important if it's high quality, all it matters is IT MAKES MONEY, screw the quality, screw the characters etc. There were scenes i liked in this movie, such as those force conversations between rey and kylo ren, but unforunately the bad outweighs the good by a long shot here. Firstly, you hire a new director who only has done a couple of movies, and you give him the control of one of the biggest and one of the most iconic franchises in movie history. Secondly, Finn and Rose are completely irrelevant to the plot. If they have removed them from the movie and their pointless "crusade" , it would have been a shorter and possibly better movie. Like i said before, this movie was made just to make money, period. I think most people will agree that that Leia flying scene in space was just so ridiculous. At that moment when that ship blew up, i was like oh didn't expect they would kill her so soon, then came that superman/witch flying sequence. And so much forced humor in this movie. Star wars isn't supposed to be a comedy movie, yet you have to add stupid scenes pretending to be marvel or something. I could go on and on about this, but i think i have said my piece. An complete mess of the movie.
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So to keep it short and sweet. They killed star wars. I watch this movie at home because I told myself that I will never pay for star wars movies again after watching the first "new" star wars.
It feels like a retard child was directing this movie and no one ever watched it before they release it to say "Hmm we made a hot steaming pile of crap!, lets fire everyone on the directive staff and hire new capable people"
Dont watch this at the cinema. Best choice is to watch at home and treat it like "Hey honey wanna watch a shit movie parody of starwars and laugh at how bad it is while getting drunk?" kind of thing.
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Though I had missed the premiere of the movie, I had read quite a few user reviews on this installment of JJ Abrams' Star Wars on IMDB that were mostly negative, so I fully expected that the bourgeois JJ had indeed ruined these hundreds-of-millions of dollars too. Nonetheless, believing myself a fair man, I checked into a late night show alone to watch it in 3-D. The opening music wasn't too bad, in fact it stirred a bit of my soul, something that I feel is the whole point of music. Then the opening combat scene was intense with minor creativity on display, the bomb bays, and the silver bomb-lets. The whole atmosphere was gripping and I did feel that the sound was very well done. The blasters were heart pounding and real. But the entire story-line was poor, and the plot seemed contrived with the usual desperate rebels running around being chased by the Empire led by a sneering Snokes.
But then began the episode of Luke on the island. As expected, the lead heroine on the island was just awful and as colorless as water. Maybe that was the effect that the director wanted, while Luke appeared to be befuddled over what to do in life. Like in a major late, late mid-life crisis. I was also completely betrayed by the characters of the Dark Side, the tall and sinister version of "Shrek" was the apparent ringleader of the Empire, while Ben Solo trying to play the geeky overgrown teenager with a tinge of murderous schizophrenia. He seemed completely unfit for the role of anything convincing apart from being Brittany Spears in the midst of her periods. At this point, the entire movie began to feel like the "Empire Strikes Back" remixed by the notorious DJ Khaled.
But then wait, a miracle happened, something fell on JJ's lap that turned the movie around. And most likely this director had nothing to do with it. Fucking Yoda appeared and delivered classic lines. Something unheard of. A bit of magic from the earliest Star Wars that had later eluded even the creator George Lucas. Lo and behold. I was stunned. I fell back into my seat and truly tears appeared in my eyes. The lines that Yoda delivered were such a blowback from the past. "Skywalker. Young fool. The master comes back to teach the young." Some of the lines if I remember correctly. But the precision and delivery. Jesus. This was suddenly the Yoda of old and not that pip squeak in the last few terrible Star Wars installments. This was what made going to the movie all worth it.
Not even the Hillary hold-outs, a Princess Leia who just refused to die and she brought enough die-hard crones with her to almost start a Socialist Party that Stalin would've been proud of. No. Not even she could ruin the movie with her terrible acting (no disrespect to the dead), and not even the teeny-boppers of an international mélange could ruin my mood after that. The things a true Star Wars fan will do to hear a classic line. In the entire almost three hour movie, I was moved only by Yoda. The rest was full of great sound effects, great visuals, but a story-line that even a comatose, barely read, Chaiwallah could understand. But do see it for the Master. Master Yoda still lives in that movie alright, trillions of dollars and decades later, I saw the Master again. So, yes I would give this movie a passing grade just for that. 4/10
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2/10
I'm so sad that Disney has trashed the mythology and legacy of Star Wars
I'm not a ROBOT & posting only once. The media is trying to paint a narrative these reviews are not real. This one is real.
** SPOILERS AHEAD**
I saw Star Wars in 1977 with my dad and I was 10 years old, so I have loved Star Wars for 40 years of my life.
What I liked:
The battle with Kylo and Rey in Snoke's thrown room. I like how Snoke was assassinated sort of like what would happen in Ancient Rome. The problem is that Kylo is not a fully developed character toward total evil to lead the First Order. Perhaps Ep. IX will save this movie.
I hated the following:
1. Luke: Disney ruined the legacy of Luke and what Lucas set up. Luke deserved better. Luke was a grumpy old man who has trashed the Jedi order. Then he becomes a coward and does a force astral projection and dies of exhaustion. Wow what a waste. Why not let Luke go out with a more epic way (i.e, have Luke in the flesh and Rey be ambushed by the Knights of Ren, demolish AT-ATs and Tie Fighters with epic force pushes. Go out that way!).
2. Plot-holes: Rey is a "Mary-Sue" who can do everything with no training. Finn -- a sanitation worker -- can take on Captain Phasma who is a trained soldier. Bombs in space; Light speed ships as weapons; force ghosts (Yoda) using lightning (why not have all the force ghosts take on the First Order?)
3. Casino story line: Waste of time and went know where except to introduce Rian's new trilogy in the future. Self-serving. Disney had to go all political with animal cruelty. I'm on the side against animal cruelty but it just didn't fit and I felt like I was watching the Disney channel sitcom.
4. Bad/Forced Humor: I felt like I was watching Guardians of the Galaxy or Avengers. They work in those films, but not in Star Wars. Luke throwing his dad's light saber over his shoulder was a huge slap in the face to everyone who loves Star Wars. It was not funny.
These criticism only scratch the surface how bad this movie is. I'm sad to see Disney trounce on the legacy of Star Wars like this. Again, I'm a true fan and not a robot writing this review. Go see this movie form your own opinion. But I hated this film and I feel like Disney has just trashed everything to start over with their own thing. I'm open-minded to go in new directions. That's cool, but this just seemed so much in my face.
My only hope is that JJ Abrams can rescue this pile of trash. Give some background to Snoke. Have it so that Kylo lied about Rey's parents and that she is truly the daughter of a legacy character. Redeem Luke!!! Have him so he only teleported away-- not died-- near the end in TLJ. Let Luke in the flesh take on the First Order and then die in an epic way. Have Kylo go full evil and not conflicted as he rules the First Order in a heavy handed way. Have Rey get training by Luke.
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Disney turned one of my all-time favorite sagas into a wanna-cry nothing! I'm also both very sad and angry. For two and a half hour I was sitting in the chair and with every single minute I just wanted to cry out. Most intense on the scenes of porges and Lea Poppins. I'm not going to describe all the mind-blowing genius ideas that are already enough commented but will tell you how I feel after the premier... I feel like a was raped, robbed and recycled - like e complete piece of junk just as they did with the movie and our hope and memories. I feel offhandedly utilized for a couple of bucks. This piece of great dismantlement is directed by people that have no clue what Star Wars is, what this religion is, what lies at the heart of it. They are just some group of people lost by mistake in another studio and probably was going to shot another child comedy Disney production. R.I.P. Star Wars! :(
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Wow lets totally forget about all the established Star Wars universe rules. The movie is full of plot holes, is sloppy, slow, and tiresome film making. They choose to conveniently forget about tractor beams, have force ghosts able to influence the physical realm, portray Luke as a bitter "old man", ruin Rey, make her a pointless passive protagonist, relegate Chewy to basically function as a glorified Uber driver for Rey, introduce a character like Rose that has less charisma than my big toe. Also the Harry Potter-esque Canto Bight scene with CGI small aliens and human faced dog horses that serve no purpose but to try prove a point about animal cruelty was just unnecessary. Spend time developing the Star Wars saga and do justice to the Skywalker story instead. Also the not so funny jokes that ruin the flow. Overall pretty darn disappointed.
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1/10
If you are a fan of Star Wars prepare for disappointment
Now before the negativity which comprises the majority of this review the only positive things to be said about this shit show of a movie is that the visuals are amazing and to a degree it can be appreciated that the direction is somewhat original and this isnt a recreation of Empire Strikes Back.
Now first and foremost, this movie butchers the Star Wars lore and mischaracterizes Luke so hard it hurts. Luke, trained by Yoda, the ultimate grandmaster who was able to bring Darth Vader to the light, was so threatened by his BEST FRIEND's son turning to the dark that he contemplated killing him? Are you kidding me? Then with the chaos occurring in the galaxy he decides to bum around in the middle of nowhere? If he wanted to be left alone why was a trail left to be able to find him? The plot holes are all over the place with this movie. The obvious diversification in this film serves no purpose and we are given new characters that no one cares about and are given WAY too much screen time. Rose is a boring cliche character, Phasma's potential is wasted again, Finn (a first order JANITOR) is apparently a top of the line fighter, and the greatest disappointment of all is the death of Snoke.
The only threat and mildly interesting character Snoke is killed off in a slapstick manner. The knights of Ren are nowhere to be found and all questions posed in the Force Awakens are tossed into the gutter. Kylo Ren is no threat at all and this movie has taken the series nowhere. Kylo Ren is not a sith and Mary Sue Rey is obviously already capable of taking him down after 1 lesson from Luke. Disney and Rian Johnson have created a joke out of Star Wars and have taken out all the things that made the previous installments awesome. RIP to Lightsaber Duels, RIP to Force Lore, RIP to the Jedi and to the Sith, RIP to an actual villain or threat in the galaxy lol like does anyone expect a joke like the First Order to succeed at anything? These movies are now catered to the intellectually depraved and SJW snowflakes crying about diversity with no substance. RIP STAR WARS CANON.
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Seems the producers have been working towards that premise for some time.
The 3D leading to the introduction of the dread naught and for a few minutes after was spectacular. The movie collapsed into tedium from that point on. I attended with a group of avid fans and pretty much all responded in the negative.
I'm aware as I type this I'm becoming increasingly angry? Perhaps like others I feel had.
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Like most people born in the 70s Star Wars held a special place in my heart. I think this was the first truly serious sci-fi film with a decent script, amazing special effects (which still hold up today for the most part) and a decent cast and for 30 years I've been hoping someone would take up this franchise and realize its full potential.
While Lucas clearly loved Star Wars and was very protective of it, he seemed to have lost his way (in my opinion) and I still don't understand how being a pioneer of practical effects he then switched to awful CGI for episodes 1, 2 & 3. At this stage I was disappointed, however I still held hope that one day it would get the love and attention it deserved.
I was extremely disappointed with Force Awakens, not only because Disney took 30 years of books, comics and fan material and essentially threw it out the window (a huge mistake in my opinion, you've got 30 years of pre-written scripts) but they clearly rushed a cobbled together film with poor script and bad acting (not all, some). Even if you are new to Star Wars, don't care about the previous films, it's riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies.
Then Rogue One. For me this was a revelation, wonderful acting, a decent script and great special effects (apart from CGI Leia). I simply don't understand how people either don't like this, or prefer Force Awakens...
Anyway, in my view Disney were batting 50/50 at this point so I went in to see The Last Jedi with low expectations, but a glimmer of hope...Alas..
This film had more plot holes than Force Awakens...whatever ongoing story ideas the previous director had, the new director threw them out the window killing off characters without any explanation. Scenes within the film made no sense whatever and it is now clear that the producer in charge of Star Wars for Disney, Kathleen Kennedy seems to be making it up as she goes along, or allowing different directors to!
For example...the First Order can track the rebels in hyperspace. so until the rebels fix/destroy this, they can't jump...fine so far...however, the rebels can send a ship to a planet to get an expert hacker they need, get delayed, fly back to the fleet (still being slowly chased by a huge First Order fleet) and then proceed with the plan. Why can't the first order catch the fleet in regular space? Why can't they radio for other ships to jump in and block the rebels? or have some ships jump ahead? This is just one of many issues that are simply sloppy script writing and clearly show Disney don't care about the film or franchise over and above making a quick buck and recouping the money as quick as possible.
While I don't like all of the films, the Marvel/Disney partnership seems to be working. You've got some amazing films amongst some that at worst aren't bad with what appears to have been a long term story arc over the last 10/15 years. I don't see why Disney couldn't have waited another year, got a cohesive plan in place and made a truly amazing franchise.
I wanted to give you my money Disney, but now as with Star Wars Battlefront 2 (game) the only way to make these companies understand is with money, so, I won't be buying any star wars products and I won't be watching any more star wars films at the cinema. Sure, I'll have to rent the Blu-Ray, I'm too much a fan, but if the only way to hurt this corporate machine that has killed something I love is by withholding its food (money), then so be it!
PS I wonder if Lucas thinks the death of his legacy was worth $2 Billion...personally, I'd say no.
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5/10
Plot Holes GALORE! (but I still kinda liked it)...
Plot Holes: There were SOOO many things that didn't make sense.
1. Personal armor that deflects lasers exists now in the SW universe, but the Empire, who has seemingly unlimited resources, only gives it to one trooper (Captain Phasma).
2. One person has to stay back on the ship that is inevitably going to get destroyed, when we know auto pilot already exists (Anakin flying to the Battle Above Naboo), droids could easily do this task, and technically the absence of gravity could keep the ship going without anybody driving.
3. The resistance complains about losing so many bombers during the early space battle, but they could have just weaponized warp speed like they do at the endish of the movie and only wasted one ship because Finn knows where the tracker is housed in the lead Empire Cruiser. All they had to do is punch a hole through that area with 1 bomber and then leave.
4. The salt sleds clearly do not fly at the same speed. When Poe tells everyone to retreat from attacking the canon, Finn keeps going while Rose turns back. She then has the time to change her mind, turn around, catch up to Finn, and take a wide-looking path to knock Finn out of the sky when he's like 100 yards away.
5. Then, after they crash, Finn leaves his plane, finds Rose, and begins a conversation before the cannon goes off. He clearly would have made it to the destination in time and possibly prevented the wall's destruction.
6. The resistance only escapes the mine because wild creatures made of salt came inside with their new human friends, who just landed on the planet, and slowly helps them to find the exit. So the outside animals ran inside to be with people they don't know to help escape the Empire (who they also don't know). Strangely moral creatures.
7. Snokes is currently reading Kylo's mind when Kylo is thinking about killing him, but doesn't see it coming; this leading to the worst master/apprentice fight ever.
8. Luke's main criticism of Rey is that she doesn't resist the Dark Side in her training. He even adds that she didn't even try to resist. However, 20 minutes later she is the arbiter of the Light Side to Kylo trying to convince him to leave the Dark Side.
9. On that note, they still haven't explained how Rey, who skipped all Jedi training and lives in a time of no Jedi, can still connect with the force to do crazy stuff. I think Disney tried to fix this by having the fight between Rey, Kylo, and the red troopers be absent from force abilities.
10. Certainly not last, but last for this post, is that Leia apparently can survive long enough in the vacuum of space while she's unconscious to pull herself to safety. I understand it's not a real universe, but SW has always abided somewhat to the basic principles of life, which, to me, would include the horrible effects open space would have on a person's body.
Positives: The planets that are brought to life in this film are REALLY cool. The luxury port where all the weapons dealers party was interesting and diverse. Also, the battle on the white/red salt planet was stunning. Having the environment add to the mood of the conflict was a huge win, and I hope they pull in the stable boy for future movies. Well done! I also appreciate the risks Disney took to add new aspects of the force. Connecting minds and creating mental projections of yourself are new and inventive.
Negatives: There, unfortunately, are a few subversive political messages. The first is related to animal rights. We went from killing and sleeping inside a Tonton in Episode 4 to a Wookiee refusing to eat a cooked bird in Episode 8. Also, salt foxes become the true saviors of the move. The mistreatment of racing animals was effective and reasonable. However, having no aggressive creatures in this movie was a bridge too far for me.The second is one of feminism. The entire leadership of the resistance is female. Holdo, Leia, Rey, all attendance on the command deck. Holdo even have a sexist remark about "flyboys" being impulsive and stupid. If Poe said her judgment sucked because she was being an "emotional women", he would've been stunned sooner and Jezebel would be breaking the internet with outrage stories. Not to mention that Disney missed the mark on this message. Holdo unnecessarily dies, Leia is so old that she receives a kiss from her brother who really isn't there, and the resistance is worse off than ever due to their leadership. Additionally, most of the problems were solved by men. Poe figured out how to escape the cave, Luke held off Kylo, and Finn knew how the resistance was being tracked.
Overall: Disney clearly is recycling old SW and adding subversive politics to appeal to older fans, while trying to tap into the little kid market with cute animals and simplified SW lore. This movie is not the staple of the franchise, but it had some cool action, 1/2 the jokes were funny, and it wasn't wrought with token homosexuality. For my $5 local theater, it was worth it.
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This is not Star Wars, at least not the one I grew up with. Disney and JJ is killing the story. Why so much fanservice and not much character developement. The entire arc with codecracker doesn't give anything to the story. I am disappointed with the tempo and Leia should have died in space. Sry, this is not good enough.
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Star Wars has always been a staple of pop culture, what Disney is doing is milking a cash cow yet not understanding the fundamental nature of what it means to love star wars. i wholeheartedly am infuriated by this.
Lets talk about the positives first. Mark Hamill as Luke was great, acting wise pretty solid and i liked the training scenes with Rey. Yoda's back! also a positive, many fans were not expecting to see him and it was a pleasure to watch him dole out wisdom. Fight scenes were visually stunning, great use of color and special effects.
Now to the negatives, At the start of the movie, sees Poe taking on a star destroyer. seriously what makes you think that a star destroyer can't take down one x-wing fighter, it's like saying a battleship cant take down a small vessel. Not to mention the ridiculous dialogue that preceded the scene. Cut to the Leia superman flying scene, COME ON it may be science fiction but at least show some semblance of science.
Luke training Rey was great, but the force connection thing? anybody questioning how Snoke was able to infiltrate the connection between kylo and rey without them feeling it. or how kylo felt the sea water through the connection. i understand a mental link but what's with physical transference water. it should be impossible even with the force and if the rules of the force is tweaked one wonders why. Does it add another dimension or is it just a cool gimmick?
Chewwie was there too! is there no explanation for why there was no scenes between luke and chewwie communicating, they were after all long time comrades and buddies. No conversation about the lost of Han. Give me a break script writers. What's more frustrating is that they stuck him with the ship, a glorified guard for one of the most respected beings in star wars history accompanied by porgs( disney's merchandising strategy). Comparing them and ewoks is ridiculous, the ewoks played a role in the rebellion what did the porgs serve to do. That's just lazy Disney.
Luke's fall into a hermit was the most disrespectful thing for the character. i would have understood if he hid due to grieve for the lost of his students but him turning kylo to the dark side by attempting to kill him. that just demonstrates the lack of understanding for the personality of luke. EP 6 left him a jedi knight, wise strong and determined to rebuild the jedi, how far did he fall for him to even consider killing his apprentice. This natural turn of event would never happen if you considered the storyline and the character.
Snoke, was killed off. why did you even bother bringing him into the story then. People say that the emperor did not appear much either, but we had dialogue, learned his motives. Vader to explain the intentions of his master.. All snoke did was demonstrate his power in the force and then just die. anti-climatic and without purpose just a horrible plot line.
Next comes the chasing scene. (hahaha) Aboard the many cruisers did not one person think to jump to a position in front and cut of the ship.. Did no one learn basic military tactics. Haldo doesn't tell Poe the plan, and he recklessly sought to take over the ship. Did anyone wonder why, she did not tell the plan to everyone aboard the ship, what would anyone have to disagree about. not to mention that Poe recklessness had been well documented, tell the guy the plan for god's sake.
Finn's storyline was the most useless subplot in the entirety of star wars. Was it even necessary, did he accomplish anything by securing a code breaker that ultimately was not even needed. Where was the growth in the character? The introduction of Rose was unnecessary. She did not bring anything to the story line, not spunk, charisma, skill, charm or even a comic relief. Given the cost of hiring actor was there a point in Justin Theroux as the master codebreaker? he did not make an appearance after or matter in the story line at all. Does Disney think giving out free celebrity cameos gives joy to fans? Shout out to the EPA, WWF, for providing funding for lines supporting animal rights. Disney it's a movie, could we not resort to politically correct devices to satisfy audiences. Is Rey not enough?
Last scene was really the crux of it all. Luke fighting Kylo, Man after 30 odd years, How strong is he? how skilled a lightsaber duelist must he have been? what new powers has he achieved in all that time? Thanks Disney for ruining the suspense, the awe i would have had, the feelings of joy i would have gotten if he had just gone out like a bad ass character he was. Turns out he's a projection , what a way to end the character, at least obiwan went out swinging.
Shoutout to rose and finn, developing a relationship within a short span of time, wish someone told me that was possible! Also, wasn't she an engineer, why would you trust an engineer to lead an assault, when she wasn't a pilot or have any combat experience.
This was really disappointing.
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5/10
54% RT score...finally the audience are understanding that they are being placed in a vicious SFX cycle!
First things first...We are having 3 Star War flicks in a row plus an upcoming Hans Solo movie next year and a sequel, titled Star Wars: Episode IX, is scheduled for release on December 20, 2019.. Will the craze be finally extinguished?
What was the need of making this movie at 2 and 1/2 hours? Star Wars: The Force Awakens had a running time of 135 minutes and its flavor lasted better!
Opening sequence is deja vu. We have seen this for 2 years before. Kylo Ren, Leia's son, hesitates to fire at the lead Resistance ship after sensing his mother's presence but no remorse in killing his father? Queer!
Leia wakes up (while being frozen to death) with the use of her Force abilities and flies back into the ship. Wow...Superwoman? She should have been in a coma (no offense!)
Second, this is a continuation to "The Force Awakens". That's great. It picks up where Rey wants to be a Jedi. From this point, everything is so predictable. Luke initially refuses to train Rey. Have we seen this before? Yes, from The Shadow (1960); The Karate Kid (1984); Kill Bill Vol II (2004), Batman Begin's (2005); and even Creed (2015). Yes, even Balboa doesn't train boxers anymore but eventually does!
Next, is Luke teaching Rey yoga? The Force lesson was more of a fluke!
A wise man once mentioned' "When you read the the last page of the book, close it!" The sacred books were never shown to the audience. At least the writers should respect the audience's I.Q. A true Star War fan would have at least would like to have a glimpse of the book instead of being burnt!
Last but not the least, BB8 was the saving grace of the film. And will finally Rey love Kylo? My opinion is that she will be eventually be consumed by the darkness of the Force!
What have you done Disney? Hope seems like more unreal and monotonous. After the Force Awakens, the Force is going to sleep!
If you feel the same as I do, kindly support me by counting this review as helpful!
Enjoy your holidays by watching Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle!
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5/10
Not as good as it should have been, but not terrible
I really, really wanted to like this film; from the mediocrity of The Force Awakens to the surprisingly excellent Rogue One, I was hoping this would add to the upward trend.
The first part, and primary plot line of the film, was OK. The space battle was OK, and it was nice to see Poe's character develop. During the second assault of the first order, however, things took a turn for the worse, when Leia 'died', then used the force to draw herself back into the ship. This is fraught with issues: why does nobody who witnessed it ever mention it again; why is it not the most amazing news anyone has ever heard; she should be dead, why isn't she. It just didn't make any sense to happen, nor was it explained or did characters properly respond to it.
To mention it quickly, Rose and Finn's storyline was so forced, pointless, and forgettable, that it might as well have not been a part. Rose gave nothing to the film. Their adventure gave nothing to the universe. They responded comically to all serious situations, like when Finn kills Phasma. When Rose died I could not have cared less about her character. I'd've much preferred learning about Finn's parents.
Luke and Rey had an interesting plot, and it was quite good, but I was hoping it would be less depressing and would explain more about the Jedi and why Luke wanted them to be extinct. Is Rey a Mary Sue? 100%. But that didn't mean it wasn't interesting.
I was looking forward to learning more about Snoke or the Knights of Renn, but before we find out who he is, Kylo kills him, so I have to wonder, what even was the point of making him a character? He was never a real threat. He was never scary. He was a bad carbon copy of Darth Sidious.
The last hour of the film was cinematically gorgeous and actually quite funny, and well written.
There were other issues, but it would make this review too long.
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Myself, my wife and my best mate watched this during the opening weekend and we all came out disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I loved the original three, tolerated next 2 and enjoyed the revenge of the sith and the force awakens but this movie was jar jar binks poor.
After 10 minutes my wife started looking at her phone and that probably tells you all you need to know. For the casual fan it is boring, too drawn out and contains forced, obvious and cringeworthy comedy.
It just doesn't really go anywhere, the entire move is a chase scene where the pursued are running out of fuel, except they never do. Fin buggers off to phaff around a bit and comes back essentially empty handed and looks like a bit of a plonker. Don't even get me started on the bad guys, one is a complete cry baby, are we supposed to fear him?! and the other may as well be a long lost chuckle brother.
I despair.
I'm sure die hard fans will gush over this movie because it has Star Wars in the name but as a stand alone movie I'd rather sit through an episode of Towie whilst simultaneously receiving electroshock therapy.
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The movie got so boring that my friend snored halfway through it. Not worth the watch.
It left a very bad taste of my memories of the 'Star Wars' universe.
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Read through the user reviews and you'll realize: The Last Jedi is a horrible disappointment!
Thousands of negative reviews have already covered the issues with the movie by now but what I think is the scariest part:
When the movie came out it was all positive reviews all over the place!
Rotten tomatoes score was high, IMDB score was high, etc.
Just goes to show what you can do with money, power and a good marketing team.
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4/10
Follows a bit the SW feeling, but is not a good SW film.
I was worried about SW saga, when Disney took over the SW brand.
Disney is THE amazing firm to create a marvellous/amazing fantasy story... but not so good to TAKE AN ALREADY amazing story and move it forwards...
...First of all, seriously BAD CHOICE of Director & Writer!!! I checked their previous works and... seriously? These people to deal with a SW saga tittle???? It's like me (a 25+ years experience designer) to tell me to take over a... finance company to WallStreet! These people were NOT CAPABLE to direct or WRITE a good SW story...
So, the BIG ISSUE of this SW is the SUPER SIMPLE & SILLY storyline/plot/scenario! C'mon... even my young daughter could write a better (far better) scenario. Why Disney didn't hired a SW "fan-boy" (so many millions fanatics around the world) and he/she would write an amazing story - not this stupid, boring story.
Few (or a lot) reasons, that ruined this film - and probably the next following SW tittles:
1. Silly, boring, flat story
A space... race to no where, when the Imperials found the Rebels during... light speed (seriously? Not even a five years old would thought that silly thing)... but they continue their attack to Rebels with... cruising speed for 2 film's hours!!!!!
Fin and Rose left the Rebel fleet... to go somewhere else to find someone to break the code... and they returning back to the space-chase! Oh, c'mon, will you?!
POINTLESS and BORING story. Disney proved that they know to create their OWN FANTASY stories but they CAN'T CONTINUE OTHERS' (Lucas) stories...
2. Unbelievable spoiling GOOD characters (killing them)
Killing Snoke? And LIKE THAT? Why the hell for???? You have a GREAT EVIL character to DEVELOP HIM FURTHER... and you ruining him like that??? A so powerful evil Sith Lord... and he didn't figure out the... turning light-saber next to him??????? Seriously???
Killing Phasma??? WHY? Another great evil character to develop further... and your ruined her LIKE THAT? Not even an epic end, just that stupid scene? WHY?
3. Destroying COMPLETELY Luke Skywalker's character
Okay... I understand... you want to wipe-out the past and delete the previous characters (H.Ford demanded to "kill" Han Solo, and we saw it), you killed Luke, obviously Leia too in the next SW (since the actress passed away). WHY YOU RUINED/DESTROYED Luke's character like that??? Not only how you "ended him", but... you ruined what Luke is all about: a true unique "PALADIN KNIGHT", pure honest, pure good, he resisted to Emperor, to his father THE ULTIMATE Force-Man Anakin-Darth Vader... he didn't killed almost nobody in Juba's lair...
...and you make him to try to ASSASSIN HIS NEPHEW IN HIS SLEEP??????
Seriously???????... WHAT "GENIUS" thought that????
You totally destroyed what Luke is - you made him stupid. And... why he didn't fell to the Dark Side, since he tried to MURDER A TEEN student (Ben Solo)?????
4. Ray
C'mon, will you?...
Anakin Skywalker is the ULTIMATE CHARACTER in a films' Saga. He's the ultimate hero-anti-hero, the "Sophocles Oedipus" of StarWars...
He took A LIFE TIME to became the powerful Jedi-SITH he became!
Luke, his soon, too... almost a life time to become the Master Jedi he did...
...And Ray took ... a weekend in the island... to became the MOST POWERFUL JEDI ever lived?????? SERIOUSLY????? What are we, MORONS???
To WHOM you made this film and character (Ray), to NEW YOUNG BOYS they never ever watched SW film before??????
Ray became... Darth-Vader...Anakin...Luke...Yoda... combined all of them together!!!! I don't know why she couldn't just... wipe out the entire "First Order" fleet just with her mind - they (Disney) probably left that to the next Episode!
SERIOUSLY?????? A junk-rider young girl... transformed in a weekend... to the most powerful FORCE person of the Galaxy????? Without a SINGLE training?
She took over 3-4 WELL TRAINED Pretorian Guards??????? And also stood hard against a... well trained Jedi-Sith like Ren????????? Seriously?????
5. Kylo Ren
You didn't developed him further. You just left him as he was/is. And HE IS THE ONLY "EVIL" CHARACTER LEFT in these new SW Episodes!!!!! WHY?
You just made (the actor) to ...work out a lot and create a muscular body, thats all!
Personally, I think THIS character (Kylo Ren) is the MOST BORING Sith Lord I ever saw or could imagine!... We had Darth Vader, back then? Well, Kylo Ren is like comparing a... Fiat (him) car to... a Ferrari (Vader)!!!!!
6. ALMOST TOTALY LACK OF THE FORCE
Okay, we saw SOME Force in this movie... but almost the entire movie all the "Force Characters" where fighting each other like... LA Gang members, not like Force-Persons!!!!! WTF, Disney???? We didn't see ANYTHING!
We SUPER-ENJOYED that 5 minutes last scene in "Rogue-One" (personally I had... multiple orgasms!!!!) with that AMAZING DARTH VADER scene...
...and we thought in this film will see EVERYTHING from the Force...
...but NOOOOO, we saw almost nothing! WHY?
7. Focusing on extra-actors / characters meaningless
Han Solo originally was a nobody, a smuggler. But, Lucas developed his character to a MAJOR one. In "Force Awakens" & now, Fin hasn't developed at all (he's simply a deserter) or Poe (he's just a good pilot) or that useless new Rose (she's simply an nobody engineer)...
...And WHY, the film is focusing SO MUCH on these nobodies - since they are NOT developing their characters to something more interesting???
...That Del Toro's character. Totally useless, a nobody, that will forget after a month.
8. Useless/meaningless scenes - like the Casino
Okay, they wanted to make a "political statement" about the few super rich people and the depressing of the poor (the kids)... but why we needed to spend SO MUCH TIME on that meaningless scene? Or other scenes, like the meaningless "travel plan" scenes of the island?
That shows LACK OF SCENARIO!!!! They simply DIDN'T HAD figured what to do and how to fill the film.
...I could write for ever, but doesn't matter.
That film was a "STAR-WARS BASED" film, but not a StarWars film.
It looked to me like those TV Series Episodes from different directors, when JJ made the previous film-story and the new now made HIS OWN "Episode" almost NOT FOLLOWING what JJ introduced in "Force Awakens"!
Generally... the MOST POOR Direction and TOP-POOR writing, this film has.
That's the WORST of all for this film - NO DIRECTION, NO SCRIPT!
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Space-battles, light-saber duels: Lots of nice eye-candy
Mark Hamill. It is almost as if he had waited for decades for playing in this movie. Which makes me feel a bit sorry for him.
Cons:
More plot holes than you could shake a space cruiser at, held together by ridiculous coincidences.
One-dimensional characters who talk about but show no emotions and who, when discarded, leave the audience indifferent - other than established characters who are discarded for no discernible purpose.
Characters whose behaviour seems to serve no rational goal.
Entire plot lines that severed absolutely no purpose but to have the characters pontificate.
Serious breaks with the sagas' premises to allow for developments that again leaves the audience puzzled.
Scenes as absurd as a flying English nanny they made me wonder what Disney thinks about its audience.
All in all, Disney seems to go the same path with the Star Wars franchise as Sony went with Ghost Busters: Forget the hitherto loyal fan-base, clean the slate - and then play silly games with it.
A New Hope was the first movie I ever went to twice. I count observing my kids as they watched episodes IV to VI in wonder to my fond memories. After the prequels and The Force Awakens, Rogue One seemed to be a turn to the better. But now, I think Disney is on spot with its message of The Last Jedi: Leave the past behind you.
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Although the graphics are interesting, the story line is all over the place, and even then thin.
It was completely done when one of the main characters started kissing in the middle of a action scene. It was totally unbelievable. It could have done with 45 minutes less..
And trust me, I love all the other Star Wars movies.. just disappointed..
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1/10
"I've got a bad feeling about this"... Never a truer word spoken
When in The Force Awakens Hans Solo spoke the line "I've got a bad feeling about this" he wasn't describing the ghastly situation he was in when the two poor looking "gangs" turned up to get their money back. Instead he was describing the whole outlook for the new Star Wars "universe" that so clearly is here to just pump out a new film every year and make its owners a cool few million (or so) at a time!
They clearly have no real idea of what Jedi's actually are or what they stand for and blatantly don't want to try to describe what it is they think that they are.
Mark Hammill hates his role in the movie and I can see why! The character he portrays is a huge departure from the one we knew in the original movies and after such a huge build up in The Force Awakens his role is tossed aside like an old light sabre (pun intended).
It's like Disney want to carry on Star Wars but to disregard everything up to this point, and slowly but surely they have wiped out everything that they can from the originals.
In the Force awakens we lost Hans Solo, who was one of the more beloved characters, and in the last Jedi we lose Luke as well as losing Leia (not that the story line suggested that as yet) so there is little to no connection to the original Star Wars brand, I wouldn't be surprised is C3PO and R2D2 are blown up or something in the next movie... Just saying.
Also there is very little in the way of any character development. Rey is uninspiring. Finn is a waste of time just like his expedition to the casino planet. Kylo Ren is exploring new ways to have a fit and make a scene and BB8 is no longer charming, just seems to have become some kind of superhero!
The only character with a little development was Po, who was basically made to look like a reckless idiot more than anything.
I went to see this movie really looking forward to it, especially after the trailers seemed to offer so much promise, but what we got was disappointment, disbelief and anger. I'm now left with no real hunger to watch the next movie in the series and feel that this is just a massive let down.
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So much wrong with this film I don't know where to begin. I encourage everyone who's already rated it to downvote it to 1 star.
Admiral Ackbar, a legendary character was killed off without a single thought. Ok, he's dead... Instead lets give random purple hair lady a grand send off.
Mark Hammil hated it, now we see why. "These films are not about being good anymore, they're just to make money" - Luke Skywalker does this cool thing using a stick to catch fish, then suddenly we see him sucking the titty milk from some sea walrus. It's ridiculous and makes him look like a savage animal.
Who's snoke? Who cares, he's only the new grand supreme leader. Nope, let's kill him off easily as well. Okay...
Leia can now fly through space using the force when she's never used it before. Okay...
Admiral Hux, head of the villain fleet is some comical goon. Okay...
Overall just an awful movie, directed at kids to sell more merchandise.
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1/10
This isn't the Star wars film you were looking for. Move along.
The battles in space were too short and took shortcuts.
The action was not up to the standard of a Star wars movie.
Battles in space only had a fraction of the time allocated to the politically correct dogma.
No lightsaber fight between strong Jedi and Sith. Instead we had Jedi and Sith teaming up with each other against the red power ranger core. After Sith lord Snoke was killed in the most SNEAKY murder in star wars history.
This is the worst directed and written Star Wars movie in history.
The critics are wrong. Movie fans are correct.
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My opinion is this movie was bland. This movie achieved nothing. It dismissed, in the first act, all the hanging points from TFA and all the characters are at the same place they were at the start of the movie.
Lots of rebel ships got blown up, did anything change? No.
Finn and Rose went on an adventure, did anything change? No.
Luke died, did anything change? No.
Snoke died, did anything change? No.
Poe mutinies (because of a ridiculous plot hole), did anything change? No.
Kylo Ren is the new supreme leader, did anything change? No.
Did anyone learn anything? No.
Is there a cliff hanger making me want to see what happens next? No.
This movie wasn't very much of anything. It's biggest crime? Its a meandering movie, that goes nowhere.
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Extremely disappointing. The film had very little plot, essentially it could have been summed up in an half hour film. The battles we're lackluster; there was very little character development, and it just felt way too rushed.
I think the feminists had their hands all over this one. The male lead characters were portrayed as disobedient and irrational hot heads which required powerful women to set them straight and save the day. Let's not forget to satisfy the activists by saving the space horses on a 45 minute sequence that lead to absolutely nowhere. More plot holes than Swiss cheese. Purposely created to see if this movie could win the "who's politically correct" contest that has taken over Hollywood in regards to plot twists and surprises. Bottom line, this movie is terrible! I truly hope they fire this entire writing and directing team. Otherwise, i'm not seeing the next films. Star-Wars is dead, and I'm going to pretend none of this is cannon. Clearly Rian Johnson's only goal in the film was to subvert your expectations. Well, mission accomplished and it was disappointing!! 0 stars!
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The impression one gets is that the director has never seen any of the other Star Wars movies. Luke spends most of the movie out of character. So many plot points from The Force Awakens are dropped with no or little fanfare. The movie grinds to a halt at points with no character development, action or even exposition occurring. There are numerous plot holes internal to the movie.
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3/10
I do not understand how can you make something so bad out of star wars.
As a movie in the Star Wars universe, that is supposed to have a history line, a wonderful concept, and a believable drive, this movie is non sense. It becomes disrespectful.
I can only understand people loving this movie, if they have no, or almost no attachment to any of these characters and their story arcs, and I would like to be harsh, and say that these people have no attachment to logic either, I mean, half of the movie drama was based on the miscomunication between two characters! Convinience much? They basically said the whole new trilogy is based on the fact that Luke became weak minded just because his nephew was being seduced to the dark side, and he lost all hope on him. Really? Luke? The symbol of hope on the original Star Wars? What an unwise decharacterization of the character, to say the least. Not to talk about how they trashed all the big points on the The Force Awakens. I mean, why? Hey, I know this is just a movie, and for example, I can accept how stupidily Snoke went down but, at least tell me who he is and how the hell he formed the first order! Are you making fun of the fans? Is this some kind of sick joke? These new movies have no credible reason to exist. The atrocity is abysmal. I cannot even understand how this can happen. It makes no sense to make these decisions. Was this really required to profit more with the franchise? How? Why? I want to understand. Was it more important to pass these meta-narratives about how women are also strong and wealthy people are bad? I mean, you are trying to make women look strong by telling them is alright to feel pity or have mixed feelings for an evil and unstable guy? What? Are you serious? This is what happens when you are trying to make art to get more money, and not trying to get money to make more art. You lose the consistency and essence of it.
I am so disappointed with all of this. I don't want to disrespect the people that loved the movie, but it feels like they don't see how these decisions hurt people. I mean, don't get me wrong, I too can enjoy movies that make no sense if I watch them for only entertainment porpuses but, seriously, for those who saw all the Star Wars movies, and vibed with them, dreamed with them, we can all agree that, you cannot make a Start Wars movie just for entertainment porpuses (or to pass an agenda). It must be so much more than that. Luke Skywalker teached us and inspired us to always believe in ourselves and our friends, to be build real relationships, fight for what we believe in, for who we love, who we trust, do good, be kind to all, forgive people, none of us is perfect, it's never to late to repent, don't be afraid to sacrifice... Luke Skywalker is like Son Goku, and like I like to say, "Son Goku and Luke Skywalker are the fathers of a lot of people", and they just turned him into a grumpy, fearful and weak guy. I don't think Ryan Johnson or Disney understand or care about any of this, because if they do, I really don't undersand what do they find good about this entrance on the saga... I just don't.
One last thing... People have been saying rotten tomatoes score is fake. Why haven't anyone talked about this platform? Look at these written reviews and look at the actual score. Isn't this discrepancy suspicious? What a world we live in... Corruption is everywhere and we can't even identify what is genuine or not.
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1/10
Sad waste of time. Rian Johnson must have been drunk
What a waste... my daughter begged me to see this after force awakens and she even didn't like it.
So many crap scenes, crap story,
I didn't know spaceships magically fall backwards in space after running out of fuel hahahahahaha... a little reality and science facts goes a long way.
Wasted Benecio del Toros talent on a useless plot.
Admiral Akbar was killed when it would've been epic to have him ram destroyer at light speed. There are only memes about him... he's Admital fucking Akbar!!!! Lol
Useless movie and a waste of two and a half hours as well as a waste of my money.
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I have read, briefly, the reviews that the critics published but, as critics usually do, they are correct about half of the time. This time, they missed the mark completely. As in, if I could rate this movie a zero, I would.
Perhaps the new generation will like this movie, the special effects are certainly up to par but nothing else is.
The comments from the actors themselves tell it all - this is not their Star Wars universe but some hideous nightmare that should have never been created, let alone put up on the big screen. Rian wanted to take the franchise "in a new direction" he said. He failed, utterly. He couldn't even tell a new story, as others have noted, he just took the other movies, changed a bit of scenery and dialog and crammed it in. Same story-line, just different details. NOTHING is new here!
And what plot "twists" that were inserted were uniformly WRONG. Not some of them but ALL of them. The thing with Rose? Waste of time. The leader of the resistance saying "Don't look at me, follow him!" Really? NOT!
I'm not new to the Star Wars universe, I am a member of the Old Guard - I saw the original when I was still in high school (fan boy? Sort of, I watched the original 5 times in a row in one day and many more thereafter - their's was a good universe and it felt good to be part of it) and witnessed as the years passed how that one movie made it cool to be a nerd, gave hope to an entire generation, gave us something to believe in - simple things like Good will Triumph over Evil, etc.
This piece of crap reduces the Jedi that saved the galaxy into a whimpering old man that hid in a cave for most of the movie on the abandoned home world of the Jedi. His failure? He didn't teach Han's son to avoid the dark side. He spent how many decades in self-imposed misery because of that failure. Did he spend any time ON THE JEDI HOME WORLD trying to learn from his mistakes and find a way to fix it? Did he consult with the remaining Jedi, even in ghost form, for a fix? Nah, he just moped around for decades. Cut himself off from the Force? How is that even possible?
My question? How could he not see the turning coming? I mean, in that universe, as mentioned earlier, you have help, and in Luke's case, the best help there is! Let's see, he has his own abilities and awareness which should be nice and sharp given his brush with the dark side when the emperor tried to turn him and was defeated - he knows what the dark path looks like, Luke has his original teacher, Obi-Wan who watched his own student walk down the dark path so there is experience there to be had on what to look for, he has his OWN FATHER who spent DECADES on the dark side only to be redeemed at the end who could have told him all the signs to watch for and Yoda, head of the Jedi order for over EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS! WITH THAT KIND OF HELP, HOW COULD LUKE POSSIBLY FAIL!? How could he not see it coming!? Insanity!
So, what are we left with? A wimpy bad guy that is now the supreme leader (I wonder how Snoke missed it coming given that he was roaming around in Kylo's mind moments before), whose own devotion to the dark side isn't complete because he's conflicted, a girl that does better than Luke did with no training at all (how did that happen? I mean, I'm all for a strong female lead, but there has to be a source for all that skill, etc. Dumb luck makes for a poor plot).
I could go on and on about all the missed opportunities, chances for character growth, side stories, etc. but I'm just too heartbroken to put it all in words. Is my childhood ruined because they made a bad movie? Of course not, but it does hurt to see yet one more piece of what was good from that era destroyed by such dismissive, short-sighted, unthinking writing.
Penny514 says all the rest I need to say.
Indeed, I, too, sense a darkness risen and I think there is a storm coming. I don't think that Disney can redeem themselves from this one, I fear that the dark side has already won.
May the Force be with you, always.
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My problem is TLJ has no respect at all to Luke as legendary character, and this is fatal to Star Wars universe. All the new characters are stuck with no interesting development whatsoever from TFA. Overall TLJ does not bring any positive contribution to Star Wars. TLJ story is like Luke or Leia had a bad dream, and that's it.
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2/10
I genuinely do not understand how this movie is still at 7.8 on imdb??
I'm sure if you read this review, you have probably read a lot already. I'll just say that I went in to this movie knowing full well that it had poor reviews, but I had an open mind and open expectations. I'm a huge star wars fan and I just really like watching anything that has to do with Star Wars. I also have no issue with the direction they decided to go with some of the characters. Different doesn't mean worse.
However, when the movie throws away almost every story arc that the first film created, doesn't answer almost any of the questions the first film poses (Or gives really cheap answers even though they built them up to be BIG), and almost completely treads on the tone that the first film creates, it's a big deal. The only redeeming aspect to this film, IMO, is the story arc between Kylo and Rey, which I thought was still pretty interesting and mostly fresh.
The humor was unnecessary and felt completely forced most of the time. The first five minutes of the movie turn what was suppose to be an action/adventure/sci-fi film, into a comedy. Most of the subplots were entirely unnecessary (Literally, they didn't advance the story at all). Most of the characters said one line tropes that felt really out of place, and were almost preachy at times. It was like they were trying to force these moral lessons even though they completely killed the pace of the film. One character in particular (just think "purple") had literally no personality whatsoever, and was completely unlikable through the entire film (until the end).
I honestly was shocked at how bad this movie was as a Star Wars film. If it was trying to be some sort of sci-fi comedy or parody that had elements of Star Wars, it partially succeeded at being a good film. But it felt completely directionless, had far too many plot holes and convenient plot elements that moved the story along but made no sense, and almost zero character development (save Rey and Kylo).
I'm hopeful that Disney maybe learns a thing or two from all these negative reviews, but it appears to still be selling a lot of tickets, so I'm not so hopeful. But boy, I am really bummed about how this movie turned out, and that is not something I thought I would say before I watched it today.
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Rian Johnson takes the core story of Star Wars, makes trivial every event that came before it, including each and every individual character arc of the original trilogy. He even takes just about every plot line and allusion to a bigger story from "The Force Awakens" and renders them moot in a most flippant manner. Leaving the audience asking is he deliberately trying to anger life long fans of the saga? We are left wondering after viewing this abomination: "Has he even seen the original Star Wars films?"
Luke is and always will be the heart of what made Star Wars universally loved by all. Sure the other characters had their parts to play, but this was Luke's story, Luke's journey, we were right there with Luke through it all. To undo, and render inconsequential everything he did, and fought for in one fell swoop is unforgivable. You don't need to kill and deface the past to make a new generation. You DO need to honor and respect the story and respect those characters that made this new generation possible.
This film, I warn you, if you were alive to have watched the originals and endured the wait for Empire to come out, and live through the Han in carbon freeze interim until Return of the Jedi, this movie might just kill any desire in you to see another film with Star Wars in the title. Because these are the heroes of our childhood, and the way they are treated is an insult to many of us.
The film might be viewed differently for a younger generation who binge watched the originals over the course of a weekend, but for me, this movie was the death of a dream, the death of hope.
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I seriously didn't think that it could get any worse than Episode 7. I was completely wrong, but this in itself is a feat I didn't think possible, but Rian Johnson made it possible. How? He used Luke Skywalker to make it worse than Episode 7. Episode 8 was probably the worst Star Wars movie to date, worse than the first three episodes effortlessly.
Reason 1: Luke Skywalker would not have thrown away his father's lightsaber, the same father he made sure was cremated after he died.
Reason 2: Horrible jokes made this movie absolutely droll.
Reason 3: The Force just doesn't work that way with the whole "Luke Skywalker Useless Combat Projection" thing.
Reason 4: The Force also doesn't kill it's user when it is used. It didn't in the rest of the episodes and it shouldn't have in this one.
Reason 5: Obi-Wan Kenobi was a horrible teacher to Luke, but Luke ended up worse than him. He left Rey to deal with Kylo, killing himself needlessly, he obviously didn't train her properly in any form of Lightsaber combat (given away during the fight with Snoak's men), he was SCARED of the force and how powerful Rey could become, he didn't seem disciplined at all, like he was in episode 6. It's like Rian took Luke's character and butchered it for his own half-baked story.
All in all, the money made with this film was undeserved.
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I literally do not know where to begin with this movie. It does not even feel as if I am watching Star Wars. There is a complete disregard for its predecessors and nonsense thrown in along the way to keep a nice balance of terrible and awful. We begin by watching what are basically WWII bombers take on some massive ship only to be obliterated, but not before an unsung hero who uses her power of kicking and calmly breathing in space (the doors to drop the bombs are open the entire time) to manually make the drop. I mean seriously? This opening scene alone was enough to make me question who let this script be finalized. We are eventually brought to the main plot which turns out to be the most ridiculous idea ever. The entire reason that this movie happens is because the Resistance ship stays just a little bit ahead of the First Order ship and out of their range. I mean really?? You are gonna have me believe that the First Order can't just move a bit faster? For over 18 hours we are supposed to believe that the Resistance ship stays safe..... because they are just a little too far ahead. Wow. My favorite part has to be when Leia breaks the laws of physics and suddenly uses the Force..... to not only breathe in space... but fly like Superman. That is only in the first 45 minutes. The character of Rose is undeniably my least favorite part about this movie. Rian Johnson can try all he wants to try and make me care about her, but I won't. Honestly I was rooting for her death. This woman goes from watching the escape pods at the beginning to I guess having some serious position at the end?? After she of course goes on the worst mission ever with the other worst character in this new trilogy. They somehow leave undected from the main ship (which is still staying JUST a bit ahead so they do not get killed) and travel to another planet that I do not care about. Here Johnson tries to get you to sympathize with Rose for literally no reason and introduces you to Del Toro's character who ends up stabbing the Resistance in the back anyway. The pairing of the two most unlikeable characters in the movie was hard to watch the entire time and it never got better. This movies script was its downfall from start to finish. The hot steaming pile of trash that was the finish however really put the nail in the coffin. After the Resistance is given a second chance when their ship crashes through the First Order's, somehow Finn and Rose are the only two people on their part of the ship who did not die and peopmtly have a showdown with Captain Phasma... that lasts about five minutes when BB-8, a droid remember, operates an AT-ST and takes out the remaining troopers that came with Phasma. Phasma then dies, because apparently that character really did not matter at all. Meanwhile Snoke, who is supposed to be the most powerful Dark Lord, is betrayed by Kylo in a way that had me more puzzled than ever. If you somehow are able to know all about the force and know how to look inside of Kylo to see where his allegiance lies how do you miss his change?? You expect me to believe that Kylo is stronger than Snoke??? Seriously? The guy could not beat Rey who had never even used a lightsaber or the force. At least make it believable. Snoke was never even given any background; we do not even know who he really is or was now I guess. Another waste of a character. Now we get to this last Resistance hideout (which is just amazingly equipped with guns and ships and trenches already dug out by the way) for the final fight. Rey shows up in the Falcon... somehow even though she left on Snoke's private ship. I did not agree with Finn's reasoning to sacrifice himself but I thought it would be fitting... until Rose screwed it all up... for no reason... basically dooming everyone in the base. And guess what she did it for? Yep you guessed it... good ol' love because that's what the movie was missing, a love story between its two most god awful characters. Now here comes the best part. Honestly getting to see Hamill on screen was the best part of this entire film, I thought he did well with what he was given and really stuck out. What the film chose to do with him on the other hand is probably the most nonsensical, unbelievable, ridiculous thing that I could have seen. They expect you to believe that Luke is able to project himself over billions of miles in a holographic form. Even for the most powerful Jedi in the world that is not even logical. Then after all of it ends... he just dissipates. This movie kills off probably one of the best characters in all of cinema history by him just "being at peace" and leaving. It was insulting to see. By the way, Yoda being able to use the force and physically touch Luke was laughable. Never has that ever been allowed or even talked about and I will be the first to say it's wrong. This movie crapped on everything that came before it and I really do not think the franchise can come back after this mess. I think the entire saga is kind of ruined after this. Just a flaming hot dumpster fire.
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Old SW fan.
I liked ep. 7.
Rogue one was mediocre.
I went to see this one.
A disaster.
I felt really sorry for my friend to whom it was the first SW movie.
He was sleeping. So had to buy him dinner.
It's the end of the franchise, I agree.
Lucky that I have this original George Lucas version of bluray bixset of the PT and OT.
will not throw away ep.7 disk either.
But after this one?
No legitimate SW to me, anymore.
It's unbelievable that one stupid script can kill an entire series.
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Let's talk about the good: Very good cinematic effects. Period. That's it.
Now for what the movie didn't do good: Almost everything!
Honestly. I'll placing down in points:
(1) Luke Skywalker is a old disgruntled, pessimistic, frightened old man who lacks any moral compass for good?! The person who will not even kill Darth Vader?!
(2) No development of main plot characters. Instead too much time spent on nonsensical side-plots!! C'mon, that trip with Rose and Finn is pointless! What's the director trying to sell in the movie?! Another politically driven movie
(3) Leia able to fly back to the space ship like superman?! She would have frozen almost immediately. And what's propelling her to fly in her intended direction?!
(4) Rose is pointless. I'm Chinese but this diversity crap needs to stop. Spider-Man homecoming has it (I mean Mary Jane Watson black?!!!) and now Star Wars. Hollywood is going down the drains.
(5) Stonke gets killed off by a piercing lightsaber?!!
(6) Rey's parents are nobody? That was the hottest debate going on in the Internet amongst fans and others. I guess the director didn't have time for it and decided to just drop it as "nobody"
(7) Rey fell into the dark hole and guess what happened? She saw images of herself...what's that?! Nothing again.
(8) Yoda calling lightning from the sky...sigh.
(9) Spaceship running on fuel...dumb.
(10) Killing off Luke Skywalker without much thought...that's like "we don't want Mark Hamil in the show anymore, let's just kill off the old man". He fell from the stone slab, sat back on it and disappears.
The list can go on...honestly, horrible star wars. If the same idiotic director is still going about this in the next episode, they'll have one less ticket sold. I'll still watch it but possibly from rental or just stream it online.
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Disney killed the force with this film... It's so horrifically bad. They totally destroyed a solid franchise, and I'm talking way worse damage than anything Jar Jar Binks ever did. Every other scene has some marketable furbee animal or gadget that Disney will sure to have at a mall near you.
To begin with, the plot holes truly are as enormous as everyone says. Most of the movie is wasted on storylines that go nowhere and with actions that are made even more meaningless by idiotic and inexplicable plot twists that leaves any adult viewer frustrated with a sickening feeling of whiplash. Seriously, your kid could have written this script and he/she wouldn't have to be a very bright child either...
Characters that you have grown up with are completely changed in personality and in powers for no explainable reason other than to get a cheap laugh or to fill in for the laziest effort of storytelling. As Fisher passed away before release, it makes the way her poor character is treated as idiotic as the stupid plot and dialogue. Heroes are no longer heroes; they flash by quickly as if the director/writer/editor fear that pausing for a moment and actually creating a story might mean the audience looses attention.
The performances by Driver and Ridley, however, are fantastic, which is the only redeeming quality in a script clearly targeted at middle school children. They leave you wanting more for their characters than a reckless plot of loose and disinteresting storylines you've already seen a hundred times over in made-for-tv movies.
Boyega, whose character promised to become stronger and less goofy at the end of Force Awakens, is sidelined with horrific lines that doom his character to never be taken seriously and to never develop further than a hapless Rey fan boy. A sad commentary on the fate of a minority actor in a big screen production... Even the new character Rose is so ridiculous that you'll cringe for half the movie. As much as I deplored Tran's acting, I'd like to give her a bit of a pass for such a disgusting script that took neither the fan base nor the franchise seriously.
A diverse cast of Hollywood hopefuls can't make up for this mess in storytelling in what is obviously a slip-shod job by Disney to earn some big Lucas bucks. It is so unnecessary as Star Wars has a solid fan base that surely flocked to this movie hoping to see the classic films taken on a galactic new saga that would inspire generations to come. Instead, all that's left at the end of The Last Jedi is remorse at an expensive trainwreck of a film that tries to please the dimmest and least potty-trained members of the movie-going public. Words cannot describe the shear disappointment I felt for the story and quality actors that were tied down by this corporate behemoth. I wanted so much to love this film and that fact that I still gave it two stars instead of zero just shows how reluctant I am to admit defeat of the First Order and the Resistance at the money grabbing hands of the Disney deathstar.
This movie could have been so much better with even a little effort and a mindful editor that actually read the horrific script. I'd like to hope Disney can redeem itself from this, but all I have left is a numbness and a horrible dread that Star Wars will be dragged into some Marvel misadventure because no one at Disney cared enough about the legacy of this fantastic franchise. Disney already has countless big blockbuster movies that are riddled with sappy jokes, kiddies toys, spotty scripts and endless, meaningless sequels, prequels and spinoffs (Justice League anyone?). They didn't need to buy up Star Wars via LucasFilms to create more of what movie goers are sick to death of.
I recommend you wait till this is out on DVD and on sale... A really good sale. I don't think I'll ever bother seeing another Star Wars film again.
Also, where was the FTC? I really feel like the public should have been protected from Disney buying Lucas Films... This monstrosity surely proves what a bad deal the consumers got out of it...
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Writing or directing a SW is a sacred trust. I can't tell if Rian didn't get that or didn't care. There are some novel and compelling aspects to this film, but unfortunately they are swamped by so many clichés and recycled scenarios, that there are times I found it hard to watch. The rag-tag rebels running from the big-bad empire thing is expected of course, and I could almost forgive another "its a big gun let's take it out" ploy, but after awhile the short cuts stack up, heaped on each other. No scene exemplifies this more than when the Jedi apprentice who is unready (Rae) and the Sith apprentice she is convinced she can turn (Kylo) come before the Snoke/Emperor figure and Snoke attempts to turn her by showing the rebel fleet getting destroyed. Did we have to keep watching to know the Snoke/Emperor would be killed by Kylo? This is a deeply flawed addition to the canon, and it just feels like Rian just didn't take the audience seriously enough.
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1/10
Serious Star wars movies now a silly goofy Disney kids movie
Long time star wars fan, appreciate all star wars movies before Disney. Rogue one was pretty awesome. The force awakens was OK, and was expecting more in the last Jedi. It doesn't happen. All the mysteries from the last movie are tossed to the way side because the new director isn't interested and wants to make new story lines. That is enough to make this a bad movie. But add to that so many plot holes, bad writing, and just god awful forced comedy. Extremely immature humor not even interesting to my 8 yr old little brother who watched it with me. Over all just a huge disappointment.
-Benjamin
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The character development has fallen to crap. TFA introduced characters and teased big revelations. In TLJ, Rian mustn't have felt up to carrying JJ Abrams torch on story building because he is so simplistic on character development. Who is Snoke... Nobody. Who is Rey's parents... Nobody. Why was Captain Phasma ever introduced because neither movie wanted to deal with her. Rian seems to revel in plot twists but not ones that build lore or explain anything, just things that you didn't see coming. Is Rian to Star Wars what Michael Bay is to Transformers?
The treatment of Luke is disgraceful (only exception is the battle with Kylo). No wonder Mark Hamill was complaining. I agree with Mark. I fundamentally disagree with everything they did with Luke. A grumpy old man who quits is not what the Jedi are or who Luke was.
In TFA you can understand the death of Han and how it sets the stage for Kylo, but TLJ seems to kill characters for no reason. Who is this new Admiral we have sacrificing themselves to save the resistance retreat? A nobody, when we could have had Ackbar (whose death you might not have even noticed).
The scene in the dark side pit was underwhelming to say the list. They build towards it and then... nothing really happens.
The whole section on the gambling planet seemed unnecessary, but at least they could have had Lando running it.
What to love: Space battle to start the movie. The ship sacrifice jump to light speed. The battle between Luke/Kylo. I actually didn't mind the humor bits.
What to hate: Everything else.
I'm so sad that to make way for the new they felt that had to destroy all of what made the original great. I still really can't believe this is the script that made it through to production! It has holes the size of a space ship in the plot, leaves so many things unexplained, and ultimately feels like a big FU to fans. TFA wasn't great and felt like a remake, but it didn't destroy the Star Wars legacy. TLJ pretty killed much of what you loved about Star Wars. Prepare yourself for the ache of loss after you watch this. It was visually stunning but ultimately leaves you empty.
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This was a real, terrible mess of a movie! Very odd choices for actors Laura Dern (Twin Peaks) feels especially off here. The pacing was terrible, the creature design was terrible, it did perhaps 2 things right that were fun to watch, but 85% of the content is just plain bad, boring and often just tasteless and "off". I did not particularly like the previous (i rate it lower than the prequels), but in comparison to this it's absolutely masterful. This should have been a direct to Blueray release, it does not deserve a big screen release to scam people like this. Awful.
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I just cant beleive that someoen were capable of making a movie like this.. Seriously ???
It's as if a bunch of people from MARS just landed on earth for the first time and just filmed a set of scenes .. Did the CEO's of disney or the produces write and direct this movie as a hobby using their large pockets, in their spare time, crediting the work to some one else ?
I cant beleive that it was done by a company with almost unlimited access to technology and top tier people in the industry.
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For seven previous Star Wars films, the dramatic formula stayed pretty much the same. Sure, there were epic space dogfights and Han Solo running around, but in the end it always came back to the Skywalkers, the Jedi, and the Dark Side. It was "epic" in every sense of the word. Did the execution work 100% of the time? Jar Jar, insane amounts of CGI, and even potentially the Ewoks make that answer a "no". But consider this: It worked well enough to produce perhaps the single most popular film franchise in the history of American cinema.
"The Last Jedi" essentially burns all of that to the ground to start anew and set the franchise off into a completely different direction. In all honesty, the decision the filmmakers made--"anyone can be powerful in the Force...not just the Skywalkers"--wasn't what angered me most. In all honesty, that might have been one of the few scraps of interesting, original material in "Last Jedi". The almost unforgivable sin here, however, is the WAY it all went down, and how in the world "Last Jedi" can be the next installment after "The Force Awakens".
Let's start with the setup. With "The Force Awakens", director JJ Abrams creates a Star Wars film along the same lines as George Lucas once did. It introduces new characters (Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, Snoke, etc.), the action looks great, Han Solo is still, well, Han Solo, and the big tease of the film is the reveal of Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker. Sadly, nearly every one of those plot points are scrapped in "Last Jedi":
-Rey's parents are actually of no importance
-Snoke is never explained and is essentially worthless to the story
-Luke Skywalker is an absolute joke, not at all in line with his characterization from the original trilogy.
-Kylo Ren is no more developed at the end of this one then he was at the end of "Force Awakens"
For the life of me, I cannot understand why this movie follows "Force Awakens". Obviously, Disney must have undergone a course-change sometime in between those two films. That is the only explanation I can think of. In many respects, Rian Johnson's "Last Jedi" is a complete slap in the face to Abrams' "Force Awakens". Call me a "JJ fan boy" all you want, but at the very least he knew how to make a solid Star Wars movie in the tradition of the franchise and realize that vision from script to screen.
That brings us to the second major problem with "Last Jedi": It is almost farcical at times, which is unheard of in Star Wars films. This franchise is "epic" in every sense of genre, and like the great epics it has to be played pretty straight to really work. As soon as an epic starts poking fun at itself, it ceases to be an epic entirely. I'm not saying that overall humor is banned, but rather that never, ever can an epic genre piece poke fun at its epic-ness. That happens time and time again in "Last Jedi", and it is jarring, to say the least.
As soon as Luke casually tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder, audiences will know what tone of film this is, and it certainly isn't epic. Poe Dameron verbally kidding with General Hux? The little workers on Luke's island? These are not things we are used to seeing in a Star Wars movie, and in all honesty should not have been included at all. It is possible to take a franchise a different direction without mocking all that came before (which just happens to be nearly sacred material to 75% or more of potential audience members).
Finally, "Last Jedi" can't even get the characters right true to their previous incarnations:
-Luke's characterization is the most egregious error, as he is turned here into a whiny malcontent. I know that was kind of the whole point in a sense (take things down a different path), but again I don't think perhaps the most revered character in the entire franchise needs to be shat upon, so to speak, to accomplish that.
-General Leia's Force powers (awakening from the dead of space)? Talk about coming out of nowhere and incongruous.
-The characters from "Force Awakens" are given even a bigger shaft than the "legends". Finn spends most of the film on a prolonged side quest (that is as much a time-waster as anything else), Poe is involved in a ridiculous power struggle that is completely manufactured to move the events along as slowly as possible, and Rey/Kylo/Snoke ends up a massive disappointment seeing as how nothing that was teased in "Force Awakens" even remotely comes to fruition.
Again, let me re-iterate: The decision to pull the franchise away from being so "Skywalker heavy" isn't a terrible choice. To be completely honest, I can even see how that opens things up for the future. But what I cannot forgive (and why this is a three-star film for me) is why the material had to be treated with such disrespect in the process. Why did the whole thing have to be torched when, IMHO, a "controlled burn" would have been much more effective. Instead of making Luke flippant, give him his old gravitas and let the material speak for itself. The idea of "the Jedi have to die" is fascinating, but only if treated with the utmost of dramatic flair, instead of as a punchline.
I won't yet say that "Last Jedi" "ruins Star Wars" (only episode IX will answer that question), but right now it kind of feels that way. After seven epic-feeling movies, the 8th one burns it all down and does so in a manner that doesn't even respect much of what came before. As such, how can I personally give "Last Jedi" my respect? Three stars for having the guts to move the franchise in a potentially interesting direction. Seven missing stars for the completely botched handoff within that transition.
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I have no further words Guys sorry.. Did Disney had to pay a lot of people salaries and royalties for star wars that they decided to kill it sort of ?...
I just cant believe that professionals in the film industry with such a big budget and access to top film industry workers made this movie. Its as if the entire workers on this movie just landed from MARS and got a script and blindly did it .. have these people even have looked at a star wars movie previously?
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Garbage movie! Very inconsistent with its own plot from the first movie much less the entire star wars lore. I am sure the director never heard of the star wars movies much less watched them. Next time you have a new director create a sequel, have them watch the previous movie and read up just a page or so on the lore. OR, get a few of the millions of fans to come in and give feedback on your plot line. Synopsys: Luke an old emo Grinch that has no real power and can't see the good in people any longer; Leia is an immortal flying wizard super woman terminator; Rey is a force god (with two weeks of inexperience under her belt); Kylo is a barely force sensitive snot nosed millennial with daddy issues and a bad temper; the emperor really has no power and only serves to display a return of the jedi moment; the entire galaxy forgot about force field shields; there is now gravity in space; single fighters can take out entire giant battle ships (see shield reference); death star laser cannons can only make tiny holes in giant doors, ginormous ships can be taken out by ramming others ships into them (see shield reference again), the first order now controls the entire galaxy, the rebel alliance is only made up of a few hundred people.
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The film is no ... Plagiarism 5-6 parts, with lots of moments ONE ONE, just another outcome. "Let's do it as in the old parts, only the outcome will be the opposite, and all wow how surprised dadad * There is no script and sense as such at all.It's all done to surprise the viewer, no one will reconsider it.The scriptwriters have seen the game of thrones - instead of showing ambiguity , not to divide everyone into good and evil (which was even in the old episodes, if you look closely), they divided everyone into bad and good ones, they put absolutely stupid echelon turn for the turns.
Bad - because it's bad and that's it. Good - because because. Scene with flying Leia is just a hand ... Imbe rai - and there is imba, the entire message of the film - you do not have to do anything, train, learn - just believe and everything will fall to your head. Disney looks constantly at Lucas, his films - they step on their heels, and disney does not become a new Lucas, can not get taller - just becomes his shadow. Dialogues are almost all meaningless, just a bunch of action. The scriptwriter watched the original movies through the ass
The power is divided into dark and light, generally laughter ... It turns out that Kylo has spawned his trainings, because there is dark power and light and they are equal, nonsense, delirium, just nonsense. In the two trilogies of Lucas, it was said of the "colorlessness of power" - that both the Sith and the Jedi interpret differently the force, their teachings, that there is neither light nor dark side.
Explain a little example: Sit on a distant planet of the Sith and the Jedi, after the battle in space, they were left alone on an uninhabited planet, there is nowhere to hurry, in the night sky brightly shines for half a month. The Sith points to the moon and asks the Jedi - what do you see? The Jedi responds - I see the light of the moon, The bright side of the moon, which dominates the tides, ebbs and, probably, the destinies of some ...
On what the Sith condemns the Jedi - you are stupid and blind, I see the dark side of the moon ...
But after all, the moon has neither light nor dark side. It is all the vision of people under the prism of views where the sun has fallen - there is light, where there is no sun - it is dark, but the moon is uniform. The moon has no special business before the earth-crawling. Light and dark sides are only interpretations of people with different views who are mistaken.
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1/10
like watching a close relative die slowly of of Cancer, you just wish for the suffering to end
Walt Disney was employed by Hitler and the Nazis to make movies that brain washed the the German public to sacrifice there lives and country for the elite of the third Reich.
It seems that the Disney corporation hasn't changed much. They glorify suicide bombing of your enemies with 3 females in the film killing themselves. also they have Luke Sky-walker wanting to kill his best friend and sister's child while he is asleep. what happened to Jedi honor and decadency?
And having all the females in power and the men under there command being being foolish and wrong for their aggressive proactive behavior is just more subconscious programing of the young children watching this movie.
There is some really evil under lying themes in this movie and exposing young innocence children to these themes is just plain wrong.
How this movie can be praised by critics and the main stream media is frighting and goes to show how much propaganda the zombie masses are subjected to.
The humor is just of the funnest home video clips type rubbish.
And the ending is just to keep the cash cow rolling on the next episode of flogging a dead horse for every last cent.
shame on you Disney.
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1/10
Holy cow what a bad Star Wars movie. Almost wish I was watching Jar Jar for 2 hours
First it's a movie about the slowest chase scene in movie history. Really it's a 2.5hr chase scene. So we see bombers from the resistance blow up an imperial cruiser. Than they escape by going to hyperspace but wait the Order follows them. So there perplexed. Tracking through hyperspeed is impossible. But then they go oh wait this is how they did this tracking we are now experts on how they did it and how to stop it so they launch a side mission to get someone who can help them get on the cruiser and disable it. Even though tracking through hyperspace was actually impossible to figure out 5 minutes before that. So they succeed in the side mission make it back to the ship infiltrate the cruiser and get caught right before they shut the tracking off. So no reason for it to make it into the movie except to piss people off. Then Luke was going to kill Kylo Ren instead of believing that he could turn him from the dark side. Yeah I don't buy that especially since he turned Vader. Oh and both Kylo Ren and Luke are whiners. Just little babies. Oh yeah and dead Yoda shows up and has a ten minute conversation with Luke. I don't know who smoke was but he died easily. Then some guys in red masks with no force skills almost beat Kylo Ren and Rhey. Fast forward to the final act they could have had Kylo Ren kill his uncle Luke sealing him to the dark side but no Luke was a hologram or something. Then they go to the island where Luke was projecting himself from and he dies like Obi Wan. Dumb. Oh and the chrome stormtrooper's suit repels blaster shots. So don't know why all stormtroopers' uniforms aren't made from chrome? Or better yet the ships? Then you wouldn't even need shields. I would think this would be a huge tactical advantage. Oh and they destroy smokes ship by kamikazing it with a ship in lightspeed. But they are loosing support ships that ran out of fuel that just jumped out of light speed. They also make a note to say everyone evacuated to the bigger ship. So why not do that sooner and just kamikaze one of the support ships? Also when the hell has a ship had fuel? I was pretty sure that they didn't need fuel. Wtf. Nothing makes sense the force is dead with Luke. Now there is no one that is even rudimentally trained in the ways of the force left alive. Dumb.
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Star Wars appears to have become a vehicle for a forced agenda and not about great story telling. The Last Jedi was horribly filmed, the transitions between scenes and the attempts at forced humor and light heartedness are akin more to a sitcom. The endless parade of characters that don't matter appears to be agenda driven. This film is 2 1/2 hours long yet every scene appears rushed because they force too much in. How they treated the character of Luke Skywalker was horrible and I have to agree with Mark Hamill's comments entirely - its like they re-wrote his character.. Just poor choices. People are too happy in this movie in the face of loss and struggle and it just feels like everyone is doing the motions to create the film so Disney can sell a lot of cheap plastic toys. Just very very sad, I was so very disappointed. The villains inspired zero fear and were so subdued - no way Kylo-Ren or Snoke could survive in the constant battle for power the Empire is known for, not based on what we saw. This movie just seemed cheap and the forced addition of characters seems more about Disney wanting the franchise to appeal to a larger market. The character of Rose -- I felt like she was acting in another movie, it felt like she was completely disconnected from what was going on and the film she was in... She just sucked big time, her lines were child like and simple, her character had no real depth and they have to stop filling the Star Wars universe with animated characters like Maz Kanata they are tacky to say the least. The emotion in this film was not there and the focus was lacking. Star Wars is supposed to be space opera where was the amazing musical score -- it was so passive and they didn't feature it properly?? This guy Rian Johnson who is directing is not a hot commodity he is a low budget guy with a weak film making history. Just very sad disappointing film.
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I was expecting a great twist from The Last Jedi and a good plot about Rey learning about force and the Resistance fighting hard against the new order.
However we got one of the worst Star Wars ever.
Disney killed Snoke and Phasma without explaining what they were doing and their motivations. The Resistance plot was so boring and pointless. And they killed Luke Skywalker, one of the most important characters from the franchise.
I just liked the Rey's story and the scenes about Kylo Ren... And the Porgs!
Rating: 4/10
The Last Jedi is a disgrace, almost so bad as the prequels.
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3/10
Zero character development/arcs for female characters
As a female fan, I was shocked by the total lack of female character development/arcs. The male characters (Luke, Kylo, Poe, Finn) are flawed, conflicted and interesting. They grow and change. But the female characters (Leia, Rey, Rose, Admiral Holdo) are flat, morally "pure," and have all the answers from start to finish. While their plans are occasionally thwarted (always by men), the women never fail on a personal level, so I found them impossible to relate to.
Rey is shown being slightly tempted by the Dark Side, but it has no real consequences for her - she rejects Kylo's offer with ease at the end and is landed in the same position she was at the end of The Force Awakens. She doesn't struggle to control her newfound powers, even though she is shown channeling anger during fight scenes. Admiral Holdo failed to tell Poe of the Resistance escape plan even as a mutiny occurred (simple communication would have saved countless lives), but the movie shifted all blame onto Poe for failing to follow orders - and Admiral Holdo went out in a blaze of saintly glory without so much as an apology. Rose is incessantly cheerful and preachy despite the death of her sister mere hours before - she displays no deep-seated bitterness, no grudge against Poe or the Resistance for causing her sister's death, no debilitating fear of suffering the same fate or urge to take wild, self-sacrificing risks herself. Leia exists as a bland background character defined solely by a bland sense of concern and a grim yet maternal facial expression.
As a woman, I want realistic female characters who are challenged, tempted, mistaken, devastated - and grow as a result. What message does this send to kids? It's okay for boys to make mistakes and learn from failure - but only perfect girls are worthy of portrayal? Women are only there to redirect men, clean up their messes, and make up for men's failings? Come on, Disney. I look forward to the return of Abrams as director for Episode IX - considering how much more compelling Rey and Leia were in The Force Awakens, I hope Abrams can at least start to correct these wrongs.
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1) Kylo sucks, he's a cry baby of a villain not intimidating or respectable. He was defeated by the new Goddess of the saga, Rey.
2) Snoke sucks too, he got killed off by the cry boy Kylo Ren... So there are no respectable bad guys...
3) Leia can now fly?!?! Since when? She has ZERO training... Not even a trained Anakin (the most talented Force user in history) or Luke (The most powerful force user ever)
4) ALL male characters suck. I'm fine with Luke dying, but the way in which they did it and the way in which his character was represented is nothing short of DISGRACEFUL. He didn't even get his own Yoda moment when we were like WOW! This guy is actually a great warrior or anything.. Instead, we just saw him create an illusion and then dying off..
5) Luke got beat up by Rey?!?! Seriously?! If Star Wars would've been respected at all Rey would've stood a snowball's chance in hell to even hit Luke at all.
6)Simply utter bullshit how they disrespected us the real fans.Luke didn't even get a fight scene where we saw who he became. He died like an idiot...
7) Disney seems like they want to troll the real fans.
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Messy and unfocused. Basically, the same criticism that has been voiced by many others. Disappointing "reveals," time-wasting red herrings, weirdly misplaced humor, nonsensical plot holes, some real eye-roll inducing dialogue about war versus love, underdeveloped characters, excessive prequel-style CGI silliness, etc. Very little of the joy and spunk we saw in the Force Awakens (yes, it was a corporate-driven soft reboot of the franchise. Abrams was open that. Difference here is that Abrams did it with a wink and a grin. He made sure it was *fun* which we clearly appreciated as an audience). Some breathtaking visuals and beautiful set pieces in Last Jedi. Johnson is a gifted director. But the story he tried to tell is a clunky, rambling and mostly joyless rehash of stuff from earlier Star Wars installments. Didn't *hate* it, but I certainly didn't love it. Just ... well. Let's put it this way: I saw it once and that number isn't going to change.
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1/10
Incredibly disappointing and slap in the face to the characters
I didn't think it was possible. I sit here today done with Star Wars.
I was 9 years old when I saw the first movie in 1977. I have been a rabid fan since that day. But what I found out in this movie was that the story and character arcs were not what I was lead to believe.
It feels empty. It feels sad. I've lost something I loved and I hate Rian Johnson for that.
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This is not Star Wars anymore. Is only a "tribute film" made to win money because it says "Star Wars" on the titles... The new "story" is pure garbage with no creativity and plot holes everywhere. It have no sense.
Star Wars is not a movie that you need to see it twice so you can understan it.
The only good thing is that John Williams is behind the music and you can feel that Star Wars essence that also was missing on Episode VII. BUT THATS ALL!!! Its like a slap on the face to Star Wars fans...
The scene of Luke throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder feels like the way Disney sees the complete saga and George Lucas's story.
They can do a lot of spin-off movies using ideas taken from the expand univers like "SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE" and with that build a great story like they do with "ROGUE ONE". But no by taking the story of six movies and throwing it to the garbage traying to do "something new" for the new generations...
For me and a lot of people to; Episode VII and VIII never existed.
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After all the hard work that Force Awakens put in to expunge the prequels and provide a worthy successor to the original trilogy, along comes the Last Jedi to throw the series into the nearest trash compactor.
The annoying thing is that there was the germ of a decent movie lurking in there, but it was totally lost in the confusion created by the utterly pointless casino world subplot, the idiocy of Leia's return from space, and the mind-numbing lack of awareness credited to Snoke.
If Holdo had disclosed the plan to make for the abandoned rebel base, the Canto Bight/DJ subplot could have been avoided, cutting the running time to a more manageable two hours, and saving us from having Phantom Menace flashbacks.
Apart from Rey, all the rest of the characters were totally wasted in this film. Leia was asleep for most of it, Finn was away in a Prequel era short, Po was treated like an idiot, Snoke was an embarrassment to the Force, Phasma was pointless yet again, and Luke was a deus ex machina. Even Rey seemed to get her new powers from nowhere; the inclusion of Yoda just serving to point out that Luke actually did some training to develop his powers.
The only thing that sets this above Phantom Menace is the lack of Jar Jar Binks.
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Luke skywalker- what you have become dear luke? :(
Leia flew in space?
Snoke the supreeeme leader connects two powerful force sensitive beings between planets and knows everything by the way, could not sense an ignited light saber which is as near as a coffe pot in his throne?
Lets burn jedi ancient books- boring they are, read them have you? Why burning them yoda?
Jedi must end sith must end- Kylo Ren.Seriously? So we'll watch you and rey? How convinient!
Phasma? If we cut all phasma scenes, what would have changed?(Nothing)
Fire this man with all your wepons now- Kylo Ren (the worst sith / darkside user ever been created)
Everything about Hux the horrible?
it's treason then...
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I watched the Star Wars Series from the start as I was a small kid... and I wouldnt say that I am a "Fan" but I always liked it very much and also played most of the games (from Jedi Knight to SWTOR) which btw have an awesome combination of story and action.
Nevertheless I also liked the movies till now and SW EP VII is imo great (not as expected but still great). There was so much potential for the next upcoming episode to come but I can understand why so many fans are honestly disappointed with EP VIII. The first time in SW history I left the cinema perplexed, didnt know what to think. This didnt felt like a SW movie. This was a cookie-cutter approach marketing Star Wars movie with no real surprises (maybe the death of snoke), plot twists, etc., basically a "no risk" approach to make all people happy (and to buy a lot of merchandise stuff).
...AND ofc no decent light saber duel/fight?? WTH! :D I might be wrong but this would be the first time in the SW movie series.
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This movie would be good... if The Force Awakens didn't exist. That being said The Force Awakens does in fact exist. This movie does not connect to the previous installment in plot, feel, or tone. And what is even more dangerous for this trilogy, Rian Johnson has selfishly stolen key moments and reveals for this... his solo Star Wars film The Last Jedi that do not satisfy if you have been paying attention to the saga. I say solo Star Wars film because it seems to have ignored many previous developments, while putting an end to any sort of development for the future installment that would make this trilogy seem like a coherent build off one another. This movie has clearly shown audiences that this is not a planned trilogy, it is three movies that try their best to be connected but has no vision for an over-arching meaning. They are basically winging it.
That being said it was gorgeous to look at, had some nice battle scenes, and moved a few characters forward (while cutting the legs off others).
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This is, by miles, the worst Star Wars movie ever.
I really loved all the other films. Even the prequels. The Force Awakens was brilliant and set up so much for the new triology. I was excited to see what Disney could do next!
Unfortunately, this movie is a total disappointment. Yes, they're taking the franchise in a new direction. It seems their new direction is facing away from everything we thought we knew about Star Wars and moving towards The Avengers. One of the older main characters has been completely misshandled by this film. The other characters, for the most part, have become boring and seem to have no motivations behind their actions. I don't see why Disney had to change the franchise this drastically. Why did they not just make a new original franchise?
The Last Jedi is a comedy/action film about a superhero. There aren't many important points in this film at all. The pacing is awful. The plot hardly moves forward at all after the first 20 minutes. Then everything is crammed in at the end. There are no classic Star Wars moments. That's what Star Wars is known for, great moments where the viewer can just sit back and take it all in. There's none of that. Giving John Williams no opportunity to hit us with any of his usual emotive soundtrack work. It's either action or comedy, or nothing.
Now the media are reporting that these poor viewer ratings are "fake news" left by bots. Honestly, I don't know a single person that enjoyed this film (though I'm from a cynical part of the world). I think it will eventually become clear after more people have seen this that it's just a bad film.
I hope this isn't a turning point for Star Wars as a whole, and somehow JJ Abrams saves this trilogy in film IX. I think that's unlikely.
If you're a fan of Star Wars and haven't seen this movie then I'd recommend avoiding it. Read the Legends books instead.
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This is by far the worst Star Wars film that has ever been made. Bad acting, poor sub plot. The jokes were forced, overused, and shouldnt have been in the serious parts of the movie. The only reason the Porgs were in the movie was for quick marketing money grab.The only good actors in the movie fell flat, and the only good characters that were in the movie were wasted completely. This film was a travesty. Rian Johnson should be ashamed of what he single-handedly did to ruin this franchise. If this is any indication of where this Star Wars franchise is heading, I for one will never watch another, and I have been a life long fan. Boo, Disney, boo.
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3/10
As a movie, it is terrible. As a Star Wars movie, it's alright.
The audience for the new Star Wars trilogy is obviously kids, which is dissappointing, since the original trilogy was able to offer something to kids as well as adults. Kids were the ones who enjoyed the prequels at the time as well, even though they were equally terrible. And they made millions with it, so why bother?
Visually, this movie is stunning, sticking to the original visual world of Star Wars. Although this is pretty much the only positive thought I had about it.
The plot is full of holes and unnecessary drama, there is almost zero emotional attachment to any of the new characters, therefore dramatic scenes just come off bland and dull. The viewever is left in the seat thinking "Am I meant to care?"
As the title says, it's an okay Star Wars movie, since the last 3 ones that were made were almost equally this bad.
As a movie, it's painful to watch.
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Still amazing to me that Episodes IV and V are the best out of 8 ....from 40 and 37 years ago.....Episode VIII very muddled and uses supernatural remedies to the greatest extent ever in the franchise...way too much "hey look,everything around me destroyed except me and that vehicle...how convenient!".....(yawn)
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Zero continuity...Zero
So much to complain about and the main points I don't want to spoil this review. Why would anyone watch a movie when the villain has already been defeated by the amateur untrained hero? are they trying to reverse montage and have us hope the villain gets stronger and train harder so he can compete with the hero? Luke is not Luke in this movie, he is completely out of character from Episode 4-6. The new villains are so weak and the new hero's are so powerful it makes watching it any further seem like a waste of time. Such a travesty, how was this made?
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I went with high hopes for this movie, the trailer looked amazing, and after watching TFA (which wasn't amazing but it was alright), and Rogue One (10 stars, amazing movie), I thought it'd only get better from here. Boy, was I wrong.
The story made no sense, weak plotline, they threw in some characters just so we could have more diversity, which would be fine if they actually helped the movie, which they didn't, they ruined pretty much everything that made the Star Wars movie great: the Jedi, the Force, the characters, oh god, Luke Skywalker was just being Mark Hamill, I never once saw Luke in the movie. No character development, if anything, they went backwards. They destroyed Snoke, literally, he was this mysterious entity that was super powerful, and he was reduced to nothing. Rey's parents was bs, it's like they were mocking the fans, they wanted to surprise you but failed miserably, the Rey/Poe scene at the end was cringy, so was the Rey/Kylo scenes, the one with the shirtless scene was the worst part, Captain Phasma was cr*p, Finn wasn't Finn at all, and the "love" story they tried to create with Rose was cringy and stupid, the length of the movie was ENDLESS, too long, you could've taken out one and a half hour of the movie and it would've ended the same way, the pace was so awful I would find myself almost falling asleep from time to time. Rian Johnson did an awful job with this movie and I am not looking forward to the new "Star Wars" movies he'll make, cause they'll be sh*t like this one. Now I understand why Mark Hamill said he hated working on this.
Don't get me wrong, the aesthetics, the photography, CGI, the acting, it was AMAZING. As a stand alone movie this was alright, but as a Star Wars sequel? No. It was a betrayal to real fans, and I actually hate saying "real fans", but it's true this time, it was a movie made for social justice warriors to feast on, which man, they are. But "real" fans, who pretty much loved everything in the extended universe (which is no longer canon thanks to Disney and Kathleen), know that this is no Star Wars. There wasn't anything in this movie that could possibly make it a Star Wars movie. The whole movie made no sense at all.
To sum it up, if you're not a Star Wars fan, or if you watched the movies and enjoyed them and you think they're ok but you don't really have a connection to the movies , stories, etc, you'll like this movie. If you're a millennial you'll love it too obvs it was made for you. But if you actually loved Star Wars and are over 21 years of age, I don't reccomend you spending money on this like I did. Just wait for the dvd or for someone to leak the movie online.
Most people hate the prequels, which for me, they were good movies except for Jar Jar and Hayden Christensen needed to get a little better at acting, but they were good, the stories were amazing and well told. But this is beyond anything, this is the worst Star Wars movie I've ever seen. People who love it will say I'm just a whiny fangirl, but just as you love this one and hate the prequels, I loved everything Star Wars meant til now. This is no Star Wars, and it breaks my heart to know such a well written universe was destroyed in a 2:30hs long movie.
Star Wars died the day Disney bought it and Kathleen took charge of it. And Rian Johnson is an awful director and writer who help ruin this movie.
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1/10
NEVER, in ALL MY LIFE, have I been more GENUINELY ANGRY at a movie.
But you have to see it to understand why.
Nice effects but the script is childish. It seems that every twist is made only to surprise the audience, but the surprises are cheap... also the humour.
I did not belive i say that but episode VIII was far better.
I hope episode IX will start with Rey or other main character waking up from the nightmare. Please do not make-it canon.
Judge yourself.
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It was the most disappointing and underwhelming movie I've seen since Mad Max Fury Road. In fact they are very similar in terms of looking good but having zero character development or storyline. The Last Jedi lacked so much but worst of all it had no soul which meant emotional attachment to new and old characters was impossible. The Force Awakens had it's faults but it was a solid movie and created good characters and questions which Star Wars fan were desperate to know answers for. Along came the Last Jedi and Disney forgot to answer some of them e.g."who's Snoke?" and the ones they did answer e.g. who's "Rey's parents?" were answered badly without any effort. So rather than tie up the loose ends from TFA they just went on an erratic voyage of complete nonsense that left most of us in a state of complete bewilderment. They should have just rebranded the film as: Couldn't Be Arsed Wars. 1/10 what a major major major disappointment. p.s. Looking forward to how they write Princess Leia out NOT!
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2/10
You will never find a more retched hive of mediocrity and cognitive dissidence...
Sad to say it but this was not a good movie. Perhaps we are just fooling ourselves into thinking that the original magic of Star Wars could be caught in a bottle, but if it can...it just wasn't here (I feel like they came close in Rogue One.) The "humor" didn't add to the tension the way it did in the originals, here it just made me feel like they weren't taking the situation seriously. We waited decades to see Luke again with a great cliff-hanger at the end of The Force Awakens, and what is he? A misanthropic geezer who barely survives the second act. The whole thing just felt like a big "up yours" to the fans. I know you can't make everyone happy...but you should have your priorities straight on who you should try to make happy.
The second star was for my man Mark Hamill...his acting was great.
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It started like an idiot parody ... it continued like an Indian movie and ends up as an American movie recycling ....and the jedy play like a loser ..... if you generally look at good movies you will have a shock
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Absolutely the most effective way to insult the Star Wars franchise. I thought the force awakens was bad enough until Disney made this piece of garbage on a whole new level. If you're thinking of seeing it I suggest you steer clear as this will only aggravate you and leave you cursing about it for days.
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My question is did the writers ever watch one of the original films? but to be fair ,the last 5 have sucked also. The lead/heros of the last 2 films could have been taken out in a spit ball contest.
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'Nuff said; for an in-depth review of how this movie perfectly compares to a steamy pile of horse manure please refer to the other reviewers who did an excellent job for me. Literally retrieved the password of my age-old account just to give this movie the rating it deserves. Been a long time fan, even went along with the prequels, even went along with the Force Awakens and Rogue One, but this one has finally managed to kill my appetite for more of the SW Universe - as they did a good job in killing off the legacy. Never felt so angry during a movie. And it is absolutely baffling to read the 60+/100 rating reviews by 'professional' critics via Metacritic.
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Manny big Franchises movies have at least one movie that people wish they could just ignore, (Examples: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Star Trek V, and Jason X) The Last Jedi is also one of those movies. The new director (Rian Johnson) Was handed an elegant and extremely anticipated precision weapon, took it and just tossed it away! Instead of continuing the plots and story from the previous film we are given recycled plots pieces from the other movies, smashed together in an almost nonsensical way. Almost all of the momentum and story lines J.J. Abrams started with The Force Awakens is destroyed wail leaving questions unanswered.
Much of the core rules of Star wars is rewritten for no other reason then to boost the spectacle. You don't need to go to school or even work hard anymore. Perhaps those crazy theories that Jar Jar Binx was a Jedi might be true. By now most Star wars fans are hatting me for bringing him up, but character development and and training went right out the airlock and the force cant save it this time. The all encompassing force that is in and around every thing can be blocked and purged from you but you can still use it?
Okay plot holes and bad writing aside the film was amusing and visually pleasing but, J.J. has his work cutout for him with the next film. Many fans are already saying good bye to Star Wars, claiming that this film has killed the franchise but they did stick around though the prequels. If J.J. Abrams is successful and can redirect the story and characters back on track, there might be a new hope for another return of the Jedi.
1 out of 1 found this helpful.
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This movie was a disappointment from start to finish. Felt like a 3rd grader wrote the script. This is coming from someone who has never had a bad thing to say about any prior Star Wars film. This wasn't a Star Wars movie. Thankfully I have been able to convince most of my friends not to see this movie. If your a fan of Star Wars do yourself a favor and not ruin the whole saga that is Star Wars don't see this movie. I could go into details I feel I have wasted to much energy on this abomination as it is, and I'm sure others have already done so. DON"T SEE THIS MOVIE.
1 out of 1 found this helpful.
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Don't really understand the reviews. You didn't like the Force Awakens because it was too similar to A New Hope, and now you don't like the Last Jedi because it was something original and different? Give me a break. Yes, there were some callbacks, but it was not so much to where it was a carbon copy of the original. Rian Johnson did a fantastic job. Much better than J.J. Abrams. In fact, I wish that they had another director lined up for the next episode, because I don't want callbacks to Return of the Jedi, much less a carbon copy. Everything made sense. Luke's death was meaningful. Don't like it? Don't watch it. End of story.
9 out of 25 found this helpful.
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Let me start off by saying that I am one of the countless people for whom Star Wars was their childhood. ESB wins by a landslide as my favorite movie ever. After the most recent reboot, this movie was truly going to be make or break for me. If it took a page from TFA and just gave us a slightly more modern telling of ESB I would have lost faith in the franchise. I would have lost faith that they actually care about the fan base and want to make movies for us and not just to line their pockets. However, this movie truly struck a chord. Was it a perfect movie? Of course not. Did it do something incredibly brave and original that not only hasn't been done in Star Wars, but in cinema in general? Absolutely. This movie has everything, the epic space battles, incredibly choreographed fighting, quotable lines, and scenes that make you want to stand and cheer. Even if you aren't a Star Wars fan this movie will have something that appeals to you. And if you are a Star Wars fan then I think you're in for quite a treat. Now, to address the people giving this 1/10 for some inane reason. I keep hearing things like "This was out of character for Luke" and "It didn't feel like a Star Wars movie." To address the first complaint, all I have to say is, it's called character development, look it up. To address the latter, I say be more open-minded. No this isn't a movie that fits perfectly into the confines of what the previous films have created. But that's a good thing. What Star Wars is at its core, is a risky movie that challenges the norms. 30 years ago when ANH came out, nothing like that had been done. It rewrote what it means to be a good film. Some years later, ESB challenged what we thought a sequel could be. And now, TLJ yet again takes Star Wars to a bold and interesting place. Because of that, it is the truest Star Wars we have gotten in almost thirty years and holds up to the originals. If you don't go see this movie, as a fan or non-fan alike, you are greatly missing out.
9 out of 25 found this helpful.
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Saw this on Tuesday and absolutely loved it. Some random thoughts:
It was definitely a fresh and invigorating take on what had become a little stale and predictable.
Loved the new characters of Holdo and Rose. Rose's line about fighting for what you love will resonate into the next movie.
Loved that Rey is a nobody and I don't believe that Kylo was lying to her. He is brutally honest and they have a force bond now. She accepts it and the vision she has in the Dark Side cave reflects it back to her. She has denied it her whole life but she knows.
Loved the fight scenes, loved Rey/Kylo teaming up--they fought like a well-oiled machine and I hope we see more of that in the next film.
Loved how Holdo was a hero and a visionary leader. That light speed attack deserved the moment of silence because it was truly breath taking.
Hated Poe. Hated how he messed up twice and was a mutineer but everybody made excuses for him. He is directly responsible for the decimation of the Resistance forces. His character is dead to me.
I think the Canto Bight sequence did slow down the movie a little but the message was clear. The rich don't care who wins as long as they are removed from it all and they profit. Rose is instrumental in showing Finn what he is missing and giving him a reason to fight.
I'm holding out for the return of Ben Solo in IX. Now that the evil, manipulative voice in his head is gone and his uncle's death is no longer a goal, what is going to happen? Let the past die, indeed. As Luke says, "No one is ever really gone."
9 out of 25 found this helpful.
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I saw TLJ on its opening night, and no one I spoke to afterwards had anything bad to say about the movie, at least not anything about the product as a whole which would lower their initial review beneath 8/10 stars. So, I was very surprised to wake up this morning and read not only in my local newspaper, but across various social media, that the movie was not well received by so many fans. As such, and to defend this very enjoyable movie, I felt the need to write a review for it.
In the interest of keeping this spoiler free, I will be as broad as I can with what I liked and did not like. The best thing about this movie is the cast. The acting is enjoyable throughout, and seeing how characters interact with each other in new ways is very thought provoking. The comedy lands well for the most part, some jokes feeling a little different than what we've seen in Star Wars before, but given the attitudes of these new characters I still felt it was fitting.
Now, for the plot - I loved it! They introduce some things that will make fans of the series squeal, and leave enough ambiguity in character decisions to make it unclear in which direction our characters may go. It is mysterious, it is fun, it adds to the lore, and it takes risks where it needs to.
As for why I gave this 9 stars...honestly, I would have given it 8.5 if I could have, but I rounded up in order to combat the negative reviews I have been seeing. My gripes are not enough to say that this is a bad movie, not even close. But they do exist. The focus of the movie was very biased towards Rey and Kylo. I loved their story in this, it is so fantastic, but other characters suffer from this because I am just not invested in any story that is not revolving around Rey and/or Kylo in some way. Finn and Poe have their moments, and they are still fun and important, but they felt much more like a side story. Also, I felt that there was a scene with Leia really early on that was just weird (you'll know what I mean). I also felt like the ending could have had a slightly bigger finish. And these things did take away from the movie for me, thus not a full 10/10 stars. But it was still fantastic and fun, and definitely is worth watching. Overall I did love it, and I fully recommend it to everyone.
9 out of 25 found this helpful.
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To be honest, I only watch the trailer once because I'm afraid to put so much expectation and it fails me like TFA. But hey, it's beyond EPIC!
The movie has an emotional and breathtaking plot. It's like I'm riding a roller coaster and the suspense is so damn real. It's unfortunate that I can't explain the plot details because of its epicness and of course, it will ruin your movie experience.
The stars? Oh my God. The charisma between Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher is gold. They succeed to hypnotize me for bringing the good old memories. Don't forget to mention Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, The Collector of MCU, and the woman in Jurassic Park. But, among them, Adam Driver has a great character development as Kylo. Totally better than the previous one.
The lightsaber choreography, the fighter battle, and CAPTAIN PHASMA totally freaked me out in the movie. Oh God, the movie is good in so many levels. The movie is near perfect. Is it right if I say this movie can replace ESB as the best sequel in SW franchise? Maybe yes. 10/10
21 out of 71 found this helpful.
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All I can say is that all these people that hated the movie were never Star Wars fans in the first place. They don't appreciate the beauty, the art, the hard work, the unpredictable story, and they don't understand the essence of Star Wars. Rian Johnson is the first director since George Lucas that goes back to the child like innocence that these movies radiate, George Lucas created this universe, respect it.
All what these people want is action and super hero movies.
Star Wars is about hope, drama and love. These hateful people that don't like the movie are hopeless. They can say all they want, but they shall never take away your true happiness about the movie just because they make you feel bad for liking a beautiful movie.
10 out of 29 found this helpful.
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Before starting to review Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I'd like to tell you about my expectations of the movie. Many People said from the beginning that Star Wars VIII will be pretty similar to Star Wars: The Imperium Strikes Back. I used to share the same expectation aslong I just saw both teaser and trailer. After watching the movie last night, I can say that some of my expectations are fullfilled. Even when I dislike Rian Johnson's script due to some unintelligibilities during the movie, I need to say that I got quite surprised by some incidents.
So let me say in my own opinion: the movie does not have the commonly known Star Wars-scheme, but it has so much new things that I quite like. Star Wars VIII has a new usage of supporting roles, they get more important as in Star Wars VII. If you watch Star Wars VIII for the first time, just don't let you blind be the actions of the main characters. Get a feeling for the things did by the supporting actors, which are quite important for the wide spectrum of actions, aswell as for the tension of the movie.
The usage of the CGI effects are better than in episode I-III. It's pretty combined with most of the panorama recordings and strenghtens the impact in the movie.
I quite like the use of the music in Star Wars VIII. Its a mix of the old score, combined with new compositions - props for John Williams.
As a Star Wars-since-childhood fan im not really sad or angry for the mediocre script, but im impressed by all the other aspects of the movie and I fully accept Star Wars: The Last Jedi as a coequal Star Wars Movie.
So may the force be with you!
9 out of 26 found this helpful.
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Is it a good movie? Yes. Is it a Star Wars movie? Meh. I think I want to like it more than I actually do.
Too many characters, and the most important ones from the old trilogy were bland and misused. It was funny, sure, but not Star Wars-y. Lots of character development for Kylo, there's probably a good movie there that I'd rather watch...The plot had many holes, and it was hard to follow in some places. Still better than Phantom Menace though.
Great visuals, of course. Star Wars quality there.
If you're a diehard Star Wars fan who watched the original trilogy in your youth, you'll be disappointed.
I want George Lucas back.
5 out of 12 found this helpful.
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Reading the reviews and I see negative after negative reviews for the purists and nitpickers of the universe that left me scratching my "cabeza". I have went and see the movie, paid my $10.50, saw it in 3-D with my movie buddy and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was entertaining. I bet that the 'nay sayers' sat there and kept there critical glasses on and ripped apart the movie at every turn. While on the other hand, I and I am sure others, did not have it one and let the movie do its thing and take us on a ride in the Star Wars Universe. I am sure that if they did that, they would have seen the movie for what it is, a masterpiece of cinematic history.
Now after that gush, I have listen to the JW Soundtrack that is streaming on Apple iTunes, a couple of times while waiting for my hard copy order to come from B&N, and I have to say that while John Williams uses his old original iconic music to tell the story, it was the glue that really held the movie together. It was a perfect marriage of sonic story telling. If it was not for the music, the feature would have fallen flat, and the audience would have been disappointed. So, Disney had better kiss the feet of Williams for holding the movie together, since John knew enough that he had to incorporate easily recognizable character tunes (leitmotif - a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation.) to help guide the audience as to what to expect. If it weren't for that, then the audience would have gotten lost.
To enjoy the move, you will have to understand that it was a variation to the theme of Empire (Johnson even said that). While the story of TFW, JJ Abrams keep the story clean, Johnson kept the story not so much clean, but complex with 3 sub plots merging into one beautiful story line. Put it this way, as TFW was pulp fiction: TLJ was literature. The question of who is the last Jedi is answered by Luke warning the world about the movie, 'it's not going to go the way your think." Keep that warning from Luke, and just enjoy the film and its music, and kiss the Porg.
10 out of 30 found this helpful.
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See.. going into this I was very open minded. I knew Disney would change things, I knew they would twist around some things you wouldn't necessarily think would happen or wouldn't happen. So I'm open to this new world, new characters and plot. People are also mad because of questions not being answered? My idea is that we see things here.. certain circumstances and characters that are going to be much greater in the future. They showed that in The Force Awakens that Kylo was much weaker than Rey. In this film they showed that they are now equal when the lightsaber was broken in half. So what do you think? I loved Kylo and Luke's tension, it made the story ten times more intriguing. You also can't forget the lovable Fin doing what he does best. It's an epic movie over all. Very different but very close. I think there is so much more to this that we haven't got to see yet and we will soon.
7 out of 19 found this helpful.
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I won't go into a critique.
The movie was enjoyable. Don't forget what movies are. Is it TESB? no. Is it even TFA? no. Am I disappointed? No. I was entertained. There were parts of it where I was left holding the bag. wondering what we were doing. So what?
My theory: This is a set up for the next one. Sorry. You came here and they set you up for the next one. It makes sense though. JJ and Rian are compelling you to watch more. We have some unsolved mysteries that MOST fans think are solved. Why? You are not listening to your inner voice and watching subtle clues. Captain Phasma. Han Solo. The HOLE in the middle of "Luke's" planet. These all lead to more questions. Some are easy to dismiss, but everyone forgot IMMEDIATELY that Rey didn't kill Kylo. WHY? Captain Phasma KNOWS Finn. HOW? Why would she care? She's not dead. Luke alluded to Han still BEING with Kylo. WHY? The fact that the books are with Rey and she stole them. Come on people, quit being so reactive and unobserved "fans".
Did you have fun or not? Is it a stand alone? I don't think so. Don't dismiss it. These threads are going to bear fruit (or sweaters) in the next movie that JJ and Rian combine efforts for.
My son turned me on to Luke's two sun horizon Tatooine return. We aren't to the end yet. Kylo hasn't been killed by Rey or Luke. He didn't kill his mom. There is still hope.
7 out of 19 found this helpful.
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The extremely negative reviews here feels like they were written by the same person and they really dont contribute much.
Make no mistake: The Last Jedi is a great movie, with great acting, superb cinematography and some really epic scenes, effects and battles. It touches your heart in many ways, you care for the characters and it may give a real fan goosebumps. Personally I have not seen Luke Skywalker fight with a lightsaber in the cinema since 1983, so I was extremely pleased during the final battle.
It is not your average part 2 movie in a trilogy, just filling the gap between the first and the final movie. It does not push some battles to the final movie, instead it takes some interesting twists and turns and takes two steps forward instead of one. I can not understand how people can not handle that.
There's a lot of moral issues and not everything is black and white. The interaction and connection between Rey and Kylo makes the film really interesting, it adds another dimension and makes for an interesting final film in the trilogy, where things have changed and moved forward, instead of remaining too predictable.
Yes, there are some annoying jokes. Yeah, the casino world scenes could have been cut. I personally did not enjoy the General Hugs joke. But the movie just kept growing and growing and growing. It did not stop with Snoke being the bad guy and waiting for a final battle in the next movie, it went beyond that and kept progressing. Kylo is the supreme leader now, deal with it.The last 45 minutes were filled with only pure satisfaction and enjoyment.
7 out of 19 found this helpful.
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When Luke Skywalker says, "..Han was Han about it..", Rey smirks slightly for just a frame on the screen this shows that not only is the movie written explicitly on paper but also executed with all the dedication and excellence. The Last Jedi checks off each and every fantasy of a fan, whether it be complex concept, dreadful characters, awe-struck moments or one of the finest unpredictability natured script of Star Wars. The sense of urgency that was present in The Force Awakens is still kept alive with a tightly packed screenplay especially in the last hour of the movie (which is the ace in the hole and also reminds you of Inception) where the movie holds you on the edge of the seat proving you wrong about every prediction you might have created in your mind (Literally Luke Skywalker's dialogue comes alive, "This is not going to go the way you think!"). A marvelous background music by John Williams, stunning visuals and Adam Driver's presence on the screen are some of the bright colors that paints this stunning craft that Star Wars is. This is Rian Johnson, Star Wars and a cinema at its peak, without any doubt this is the best installment of Star Wars Series till date.
8 out of 23 found this helpful.
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I just watched this film last night, and I was absolutely hooked from the first amazing scene. It's a non-stop thrill ride with enough excitement, twists and depth of character to keep any fan going.
The sexual chemistry between Rey and Ben in particular was just brilliant. I wasn't too sure about him in the last film, but he's really come into his own in VIII. I really enjoyed the uncertainty and doubt in the good/evil dichotomy, and felt this was a great way to go.
It was also just stunning, visually. You can tell they've put a fair amount of money in this, because it's just beautiful. The colours are rich and vibrant, the scenery is gorgeous and it rrally feels as though you're there.
I can't wait to see what's next.
8 out of 23 found this helpful.
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8/10
Too many bad reviews from people who didn't get "their" SW movie
A lot of people seem to be over reacting to TLJ , focusing much on what wasn't in the movie, rather than what was in it. Furthermore, many are complaining about the plot, and how "poor" it is - they are confusing plot with story. There is a story here, and characters arcs, and surprises. But as Luke says , it's (probably) not going to go the way you think.
Many pre-release reviews pointed this out - a new direction, unlike any SW movie you have seen before etc etc. Yet many user review seem to be harking back to the SW universe as it was 35-40 years ago.
Characters, like real people, change. This is what makes them believable. I had no problem with Luke in the movie. In fact, I think the next time I watch the originals, I will probably appreciate his arc even more.
Did I get to see Luke do what I really , REALLY wanted him to do? No - but hey, that's MY movie, not the one they made.
Does this make TLJ bad? No - just because I didn't get to see everything I wanted to see (and admittedly , there are some things I wish I didn't see in this movie) doesn't make it a 2/10 or a 3/10 or whatever. Some of these reviews just sound angry because it's not what they thought they would get. The are some great moments here, as well as some truly great cinematography, acting and production design.
I'm looking forward to seeing it again on the big screen, because I'm sure there are more details I missed.
Go in with an open mind, appreciate it for what it is, give it a couple of days and see how you feel about it then.
8 out of 23 found this helpful.
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I really enjoyed this movie. I say disregard the haters and their expectations of what should have happened; and Star Wars movies were never known for their acting.
Bottom line, this movie is fun! From start to finish I was entertained, it's family friendly and left me wanting to see the next one. I enjoyed the cameos. I didn't even have to adjust in my seat I was so entertained! I did not get all my questions answered and have more. I will be back for episode 9!
I do not understand complaints about a lack of further research into the Force. Think about what you are really complaining about...a lack of further research into a made up concept? GET OVER IT! The tempo and vibe changes between TFA and this movie are no different than those between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Have you forgotten how different those movies felt? There were definitely some unneeded sub-plots and some inconsistencies with past jedi abilities and limitations, but so what. Someone just figured out how to take the force further than we thought possible.
Movies are about entertainment and this is a good one.
8 out of 23 found this helpful.
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I really do not understand the hate. As a Star Wars fan (and by fan I mean both movies and video games, yes the classics too) I thought this was very well done. Yes I was dissapointed with a specific character but it really depends on what is going to happen in episode IX. The story is good, the movie is a ride from the start to the end. It's spectacular, unpredictable and frustrating in a good way. If you go to the movie to just hate it you better stay home. If you really go as a fan you will 100% enjoy the movie. I might say it's one of the top episodes of Star Wars!
Haters, woosh! Go away pls! It's a 10/10 from me!
8 out of 23 found this helpful.
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If u like star wars, u should watch this but honestly it felt like any other star wars movie....
Things i liked....
1) jedi fights
2) Luke asking rey about how she felt about the force, really funny..
3) space battle in the beginning, especially the bomber scene, quite epic..
4) there might be a new jedi generation (the kid...)
5) Leia using the force
things i didn't like
1) conflict of Ben, it was pointless, he just wanted to be a supreme leader all along...
2) worst ever villian snoke, star wars build him up so much and then he gets killed in the stupidest way.
3) the way the rebel ship almost destroyed the whole enemy fleet, stupid that no one saw that coming and stopped that from happening..
4) how Luke was actually not involved in any battle actually..(i was confused whether it was just his projection or whether he was physically there in the end)
3 out of 6 found this helpful.
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Let me start by recognizing the best movie of the entire saga is The Empire Strikes Back. But I think this entry has now become its second greatest.
This film is highly entertaining, as a movie that lasts 150 minutes has to be, but the characters are also seen in a fresh new light, that even goes for the characters of the old saga.
Rian Johnson has managed to tie up loose ends from the previous episode and he fixes some pacing issues that I unfortunately have to say J.J. Abrams imposes in most his films. The story is something entirely new, I am happy to report that it has not been recycled, I can guarantee you will be at the edge of your seat until the credits start rolling.
The acting is extremely good, it is bittersweet to see Carrie Fisher, but that's all I am willing to say. The entire cast is beyond well picked, from Daisy Ridley to Laura Dern everyone gives their best.
The story seems mostly uneventful in the larger scheme of things but the beautiful aspect of this saga is you already know the third part is coming and I cannot wait to see what will happen next.
Overall, I give it 8 out 10. I would fix a couple of things but it was highly entertaining.
All that is left is to wait for the continuation of that familiar story that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
7 out of 20 found this helpful.
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I really don´t understand why there are so many negative rewies, for such a movie...seriously now, if the action does not happen the way you want you start criticizing it? Or is much more emotion in this film than you can handle?
I would need hundreds of pages to express all the feelings this episode can create, but I will resume at this: Even if you are not a huge SW fan it´s impossible to not see the basic elemets: suffering, joy, sacrifice, betrayal, reunion, courage, reckless, dark, light and.....hope. And maaaany more. Every second can produce a new overturning which you would never have anticipated.
All characters did an amazing job, even they were truly legends from the first trilogy or newcomers in the SW-universe. This was absolutely the best movie who could come as "the last one" in Carrie Fisher´s career.
I don´t know on what principles evaluate some so-called "fans" this film, but I´m sure truly fans will understand it´s mesage. May the force be with you!
7 out of 20 found this helpful.
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It's arrogant to assume that the Star Wars films, like the force, belong exclusively to one group of people. These movies no longer belong to those who grew up with them, but to everyone, old and young. The films are moving on and if you can't deal with that, then perhaps it's time you got off the Star Wars train.
8 out of 24 found this helpful.
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6/10
Didnt fulfill its destiny, also better than tfa imo but yep
I was disappointed with The Force Awakens and I didn't have too much hype around The Last Jedi, but obviously I was still going to watch it and with all the great reviews I was excited.
Going to begin with the negative. Right from start of the movie it had an awful joke about your mother and from here I had a bad feeling about it. These moments alone separate this film from the original trilogy because the original trilogy had funny moments too but they werent forced and were funny because of the great characters. Jokes were awful, like Marvel joke type awful.
Speaking of characters, I was never a fan of Finn and just found him irrelevant. I still wasnt interested in Finn this movie and also his new friend or love interest (what the hell were they thinking) Rose. Honestly I hated them and they had a whole arc in the middle of the film which did not do anything for the plot. Basically it promoted that animal cruelty is wrong but Jesus they didnt have to take around 30 minutes, could have been 10 minutes max. They shouldnt have had that whole Finn and Rose arc in the first place. Snoke and Phasma were awful too.
Those are the 2 big things which annoyed me but this movie did have some really cool bits.
wouldnt say I hated the plot but I have mixed feelings around it, it was actually pretty weird, almost stupid but this did give us some cool stuff.
Something else which I found weird was the force, youll understand when you see it, its pretty, coooooll i guess, not really, i dunno.
Luke and Leia were great. There was a cameo of an old character which was awesome. Rey and Kylo were also great and had some good development. Theres a pretty cool lightsaber fight somewhere in there, near the end or the middle.
I was pretty disappointed in the ending but cant spoil.
In summary:
Just didn't feel like the star wars i love honestly
Dont care about finn
Wish rose died
Luke, leia, kylo and rey were pretty good
Force is weird
Plot is also weird, there was a twist which I didn't expect but its not like I was amazed by it because it didn't do anything to help the movie.
5 out of 13 found this helpful.
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7/10
Entertaining, thrilling, original, and fairly fulfilling
I'm just going to start this review off by saying this movie has me incredibly conflicted, some parts gave me full blown aids while some other parts made me orgasm so hard i went blind. Star Wars Episode VIII is an entertaining and fun experience, though having just come out of a midnight screening for it, i am unsure where this movie would rank in comparison to the other films in the series, as the pacing, run time and progression all had noticeable flaws. Firstly the pacing, there are 3 main story lines in this film and running at 152 minutes, this movie feels like it went on for far too long and that Johnson had too much plot progression stuffed into these 152 minutes. I feel like this film suffers from the return of the king syndrome (when a film seemingly approaches a conclusion but doesn't and just refuses to end) I will definitely have to re-watch this film a few more times to take in everything to fully understand whether this was well done or not personally. Some scenes felt completely unnecessary and just contributed to the lengthy run time (for a star wars film at least) including that completely out of place planet in the star wars universe which appears near act 2. Some characters felt heavily under developed including that purple haired chick from Jurassic park whose name escapes me and the benicio del toro character.
Johnson made ballsy decisions, this movie has many unpredictable twists and turns and i found myself feeling conflicted as to whether these decisions were good or terrible. Some i really liked, whereas others i really didn't, and by that i mean they were TERRIBLE decisions. When you see the film for yourself you may understand my dislike for the decisions made considering this is only the 2nd film in the trilogy. What i fear now is what J.J Abrams will do with what Johnson has left, as his decisions may lead to episode 9 being a piece of shit as i don't trust Abrams. Overall this film was enjoyable and surprisingly funny (Luke, rey and surprisingly Kylo all got laughs out of me in this film)
All in all, Will you enjoy this movie? Yes! If you like star wars you'll probably enjoy this film, to what extent though is the real question and for you to figure out.
11 out of 37 found this helpful.
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9/10
Surprised at all the Love, since it is the Most Entertaining Movie of the Year
I woke up this morning to the surprising disbelief of an incredible wave of backlash and overly-sensitive "bitching" towards a movie which I saw last night and have since felt incredibly excited and moved by.
In respect to the entitlement of people's opinions, I still have yet to be convinced by the cult-like hatred towards this picture, that seems to be quite unfair and truly disrespectful towards a vision that many fans appear to be confused and insulted by, justifying it's awfulness as if I am not even allowed to enjoy this movie.
Whatever the reason may be, the basis of disappointment appears to come from framing tiny elements of expectation that you could hold upon pretty much any motion picture, not just a Star Wars movie, and insulting them to shreds, pointlessly as if judging the sky is blue, but not that Skywalker blue that I jerk off to, no offense.
That being said, Force Awakens didn't do many favors to this follow-up installment, giving fans an overload of highly anticipated questions, creating self-fan theories to dwell about for 2 years and for the sensational talent of Rian Johnson to be bound by the difficulty of continuing where J. J. left off.
However, what I experienced last night was a spectacularly cinematic follow-up and almost orgasmic orchestration of sci-fi adventure and momentous climaxes, built-up with such filmmaking quality and high-brow entertainment, it had me in applause.
Whatever the unjustified consensus of disappointment is, I was surely not apart of that crowd in the experience as I was taken back by the brilliance of where Rian Johnson took this story.
If anything, Episode 8 could've been somewhat stretched out in moments, to focus and hone in on the true emotion of the characters fully.
But how it plays out naturally is still as epic as any moment in the saga's history, from my viewing opinion.
And really if we're going to talk about reliable opinions, it's funny how critics, moviegoers who get paid to watch and review 5 or so movies per week in a professional context, without bias or else they'd be fired, have agreed to a critical acclaim consensus of 86/100 on Metacritic and 93% on Rottentomatoes... compared to that of many whiny fanboys, nitpicking useless and unnecessary details including mythological story-points which give no valid reason of judgement, that most true moviegoers and critics don't even look twice at because they're disregarding the most important element in seeing a movie which is the cinematic experience. This isn't some fan-approved, perfectly designed absolute creation of speculation, this is a movie to be entertained and enjoyed by. It's Star Wars for God sakes.
And if you ask any one of these crying fans what they're feeling of cinematic experience was, they completely disregard that being probably the most important aspect in seeing a movie in the first place.
Whatever it is we had hoped or expected Last Jedi to be, based upon my vast movie-going experiences over my lifetime, Star Wars The Last Jedi, in terms of cinematic experience, stands as the most entertaining movie of the year, hands down. Maybe I'm the only one, but that's what I saw.
Knowing the opinions people have towards other movies this year and the horrid nature they have against this movie makes no sense knowing the quality of those other films compared to this one. Whatever the expectation may be, I know quality when I see it and Episode 8 captures everything I hope for in movies, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again and again over the Christmas holiday season. May the Force Be with You!
6 out of 17 found this helpful.
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10/10
An amazing movie, not so much an amazing Star Wars movie.
TLJ has obviously angered a lot of Star Wars fanboys, and that is understandable, it tears away a lot from the original trilogy and George Lucas' original direction. But beneath all of the changes, lies a great movie which a lot of people are in denial about due to choices Rian Johnson has made.
This really was an amazing film, by far the best since Empire Strikes Back. From the excellent visuals, good script, a controlled amount of humour, excellent performances all around- especially from Mark Hamill and Adam Driver; who give some of the best performances in the franchise so far.
A lot of the reason for the audience backlash seems to span from the deaths; yes, Luke does 'die' in this film, but he will for sure return for a major role in IX either resurrected or as a force ghost. Snoke also dies which I considered to be a great twist, solely because Adam Driver's Kylo Ren is one of the best villains in recent blockbusters. By Snoke dying, it allows for Kylo Ten to develop a great amount, perfectly setting him up to be the villain for Episode IX. I will say that Snoke's little to none back story is an issue, maybe even considered a plot hole; but this doesn't mean the film deserves absurd scores such as 1/10 which some people are somehow giving this film.
It looks like it is shaping up to be impossible to please Star Wars 'fans'. The Force Awakens was too similar according to die hard fans, in response; Disney and Johnson took a much different direction, and now surprise, surprise, it's too different. At the very minimum, this film deserves an 8/10. If any of these reviews are going to sway whether you see the movie or not, please do not listen or even read reviews that give this film a 1-5/10, all of these reviews will be from biased Star Wars fanboys who feel as if this film "Ruined everything!".
To conclude, this film is a must see for any moviegoer or casual fan, the excellent visuals, amazing characters etc. Don't miss it!
Oh and to all of the people who hated this film, too bad, because these films aren't going anywhere. So either learn to appreciate that these films are of good quality, and are not just here to offer nostalgia to the hardcore fans, and if you can't learn to do this, then stop trying to spread biased negativity.
6 out of 17 found this helpful.
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I always hate it when people write bad things about stuff I love,
now I'm going to do it myself...
When I left the theater, I felt like, multiply the Boba Fett in the Sarlacc Pit scene a thousand times.
Rian Johnson's movie Looper was excellent and the fact that Disney gave him a go-ahead to write an all new Star Wars Trilogy - even before anyone saw his Last Jedi - made me expect so much of this! Bummer...
To me, the best thing in Star Wars are the villains, the Dark Side.
The First Order? A bunch of doucebags... Spaceballs!! (With one exception, Snoke)
I think we did have a potentially great Villain with Snoke, so much power and wisdom, so mysterious.
I red so many great theories about him (Plagueis, or a Force Drainer, ...) , they've build up something, you feel a great climax coming and then they screw it up completely! Star Wars in good hands? LOL! At least The Force Awakens was a good copy... This movie didn't feel that Dark at all.
What the hell is episode 9 going to be about? The Galaxy looks so small now? The Rebellion / First Order have like 5 ships left,
We've got two force wielding rookies, no decent Villain, I honestly don't know what to look forward to.
What's the point of introducing a new and powerfull villain in the next movie (which it needs) if we won't be able to enjoy him long, so why love him.
If I would have written The Last Jedi, I would have Luke coming in to save the day when Snoke is about to destroy Rey in his Throne Room,
Snoke defeats Luke - after the most epic lightsaber battle in history, Rey escapes, Snoke drains the life out of Luke and is young again, no longer deformed - maybe someone we know. Kylo turns to the Light and teams up with Rey, and they both face Snoke in the final film.
Now I think about it, the best things in this movie are the Porgs... and that drunken little guy in the Casino!
I hope I feel different about it in a few days...
6 out of 17 found this helpful.
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Just walked out of the midnight screening of this awful mess of a movie 20 minutes before the end. This movie is like when you order a sd card and you receive a huge box full of packaging with the item you ordered hiding in a corner.
80% of the scenes have no relevance to the main plot.
Scene after scene full of space wars with big explosions with characters you could not care less about - Benicio Del Toro, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern.
Too many attempts at lame humour which fell flat most of the time.
Immortal characters - surviving everything including being blasted out of the ship into space and floating around.
My appreciation for J J Abrams has increased ten fold after watching this train wreck of a movie.The Force Awakens was such a finely crafted film.
9 out of 29 found this helpful.
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I absolutely adored this movie, and I think by far it is my favorite in the entire franchise. For me, the negativity is SOOO unfounded. I feel many of the people criticizing this movie need to get their sticks out of their butt holes. By no means this movie is perfect, and every movie has plot holes including the original saga, but that didn't stop people from rating other movies a 1. And especially the worst part about the majority of negative reviews is that most of them say how they walked out of the theater. How are you supposed to rate a movie if you don't even see the ending?!?!?!?!? The Force Awakens didn't do anything but repeat the original trilogy, and got heavily criticized for it, and now The Last Jedi does something unique and original, and you all are still is complaining!?!?!? These negative reviews are coming from people who went into the theater expecting a repeat of the Empire Strikes Back, and when they didn't see any similarities started to cry because it wasn't how they wanted Star Wars to go. Guess What??? Its a new generation, and its time for something new to take place! Don't have expectations of whats going to happen, Luke said it in to trailer, "This is not going to got the way you think it is," and it didn't for a reason. If you want so see Star Wars how you want it, watch the Originals, this isn't is remastering, it a sequel, its not the same, so don't expect it to be.
7 out of 21 found this helpful.
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What can I say? I was totally satisfied with the movie. It was exciting to see everything throughout the movie. From the start of first 15 minutes it already was very intense. Apart from some slower pace drama combined with brief action here and there, the rest of the movie was totally awesome. From the middle till the end, it was almost constantly full of action, but not the kind that was making you strapped to your seat, but more like a "cannot wait to see the next thing that would happen" kind of actions.
Despite not having a jaw dropping surprising twist like in Star Wars: Force Awakens this movie still has some surprises. And that climax? OMG, that was one of the best climax I have ever seen in a movie. Definitely worth the wait. My most favorite thing about this one was the fact that the movie was quite loyal to the original Star Wars movies. In fact I felt there were some similarities with The Empire Strikes Back, especially with the appearance of a surprise character.
This time, I got to say that I like the new characters of this trilogy. I love the characters of Finn, Rey, Poe and I loved the new droid BB8 whom I think was very refreshing. I even like/hate Kylo Ren's character. Oh and the new characters in this episode, i.e Rose and Vice Admiral Holdo were remarkable.
The special effects by Industrial Light Magic as usual never failed. Those space war scenes and the final scenes were amazing. However, I am a bit disappointed with the creatures effects. I do not know why but those cute creatures in that island seemed unreal and looked really robotic and some of the aliens species did not seemed believable which was quite a let down from the previous Star Wars movies. The musical effect was done nicely and really felt they were made for this movie. The sound effects were good but oddly not spectacular. There were some funny moments that would make us laugh and there were few touching moments before the end.
There was no end credit scene to this movie just like in all other Star Wars movie. It did give you the nostalgic feeling of listening to that special Star Wars music. And there was a brief lovely tribute to the late Carrie Fisher (some of the audience also clapped their hands when they saw this part).
Overall, I personally felt that this Star Wars movie was awesome. Though not the most perfect movie, but it is certainly up there. And I really really REALLY cannot wait to see the final episode of this trilogy. I truly recommend all of you who love Star Wars to see this one in the theater as soon as you can.
For my complete review, pls have a look at michaelnontonmulu.blogspot.co.id
17 out of 65 found this helpful.
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7/10
A step in the right direction, but not quite there yet
"The Last Jedi" truly have some awesome scenes to behold, the opening sequence made me feel like a kid again, something "The Force Awakens" never managed, because it was just a remade "A New Hope" with lack of direction. There is big differences in these two films. And here i will talk about some things i think separates them.
The Acting:
In TFA it was almost like everyone on set had been running around yelling "WE ARE MAKING A NEW STAR WARS MOVIE WEEEEEE". And in the massive confusion and joy, someone forgot that they are making a movie. The Entire TFA felt odd, and it didn't help that it's basically a reboot which made the entire film predictable and boring.
But in TLJ someone stepped up and took charge. Because now the actors have suddenly upped the ante and are delivering powerful performances. Carrie Fisher for example, completely different here, more believable, more emotions. Same with Daisey Ridley, she is now showing she's an excellent actress, something that was not shown in TFA, which is a damn shame!. Because she was IMO the best thing about TFA. And Mark Hamill might be delivering the best performance of his life here. Adam Driver as well, he suddenly went from Darth Emo to a really scary and unpredictable villain, showing of a wide specter of emotions. And again, this is stuff that should have been shown already in TFA!
So when it comes to acting, TFA and TLJ are miles apart.
The story:
The story is better in TLJ, by far. But far from perfect, the story itself from where it starts to where it ends up is full of surprises and memorable moments, but it also has a lot of scenes i felt had no place in the film, scenes that either could have been filmed differently, or scrapped all together. Because the film starts off so well, but about 30 minutes in, the story starts to drift, and the suspense and the natural flow get interrupted, which the movie then will suffer for, all the way through.
There are times where the story manage to get back on it's feet, but it can't fully recover. Yet still, it has a strong story at it's core, and i must congratulate the staff for bringing the Star Wars universe in this direction, this is new territory and interesting. Or to say it like this, TLJ is something new, TFA was a remake.
There are lots of humor in the film, and done more clever than in any Star Wars film before it. This director has a fresh take on Star Wars, and i'm glad Disney trusted in him, Star Wars IMO was in real trouble after TFA, some of it was "fixed" with "Rogue One" but it was this film that had to really nail it, prove that Star Wars still can deliver, and it almost does, so close.
The music is also better than in TFA, John Williams seem to have been more inspired this time around, and has made a score that sounds like the old films, but it also feels new. The effects in the film isn't even worth talking about, it's absolutely amazing of course. And the cinematography is also really good.
What dragged the film down a bit for me, was the way the story was told. It became quite boring at times, but for the most part this movie is awesome to watch, with lots of variation in the scenes. It is worth a look. but don't expect a new "Empire Strikes Back", we might never see that again I'm afraid. But i do love watching them try.
7/10 - Good
11 out of 38 found this helpful.
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Reading through some of these reviews has left me with an inner chuckle and left me thinking have some people commenting had their Blue Milk laced with something.
one commenting on the title, to point out to them that through the whole film there was ONLY 1 Jedi (Luke), Rey...Force user, #SPOILER, Leia...Force User, Ben/Kylo...FORMER Jedi Padawan, Snoke...unkown, but force user, #SPOILER Little boy at the end FORCE USER, not Jedi so Luke was the last Jedi and Rey smuggling the books from the tree will no doubt be something else in IX after reading them and possibly coming to the same conclusion as Luke.
i thoroughly enjoyed the movie, not a perfect 10 no film ever is but everyone would have griped if it had been like Empire. The way Luke bowed out was very well done and fitting for the tone of the film.
i look forward to having another chuckle in 2019 when the next episode is and reading some of this nonsense.
10 out of 35 found this helpful.
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10/10
Never mind the plot; watch for interesting characters, brilliant set pieces and nostalgic moments
The original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983) created a new escapism universe "far, far away" that gave Middle Earth a run for its money. The second trilogy (1999-2005), a prequel, was generally considered a disappointment. This grand conclusion, starting with "The Force awakens" two year ago, was a successful launch of a mission impossible, continuing the saga when there appeared to be no more stories to tell. The magical combination of vitality of the new and nostalgia of the old worked! "The last Jedi" has proven itself a worth follow-up.
As with any similar sci-fi-fantasy romance adventure, the plot boils down to three little words: good against evil. Picking up from exactly where "The Force awakens" left off, with characters therefrom as well as new, the plotlines follow three parallel trajectories, each with its own pairing.
1. Rey (Daisy Ridley), upon finding Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), endeavors to persuade him to train her to be a Jedi. 2. Finn (John Boyega), after waking up from coma, eventually encounters an unlikely partner Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), a space station maintenance worker who is far too intelligent and smart for the mundane job she is doing. After some meanderings, the two embark on a quest important to the Resistant's cause. 3. Poe (Oscar Isaac) the X-Wing fighter pilot/commander with his daring one-upmanship incurs the displeasure of Leia (Carrie Fisher) who is the resistance guiding light and final hope. These are the initial parings. Twists and turns soon follow.
I like to touch on the nostalgia first. The familiar few bars of somber nostalgic motif coda in minor key have been used at the important moments, pitch perfect every time. In addition, a lighter variation of this theme is used in the exciting rampaging of an escape scene riding four-legged kangaroos(?). On visuals, the one that every loyal follower from day one will be talking about features R2D2. After consecutive failures of Rey and Chewbacca to convince Luke to come back to the human race, R2D2 succeeds with his "cheap move" (Luke's own words) - a reprise of a scene from the very first "Star Wars" (long before the crafty subtitle of "A new hope" was tagged on, making it "Episode IV"). This is when R2 projected a hologram showing Princess Leia's plead to Obi-Wan Kenobi for help. For Luke, it was love at first sight with young and beautiful Leia, not aware yet that this was his sister. So much for nostalgia.
On the set pieces, and there are quite a few (all superb), the opening space battle is the best. Technical achievement it surpasses everything seen before. The remarkable thing is the emotional response it generates. While Poe leads the virtually suicidal assault, the heroic sacrifice is made by a character we meet for the very first time, bomber pilot Paige Tico (Veronica Ngo), Rose's sister. One other thing to note in in this movie movie is the breathtaking use of the color red, which needs to be seen to be appreciated.
Just a few words on things special about this movie. In addition to Rose Tico, there are a few other new characters. Andy Serkis and his friend GCI deliver the arch villain in this movie, one "Snoke", which is not particularly impressive (to be fair, can anything be after Gollum?). Laura Dern has a good role of the tough-as-nail second in command who takes over from Leia when she is temporarily out of commission. Benicio Del Toro has a Del-Toro-ish role.
While there is a multitude of sub-plots, big and small, there is absolutely no mistaking in which are the two main themes. One is Luke Skywalker. This all-too-familiar character at his youth take on an almost unrecognizable persona, staring as a taciturn self-banished exile from humanity in general and from the Jedi tradition specifically. And then this character grows, as an onion peels, towards a stupendous finale. The other is the titanic struggle between light and dark, between Rey and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Mesmerizing is the ability of these two characters to interact telepathically. The conflict, needless to say, is not yet resolved at the end of this movie. The audience is left wondering if there REALLY is no goodness left in Ren. The biggest hook is of course Rey's parentage and the related mystery of where did her innate power come from. If there is anything in the entertainment world that rivals the expectation of the final season of "Game of Thrones", it has to be Episode IX of "Star Wars". In all likelyhood 2019 is going to be a very special year.
Final tribute must be paid to Carrie Fisher who died after completing the filming. It is a blessing that she has significant screen time in this, her farewell performance. She will be missed and always remembered. Watching "The Last Jedi" comes with the same sadness as watching "Fast & Furious 6", the farewell performance of Paul Walker. But then, Paul Walker came along only at the turn of the century. Carrie Fisher has been there for 40 years.
6 out of 18 found this helpful.
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First of all I have to admit that this review is written by a 30 year old person who was very disappointed of EP7 and declared EP4-EP6 to his religion as a kid. Movie watched in 2D!
TLJ was the first new generation StarWars with an independent story, no new Death Star and no droid(s) in the dunes. There were a few hooks to ROTJ but overall Rian Johnson had the courage to make the step into a new StarWars universe. It doesn't feel like EP7 where Abrams tried hard to catch the "old viewers", EP8 is a clear statement - we do something new, like said in the movie itself "the old generation dies so there can be something new". With these words (I think I heard this sentence 3 times in the movie) it makes it easier for the oldschool fans to open their mind for the next generation (If they are willing too). It is still very hard to not compare the new movies to the old ones, especially EP7 - but this is acutally a mistake imo. The biggest facepalms in EP8 are those scenes where terrible jokes are made - starts with Poe talking to Hux, HE IS NOT PETER QUILL! Anyway Poe, Rey and Luke were the most interesting characters in the movie - there were a lot of onedimensinal and boring characters overall. I was very happy that Snoke already died in this movie this gives a lot more space for the last movie - actually I didn't expect that at all, unfortunately we didn't get much information about him or Phasma, what makes those characters pretty pointless. The relationship between Kylo and Rey got very interesting and I'm very curious about what is happening in EP9. And finally: There was no need for those Borks but they were cute anyway, Yodas appearance was disappointing, Lukes end was great, Hux is a moron (Domhall is great) and Carrie Fisher is a legend!!! Effects and actors we're really good, the space-chase and the sideplot of Finn was defective.
I've read a lot of 1 point reviews from oldschool fans who completely destroyed this movie and it's terrible how much bitterness comes from these people. Stop taking the old movies as measure of quality!!! These are the best movies ever made, be smart and accept that nothing will ever reach them - I know its difficult, it was very difficult for myself, too. Of course Disney has to make money with this universe, they bought it for a large amount of money - thats just the time we live in, this is how things work. EP8 doesn't deservere to be heavily underrated - it's a new movie in a "new SW universe", keep the old movies in your heart as they were and accept the new generation - maybe open minded so you can enjoy the new movies a bit like the kids in the cinema did.
RIP Carrie - You will be my only princess - forever
3 out of 7 found this helpful.
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Having seen this at a midnight showing in the UK (my tenth opening day Star Wars cinema release) I can say that the people who claim to be ultimate fans on here writing negative reviews are a joke.
I am fed up with the entitled so called fans who slate the new films because it doesn't meet there view on where the story should go. Its not your film and its not made specifically for you. Scoring a film down because you don't like certain choices that because the don't mesh exactly with you view is a joke. Also anyone who puts SJW in a review has zero credibility, take you political views and move on, this is a piece of entertainment.
Does this film knock the big two off their perch? No. Is it perfect, no. But shock horror neither were Star Wars or Empire.
Rian Johnson brought new aspects to this 40 year old story and in my opinion they where great. I loved Luke in this film, Mark Hamill was amazing and delivered a performance better than any he has given before. Rey's story is great and having a flawed villain is great. This hooked me from the opening to the end and I do agree its losing a bit of traction in the middle but this didn't detract for me. Need to see it again to take it all in.
So blame Disney or the SJW or whatever other nonsense you want to dump on the film but do me a favour and stop claiming to be the ultimate fan because that is not the case.
11 out of 41 found this helpful.
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I am not here, to change your perspective. If you hate The Last Jedi, so be it. But I felt, that in the sea of these negative reviews, where you can only validate your hate about the film, and be surprised about the high ratings, I would maybe provide the opposite side.
First, I gave the movie 10 points, but, I do not claim, it is perfect. It has faults. But I had the most satisfying experience about this installment, and the most enjoyment watching it.
Before the movie, I didn't want it to be the same, as it always was: I didn't want it to focus on siths and the jedi again, showing, that siths are rotten to the core, and jedi fart rainbows. I wanted it to show that both sides, and the people in them are more complex, and have various motives in their lives. I wanted jedi to be shown conflicted, not knowing the right path (Luke wanting to kill Ben), and sith wanting to achieve something with the dark side, and its power, instead of just being evil for being evils sake (Kylo wanting to erase the past, because he just simply can not live up to the expectations of his lineage). That's why I simply loved Snokes death. He is the same one-dimensional bad guy, lusting for power, as nearly any bad guy in the history of fiction. His death was a proclamation: this trilogy isn't about the traditional Good vs. Bad conflict. This trilogy is about conflicted, and damaged people with various motivations against each other. You know. Like life. And yeah, you can say: but I don't want Star Wars to be like life, for God's sake, its a space fantasy! to which I reply the same thing I wrote above: then watch the original, and the previous trilogy, or any other book, movie, game etc. There are plenty of those stories.
The same goes for other plot points. You know that one guy, who claims, that the way things are going in the wrong direction, stands up to higher authority and changes everything to the better? Nope, doesn't work like that. Sounds familiar?Poe claiming that Holdo is a coward, and being proven wrong, because being hot headed, and passionate doesn't solve problems.
And Luke. A lot of people say, they don't like what Rien Johnson did with him. Hell, even Mark Hammil said he didn't like it. Peaople say, that he isn't like the luke in the original trilogy. To which I can reply: have you ever interacted with an old person ever? They are not like they were, when they were around 20; their life and their choices shaped them. Just like Luke. and he claims the same in the movie: everybody wants him to be the hero, to be the legend, they know. But he is a human, who was given the task of reviving the whole jedi order, and failing, having his students murdered or turned to the dark side. Just like as Yoda, who was wise and cool headed in the prequels, and senile in the original trilogy (both of which was written by the same person, Lukas, mind you).
I won't deny the movie has faults (Leia-s use of the Force, half of Finns plot-line, the pace being a bit wonky), but everybody was so eager to complain about them, that I won't. What I can say is this: I simply love the way Star Wars is going, with its tighter focus on characters, morality, and the Force.
7 out of 23 found this helpful.
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You will have to see this movie a 2nd time.. so much to process after 1 showing. Once you see it a second time its an amazing film. So many chances taken in this Star Wars film.. Some pay off and others may not. I applaud them with is movie. Bravo and I can't wait to see what trilogy Brian Johnson will be heading up in the near future.
8 out of 28 found this helpful.
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Writer and Director Rian Johnson (director) is Supreme Leader of 8th chapter of Star Wars. This chapter can be consider as whole package of action,dialogue, performance, visual effect, sound effect and cinematography for the audience. Brilliant performance from Mark Hamill (actor) since beginning to climax. Another strong performance from Daisy Ridley (actor) and Adam Driver (actor) .
Good supporting roles from Carrie Fisher (actress) , Oscar Isaac (actor) and John Boyega . Survival of Resistance against First Order is engaging and entertaining saga.
5 out of 15 found this helpful.
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I've seen many people take to their podiums in the past 24 hours and attempt to stretch their vague and empty reasonings behind why this film is "The worst Star Wars EVER". No film is perfect, but the "imperfections" being pointed out in this film are mostly unjustified. Yet it seems many of those in the Star Wars fanbase are unwilling or even incapable of understanding the subtleties that make The Last Jedi a genius landmark film for the franchise.
Though JJ Abrams succeeded in reigniting a franchise set to teeter by the generally hated prequel trilogy, Rian Johnson has done an exemplary job in accomplishing what Abrams was unable to achieve. Johnson takes everything that we know as being Star Wars and turns it upside down in the best of possible ways. It seems that's where a lot of the negative feedback is coming from. Everyone had their own expectation of what The Last Jedi should have been, and Johnson ignored those expectations and boldly took the film into a completely different direction. Thus altering the tone of the franchise drastically. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, but it's human nature to resist change. Oh boy, do I see a lot of resisting change with this film.
Claims like, "the characters were one dimensional" and "the script and plot went nowhere" among many other claims against this film are very easy to say, yet hold little to no water. Unlike the rest of the plot driven franchise, The Last Jedi succeeds in an area only achieved by one other film in the franchise, The Empire Strikes Back. The films forward momentum is driven by the emotional development of the characters and the moral ambiguity that has been severally lacking in other Star Wars films. Abandoning the ideas of black and white good verses evil, the film not only reworks the Force as a moral grey area, but implements those ideas into the writing of the protagonists and antagonists alike. Certain situations and decisions made by the characters in the film may seem one dimensional on the surface, but once you realize there are different strings pulling every character in multiple directions, the woven tapestry of the script brings the characters and situations to life.
Somehow though, I hear people complaining about the "clunkiness" of the film and how it's a disgrace to the originals. As a self proclaimed Star Wars enthusiast, I will always go to bat for every Star Wars film. Yet, I'm perfectly aware that every Star Wars film is a glorified, mistake ridden, Hollywood flick. Whether it be A New Hope, Attack of the Clones, or Rogue One, each film has it's own set of mistakes. Poor writing, underdeveloped characters, clunky dialogue, and of course, the blaring plot holes that even exist behind the nostalgia fueled facade of the original trilogy. Though each film has its own set of technical problems, to just vaguely state The Last Jedi has problems without addressing even worse problems in previous installments is ignorant.
To conclude my review and rid off the hive of sum and villainy other reviews, don't expect to go into this film and feel the warm blanket of nostalgia that most Star Wars films strived to deliver in the past. It's a very unconventional and unique take on Star Wars that requires an open mind to truly understand what Rian Johnson was trying to achieve. I whole heartedly believe that when future generations view this film, it will be received with great praise and viewed as the start of a necessary new direction for the Star Wars franchise.
5 out of 15 found this helpful.
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9/10
Bursting with exhilarating spectacle, unexpected twists, and profound respect for its characters and story, The Last Jedi is an uncompromising force to be reckoned with
So, the beloved Star Wars saga has reached the eighth chapter and now continues the story with our heroes battle against the diabolical First Order. After making a warm welcome back with 'The Force Awakens' in 2015, the Star Wars franchise has made a remarkable recovery from the damper left by the botched prequel trilogy launched by the hands of George Lucas. Although The Force Awakens was a flawed chapter as it drew more than enough parallels to 'The New Hope', it marked a significant turning point in the saga. The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson of films such as 'Brick' and the hit time-traveling sci-fi piece 'Looper', is a heartwarming spectacle full of just about everything you desire in a Star Wars movie: killer special effects, compelling expansion of the characters, heart-pounding twists, and a story bursts with near endless excitement from beginning to end. This film strikes at the heart of the franchise with a strong emotional magnitude that keeps you growing hungry for more as it leaves you questioning nearly everything. What is all gonna come down to? And don't worry, this review will be restrained to a spoiler-free frontier. But if you prefer to go in completely blind, just go see the movie and come back later. So, Princess Leia (played by Carrie Fisher) is the now the commander of the Resistance as they continue their fight against the First Order headed by Snoke (played by Andy Serkis). Ex-Stormtrooper Finn (played by John Boyega) has awaken from his coma and escapes with fellow resistance warrior Rose (played by Kelly Marie Tran) on a conquest to foil the First Order. Meanwhile, Resistance fighter Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) is stranded on an island where he encounters the estranged Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill) who he must convince her in battle to settle the score with his nephew Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver). But first, he must teach her the ways of the force.
What Rian Johnson has to offer in this jaw-dropping chapter of the epic space opera series is as compelling you can come with the franchise, and with no shortage of fun and thrills to leave you hanging. From the iconic opening credit crawl sequence followed by the massive spaceship battle, to the final sequence, Johnson's admiration for the franchise bursts through just about every frame without sacrificing his opportunity to bring a large barrage of newborn elements to the table. There is nothing more exciting than witnessing as all our favorite iconic characters including Princess Leia, R2-D2, C-3PO, and of course, Luke Skywalker, make their return to the galaxy. Then let's not leave out our new characters from 'The Force Awakens' as they make their trip back to the screen. So, as the story continues the war between the Resistance and the First Order erupted by the diabolical Kylo Ren has lead a life of family issues, the story goes almost full throttle on unleashing shocking emotional twists that very few will see coming. At the same time, the story also allows for deep expansion upon our characters including Rey and Kylo Ren who contribute to a powerful storyline that dares to grip your seats until the end. Excellently paced and blistering with moments of clever humor, the excitement is near endless. The storyline, however, following John Boyega's Finn and Kelly Marie Tran's Rose is perhaps less of a home-run, especially with their chemistry lacking the heart that Boyega boasted with Daisy Ridley in the previous film. While there are a few good moments to spare, it would have helped if the film kept things interesting when focusing on these two. Nonetheless, Boyega and Tran make good use of their roles as does Ridley as Rey. The rest of the cast including Carrie Fisher who is sadly no longer with us, boasts a powerful performance as ever-charismatic Leia that leads a helping hand to a warming tribute. Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and Benicio Del Toro all hit the right marks. And the excitement soars as the film wraps things up in an explosive climatic war sequence, with one beautifully shot Light Saber battle in the desert, and the other taking place inside the Resistance ship as it explodes in a fiery chaos with guns flaring everywhere and stormtroopers getting blown away before our very eyes. It is a true special-effects joy ride that does just about everything it can to feast the eyes, and that is not without John Williams's poetic score to complete the picture.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a sucker punch of entertainment that holds a special place in the heart for all Star Wars fans, and another for everyone else. Rian Johnson proves he has remarkable respect of the characters, the story, and the overall spirit that makes the franchise such an endearing gem to the genre. Best movie in the franchise? That is highly debatable, especially when looking at the masterful hit that was 'Empire Strikes Back', but everyone will certainly come out with differentiating opinions. After all, this is Star Wars we are talking about. And may the force be with you!
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10/10
The Last Jedi Goes in a Different Direction With a Focus on Character Development and Shocking Plot Twists
The beginning of Disney's Star Wars universe was marred by controversy and criticism. I really loved the Force Awakens but I don't feel the need to argue about it or challenge people on their opposite opinion. Its not perfect (just as this movie isn't) but I dug it anyway. Rogue One was also really good and as much as there is so much debate around these movies, I was still excited for this. Rian Johnson is a respected filmmaker and although I'm a little mixed of his filmography, I wanted to give him a shot.
The reasons that I loved Episode VII were almost for the polar opposite that I loved The Force Awakens. The Last Jedi has 2 things that they knock out of the park and I must heap loads of praise on Rian Johnson for them. The first is that the characters are developed wonderfully. The Force Awakens introduced some interesting new characters but it was just the beginning, its not like they could go through a deep character arc in just one movie. At first, I was getting frustrated at Luke's downer attitude, self pity seemed unbecoming for him. But as the movie goes along you understand why he's abandoned the Jedi Order and the force as his actions were unbecoming of someone of his legendary status. Kylo Ren isn't just some monster, much like Vader before him, he's not of one mind. The movie plays with the parallels between him and Rey and I loved the fact that they came to a deeper understanding of each other. Leia finally gets to show that she has a measure of ability with the Force, Poe learns what it takes to be a leader, Finn finds out that his bravery wasn't fleeting, and Rey learns about how to look at events from multiple viewpoints and still choose to see the good. You also get new introductions like Vice Admiral Holdo and Rose Tico. Giving us compelling characters isn't new for the Star Wars franchise but this movie was exceptional at giving our heroes and villains more depth and it's even more astounding considering that he wasn't officially involved with the production on Episode VII. It shows how talented Rian is that he could have a deeper understanding of these characters and is just coming into this world.
The other thing that this movie deserves credit for is for having genuinely surprising twists and turns in the plot. This movie is not predictable in anyway and even though you may be familiar with these characters, if you told me you exactly guessed the major plot points I would call you a liar. You could guess that Starkiller Base was going to explode and that Rey and Kylo would face off at the end of TFA. This movie dances to a different tune and marches into a different direction and it is much better for it. I think this movie takes very real chances and we need more of that in big budget film making.
As this rebooted franchise gains more momentum, the calibre of actors is also continuing to rise. Mark Hamill is solid as Luke, Oscar nomination is a little much but instead of coasting he put in some good work. Carrie Fisher gets a little more to do and she shines. The Force Awakens holdovers are all excellent, Daisy Ridley looks like a rising star again, John Boyega gets to be a little less comedic and he excels, and Adam Driver is good again as the film's antagonist. Laura Dern was a standout, she was the perfect mix of being stern and warm. I still wish Oscar Isaac got more chances to be a bad@$$ pilot but he's still a great actor. I also liked Andy Serkis as Snoke, the guy is so magnetic and he's obviously the best at what he does.
So, my review has been nothing but praise but this movie has its flaws. They shoved some of the characters I like best to the back (are we ever going to get a decent amount of time with R2-D2 again?), some of the things that they built up from previous films are just tossed in like they don't matter (I liked the explanation of Rey's heritage but they made it seem like a bigger deal in TFA). The comedy in the movie is a little hit or miss and they hype around certain characters still falls flat (Captain Phasma is completely underwhelming again).
I want to wrap this up by saying if you hate this movie and all the Disney produced Star Wars, I honestly think that's fine. But I think people need to try to objectively put aside how amazing the original trilogy was (and me endorsing these movies are not the same thing as denouncing the original films) and judge these movies on their own individual merit. This was a brave step for the franchise and I am now really looking forward to Rian Johnson handling his own trilogy. This was an excellent movie and I recommend you give it a chance.
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The excitement built to a breaking point. Movie didn't disappoint on most level. It was fun, exciting, and funny at times. It's not the best Star Wars movie. While it has epic scenes and events, it not a grand story that Star Wars is known for. The whole movie covers just days, which puts stress on the pacing and story. Some jokes works and some were just disrespectful to the characters. Story line included scenes that reflected Return of the Jedi, Empire, and the Prequals. Some chances taken while giving us what we love about Star Wars. Overall a nice little movie.
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But this movie made me miss the genius that was Jar-Jar Binks. There were a few good moments here and there, but overall I don't know what this was supposed to be. It did absolutely nothing to advance the stories of the previous saga films, and instead turned the mythology everyone loves about Star Wars into bantha dookie. It's time for Disney to end.
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Utterly disappointing. It genuinely angers me how many people have been paid off or expect favor from reviewing this film favorably. The Last Jedi was an abomination. RT's 91% 'Certified Fresh' rating is FAKE. Do not see this film. Do not purchase fan merchandise. Do not support this marketing ploy and abuse of our love of a legacy. "The raped Indie!" ALL over again, and far worse. It is difficult to put in to words how disappointing this film was. I do not consider it canon.
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1/10
The only reason this bla scifi movie made money - 2 words
Modern Disney - you know, the one that has to buy Pixar to gain any originality - has its fingerprints all over this one. There were great visuals, entertaining characters, and funny one-liners. Oh, and this one had inspirational messages: Anyone can be a hero, we fight out of love, failure is a teacher, etc. (however ham-fisted).
The audience was there for the world-building and the advancement of the story. None of which really happened. So the audience focused on the string of plot holes, lapses in logic, and generally lack of anything new or interesting that was added to the Star Wars world. The Last Jedi is the cinematic reverse equivalent of fast food. Critics were more than happy with it because they came expecting a Transformers like CGI fest - they got that; the audience was expecting more.
Plus after two movies we literally know nothing about Rey except that she is good at anything with little or no training. The only real spoiler I offer - given what happened on and off the set of the last two Star Wars films - is that the franchise is currently left in the same place as the British TV show Black Adder at the end of each season, minus Rowan Atkinson and the originality.
I have to give it 4/10 stars just for the art design and technical expertise and nothing else. A big budget film like this could never be a 1 or a 2 out of ten. That's an Ed Wood film or "Manos The Hands of Fate" (don't ask). Likewise a 10/10 is Casablanca or The Godfather - when everything including acting, directing, depth of the plot and the ability to argue about themes, all come together such that the film still resonates years after it was made. This one made it about a third of the way between these two extremes.
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After reading many glowing reviews and articles about The Last Jedi, some from people whose opinion I've come to value, I decided to give the movie another try. I also questioned my initial judgment because usually when there is a backlash against movies for allegedly being too "PC", I find myself in the progressive and appreciative camp of viewers. As I already mentioned in my first review, I loved The Force Awakens. Finally, I liked Rian Johnson's previous work (especially Loopers, but The Brothers Bloom wasn't half bad either). So I set out to see if I could gain a different perspective of this film.
Some of Johnson's initially puzzling directive choices did indeed make more sense to me this time around. For example, I could see how Finn's and Rose's seemingly pointless subplot explains Finn's personal growth from a deserter-turned-reluctant hero to a true member of the rebellion who finally fights with conviction and understands what it really is that he's fighting for. This side plot is also a world-building effort that shines a light on war profiteering and the collateral damage of the First Order's attempt to retake the galaxy, which is precisely what transforms Finn into true "rebel scum".
On the other hand, I also discovered more aspects that I didn't like. Or maybe I just understood better why TLA felt so off to me upon my first viewing. Rian Johnson continuously plays with our expectations and heaps plot twist upon twist to a point where it becomes incredibly tiresome, because everything that the movie builds up to is subsequently taken away. We are essentially watching two different plots at all times; the one the director teases and sets us up for and an alternative plot that he really builds up to, where either the exact opposite happens or nothing of importance happens at all.
For a while, this almost hipsterish attempt to be different just for the sake of it works pretty well. I remember that I initially laughed when Luke threw the lightsaber over his shoulder and thought, "Wow, I did not see that coming. Well done". But when Luke grudgingly decides to train Rey after all, then changes his mind again when he discovers her connection to the dark side, then picks up her training once again, and yet AGAIN changes his mind after he catches her "force-texting" the enemy, this constant game of "Haha, you thought that he would, but he didn't! Or does he?" is really getting old.
It goes on like that. Luke sets out to burn the Jedi archives, has his head set straight by Yoda (or has he really?), lets Rey run off to do what she thinks she has to do, then decides to get involved and help the Rebellion after all, which sets us up for a "Luke single-handedly saves the day" scenario, but oh no, he apparently wants to die, oops, he was just a force projection, how clever, oh wait, he dies after all in a really stupid fashion that feels as pointless as Padmé's death from sadness in the prequels. (And even this scene leaves us with a sense of "or did he?" instead of providing closure).
Johnson plays the same maddening shell game with every part of the plot. Poe saves the day! But no, he didn't really, it was a Pyrrhic victory. But this time he will, with Finn's and Rose's help! Nope, that was a wild goose chase. Maybe this time he'll turn things around with his mutiny? Wrong again. But Holdo had a brilliant plan all along. Great, at least the rebels will get away. But oh no, they're discovered and are all going to die! But wait, Holdo's heroic sacrifice saves the day now! Nope, they're still going to die on the planet surface. Unless this heavy door holds until reinforcements arrive! Nope, the First Order has some sort of super cannon. Maybe Poe can save the day this time! No, it's going to be Finn! And again it was all for naught.
Leia dies, but no, she doesn't. Neither do Finn and Rose (who first failed to find a codebreaker, then found another one, only to have this one turn on them, and of course their efforts were moot either way). Kylo might turn, and wow, he really does! But no, he didn't after all. Rey is about to turn now, but no, she doesn't either. Etc. pp. ad nauseam. Johnson does this to the point where his entire movie ultimately accomplishes nil. We're left with the same situation as before: A small rebellion against the might of the First Order. Like watching a serial TV show where everyone has learned an important lesson by the end of each episode, but the overarching plot hasn't moved forward by a single inch. Neither has my rating of this movie, for that matter.
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This is the worst movie I have watched in last couple of years. Boring, stupid plot, predictable. I could not wait already for the last Jedi to be killed off. It is a shame such a low class movie in this great franchise has been released.
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10/10
Fantastic Star Wars film reinvigorates franchise...
The evolving relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey is taken in a bold and unexpected direction, really fascinating and very well done, these two characters are the beating heart of the film. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley hit their performances out of the park.
New character Rose and Finn have an interesting journey of their own, which includes a poignant commentary on the nature of war.
Luke's journey is unorthodox but ultimately satisfying, Leia is amazing in this film and she finally displays force powers which is long overdue for that character.
Poe Dameron is portrayed as not just the one dimensional hero and ace pilot from The Force Awakens but an, at times, reckless warrior and a flawed man.
The space battles are the best of the series, each character's journey is balanced, trim and the film deftly cuts between them. Snappily paced, the film is 2 and a half hours but feels shorter and left me wanting more.
The climax of the film with Kylo Ren, Rey, Snoke and the Praetorian Guard is absolutely jaw-dropping, second best of the Star Wars series I'd say, second to only the "I am your father" scene in 'The Empire Strikes Back.'
The Last Jedi is a great experience all the way around.
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8/10
Say what you want, it's still a STAR WARS movie to me
For a movie that is considered the most anticipated movie of the year, STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is leaving a lot of its viewers split down the middle. The same thing was said about THE FORCE AWAKENS when it came out. Say what you want about either of the movies, but just know that they are and always will be part of the Star Wars series.
In this case, we got entry number two in the new trilogy, episode eight, The Last Jedi. Picking up where we left off, the film ventures into Rey following her destiny alongside Luke Skywalker ( the LAST of the JEDI?) We also follow Leia Organa as she leads the Resistance against supreme leader Snoke and Kylo Ren's First Order.
Now, I'll admit that upon seeing The Force Awakens and seeing the trailer for The Last Jedi, that they would copy a lot from the original trilogy.Particularly, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. For example the AT-AT walkers make an appearance on a planet that's white, the main protagonist trains with an isolated jedi master, and other parts that are spoilers. So there may be similarities there, but does it work well? Yes, it does.
What I love about this new trilogy is that it allows a new generation of movie goers to experience the same fun that people in the 70s-80s got to feel when they saw the original trilogy in theaters. Luckily, the writers managed to put in some new ideas. The last jedi does have its moments that make it a Star Wars film. Yes, there are space battles, there are lightsabers being used in battles, and a "i have a bad feeling about this" saying. Let's be thankful that there are no scenes where people sit around and talk about politics.
I believe that every moment in the movie mattered, even the entire canto bight sequence. They kept the ball rolling through out the film and really developed the new characters of the series. Talk about letting old things die.
The Last Jedi continues to give Star Wars a good name and I can't waitfor episode nine.
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There were glaring problems with this movie, but I didn't mind so much because it was so dramatically satisfying. I tried to not find out too much about it prior to seeing it because I wanted to finally watch a Star Wars movie without knowing how it ended. Thankfully the movie followed through on the most interesting things from episode seven and the trailer.
The whole plot line with Rose, Finn, Poe, and the resistance was pretty annoying to watch. Finn and Poe both have potential to be much better characters than they are, but instead they are stuck in a section of the story that basically just sets up a bunch of lame action sequences and extra levels for the Lego video games that will come out eventually. The writers tried to buff it up with bad jokes, cute animals, a bad attempt at commenting on class oppression, and an even worse attempt at romance between Rose and Finn. All the false duplicity within the remaining resistance people was centered around a good concept, trying to feel heroic as opposed to actually being heroic. But I found all of these scenes very tedious to watch and was so glad when (Laura Dern) finally died. The worst part of it was the Benici del Toro character. However, there were two good payoffs that came from this line: first was Finn's defeat of Captain Phasma and the first ever good usage of the term "rebel scum". Second, the final moment with the kid and the broom staring out at the night sky was a nice tribute to the way that so many young Star Wars fans play at being Jedi.
While I may have hated the aforementioned scenes, I didn't mind that they were there as much because the plot concerning the Force was as good as I'd hoped it would be. I was surprised when Snoke was killed after getting very little development. I'd expected him to become the Palpatine of this trilogy that would die at the end of episode nine, but I was glad that he died because it gave more focus to Kylo Ren. I love the way he is sometimes reserved but also unleashes his anger in perfect Sith fashion. On that subject, I also found it interesting how this episode emphasized that the Force is a balance and should not revolve around the black and white concept of Jedi versus Sith. The scenes between Rey and Kylo Ren were really interesting to watch and their relationship still has a lot of unresolved tension that I want to see more of. Luke Skywalker got better treatment in this movie than the original three IMO, and the final fight between him and Kylo Ren at the end was awesome. The only thing involving the Force that I didn't like was the moment when Leia could all of a sudden just fly back into the ship while unconscious, with no explanation whatsoever.
If you haven't seen this yet and are considering, definitely go see it. It may not be your favorite Star Wars movie, but it could be. Yes, there are a couple plot holes and some annoying things about it, but there's a lot of good stuff to make up for it. The action scenes are both cool and, in most cases, important to the rest of the story. No idea how they're going to successfully kill off Leia for episode nine, but that is certainly not the only thing I am anticipating. Overall Rating: 7.8/10.
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If this movie didn't have Star Wars in the title, I would have given it a much higher rating. But it does, and with that comes the history of the movies before it.
The Good: The special effects are awesome. The scenes in the movies are excellent. John Williams score is fantastic. The acting is very good as well. Adam Driver is great throughout the movie as is Daisy Ridley.
The Bad: The writing and the story. The main issue I have is with the character of Luke Skywalker. (SPOILERS HERE) This is a character who questioned Han Solo in Episode IV when he was planning on taking his reward and leaving when things weren't finished and of course in Episode VI he risks his life because he sees a glimmer of hope left inside his father, to not only take on Darth Vade but the Emperor as well. Am I surprised he failed as a Jedi Master? No, of course not, he was trained by Obi-Won for a few hours and Yoda for a few months. Luke's failure is an obvious and natural way for the story to go. However, I cannot believe he would stand over his sleeping nephew, with his lightsaber ignited, because he had a passing thought about killing Ben because he sensed darkness in him. Not a new student mind you... his nephew, which he had known his whole life. And after Ben had turned into Kylo Ren, instead of Luke trying to turn Ben away from the Dark Side, he goes and hides on Ahch-to, and is waiting to die. I'm supposed to believe he went from hero to coward in a few years?! This is forced and unbelievable way for the story to progress.
Vice Admiral Holdo is a useless character and her story arc should have been Admiral Ackbar's. Ackbar, a hero from Episode VI, dies on the bridge when Leia ends up using her Jedi powers and Holdo, someone most viewers had never heard of, gets to die heroically at the end of the movie. This was a wasted opportunity, Ackbar, an established hero, dying here, would have meant more than Holdo, who the movie didn't even show could be a good leader, let alone dying a hero's death.
As a writer, when you take on a movie which is Episode VIII, you have a responsibility to remember what came before you in the story and add to it, not subtract from it.
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1/10
Worst movie in the last 20 years and I'm not exaggerating
I will keep this short. There isn't a single redeeming quality in this movie. Disney took a giant dump on the franchise. It's one of the worst written films in history filled with plots that go nowhere. COMPLETE GARBAGE. I wish I could unwatch this film.
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8/10
Not the nostalgia-fest that audiences had hoped for.
People are very angry at The Last Jedi because it was different.
"The Force Awakens" was "A New Hope" with different characters. This movie was not "The Empire Strikes Back," and it doesnt try to be. Instead, it opts to tell a story unlike anything Star Wars had seen before - about the balance of good and evil, and what each represents. Luke represents the balance - a bitter man tormented by his mistakes. Rey and Ben are the ends of the spectrum, and each represent it beautifully - their performances are phenomenal.
Instead of connecting Rey to previous characters, they made her someone different, which is for the best - who's Obi-Wan related to? Or Yoda? They don't get explanations because they don't need them, and Rey is the same way.
The story was very moving, and very human - too bad audiences couldn't see that.
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8/10
Not without its flaws, but well worth your time (NOTE: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS)
Though more daring and original than The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi suffers from pacing issues, a lopsided, needlessly-complicated structure, and the problematic deaths of two major characters (the first character is killed abruptly, prematurely, and unbelievably. The second character's death isn't unbelievable so much as it's unexplained. It's really not clear what the second character dies of, or why he dies. He just kinda dies). Anyway, the scenes with Rey and/or Luke are quite good, but much of the rest of The Last Jedi is adequate at best, and, at worst, inferior. That said, the cinematography is stunning, the performances of Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill are outstanding, and the finale is brilliant.
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It takes decades to build a dynasty like Star Wars and only 1 movie to ruin it. This dynasty is ruined.
I have read all the negative reviews and there are legitimate reasons people hate this movie. Yet I have also read the reviews of people who love this movie. They all say that the movie is fresh and it is amazing. No specifics are ever given. Nothing that awed them. They just say, "it is good and we should stop hatin."
Sorry to say but this movie is terrible. Its fresh... but fresh like doo doo. By far it is the most intellectually insulting movie I have ever seen.
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Return of the Jedi was the very first movie I saw in a theater and while starting at the (at that time) the end may have not been the best start, what is really? Every Star Wars movie can be somebody's first Star Wars movie. Since very little was accomplished in The Force Awakens other than introducing a few new characters, The Last Jedi proves itself in numerous ways to be the actual sequel to Return of the Jedi.
Since release, I have seen The Last Jedi five times. It gets better with every viewing. Characters feel better fleshed out, ideas are significantly bigger and deeper than anything in The Force Awakens or the Prequelss and there's a far bigger personal stamp on the film from the director than anything since Empire for me. It wasn't a big surprise to see the "blow back" from some people who didn't like the film as it wouldn't be a true Star Wars film without fan reprisals against a Star Wars film.
If you think the Last Jedi, the Prequels or Return of the Jedi ruined your childhood - because in 40 years I've heard all of that, go make your own movie. That's exactly how Star Wars came about in the first place. Star Wars may live in your imagination, but it doesn't belong to you. And if you can't cope with the reality on film after 34 years of waiting I have nothing for you. Nothing made me happier than Rian Johnson trashing J.J. Abrams hollow mysteries, copy-cat characters and dead end narratives JJ made a career doing since Alias, Lost, Star Trek and Super 8 all the way into the Force Awakes (which is a dead in the water remake), in favor of something more original and nuanced. If you don't like it, you should just go make your own movies. That's exactly what George Lucas did when he realized HIS Flash Gordon couldn't be made - he went off and made Star Wars instead. In his own words:
"I realized that Flash Gordon is like anything you do that is established," he says. "That is, you start out being faithful to the original material, but eventually it gets in the way of the creativity. I realized that Flash Gordon wasn't the movie I wanted to do; if I had done it, I would've had to have Ming the Merciless in it-and I didn't want to have Ming the Merciless. I decided at that point to do something more original. I knew I could do something totally new. I wanted to take ancient mythological motifs and update them-I wanted to have something totally free and fun, the way I remembered space fantasy."
"
Excerpt From: J.W. Rinzler & Peter Jackson. "The Making of Star Wars (Enhanced Edition)."
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Simply as that. Deconstructionist bullshit.
Lazy screenwriting. Bad directing. Bad editing.
Social Justice preaching instead of a plot.
And the worst of all: the destruction of Luke Skywalker character arc.
The prequels had tons of problems but those movies had the heart in the right place.
The Last Jedi has no heart, just hate.
Destruction of a beloved franchise just to make an political statement.
Sad and pointless even if you do agree with the political statement.
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Overall this movie was a disappointment. It's ironic that I read on articles quoting the professional journalists and reviewers saying how original this movie was and full of diversity from the ethnicity of the cast and abundance of female characters.... however that has nothing to do with my issues in this movie. The issue is that it appears that the star wars Disney team did nothing to develop and go into the depth of some of these characters. Also they wasted time with sub plots leading no where. Unfortunately this movie was lame, shameful, and disgraceful. Such as snoke? Who is he? Where is he from? Where was he during the entire events of the first 6 Star Wars films? Mind you I'm someone who has only watched the movies and not read into all the comics and others stuff. I would like to make it clear that in my opinion the acting was good, the diversity was good, but the guy at the helm... he gotta go. I feel cheated because I feel like there was so much potential here but let's be honest here the director and who ever else made this story needs to retire from Star Wars. You missed the mark. The fans hate it. I stand by my word and I will not go watch another Star Wars in theatre whilst it is directed by the same lackluster director. This director had weak vision for Star Wars.
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My goodness, what's with the hatred of this movie? It was great! Yes, there were traumatizing parts - Luke's and Kylo's behavior, and some parts of the story-line lacked spark (Finn and Rose) but the plot twists are great. Expect the unexpected!
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I really tried to give this movie a chance but I can't help but feel a little disappointed.
Some of the old "Star Wars" themes have been adapted here like e.g. the whole "Jedi-training on a desolate planet"-trope.
I have mixed feelings about it. It was a clear nod to the original trilogy but felt a little bit cheap due to the rather poor execution; unlike Luke's training the training of Rey only consisted of meditation sessions. A real Jedi should know how to wield a lightsaber (in addition to the mastery of the force). In the original trilogy Luke received his lightsaber training by Obi-Wan with the help of drones. Rey on the other hand never learned how to properly wield a lightsaber and yet Luke pretends like she's the future of the Jedi order.
My main critique for the movie is the fact that there isn't much meat to the story. During the entire first half of the movie only two things are really happening; Fin is looking for a codebreaker while Rey is being "trained" by Luke. In that regard the movie overstayed its welcome by being longer than it should've been.
As always they've changed the look of Yoda yet again. It's as if they can't make up their mind. For me personally the Yoda in this movie looks a little bit too chubby (but that's just my personal opinion).
I also wasn't a big fan of the newly introduced horse-like alien species that's know as Fathiers. They were way too anthropomorphized and looked creepy as a result of it (horses with human faces, basically). Their faces were almost human-looking but not quite there yet; uncanny valley territory. The crystal foxes on the other hand were a cool addition. They looked quite magnificent.
The one thing that this movie lacked was an iconic lightsaber fight. It's almost a tradition that a Star Wars movie should include an epic lightsaber fight between the two opposing forces; (even Episode VII had a lightsaber fight. Although, I would't call that one epic in any way)
Episode I: Obi-Wan & Qui Gon Ginn vs. Darth Maul
Episode II: Obi-Wan & Anakin vs. Count Dooku
Episode III: Obi-Wan vs. Anakin
Episode IV: Obi-Wan vs. Darth Vader
Episode V: Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader
Episode VI: Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader
And no, the fight at the end doesn't count since Kylo Ren and Luke are mostly talking during the entirety of the scene. Kylo is literally just dishing out two blows before the fight ends. Disney has pretty much ruined the classic "lightsaber duel" tradition with this movie.
The only interesting fight in this movie was the scene where Kylo and Rey had to fight the elite praetorian guards in Snoke's throne room. I should mention however that the fight would've been much more enjoyable if their opponents were less generic.
There was one obvious mistake in the movie. Let me elaborate; after the fight with Kylo, Rey just magically makes her way up to the hangar and flies away in the Millennium Falcon. This is extremely unlikely since:
a) Snoke's personal starship is heavily guarded which would've made it impossible for her to just disappear like that (out of Snoke's throne room mind you) and
b) Snoke's starship, which is suitably named "The Supremacy" (it's a mega-class star destroyer and the only one of its kind), is 37 miles long. That makes it a gigantic maze for an intruder. In other words it would've been extremely unlikely for Rey to both; find the hangar and make it to the hangar without being seen by guards.
The one thing that positively surprised me was the ending. The plot twist that was introduced during the showdown was ingenious to say the least. I just wished the movie had more of these moments; these elements of surprise.
Final verdict: it's watchable but don't expect to be mindblown. The previous movie was, objectively speaking, way better. And the fact that critics have praised this movie can only mean one of two things;
a) they've been bought, or
b) they're out of touch with reality.
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Everything i say here is for me and how i feel i am not writing this for anyone else but me. (I am not rating this film )
I went to see this film with the love and expectations of the original trilogy just like i did with the phantom menace and the following films, and was left disappointed and angry at what i saw.
For me this is a film for the future, for me it was made with profits over feelings and how it would effect future viewers, i will give an example.
Myself and a friend (who isn't a Star Wars fan but likes sci-fi) went to see this film.
Me the faithful fan went into this just like the phantom menace thinking YESS this is going to be awesome but was left dissatisfied and let down, this is the effect that certain films can have on people.(nostalgia)
There was a young lad behind me i think he was six years old and he loved every bit of it, this was his NEW HOPE, and i think thats where my problem is, i can't see through his eyes anymore, i grew up, and Star Wars has moved beyond me, thats why this is a film for the future.
Disney are thinking of the next generation of fans and its not me.
Just like my parents and my grandparents each generation moves on, and what i saw was strange and confusing to me but to the new generation it was the eyes of that six year old he loved it and wanted to go and see it again.
I saw old friends in this movie and i expected that 1977 feeling, and i am going to lie to myself just like i did with the phantom menace and the proceeding film and be intoxicated by the aroma and nostalgia of the original films.
You are going to love it or hate it, personally for me it had its moments, there are dialog and scenes that were infuriating. Maybe i expected too much like a lot of fans, or maybe im right and the film that was or could have been is beyond the people that have it in there hands.
But there is always (a new hope) and it can be saved?
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Luke Skywalker should have been an example of how powerful a jedi master can end up being. Instead, he was used to show how powerful the new generation was. I would have liked him to be even beyond the level of snoke. what an enormous waste. I simply have no interest in seeing episode IX
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What a garbage movie. The worst in Galactic History. The parodies were better. It's an insult to Carrie Fisher especially in that one particular scene.
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This is possibly the worst movie of all time. Some movies just fail as they don't have the access to budget, actors, writers etc... to make a good idea successful. Star Wars has no such excuse. It's budget, access to stars, writers, musicians etc... give it absolute power to create monster films and amazing story-lines. I think of films like Toy Story that captivate adults with excellent story telling while staying within the world created by Toy Story 1. I think of Star Trek where a reboot pays homage to the original, stays within the confines of the Star Trek world and wows the audience with nice plot twists, excellent new character development, and does it's main job: Entertains us!
Star Wars The Last Jedi does none of that. It insults our intellect.
My number one problem is Rey. She "turns" Kylo and then is given opportunity to rule with Kylo. She could use the power for good. Take the story in a whole new unexplored region. Instead she knocks Kylo unconscious and leaves the greatest army in the galaxy and all their super-weapons in the control of "evil" people. This is like leaving Hitler & Goehring in charge in 1939. You had opporutnity to stop this? Everyone who dies from here on is now on Rey's hands!! This is terrible story-telling. It's implausible, asinine, un-believable.
After this we are just insulted as creatures with IQ over 50 over and over again.
We are dropping BOMBS in SPACE where there is no gravity. The Rebel Starship is OUT OF RANGE of the First Order Ship even though... we are in SPACE. You can't be out of range in space dummies!! It's space!!!! Suddenly Jedi are not men and women but gods who can do things never done in a Star Wars like resurrect themselves from the dead and fly through the vacuum of space after living through a massive explosion that sucked their now-immortal body out of the bridge through a broken window in the ship. Not so much as a hair is ruffled through this. While the bridge is smashed killing everyone, Leia can just fly back into the ship and they can open a door without fear of being sucked out. No problem. We suspend the reality of the universe that Star Wars created. For example while landing inside the worm they thought was a cave in the original series they put on oxygen masks to go outside the ship. Not here. Regular people open up bomb doors and go into the vacuum of space where there is no oxygen to drop bombs (asinine). It's against the entire created universe!!
Not to mention all the other stupid political correct themes you can't help but notice in the movie. Such as the burning of old religious books because they are irrelevant and essentially "already in your heart... so just follow your heart." That never goes wrong right? I mean we all appreciated it when Hitler and Stalin followed their hearts right? Unbelievable stupid logic in the movie. Also the man hating did exist. Everyone in the Rebellion who is intelligent is a woman, and all the men are cowards, crazy, and stupid who make blunder after blunder. It's just so in your face even someone like me who doesn't notice these things couldn't help but notice it.
There are too many problems. Essentially every scene is stupid, unoriginal, boring or a rip-off of older star wars.
This movie is a 0/10. It is unwatchable. Hayden Christensen is now one of the best actors ever compared to this hunk of garbage.
Disney destroyed ESPN and now Star Wars. What's next? Prohibition 2.0?
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1/10
The death of Star Wars or why people hate The Last Jedi
The Last Jedi has received a lot of hate by fans and I also left the cinema angry. I myself have seen all the films once. I like the old ones, didn't like the new ones and wasn't particularly excited about Force Awakens as I felt it was more of the same.
However, it didn't make me angry as The Last Jedi did. I think my reaction and that of many fans boils down to this: They don't care about Star Wars.
The greatest hero of the old trilogy? A lonely loser on an island that has attempted to murder his own nephew. The Jedi? A bunch of useless and downright dangerous people that do more evil than good and should just die. The force? Something silly to lift rocks.
Fittingly jokes are placed every minute or two also right in the middle of an action scene that should be suspenseful, but are not, because one character starts to ridicule the whole situation.
The problem of the movie is that it has no values. Star Wars used to be about good versus evil. Now those don't exist anymore since everything is relative. Everything is subjective. As such the movie attempts to recreate images from the previous movies and superficially it does so, but since it has no meaning, since the heroes don't defend any values, it has also no meaning for the viewer.
When there is no good, there is no evil either.
People believe in values as they should. So do I. And therefore I hated the new Star Wars movie.
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This is NOT Star Wars. The script was painfully bad and the entire film felt like a soulless Marvel-esque Disney cash grab. In what feels like a wild attempt to differentiate itself, The Last Jedi boarders on being unrecognizable as a StarWars installment. Major questions from The Force Awakens are completely neglected and character development takes a backseat to explosions and jarring "twists" that don't surprise but rather leave you feeling frustrated and confused. The main problem seems to be that The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi feel completely incompatible with one another, as if the directors were in a fued. All of the questions posed by The Force Awakens are deliberately neglected throughout the film minus a few. The 2.5 hour run time seemed fine before going in as it was assumed the extra time was needed to go deep into the backstory of many of the characters and questions posed by The Force Awakens. Instead it was wasted on pointless subplots and uninteresting characters. It was difficult to sit through the entire film and remain interested. There were also some bizarre moments that completely ruin the ability to take this movie seriously: flying space Leia, green alien breastmilk drinking Luke, tossing the saber over the shoulder, snokes pointless and unrealistic fate. All of these things coupled with the totally out of place humor (straight from Marvel movies) makes this an unenjoyable film. The humor robs the audience of any chance to take the film, The Force or the Jedi, and the villains seriously. Not to mention, it usually misses the mark and is not genuinely funny. It feels forced and out of place. Like a constant self mockery that borders on deliberate trolling of the serious mythos embraces by the fans. 1/10 because they had an easy lay up from Abrams to make a great movie, wasted Mark Hamil, Andy Serkis and Gwendoline Christie (she gets about 2 mins of screen time) and created a soulless and fundamentally bad film with a budget of $300 million+. The interest in the new Star Wars franchise is now significantly reduced and hope for Episode 9 is bleak. Wait to see this one on Netflix.
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1/10
A very,very big disappointment. Left me confused and sad.
How can it be possible that Kathleen Kennedy and Disney approved of this script?
This is by far the worst StarWars movie ever, except the Christmas special.
Entered with excitement, left confused and dissapointed.
There is absolutly nothing good to say about this movie.
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I am a long time Star Wars fan. Not a nerd - just a movie goer who has a lot respect for the franchise. As a 19 year old, I saw "A New Hope" in The Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London in early January 1978. I have grown up with this stuff, and can quote every line form the original trilogy.
So, you can imagine how greatly it disappoints me when I say that I found Episode VIII Unsatisfactory.
!"£$%^& SPOILER ALERT !!!")£*$&
A lot things about this film are just plain wrong, just plain don't add up. There are too many missed opportunities. Worse - the opportunities that are taken actually mess things up and twist them. It's frustrating to watch, and disappointing.
I wanted to find out more about the ways of the Force, and how Rey might acquire and deal with these. I wanted to see Luke as the sage Jedi Master, doing what Yoda asked him to do; "pass on what you have learned...". I wanted to see so much that was promised in "The Force Awakens". But it wasn't there.
Instead, I was treated to forced (and poor) self-reverential humour, characters that didn't grow together in adversity (and they do in Eps IV, V & VI). There is no "life" in this story. It doesn't gel.
Somethings do work well, but the problem is that the things that work well, are not the things I wanted or expected, to see. Chief amongst these is the encounter between Rey and Luke on the island. Luke has repudiated the Force and withdrawn from it, fearing his lack of control. Just as Obi Wan believed that he had failed with Anakin, so now Luke believes he has failed with Ben Solo. Even this isn't handled that well. Ben Solo/Kylo Ren is a profoundly conflicted character (acted better than Anakin, btw), but it is not clear why there is a "Force Connection" between him and Rey? Snooke claims that he created this link, but this doesn't really seem credible, especially after Kylo dispatches him with Lukes light sabre. Who/what is Snooke? We don't find out.
The climax featuring Luke and Kylo is very good - but then the writers go and spoil it by what happens next. As soon as we see Luke on the island and hear his music and see the two setting suns, we immediately sense that he is going to follow Yoda and pass into the Force. So it proves. That is by far the most surprising and disappointing thing that happens.
I'm not bothered about the other characters, that I can't even name, who appear overblown and stiff in comparison to Luke, Kylo, Leia and Rey. I'm not bothered about the predictable and sometimes banal action that follows. I AM bothered about the fact that Episode IX now will only have Chewbacca, The Falcon, R2-D2 and C3-PO to work with. I can't really see where Star Wars can go from here.
Finally. Bless you Carrie Fisher - you will always be our Princess. RIP.
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It has good aspects, it has bad aspects. If you took Phantom Menace and took out Jar Jar Binks, Phantom Menace and Last Jedi would be about equal. It has a few appropriately Star Wars scenes, but also really idiotic plot holes you could drive a Star Destroyer through. The problem with bringing someone in to "reimagine" things is that they may largely miss the point and do some bone-headed things - you know, like Johnson did. Worth seeing once, but maybe not much more than that. Too bad, because Force Awakens set things up for a terrific sequel. This just isn't it.
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It's far better than the retread 'The Force Awakens', but there's still something awkward about this latest trilogy in the Star Wars franchise. It's a bit of a 'kitchen sink', where writer and director Rian Johnson throws everything he can at us, whether it makes sense or not, and should have tightened it up. The plot requires contrived delays in time, such as when Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) go off to look for the codebreaker. There are aspects which feel derivative, such as the aging master, Luke Skywalker, disillusioned and bitter - which also has Star Wars fanatics feeling disillusioned and bitter. And there are moments which feel just wrong, such as Yoda and Luke enjoying a nice bonfire of sacred Jedi texts (ugh).
And yet, the movie is entertaining, and has some great scenes. The ambiguous chemistry between Ren (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is compelling, as is the moment they face Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). The scene where Kylo Ren and Skywalker battle is fantastic. I love how the film wrong-foots on a couple of occasions, and for the diversity in its cast. It may be cruel with Carrie Fisher having passed away, but I was not a fan of her performance, though Mark Hammill is great. Ridley and Driver were great choices, and set the franchise up well for the future. There's a lot of polarizing passion out there but don't believe the extremes. It's enjoyable for what it is.
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As some of the other reviews have already stated, this film feels like a big disappointment considering how it was set up at the end of Episode VII. Who are Rey's parents? Who is Snoke? What will Luke do now he has his light sabre back?
The answer to all of those questions is "meh". Wait and see what Luke does with his light sabre. This to me sums up the film. They threw away everything that was set up so well from the last film.
There were some very well visualised space battles, a great fight between Snoke's guards and Rey/Kylo (albeit they used no force powers at all), and a lovable cameo from our favourite Degoba exile. That's about it though for the plus points.
Issues I have comprise of the following:
1) Too many gags. Honestly, they are painful and unnecessary in places. The scene where Hux is talking to Poe at the beginning went on too long and was awkward to watch. I felt like I was watching SNL.
2) So, short-range fighters can't be too far from their mother ship eh? Lets remember Luke travelling between systems in his X Wing, and the tie fighter from Episode IV being quite far out from the Death Star before being tracked by the Millennium Falcon. Seems like this is some new bulltish claptrap made up to suit the story line to me.
3) Poe's X Wing - on it's own - can get through a Dreadnought's shields without being hit by their lasers or intercepted by fighters? The First Order were made to look completely inept...
4) In Episode VII Poe was built as a solid leader, intelligent and skilled in the cockpit. In Episode VIII he's painted out to be a rookie who doesn't even understand the basics of minimising losses in battle.
5) The casino. It's almost as painful as being back on Naboo again...
6) Snoke. We get the big reveal! Oh, my mistake, he's cut in half before we get to know anything about him. He's also powerful enough with the force to hook two people up from opposite sides of the galaxy, but not powerful enough to notice a lightsabre moving around next to his body. Just STUPID.
7) The Porks. Oh Disney, you did a great job there inserting a cuddly toy that all the kids will want for Christmas. It's just a shame that you had to keep showing them over and over again for no reason whatsoever. They add nothing to the story save to annoy any viewers over 10 years of age.
8) Honestly, whoever dreamed up this character deserves never to work in film again. She's introduced to us as one half of a sisterhood that was ripped apart when her sibling was killed in the opening space battle. I won't go into too much detail but she works in maintenance, yet is brought in to the story in a ridiculous sub plot that takes her and Finn off to the Casio. We're meant to see her as a brave freedom fighter but she comes across as a dopey sad sack. I wanted her to die. Horribly. The moment where she speeds into the side of Finn to save him in the final battle (which would be physically impossible btw judging by the speeds and direction of travel beforehand), just comes across as unnecessary and ridiculous.
I feel myself ranting now, so I'll sum up with the worst of it all. They ruined Luke Skywalker. I avoided all interviews and TV specials before seeing the film as I wanted to go in fresh, but after I saw an interview with Mark Hamill who clearly stated that he disagreed with how Luke was bring portrayed. Let me tell you, this guy was correct. They had so many opportunities and skipped them all. He came across as a joke, a laughing stock and comedy-fodder as opposed to a beacon of light as he was in the original trilogy and for that, I am bitterly disappointed.
Sorry guys but it's a 2 from me.
Rian Johnson and Disney, hang your heads in shame.
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The trailer is obviously for some different movie. It seems exciting and even romantic.
But the episode itself is boring and disappointing. Waste of time and money.
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I want to put as a foreword that this is my first review ever on IMDb, but I just simply could not ignore the tragedy that is this addition to the Star Wars series. You know, the BIGGEST movie franchise ever?
Jumping right into it, SW Ep. VIII is bad. Obviously many, many others agree with me on this, and it is true, simply put. Plot? What plot. Stupid subplot? Yep, it's got it. Too-much-attention to supporting characters? Bingo.
The original trilogy focused on the main characters because, to be blunt, they're the only ones that matter. Yet, even in the original three films, minor characters can still be remembered (C3P0, R2-D2, Jabba, etc). This film just focuses way too much attention on characters that have no use whatsoever.
And Luke Skywalker. I think the only thing I can say about this iconic, lovable character is: what a shame. The ultimate Jedi Master, a warrior for peace and the Rebellion, is a recluse on an island with depression over a failure that isn't his fault as revealed through this movie's horrible "plot." A part of me knew that Luke would die within these three sequel films, but the way they conducted it was horrid.
There is a lot, A LOT to say that is bad about this film, but you can read literally any other review to see what else is wrong about this addition to the Star Wars franchise. I certainly hope J.J. Abrams can clean this mess, because as it stands right now, I have almost no hope for Star Wars' future.
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-Mark Hamill, his performance was very nice, considering he hasn't been in a feature film for quite some time, I think he did a good job.
-Adam Driver. He's quite good I think.
What was bad about Star Wars: The Last Jedi:
-Daisy Ridley. She is a magnificently terrible actress. They couldn't have picked a worse person to play the main protagonist. I think she perhaps delivered one, maybe two lines that weren't completely awful. She needs to be taught how to act. She is the worst thing about the new Star Wars films and her performance in this film is actually worse than in The Force Awakens, very peculiar. She's getting worse.
-Script. This combined with the terrible performances by actors and actresses makes an impressively horrendous finished product. From simply bizarre word choices, to lines that made me cringe so much a wanted tear my face off and run head first into the screen. Just so bad.
-Rose. A weak pointless frustrating character with absolutely nothing to offer to the franchise . More so because of the terrible performance by Kelly Marie Tran.
-Laura Dern. In my family this woman is famous for being the insufferable screaming lady in Jurassic Park, and the main reason I don't watch that film anymore. Her performance and character in The Last Jedi is just a poor but just on the other end of the spectrum, proving her diversity and ability to play more than one type of awful character.
-Story. Now this one is probably better analysed by more seasoned and hardcore fans of Star Wars but I could write about how every section of the film falls well below the standard of film making but I won't spoil it by doing that, I'll just say this. Its terrible.
-'Jokes'. Now Star Wars is not Star Wars without some cheap humour and I'm fine with them continuing that trend into the new films, but this one really fucked up. Horrible, cringe worthy 'jokes' every five minutes. They tried to fit in as many 'funny' shots of those little puffy bird things so that that Disney can have a new cuddly toy in the stores during Christmas for all the naive parents to buy. And 'jokes' usually surround certain aspects of Star Wars like droids for example, they offer a big majority of the humour in Star Wars, therefore we can expect humour from certain characters and thus scenes with main characters are usually more serious and other scenes with storm troopers, droids or aliens providing comic relief. In this film, EVERYONE is making horrible, unnecessary, lengthy, crappy, sicking, 'jokes'.
-Gwendoline Christie as a storm trooper. Boy have I not missed this character, I don't even know what her character is called. But its the most tragic and weak character in the new Star Wars. Just because of her Games Of Thrones success, it does not mean you cast her in the new Star Wars. The silver storm trooper makes me laugh every time I see it. Rubbish rubbish rubbish.
-General Hux. Terrible character. Big joke. Bad, bad, very bad.
-Cinematography. Nothing special. You'd expect with the budget for a movie like this that you could do some pretty impressive, pretty beautifully shot scenes. There's not.
As for the other characters and elements of the film I haven't talked about. They were neither good nor bad, just bearable.
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Men are useless and easily beaten up by women, who pretty much run everything in the universe. Oh, and gravity bombs work in space. Avoid this like it's the Phantom Menace. You have been warned.
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Weather you liked The Force Awakens or not it left you excited to watch the next one to see where it would take you, and that's where this movie failed miserably. It was almost like watching Rogue One. TLJ did nothing to carry over the energy, and story plots, TFA created. It's almost like The Last Jedi was written in a vacuum where TFA never existed. This movie was a total letdown from that stand point.
Smoak? Rey's parents? Any plot, or questions not answered in TFA? wasted throw aways.
The movie itself was entertaining, other than the plot of the ship running out of fuel. That was the slowest 'chase' you've ever seen and basically a wasted plot device.
The scene at the casino could have been so much more. Where was DJ's red flower as told to Finn?
How about Luke as a jedi master? He spends 5 minutes of the 150 minutes talking to her about the force and actually training her.
The action scenes are great. The fights are entertaining.
But for advancing the sequel it's a bomb. Total waste.
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7/10
It's a Good Film, Just Not a Great Film (Spoiler Free)
Look, The Last Jedi is good, it's just not great.
If you're a Star Wars fan and thought The Force Awakens was a little too close to Star Wars - A New Hope in terms of story line then TLJ is more of the same.
Effects are good, Daisy Ridley is the undoubted star and Adam Driver brings a complexity that is often missing from the main protagonist. It's recommended for the Big Screen and it's no Attack of the Clones (6.6), but it isn't Empire (8.8) either and in the end it falls somewhere between the two.
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1/10
Not just upset fanboys - fundamentally terrible story telling
When the trailer for TLJ came out I couldn't believe how unexciting the movie looked. There's plenty of bad movies out there that even manage to make a two minute trailer look good. So when all the positive critic reviews came out I was glad to be proven wrong...or so I thought.
I came out of the theatre after watching it totally disappointed. What was I not seeing in this movie that the critics were? After more and more user reviews came out I was glad to see I wasn't the only one. And it's not because they upset expectations of the Star Wars fanboys, its because it is a fundamentally terrible film.This movie will be regarding as the least necessary of all the Star Wars films. I guarantee you will be able to skip from TFA to Episode IX and the overall story will still make sense. No character arcs were progressed and all the up in the air subplots from TFA were either not addressed or dropped entirely. Even within the film there were entire subplots that could be removed from the film and the story would not change (casino subplot I'm looking at you). In fact Luke Skywalker's entire role in the movie was inconsequential. He literally stays on the island the entire movie, doesn't train Rey and then dies. Sure he delayed Kylo Ren for a couple of minutes with a "hologram" but surely the remaining resistance fighters would have made their way out of the cave regardless. I won't get into the myriad of other problems with the plot but I will say this: TLJ makes the Star Wars galaxy feel smaller than ever before with a story that takes place over 24 hours across on one planet (well three if you include Luke brooding on an island and the pointless Casino subplot). The whole thing is just generally boring and will be the first time I don't give a Star Wars film a second viewing.
Generally the second movie in a franchise leaves some questions unanswered and subplots which all converge in a climax in the third film. Think of Empire where Han is frozen in carbonite or The Matrix where the bad guy wakes up in the very last scene. Unfortunately TLJ wraps up almost every subplot and answers every question. At this stage why would we want to go and watch Episode IX? I guarantee that in Episode IX they will try to undo the corner that they have painted themselves into by bringing back Snoke, bringing back Luke as a force ghost and saying that the reveal about Rey's heritage was just Kylo lying but it's going to make the whole trilogy look very sloppy.
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I'm not a Star Wars-obsessed fanboy. And I'm not some middle-aged guy who watched Star Wars as a little kid and fell in love with it. I also do NOT hate Disney or their films (I actually like a lot of them). I'm simply a reviewer who appreciates good movies and good storytelling.
This movie was AWFUL. This story was just stupid.
I didn't think The Last Jedi would actually be worse than The Force Awakens, but I was wrong. It's much worse. The Last Jedi is essentially a lighthearted family Disney comedy (i.e. children's movie) done with live action and CGI instead of animation.
The story is awful; very poorly written. Probably the worst aspect is the overabundance of corny one-liners and slapstick humor. The comedy diffuses all the tension in every scene so that you never really invest emotionally in the movie.
I wasn't even going to see this in the theater, but my family asked me to come along. I wasn't expecting much, but I did see the trailer. I thought for sure the producers would try just a little harder to make a good movie after noticing how many people disliked The Force Awakens. They didn't notice, or just don't care about anything except $$$.
It's like they weren't even trying to make a good movie. There were a lot of great actors in this movie, but their talent was wasted because the story/script/screenplay was so bad.
Adults: don't waste your money on this garbage.
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Why doesn't someone make a cartoon of Mickey Mouse as a deadbeat alcoholic that hates everyone and who is wanting to die? Will Disney and fans see it as a new genius risky take on Mickey? You have to kill the past don't you?
This is what Rian Johnson and Disney are doing with Star Wars, totally disrespecting fans and just trying to set up a new universe for merchandising, piggy backing on the worldwide popularity of Star Wars. Very shameful.
The movie is so poorly and lazily written with huge plot and logic holes, bad dialogue and humor, and a half hour side plot that adds nothing except clearly trying to set up more merchandise sales.
There is no more interest to see any more Star Wars films unless radical changes are made, although they can never go back before this dreck of a movie.
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Everything has already been said, besides one small detail that mirrors that resumes the entire script of these trilogy.
Just look at the names the characters had back in the originals and prequels. We had complexity but at the same time catchy and epic names, that you won't ever forget.
Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2, 3CPTO, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Leia Organa, Qui-Gon Jinn, Emperor Palpatine, Count Dooku and others.
What they give you now?
Finn, Pon, Rey. Sounds more like Teleubbies other than Star Wars.
The lack of intelect and originality picking the names tells everything you should expect from the movies.
just my 2 cents
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"The Last Jedi" was crushingly nihilistic. This review will focus on that aspect.
I learned that since Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm and rejection of Lucas, there has been no master plan for the new trilogy nor its ancillary projects. Rather, Disney's Kathleen Kennedy has been constructing a multi-billion dollar write-around, with each successive writer/director told to do as they liked, with no regard for continuity, only to be fired mid-stride if she didn't like what they were up to. Abrams did what he does and constructed a mystery box out of "The Force Awakens", questions without answers à la "Lost". Now, Rian Johnson, using Kylo Ren as his personal stand-in, has deconstructed and demolished that box and has built nothing at all to replace it.
SPOILERS
The Last Jedi, Luke, once the New Hope, gave up hope.
Luke tossed his father's lightsaber over his shoulder, a discarded totem, stripped naked of its significance. All that excitement fans built up over it? A foolish waste of time.
Various characters worked valiantly in numerous side-plots, none of which amounted to anything much but loss, destruction, and contrition. Benitio del Toro's Lando Calrissian reveals that playing both sides is the most profitable move.
Kylo Ren furiously smashed his mask, a tribute to Darth Vader, when Emperor Snoke derided the atavism as silly and useless.
Snoke, himself, was shabbily cut in half without dignity. After all, he too embodied a useless regression. A used-up trope.
Rey's past? Meaningless. She descends into the Dark Side's Oceanic Asshole and finds only herself.
Rey, already amazing at everything, had nothing at all to learn from Luke Skywalker. The ancient and sacred Jedi temple was burned to the ground. By Yoda. BY YODA!
Rey, with her easy, matchless abilities, seemingly has nothing to prod her forward nor hold her back other than whim. Nothing she might do could surprise us.
Just as he failed Han, Luke didn't show up for his sister. He didn't try to save his nephew. He Force-Phoned it in.
Equally zero sum, Kylo Ren's struggle was pointless as he blasted and blew up Luke's ghostly image. Kylo Ren represented Rian Johnson, while Luke represented the director's frustration with trying to untangle 40 years of Star Wars lore.
Now, Luke Skywalker is dead. Too tough for lasers but too inconvenient, irrelevant, and politically obsolete to carry on, with a penstroke, Luke has died of fatigue, his body disintegrated, his empty robes blown off into the winds over the endless oceans of a lost planet.
Han Solo is dead. Even the discarded ghosts of his gold dice have evaporated.
In a bitterly ironic twist, Leia is still alive, but it lends cold comfort.
"The Last Jedi" takes a treasure chest with seven movies' worth of content in it, dumps it in the dirt, shows us the empty bottom, and jokes about it.
We're supposed to admire how clever that is, while not questioning what we are to do with these empty boxes. Mark Hamill's solution has been to warn fans that it's only a movie. Don't take it too seriously. Don't be such a nerd. You're too old for fairy tales.
Kylo Ren's mission to kill the past is complete.
I didn't like it.
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When The Force Awakens came out, my main complaint was that it did nothing new or interesting with the story or its characters. It played it safe, borrowing aspects of all the OT films, some of them scene-for-scene, and music-track-for-music-track, and merging them into one with some new faces to carry the all-too-familiar story. TFA was nothing more than a nostalgia sequel meant to regain some of the fanbase's trust and loyalty that was lost during the PT.
Ultimately, I understand that strategy, as Disney had just taken over Star Wars and many were uncertain about what that meant for the films. Consequently, Disney would need to tread lightly and build up that trust with the fans that Star Wars will still be Star Wars. However, doing so meant keeping the story and its characters simple, following a very basic hero's journey format and definitely DEFINITELY NOT pulling any sort of inspiration from the recently (at the time) de-canonized EU books, some of what, had some really great stories.
Alright so, fast forward a bit and TFA is a raging success, of course, though it could have been much better. With some money in the bank and trust regained, Disney now had some room to stretch out a little and make things interesting with The Last Jedi. With the nostalgia sequel out of the way, they had an opportunity to take some risks, but...they did not. Instead, they stuck to the same old tired formula, pulling aspects from the OT and inserting them into TLJ.
Let me give you a taste of this scene-for-scene copy-paste tactic that Disney has utilized:
Rey enters a dark cave and has a Force experience confronting a truth of some kind (Looks like: Empire Strikes Back, Luke entering a dark cave and confronting Vader, which is revealed to be himself under the mask)
A battle with Imperial Walkers 10 miles out (for some reason) slowly approaching a rebel base across white salt flats with rebels firing from trenches and attacking with inferior ships (Looks like: Empire Strikes Back, Battle of Hoth, Imperial Walkers, white snow landscape, rebels in trenches...)
Kylo Ren captures Rey, puts her in handcuffs, stands behind her as they take an elevator to Snoke, Rey attempts to convince Kylo there is good in him (Looks like: Return of the Jedi, Luke in handcuffs, with Vader behind him, in an elevator going to a ship, which is going to the Emperor, Luke tries to convince Vader there is good in him)
Rey is lectured and intimidated by Snoke, Snoke opens a window to show Rey that her friends are being blown from the sky, she gets mad and force pulls the lightsaber from Snoke's armrest (Looks like: Return of the Jedi, the Emperor lectures Luke, shows him his friends being blown from the sky through a window, Luke gets mad and Force pulls the lightsaber from the Emperor's armrest)
Luke (a Force image of Luke...) and Kylo fight, but it's just Luke playing defense and stalling for his friends to escape, Kylo slices through Force-Image Luke (Looks Like: A New Hope, Obi-Wan vs Vader with Obi-Wan simply stalling for Luke and friends to escape, Vader slices through Obi-Wan)
and more...
Just like with TFA, it's as if JJ and Rian watched the OT, and made notes to themselves like, "Need a scene similar to cantina scene," "Need a dark cave scene," "Need an elevator scene," etc...seriously guys? Can't come up with anything new on your own? And maybe it's not their fault, maybe it's Kathleen Kennedy, or some other Disney executive pulling the strings saying not to think outside of the box here. I don't know, but what I do know, is that it's BORING. I didn't need to see TFA more than once, and I definitely don't need to see TLJ again either. With TFA, at minimum, I was entertained by it, but that's most likely because it was the first re-entry to the Star Wars universe in a long time, and like most, I was excited about it. Now that we're firmly back in it though, that same little nostalgia parlor trick doesn't work so well, and, I honestly can't say that I was even really entertained by TLJ. If I'm being truly honest, I actually don't feel like this film progressed the story much at all - in fact, if it's possible to go backwards, that's what I feel TLJ did.
TFA, despite its flaws, was a good introduction to our new young cast of characters. With their introduction came a lot of questions though, like:
Who is Rey? Who are her parents? Why is she so powerful?
What caused Kylo to go bad? What's the issue with him and the Force?
What's Luke been doing all this time? Why?
Who is Snoke? How did he come to power?
In TLJ, we would expect to get some answers to some of those questions, and we do get SOME...but, they are...terribly, TERRIBLY unsatisfying, and feel like they were given absolutely no thought at all, like Rian got done filming and realized "Oh crap, we didn't tie up the loose end about Rey's parents! Damn, and everyone already went home..." and just as Adam Driver is about to leave, Rian pulls him over to film a bit where he reveals to Rey that her parents are junk traders who sold her for drinking money. Seriously? Yeah, that happened. He says it so matter-of-factly too, but the music and Rey's tears and stressed out look convey a totally different feeling for the scene that is just really confusing to witness.
What about Luke? What's going on with him? Well, he was so bummed by his failure with Kylo that he went to the island to just live out life and die. He didn't go there to discover some old Jedi secret. He didn't go there to train or better himself. He went there, to die. He cut himself off from the Force completely and didn't even know that Han had died. This is NOT the Luke that anyone wanted or expected...
We all knew Luke was older, we all knew he wasn't going to be doing some Duel of the Fates style saber fighting but thought we'd get to see him kick at least A LITTLE bit of butt with some potentially well-honed Force skills. Nope. Not even a little bit. At the end, Luke projects himself as a Force image and 'fights' Kylo, but the act apparently saps all of Luke's energy and he just...dies... Luke pretty much doesn't contribute anything to the story or any other character's progression.
The trailer teases some big confrontation or battle between Rey and Luke, but it's a brief scuffle. It teases training sessions that are really just Rey doing her own thing and Luke not participating or doing really any instructing. It's all Rey... This is like, the one area where Disney stupidly didn't copy the OT, because if they did, Luke would have taken on the role of Obi-Wan and actually contributed something, but, he didn't... Even Yoda in Empire Strikes Back, having become a bit of a looney toon, still trained Luke and imparted some basic wisdom - in TLJ, Luke does not. He's worthless, and gets possibly the worst send-off possible.
How about the other big trailer tease? The one about Rey and Kylo? Okay, the team up DOES happen, but the direction of the tease is not what we expected. The trailer makes it seem like Rey will join Kylo and maybe go dark side with him (which would have been a great plot twist, seeing our main hero go bad as the people she looks up to - people like Han, people like Luke - have rejected her), but what actually happens is he simply uses her to kill Snoke (yes, Snoke dies, the supposed MAIN BADDIE of the series, dies, without a fight, I might add). In fact, the fight that does happen in this scene is Rey + Kylo vs a bunch of nameless guards that no one knows anything about, and thus, no one cares about either. It's a filler fight against some lemmings to kill time and nothing more.
Kylo then does what no one would expect...copies another scene from the OT! He does his best impression of Vader's "Join me and we can rule the galaxy together" scene, but with Rey. She refuses and escapes.
This is whole thing with Rey and Kylo is where I really hoped Disney would take the biggest risks. For a long time now, I have been an avid supporter of the theory that Rey will go bad, and Kylo will become good, the source of Rey's power is because she is either a descendant from Palpatine/Sidious, and/or, a creation of his (via the Force) in the same way that Anakin came to be. What other way is there to explain her power? Now, she could be Luke's daughter or Obi-Wan's granddaughter or something like that too, but if she goes bad, it makes more sense for her to be related to someone bad...and connecting these films back to Sidious and the prequels in this way could be really interesting. Nope!
Snoke dies. Kylo takes over, and he's apparently the main baddie now. I don't know about you, but Kylo can't carry this series as the villain, he just can't. Snoke was good. He was the mysterious man behind the curtain who we hoped to get some answers about but not even Disney knows how to write his backstory so they just kill him instead. It would have been so much more satisfying to see Kylo and Rey fight Snoke together, fail (but escape), leaving Snoke as the main bad guy for the 3rd film. Now...it almost feels like there is no bad guy for the 3rd film, because Kylo just wasn't being set up for it. What fight are we really looking forward to now?
This is why I feel like this movie didn't progress the story at all, and why I actually feel like it went backwards...
TFA did a lot of setting up for Luke to play a big role - he didn't, and died.
TFA did a lot of setting up for Snoke to be the main baddie - he didn't, and died.
This is a mess I'm not quite sure anyone can clean up and I am scared for the 3rd film. Good luck JJ.
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As a long time Star Wars fan myself. I saw the original trilogy as a kid in the 80's, and have loved the franchise ever since. But, the hyper criticism this movie is receiving as is often the case on the internet is way over blown. This film isn't perfect, many films aren't, and even the original trilogy had issues. I had a few problems with this movie. But, I consider them minor problems. Not on the level where I feel that Star Wars is ruined forever!! Biggest issue being I felt the reveal of who Rey's parent's were was a disappointment as of now at least. Also the Lukes role in this movie wasn't quite what I was expecting. But, over all it's a very enjoyable Star Wars movie. If you want to talk truly bad, go watch Attack of The Clones. This is far better movie than a lot of the over reacting super fans are saying, and I feel over time. This movie will become more appreciated even by them. Especially once episode 9 is out.
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8/10
The Last Jedi Brings Hints of the Expanded Universe to Canon
I went to the premiere of The Last Jedi with expectations that it would be very different, and it proved to be so. This movie is not like the Original Trilogy. Anyone who is wanting the Original Trilogy feel will be disappointed. Rian Johnson challenges viewers to "let the past die". This is the new Star Wars.
In short, I loved this movie. As with all movies, there were things I didn't like, but they did not take away from the joy of a very unique and unexpected movie. The acting was exceptional. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren is hands-down the star of the film. Daisy Ridley as Rey continues to shine on the screen, and Mark Hamill returns as a heroic but broken Luke Skywalker. As always, John Williams' sound track adds much emotion to the film, and I can't wait to hear what he does with Episode IV.
Probably the most exciting thing for me to see in The Last Jedi were a couple of themes from the Expanded Universe that finally made it to Canon. Having read over 50 Expanded Universe books (plus at least half a dozen Canon books), I'm very well versed in Star Wars lore - especially the mystical aspects of the Force. I was elated to see a "Force bond" between a couple characters (this can be found in many Expanded Universe books) as well as a character projecting his "Force image" across the galaxy (which readers can find in Legacy of the Force: Invincible).
I definitely recommend that Star Wars fans see this movie, but only if you are open-minded and willing to step away from simplicity of the Original Trilogy. If you are disappointed with the direction Star Wars is currently taking with its line of sequels and stand-alone films, then I recommend that you read the Expanded Universe sequels to the Original Trilogy. They are fresh, new, and original, yet still have that Original Trilogy feel.
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2/10
Bad copycat plot. Huge plot holes. Marvel'ified. Paced weird. Just BAD.
Almost the same story as Empire Strikes Back, just mixed up a little. Why are these new movies just a recycle of all the old ones?! Bad plot w huge holes. Cheesy humour forced into serious moments. The way they portrayed luke is not what luke is actually like. People who know nothing about star wars will enjoy it. Star wars fans will hate it.
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It's not a good sign when you spend the last 1/2 of a Star Wars movie constantly trying to rationalize a reason not to walk out of the theater. You say to yourself, "This is Star Wars, it has to get better soon." But, it just gets worse and worse.
'The Last Jedi' may be the last Star Wars film for me. I don't know if I am willing to suffer through such a disappointment again. A painful, plot-less mess that meanders from scene to scene in a fruitless search for a story or characters that viewers might care about. A story so bad that they actually devoted 1/2 of the film on the ridiculous notion that the bad guys are chasing the good guys, waiting for them to run out of gas so they can destroy their fleet of ships.
A side plot has John Boyega's character Finn, race off to find the one guy in the galaxy (convenient) that can save the Rebel fleet. The whole excursion turns out to be for naught, and the only possible reason the filmmakers inserted this diversion into the film was to give John Boyega something to do ... that, and to arrange unnecessary appearances for Maz Kanata and Captain Phasma. Their inclusion didn't add an ounce to this pictures razor thin story line. They were only included in a sad attempt to appease fans of those characters, and to sell a few more toys to the kiddies.
The one thing we learned from this film is that the Resistance (and the franchise) would have been in much better shape had they never, ever bothered to look for Luke Skywalker in the first place. Filmmakers milked Luke's return in 'Force Awakens'. The big payoff was 4 seconds of screen time. In 'Last Jedi', we learn that he's become a useless has-been. There was no reason, or need for Luke Skywalker to appear in either of these films. Same with Carrie Fisher. In her final screen performance she proves once again that she can't act her way out of a photo booth. I actually fist-pumped when I thought we were seeing Leia Organa's on-screen death, but sadly, she wriggled her way out of the characters demise. It was a huge mistake to build this trilogy around guest stars. Luke, Leia, and Han were better left in the past, where their legacies could have remained unsullied, and we might have gotten a new trilogy based upon new characters with their own motivations and stories.
'The Last Jedi' is a long sequence of scenes, that individually might have looked good on paper, but when strung together do not a story make. It is a film of visual sound bites, completely lacking a compelling narrative. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, nothing of interest is happening.
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The difficulty in making a Star Wars Movie is trying balance doing something new with giving fans what they expect. As I read other user reviews, it seems that they're mostly angry that the movie didn't do what they wanted it to do. They went in with such pre-defined expectations that they missed how well this movie was written.
There are so many complaints about Luke's behavior in this film. He was such a hero in the original, it's said that he would never give up. They seem to forget how reluctantly Obi Wan was brought back to fight in the original, how he fought Vader as a diversion to aid in escape from a trap and ultimately how he disappeared after that fight before Vader could actually kill him. Luke's life parallels Obi Wan's in so many ways. Thinking he could train the next generation, losing his prize student to the dark side, surrendering to despair, coming back for one last heroic deed. In fact, that's one thing I love about these last two films: history repeats itself with parallels in each generation.
I also appreciated that the attempts at rescue in the sub-plots were not successful. Viewers often complain that victory is too predictable. It was not in this case. One thing that made this movie enjoyable was it took unpredictable turns.
After seeing Empire Strikes Back in the theaters when it first came out, my friends and I all hotly debated whether or not Vader was lying when he told Luke he was his father. It was so unbelievable compared to everything we thought we knew about Luke. There was no internet to serve as an echo chamber for the debates in those days. I really wonder if Empire would have been universally panned by fans if it were. I thoroughly expect that we are not finished with Rey's backstory and Ren's manipulation of her. Time will tell.
My only complaint about this movie - and the reason for nine out of ten stars - is that for me many of the fight scenes dragged on too long. I feel this way about many recent movies: Thor, Guardians II, Batman Vs Superman, etc. I'm bored by the relentless fighting, let's see who wins and get on with the story.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movies as did my family members who saw it with me. It's entertaining and engaging, occasionally lighthearted and fun. Highly recommended!
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Star Wars died in 2015 when disney hired illiterate fools to create a story line that trampled over 30+ years of licenced Extended Universe material. Total insult in the face of anyone who enjoyed Star Wars novels, comics, chronologies, or essential guides.
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7/10
It may not be great but it is the best ever Star Wars movie
The thing about Star Wars movies is they have never been really great for people who are not childish in the way they appreciate movies. The three prequels are, in every way except the special effects, awful. They plot and dialog are so awful they make accomplished and talented actors look wooden and flat. The original three movies are better, but only the Empire Strikes Back has much that is either surprising or original in it. The Force Awakens is a better movie than the original series, but lacks originality. It is more like a competent remake than a great original work.
The Last Jedi isn't like that. It is better than most of its predecessors precisely because it breaks with tradition and does unexpected things. Plans fail, long-standing characters die or do very unexpected things. That makes it far more interesting to non hardcore fans who want to see something new rather than the same old ideas being repeated. I liked it a lot more because there were many points in the story where I could not guess what was going to happen next.
If hardcore fans hate it it is because they want to see remakes of the first movie again and again with wooden acting, rotten dialog laden with exposition and plot holes bigger than the Death Star. Other movie fans should welcome the fact that this one is different and will still look good to them even if they are not die hard fanboys.
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1/10
Worse than the Phantom Menace...a catastrophe for all time
Like many people I've registered for the first time just to express my utter dismay with this horrible, horrible movie. Aside of a terrible script and total disregard with honoring the original spirit of Star Wars, it's also filled with extremely politically correct casting and feminist claptrap. By trying to offend no one and appeal to everyone, avoiding any potential type of criticism from any 'aggrieved' group, it ends up appealing to nobody. Kathleen Kennedy should be fired.
Disney is not stupid. They knew they had a terrible movie on their hands. To hide this fact, I think what we're witnessing now may be the first example where a media giant has had to go to extreme lengths to instill fear in the critics and manipulate internet based commentary in order to protect their investment.
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4/10
Terrible storytelling in otherwise visually gorgeous movie
The movie is trying to convey strong messages of past sins and failures, importance of their respective overcoming and the meaning of sacrifice and little acts of goodness, however, it does so in a way that disregards plot quality, logical coherent storytelling or character development making Last Jedi a string of deus ex machina moments that make the audience question every decision taken by its main characters.
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8/10
Wonderful Character Work....Slightly Less Wonderful Script
This movie has wonderful character work. All the characters are taken in interesting new directions that feel right for their characters. Yes, EVEN Luke Skywalker. (I'll get to that in a second.)
This movie was different from any that came before it while still having elements that make it a very 'Star Wars' Movie. There's so many nostalgic callbacks that are great, including a twin suns scene and so many things that are reminiscent of the previous movies.
Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver both give great performances and I loved their character. The 2nd most interesting part of this movie is the part where Rey and Kylo are interacting in the force connection scenes.
Now here is the problem I have with this movie. (Well, the main one anyway.) The most interesting part of this movie was Luke's motivations for wanting the Jedi to end. And yet, we didn't get enough time with him. When he regains his faith in the Jedi order, it just feels rushed. Which doesn't make sense. This movie is 2 and a half hours, it shouldn't feel rushed. And yet, it does.
This brings me too my second point, this movie spends so much time with Finn and Rose who just don't have chemistry. Don't get me wrong, John Boyega is an amazing actor and does great in his role, but he just didn't have chemistry with Kelly Marie Tran in my opinion. Also, their subplot is kind of boring as well. The Canto Bight subplot adds nothing to this movie and is just kind of boring. If you take the subplot out of the movie it doesn't change the film at all. I feel that all the time given to this subplot should've been given to Luke's character so that his ultimate sacrifice was more powerful.
In conclusion, 8/10. This movie was true to the Luke Skywalker character. People aren't perfect, and he failed as a master. It's understandable why. This movie was all about restoring his legacy, not taking it away. My only gripe was that Rose and DJ were awful characters, there were a couple of Plot Holes, the Canto Bight subplot sucked, and we didn't get enough time understanding Luke's motivations. Other than that, everything else is amazing, the hate this movie gets is mystifying to me.
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5/10
The Star Wars we needed, but not the Star Wars we deserved
The Last Jedi's unexpected twists and "bold new vision" cannot, and should not, distract from its underwhelming screenwriting, plot holes, offensive conveniences, utterly forgettable new characters, unsatisfying gotcha moments, unfulfilling reveals, and a truly unbelievable reliance on deus ex BB-8. It's an incredibly preachy, patronizing film that forgets what made Star Wars great in the first place. To my fellow disenchanted fans, however, I offer a glimmer of hope:
This may not be the Star Wars movie we deserved, but it's the Star Wars movie we needed.
You see, in order for us to get back to the Star Wars that we know and love, we ironically needed a film like this to teach Disney a few tough lessons of its own. We needed it to remind them that "new" doesn't always mean "good", and that "different" doesn't always mean "better." We needed it to show them that a radical new direction full of unexpected twists isn't the golden ticket to a fantastic film. And we needed it to show them that if you stray too far away from why people love something, you lose the all-so-important spirit of it, and you're definitely going to find yourself on the wrong end of some well-deserved backlash. In other words, the execution matters too, not just a flashy vision.
So in a way it was good that this movie disappointed fans, because the backlash will be hard to ignore. And we know that Disney listens, because we got stuck with Rian Johnson in the first place based on criticism of the movie's predecessor - so there's still hope!
Yes, the Force Awakens was a good movie that was overall well-liked by critics and fans. J.J. Abrams and his team managed to get a new generation of people excited about a 40 year old story by creating interesting, diverse characters that we all wanted to learn more about, all while maintaining the charm of the original trilogy and respecting what came before it. But that's ALL he did, according to a vocal minority - he did the bare minimum. He didn't push the limits, they said. He played it too safe. Much of the criticism centered on this being basically a remake of a New Hope. Starkiller base was just a bigger Death Star 3.0 that had the same convenient flaw. Jakku was a Tatooine for the millennial era. The cantina scene was basically...the same cantina scene but with different music. It was entirely expected.
So in walks Rian Johnson to the room full of Disney higher-ups who you better believe are facing the harsh realization that their multi-billion dollar purchase is not going to keep delivering returns if they keep remaking things, and he says just the right things: we're going to explore a new direction for The Force. Our heroes are going to be humanized, impacted by the same mistakes and cynicism that we are. Legacy won't matter. Failure is going to be the best lesson. It'll all be different. Have it at Rian - give us the UNexpected!
The problem is that Rian was so preoccupied with teaching us his lessons about how we need to move on from the past (with lessons about animal cruelty, slavery, the vices of the rich, and war profiteering thrown in for good measure) that he forgets about the execution of the movie. If he had spent less time trying to convince us that new and different is good, and that we shouldn't care about the questions raised in the previous movie because that's part of the past, then maybe this might have actually turned into a worthy addition to the Star Wars canon.
Instead, we get convenience and lazy screenwriting, all for the sake of proving his points. Take Finn as an example. Ok, so we need to develop his character more, so let's give him a side quest with Rose. We'll put a hacker in the cell that that they are thrown in for parking, because that's easiest. Then BB-8 will save the day a couple times because that's easy too. Throw in a CGI horse sequence because we didn't learn from the prequels. DJ will teach him that the lines between good and evil are blurry. Then Rose will teach him that saving people you love is more important than killing those that you hate, and we'll do that by having her stop him from...saving the people he loves. It's all about the lesson, though, so we can also ignore the fact that they are stranded in front of the First Order with miles of open land between them and safety doesn't matter.
And that's just one character! On top of these maddening examples of bad writing, Rian also manages to lose the feel of Star Wars. Yes, this movie is visually gorgeous. But the combination of the close ups, the quick cuts, the slow-motion, the Rey mirror sequence, the Matrix-style dodges of Luke in the final battle all add up to a movie that feels more like an Interstellar sequel than a Star Wars film. At least J.J. Abrams prioritized the practical effects and familiar patina that gave the galaxy a grounded, lived-in feel. Abrams even kept the campy screen transitions of the originals. In other words, he cared about making something that was true to its context.
I'll end this commentary by imploring you to ignore the cinema-splaining of the people-that-know-movies-better-than-you. Don't let them fool you into thinking that these themes are fresh and cool and the movie is better because it's different. We don't have to believe that the best way to show Luke's internal struggle with his mistake is by having him run around like an unhinged recluse milking alien sea cows and jumping around on a pole vault/fishing spear. We don't have to believe that the best way to showcase Leia's dormant Force powers is by showing that she can survive explosions, shrapnel and the vacuum of space while Mary Poppins-ing around. And we certainly don't have to believe that the best way to redeem Luke's character in the end is not by having him actually face danger head-on alongside his friends/family like a real hero, but by creating a never-before-seen astral projection of himself, wiping dirt off his shoulder, and then dying anyway.
The controversial new direction may distract us at first, but in the end this movie goes to show us that an unhealthy preoccupation with destroying the past is not a recipe for a home run. And while it may be visually stunning, it's a rotten Star Wars movie.
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3/10
A last nail in Star Wars franchise's coffin, or "May the Lame be with you"
I went to see this movie with an open mind. I expected Disney type cutie aliens, a diverse cast of all races (human and alien) and family friendly "You're awesome", "No, you're Awesome" dialogue. All I wanted was to be entertained for 2.5 hours.
Instead, we have another ripoff of an original Star Wars script, made worse by terrible writing, lame jokes and so many plot holes you could hide the entire rebel fleet in the smallest one.
From the lamest slow speed space race in Sci-Fi history, through the obvious
- Vice Admiral Holdo party dressed on a rebel fleet so we can hate her -
through the ridiculous - let's follow the doggies out of the cave with no exits, to the absolutely stupid, let's now escape... at light speed ????
And let's not forget the "away team" who gets... arrested for illegal parking.
Disney has done it's utmost to write the most nonsensical dribble since... well, ever. I am not sure who got beaten worse in this episode: the rebel fleet, or the viewers.
This is too bad because the cast is entirely likable, the cgi is excellent and the parts involving Rey and Kylo are OK. In fact Kylo almost redeems himself from being the loser with granddaddy issues from "The Force Awakens".
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While I understand we need to bring in new characters and new story lines, Rian Johnson's vision of a legendary character like Luke Skywalker was horrific and his new characters were boring and forgettable.
Rian Johnson had a chance of a lifetime to write and tell the story of Luke Skywalker after Return of the Jedi. NO ONE will be anxiously waiting 30 years to tell the story about the future of 'Rose' or any of Johnson's lame characters.
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2/10
Bad humour, insults the Force Awakens, but especially insults Luke Skywalker
To keep it brief, the movie is visually beautiful and has one great fight scene, but other than that is terrible.
-the movie uses humour at the wrong time all over the place. Ruins dramatic moments repeatedly and seems very out of place for a Star Wars movie.
-The Force Awakens set up a hugely dramatic moment for the next movie with Luke and Rey, and this movie ruins it by him tossing the lightsaber away immediately (one of the bad pieces of humour). The last movie also set up the big mysteries of who are Rey's parents and who is Snoke. This movie says Rey's parents are nobodies (huge letdown) and kills Snoke without zero explanation about who he was.
-Worst of all is the treatment of Luke. Even Mark Hamill hated it. Luke went from a legendary hero of cinema to a complete loser who never even gets to leave his little island for this whole trilogy, never gets into a single fight, never even gets to meet up with Leia and Han, what the crap were they thinking?!
Ruined future Star Wars for movie. Not watching any more of them.
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7/10
Yes it is flawed, but it's not the disaster the fake negative reviews claim
This is the first time I realize how fanboys, haters, bots and trolls influence public opinion (on false grounds). I grew up with the original trilogy, and the new trilogy didn't do much justice. As much as Rogue One was a surprise, TFA was nothing more than a copy from ANH, which is why I believed the negative reviews about TLJ and I went with little to no expectations to the cinema today.
The movie follows Rey and Fin, each on their own mission to help the resistance and to find Luke Skywalker, in an attempt to create a fighting chance against the armies of Snoke and Kylo Ren, in a time where there are few Jedis left. One of the just criticisms is that it copies ESB. Not only that, but it also copies RotJ. Another just criticism is how they handle Snoke in this movie, including some guest parts that might feel too short or wasted.
One of the criticisms I don't agree with, is that their was too much comedy. The movie indeed starts with some humor, but it is never too much or misplaced. I also fundamentally disagree with that the movie has a bad story or characters. Although the movie does copy elements from the original trilogy, it deviates enough to form its own base for new characters and stories. Without spoiling too much, it is safe to say that this movie pays its respect to the original story and original stars and characters, but it's main goal is to pass the baton to a new batch of heroes and villains, who are interesting, vulnerable and charismatic enough to make connection to each other and the audience. And if that is indeed the goal, than the movie succeeded in its mission, and deserves a decent finish with it's upcoming 9th installment.
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The crisis that's meant to drive the whole movie is just boring and full of holes. It's basically two buses chasing each other.
It this chase was so boring and dumb that I lost my suspension of disbelief and started getting distracted by all the holes in it:
1. So the First Order has some "new-Tech" sensors that can track ships after they jump, yet their sensors can't detect a fleet of small shuttles leaving for a planet? Present-day Earth radar is good enough to detect that.
2. The rebel's cruiser is somehow so fast that it can pull out of range of the First Order's fleet, yet the First Order's fleet can still pace it and take ineffective pot shots for HOURS.
3. The First Order didn't send any of it's smaller, faster ships ahead to attack, and just hung back instead. It also didn't do any short jumps (like Poe did in the beginning) to circle the rebels.
4. Apparently a ship in hyper-drive makes an effective kamikaze, yet strategic genous Vice Admiral Holdor let her two escorts just run out of gas to be taken out by the First Order fleet. If they're going to be destroyed, why not try to take some of the enemy with them?
5. The whole "only the lead ship has it's sensors on" makes no sense.
6. The rebel base scene is just a replay of Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back, except it makes less sense. Hoth needed to be attacked with ground forces because it had a powerful shield. This base just has a big door that could probably have just been bombed from space, no ground assault necessary.
I'm not saying the original trilogy didn't have holes, but this movie just has too many that are too large. I think all of the problems I outlined above could have been taken care of by more careful writing. For instance, they seemed to introduce a "hyperspace fuel" concept that I don't recall from any of the previous movies. I think it would have been much more engaging if they'd invented a "hyperspace recharge" concept instead, so you'd have short, pitched battle as the rebels fight to survive until they can jump again. Over time they'd still be decimated, but at least they'd be fighting while it happened.
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Well I can not believe Disney finally done it. How con you let this Director screw up this film. A blind man could have written and Directed this film better. How could it gotten this far without someone saying hey wiat this is stupid. So sorry Mark Hamill you deserve so much better. Rey, Love you no matter what. You can not kick Luke ass but that was poor writing. Rey is such a bad ass, and fine as hell. All else SUCK.... STAR WARS NINE SHOULD JUST REDO OF EIGHT MAKE IT ALL A DAM DREAM LEIA HAS. DALLAS DID IT. and Make Sure that Director NEVER Direct another Star Wars.
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2/10
Weak plot, story filled with holes, overdone CGI, no character development
This movie made me feel like the producer thought we were all stupid, content with two hours of pointless explosions and overdone CGI to the point that it seemed like thats all they really cared about.
The Bad:
1. Leah floating through space? she has the force...but still....and why would you not kill her off? You kill the living Star Wars actor off instead?
2. Lukes character was completely destroyed- in this movie there is no resemblance to the Luke of the older movies. None at all. Political agenda much?
3. The plot was soooo bad. Like disgusting. So many holes that during the movie we were all like " wait, what?" - it was that obvious. From the purple haired commander not telling anyone her plan for NO reason at all, to the incredibly pointless Finn/(forgot her name) side mission, the whole story was a mess.
4. Not ONE lightsaber battle. In a Star Wars movie. Wow.
5. Snoke dies in the most anti-climatic, dumb, way possible......he means nothing yet his character was set up for so many answers to be revealed.
6. Furthering Disney's "feminist" agenda, Rey learns the force and how to use her saber with basically no training. The times when she did train I honestly just laughed....tiny, pointless little actions that meant nothing. Reaching out to the force, holding stupid little objects, absolutely no real training at all. How can she possibly become the strongest Jedi yet?
7. The MOST forced love connection I've ever seen in a movie - like literally it seems like a joke. Finn and (forgot her name) have no character development, and the girl seems to fit much better in some kind of slapstick comedy movie than Star Wars.The love connection development was basically non-existent, 1/100000 of what Anakin and Padme seemed to have.
7.5. On top of this, you set (forgot her name) as a powerful female character - yet she sacrifices the entire hope of the resistance to stop Finn based on a stupid love connection. Like wow. One of the few scenes that had promise, and then BOOM. turns into a pile of crap
8. The whole movie is a glorified chase scene......gone are the days of tantalizing Star Wars plots, multiple intricate story lines, and great character development. Just SO. MANY. PLOT. HOLES.
9. Luke dying....I mean it was just pointless. If what killed him was the projection of himself when he talked to Kylo Ren, why would he not have ended it earlier to live? The rebels easily had the time to escape and it actually seemed like this movie went waaay out of it's way to kill a top character....Rebels could have escaped from the back by shooting their way out, and Rey could have helped with the force. But instead, a forced death.
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I think the makers of this movie where on something when they created it. The entire movie is a series of completely different sets that are dragged out way to long and that can be removed from the movie without changing the main story. The main story being, euhm, I guess I'm figuring that out still. I'm desperately hoping this film is a setup for episode IX, because there are so many open questions I wonder if they can even close them all.
In addition to that, there are a few obvious and annoying plot holes and I didn't found Carrie Fisher's performance convincing at all. In fact any other character, including the droids and the animals where better than hers.
Most characters in the movie seem a bit "out of place" or "forced" (pun intended) in the scenes. You start wondering why they are there and what they are doing.
The movie has some good stuff going on too. They showed more "other life forms" on the planets and the way they took down that dreadnaught space ship was a nice touch for otherwise a dragged out non-story.
The visuals are just great and that lifts up the movie a bit.
I seriously think the creaters missed the ball here and I'm praying they will get it together for the next installment.
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This movie was just really bad, shitty plot with random addition and deletion of characters without rhyme or reason. I almost feel as if Rian Johnson tried to destroy all of the the set-up JJ Abrams made so he could be like, "What are you gonna do now"? Like its a competition or something, cuz this movie was shit...
SHIT HIGHLIGHTS
Carrie Fischer Marry Poppins in space, when it was actually feeling like a deep moment and send off for the character, NOPE
Finn and Rose's story arc was pointless waste of time to show how 'capitalism bad'... there plan ends up failing so that Finn can fight Captian Phasma.
Captain Phasma dies... again.... And does nothing, in like a 15 second fight.
General Akbar killed like nothing, while purple hair lady gets awesome death even though she was totally un-interesting and hides plans for no reason.
NOT A SINGLE LIGHTSABER HITS A LIGHTSABER IN MOVIE LOL
Tense moment between Kylo and Rey after the thrown room scene instantly resolved and glossed over, LOL
Luke Skywalker... ya, just absolute shit.
Snoke, he was finally becoming cool, they built him up as this badass eve puppet master, than instantly kill, pathetic
I hate this movie, I laughed several times, and not in the "This is a funny comedy movie", but I literally laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of some of the scenes of this movie, and I as not alone in this. A sad joke.
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I am very disappointed with the direction Disney took the Star Wars Universe with this movie as I have been a fan of over 30 years. The plot for this story didn't flow, it went away from the traditional Star Wars Universe. My fear with Disney taking this franchise forward is it would be directed more towards children, and that's what happened. Unfortunately this should have been a much darker theme. Star Wars Empire Strikes Back, Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One are examples of this direction the movie should have gone. Very disappointing with all the commercials and salaries could have been put to much better use.
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The Last Jedi (in my opinion) is one of the best films of the year. It has stunning visuals, great action, the cast is great, and a fantastic score from John Williams. Although it is a little slow at times, the film is very pleasing. Here are a few tips for the haters of this film: As Kylo Ren says in the film, "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." For everyone who is saying that TLJ is "Ruining Star Wars" or "Killing the franchise," think about this: Star Wars is heading in a new direction. You can't expect it to be exactly the same as the original trilogy, otherwise it will feel old and bloated. They have to make changes for it to feel fresh and new. They have to introduce new ideas, characters, and concepts. I guess that the people who think that Star Wars is ruined are people who aren't able accept new facts and ideas that ACTUALLY WORK for the franchise. For everyone who is complaining about the Snoke scene: If we didn't have the prequels, we would know just as much about Palpatine as we do Snoke. Therefore, he isn't supposed to be a major player in the story. For people who thought the casino planet was unnecessary: Yes, it did slow the story down a little bit, but I think it humanizes the movie. Sometimes we fail at something we think needs to be done, but then we realize it was never necessary. I think it makes the film a little more relatable. For people who say "It destroys the original characters." Our favorite characters such as Luke, Leia, and Han are still human. They have human issues and problems pop up in their lives. So for those who keep saying that the film is ruining the characters because they didn't make them "perfect" and "flawless" like many people thought that they would become after Return of the Jedi, remember that these characters are humans and make mistakes and aren't god-like beings. I could go deeper into these, but I'm not going to. If you haven't seen the film yet and aren't sure what to do because of all the negative haters out there, don't listen to them. They think they can drag you away from the film and they want to bring down as many people as they can with them. Go watch this movie and see how great it is.
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The plot of the story has holes that you could pilot a dreadnought through. The main premise of the story is ludicrous, the few rebel ships travel slightly faster than the First Order so the main thrust of the movie is an exceedingly slow motion chase until the rebels run out of gas (wait, what!)
There is a side mission that turns out to be entirely contrived and unnecessary, with some huge leaps of logic.
If you think Rey's character was very overpowered in TFA, Rian Johnson basically says "hold my coat JJ Abrams" and turns her character into "Mary Sue" levels of incredulity. She is better than Luke, Snoke, all Snokes personal guards, Vader and Ren with no training at all and within 5 minutes of knowing what the force is.
The humor is contrived and out of place, in my showing only one person in the entire audience laughed at any of the Marvel style dumb jokes.
There are many face-palm moments - including Luke being totally out of character for the whole movie, Rose knowing Finn for a couple of hours and putting the entire rebel alliance at risk because she is somehow hopelessly in love with him. She spoils Finns best and defining moment.
Luke's cow milking is the most absurd and un-necessary scene I've seen in any Star Wars film, and possibly any movie, along with Leia's dead... oh wait... Gotcha I'm not! Superman flight, followed by opening space doors and no-one getting sucked out to space. DUMB, DUMB, DUMB.
The movie is also blatantly full of political correctness, including a string of characters that practically have "hello I'm a feminist" tattooed onto their foreheads.
Porgs are a plain cash-grab. I wont be participating in future as Disneys milking of the franchise is becoming as ugly as Lukes space cow milking scene.
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1. Poe: Prank call to the Huks; childish. Then a single fighter - one fighter - manages to get through and cause major damage to this "dreadnaught". Later, just one bomber destroys the indestructible ship by "dropping" bombs in zero gravity. Riiiight. Poe mutinies, and is undone. All is forgiven because, well, he's a major character. Oh, and BB8 can do anything. Anything!
2. Huks acts like the befuddled owner of Moe's Bar rather than the commander of a fleet. His military abilities are nil. Only after Poe attacks does the fleet launch their own fighters? They aren't ready to attack the moment they come out of light speed? For the final battle, rebels line up in a trench in front of the door - so he lines up as well as interminable time is taken to drag the cannon into place? He has air dominance then - but not a single fighter strafes the trench?
3. Rey - Who is she? No one. But she has some Jedi mind-link to Kylo. She can do anything without any training, well because. The trip to the dark hole with the infinity mirror served absolutely no purpose.
4. Luke Skywalker has been reduced to shambling hermit. He's grumpy and uninteresting. ("You kids get off my island.") Light saber tossed, alien walrus milked, cuty porgs introduced for marketing. How did the hologram actually fight Kylo, sword to sword? Hamill hasn't acted in some time, and it showed.
5. Yoda - Why?
6. The slow motion, film-filling chase scene was ridiculous. "Their ships are too quick." Again?! No one thought to make a very quick jump to light speed to get ahead of the rebels. But it gives the rebels time to cook up a Rube Goldberb plan introduced by a gratuitous Moz cameo. Break away from this chase to go to a casino planet to find a nameless codebreaker - gratuitous Del Toro - to bring back to sneak on the ship to save the day? That it didn't should have been expected.
7. The casino planet was totally unneeded. The nameless breaker (a 1% arms dealer) is identified, but while they can't get to him they happen to be locked up with an even better choice, the grauitously cast Benicio Del Toro. He pops them out and solved their problems with the help of some indestructible riding beasts. Except he didn't and made things worse for he rebels. (With all those arms dealers, why haven't the X-wing and Tie fighters been upgraded in 30 years?)
8. Finn and Rose serve no purpose - except for diversity points! Speaking of, note that the First Order is all white and nearly all male but the rebels are so diverse (including aliens) to defy all logic. The two can operate any equipment available, and survive two major crashes with no explosions. That the giant door was open just long enough for them to fly in with no one expecting them was ridiculous. Was there supposed to be some romantic chemistry here? Nope, everyone loves each other like siblings.
9. Leia - She gets blasted into space but flies back and is her (very) old self in no time. Meanwhile, gratuitously cast admiral Laura Dern shows up in a gown with a neck like a crepe column to lead things. Diversity, with Poe giving the qualifying observation. She has a plan but won't tell anyone. That's leadership! Later her plan is revealed but "someone has to stay behind.". Why? Surely these ships cannot be run by a single person. Oh, that's right so she can do something dramatic and unexpected. If running a ship at light speed is as devastating as shown, you'd think light-speed based impact weapons would exist.
10. Phasma - How did she survive? Who cares? She came back just to get snuffed by underling Finn. So glad we got to see her one eye.
11. All the transports run to a convenient old Rebel base that's somehow safe. Nearly every ship gets picked off before they get there. Great plan.
12. Snoke - Who is he? How did he accomplish all that he did? No answers, just a you-see-it-coming death after delivering the typical villain speech.
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Lucas never could have given us a fresh re-examination of his universe. Nor for that matter Abrams or even Spielberg and after seven films it is about time. The Last Jedi is a marvel. That it exists within the "canon" is an opportunity seldom available in cinematic history. A major studio, investing hundreds of millions of dollars on a "skewed vision" of a tentpole franchise is a brave action by Disney and one I can not praise enough.
I get fans feeling betrayed. Our culture of aggrievement certainly doesn't reward those brave enough to challenge audiences' preconceptions. Nitpicking for plot holes, misogeny and dismissive attitudes should be expected, but with greater reflection, those reactions dissolve and the brilliance of Rian Johnson's choices become clearer.
Not everyone has sated their appetites of the reckless bucks on their "hero's" journeys but for those who are open to something more, the Last Jedi is refreshing, revitalizing and broadening.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi wasn't the movie I expected, and I believe that this trilogy is better served for it. A lot of fan expectations were that this film would continue the call backs to the originals and fan service of Force Awakens, but these things don't make a lasting film franchise.
It's difficult to argue why I lived this movie so much without spoilers, but I'll simply say that this film managed to combine character growth, new character introduction, with some great action and world building. The story sets up a future for Star Wars that doesn't ignore it's past but also doesn't depend on it for a compelling narrative. I enjoyed the movie so much that I went to see it again within days and will probably go again before it leaves theaters.
--My only real critique is that the 3D picture quality was poor. (Though that may have been the fault of my local theater so I didn't bump down my rating for it.)
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Cinematography was phenomenal and I loved the visual effects. The acting was great and I enjoyed how some parts were unexpected too. However some parts were not true to what Star Wars is and there may have been too much comedy. There are many great visual metaphors though.
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10/10
Moves the franchise in an exciting and new direction. Despite its flaws it is in the top 3 films of Star Wars canon.
Opening: From the opening scene of the rebels fleeing the rebel base on D'Qar this film picks up right where the The Force Awakens left off. Immediately there is a battle that left me awe struck.
Kylo and Rey arc: I LOVE Ridley and Driver's performances here. They were both outstanding and were the heart of the movie. I thought the force communication was an amazing concept and worked really well. I like seeing Rey a little more conflicted and confused in this one about which way to go. Adam Driver really nearly steals the show in this movie and if it wasn't for Hammil I would def give him the performance of the film. Close second. Him taking over the First Order was an amazing twist.
Snoke: Andy Serkis is great here. Menacing voice and it added a lot to the story. The throne room scene had great visuals and was very very intense. I would like to see them explain his character more in Episode 9.
Yoda: It was awesome to see Empire/Jedi/puppet yoda back. Definitely my favorite scene in the entire movie. I was glad to see Luke and Yoda united and on the same page.
Carrie Fisher: She is in top form throughout the whole film and gives a beautiful and breathtaking performance. While she was fine in TFA she really steps up her game here. I didn't mind the floating scene that much since I have been waiting to see her use the force since I was a little kid!
Luke: Hammil's performance was awesome. It definitely is the best movie performance I've ever seen Hammil give. It was dark, brooding, intense and also STILL LUKE. I do not agree with the criticisms that he was out of character except for the very beginning with the saber toss.The old broken down arc of his character was very moving to me and I think it worked very well for the most part. The force projection was a cool concept that Master Yoda may have taught him.
More 3P0: It was so nice to see him get more screen time.
Poe: Love this character. I just wish that they made him a little bit more likeable.
Hux: I LOVE his character. Gleeson is a great actor and he has great chemistry/conflict with Kylo.
The ending: I loved the broom boy and connecting him to the force at the end. It really is moving the franchise in an exciting direction.
What I didn't like -
Second Act: Obviously the casino second act has been the topic of much criticism and I agree for the most part. It doesn't add much to the film and ends up dragging it down. It either should have been trimmed or they should have been a new story line completely. I liked Benicio Del Toro's performance and I would like to see more of him in Episode 9. He is a great actor.
Laura Dern: She is a good actress but I didn't like her character or performance that much. Her making Poe seem like kind of a bad guy was a weak plot point since I think Poe is a great character and there was a little bit of too much political commentary from this aspect of the story.
Toss: While I thought Hammil delivered a great performance I didn't like his lightsaber toss. I felt it was a little bit disrespectful to his father and to Obi-Wan for giving him the saber and I couldn't see Luke doing that. I get why Rian did it and it ultimately probably did add to the story but I didn't like it.
Rose: I thought she gave a decent performance but I didn't think her character added much to the story and I didn't like her saving Finn at the end. I think it would have been more powerful if Finn had died defending the RESISTANCE.
OVERALL - 10/10 for me. It is up there with A New Hope and Empire in terms of its originality. The flaws are overshadowed by Hammil, Fisher, Ridley and Driver's excellent performances and a great supporting cast. If the second act was trimmed I think this would be the greatest star wars movie ever made.The concept of moving away from the Skywalker family was brilliant.
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Took the far-from-perfect but solid start that TFA made, and completely ruined everything. Luke tossing his father's light-sabre over his shoulder like he couldn't care less about its history or significance, sums up Johnson's direction for the whole film.
This film tries way too hard to be funny, and fails spectacularly every time. Add a slew of new and completely forgettable characters that you are not emotionally invested with on any level. The characters you are emotionally invested in have all had personality swaps. Luke is no longer the conscientious and serene Jedi, but the village drunk who's scared of his own shadow. Ray has gone from being a level-headed and strong willed women to a Mary Sue who flaps around finding everything amazing ("ZOMG! I like these guns!"), and often slipping into a cockney accent. Finn has gone from the heroic turncoat, to the lame comedy relief. His friendship with Poe has been turned into a nauseating bromance. Poe has gone from heroic champion of the Rebel fighters, to guy who just constantly gets everything wrong. Chewie, C3PO and R2D2 have all been made into characteurs of themselves. Oh, and Leia has become Mary f****g Poppins! Phasma and Hux have been completely side-lined to the point of obscurity.
Zero Arcs for any of the characters, no one progressing one iota in terms of development. Snoke turned out to be Smeagol and Voldermort's unrealistically animated lovechild, and far stupider than them both. But it doesn't matter because he was entirely inconsequential, as was almost everything else in this movie. Casino scene was just a soapbox for Johnson, because we're not allowed to enjoy a film without escaping utter BS of the real world.
Starships capable of hyperspace struggle to catch up to a Rebel ship that's nearly out of fuel, and very slowly getting away. Making for the most boring chase scene in the galaxy. But it's OK, because the Rebel leaders have an even more boring and stupid plan to get away!
Oh, I could go on and on, but it would take weeks to point out what a waste of time this film is. I was never a big Star Wars fan, but it has had its moments - this was definitely not one of them. I agree, the positive reviews from the "critics" are clearly paid for. Either than or journalism is in a considerably worse state than we thought.
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Remember when I first saw Starwars - A New Hope in around 1997. I actually found that Starwars wasn't (just) a SCI FI movie. (According to some description) It's a drama talking about human behaviour, psychology and maybe some elements you can think of. But I would love to watch every detail they made on the screen. The world that George created.
But when it came to EP7, it turned to a 'Avengers' like style movie. Eventually its maybe better in competitions to other movies. But it seems not a long lasting Starwars.
So I'm quite happy to see EP8 back to this track. There will be people who like it, and there will be not. The visual effects is still stunning.
The only thing is it might have added some 'Disney' element like Porg stick onto the window of Falcon (never mind, just another JarJar). And the kid at the ending... (a new story?)...well.
...As a Starwars fan of coz I would very much like to see George's original EP789.
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For the past week I was struggling with myself. I had a very important decision to make. And now that I decided, I'm feeling relieved. I finally decided to not watch The Last Jedi on the cinema. And I don't know if I'll watch it on DVD or Blu-Ray or Netflix or whatever... It was not an easy decision but I know it was the right one. I already know what happens on the film and I don't want to see those things happening with my own eyes. I don't want to see Luke milking an alien cow, I don't want see him denying his nature, I don't want to see him desisting his life and dying in the first film he appeared after more than 30 years, I don't want to see Leia flying like an old and pathetic version of Supergirl, I don't want to see a villain that dies in his second film, I don't want to see the ridiculous Marvel kind of humor in a so called Star Wars film, I don't want to see an unknown boy with a broom, and I don't want to see new characters with zero charisma. Two years ago I left the cinema feeling sad and empty. There was a big hole in my chest. I felt that I watched a film but this was not the saga I love. It was not part of it. And this new one is even worse!
The sad reality we all have to face is: Disney's focus are not the real fans of the saga. Those who love it and understand it. Those who really care about the meaning of the saga, the meaning of those characters including the prequel's characters. Disney's focus is to target the new generation and the general public to sell toys and games and make lots and lots of money with NO story, NO plot, NO Star Wars soul. This is not Star Wars it's Star Wa...lt Disney! It's something different! For a different public.
We can see that the first six films form a saga. There is a huge connection between them. They have a meaning, a purpose, a reason to exist. They came from the mind of a man who knew what he wanted to tell, he had a story about a Father and his children, a story of redention. He could make some tings that some people would love or not but it was HIS saga! And now we realize that the saga doesn't exist anymore. Disney is really trying to fool us all! But the real fans won't buy it!
By reading the comments of those who like this film we see that most of them are general public. They say: "I know nothing about Star Wars, but I like the film", or "I like Star Wars but I'm not a huge fan". They also say: "This is only a film". NOOOOO, it's not only a film! It was supposet to be Star Wars, and Star Wars has not been only a film (or only films) for decades!
So, we have to face the sad truth about Disney intentions, but we don't have to agree or accept it!
As long as we keep going to the cinemas and giving them our money, they will continue making their Star WaltDisney for kids and for entertaining people and making money. They don't take Star Wars seriously. We do! So, let's stop going to the cinema! Let's not watch this film. Let's not watch the next film (no matter if it's JJ doing the next, he is the one who started to screw SW with that empty The Force Awakens)! Let's NOT got to the cinema to see NOTHING that comes from Disney with the Star Wars logo! Let's boycott this infamous Star WaltDisney!
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1/10
The fake-Leftist Establishment Strikes Back with more anti-white-male propaganda
This is a propaganda war, my fellow whites..the establishment empire wants to cram a billion or more nonwhite immigrants into america...and they are using propaganda to generate white guilt in order to get their way...and this movie is another propaganda effort from the establishment...never ever give a cent to hollywood...if you want to watch a movie use a streaming site
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My oldest son, as well as myself of course, wanted to watch this movie already before Christmas when it went up Geneva but it was pretty much sold out (unless you wanted to sit at the very edge of the theatre). I manage to book tickets for yesterday though so...here's my ramblings about the movie.
As usual with these kind of movies, where there is a large following of fans, there is also many dissenting voices. Some people apparently are going as far as to want this movie to be undone. Well, my take on that is that these people need to grow up or let go or both. Luke is no longer a young farm boy running around saving the universe. The Star Wars universe and its characters are evolving and that is the way it should be and the way it is. Time for the next generation to pick up the torch.
Both me and my son really liked this movie. After the abysmal episodes I to III (Jar Jar Binks still haunts me in my dreams) I have really enjoyed the Star Wars movies.
I quite liked The Force Awakens but it is true that it felt a bit like a rehash of A New Hope. Not only does this one not feel like it is reusing old material (too much) but it also feels like it is opening a new chapter in the Star Wars universe.
The FX is as good as you have the right to expect from a Star Wars movie. The story is fresh and well developed. It will not win any Oscars of course but I liked it. It makes things evolve while at the same time giving enough room for action and a wee bit of humor.
The characters are almost all good and well played. I am looking forward to seeing more of most of them, especially, Rey and Poe. I'm not 100% convinced about Finn and Rose but I can live with them. Kylo Ren do not yet fill up the shoes of Darth Vader but he is showing promise. Contrary to Snoke I do feel he should put on a mask though.
The two characters I did not really like was General Hux and DJ. The first one was just incompetent. I'm not sure if he was supposed to be a bit of comical relief or not but, as far as I am concerned, we can do without him. DJ, well I guess he was supposed to not be liked so he did a good job of that but these kinds of assholes just frustrate me to no end. We never saw him actually meet his demise in this movie so if he is brought back I hope it will be for the sole purpose of rectifying that oversight...as violently and painfully as possible.
Of course, we saw a few new ships as well and as usual with the Empire bigger is better...or maybe not. Not sure what to say about these new designs. At least they did not look like a enlarged (except for the bridge) Star Destroyer like Darth Vader's Super Star Destroyer.
One thing that really bugged me in the first battle though was the rebels' so called "bombers". What kind of bloody moron designed those? They were just so wrong in so many ways. The design itself was just silly looking. They were slower than a flee on a patch of tar. Seriously, a space bomber that crawls along? Actually, why make a "bomber" in space at all? That brings us to the biggest gripe of them all with this ludicrous design...dropping bombs vertically? In space? How the fuck do they fall?
Sure they looked somewhat cool when they dropped their bombs...if your knowledge of physics is on the level of your average politician (and obviously a few Hollywood employees as well).
Anyway, on the whole me and my son had two and a half hours of great fun watching The Last Jedi. I hope the next movie expands on the threads this one started. I have to say that I was a bit sorry about the feeble state of the resistance at the end, so I do hope the next writer will not let this drag on. One way to ruin Star Wars for me would be to turn Star Wars into some Battlestar Galactica variant with resistance survivors on constant run from the empire. Now it is time for the resistance to strike back, and for Rey to evolve her Jedi powers.
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I enjoyed the story of the new characters, the youthfulness of Rey & Kilo, even the surprising behavior of Luke. It's a director's choice, but ut's consistent.
Actually, I really dislike that the starwars universe has been treated with less reality. I mean: Leila can survive and fly through space. Bombs can drop without gravity etc.. There are many examples of such mistakes. Starwars is science fiction, not fantasy, that's what we like in these films : it could be real.
The arc of Finn in Canto is just useless.
The main default is about the lack of tension : the rebels must flee to survive and they are tracked by a powerful army. We should have feel their stress, their fears but everything is ruined by useless humour scene.
It's a good thing to add some touch of humour, but they failed some major scenes because of that.
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I've seen all the Star Wars movies and I must admit that my favourites were the first three, Episodes IV, V and VI. They were new, inventive, fresh and they linked technology with something deeper.
Episode VIII, on the other hand, is a shallow copy of these. It uses the same universe, but lacks any depth at all, uses a ton of cliches, is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO predictable, lacks any central plot, jumps unendingly from crisis to crisis, and is in parts just plain boring. The only two real genuine interests in the movie are Ren and Luke Skywalker, with a delightful twist at the end.
This appears to be a money-making effort solely. The scriptwriters should be ashamed of themselves for such a puerile effort, pulling Deux ex Machina when things got tough, copying scenes almost exactly from earlier episodes, using inane and suicidal battle 'tactics,' leaving things unexplained, jumping without transitions, and including an ending worthier of Disney than the greatest space opera classic ever created.
For the true Star Wars fan, see it out of duty. For the rest, AVOID.
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It kinda hurts, rating a Star Wars movie that bad and writing this Review...
Star Wars Episode VIII was not a bad movie. And it was not a good movie.
But The Last Jedi was a bad Star Wars Movie.
So much more Questions. So much confusion. Thin plot. Stupid Humor.
It felt like all the "Marvel Super Hero" Movies out there or like "Suicide Squad"
Every epic Scene was destroyed by a Disney Joke for Kids.
Luke and Leia finaly met after many years and it was time for chill bumps...nah let them dalk about Leia's Hair..
Luke stands alone against a whole Army and survives heavy blaster fire - let us make him a stupid joke about this...
There was so much potential for pure epicness and Star Wars feeling. But there wasn't.
In addition, Finn's and Rose's whole Mission (about 1hr in the Film) was worthless...why get the "Code Guy"? They still leave the Battle Ship...
Idk. English is not my first language. I cant even explain everything in English.
Anyways. I wasnt happy with Episode 7 - but it was OK! With episode 8 the new Star Wars died for me.
There is Episode 1-6 and Rogue One. Thats all of Star Wars for me.
Sorry, my love </3
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The Force Awakens was really bad and although it had a few funny moments, characters, especially the villains (First Order?!) and the entirely copied plot of A New Hope, were just awkwardly comical.
But yesterday night I saw the sequel to this already an absolute **** show.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to personally ask the creators one simple question.
Are you ******* kidding me?
An hour and a half of no progress in the story line whatsoever. At approximately 1:45 there was a sole moment I thought was pretty cool, only to be completely ruined about 5 minutes later.
All and all this film is a terrible joke, piece of garbage and an abomination.
Unbelievable!
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1/10
I really hate that Disney "Star Wars" is like Lion King and Roger Rabbit...
All jokes, all cartoon characters, all one-liners and wisecracks, etc.
I am not disappointed. The last two loads of rubbish from Kathleen Kennedy and her accounting software were real dross and the new boytoy was also given a similar script and told to go make it happen for the 5-year old audience.
There is a party somewhere with Kathleen Kennedy, Jar Jar Abrams and Rian Johnson, bt no matter how rich and bubbly they are I won't even open the door if they rang the doorbells at my house.
Go watch this film if you want to see a complete lack of respect for teaching of Yoda, the teaching of the Jedi Academy, the universe of Star Wars and if you really really want to see an experiment in shepherding foolish lowbrow viewers onto a conveyor belt and giving them the middle finger when they pay.
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Rian Johnson is the big name of the success of this new Star Wars. He made me like Star Wars again. If you compare Force Awakens with Last Jedi you will notice a big difference in the script. When Force Awakens decided to play cautiously, copying the New Hope formula, Last Jedi plays fearlessly in the script, bringing in new characters, places, shootings, fighting between ships and fighting with lightsaber in a different way but putting everything a fan of Star Wars like. Many did not like it, I do not know why, but if you like Star Wars it deserves a chace.
The weakest part of the whole movie is the acting. Adam Drive continues without a feature, John Boyega remains the clumsy and King lost in the world. I give 8 to the film because some dialogues are not well filmed and half-beast acts, but being a fan of Star Wars this movie deserves much more than an 8.
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Firstly. I think the 1-3 star reviews are a bit dramatic. It's not a TERRIBLE film by any means. But it is very disappointing, and at times rather amateur.
Most of what made TFA good is absent in this film. The relationship between Rey and Finn is replaced by that of Rose and Finn - and this felt totally forced and flat. Is it really necessary to have Rose at all? We were given a whole new set of likeable characters in TFA to root for, and I was looking forward to seeing them together again...so I felt a bit frustrated having to watch Finn with Rose instead.
I suppose humour is always down to personal taste, but for me, none of the jokes were funny. They're not even delivered by the comedic characters.
The infamous flying Leia scene was ludicrous for me. I've heard Star Wars fans have always wanted a glimpse of her using the Force, but surely they had something else in mind? It looked daft.
At times it seemed as if Rian Johnson believed that as long as a scene had a Star Wars character saying Star Wars lines, it must automatically be good. I'm not a mega fan of Star Wars (but I like it enough) and would have to say that some of the dialogue (deliveries included) was really, really bad.
Doe Cameron is boring. And he's in it A LOT.
General Snoke was very watchable, and I was eagerly awaiting his character development - but he died in an insultingly obvious scene, and now we're stuck with Kylo Ren. Over these last two films, there have been glimpses of how he could possibly end up being a frightening or intimidating bad guy...but I've now made up my mind and decided he's just a bit annoying.
I actually found the Luke storyline quite interesting - but only the second half. The early exchanges were just tiresome and I found my mind wandering whenever there was an island scene.
I found The Force Awakens immensely watchable, the characters likeable and relatable, and the universe intriguing. None of these things apply to The Last Jedi. Yes, the events of the film were OK. But the way these events were presented to us was amateur and lazy. You cannot just have a character say "we are the spark that will ignite the fire blah blah" and consider your job done. You have to make us FEEL that. But all I felt for the majority of the film was bored and frustrated.
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4/10
Might have been mediocre if not for the continuity errors and the weak subplots that basically served to shove propaganda down my throat
Following the Force Awakens, which was largely a rehash of Episode IV, one might have thought that The Last Jedi would be a lot like Empire. While that is somewhat true, The Last Jedi also clearly attempts to take the series in a bold new direction. However, this move leads to two main problems: a) the movie shows a total lack of respect for the previous movies as well as the universe they constructed and therefore has several continuity errors and b) the 'new direction' is not very exciting, nor very new.
For one, Star Wars has always had deeply Manichean themes, so the switch to a more grey morality in this movie was not very necessary, nor was it executed well enough. Instead, it just serves to tarnish your old heroes. The new direction for Luke is not very welcome either, as it goes completely against his old character.
Other than that I don't really know what new direction all the critics are talking about. The main plot is the same old bad guys have a new secret weapon with a very blatant flaw that can be exploited. However, even this cliche plot was executed horribly. For one, the bad guys have, seemingly, suddenly conquered the entire galaxy, whereas in the previous movie (which was just one day ago) they were a relatively small group of fanatics. Also, way too much time is devoted to two subplots that are just there to shove leftist propaganda down your throat. Don't get me wrong, I am all for subtle commentary in films, even in a Star Wars film, but this was remarkably blatant and a lot of time was dedicated to it.
Rey's character remains a Mary Sue. I have yet to see any depth in her character or see any reason to be invested. Kylo Ren on the other hand is the one bright spot in this new trilogy. His character's backstory was developed further here, even though the character still comes across as far too whiny and angsty to be fondly memorable.
Overall, this was definitely not an Empire reboot. But it wasn't a very good film either. The plot was uninteresting AND convoluted. Add to that a bunch of continuity errors and little respect for the universe the previous movies had created and it's not surprising so many Star Wars fans dislike this movie.
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a few years down the road we will look back on this movie and think, hey this was a great film! But right now, I just can't see it.
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I have never left a review of any movie before, but my fellow Star Wars you need to know the truth before you see this movie. Let us begin,
Pros: good visuals, I liked the animals at the casino, and I got movie popcorn.
Cons: WHERE TO BEGIN
1. Leia gets blown out into space, does not die and somehow uses the force with a skilled mastery no other Jedi has ever been able to do, survive space, not to mention she can't use the force in any canon story.
2. Kylo Ren destroyed his helmet, I just liked it.
3. Luke gave up, a Jedi never gives up
4. Rey is more over powered than Anakin Skywalker was ever supposed to be, you know, "the chosen one"
1. She is more powerful in the force than Kylo and she's had no
training. She's also more powerful than Luke was with the force,
Luke trains to lift an X-wing, she doesn't need any training to lift
100 huge boulders all at the same time.
5. Rose, did we need her, she sucks as a character and Finn is fat now, only one scene in the whole movie you see his chest, yes we could tell he gained weight from his face Disney.
6. They had ice wolves on the red salt planet, Finn called them "Crystal Critters" I better not see that stupid name on any toys.
7. There is not much action at all for 2 and a half hours.
8. Smoke died easily and early, playbook page taken straight out of the prequels, i.e. Darth Maul, Count Duku, Jango Fett.
9. Lukes lightsaber color, small thing I know but still.
10. Luke can use the force to remotely fight Kylo Ren across the universe, would of been nice if any other Jedi ever could of used that ability.
11. Luke died and left his clothes behind, how's Rey going to get that training now? HAHA she don't need training, she's the Michael Jordan of Jedi if Michael Jordan got to the NBA playing horse in his driveway.
12. I'm sure there was more stuff that bugged me but that will due for now.
SAVE YOUR MONEY watch the DVD, I don't know if I'll see the next one in theatres or not, I'm not even sure J.J. Abrams can save that train wreck.
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Between Luke Skywalker milking a sea mammal and some purple haired lady using phrases like "flyboy" i just couldn't handle it. To add, a strong feminist theme was quite prevalent and disturbing. Gender roles are reversed throughout.There are no role models in the movie for young boys to look up to. Every good guy in the movie is weak and emotional and the only strong man is a back stabber. It is that bad.
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1/10
Rian Johnson may you Burn in Hell, Disney hope you go Bankrupt, RIP Star Wars !
The Greed of a big studio finally strikes back and Obliterated of what was once Epic,on what we people grew up on and what we dreamt of when we went to sleep, sadly its all gone now, its all over, i feel like this is the end, I am Shocked. Speechless Angry Hurt. i don't even know how to review this, SHIT! this is just sad, I knew something was wrong when i watched a Mark Hamill Interview, where when he was asked if he believed in the directors vision and he gave a half answer that even though the movie was not for everyone he believed in the directors vision, that should have been clear enough but still why did i have to watch this Epic Fail, I will not review this in detail because even that feels insulting, so i will just go with the broad strokes
Writing :- Crass Pathetic Cringe worthy Lazy Devoid of any Logic and actually wants you to think its Path Breaking, Oh Pllzzzzzzzz Give us a Break, i personally think this whole debacle was done to Insult our beloved Luke Skywalker, seriously killing him was path breaking and refreshing and a new way of telling the story, You idiots on what planet is that supposed to be visionary, you Morons!
Coming to Rey oh this is going to be Interesting, Seriously If the girl knew Everything from the beginning and didn't have anything to learn why did she seek out Luke, there was no physical training or weapons training yet the chic could kick everyone ass, someone was right here they are trying to make a superhero franchise, Feministic Propganda Much Oh Yuck!
Acting:- If it wasn't for Mark Hamill i would have thrown something at the screen and walked out of there, by the time the disaster ended and people were walking out of the theater, i am pretty sure no one was talking about the movie, there was not even a smile on anyone's face, it felt like a funeral, to all the Idiots who acted in this Movie barring the legends Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, the coming generations will remember you as the people who took something good and amazing and made it totally unwatchable, if Carrie Fisher watched this in Heaven she'd probably throw something at the screen, instead she should throw that towards earth so that it hits that idiot Rian Johnson
Direction:- What a Joke! This Moron will go down in History as the most hated person, apparently he was high as a kite when he wrote the screenplay, he probably channeled his inner J. R. Tolkien and actually thought he was going somewhere, the fact that this moron would be writing and directing the next SW Trilogy means by the time hes done with it, we'd all be wishing for the Apocalypse, Great Job Sir You deserve A standing Ovation! YOU took someones Creative Genius of a story and SHIT the Motherload all over it..
Disney:- Seriously just go back to making cartoons for kids you greedy bas........................................................................expletives
expletives and expletives...............
Star Wars
RIP
Tears!
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People seem to put on rose tinted glasses when considering the original trilogy and are slowly starting to do that when thinking about the prequel trilogy.
Bottom line simply is - The Last Jedi is one of the best, if not the best, Star Wars movie to date. The main reason probably is the this one is finally aimed more at adults than kids and teenagers. Characters suddenly get a few more dimensions, we see a more human (or humanoid) side of them, which involves making mistakes, having moments of doubt and learning to deal with mistakes they make.
Some fans were angered at this, hoping a continuation of their perfect heroes and villains battling it out in the largest space fantasy we've seen so far in the history of cinema.
The entire cast puts in an incredible performance - Mark Hamill and Adam Driver steal the show, but Ridley, Isaac and Boyega were also amazing.
I can't help but wonder if some parts of the film couldn't have been cut, but overall, the director does a good job of keeping you on edge, which is something not often seen in a Star Wars movie.
As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I can't help but disagree with some of the story and character choices, but this is the film Star Wars needed. It's bold, not afraid to let go of the past and takes us to new places and adds a little dose of maturity the franchise needed. It's not just a good Star Wars film. it's a good film.
Go see this film with an open mind is the best advice I can give. Leave your idea of how Star Wars film should be like at home and let the director and the cast take you on an incredible journey.
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I guess you just can't please star wars fans.The film was a bit slow at times but had many great moments - awesome plot twists of Kylo Ren killing Snoke and Luke not actually being on that planet to fight Kylo, awesome visuals and effects in general and an amazing shot when the resistance cruiser crashes into the first order fleet at light speed. A few well placed funny moments here and there that don't interfere with the any important thematic moments in the film.
Overall it was an amazing and really enjoyable film if you get off your high horse about your fan theories, about Luke having to be a perfect character, and if you don't get triggered simply because the cast is diverse (a legitimate reason I saw on someone's review).
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After seeing the force awakens I exited the cinema with joy and excitement to watch it again. I had the same for rogue one, but after watching this film I left the cinema with a feeling of nothing but disappointment! I feel this film just took a massive dump over all its predecessors and made no sense at all! Nothing from the force awakens was answered in a satisfying way if answered at all. It turned the franchises ultimate hero in Luke sky walker into a boring old man who held almost no relevance to the plot. I don't want the story to be the same as the others and I loved the force awakens and all the new characters, but this film just tore it apart in my opinion. The 3 stars I gave all go to the actors and special effects who did great, but the plot and some of the characters arc was just so poor And disappointing it really ruined the film for me. That said I Enjoyed kylo REN in this film and he was probably the best part about this film. I can't see how anyone who worked on the previous film would be happy with this one. Overall I am big Star Wars fan and I am still interested in where it is going, I just feel this particular episode was executed extremely poorly and just took away all the things everyone has been pondering on since the force awakens!
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Let's start from the humor bit: I am not a native English writer so bear with me. There's a pathetic inappropriate attempt at making people giggle but right in the middle of scenes which have a dramatic or even epic flavour. Don't want to spoil so will keep examples to myself but it's like a BAD mix of Indiana Jones tongue in cheek humor (which were GREAT in THAT context) in a movie's like Schindler's list.
Stupid.
Way too long.
Plot is so fragmented to be unrecognizable.
Yes visuals are great but if visuals are the only thing you like go get a quality porn :-) :-)
Way too long.
The ideas presented should have lasted for around 15 minutes worth of a movie.
Star Wars may you rest in peace.
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The film started off really well tying in the previous film to this one. The middle lost me. Was it really necessary? Nope.
I've seen the film twice now and I can't help but think that so much more could have been done with this film.
Instead of Luke being a lonely old man doing nothing. Why didn't he go with Rey? Even though, he want's the Jedi to end etc, I would much prefer to see him in action and get killed off in an actual battle. His death seemed a little rushed and there wasn't really any need for it.
Also, I hope Phasma isn't actually dead, loved her character from the first film and they wasted her in the second film.
All in all, wasn't a horrible movie to watch.
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This is my first and probably last review, simply because this was the only movie franchise that i truly cared about. After seeing "The Last Jedi" i felt compelled to say something, to give a heads up to anyone who wants to go and watch it. Don't. Don't go. Don't give it any money. Wait for it, wait for it when it's free. I fell ashamed for paying for it, for feeding the beast.
Everything in this movie the Plot, the characters, the "humor" and the Porgs, all of it has a singular purpose -money. The entire film seems to be made of unconnected ideas that were approved by "would you pay to see this" polls after which they tried to connect it all by adding confusing and implausible scenes between them (including force Skype and improved force Skype at the end), because of this plot holes pop up every single time any of main characters try to do anything . I won't list them all, there is simply too many, instead i will only mention the most important one, the one that the entire story hinges on.
The inability of the First order armada of Star Destroyers and the Capital ship of "Supreme" Leader Snoke to catch one rebel ship because it's a little faster than them, this being said one minute after the entire armada drops out of Hyperspace at light speed. Again... Light Speed. That is it. That's the plot.
The characters have no development, some don't even have any importance, Fin and Rose can easily be removed with little or no consequence to the "plot" , but they do have importance money wise. A lot of people say that Disney is being too PC, i guarantee it has nothing to do with political correctness, only money, characters that pass the "would you pay to see this" polls get screen time, and those that don't get killed off. Captain Phasma the commander of the First Order's legions gets maybe 60 seconds of screen time more than the "porgs", one is for story purposes and one is merchandise. Guess who gets killed off.
All this being said i am not opposed of movies earning money.
I simply think that movies should earn money because they are good.
Movies shouldn't be good just because they bring in the money.
Ultimately i left the movie theater disappointed and confused and with the wish i didn't see the thing a saw.
This is the last Star Wars movie i will ever pay for.
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Is The Force Awakens, but this one is a close second. One would do best to ignore all the whiny snowflakes that have spammed the reviews section for TLJ. Honestly, the level of butthurt is over 9000, and would have been funny, if it wasn't so sad. Drama queens.
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I have never been so disappointed walking out of a cinema as I was after this
pile of monkeyshit. How can Rian Johnson make so many mistakes in one
movie? It is as if he was going for a record in making Star Wars fans mad. This movie makes TFA look like fu..ing masterpice.
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8/10
Johnson stares down Fanboys and dares to be different...and it pays off
It's clear at this point that this movie is the most controversial Star Wars movie to date. But why!? One look at the user reviews and you would think that this was a horrible movie, yet alone horrible Star Wars movie. Unfortunately, what you're really witnessing however, is a lot of emotional immaturity brought on by individual expectations of what this movie should have been, according to die hard Fanboys, rather than what it dares to be. Which is a refreshing, daring and exciting take on the possibilities of what the Star Wars universe can evolve into whilst simultaneously, albeit respectfully, coming to a conclusion to the Skywalker storyline in Epic Fashion. Passing on the torch to Rey and Kylo's story and the future of The Resistance and it's struggle against The New Order.
I saw this on Christmas Day in a jam packed theatre and there was nothing but laughs, several claps throughout the entire film and a hearty cheer when the credits started to roll. Whatever you do, don't listen to the haters.
What's ironic is that the reason it's so divisive is actually the opposite of the reason why The Force Awakens was criticized. Proving that if the movie has Star Wars in the title, you will never expect to please everyone. Where one movie was bashed for being too similar to the original, New Hope, this one is bashed because it doesn't fall in line of what fans envisioned in their minds after about 2000 bags of Doritos and cans of Mountain Dew with a bunch of their super nerd friends in their mother's basements while waiting for this movie to release.
I took 2 stars off only because it's not the best Star Wars Movie I've seen (that distinction will most likely always belong to, The Empire Strikes Back), they could have done a better job delving into Snokes history (though they still may in IX) and the Finn/Rose side mission could have been done better (though it wasn't terrible). But it's right up there near the top of list of the best Star Wars movies to date.
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9/10
People made it the LEGEND, in reality it is much more different
The movie was really, really good and it is hard to say anything more without spoiling anything.
Rian Johnson had to live up to the standard of Star Wars (which is a fun, provoking, serious and thrilling movie) and expand across those bullet points. And he did that masterfully by taking risks of developing characters in a way that most people might not expect, but that really enhances the story in a very organic way.
Also, the cinematography was stunning, which left people being in awe during some scenes, but that you will have to see for yourselves.
One thing to remember before going to the cinema to see this movie: some things might disappoint you, some things might excite you, but you have to search your feelings and think for yourself - why did the director decide to show these things and these things in this way, and how does that contribute to the story?
Only then you will finish your Jedi training, because for now, you are only a Padawan, learning your way around the Force.
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This film is mind bendingly awful. From the very get go the acting is so hammy I felt like I was watching Panto...
Rey: "What, where is Kylo?"
Audience: "He's behind you!"
General Hux is the worst if not only offender. He seemed to be there for comic relief but really his acting felt like the collective relief of the acting worlds bowels all over the screen. We have Rey, Finn and Po, protagonists that are so lacking charisma and are so entirely one dimensional that more emotion stirs in me releasing morning wind than it did watching them try to replicate the characters we wish we had in the originals.
The plot had more holes than my favourite gruyere and was at least seven times more cheesy. Fluffy terrible CGI penguins were abducted straight from Pixar and inserted into the film like an unwanted object being inserted into ones behind, without invitation, for such blatant ungratuitous commercial gain that my mouth were left agape, allowing yet another orrifice for Disney to insert themselves over the course of the movie, and insert themselves they did. Over the course of 2 hours and 35 minutes I felt like the prettiest boy in prison.
I want my money back.
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8/10
ambitious movie looking to expand star wars beyond what is expected.
I was compelled to write a review after seeing the ridiculous 1s and 2s.
I was let down by certain scenes and aspects of this movie. After thinking about it, I realized that some of what let me down is ultimately what i enjoyed most. It exceeded my expectations by exploring new themes and not following the simple path developed by its predecessors.
*SPOILERS*
Killing off Snoke, revealing Reys parents to be nothing, I thought were refreshing, and for the latter, a strong point to make on the basis of the force and who can wield it. For the former, Snoke was a one dimensional cgi carbon copy of any marvel villain released. Killing him off and the light saber fight that ensues gave me chills in the theater and opens the doors for new more interesting concepts in the 3rd movie. It was a great spin on what we expect and proved even more how conflicted Kylo Ren really is. This act was followed by smart writing by giving him even more purpose: claiming that the old must die and the new must prevail and asking Rey to join him.
The side mission had some good world building and helped expand on the overall theme of the movie, but was too long and did feel childish.
then I realized, this is made for children too. Yea, it was too long, but for the most part though I liked how it played out. I would've preferred some more training and less whining on Luke Skywalker s end, but if you watch the originals he has always had a tendency towards being a weiner lol. It was overall a very good star wars movie and it was beautifully made. Star Wars fans are obviously are the hardest to please and i know that explains the stupid 1s and 2s, this by no means is shit.
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1/10
if you came here looking for depth - you will be thoroughly disappointed.
This movie is a surgical cut splitting off the previous fans of Star Wars - who fell in love with the deep lore, the sith vs jedi complexity and the overarching storylines that create magnificent crescendo's of beauty.
and those that are only being exposed to it now.
The problem being that Star Wars's Identity gets replaced and all homage, ties and ideologies that encompassed the previous movies gets eradicated to please an audience that never even had a chance to really delve into what Star Wars was, before being told what it is now.
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8/10
Thoroughly enjoyed it, Fresh, Original and full of Stars Wars spirit
The haters of this film have forgot the spirit of Stars Wars. It's a swashbuckling space adventure serial at heart. This not only nails that but has better awakened the series for me that TFA did. It is not a rehash with a new skin like TFA was but a fresh shift in direction that has me looking forward to the new adventures and new heroes to evolve. A few choices in dialogue I would have written different but in the spirit of keeping it light hearted I can understand why some lines were what they were.
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A series which once was all about dark themes and raw storytelling (the original trilogy) has been degraded to a marketable product machine that has no actual substance. The story is completely idiotic, having the amount of substance of an episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars, the animated series, not for a major Star Wars film. It was about as compelling as a Jar Jar return.
Technically, it was masterful. The effects were insane, the color palette was great, essentially the film looked great. The sound, obviously, was what kept me in the seat due to the nostalgia; how utterly majestic that soundtrack is. They have done a great job adapting the old sound, keeping its essence but adding on to symbolize moving on from the trilogy.
Unfortunately, the film is JUST pretty to look at, there is no substance, no gritty realism (as realistic as you can get in the star wars universe). Disney is more concerned with selling children's plushes rather than creating a substantial story, which breaks my heart as a Star Wars fan because the entire series has gone from a passion project to a corporate scheme to make money, like Transformers. The claymation and puppets that gave the original trilogy character, those weird, disgusting looking abominations that made the universe truly unique, has been replaced with cgi cute animals that are perfect for Disney to sell.
The grittiness of Star Wars has been replaced with stupid, childish comedy, overall ruining the series for anybody who actually cared about it. Darth Vader literally destroyed an entire planet, killing millions of people, killed his mentor, and nearly killed his kid. There were real motivations and real stakes because Darth Vader was the empire, was the big that the true rebels had to fight. It had comedy, but it wasn't the main focus. This movie was about two fleets racing somewhere, that's basically it. The comedic effect is what prevails over all, and that takes away from what Star Wars truly is at its core.
In conclusion, I might just be a pissed off fan, but I feel that the series is going in a truly corporate direction, and that is why fans hate it. It isn't a Star Wars film, it's essentially an add for their plush toys. It is no Empire. Oh well, at least Jar Jar isn't anywhere to be seen.
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Please, please, please!!! Bring back J.J. Abrams and remake from the beginning Episode VIII. It's not right that all the fans end angry and disappointed like this. This movie is not Star Wars......
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I want to say that I am acknowledging the fact that this movie has flaws. It is not perfect. But what movie really is? Yes, there are some slow points in the 2-and-a- half-hour long movie, and some parts that maybe weren't necessary, with some jokes that didn't need to be placed where they were (not that they weren't funny, just at the wrong times). Let's all remember that this is only the second part to the trilogy and things can be resolved and explained in episode 9.
Despite all of those things that people dislike about the film, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I walked out of the theater happy with this 8th addition to the Star Wars saga (9th including Rogue One). I didn't really think about the issues with it until after reading other reviews, and even then, they didn't really bother me. Other people are different, and those things bother them more. We're all allowed to have opinions and if you liked it, that's fine. If you didn't, also fine. Just don't insult people for their opinions on a film just because they're different than yours. We've started a civil war between the Star Wars fans.
You can criticize and nitpick a film all you want, but in the end, I believe it all really comes down to whether or not you enjoyed it. I don't deny the imperfection of the film but that doesn't mean I don't like it. In fact, I would probably place it in 4th or 5th of my favourite Star Wars films just behind the original trilogy.
***SPOILERS***
Oh, and I just wanted to say... Whether you loved the film or hated it, that scene with Rey and Kylo teaming up against the guards in the throne room was pretty darn awesome.
Anyway, that's all I've got to say.
See you around, kid.
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I saw The Empire Strikes Back for the first time when I was four years old. I barely remember it, only vague images of Yoda hobbling around in a fire-lit hut, talking with a funny voice. In the subsequent years, I discovered that Empire was a sequel, and saw A New Hope and Return of the Jedi as soon as I possibly could.
From that moment on, I was hooked. I inhaled Star Wars. I lived it. I had every Hasbro toy, every action figure. I read every expanded universe book, from the Young Jedi Knights books (yes, all of them) all the way through to the epic Heir to the Empire/Thrawn trilogy. I collected the CCG. I had every vehicle, creature and weapons guide book. I played every video game. Star Wars was my life.
And what I loved about it was something very specific: It wasn't the legacy of the Skywalker family, it wasn't the minute and specific details about how the force works, it wasn't the mechanics of whatever form of physics exists in the Star Wars universe. It was the universe itself: its people, its imagery, its boundless creativity. Its ability to whisk you away to a world which you could only imagine; taking that world and making it real. THAT is the magic of Star Wars - always has been, and always will be. And I always felt - naively, it seems - that the Star Wars fandom at large loved the property for the same reasons I did.
Which brings us to 2017, a year in which a faction of the Star Wars fandom - the same fandom I have so proudly belonged to for so many years, that I built my life around - has decided that a film that DARES to show them something slightly different, marginally unexpected, ever so slightly challenge the status quo of what the universe has been up until this point, is some sort of personal affront, and have made it their mission to destroy it.
The negative responses to this film - the level of anger, of vitriol, of pure and vicious hatred - make me sick to my stomach. Look, film criticism is a subjective opinion - if you didn't enjoy something, you didn't enjoy something, and that's fine. If you thought that this film had plot issues, character inconsistencies, bad dialogue, leaps of logic - again, that's totally your prerogative (though I suggest you take a long, hard look back at the original trilogy before you criticize a Star Wars movie of having plot issues, character inconsistencies, bad dialogue, and leaps of logic.)
But to think that a film is bad JUST because it defies your expectations? Because it dares to show you something unexpected? Because it commits the horrendous offense of ADDING to the Star Wars lore instead of just re-packaging what already existed and selling it back to you as something new? Because it features strong female characters? Minorities? These opinions range from pathetically short-sighted to outright sexist, racist, and vile.
And I've had enough. Because this movie had lightsabers. It had epic space battles. It had beloved original trilogy characters actually growing beyond what they were originally, and opening a door to a new chapter in the saga, while closing the door on their own chapter on the way out. It has engaging and likable new characters. It takes us to new places and shows us sides of the Star Wars universe we have never seen before. And more than anything, more than The Force Awakens and Rogue One that preceded it... it re-captures that feeling of watching the original trilogy, of seeing something totally new and unexpected, of being whisked away to a magical and fantastical place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
And if that isn't enough for you ungrateful, spiteful, hateful ingrates... I simply don't understand what is. The Star Wars fandom is dead. Because it's just not fun to be a Star Wars fan anymore, if all you get is hate and vitriol and sexism and temper tantrums, and arguments about inane and unimportant minutia, while entirely missing the bigger picture. So, congratulations. You killed the fandom. I hope you're all proud of yourselves.
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1/10
Finally a movie that asks the question, why do movies need to be good in the first place?
This joke of a so-called Star Wars is a new low even for Disney.
Everything out of this corporate capitalist accounting ledger driven corporate entity sucks and stinks but they have outdone themselves here.
A useless Mary Sue, no character development, no relation to episode VII, which had no relation to Star Wars and of course a ton of one-liner jokes to satisfy the low IQ shareholders.
Be a man/be a woman and skip Disney and Star Wars forever going forward.
I do admit that Mary Sue managed to qualify them for IMDB oh so hip 'f rated' keyword (the keywords for this film do not lie).
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Stars Wars Episode 8, the Last Jedi, was a new, fun and exciting movie filled with nostalgia, classic Star Wars moments, and yet it brought an entire new dimension to the Star Wars universe. So many great themes and messages, as usual in a Star Wars film, and it felt very much at home within the trilogy. Though the film did have its weak points undeniably, none of them were big enough to care about. I have no idea why people are hating on this movie so much. They made a lot of big character changes that could make some fans aggravated, but I personally loved these choices and I feel that it made the movie had a new, but still classic Star Wars feeling to it. Overall, it was a blast of a movie, and it fits nicely in the trilogy. I liked it more than the force awakens, however my friend, who still liked the movie, had very mixed feelings about it. Either way, it is definitely worth a watch, and you will not be disappointed.
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7/10
Here's What We Can Expect From Star Wars Episode 9!
To continue the ridiculous character arcs in The Last Jedi, here are my expectations from Disney for Star Wars Episode 9:
1. Low on food and supplies, the 9 remaining Rebels flee to Ahch-To to milk sea cows and catch Porgs for nourishment.
2. Luke, who DIDN'T really disappear into the Force, but rather created a Force Teleport, returns to Tatooine to live in Kenobi's old house and scare sand people for the rest of his life.
2. Princess Leia, stricken with grief from the loss of Han and now her brother Luke (or so she thinks), dies from a broken heart! However, we only get to READ about it in the title crawl for Episode 9!
3. Kylo Ren, decides he can't live without Rey since his Force Touch! Throws Admiral Hux against a wall (again, again and again) and leaves the First Order to search for Rey.
4. Admiral Hux, whose face has been badly scared and injured from Kylo Ren's attacks, takes over as Supreme Leader and his first call to action is to change the name to the Best, VERY Best Empire.
5. Finn, after trying to sacrifice his life to save the resistance (his defining moment was ruined when Rose crashes her pod into his at the last moment), deserts the Rebels via a secret escape pod on the Millennium Falcon and returns to the First Order, only to complete his destiny and become the new Captain Phasma.
6. Chewbecca, removes all the Porgs from the Falcon, and falls in love with Rose, because of her amazing mechanical skills. They take the Falcon and return to Kashyyyk.
7. Rey, returns to Jakku to read the mind of Unkar Platt, and begins her journey in search for her drunk parents on Canto Bight.
8. The young force sensitive boy on Canto, leads a rebellion with more force sensitive kids against their captors to fight for freedom for themselves and the Fathiers.
9. DJ, after becoming a multi-millionaire from turning Finn and Rose over to the First Order, returns to Canto Bight to begin building a better, and I mean a BETTER, and BIGGEST Death Star to date!
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I've never written a film review before. I've given thumbs up and down, recommended and not-recommended them, produced some must-see lists and the like. But not a review - and so I won't start now.
I'm a movie-buff, and I would hate for the single-most film that has measured the greatest disparity between my hopes and my reality to be the one that pushes me into the next stage of my love of films - reviewing them. But, I do feel a duty here.
The Last Jedi is a cowardly work.
It expresses absolutely nothing. The movie is an insult to intelligence, and falls for the clearest trick in the industry - try to make everybody happy. You just cannot. It does not work. And The Last Jedi's attempt is an embarrassing exposure of all involved. They fell for the oldest, most obvious trap.
There is nothing positive I can say about this film that Episodes 4, 5, 6, and to an admirable degree, 7 did not set up. Leia and Skywalker are awesome - despite Johnson's ignorant perspective. Rey and Ren have grown into their roles and - in my opinion - have secured their place as the franchise's future. Poe and his bot are craftsmen as well. The rest - smoke and mirrors. Belittling attempts at elementary political commentary on truth, justice, inclusion and every other issue that exists in society. If I wanted my commentary from a film I've waited years for - I wouldn't be much of a contributor to democratic society.
This is supposed to be a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Looks like Johnson fell for two of the clearest tricks in the industry.
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The locations were stunning and the effects were awesome but this is not a Star Wars movie. As a lifelong fan (1977) it saddens me to say the Jedi are truly dead. If you are a SCi-Fi fan go see Blade Runner 2049.
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Kathleen Kennedy's crusade against the patriarchy #Imwithher the movie
When the movies poster looks like a period stain, you know there is no one competent at the helm anymore. Star Wars has been dead since the prequels. Everything about this movie doesn't make sense, and is merely cosplay, these are people playing at being the part, all toe further "representation", but the result is that they and the narrative becomes a superficial hollow shell. Look a girl with force powers, a girl storm trooper, a girl commander, who needs to explain anything, they were "empowered" women, don't question it, don't think, you are paying for propaganda. I never thought there would be star wars films so bad they would make me respect Lucas's prequels, as bad as those were, they actually felt like star wars. This, just spits on the corpse as it feeds on it, because that is all these social progressive types can do, infiltrate and copy and subvert, they do not create anything genuine because its simply about power, and Kathleen Kennedy is going to destroy the value of the star wars in 2 films after this, and then she will take a swipe at destroying Indiana Jones. This is what happens when you give the #imwithher crowd free reign, they seek to destroy the "patriarchy" which really means they seek to destroy all things good. They don't understand what makes a good narrative, mythic archetypes and all traditional things be damned, they seek to destroy it all.
Kathleen Kennedy's hit list
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) (producer)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) (producer)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) (producer)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (producer)
Star Wars Episode IX (2019) (producer)
Untitled Indiana Jones fifth film (2020) (producer)
Let your dreams of hope die, this is a lesson that needs to happen to save the next generation.
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I just went to the movies and finally see ''The Last Jedi'' today after all those bad reviews of this film I mean I didn't saw at least one single good review about this movie they were all bad I just couldn't believe them but I was still chocked.
I must say this movie was a great last performance for Carrie Fisher (R.I.P.) Luke Skywalker is my favorite Star Wars character and I was really satisfied of his performance in this movie, I love ''The Last Jedi'' more than ''The Force Awakens''
This movie is great! think about it, in ''The empire strikes back'' the thing that the mentors were afraid about their young Padawan (young Luke) is the danger that Luke will confront with Vader and in ''The Last Jedi'' Luke who is now a Jedi Master is afraid that Rey turns on the dark side its not like what you think its hard to explain.
I'll just end this review in ''May the force be with you''
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6/10
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Useless Character Build Up
I usually mock the people that complain a lot in every movie that comes out, mainly cause you can't expect the same result again and again.
When Force Awakens came out, I love it so much and I considered it a new Trilogy rather than an original Trilogy copy-cat.
But there are key elements not only in Star Wars but in every movie out there that still fit a certain profile that pleases the average viewer.
One of them is the character build up and their use in a movie.
We're in the second movie of a magnificent trilogy and I still don't know the purpose or even worth for some of the characters. Their character build up is just not there.
Take Finn for example.
We know he used to be a storm trooper, we don't know why he stopped being one and he's just in the movie....just to be there.
It's not about learning his past or anything. We didn't know much of the past from the original trilogy either.
But we know NOTHING about this character and it offers nothing as well.
Rose Tico could give us a better character build up, even though she really offered me nothing in this movie other than a back story which was nice and cool but..that's pretty much it.
Dark Luke.
Luke has always been one of my favorite characters but in this movie instead of acting wise or mysterious or dark...Luke was just like one of these kids where instead of telling you what's wrong, they act weird and angry towards you. That's NOT my Luke Skywalker. This is someone else.
Kylo Ren.
I get that Kylo lost trust when Luke tried to attack him but he showed us that he was doing great and all towards the middle of the movie but then...out of no where and for no good reason, Kylo turns bad again, even though he grasps the meaning of Dark vs Light side and everything seems clear to him now.
It wasn't a trust issue cause he specifically asked Rey to join him.
I liked the movie...but we're in a certain place in a trilogy where all of the above make no sense and it feels as if Lucas Films is literally just milking the cow with no other purpose but gain.
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1/10
The government is paying critics to give it a good review.
This movie is so bad I got up and left half way through. I am a giant Star Wars fan. Revenge of the Sith is my favorite movie of all time. I'm not mad the main characters are women or minorities or old or whatever. I'm disappointed by the writing; the dialogue between the characters was one crybaby crying to another crybaby. No matter who was in the scene they were boo hooing about how bad they have it. After waiting 40 YEARS to see how incredibly powerful Luke had become it was disappointing to see he was nothing more than a burnt out teacher. I was ready for twenty lightsabers floating around him by his mastery of the force? Finally, the ghost of Darth Vader better come and do some crazy magic in the next one to give Star Wars an ending more edgy than a cartoon on nickelodeon.
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People are stupid. We've known this so let me just start this review with the idea that people make mistakes and people are stupid. But, one person, Rian Johnson, isn't. He simply listened to all of you. Rian Johnson is a self proclaimed Star Wars fan. He agreed with all the fans of Star Wars that The Force Awakens was a replica of A New Hope. So he made a new different kind of Star Wars. BUT NOOOOOOO!!!! You stupid people hated it. I agree that Leia's whole death scene (but really not) could have gone differently, but is that really how you wanted the most beast former princess to die? From an explosion cause by two people we never met? No... you don't. I agree that Finn and whatever the heck her name's journey was eventually useless. ACTUALLY WAIT IT WASNT! PHASMA FREAKING DIED AND WE GOT AN AMAZING BATTLE BETWEEN FINN AND PHASMA. One thing I actually do agree with that everyone says is that there were too many jokes. That I do agree with. One thing I disagree with most profusely IS HOW EVERYONE WAS BEING A JERK TO RIAN JOHNSON HIMSELF. You all should be ashamed of yourself. From death threats to complaints about him as a person on his birthday, it was a sad moment in Star Wars history. You should be ashamed of how you people acted like idiots and jerks. You call yourself Star Wars fans but you forget one major thing. The main thing about Star Wars is hope... and you refused to give the director that gave you a Star Wars movie that made you laugh and cry that hope. You all should be ashamed.
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This story could have been great, it already has rich characters, a great world, with plenty of canvas left to paint on. Instead they painted stick figures over the Mona Lisa.
This movie is soulless. Its a bad shoot em up as it is literally regurgitated scenes of the originals... again! (Oh yay... lets un-power the tractor beam... I mean... the tracking device... by sneaking on the ship. How original!)The scenes are also intellectually offensive. The opening scene has a X-Wing fighter fly right up to the Dreadnought (excellent WW1 reference to German Battleships) and just sits there getting through shields? No fire or warning shots sent the way of an enemy combatant? No tie fighters are scrambled to escort? It is just stupid. He then blows up everything by himself. Then the Rebels drop bombs on the Dreadnought. That's right... bombs... in space... as in bombs that need gravity to fall on a target. There is no imagination here. Later in this movie the flag ship of the first order is shooting artillery style lasers in space and the ship for the rebels is out of range... an impossibility in space dimwits!(These lasers fly at an arc in space! Why the arc? They are worried about gravity? What else are they compensating for with their firepower? Wind speed?) If you shoot a rocket laser in space it will keep going perpetually! Just adjust the trajectory ... it is flying through SPACE! Then, after the slowest chase scene of all time, the rebel commander kamikaze's the ship into the Flagship of the First Order. Somehow, this flagship has no shields for this event? The other ships around cannot fire on it? They don't have tie fighters to shoot at this thing?
Everything that happens is predestined and seen from miles away. You will yawn as you know that you are being taken on a virtual special effect roller coaster where the robot animals sing and dance and save the good guy's who have no chance of being in any actual peril and mickey mouse steals your wallet at the end. Oh wow, the good guy survived somehow... I have never seen that before... "haha" that alien animal made a cute sound. This movie swerves from anything pithy and demands you turn your mind off completely. Some dogs have too large an IQ for this garbage.
I walked out of the theater in shock that I was just shown a pile of vomit. With a budget that big? With star-power that grand? THIS is what you created? The biggest fan of this movie is George Lucas, because Jar Jar Binks doesn't look so bad next to this badly written, poorly acted, steaming pile of so-called story telling. There is no suspense in this movie, no plot twist... just a river of sewage pouring out from Disney. This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. My kids Trolls Movie has a more interesting story line, better music, and depth of character than Star Wars The Last Jedi.
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In a scy-fi world there are a couple of ground rules set at the beginning and then all is allowed as long as it abides to them. In this movie Jedis gained super-powers. The thing with super-powers is that while it's handy to move the plot forward it distances characters from the spectator.
Leia is a new kind of superman.
Rey can video-chat across the universe.
Given that we may expect star destroyers to be imploded by the sheer will of the Jedi. Makes no sense. It's a bit like the first scene where we see a replica of a B-Wing dropping bombs in space. It's a beautiful image but "drop" in space?! What hard-core fans dislike is not the lack of charisma or having a multi-racial crew, star wars envolves the whole of the galaxy (!) what we seriously get crossed at is seeing mumbo-jumbo driving the plot to unrealistic places where the show will never be able to recover from.
Disney will probably be way better at doing the StarWars Stories than the canon as those are way more loose.
It's a shame it had to end like this.
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Criticize what you will about the prequel trilogy, at least they were executed with some measure of respect for the material, and a certain sense of what it means for a picture to be an event. This film clearly shows us Disney's vision for the series -- and that vision appears to consist of a lot of disposable fan service, cranked out as frequently as the market will bear, with minimal regard for solid storytelling, or even basic logic. I can't imagine this is what Lucas had in mind for his baby, but the Mouse who pays the piper calls the tune...
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Writing fails aside, this movie destroy the pre-existing mythos. All the themes of the world, the very rules things work by, the tone of the writing - all gone. It even undoes the original hero's journey, at the same time as skipping all of that out for Rey. And you can tell this is Disney's actual intention if you see "rebels". There intention isn't merely a character reset, its to completely retool the universe. Basically marvel in star wars clothing.
In terms of writing, there were character arcs without resolution, plot points that made no sense, and in general the complete absence of character development.
If this wasn't a star wars movie I might have given a four. The effects and action is good, the humour is subpar and offkey and everything else, apart from a scene or two is lacking.
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Remember this: Rian Jhonson will be known forever as the writer/director who killed Star Wars.
How could Disney handed the most successful movie of all time to such a mediocre Director? He has never done anything decent before. What he did to the characters is a disgrace, specially to Luke Skywalker.
I will drop 2 stars only because of some of the action sequences are cool, specially the Kylo Ren fight.
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This movie is a contorted compilation of everything and anything star wars: there is absolutely no theme or focus to the movie whatsoever. The potential of Ray and Fin's characters are completely wasted, and the return of Luke to the series is awash with unnecessary plot. Other than the comic relief of Admiral Hux, the movie is a disappointment and a disgrace to true fans of the genre.
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It's like watching a movie that learned from the last one's mistakes. Aside from Han Solo, "The Force Awakens" gave us a series of background characters that had nothing to do but figuratively wave to the audience. "The Last Jedi" on the other hand, makes damn good use of those people, or just does away with them entirely. There's a confident sense of experimentation here, and it's why Rian Johnson's the best thing to happen to Star Wars in decades.
Hey, I'm as nostalgic as they come, but Johnson writes this like he's setting fire to the past. And let's be honest: that had to happen. Everything I'd expected to see was turned on its ear, and made for the freshest Star Wars movie I've seen in a very long time. There are scenes that parallel "Empire" and "Return" without feeling like knock-offs. He uses Rey (an integral Daisy Ridley) to blow up the Skywalker family drama and leaves the franchise wide open. I have no idea where this is going, and that might be the man's greatest trick. It's a very well-written movie, in the capable hands of someone who knows how to deliver shock and awe. Not to mention an third act that utterly wrecked me ("See ya around, kid").
It's not perfect; the running time is long, and it's an uneven thrill ride. But far more importantly, it's unpredictable. To go and see this was to feel like a kid again; something that was missing from the last one. I didn't know I needed to see certain old faces again as much as I did, and their treatment was impressive. Above all else, it felt like a Star Wars movie! A grand adventure indeed.
But my god was it good to see Luke again.
8/10
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Scroll as many reviews as you desire and you simply will not locate the 180,000 8-10 reviews. They simply do not exist. It's a shit movie STOP skewing the ratings!!! You have lost all credibility!
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Starting with Episodes I, II and III Star Wars lost something. This trend toward poor storytelling, unnecessary characters and repetition. This continues with the new episodes. This episode was not only redundant but irritating. The plot was telescoped a mile away, the villain (both villians) weak. If the writers of the new movies want to just repeating the same old thing this trend will continue. Fight scenes for nothing, creatures for nothing, excessive silliness and dialog so bad a child could have written it. Star Wars is about imagination and these movies lack imagination totally. It's too bad because this series could have gone on for a while. The writers should have taken a lesson from the animated clone wars.
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It is hard to write this review due the massive and honestly, this very perplexing new addition to the Star War universe. Before I begin, here is my history with Star Wars. I first saw Star Wars in the theater in 1977 and was completely mesmerized by what George Lucas had created. The cast not only had chemistry but both strong male and female characters working TOGETHER as equals (with some friction at times, which makes it all the more interesting). I was also enthralled by the canon of the Star War Universe which Lucas created. I read many of the books that followed as well and found many of them equally entertaining. So that is my "starting point" so to speak.
What I liked about "The Last Jedi"
Rey....A wonderfully directed and very compelling character that is both inspiring and humble at the same time. She is desperately seeking where she comes from and just as importantly, is humble enough to know the raw power she can wield is not only frightening but dangerous if she is not taught how to control it. This makes Rey and outstanding addition to the Star War Universe!
Finn...Great growth is seen in Finn in this installment. While he is still very afraid of the First Order to start out in this film, he realizes, with the help of Rose, he must face and confront his fear. This is a great addition to Star Wars.
Rose...a very down to earth character that shows that everyone can make a difference and the importance of working together as a team. I just would have liked to have seen a little more development with Rose in this film.
Yoda....Very good use of the Star Wars canon here. Yoda was introduced at the right time for Luke and his character and is critical to motivate Luke out of his over obsessive brooding funk induced from his prior failure (which in the canon of Star Wars, would have turned him dark but somehow didn't).
Leia...I loved the fact a director finally had the courage to show that Leia is Skywalker and has the ability to use her inherent Jedi power. However, I feel it was poorly executed. While I put this as a positive, I would have liked this to have been better. I always admired Leia's strong female character growing up.
Effects/CGI....Top notch with plenty of "eye candy". It is very apparent great effort and care was used to make this film visually stunning in larger scenes of the film.
What I didn't like about the film (why it got only 3 stars from me)
Luke....While I did not hear of Mark Hamill's misgivings about the direction the director, Rian Johnson, decided for his character until after I saw the film, I have to say I agree with Mark Hamill. Rian Johnson took this character off the deep end to the point where Luke would have become an agent of evil. How this did not happen is mystifying when you look at the Jedi lore. Guilt of past failure leads to fear of trying again which was shown in Luke many times in this film. Yoda said many times in past Star Wars films, "fear is a path to the dark side". This is a major break of the Star Wars canon that makes this film difficult to watch.
Snoke...By far one of the most interesting charters in the film but Rian Johnson just tossed him aside like trash as if he was unimportant. In this film, he is hugely important. Where did he come from? Who instructed him? Was he another "secret apprentice" that Palpatine had during the reign of the Empire like Mara Jade from the the book "Last Command" by Timothy Zahn? This book by the way, if you have not read it, is part of an incredible trilogy which I am now wishing Lucas had used for the basis of Episodes XII, XIII and IX.
Vice Admiral Holdo...This character seem forced, clunky and in some ways like a bull in a china shop. For a military commander, she does not act like one. I am prior military and have been in the presence of high ranking military leaders when making critical decisions. In close quarters when senior leaders are with other mid level leaders (like Poe's character) they always ensured their mid level leaders had a basic idea of the plan to ensure they believed it would work. Holdo showed none of this trust and was overly and unnecessarily secretive. Holdo character showed no trust in anyone which made her look very weak as a leader but this did make a good plot twist for Poe's rightly actions later (I found this twist distracting from the story). Rian Johnson, next time make sure you have a military advisor on your staff. It will make your film much better.
Poe....I was very disappointed with the direction this character went. Poe was established as valued and trusted member of the resistance. He has followers that respect him to the point they would follow him to their deaths if needed. While they do show him as a little bit of a "lose cannon" which Leia reels him in, the fact that he is callously ignored by other leadership clearly shows a lack of teamwork and disdain for what his character can provide (until Leia returns to command) is nearly shocking. Additionally, very bad for military morale (Rian, get a military advisor next time!)
Kylo Ren....This character has so much potential but is not explained well at all. We know where he came from and the source of his power, but we don't know why he is obsessed with the dark side. Rian seems to try to explain it with the retelling of Luke's mistake but Rian does not seem to give us the core reason. This is again very important in the Star Wars universe that Rian seems to ignore. The source of evil needs to identified to the light or good side so they have a target to eliminate.
The battle scene with the Dreadnought....Okay, this where the scientist in me nearly had a conniption! First the bombers are way to slow for a fast paced and advanced space battle. Bombers today make the bombers in this film look as maneuverable as hot air blimps. Second, you are in space, you don't "drop" bombs. They have to have some sort of propulsion to move. (again, you need a military advisor and in this case, a scientific advisor as well).
The utter disrespect for the Star War cannon....This can be summed up in Rian Johnson not really understanding what Jedi are. In all previous films, Jedi strength is passed down via genetics. Meaning you have to have either a father or mother with a preponderance of Jedi traits present. For the raw power which Rey possesses, you have to be descended from a very powerful Jedi line. In this point at time, that means she would need to be a Skywalker. The only other way would be for the force itself to create a "vergence" to create Rey as was the case with Anakin which was set in "The Phantom Menace" (I don't like this too much but it was the precedent set by George Lucas so it needs to be respected!). Rian Johnson blatantly thumbs his nose at this precedent indicating Rey's parents were unremarkable and insignificant to the story. This is an unforgivable break with the Star Wars cannon. This is disrespect for the canon is further shown by Rian Johnson with the death of Luke (which occurs due to, admittedly, one of the most incredible feats of Jedi power by anyone). However, Luke's passing leaves a massive problem for J.J. Abrams in the Episode IX. How does Rey learn to use her power? In all previous Star Wars films, there is ALWAYS a Master to teach the apprentice. A teacher, mentor and guide is absolutely required to guide Rey on her journey. One of the guiding principals Star Wars taught is EVERYONE needs a teacher, mentor and guide so they grow and learn to control their frightening power. So this leaves a very important question, how is Rey going to learn? Hopefully they will not imbue her with miraculous virtue. When one has this much power, it must be tempered with experience, otherwise, the wielder will become corrupted (just a fact of life, power corrupts without guidance!). It does not matter who you are. If this is the direction they take in Episode IX, the film with make Rey "god like" which would be the ultimate show of disrespect to the Star Wars canon. I do not envy the task J.J. Abrams has in cleaning up the mess Rian created.
All of these issues now cause some of the other issues with "The Force Awakens" which were relatively minor then but now look much more problematic. First; how did the First Order gain such a large army, navy, equipment and personnel under the New Republic's nose? How is that possible if the New Republic was the ruling body? Why would the New Republic let the First Order develop so much when they were such a threat? Second, why would the New Republic keep their entire fleet in the inner systems? This is foolish thinking many many levels worse than the mistakes made at Pearl Harbor in 1941. There has to be some significant remnants of the New Republic fleet out there. It make zero sense all the fleet would have been destroyed by Star Killer base in one shot.
I could go on for hours but I have hit the main points with this film. As a life time Star Wars fan, I have to say I was immensely disappointed and in many ways "crushed" by this film.
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Well, I did not love this movie as much as many critics...and I did not hate this movie as much as many fans. There were moments that really worked: conversations between powerful Jedi, epic battles with light sabers, and - even more - plot misdirections that kept you guessing. Basically, there were some cool risks that paid off. But in between the humor felt forced and the twists seemed WAY too convenient. Long story short: there was a movie in there I liked (the one starring Rey) and a movie in there I disliked (the one starring Finn).
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Summary: There are a lot of fanboys dissing this movie, but I loved it! It had amazing space battles, saber duels, etc. It had all the goods!
Good:
1. The space battle scene was very well done. Like Rogue One, I had the sensation of speed/flying.
2. The interaction between Rey and Kylo is very interesting. I believe the next/final episode will explain more. I really feel like they MUST be related but we will see.
3. It's Star Wars... If your a fan you really should love this movie. All the details are there.
4. The cast is very integrated. Many races are represented. I dig it.
Bad:
1. My number one complaint is that Luke Skywalker is "different" in this movie. He should probably be one of the most powerful beings in the universe but not in this movie. This could of been handled better IMHO. This is my top complaint. The Luke Skywalker of Return of the Jedi was a badass. This Luke seems like a has-been or a bum.
2. Story seems really rushed. There are character arcs that could really be developed, but the writers were in a hurry to get to the next movie.
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It looks like Star Wars and sounds like Star Wars, but this isn't Star Wars. It's like fan fiction, never living up to it's potential, and not creative or confident enough to develop characters or to stop killing them off.
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When I walking out from a theatre in 1977 after watching Star Wars I was happy to see a film I can relate to. When the second film came out, I was really excited and couldn't wait to see the third installment and care for those enthralling and beloved characters I learned to love.
When the trilogy of prequels came out. believe me, I was OK with them. I know that George Lucas really tried too hard to please hardcore fans. I have respect for the man because he allowed fans to create a big and expanding Universe for the saga. And then... Episode 7 and 8 hammered everybody's head. This new episode in particular, was an insult to me and to other fans of this beautiful universe and was a spit in the eye of Lucas and to the legacy of the main characters. The writers and director of this film stomped on all literature, comics, animated series, and videogames that always had the decency of protecting of the canon. That was the only rule imposed by Lucas to anyone wanting to create a fanfic or a novel: Never to break the canon. And what's the first thing Disney did? They broke the canon and sent the Expanded Universe to the trash bin.
After the film ended a man asked me: 'Oh, good sir, are you crying because Luke was killed?'
I replied: No, Mister, I cry because they've killed an entire saga.
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1/10
It's all over for Star Wars now. We are all in agreement on that.
This stinking pile of dog turd is an insult to every Star Wars fan across the globe. It is disturbing that Kathleen Kennedy wields the power to destroy a once classic and iconic film franchise.
Star Wars is now for people who do not like the original trilogy.
Clearly EVERY CRITIC WHO LIKED THIS MESS WAS PAID OFF.
The ironing joke was the final insult. Mel Brooks would be proud. All we need now is for Luke to slip on a banana skin or lose his trouser in an amusing manner.
The Canto Bight sequence was a pointless and uninteresting insert to pad out the running time. BORING. Who greenlit this crap?
Dressing Rey as an elf from Lord Of The Rings was a mistake too. Her little pointy boots and stick contrasting against the Middle Earth style backdrops. UGH.
A disgrace to the Star Wars brand. Not wasting any more money on this empty drivel.
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It sucked. Ray is jesus, finn has a shitty story line, there is a wanna-be cantina instead of being original, they fucked up luke skywalker, his character does absolutely nothing relevant to the story in the entire film, there is a bad guy in a cell who escapes only when finn and rose appear but could have always escaped.. wtf? There are A TON of moments where the characters get saved JUST IN TIME. Cliche movie, it sucked, it ruins yet again the franchise.
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I dont understand why critics are giving good reviews to this mess. Fulled with plot holes, ridiculous jokes that are not funny and make no sense.
What makes me more angry, is that the media is making phony stories to explain why people dont like star wars. They say that if you dont like it your old, or racist, or conservative or any other insult they can come up with, to justify this disaster and why people dont like it.
I am a women, i like girl power and everything but making offensive excuses to make sense as to why people dont like it is insulting. Like you cannot disagree with disney or the progressive message. I am a liberal and I hated the movie with all my heart, it destroyed star wars and as a movie it was badly written. There are so many things wrong, that i am not going to mention them because everyone else has done that already.
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So....here's my thoughts about the Last Jedi. Overall, I had mixed opinions on it. It was no means as bad as what others are making it out to be. At least, I see it that way. For the most part, as I have stated in my non-spoiler review, I had a few things that I did like about the film. For instance, the action scenes constantly had me on the edge of my seat. The best one, however, was when Holodo actually rams Snoke's flagship with lightspeed. It was visually amazing as well as haunting as it truly showed the extent of what lightspeed could do. I also found myself liking Ben more in this film. In his own twisted way, he had grown to value the bond he made with Rey via the Force, and the one scene that I personally consider the best was when Ben dissects Snoke by making Snoke believe that he was about to kill Rey. And not only that, but the fight that he and Rey had with Snoke's guards were also epic as was when Ben took over as the new Supreme Leader. Oh, and he also uses the force choke on Hux. However, that's where it ends for me. Now to get onto the stuff that I didn't really like.
For one, we do get an answer for Rey's lineage. After all the theories and speculation, we finally learn that Rey's parents...were junkrats who sold their only daughter for alcohol and were then subsequently killed and buried in unmarked graves. Yeah...honestly, this revelation was mixed for me. On the one hand, it's good to me that it wasn't going to be another Skywalker-centered trilogy, and you could say that it shows that you don't have to come from a well-known bloodline to define your self-worth. On the other, after all the theorizing, the revelation only came off as underwhelming, and it also felt like wasted potential. Though, J. J. Abrams did mention that Rey's parents weren't going to be in Force Awakens, so it should not be that surprising. Besides, it seems that Luke would've known who Rey was if he really was his father, as would Han.
Next, I didn't care for the relationship between Rose and Finn. I didn't find Rose as annoying as some reviewers had made her out to be. She's tolerable at best. However, I do not buy the bond that she had with Finn. She came off first as a fan girl before electrocuting Finn with the taser. Their subplot where they had to go to Canto Bight should've been shortened. The planet is visually impressive, but it overall wasn't necessary to the plot. One example is when Finn and Rose escape prison by freeing these horse-like aliens. Oh, and the ending I did not like: basically, it's of one of the boys that helped Finn and Rose out earlier, using the Force to get a broomstick and holding it up whilst looking at the stars. It seemed as though the film would've ended with the Resistance, but nope. Overall, I didn't find their friendship-later-romance as believable.
I also didn't like how they portrayed Luke. I get that Luke was broken because of how he had failed his nephew which led to the massacre of the rest of the students under his care, but he just came off as an old asshole. We pick up with the ending of Force Awakens where Rey holds out Luke's lightsaber. The scene builds up as being poignant...and Luke takes the lightsaber and throws it over his shoulder off a cliff. For the rest of the movie, Luke came off as a whiner rolling around in his failures. I understand why he felt so strongly, but at the same time I was like "Dude, suck it up!" What makes it worse is the reveal that when he was teaching Ben, he sensed that he leaned towards the Dark Side. So, he contemplated killing Ben in his sleep. It came off as a what the hell moment for me, and it quickly leads to Ben defending himself by destroying the temple, and burying Luke in the rubble. Of course, Luke does get better gradually, and the one epic scene is when he uses all of his life force to project a hologram of himself to fight off Ben and the remainder of his forces. But then that alone brings more questions to the way the Force is used. That one scene where Leia actually uses the Force to bring herself back onto the ship felt like they were pushing the limits to what the Force can and cannot do. I honestly wished that she died in the attack with the First Order out of respect for Carrie Fisher, but I can't really hate on that scene too much.
There were also some contrivances that I had small issues with. For example, when Rose and Finn are thrown into prison, they happen to meet a man named DJ who so happened to be a "master" hacker. Wow, that didn't come off as coincidental! And I did eventually grow to hate that piece of Wookie dung the moment he sold the two out to the First Order, which leads to them killing several Resistance members. I wanted him to be this continuity's new Han Solo in a way, but again that is a minor issue.
Now, for the issues I had with the most. I felt that some of the characters were grievously underused. Supreme Leader Snoke. This alien humanoid who had seduced Ben to the dark side. Who had practically planned everything from before Ben was even conceived. This enigmatic figure that thousands of fan theories were supported to. And how is he dealed with? He's swiftly killed by Ben without much effort. While I said that I loved the scene because it led to that awesome battle with the guards and Ben making himself the new leader, I felt that it undermines the threat that Snoke was. I really wanted to know more about Snoke like where he came from, what his big vendetta was with the Skywalker family. What his ultimate goal was other than conquering the galaxy. Now, we may never know. If you thought how they treated Snoke was bad, Phasma didn't fare any better. While she does actually do a tidbit more than in the first film, she is once again easily defeated with minimal effort on the others' part. And then she gets engulfed in the flames of the flagship. Both Snoke and Phasma had a lot of potential but were wasted. At least there is the substantial material that goes into Phasma's backstory more.
Overall, those were my major gripes with the film. It's far from hateable for me, but at the same time, it had its fair share of issues that made no sense to me.
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I noticed the references to A new Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I liked the story line better than The Force Awakens.
I felt there were a couple of gaps in the story line. How did Rey get from the Big Ship to the Millennium Falcon? What was the meaning of the split lightsaber? Did I blink and miss it?
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Dear Disney: The Last Jedi was such a hulking mess on every level, other than visuals, that you need to scrap everything and try to do good by the multitude of SW fans who had faith in you. You have lost my faith until you can demonstrate that you understand what Star Wars is about and not engage in shoddy storytelling. This was a major embarrassment and I hope you are feeling the heat. Rian Johnson is getting his own trilogy after work like this? Seriously? I loved last year's Rogue One, and I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt after Episode VII, wanting to believe you had to get the "everything old is new again" out of your system. The Force Awakens was an average movie, but left me hopeful that the next installment would deliver on things Ep7 was clearly pointing to or hinting at - and Ep8 dropped the ball on every single one of those reasonable expectations. Especially where Luke Skywalker, Snoke, Rey and Kylo Ren were concerned. There was storytelling potential, but now I'm not planning to waste my money and time seeing your substandard output in the movie theater. Star Wars may not be dead, but this current trilogy is. Enough already.
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There are thousands of excellently written reviews out there from Star War fans and movie critics. I wish I had something good to say about TLJ but the more I think about it, the more profound I fear the damage was.
The basic premise behind these movies is that there is an explicit representation of evil in contrast to that of a good one while the main character struggles to choose what is right. In TLJ the image of evil was safely represented by Snoke. He was mysterious had enormous potential for mayhem. What I now wonder is how the came up with such a unique name.. I can almost picture the meeting:
"OK people, how are we going to name our Sith Lord. We need something unique and memorable that will strike fear into the hearts of men!"
Everyone turns their head to Lukas. But he is completely immersed in a sketch. Something resembling a cute penguin but with much bigger eyes.
"....."
Rian frowns "George...?"
"Yeah?"
"Any ideas?"
"Sorry, about what?"
Rian closes his eyes. You can tell he is counting down from five as he breathes in.
"We need a name for our Sith Lord, something that everyone can be afraid of! Something that..."
"hmmm..." Lukas is seen scribbling a few squiggly lines on a Post-It. It appears like a tree, an apple, and two stick figures next to a snake sticking out her tongue.
"What about Snoke?" Says George with the look of a man that has given up on everything he once held dear.
"Snoke...!?"
The entire room goes dead quiet. Half the people are shocked, while the others try to contain their laughter.
"GOD DAMN IT GEORGE! That is genius! I knew I could count on you. What other ideas do you have?"
THE END.
So anyway, since I wasted most of your time on that little gag, I will now cut to the point. The main problem with this movie is that by getting rid of Snoke and introducing all those one-liners between Hux and Kylo, they effectively destroy the representation of Evil within the film. None of the characters left can or will ever be able to pull it off because we all saw what is under the hood. Kylo and the Order are powerful, sure. But they are in no way scary, nor will they ever be. Kylo was supposed to evolve into pure Evil. The type whose only flaw is taking too much pleasure in the pain of others. Instead, we got parody from a guy that is way too fond of Scary Movies.
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1/10
If you're into Star Wars and haven't seen it. Please don't bother.
A terrible film. From the first ten minutes, where the First Order loses its weapon from a Rebellion prank call, to Luke's Force Hologram tricking all the bad guys (Meant as a description of their abilities as well as their moral code), the terrible writing is matched by bad acting and tedious special effects. Your time is better spent watching a shorter toy commercial on your TV, this one is several hours long.
Thank you disney for destroying Star Wars.
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This was the best Star Wars movie ever made. The plot was interesting, full of surprise, interesting turns and logic. The movie creates interest at the very first battle. Battle scenes... battles scenes were elaborated, every detail well-developed and full of emotion and logic, in the meantime. Music was fascinating, as in all previous movies. Daisy Ridley was at her high, very good play, even though the play by Felicity Jones in 2016 was better.
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I do not normally write reviews, but given the crazy one sided "this is the greatest movie ever made" and "this is the worst movie ever made" posts, I felt it was my duty.
This is not the worst movie by a mile. Nor is it the worst Star Wars movie. However, it does cut close. Let's start with some context. I loved The Force Awakens. I loved the Original Trilogy. I hated the prequels, except Revenge of the Sith. I was not apart of the EU. I wasn't born yet, and to be honest, I am not even sure I understand what the EU really is. Nor am I some woman-hating bigot (that is what some people are using to defend the movie and that is abhorrent). I love love love love love women and support freedom, equal protection, and love for everyone and anyone.
Let's start there. Where are the aliens that made Star Wars awesome? I have always loved the diversity of life that Star Wars showcases and was disappointed that none were made important in this film. What little chance there was for Chewie was slowly depleted as he was turned into a fireside joke. Why? This character just lost his best friend and all he can do is eat a porg? I understand they are trying to sell toys but good lord. I hate to break it to you Disney, but "cool sells."
I understand there isn't a lot of room in big budget blockbusters but... oh wait a minute there is room because this is literally one of the most expensive movies of the year. Also 30-45 minutes of the movie I saw could have been cut and it would not have affected the film's plot. You think I'm kidding, but I'm really not. The plot was overbloated and why? There was so much territory to cover from The Force Awakens - it was like Rian Johnson sat down and said, "f- that," I am going to make the movie I want to make, regardless of what this other director laid out.
Except it is not "like" Rian Johnson did that. He "admittedly" did that. And that's a really big problem, because cognitive dissonance is totally cool in films that do not have an established framework, but this story did. Not only did TLJ defy TFA. It also defied the prequels and the original trilogy. Purposefully. Dude, when the actor who has played Luke tells you "that's not Luke," you should listen to them. And to top it all off, they killed Luke in post production without him even knowing? Are you actually kidding me right now?
Drop dead.
All of this is to say that this movie also suffered from problems that had it "not" been a Star Wars film, would have made it an even bigger failure. Those failures include convenient plot devices, unnecessary characters who do nothing to further the plot, poor or no character development, changing established rules to fit the plot, etc. The Poe/Holdo situation is a great example of this, but I am not going to spend thirty to forty minutes writing this review, because the film is not worth it.
But you are, which is why I have continued this far.
All of the performances in this movie are "spot on." From Finn to Rose to Rey to Luke, I loved them all. But unfortunately, being a good actor doesn't make up for mischaracterization. If someone writes against the character you play, that means you still have to act in their version. You can't just walk off the set and say, "Finn wouldn't do that." Part of me wishes they could, because it would have meant a better Star Wars VIII.
It would be a very bad idea to have Rian Johnson signed on for the next trilogy. His callous disregard for fan expectations is an affront to the fan base. If anyone from Disney reads this, please understand that this particular decision will cause irreparable damage if it is set in stone. Do not let that happen.
And finally, because this is titled "An Honest Review," know that the reason I am giving one star instead of four is to send a message that I - and my family - will not support this movie or future installments made in the same light. We will settle for nothing less than scrubbing it from canon or fixing it via story-telling (all a dream; future-sight; or similar explanation).
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8/10
The Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home of Star Wars. Humor returns!
The worst sin of Lucas's prequels was that they couldn't make a grown-up laugh. The Last Jedi finally rectifies that. At last, we have characters who dare not to take everything so seriously all the time and who have some wits. We also have unpredictability, the hardest thing to produce in the ninth iteration of a series. Yes, it's still a recycled plot line from Empire Strikes Back, but it's much more creative than that. Rian Johnson takes a lot of risks here, and I'm glad he did. I almost thought I was getting too old to be a Star Wars fan. Now I can relax and enjoy myself again.
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9/10
The Last Jedi is an awesome space opera as epic as the original trilogy!
The Force Awakens brought audiences back to Star Wars and what they love. Rogue One put the 'War' back into Star Wars. The Last Jedi brings back the mythic elements and the epic cosmic scale of the long running space opera franchise.
The First Order is winning and the Resistance forces are on the run from the increasingly (and absurdly) gigantic doomsday weapons hot on their trail. Rey, Finn, and Poe all come to their own conclusions to how the war can be won. Rey ventures to bring Luke Skywalker back into the fight; Finn goes on a solo spy mission, and Poe well, he just wants to blow things up. They have to contend with cautious military commanders, the evil machinations of Supreme Leader Snoke, and the vengeful near mad Sith apprentice Kylo Ren.
Compared with J.J. Abrams' direction in the entertaining TFA and even the somber Rogue One, The Last Jedi is the first Star Wars film that feels genuinely cinematic in scale thanks to director Rian Johnson. There are action scenes and scenic shots that are so vast that they are only suitable for a theater projection. One moment in particular is the most jaw dropping shot since the destruction of the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. The tone and style of the movie does take itself pretty seriously. But at the same time, it's perhaps the funniest and offbeat Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi. Rian Johnson is also not one to shy away from surprise plot twists and new directions for certain characters. That is probably the most refreshing thing about 'The Last Jedi'.
The cast is excellent all around. Mark Hamill hasn't had material like this since RotJ and delivers a strong dramatic performance. In her final screen role, Carrie Fisher is a commanding yet almost maternal figure as Leia Organa. Out of the newcomers, actors like John Boyega and Oscar Isaac are fine but once again, it is both Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley that do amazing jobs as Kylo Ren and Rey.
'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' once more proves that Disney knows what they're doing with the franchise and more importantly, shows they're willing to take risks for the better.
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What a horribly written film. Disney should remove it from canon and remake it. But they won't or listen to fans. The way these Hollywood execs are today. All about their egos and not about the fans who make them the money.
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The Last Jedi takes place a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, and in an alternate reality. The main problem with the movie is the story line developed for Luke. In "The Force Awakens" it seemed out of place that Luke would simply leave everything and everyone behind. Still I thought that could be resolved in this movie. However after seeing Luke toss his old lightsaber aside then it became increasingly obvious he really didn't want to be found, but why?
Simply sensing darkness in his nephew Ben Solo would not have been enough to give him the impulse to ignite his lightsaber with the intent to kill. By that time being a seasoned Jedi Master, he would only have done that after something major like Ben killing the other students. Luke believed in the goodness that remained in his father that had committed far greater atrocities. Why wouldn't he believe he could save his nephew, or at least combat the new threat? While some Jedi can turn, dark characters can pop up from anywhere and the good guys are needed to stop them.
Even putting aside expectations on Luke, the second flaw in the movie is killing the main villain Snoke so early and easily. There was no explanation of where he came from and mainly how he turned Ben. Now Kylo is the main villain. However he was already defeated in the first movie by a self-trained Jedi, Rey.
That's another disappointing aspect of the movie. Luke hardly gave Rey any training. The movie wasted time on the pointless casino scene when it could it could have devoted that time showing more training between Luke and Rey or even Snoke and Ben. Instead the movie introduced two forgettable characters. Still somehow Rey was able to learn more and apparently became better than Luke. I guess the movie's message is that mentors aren't needed which completely breaks away from the spirit of Star Wars.
The last scene was good. I half expected Luke to show up in his x-wing to save the day but of course he couldn't. Instead he pulled of the greatest Jedi mind trick of all time and projected himself across a galaxy. With this illusion he was able to help the last of the resistance and sacrificed himself in the process. That was actually very Jedi-like.
Maybe the third movie can resolve some of these disappointments but it would be difficult.
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Rian is a funny guy. He troll'd all of us with the Last Jedi. It's hard to fully like or dislike this film. There's some good stuff like: interesting relationship between Rey and Ben S(w)olo, all scenes including Luke Skywalker and of course Poe Dameron. On the other hand Mr. Johnson gave us a really big "GO F%$K YOURSELVES!" with things like: giving screen time to characters that no one cares about (Rose, Holdo), wasting Finn, DJ (the hackerman, yea they cast Del Toro for this trash role), choosing not to develop anyone (except Kylo) from "the bad guys" side (i didn't like Phasma or Snoke very much but C'MON what was the point of their being in the franchise if they ended up like that?) .
We've got two movies in fact. The predictibale, boring one with rebels fighting Imperi... sorry, I mean FIRST ORDER. Also sub-plot of two love birds at the casino trying to find something to do and almost every "we can be as funny as MCU" scene (i don't know for sure but i should put here this specific part where Leia turns out to be Superman) .
The second movie is the one with Rey learning things and training, Luke being grumpy and/or awesome while using new force tricks and Kylo developing some personality. Also we can add here moments with exchange of views between Leia and Poe, which weren't that bad . Although entire movie was long, it didn't feel like it. Maybe action was going a little bit too fast at some points.
I definitely going to rewatch Episode VII at least 2 times and place it somewhere next to the Revenge of the Sith, Return of the Jedi and Rogue One. Just like the Age of Ultron (i'm purposely comparing this to other Disney film) it was a disappointment at some parts; it has elements that were good enough to keep viewers entertained but as a whole it could've been done much better.
One can say that Rian was only inspired by Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and stories from Legends however he was still keeping the old stuff just so we want to "buy" his movie and in the end not much of original content get through to be remembered in this mess.
Well, to be fair, at least this one is better than Farce Engorges (on the other hand that's not a big achievement).
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Few would question the notion that 'Star Wars' is the greatest story ever told in cinematic history. Even through the dark days of the prequel trilogy, fans still kept the faith, waiting for the continuation of the galaxy far, far away created by George Lucas.
in 2015's 'The Force Awakens,' J.J. Abrams more or less did the franchise justice, as familiar faces crossed paths with the "new generation" of torchbearers in what was an engaging plot. Despite some minor issues and plot holes here and there, fans were generally receptive to the film, and its box office performance is the best evidence of this. In setting aside the (far superior) film that is 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,' the saga continues in Rian Johnson's 'The Last Jedi,' which hit theaters in December 2017.
If one thing is clear, it's the fact that 'Jedi' is much closer to 'Episode II: Attack of the Clones' than it is the masterpiece that is 'The Empire Strikes Back' when it comes to middle installments in the trilogies. A culprit that many are pointing to is Disney, which, for better or worse, has entrenched its influence following its acquisition of Lucasfilm. To say 'Jedi' has been "Disneyfied" is pretty much spot-on, as it's clear the studio is trying to appeal to an important demographic - kids and teens. While 'Star Wars' has become a multi-generational part of our culture, it's difficult to cater to multiple audiences and satisfy everyone.
To be sure, there are a lot of things to like about 'Jedi.' From the larger focus on Carrie Fisher's General Organa and Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker to the special effects that are consistent with what's to be expected in the franchise, it definitely feels like the film belongs in the 'Star Wars' universe. We are also reunited with the likes of Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac) and the new "it droid" (sorry, R2) BB-8. And John Williams' Despite a lot of elements that would normally make for a solid film, 'Jedi' suffers on multiple fronts.
While dialogue has always been the weakest link in 'Star Wars' movies, it's downright painful here. It's not just "plain bad," like it usually is - it's been exchanged for one-liners that are not funny and cheapen scenes in a way that make them feel like they're written for kids. 'Star Wars' isn't supposed to be a comedy, but the screenwriters didn't seem to get the memo. There are also plenty of inconsistencies with other aspects of the 'Star Wars' universe - not that the average fan would pick up on these, but still bothersome to those who know the saga well.
Additionally, Adam Driver has continued to underwhelm as Kylo Ren (aka new Darth Vader). The villain is not intimidating and comes off awkwardly in the majority of the scenes he's in. Lightsabers are also used in a very flippant way, and it seems as tho characters are squeezed into parts of the film that they shouldn't be - just for the sake of them appearing onscreen. There is also a point in the film that feels like a natural place to conclude the story - or at least leave it as a cliffhanger - but instead, things drag on for longer than they should.
It's not the worst in the bunch, but 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' is certainly one of the weakest installments in the franchise. Hopefully the quality of this film is not a harbinger of how things will conclude in Episode IX.
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Firstly this movie wasn't the best Star wars movie ever. However I don't think has earned all the derision that it has received from a lot the "Hard core fans".
It is worth a watch in my opinion and is far better than the Force awakes.
Watch without any precomption and see what you think.
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This movie from start to end makes no sense & it literally destroys everything built up in The Force Awakens!!!
Few things that need highlighting:
This movie has adverts:
Porg ads throughout the entire movie (they play no relevance to the story).
PETA ad that can only be described as: 'Never eat Porgs'
Horror scene in this movie:
Luke Skywalker milking a cow alien thing!!!
Marry Poppins/Superman scene in this movie:
Princess Leia flying in space navigating her way back into her ship only to knock on the door!!!
One positive is that Disney acknowledged we spend money to go watch these movies and therefore have added more value by giving us the longest Star Wars movie. They accomplish this by adding a side quest mission for Finn and Rose that plays no relevance to the main story!!!!!!
Seriously now, a positive:
Brienne Tarth is alive!! Only to die again :(
#MarySue beats Luke Skywalker............WITH NO TRAINING!!!
I give up...
I feel a great disturbance in the Force...
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2/10
No understanding of how space works in a space movie.
I think I've just got it. The big First Order's craft trying to take down the Resistance ship is Disney trying to terminate Star Wars, that seems to be running out of fuel. After trying a lot of non-sense and clumsy stuff, it finally gets it, but some pieces of the franchise survive, so that competent film makers may do something good with it in the future.
This movie is good for improving your self-esteem. I'm now convinced I can write movie scripts.
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First of all, I really tried my best to give this movie a chance.
I usually tend to react a bit too hard when it comes to logical flaws in movies, so I tried to ignore turbolaser projectiles with ballistic arcs in space or the fact that an entire fleet of first order ships has NOT A SINGLE SHIP that is faster than escaping random rebel ships. Oh and the rebel ships also withstand hours of bombardment, because according to the movie, turbolaser fire in space looses power over distance.
Also its not possible for a few ships of the first order fleet to make a short hyperspace jump to intercept the escaping resistance ships.
Aaaanyway, I can ignore all that. But as most people already said, none of the main characters is interesting or has a deep story. The first order doesnt really feel like a threat, more like a bunch of pirates without a command structure that somehow managed to steal a few ships.
This empty story is filled with obvious merchandise-focussed decisions, like cute little birds that will sell good in the stores but have no story impact whatsoever.
The whole movie felt like a bad Marvel movie, not like StarWars.
Disney should be ashamed to replace thousands of stories people wrote, a whole universe created by fans for fans, with this empty and sad movie.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi represents everything wrong with cinema today. Big budget films that have boatloads of CGI and are selling out the series and genre. IF you love Star Wars, you'll hate it, If you love diversified casts for the sake of diversity, bad acting (Most of the actors look depressed and/or tired) And your childhood memories being beaten and burned, you'll still hate it, because the movie has a million other flaws that can be explained in better reviews.
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For me it was one of the best Star Wars movies ever.
Showing new concepts and ideas for the Star Wars lore, some that were never shown it the canon lore. Revealing more about the political situation within the galaxy and the human relationships within the resistance, which I'm sure were similar in the rebel days.
After the movie, opposite to what most say, I held Luke in much greater respect, as a Jedi, than I did after the original trilogy. I always thought that he was a great Jedi, now I see him as a legend.
There were some things that I wanted more from the movie, and one thing that I thought was ridiculous. But ultimately, it didn't affect my enjoyment of the movie. In so many moments I was amazed with goosebumps about some unexpected turn of events, that I personally didn't expect but thought were fitting and just amazing.
A movie that I'm going to rewatch as soon as I can. I definitely recommend it to any Star Wars fan and I encourage to keep an open mind to new ideas and don't be prejudice.
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7/10
Dark and Daring, The Last Jedi is a Busy, Unpredictable Step Forward for the Franchise
Luke Skywalker takes center stage, returning to the screen (and the rebellion) after what seems like a lengthy hibernation in his family saga's long-awaited eighth episode. Of course, it's a creative wonderland, as all Star Wars movies are. Loaded with brilliant new settings, refreshing spins on old ones, wild unseen alien races and explosive action scenes, it retains its roots in an artistic sense. One particular scene, a lightsaber melee in Snoke's deep crimson throne room, sticks with me as one of the best-directed fights in the series. But there's much more to this picture than mere aesthetics. The Last Jedi constantly defies expectation, seemingly delighting in the chance to throw passionate fans off the scent. From character actions to fake-out non-revelations to the plot's relatively small scale, none of it is quite what I expected. More than once, I caught myself holding my breath, ready to be let down by a decision that seemed inevitable, and each time the film bucked me in a direction I hadn't considered. Sometimes that works to its benefit and sometimes it doesn't. It's a slower, more contemplative take on the franchise, particularly in the first act, which leads to a longer running time (longest of the entire series) without feeling too strung out or overly indulgent. Unlike The Force Awakens, Episode VIII uses its front-and-center returning cast to enrich and enhance the newer faces. Where Han Solo thoroughly dominated the screen, Luke and Leia use two very different methods to help Rey and Poe grow into heroes worthy of taking the spotlight. That's of crucial importance, and that it's missing from Finn's stalled character arc is a problem. Kylo Ren sees significant growth, too, successfully navigating a very delicate balancing act as his interactions with Rey, his light-side counterpart, gradually unfold. Not every gamble pays off, and it's hardly a film without faults, but I appreciate how often it was able to surprise me and its ability to wrangle so many threads together into a cohesive narrative. My first impressions have it a hair above the preceding episode, and on equal footing with Return of the Jedi.
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4/10
Real Title "Star Wars The Abandoned Skywalker Legacy"
This movie is like your new girlfriend who is trying really hard to look like your ex-girlfriend only you don't know what her motivation behind that is.
This isn't a continuation of the Skywalkers or the Star Wars we all know this is something else using old characters to launch a new story with no direction and a zillion different plots..
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8/10
Not as awful as some may think - kind of refreshing and imaginative
So, I saw a pretty heated shitstorm on this movie and actually, I don't quite get it.
WHAT'S NOT GOOD:
partially poor execution: Some scenes are ranging from strange to ridiculous, e.g. Leia discovering her force abilities literally "last minute" or the uninspired and lengthy space chase... Or the Finn love story, that just came out of nowhere??
inconsistent pace: Some aspects have been covered in tedious length (e.g. how "broken" Luke is), while other scenes are very rushed (almost no discussion whatsoever about Rey confronting Snoke)
missing background information: Snoke is being killed off, but we do not experience, where he came from, how he rose to power, etc.
WHAT'S GOOD:
the overall plot: This one is a truly imaginative and original one. It is not copied from other episodes
character development: We really see how characters face their inner demons (Rey, Luke, Kylo Ren), we see their motivations, their own perspective of reality. Consequently, the borders between light and dark side begin to blur, and we can even feel with Kylo Ren and see his inner conflict. This level has not been reached so far in Star Wars and brings something new to the table!
OVERALL EVALUATION:
To sum it up, I'd say that it is a highly interesting star wars story, that is in parts very well executed (acting, character development), in other parts flawed in many ways (pace, plot errors). Overall, I would still see the merits of this approach and would recommend it. I think it ranges higher than "The Force Awakens" and brings some new interesting aspects to the Star Wars saga. Perhaps not the best Star Wars movie (personally I'd rate episodes III-VI higher), but definitely a (very) good one.
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1/10
I'll never ever go and see another 'Star Walt' movie again.
Let me preface this review by saying that while I am a fan of Star Wars, I am not an apologist for any of the failings of any of the films. I recognize that they all have faults, and I've been careful to examine this one through the same lens as all the others.
That said, this is the worst Star Wars movie ever made, even worse than The Phantom Menace. A bold claim, I know, but I have my reasons.
Firstly, I defer to the axiom "Character is king." A central character in any work of fiction needs to have an arc. They need at least one flaw to be overcome by the end of the work. They need a psychological basis for their actions. They need to grow.
This is where the main character of the new trilogy, Rey, falls desperately short. If you've ever heard the term "Mary Sue" before, you might know what I mean when I say Rey is the poster child for the term. She has no faults. Her choices have no consequences. She does not learn and does not grow in any meaningful way because she's already perfect, as far as the narrative is concerned.
On the other hand, the established character of Luke Skywalker is taken in a direction that seems wildly incompatible with the actions of the character in the previous movies. The problem is severe enough that Mark Hamill has publicly stated that he's unhappy with the way his character was portrayed, even going so far as to say it was "not my Luke Skywalker." The reason for this betrayal of the character and fans of his adventures, in hindsight, is fairly obvious. Since Rey is not permitted to have any flaws, because that's apparently what being a strong female character means (as evidenced by all the other strong female characters in the movie who can do no wrong) the onus had to be placed upon Luke to experience a journey of personal growth, even if the nature of his journey made no sense.
The other new stars in the current trilogy, Finn and Poe, are given forced conflicts of their own which don't make them look good at all, and both of them have to be saved from themselves by - you guessed it - "strong female characters" with no faults who never make mistakes.
Then there's perhaps the most egregious of all the characterization blunders: Kylo Ren. I don't want to put a spoiler tag on this review, so I can't go into specifics, but let's just say everything that made him an interesting, conflicted, unpredictable character has been erased by the time the credits roll. He's been shoved into a box from which no exit should be possible.
Aside from the characterization issues, the plot is downright boring for much of its length, consisting of an extended chase with no tension, a nonsensical and unnecessary subplot that only exists to give Finn something to do, the character assassination of Luke Skywalker, and a few genuinely interesting bits which deliver a false promise of redefining the relationship between Rey and Kylo.
When the film transitions into its final act, the action starts to pick up, but at that point, there's nothing left for the movie to do but show off some eye candy (which is often spectacular) and infuriate the fans a final time or two.
At the end of the day, though, a bad movie can be somewhat overlooked in the course of a franchise if it leads to something good. After all, Attack of the Clones may not have been a very good movie, but it laid many of the pieces needed for Revenge of the Sith to be one of the better entries in the franchise.
The Last Jedi, however, does no such thing. In fact, it slams the door shut on most of the possibilities for future intrigue. Characters and subplots are unceremoniously discarded. Mysteries than fans have been speculating about for two years are cast aside with no payoff. The situation at the end of the film is as uncomplicated and uninteresting as it could possibly be. In many ways, it feels like the narrative is back at square one, and all we can look forward to is seeing familiar conflicts from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi play themselves out again.
Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy have destroyed my interest in a franchise I've loved since childhood. I pity J.J. Abrams, who must now face the daunting task of picking up the pieces and trying to craft a worthwhile story from the scraps they left him to work with. I pity George Lucas, who must watch, powerless, as the franchise which defined his career is taken in directions he would never approve. But most of all, I pity the fans who, like myself, are confronting the reality that a series we loved is no longer being made for us to enjoy.
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1/10
Disgrace to Star Wars and a terrible movie on its own without the Star Wars name
When we walked out of the theater me and my friends were completely stunned.
What the hell did we just see? did they give any thought on making the script? I'll just say this,
It's a "Star Wars" spin-off comedy film in disguise as SJW "Female Stronk make all males look stupid" diversity feminazi agenda with forced cute animals like porgs to sell toys to kids with alot of plot holes and an hour long subplot with Finn & Rose(Worst character in SW) that has no point, Rey is still a Mary Sue, Luke Skywalker, one of the most important characters in the whole lore is completely ruined and thrashed. The Force mythos is completely ruined no training is needed to be a Jedi apparently. This movie is a terrible terrible film. I have alot more to say but the other reviews explain it better than i ever will.
Star Wars is truly dead.
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How to kill a bellowed franchise in 1 movie ? Ask the director of this movie!
I'm just sad, all the potential was wasted on this turd of a movie with dropped plot threads, no character development, forced humor, pointless characters, pushing SJW agenda and greed! The plot makes no sense, the dialogue is awful, most jokes don't land, and large chunks of the movie can be cut out as story lines make make little sense.
Worse of all they killed Luke's character and disrespected the legacy!
#NotMyLuke #Greedwors
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1/10
Worst Star Wars Movie EVER .... Worst Movie of 2017!!!!!!!!!
Wow where do I even start?!? Glad to see other people who feel the same about this movie being such a big let down on so many levels!! I would give this movie a MINUS 1 or more - doesn't deserve even one star!! LOL
Horrible Acting, poor transitions, plot holes all over the place, weak character development - oh wait there wasn't really any!! The humor was just dumb, Laura Dern was flat with her acting and Rey is like a Emo 15 year old who can't get his way!! The lead up took an hour till it got somewhat better but then lets you down big time! Please, please don't waste your time or money on this horrible, waste of a movie that should of never been created!! I feel like it ruins what "Star Wars" really is and has let down alot of fans.
I would rather watch Thor Ragnarok which is actually funny, has way better action but also character development! You can actually get behind the characters or even Logan, way better!!
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What has made the franchise unique was the story about the characters. It used special effects to tell a story. We saw luke grow from boy to man to Jedi. We saw Leia go from princess to warior to leader. We saw Han grow from selfish rouge, to selfless lover. There even is loads of character development in the prequels as well. What Star Wars fans wanted from this movie was some growth. No one grows in this movie but Ren and Ray, and those only marginally. Zero Fin, Poe, or Leia, development. I hear you saying "But wait Fin went from running away to self sacrificing hero" right? If I said "Fin runs away almost dies fighting Ren in a selfless act and then is saved by a girl who he may or may not be in love with" what movie am I referring to? Zero character development. The Ray scenes are the saving grace of the movie. Just about every scene she is in, is awesome. Just about every scene she is not in, is awful. Her character has changed a little over the course of two movies, from "scared to leave girl" to "force welding badass" with no effort at all. I get it, if you train her it looks too much like Ep V, arguably the best movie ever made, so you don't train her, and just let her become a badass via magic. Ren did change from follower to leader, which was something. Poorly done, but something.
What you are left with is a modern movie full of awesome special effects, cheesy one liners and plenty of things blowing up. It fits right in with Pirates of the Caribbean, Mummy, Transformers and Guardians. Poe is Star Lord light. So I judge it against that lot of films, and against those it is a little above average. I love to see a superhero die. And Disney loves this director and signed him up develop the new trilogy. Great, now I know what to expect. Might I suggest Michael Bay to direct the next one? I mean if you are going to give up and make a SFX movie, then do it right!
The old ways are dead. Stories are dead. Becoming a Jedi is easy. Ruling the First Order is easy.
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7/10
The end of an era?! A new begining or passing of the torch?
I see all of the "Star Wars" movies even though I think that the franchise is getting overblown and to expanded as the originals from the 70's and 80's had more tradition and the characters seemed more original. As now the saga seems ever changing and with more leaving and only a few of the old heads remain!(Note my favorite is the wookie a bigfoot spin off as the mighty "Chewbacca" is still in the "Star Wars" universe!).
Really the latest entry "The Last Jedi" is just a look into the growth of Rey(Daisy Ridley)as she's has developed into a Jedi with the help from old legend Luke Skywalker(Mark Hamill) with conflict and drama that involves the evil Kylo Ren(Adam Driver) and along to see the on going battle of the first order and the resistance is Princess Leia(in the late Carrie Fisher's last role).
Overall this just didn't hold my interest still it's a "Star Wars" story that continues the battles of the galaxy with old and new era characters as the need for new Jedi's are always needed to fight space evil.
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Never has a sequel to The Force Awakens been more eagerly anticipated as this one, if only for the answers to some questions.
Last Jedi opens with the familiar 'what has happened so far' and straight into a space battle: this time, between the growing totalitarian First Order, who are trying to re-establish the Empire in the galaxy once again, and the Rebellion who are trying their damn best to stop it happening. Loads of action in the first 20 minutes with General Leia pitting her wits against the orders of Supreme Leader Snoke. Some humour too as Oscar Isaac's ace pilot teases General Hux.
Very little seems to have moved on in this saga. Rey has gone in search of Luke Skywalker, now playing Jedi hermit to try and persuade him to come back and help the Rebellion, which he refuses to do. She also wants him to give her some answers (the usual ones - who are her parents and why is she strong with the Force and what should she do about it) and maybe train her in the ways of the Force. Although Skywalker does reluctantly show Rey something of the Force, he doesn't decide to train her, despite her being v strong with it.
In the background, Finn finally wakes up from his coma. He also realises that the Rebellion are in more trouble than ever and tries to get away from that and find Rey to warn her, but instead gets roped into some crazy scheme to get onboard a First Order cruiser and disable something to help the Rebellion escape.
It is at this point that the story does the same as Empire did and splits off into different sections. We have Rey and Skywalker, General Leia and Poe and Finn and friend on a mission. In the midst of all of this, is Rey's link with Kylo Ren which is exploited or created by Snoke and Ren's overwhelming desire for revenge. There are one or two familiar moments. Ren's wearing of a helmet and his occasional bouts of temper, Finn's ability to throw a spanner in the works in almost every moment and Rey, who seems to be getting more comfortable with her abilities as she goes on, bar a few odd moments.
The big stand-out in this movie is Mark Hamill, reprising his role as Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion and wannabe Jedi Master who has gone into exile on a remote island being looked after by strange 'keepers' and admitting defeat after trying to train Ben Solo/Kylo Ren to become a Jedi. Fearful of having created a monster, he has become disillusioned and refuses to either get involved with the Rebellion anymore or train Rey. It is also about General Leia who maintains a quiet dignity throughout the film as the movie leaves more questions than answers.
I enjoyed it. There is more than enough action and flashes and bangs going on to satisfy the most ardent fan and more than enough faux mysticism for the Jedi wannabes out there.
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Before you see this movie, you must ask yourself: "Why do you love Star Wars?"
If you, like me, love Star Wars for the interesting characters, original story, compelling plot, the deep lore, the elements of mythology, spiritualism and politics and the inventive visuals, creatures and technology, then you should probably skip this movie. In fact, it is probably better to just skip all Disney Star Wars movies altogether.
If you love Star Wars because you want to be part of the popular culture that surrounds this IP, and you generally just want to see pretty visuals and explosions, even to the detriment of the plot or character development, this movie may be better suited for you.
I won't say I'm disappointed in this movie, because to be disappointed means I would have to have had any expectations for this movie to be any good. But after seeing how mind-numbingly bad TFA was, I didn't have high hopes for TLJ.
2 stars. 1 for the pretty visuals, 1 for poor Mark Hamill having to witness what they did to his character.
Don't watch this if you care about the art of storytelling.
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6/10
Deus ex machina overuse and a bad script made even more painful by good acting and a lot of wasted potential
What I found incredibly professional was how serious and well everybody acted in what was clearly a joke of a story, yet instead of phoning it in, every actor did great. Like any force user turned towards the dark side, I felt conflicted, sitting there in the theater, admiring the technical work of CGI artists, actors, set designers and so on, while being taken for a complete retarded idiot by whoever wrote the story. Scene after bad scene, the heroes are stuck in impossible situations, only to get out again and again by means of tricks that make no sense with heroic music on the background. Either an all present, invisible and intelligent robot or a cute yet proud animal or some technology that could have been used three scenes ago with devastating results but for some reason no one thought of it, but at every step something that is no merit of the characters involved had to save them in order to further the stupid plot.
And what hurt even more is that in this jumbled mess of childish storytelling, there was a beacon of light, a moment that could have turned the whole franchise towards a better side, one that was neither good nor bad, neither white nor black, but something new, a fresh idea that could have made Star Wars into a greater work and taken full advantage of the talent already employed. In this scene that I don't want to spoil, if every character in it were acting as they were built for several movies and a half, it would have revolutionized Star Wars and made me forgive all the sins of this film. But no, they went completely out of character and it just went downward from there, with a final act that was even more deus ex machinas, saving animals, mysterious blind spots for the enemies that acted like frustrated four year old children, the high contrast good vs evil crap and a return to a tired and really bad canon.
I swear, all it lacked to be a complete travesty were a flock of eagles coming out from nowhere and saving the stranded heroes. Like the bland black and white story the film portrays, it is also made of starkly bad versus good elements, but I am afraid in the end it leans heavily towards the dark side.
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I loved the Force Awakens and thought it was the best new Star Wars Film in ages, so this has nothing to do with not wanting to see an updated, new take on the franchise. But this film was garbage. It was corny and painstakingly tried to insert its politically-correct agenda into the film, which came at the detriment of quality and coherence.
It addressed none of the questions I had (for example, the origin of Snoke, who, without an explanation, is an absolutely meaningless character) and it was often so cringe at times, I had to laugh or look away. This film was made for a new generation who have zero attachment to the old films and its target audience was 12-16 year olds. It's not a serious film and I'm going to pretend it never happened. Probably the last Star Wars film i'll ever see. Sad
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When I get upset, I fart a lot. Throughout the entire film, I was passing wind. The person next to me got up and left. It was my fiance. That was last Saturday and I've yet to hear from her.
This movie is just downright horrible. Rogue One was based off of a pre-determined Star Wars story and it was fantastic. This film says two major things: 1. Antagonists don't need to be awesome and 2. Purple haired-women have enough gall to hyperspace slice (aka hyperslice) imperial battleships.
In summation, do not watch this crap.
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Where to begin with how horrendous this film is? When I heard George Lucas signed over Star Wars to Disney, I instantly sensed a disturbance in the force. It turns out I have keen senses because the first 2 installments in this trilogy are just all around poor; poor writing, poor acting, poor continuity, poor casting, little to no suspense, and very poor directing.
This film took what little elements of interest The Farce Awakens had to offer and threw them out. This in no way makes the trilogy as a whole more suspenseful or interesting, it just makes it that much more unbearably boring and stupid. The original trilogy and even the prequels were successful because it had interesting characters with equally interesting backgrounds. None of these new characters are interesting or cool. They are boring cookie cutter characters with a leftist political agenda pushing them along. Newsflash Disney! The majority do not care about or want that in any new Star Wars films, so stop doing it.
I think what could make these new films better would be to scrap the current cast, these people totally suck. Also fire the writers and directors. Disney has created a mess but they can help fix it by selling the rights of Star Wars to someone else or back to George Lucas. These new characters are all a sad joke to the true fans. I'd rate this film a negative score if I could.
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Although it has an overused Disney feel and an overwhelmingly familiar plot Rian Johnson still managed to put together an okay movie that can wow even the most analytical audience.
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10/10
when you think it couldn't get any better and they actually did
Amazing, how some of the actors who we first saw in the previous episode have grown into their caracter. Fantastic, even Mark Hamilton did better I think than in the first 3 in which he played! "Finn" finally gotshape from some coward to a real hero now, and Adam Driver finally has become the vilan you expect hi to be. A critical fan of Disney (Not everything that Disney touches become magic, like the awful thing they did with Coco where the original is 1000x better) I think they let the director and producer go their own way which lead to a fantastic result. I found myself a few times sitting at the edge of my chair, and the only thing I could say at the end was "wow". And believe me, with 55 I don't say that easily anymore about a movie. There is much to say about special effects, costume design, small and big roles, exiting moments and the one and only shot which I thought they could have left out. But my conclusion, (for the first time in the history of the Star Wars saga!) is, bring onthe Oscars. they deserve it!
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1/10
Lets ruin your childhood in 2h and 30 min... mission completed!
In short its a comedy movie for kids rated for 0-12 yrs old... Have fun u got here plenty of explosions, some ppl with swords that hed leds in it... and dont get bother who is ho here...
O boy o boy.... lets me cry.....
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1/10
A demonstration of bad writing, incompetent directing and awful movie making
You can certainly enjoy this movie, nothing wrong about that. If you don't care about everything Star Wars was about, don't care about plot, character development, believeability and are not interested in how a good movie may work.
The list of awful decisions they did with this movie is amazing. Tons of plot holes and a complete mislead humor on their own destroy any story. The main plot is stupid, i'd rather watch the original Battlestar Galactica, which had more tension than this 2 hours slowmotion space-chase. Commander Adama, please help!
The poliltical agenda in this movie is just too obvious and awfully injected. This leads to the complete opposite of what Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy may wanted to include. George Lucas always included some politics in his movies, especially in the prequels, which are far from great, but in these this was done far better as in The Last Jedi.
There are so many scenes, that are a complete waste as well as characters. There are "surprises", which are just included for the sake of "making things different". The humor was out of place most of the time and felt like borrowed out of the Marvel Universe. In fact this is a streamlined mess. An obvious mix of Ep5 and Ep6 and left me empty and hollow, as the movie was itself.
Here's the thing with the score. On general standards this movie needs to have at least three to four stars, the CGI was good, Mark Hamill was great and you have a 2.5 hour popcorn movie, which is not as boring as Transformers, at least. But due to the total insult this movie represents it only deserves one star if not zero.
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9/10
Ask not what Jedi will be last, there is always another hope; wonderful film!
Rey (Daisy Ridley) has found Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in a faraway island planet and she asks for his help. As most viewers know, the universe is in jeopardy again, for after the Rebels got rid of the Empire, the new First Order arose thirty years later. As the supposed "Last Jedi", Luke is needed to fight Supreme Ruler Snoke (Andy Serkis) and his nefarious sidekick, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). But, alas, Luke has not been in hiding for no reason. He blames himself for Kylo Ren's transformation from his nephew, Ben Solo, into the evil henchman. Nothing doing he tells Rey. Meanwhile, the remaining Rebels, commanded by Princess-General Leia (Carrie Fisher) are being pursued again by Snoke and have very few options. There remains a main ship of "good guys and gals" with some lesser transports and Tie-fighters. Very brave, they leap into lightspeed, only to find the First Order has somehow tracked them. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and new gal Rose seek out Maz (Lupita N'Gongo) for a code breaker to help them find the Order's weaknesses. Meanwhile, Kylo Ren and Rey have disturbing long-distance talks, for they alone can see each other through time and space. Naturally, KR wants Rey to turn to his dark side and she wants the opposite. Snoke, meanwhile, is unhappy, at times, when Kylo Ren and General Hux (Domnhall Gleason) fail in their quest to wipe out the Rebellion. Can Rey and her companion Chewie persuade Luke to help them with his powers? Can Kylo Ren be turned back to the "light" or does he have other tricks up his sleeve? This amazing film is beautiful, exciting and full of fine performances, including Fisher's last. The script and direction are top flight, although a sharper edit would have prevented some slower spots. Nevertheless, to miss this masterfully made movie would be a crime of the first order.
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Let me establish my Star Wars cred first. I'm 56, I saw A New Hope when it came out in theaters when I was in high school and it was just known as Star Wars. I loved it so much I saw it another dozen times that year, back in the day when you had to actually pay to go back to the theater to see it again (I also had to carry my lunch to school in a pail and walk uphill both ways). This was several years before there were even VCRs. When we bought our first VCR, Star Wars was the first tape I bought. I've seen the original three movies (now episodes 4-6) dozens of times. For the record, I hated the so-called Episode 1, moderately disliked Episode 2, and grudgingly admitted that Episode 3 (Revenge of the Sith) was good.
So where were we. I honestly cannot understand why people are so upset about this movie. Maybe because I've never read a single Star Wars book so I don't know anything about how the characters were developed elsewhere than the films. Since I'm more or less the same age range as Luke and Leia, their development makes perfect sense to me. You don't get to middle age having had all triumphant plotlines. You've had your heart broken, you've had some failures, some disappointments. I've got my share of cynicism. I understand exactly how hard it is to bring yourself to hope again when you've disappointed yourself and the people around you. The way Luke was depicted in this film made perfect sense to me. And also, Mark Hamill has turned into a way better actor than he used to be.
I also don't understand why people are so upset that Kylo Ren might be unredeemable. First of all, this was only the second movie of a trilogy, so it remains to be seen what the final outcome will be. Secondly, how can you complain on the one hand that Force Awakens is just a re-hash of the old movies, and then complain in Last Jedi that something might be truly different? Maybe Kylo Ren isn't redeemable, and maybe that's a realistic plot twist that is something new and different.
And why the upset about Rey's parentage? There's the possibility that Kylo Ren was lying, but on the other hand, why does there always have to be a bloodline connection? I love that the force can be strong in someone who is a nobody (see the little boy at the end, too). And I love the ambiguity of the connection between Rey and Ben. The actors do such a great job of it. It makes the whole thing more poignant that she finally finds someone that she feels a deep, real connection with, but it turns out to be a connection she has to kill. This trilogy is really Rey's, and she is fabulous.
Yeah, Last Jedi is not a perfect movie. The whole Benecio del Toro subplot seemed pointless (although again, second movie of trilogy, that seemingly pointless subplot may become meaningful in the next installment). Yes, it's entirely possible that purple hair may become the new red shirt (to borrow a Star Trek tradition, sorry)--Holdo seemed to be introduced in this movie only so she could be killed off. Yeah, there was shaky physics and unnecessary marketable cute creatures, but those are long-time Star Wars traditions.
But on the other hand, this movie was in some ways the Star Wars movie I always wished they'd make. The characters are *complex* they're not just good guys and bad guys. The acknowledgement that Rey needed to learn about the dark side before she could understand herself fully, but that at some point, self-investigation becomes pointless navel gazing -- I thought that scene with the dozens of Reys was brilliant. And Finn might have a new romantic interest in Rose, leaving the possibility that Rey doesn't need a man at all at the end. Really, there's so much that can't be known until the next installment. But I loved this one, flaws and all. I saw it again last night, and liked it even better the second time, since, among other things, (minor spoiler alert) I could catch all the clues about Luke's location at the end. I'm really looking forward to the next one. Thank you Rian Johnson for a terrific installment.
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Finally, I managed to watch one of my most anticipated movies of 2017! I am an authentic fanboy of the Star Wars saga and I loved its return two years ago when The Force Awakens was released. Everything looked better, sounded better and the story certainly didn't disappoint me. So, obviously, I was extremely looking forward to The Last Jedi.
Apparently, critics love Episode VIII but fans not so much. Me, well ... I don't LOVE it, but I do enjoy it very much. I do think it is a bit below the previous film's overall quality since it definitely has some issues the first one did not. I am also confident that I know why the fans are not loving this movie and I will explain that after a few paragraphs.
This time, I am going to start at the other side of the spectrum. I will begin my review with the film's problems because I do need to get them out of my mind, especially this one ... The subplot involving Finn (John Boyega), Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and DJ (Benicio Del Toro), some of the few new characters added to the franchise, completely ruins the movie's pacing and its narrative is such a tremendous deviation from the main story. It is, by far, the worst issue I have with the screenplay because it does not work as one single problem ... It creates a whole other set of them.
The first act's pacing is really fast since it starts with tons of action sequences. However, the second act decreases the rhythm and it is more story-driven, full of mystery-unlocking and character-development scenes. Finn and Rose's nonsense adventure just turns everything slower and even strange. It ends up needlessly extending the runtime (the film could have easily been 15min shorter) and worse ... Possibly creating a love triangle with Rey (I am not even going to discuss this).
Apart from this major issue(s), I have some minor problems. General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) is a strong candidate to become the most annoying character in this new-generation trilogy. Gleeson is fine, he actually achieves a good over-the-top performance, but his character is just tumbling off the rails. Also, on a more technical aspect, the writing does not flow as well as it did on J.J. Abrams' screenplay. There are a lot more exposition scenes which also does not help the pacing at all.
I wrote earlier about the fans' reasons for them to be disappointed and well, the marketing for the movie did not lie: they do take a lot of chances with this one. Rian Johnson delivers a lot of twists and shocks throughout the whole runtime and it is impossible to assume that every single one of them is going to be mind-blowing and unanimously accepted. I do not want to give anything away from the plot, so I am just going to write that most of the choices and paths they choose for each character, I either simply accept them or I truly love them. As for the rest, I am, at most, underwhelmed (yet, I trust and understand the decisions they went with).
People need to learn how to deal with their own expectations. If you expect something utterly absurd and nonsensical to occur and then it does not, you can't blame the film for not following your crazy idea. So, please, don't start blabbing any movie is bad or disappointing because it didn't fulfill your ridiculously high expectations. Even if they are grounded and thoughtful, you have to embrace the production's approach to the character/story. If it makes sense, then it is as valid as any other theory. It might be underwhelming if you have high expectations, but it is still a serious take on whatever you are thinking.
This is why I think fans are not loving The Last Jedi. The production takes a lot of risks and some of them don't work with everyone, mostly due to fans' radical theories that don't have a place in the film. I think most people might change their initial opinion after a second viewing, myself included. Some things just need more time to process or even a whole rewatch. Since I do not have time to do it before the year's end, I am going with what I have.
Switching to the light side (hehe), I do enjoy this movie a lot. Every cast member that was great in Episode VII, transcends themselves in this one. Daisy Ridley is superb as Rey. She has such a massive range of expressions and I am sure her successful future as an actress is surely guaranteed. From the most emotional and somber moments to the most epic action scenes, she is awesome. Her character's mysterious backstory reaches a whole new extent and her interactions with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Luke Skywalker inflict chills all over my body.
Mark Hamill's comeback can't be any more amazing than it is. He delivers a fantastic, emotion-full and very compelling performance. It is even more unbelievable knowing that Hamill had strong personal arguments against the director's interpretation of what was better for Luke. If he is this astounding working against his own idea of who his character really is, then I must praise his exemplary working principles.
Luke and Rey spend a big chunk of the runtime training on an unknown island and I love every single second filmed on that piece of land. I have to admit that I am a bit frustrated because I think the film should have more time with these two, but due to the issues mentioned in the beginning of my review, the runtime can't be much more stretched. I love what they did with Luke, even if some fans are going to go insane with his journey.
Adam Driver as Kylo Ren ... The undoubtful star of the whole show. Driver is becoming a menace to every actor working today because he is flawless. He has a powerful, dark, mysterious, compelling and commanding display as one of the most complex and multi-layered characters of the Star Wars saga. Ren's conflict inside his mind and heart is the most captivating feature of his story and his interactions with Rey are so jaw-dropping spectacular that I can't even describe them properly.
John Boyega is once again great as Finn, even though he is part of that horrible subplot. Boyega delivers a convincing performance and Finn shines through some awesome action set pieces. Kelly Marie Tran is actually good as Rose, it is just a pity that her character suffers from the narrative, even though her backstory is pretty touching. Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and the Porgs, the new cute animals implemented in the Star Wars universe, have all the funny scenes plus some action here and there.
Oscar Isaac is quite lucky because Poe Dameron unquestionably has the best subplot of the movie. Isaac offers a very passionate display as Poe goes through some significant character development. His impulsive instincts to attack the bad guys always have consequences and he is put in check by Leia (Carrie Fisher) during the whole time. It is a very interesting and twistful story that elevates the film's main plot.
Carrie Fisher is elegant and beautiful as Leia, a character that has a lot more screentime than what I expected. I always love seeing Fisher on the screen and she makes everything a bit more realistic to me. Andy Serkis is remarkable as Supreme Leader Snoke, but his character is yet another plot's detail that fans are not going to appreciate so much. I still feel underwhelmed by Snoke in this movie for several reasons, but after some thinking, I do understand his role in the film and his moments are indeed intimidating and dominant.
Rian Johnson work as the director is better than him as the writer. The visuals effects continue to be wonderful and the practical settings are beautiful, once again, there is a lot less CGI than you probably think. Excellent cinematography and the John Williams' score induces enormous levels of nostalgia and excitement. The action sequences are mind-blowing, the stunt work is phenomenal and there are tons of pure epic and awesome scenes.
The main plot includes a very dark and mysterious side to it that I thoroughly love. A lot of unexpected twists and turns make The Last Jedi more original than The Force Awakens, even if one or two plot points might be underwhelming, and it also has a very well balanced tone. Finally, a thrilling, breathtaking, action-heavy third act ends the film with magnificent glory and with many heartfelt moments.
All in all, Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi delivers something that I can be proud of experiencing. Terrific performances from the cast, but a flawlessly powerful display from Adam Driver as Kylo Ren steals the spotlight. Rian Johnson takes a lot of risks with the use of several plot twists and most of them are indeed mind-blowing, despite a few leaving me underwhelmed. The main story maintains its obscure mystery while packing some jaw-dropping, epic action sequences and excellent character-development scenes. A more exposition-heavy screenplay and some pacing issues bring the movie down, largely due to the unnecessary detour of the subplot involving Finn and Rose.
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It literally said: "It's time to let old things die".
This is a Disney's movie with Disney's movie logic.
It didn't even pretended as a continuation from old SW movies despite bearing SW name and old casts (which all eventually killed/died anyway).
Seeing a freshness but shallow thought (or lack of it), the movie writers are young I guess. You might be able to depict something more powerful, but never a wiser thought than you already are.
Like any other recent movies, they're also copying Game of Thrones style: killing some key characters prematurely. While it works in GOT, of course, lack of originality make it just another cliche, a cheap shock/sensation in this movie.
To be fair, it's actually a good action movie for someone who has yet seen or invented on previous SW movies. But never expect the same vibe, legacy or even coherency with old SW canon, it's next to nothing.
Rating: 7.5/10 if you are new generation, 3/10 if you are old SW fans.
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1/10
This movie makes me see how good the prequels are!
The prequels are wonderful, really! They have good stories, good characters, and they actually are Star Wars. The Last Jedi can be everything but Star Wars. I'm so sad and disappointed. I should have read some user reviews here before going to the movie theater, but I didn't, and now I regret so much! I gave my money to see a guy who is doesn't seem to like Star Wars as much as we do to destroy our dreams!
Luke is an idiot. Better saying, this is not Luke, but Jake Skywalker as Mark Hamill wisely said. And then he dies. Without a real reason for it!
Rey is so boring, so... And she is not a Skywalker! So, what about her? They tell us just nothing!
And... Do you think snoke is a great Sith Lord? No, he is no powerfull as you thought! And he got killed just in this movie, which is supposed to be the middle of the trilogy! And the bad guy is already dead! It looks like a joke! And speaking about jokes, all the movie is a joke. Jokes and a forced humor is the only thing the author of this trash cares about. Jokes. But I didn't laugh. I was almost crying during the movie and when I was leaving the theater with my boyfriend who was even more disappointed than me (and I thought it was not possible!).
An advice: Don't see it. Save your money for another movie. Justice League is way better! Even Murder on the Orient Express is better than this! All the professional critics praising this movie (as Disney can pay them well) are lying to us! Don't believe them!
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This was not a Star Wars movie. The name may have "Star Wars" in it but whatever it is, it is not a Star Wars movie.
Some kind of sick joke is more appropriate. It makes no sense at all and there is no cohesive flow. Things just happen because ... "script writer magic."
I was ready to go and see this twice. After seeing it once, I couldn't even recommend it to others. I'm not ever sure I would recommend someone download it for free. There are better things to do with your time than watch this movie.
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This is awful.
I know that nowadays they are stealing all the good movies to do exceptionally trash girly movies but this was shameful.
The raped everything good from the universe: the force, the jedis, Luke, Yoda, Dark side, Empire ships, physics.
They rather focused on after-movie merchandising and the worst, childish shit humor I never seen before.
And of course the ugly-evil-dementors of the universe are the meeeeen, who else. All of them like emo children fighting over toy cars in the kindergarten, no strategy, no tactics, no skills at all.
While on the other side all leaders are skilled, nice, great... women, only women. If there wee any males(consider genderfluid ones as males here), they all had to be saved by their fellow women.
I hope this franchise gonna be buried finally.
Ceterum censeo Disney esse delendam!
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10/10
How George Lucas used to say "Star Wars is poetry", and, yes, TLJ is poetry
Ok, the first time I saw the movie I left the teatre truly conflicted, I was angry, sad, mad, and many other things. It was a mix of love and angry, for all that happen. I really wasn't prepare to Luke's death (even with everyone saying that it will happen). But, after some days of reflection, I saw the movie two more times, and now I'm finally prepare to talk about it.
First things first, the opening scene is already amazing. That whole space battle, with the bombers and the x-wings in a way they reminded me the opening scene of Episode III (and I love Episode III), sure, it maybe isn't intentional, but is interesting to see that slowly the prequels are being embraced by Disney (there are also a Darth Sidious quote, and gave me goosebumps).
The little detail of Paige necklace, when the ship blows up it's also very subtle and makes a huge difference, when we see Rose for the first time, in just one frame you understand all her emotional journey in that moment.
But, inside that I think that the weakest part of the movie lives on. And that is the Canto Bight scenes, plot, and etc. Doesn't bother me much as bother some people, but ok, I get it, that the movie lost itself there at some point.
One thing that TLJ can't be judge is for not be ballsy, it was a crucial point for some people in TFA, but not here, the movie take risks all the time, sometimes it pay off, sometimes doesn't.
Poe's journey is one of this ballsy things in the movie, usually, you have in a movie one young character full of ideas, making a contrast with others "old and stubborn" characters, that don't hear the young guy, and, in the end, the big plan that the young guy does (without knowledge of the olds) saves the day, and everyone needs to apologize. But, no, they don't do that here, and to me, this is something so strong, creates a learning journey so impactful and beautiful for the character, that now on will probably learn from this mistake.
But, let's talk about what really matters right now. MY GOD! Look, the best definition for Rey/Luke/Kylo storylines is: Definitely isn't the movie that I wanted, but was the movie that I needed (and didn't know). I even don't know where to start, there are some many beautiful scenes, the Yoda cameo, was so surprising and gorgeous, I got surprised and screamed with emotion "OMG! IT'S YODA!", and everything is made in a way that is so loyal to everything that these characters are, even the fact that they clearly use the puppet Yoda from Empire (at least in the majority of the scenes) is genius, the photography of the scene, his interaction with Luke, it seems like that suddenly we are back again in Episode V. Beautiful.
The chemistry between Kylo Ren and Rey is one of my favorite things too. In fact, Kylo is definitely my favorite character of this new trilogy. The uncommon conflict that he lives everyday make the character so complex and with a lot of layers. Even being of the dark side, you still can understand some of his point of view, understand his conflict and, in a way, sympathize with him. The scene that Rey talks with him after went to the cave and didn't find how her parents are is extremely powerful, with a huge emotional weight, that connects both characters in such a intimate and natural way, after all, she was feeling alone, went to the island to find Luke and get some help, and he definitely was not what she was looking for. Make sense she appels to Kylo, doesn't? The scene is fantastic.
The moment that we find out what really happened with the new Jedi Temple is also very powerful too. I thought a lot about that scene, and all that it represents to Luke Skywalker's history, and, I came to a conclusion: In the end of the day, it matches with the character, doesn't? After all, he didn't want to murderer Ben, the thought pass through his mind, act as a impulse (and this is something that Luke always was, impulsive), and regretted right away, but, was already too late, our hero made a mistake, like almost every Jedi before him, because, at the end of the day, they are humans, and humans make mistakes.
Oh! What about the Kylo/Rey/Snoke scene?! What a beautiful thing! First, because of the amazing mind blowing moment when Snoke dies, there, in that way, second, because KYLO REN KILLS HIM! And this is definitely one of the things that I like most about the movie, as the title here already says, George Lucas himself always talked about how Star Wars is poetry, with rhymes, echos that tend to repeat themselves across the history. And we see that in some subtle little things (or not) around the entire movie, like Kylo killing Snoke (just like Vader killed the Emperor), the conversation that Rey and Kylo have in the elevator (Ok, here clearly was on purpose, it's IDENTICAL to the scene from Return of the Jedi, but still is gorgeous), Snoke showing the resistance fleat been destroy, and a lot of other things, that some people might say that is a copy (as they say about TFA), but, to me is pure poetry, the soul of the franchise since the very beginning, a magical thing. At the end, you are like "OMG! What now? Is he going to chance side?" and the conclusion is amazing, he is always on his side, of course, he did that also because he didn't want Snoke to kill her, anyways, no matter what meaning you give to that, is just make the he's character even more complex, and I love that.
And what about the fight? With Rey and Kylo co-op against the royal guards? A M A Z I N G ! One of the best action scene of all the Star Wars movie until this point, even the fight styles, both of them, said so much about each character personality, their conflicts, it's just fantastic.
And we got to the end, and what a end my friends, what a end! The first time I saw it, I was just pissed of about Luke's death, but, seeing the movie again I change my mind, I accepted the death. Ok, you can say that they (Disney) are killing all the old characters, changing everything and creating their own franchise. Ok, this is probably true, but, is that a bad thing? The way that Luke dies is such a beautiful and respectful moment, it refers to a lot of other things inside the saga, and shows that who is taking care of the movies is doing in a right way, is concerned with the fans, the previous histories and all that this franchise represents. Are they making profit with that? Hell ya, they are, but is still doing with respect.
The two suns clearly referring to Tatooine (is even possible to see a tine point in the sun, when the camera get closer, as if it were a ship - like in Episode IV), the way that Luke goes remember the way that Yoda goes in Episode VI (tired, exhausted, but in peace) AND the way that Obi-Wan goes in Episode IV (when he, in a certain way, "choose" to die in that moment, in order to do one last "heroic act"). Is it sad? Definitely. Is that the Luke that I imagined/wanted for this movie? Nope. But, is that a bad thing? Not necessarily.
Yes, I confess, that I leave the theatre on the "denial phase", I just did not accepted and was pissed off, but after, I stopped, and thought (and I suggest you to do the same), and reached a conclusion that, in some point of this new trilogy Luke would have to die, his journey already passed, was already told. And, between all the possibilities, the one that they choose is one of the prettiests.
Another thing that bother me the first time I saw, I was thinking for some days: Luke fails. Is that hard to think about? That our childhood hero at the end of the day fails on build the new Jedi Order? Fails with his sister? With his nephew? Yes, and these thoughts break my heart. But, what comfort my heart is that: Which Jedi didn't fail?. As Luke says in some part of the movie, the Jedi's arrogance since the beginning was their ruin, and this is another argument that base the idea that the Order needs to be rebuild, from the ashes.
The movie's final scene is also pretty powerful, a gorgeous message. Through the entire movie is said that "all hope is gone", "we need Luke Skywalker to bring the hope back", but with the final scene, is like if the universe said "the hope still right here, in all the places, you just need look more, it's in the most unexpected places", and this refers also to the Rey's parents thing, she came from "nowhere" and this also shows that the force isn't something connects to the genes or anything like that. It's beautiful.
Ok, yes, some other things still let me a little disappointed with the movie, I wish I had seen a scene where Luke fighted FOR REAL, and shows all his power, and why he is the most powerful Jedi that ever lived. But ok, at least he did something never done before, and I hope that they don't mess with that, that not even Rey or Kylo ever do something like that, moreover, I hope they TELL US in some moment (in a dialogue) how badass, and difficult was what Luke did on that day.
The fact that Anakin's saber broke at the end is also something that in a way let me kind of sad, and refers to that other thing that a said before "are they ending with everything and creating their franchise?" (I already answered that question), but in this case, I think that wasn't something that had to be done (break the saber), come on, what will cost to continuing with the saber? I know that the scene has a symbology too, is the standard break, the death of the old thing, the old behaviors, the rebirth of the Jedi Order, but yes, still let me mad.
Well, all that being said, in short , TLJ is pure poetry, has the balls to do some bold choices in MANY parts of the history, but, at the same time, has the Star Wars' soul there, behind the "echoes" that George Lucas always talked about it, and mainly, open the door to the future of the saga in the screen, that I hope will last many years. Best movie of the year. One of my favorites Star Wars.
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Not only original but one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Don't listen to the haters, go out and absorb the delight this movie will bring you. Some people really get too hung up over "Lore". Times move on and this movie will remain on of the best for a long time to come. Seriously, sit all of the Star Wars movies side by side. take all of their memorable moments, action and story. This will by far stand out as the greatest.
On a side note, the current Trilogy still hasn't finished! So for all of the Snoke lovers out there you may still have your fill.
Truly amazing and really setting the stage to pass on the baton to our new Star Wars family!
Haters and Trolls will always try to ruin truly great films because this wasn't how they predicted it. I say Bravo for not giving us a movie that was too predictable!
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I loved the movie, it has deep moments and is aesthetically beautifully made. Although is it's definitely not perfect. The pace doesn't last throughout the whole movie, some scenes seem a little pointless and I feel like there are few too many plot holes that we have to just take for granted. but other than that I really enjoyed it, so great Job Rian!
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Strange "Star Wars" movie, seemingly made by people who don't really like "Star Wars," or have much artistic discipline, because despite a few winning sequences, the movies mostly a mess.
It's loaded with plot holes, ignores or undermines much of what's come before, perverts the previous trilogy's primary hero, introduces new and uninteresting characters, has a few TERRIBLE performances (Carrie Fisher and Laura Dern most specifically), is overlong and actually kinda boring in spots.
Worst of all, though, and what makes the film's decisions inexcusable, is how many times narrative tension is raised, only to be completely undercut by a bad joke that falls flat. I was amazed at how terrible the dialog is, how disrespectful and UNFUNNY the jokes.
Like I said: A "Star Wars" movie seemingly made by people who don't like "Star Wars." A few of the curve balls work (Rylo Ken and his helmet, for example), but most prove to be massive mistakes.
It's weird that Disney can do such a good job throughout the Marvel films and blow "Star Wars" so bad.
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Watching this movie brought back painful flashbacks from the prequels. Plot holes galore, bad acting, unnecessary humor and over the top and silly CGI aliens. I hated this movie.
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Can I sue star wars and ask for a refund? It has been 2 weeks since I watched the movie, but yet I can't accept that I exchange my money for a garbage like this.
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8/10
Grow The F up people. Quit rating this movie a 1or 0
Saw it a second time and thought it was great, great end to Lukr and put to bed the old skywalker movies. Very excited for the up coming movies. Star Wars is in good hands.
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9/10
Watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi Full Movie HD 1080p
The 8th. episode is for Luke Skywalker and its actor Mark Hamill. On the contrary to the former one, this episode is not a simple manipulation of the plotting of episodes of the oldest trilogy during 1977-1983, and it is pretty sadistic for fans, but also it is full of twists and surprises.
Rey and others are not charismatic beside Luke and Leia. Moreover, Snoke is supposed to be created and modelled from image of actor Ed Harris. Asian-look Rose is something familiar for contemporary audiences. Adding racial diversities to this trilogy.
One of the typical twists in this episode is death of Snoke, and Darth Vador-like Kylo takes initiative of the first order unexpectedly. While Rey and Kylo corroborate to fight against Snoke and its entourage, audiences physiologically hope that Kylo comes to light-side.However, it is only an episodic corporation between them.
This episode depicts how failed master/ teacher confront his past failure and his worst student who exceeds his ability. This is the most emotional content of this film. When Luke's shadow confronts full scale of fire from the armed forces of the first order in front of the sealed gate of the last bastion of the republic, the catastrophic moment arrives. Its heroic figure of Luke and Mark Hamill is quite impressive and memorable among all characters of this episode.
I love this episode more than the former one. It is not a simple duplication of plotting of the oldest trilogy. Mark Hamill and his Luke proved that filmmaker just need their iconic work during their entire career. Mark Hamill is experiencing his second peak of his film career since the oldest trilogy of Star Wars (1977-83). It is the remarkable thing in this Disney made newest trilogy. Everybody remembers Luke Skywalker as living legend.
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Oh, man. what are they doing?! The Force Awakens was deeply flawed but showed some potential of where they might go with the rest.
Last Jedi goes like this: Set up. Twist. Set up. Twist. It does this like 7 times. It's not good writing it's just a annoying gimmick. Then there's the humour. There's lots of unfunny stuff that spoils the integrity of the movie. I don't mind the porgs. I dislike like the way they are used. At one point it's like a scene from Gremlins in the Falcon's cockpit. And a porg hits the window like a Garfield car toy. Cringe. The iron joke should not be in this film. That's not even open for discussion.
The real sin is flying Princess Leia. First you have to believe she survives a massive explosion, then you have to suspended your disbelief even further that she doesn't freeze to death and then she flies back into the ship. WTF, right?
Can't wait for Rush Hour in Space. Sorry, Solo.
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10/10
Great movie - Reasonable storylines & awesome graphics!
Pretty good movie. Don't listen to the haters... Just love it!
It has multiple storylines coming together pretty awfully sometimes, but we don't go to the cinema to see epic storylines. We enter the cinema, hoping to find awesome graphics, gigantic battles, not for the story attached to it. Star Wars isn't there for the stories, it's there for entertainment and people should start realizing that.
Do you want to see an epic Star Wars movie? Go to Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi!
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Honestly, this movie was fantastic. Don't get me wrong, it was OUTRAGEOUSLY different from the other 7 movies (8 if you count Rogue One) but it was really really good! The plot line was scarce, there was a lot more comedy than expected, but it was still a great visual experience and I still give it a 10/10. No movie can ever be worse than Phantom Menace, and this was honestly great.
Fans are petitioning to have it erased and redone. Why? There should have been much more of an uproar in 1999, this one is fine so leave it alone. And is it just me or are people forgetting that there is ANOTHER MOVIE coming out?! Maybe all of the unanswered questions will be given there. Maybe Disney didn't want to follow the typical answer-everything-in-the-second-movie-of-the-trilogy pattern. Patience is a virtue, people.
Calm your tits and wait for the next one. Disney kicked ass with TFA and Rogue One so chill out and don't lose hope. Princess Leia would be ashamed of you all for losing hope in the saga.
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5/10
flawed script with a lack of vision and inspiration.
It is somehow saddening to see such beautiful craftmanship both in practical and computer generated effects, very good acting (judging by the poor material the actors had to work with) and as always impressive technical qualities.
Yet the movie leaves you empty. It is full of cheap tricks, suprises that come out of nowhere, characters being killed of just for the sake of it, meaningless plots and scences with twists that actually leave you unimpressed because they require your to blend out a lot... really a LOT of details. At more than one point you have to ignore common sense and logic in order to accept the storyline.
Why does Snoke read into the minds of those around him, keep control of one light saber and completely neglect the one beside him. Where does that magical collapsed door, only 1m thick come from in the snow base? Why didn't Kylo Ren realize, Luke was only a projection, why didn't Yodas Ghost show up earlier? Why didn't the rebells light speed their ships sooner into the enemy ships (seriously.. what a stupid scene that was) Sorry but there are way too many flaws, way too many questions... the script really seems to be a half arsed work. It copies elements from other, much greater works but doesn't seem to understand what makes these other movies and series great. It's like a cheap copy of something much better than this. There are character deaths everywhere and I can only imagine the script writer slapping himself on the back and saying "That will be just like game of throne! People love unexpected deaths!" No.--- no they do NOT. The deaths in Game of Thrones where harsh, but they didn't come out of nowhere... they were not cheap shock effects, they were built upon with a tight, logic and well thought out storyline, something "The Last Jedi" does not provide.
But the thing I can't forgive is the lack of inspiration. You have seen almost everything in this movie in the Star Wars movies before. Where are the new worlds. the new ideas, the themes? We have seen Casinos, Cantinas and Starships before. We have seen chases in caves and canyons, desolate temples and "ice worlds" before.. where is the new thing? There is almost nothing you have not seen in the TV Series or the trilogies before. Thematically and artistically it is a bancrupt movie and that might be the worst thing you can say about a Star Wars movie.
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The movie is superficial entertainment, in the same way a mindless superhero movie can be.
The heart of the franchise is just not there. The family ties, the quest for self-improvement through study, the (believable) love stories, the hope for something better (how come everyone gives up on Ben? Wasn't the point of the first trilogy that everyone still has a bit of good in him/herself?)
And plotholes... oh boy... let's summarise:
1) Hyperspace tracking. A new technology used by only one ship? Why?
2) The Supremacy chase. Couldn't one of the star destroyers just jump in front of the rebel fleet and surround them?
3) Finn. So his story is to nobody to hero in TFA, back to coward heading for the escape pod in TLJ - why?
4) Poe. Leia seem to hint that he is the new leader of the resistance, but he did absolutely nothing to earn this. Only screwing up an attack and then commit mutiny.
5) Finn/Rose casino side-plot. Completely useless and boring - did add nothing to the plot.
6) Benicio del Toro's character - how did he know about the rebel plan?
7) Leia's force powers - I'm ok with them but maybe they should have set the stage - mention she did train or study the Jedi books - this literally comes out of nowhere.
8) Ackbar killed off off-screen. Are you kidding me? IT'S A TRAP!!
9) What was the point of Holdo? New character killed off instantly. He could have been Ackbar to get a nice hero death - ok, this is a plot choice, but just a really controversial one.
10) Holdo's manoeuvre - really cool! But hey, why didn't we ram the Death Star with X-Wings at hyperspace speed and spare all those lives lost in the battle of Endor?
11) Supreme leader who? OK, Disney, you can kill him off, but if people get annoyed that their curiosity is tickled and then left unsatisfied, don't complain.
There would be other points, but don't want to spend more time on this heartless movie. Just another point:
12) Luke's character - I'll just let Mark Hamill do the talking...
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I tought after "TFA", it couldn't get any worse. "Rogue One" was a good Movie actually, so i began to develope new hopes for Disney's Star Wars, but i was terribly wrong. 5 points for a few good action scenes and for my loyalty for Star Wars. But so many Plotholes, so many unnecessary characters, Luke acting off and sooo many Ma-Rey sue-moments....i feel betrayed.
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5/10
Isn't it time to throw a fresh idea to the series?
I remember enjoying so much the first 3 Star Wars films in my youth... Now I am having such a hard time enduring Hollywood efforts in recent years.
The formula is constantly the same: the universe is in peril and, believe it or not, the Force awakens every time and wins the final battle before the film ends.
Again, and again, and again, year after year.
Please Mr Lucas: could you come up with a new idea? Or just a quarter of a new idea?
Of course, the film is technically outstanding which makes my frustration even greater: so much talent wasted on a repeated to death story.
Sorry folks... this is just not for me any more...
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2/10
I can't imagine that I went and saw the same movie as the critics. Worst Star Wars movie EVER.
And I mean it. And we all know that it get good competition in episode 1, 2 and 3. Never have I ever gone to the movies that exited and come home that disappointed. It was tacky and tragically comic from the start till the end. I know, that the little jokes is a big part of the universe, but this was more bad chick flick than it was George Lukas. Who would have imagined that 3CPO would ever seem like the most serious character... and that goodbye scene between Leia and the commander with the purple hair? OMG, I laughed so hard, but I don't think that was the director's intention. "May the with you!" "No may it be with YOU!" (Giggles) <'3333 10hi xb - Oh lord, that was stupid.
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Let's face it, this movie exists solely for the purpose of selling Disney toys: it was designed to please everyone (people that like the series, people that don't like the series, men, women, children, animals, pacifists, warmongers, idealists, cinics, etc...).
As is often the case, they ended up with a product that can't satisfy anyone, except for those who want to be dumbly entertained because they, like the filmakers of this empty movie, don't care. At all. You can compare this movie to Thor Ragnarok: if you don't care about the characters, the plot, the derivative moments, the lack of believable storytelling, any adherence to the main themes of the saga and the forced unfunny humor then you will like it. If not, you will see what is essentially a boring, slow, predictable movie.
I give it one star for some of the special effects and a couple of scenes that were cool (but even them were ruined by the silly scenes that came before and by the hollow characters that carried them).
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1/10
Shame that you manage to kill one of the best franchise in history of movies.
Ok now I am mad. You have ruined my childhood. There is no plot. Conversations in movie are retarded as all first order commanders. This movies is trash... One of worst movies I have seen in my whole life.
Shame that you manage to kill one of the best franchise in history of movies.
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You cannot expect this to be like the original trilogy because times have changed. They need to adhere to millennial audiences. I did enjoy it and it was better than the force awakens and turned away from copying the originals.
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I m a fan of star wars and have watched both the parts of last triology on the big screen.I had a lot of expectations when i went to watch the movie & they managed to meet it.This movie almost had everything.Be it meaningful interactions between the young leads,thrilling action sequences,shocking turn of events & showing us the glimpses of previous star wars storylines.They pulled it out beautifully.The actors were spot on and provided us with a couple of laughs every now and then.If only they were'nt for a couple of annoying mistakes then it could had been the best star wars movie ever made.Nonetheless,it's a must watch for all the star wars fans
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Honestly, as I was watching this all I could say that is was really, really boring. It simply seemed to drag on with little happening. Okay, I've probably earned the wrath of all the Star Wars fans out there, but honestly, I'm really starting to wonder whether this new trilogy is really all that worth it. In the end the film really seemed to be going nowhere, and simply had no purpose in it at all. In fact the entire storyline really could have been squeezed into the first third of a movie by simply cutting out all of the irrelevant stuff, and in my opinion there is quite a lot of it. Okay, there were some surprises, and it did end well, but having to sit through this film just to get to the end really wasn't worth it, and just to think that I have to go and see it again simply because my brother loves Star Wars.
I'm not really all that sure if there is all that much I can say about it, other than it is basically the rebels attempting to escape from the First Order (read Empire). In fact that is basically the movie, which is why I found it so boring. They start off evacuating a base (aka Empire Strikes Back), and are then chased through intersellar space, before arriving at another planet where they attempt to fight off the First Order, fail, and manage to escape. Oh, and we also have Rey on the island with Luke attempting to convince him to come and help them with the fight against the First Order, while Luke is basically not wanting anything to do with anyone anymore.
As a friend suggested, in the end it is the original characters that are the best, and this new lot are simply trying to take the shine away from what were some awesome characters. There is no way that BB8 can ever outshine R2D2, and the only reason I didn't give the film a lower score was because they still had R2 in the movie - and Chewie, who is also pretty awesome. But these new characters, I'm really not all that sure about them.
Oh, and the whole idea of them travelling in lightspeed is absolutely ridiculous. Really, most people would know that in the grand scheme of things light speed is really, really slow, and that was something that really put me off the first movie. Surely the creators of this film were familiar with the originals, and would have known that they used the word 'hyperspace' instead of 'lightspeed'. Look, I'll probably end up going and seeing the next few movies, but I'm not all that impressed with where it is heading. Then again, I didn't actually mind the prequels (and I still consider C3P0 to be much more annoying that Jar-Jar Binks, but then again I'm not a huge fan of Jar-Jar either).
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The Last Jedi breaks away from the shadow of the original series and attempts to forge new ground...to very mixed results. The strengths are stronger than anything in The Force Awakens. Gone too is the plot recycling from TFA. No more Death Star. Unexpected things happen. And the best scenes follow the classic feel of good vs. evil, most notably in the excellent fight scene in Snoke's throne room. But where its strengths grew stronger, so did its weakness.
TLJ at its heart is not a Star Wars film. Sure, it has a certain "Star Wars"ian ethos. Some of our beloved characters are back. But ultimately, it is about equality & social justice. The Star Wars series, on the other hand, at its heart is about good and evil, with good redeeming evil. It resonated with people on the most basic of instincts. It pushed way beyond the confines of its rather 2D story. TLJ seems aimed at the Millennial generation, to whom social justice is very important. While it is also important to me, Star Wars is not the appropriate place for "topical relevance". Star Wars is not about ending oppression. It is about good overcoming evil. So it is misguided at best in TLJ to have subplots about slavery and arms dealing. It is misguided to crowd the cast with mostly women fighters and fighters of every racial background. Not that these things are bad, but I left the theater feeling like someone in Disney was trying to force their social agenda upon me. The magic was lost in the midst of social politics. What a pity. TLJ is a critic's darling at the moment, but it will not stand the test of time like Ep. 4-6, which will always be beloved. And let's not even mention the utter disappointment of Luke's character and his fate. Unnecessary and soul draining.
Usually I applaud a movie for reaching for greatness and stumbling just short of it. Far better to try for it and fail, than to play it safe. But with TLJ, I wanted to say, "Leave my movie series alone!" Keep it pure and simple, and don't crowd it will your agenda. Those subjects are best left for stories outside the Star Wars universe.
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6/10
The Legacy of Luke Skywalker: Now naught more than a Disney cash-grab.
While I am a Star Wars fan, I am not a fanatic. I would, however, classify myself as a purist, as I refuse to watch the "remastered" original trilogy, as in my opinion, not a single change made the films better and many changes made them worse. I only own Episodes III-VI and Rogue One, as Episode I is a drag that adds nothing of import to the Anakin story arc, and Episode II adds important points but is still hard for me to watch. Episode VII had equally terrible acting, script, and plot contrivances, not to mention being a glaring knock-off of Episode IV, and I have no qualms about standing nearly alone in saying the Force Awakens was a relatively terrible movie.
If you feel the same, this review is for you.
The Last Jedi (TLJ), as the title suggests, is a story about Luke Skywalker. You may not realize that while watching the movie, as there are so many other mostly meaningless plot points and story arcs demanding your attention, but this is clearly a movie about who Luke Skywalker has become juxtaposed to the legend of Luke Skywalker that commands the minds of both Rebels and their enemies (not to mention Star Wars fans).
Unfortunately, we are at least a half hour into the movie before Luke is even mentioned, with multiple superfluous characters and plot points being introduced in the meantime. And over the entire length of the film, there is so little Luke time, it is easy to understand that so many do not even realize that that is what this movie is really about.
And here we have the first major flaw in the movie: When you have to explain to people who just watched the movie what the movie was about, you know something is wrong.
From the get go, it is evident that Star Wars has not escaped the influence of Guardians of the Galaxy. But what made a talking raccoon and walking tree adorable does not work in other movies, not even in the Marvel universe. The first TLJ scene starts with Poe's immature, slapstick humor, and then tries to switch to a "desperate hour" tone as Rebels sacrifice their lives for their comrades. Which is immediately followed by more pointless attempts at slapstick humor as Fin makes his first appearance. That trend continues for the duration of the movie, with scenes that should have felt dark or desperate being interrupted by forced attempts as humor. Possibly the only times the laughing came easily was with the nun-like caretakers, who constantly chide and berate a novice and unwieldy Rey as she tries to use the force whilst destroying Luke's island sanctuary. Overall, TLJ's humor came off about as well as the one-liners teenagers come up with in their homecoming skits: funny only to the writers, traumatizing to the dutiful audience.
The Last Jedi continues with another hour of two simultaneous plots, that are both completely pointless, as the disorganized Rebel forces flee. Not to mention the introduction of at least two more major and pointless characters. The acting continues to be bad all around, but part of that may be to blame on the writing, as it is obvious the audience is intentionally left in the dark, but also left without any curiosity, only frustration. By the two hour mark, it becomes pretty clear that, save Rey and Kylo's moments on screen, the movie up to that point was pointless.
Stories usually ramp up to a climax, something neither the writers nor director of TLJ seem to have mastered. Time after time after time, I found myself getting a little on edge as the final conflict seemed to be drawing near, only to have that faint glimmer of hopeful anticipation doused as the plot line took an abrupt turn and the story continued. After a few of these moments, my excitement simply could not be provoked; I became numb as over and over again, the movie seemed to drag on. At least in the last half hour, the story did seem to have a purpose, even if it was not an inspiring or even very interesting one.
If it were not for Rey's fight scene, and Luke's cameo appearance, it is quite likely fans everywhere would have rioted and burned down their respective theaters. Rey's final fight, and Luke's final appearance were the two bright spots in the movie, the two times I actually, genuinely enjoyed sitting there.
Overall, TLJ had an interesting story to tell. It was simply a poorly told story, as if by a grandmother who wanted to emphasize her part in events past, even though they had no bearing on the actual story, nor its unfolding, nor its outcome. The story is about Luke and the effect his Legend has had, and how far he has strayed from that path. The story is about the gray areas, the things that are not extreme enough to labeled either right or wrong, just told so poorly I feel like I may come off as justifying the movie instead of explaining it. It is about the evolution of the minds of people, their good and evil, their pride and fear, their courage and complacency. The movie could be said to be showing that moment when you realize that something you hold dear and true is wrong, the crush of betrayal, the loneliness that follows. But The Last Jedi doesn't convey those feelings. You have to read deep between the lines to see those contrivances. And so the movie ends as it begins, ultimately a failure, as evidenced by the fact that the story told has to be explained.
I left the theater torn, not hurt. There were a couple of genuinely spectacular parts, buts so much of the movie was so bad I could not leave with a smile. I wanted to smile, but I couldn't. As the days past and I had time to reflect on the story I was shown, and what that story could have been, my opinions solidified: this is another Star Wars movie that I will not own.
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Now, for the nitpicky stuff, as some of you are, like me, very nitpicky.
The space physics are distractingly bad. Someone on the production team must have known something about physics, must have said something, but someone, perhaps the director in his creative genius, chose to ignore said advise and make a movie that not only exhibits false physics in multiple, unreconcilable ways, but who's entire first-hour-plot revolves around bad physics. It drove me nuts. I will accept the laws of a given scifi universe as long as that universe obeys them; TLJ does not.
Military strategy is nonexistent. It is not a matter of inexperience or immaturity, as when Kylo commands his troops; these are the leaders of the First Order, professional military men. Yet points established in Poe's assault in the first five minutes are completely gone against five minutes later when the bad guys have the upper hand. It doesn't take a brilliant tactician to see the flaws, and asking even the averagely intelligent viewer to buy into the subsequent plots is disrespectful.
The endless "just" moments. Just big enough, just far enough, just hard enough, just fast enough. I can usually take a lot, but when the Millennium Falcon flies through a hole JUST big enough for it to literally scrape through for the fourth time in its five movies, I was left shaking my head. I cannot even call it a spoiler that the hole actually turns out to be a tunnel. And with as many times as it felt like this movie was about to end and didn't, we are blessed with more "just" moments than usual, definitely more than bearable.
And of course the pointless plots. The film could be cut back to only scenes containing Luke and Rey and all it would be missing is Snoke's taunting of Kylo, and we would still have to watch Luke trying to traumatize and scare away Rey, and the awkward hand touching of Luke and Leia at the end.
A note about me, for all those who think I rated this too high or too low:
I watched the trailer, maybe twice. I was not impressed, and went into the theater with low expectations, not so much because the trailer made me think this film would be bad, but because the previous entry in the series was bad and also, because I have learned that I like movies more when I go into them with low expectations. I think a lot of the backlash to this film only exists because there was so much hope, and so much of that hope was crushed. I watched this film opening weekend, and rated it before reading anyone else's reviews. I decide on a rating before I visit a film's IMDB page to guarantee I am not swayed by the film's current rating. And I have not changed my rating; 6/10 stars seems fair. I judge relatively harshly, but as long as there are not aspects of a movie that literally sicken me, the lowest I will give it is a 4/10. I consider a 7/10 a movie worth owning, and rarely give out 9's or 10's.
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I guess I'm old, it's official. I'm 43 years young with the force and I no longer matter. I just wish You'd have given me a more ceremonial burial than tossing me over your shoulder.
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1/10
How can you be the Rebellion when you are the ruling Government?
There are two was to look at this film. One, as a standalone film that has nothing to do with anything and two, as a film that assumes to shoulder the responsibility of thirty plus years of history, fandom and anticipation.
As a film it's convoluted with no real coherent plot or point. You have zero time to actually feel or care about the characters as they just move along from scene to scene, moment to moment without any real cohesion. One minute Poe is getting escorted off the bridge by the purple haired Admiral's guards, the next he is standing in front of her having a nice chat moments before committing mutiny.
Rose and Finn are entirely throwaway characters that add nothing to the over all story. How a former janitor is able to defeat the highly trained, and skilled Storm Trooper Captain Phasma is beyond belief. However as most have come accept as believable is that anyone can come to the fight without any prior training and win, just because they believe.
Rose on the other hand, valiantly "saves" Finn from himself as he is about to sacrifice hisself in order to save the remaining rebellion from destruction, because she suddenly finds herself in love with him for no real reason whatsoever.
Snoke, while having had a great deal of potential to be interesting was little more than another CGI villain, who met a quick end by the hand of Emo Darth Vader.
It took me a while to reconcile what I was seeing, but the best way I can describe most of the movie is that it was more like going to an Anime or Star Wars convention where everyone is dressing up as their favorite characters and playing caricatures of someone else.
As a Star Wars Film, it was a complete and utter travesty. Some have compared the unfavorable reviews to the unfavorable reviews that Empire had received in 1980. At the least, you could say that the negative reviews then were more shocked at the darker nature of the film, although the film stayed within it's nature. Others have argued that it's mostly angry white men hating on the film, but seeing as how it the crowd that I was with consisted with two men (including myself), and three women, there was no one who had anything positive to say about what was seen, and the general consensus was that it was Star Wars in name only and lacked any of the depth or understanding of the actual universe or characters.
Kylo Ren continues to be an Emo Sith Lord, who ironically is the only one who suggests to Rey that perhaps they could team up and do something different other than be a Jedi or Sith. Of course Rey, who we also find to be no one or nothing of any relevance, aligns herself with the Jedi (or Luke Skywalker) for some reason or another. To be sure, there is no real reason why she would have any attachment to anyone as there is simply no development as to why she should care in any capacity.
Luke is now a curmudgeon who just endlessly wallows in self-pity and instead of being the wise old, warrior sage that we had all waited 30 years for, instead turns out to be a weak, cowardly, broken man who maunders around his island, milking four breasted sea monsters for blue milk.
Leia can apparently survive the vacuum of space and NOT kill everyone on the ship as she opens the door from the outside to let herself back in after getting blown out by an explosion, and Yoda can affect the corporeal world by summoning lightning and burning down trees.
I'm thoroughly convinced now that Disney is bent on vandalizing the institution of Star Wars to make a point. I find it hard to believe that a multi-billion dollar company could screw up a movie that badly, however here we are. The truth is that it wasn't a good film. Sure there was a very cool scene where The Admiral plows her ship through the First Order Fleet at light speed, but otherwise this movie was little more than CGI cut scenes, explosions, and space ships. To it's detriment, it tried to sprinkle on some philosophy and metaphysics, however such things are way beyond it's pay grade, though it might sound deep and meaningful if all you ever read are young adult novels, or watch nothing but anime...
And I mean the newer anime, not the older anime that was in no way meant for children....
As an institution Star Wars is dead. It might be good for the fans looking for little more than a sticker slapped on a plastic box, but for those that want something to sink their teeth into, there are about 30 years worth of books that actually tell a proper sci-fi story. It was about 45 minutes too long and watching Chewbacca suddenly decide not to eat a Porgie (after capturing, killing, skinning and cooking one over the fire) because all the other Porgies were giving him sad eyes was just unnecessary and like the rest of the film left me saying "wait, wha?".
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The jokes are too frequent and aren't funny. Scenes that are intense and emotional are broken up by these unfunny jokes that ruin the mood of the scene. The first act/first third of the movie was boring and should have been condensed or changed entirely. The First Order's incapacity, inability and ineffectiveness is laughable. They can't stop 1 fighter from taking out their somehow easily blown-up laser cannons. 1 or 2 shots makes each turret explode? The Resistance can outrun them with severely depleted and minimal resources, and escape without them noticing or caring? This honestly makes no logical sense unless The First Order just wanted to play games with the Resistance. Rose Tico is an uninteresting and unnecessary character, and her side plot with Finn was dumb, uninteresting and useless. The subplot on Canto Bight was so short, and as stated before, dumb, uninteresting and useless, it should have been cut from the movie. I think the subplot had to do more with animal cruelty and orphans more than Star Wars; I'm not against important messages in movies, but make sure they're done well and fit the franchise, movie plot, characters, etc. Leia flying through space was the dumbest and one of the most laughable parts of this movie. It is so unrealistic and silly looking it is truly cringe worthy. The people on the ship don't act surprised, like she's done this before, and what she did is never explained or mentioned again. Admiral Ackbar's death is shown to be so small, insignificant and stupid, it is truly an insult to any Star Wars fan. A "man" who helped command and guide the Rebel fleet to defeat The Empire is killed by 2 random TIE fighters. They didn't have to kill him off for the story or overall plot, but they did. There's no problem with that, but give him the heroic death he really deserves, send him off in a respectable and proper way. Captain Phasma is one of the most underused and laughable characters ever. She has special armor, looks intimidating, and talks dauntingly, but nothing she ever does is worthwhile or even remotely useful. She could have been such a powerful and important character, but this movie wasted her to the worst degree. Luke in The TLJ is not the Luke we knew in the Original Trilogy at all. It's okay for him to be different, but he seems to be a totally different character altogether. HE trains Rey, but she somehow knows how to use the force perfectly and pretty well considering she didn't know what it was and had no formal training prior; she didn't believe in Luke Skywalker until a little while before. This movie is a train-wreck through and through; from the characters, to the plot, to the force, to the jokes, it is a mess that didn't know what it wanted to be. The first 30 seconds of A New Hope has seemingly been turned into it's own movie except with new characters in a different time period. Disappointing.
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Messy and rushed development, big plot holes, awkward humor, nonsensical scenes and epic failure are all the household names of this new and not so "Star Wars" movie.
The movie tries to cover a lot of things rapidly which ends up confusing you and completely leaving you in a blank space. It is a disgrace to see how important characters just fadeaway, traded for a couple of "humor" scenes the predictable "fairy tale" ending delivered to you by Disney. Do not recommend for anybody who has watched the previous trilogies as it will leave you in big disappointment and utter regret.
I guess business is business and as long as the title says "Star Wars" this is as far from it as you will get.
I could go more in-depth but there is enough said on here and almost everywhere. This film is a total disconnection from what Star Wars was and how it normally goes, change is good and with the time gap there is an acceptance for it up to certain point. This goes way beyond change, it is just a flat out mess of a movie in which you will not find a lot of moments to be excited or emotional about. It's just one big MEH.
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Entertaining and not as evil an entry as made to be
I went into film being a huge Star Wars fan since A New Hope. The bashing the film gets is unwarranted. Rian Johnson took things into a new darker direction. If you go into a Star Wars film of all films to analyze it to death of course there are going to be a lot of disappointments and disagreements. Watch it and enjoy it for what it is, a form of escapement. Growing up I did not like The Empire Strikes Back for its dark overtones and what I thought was the killing of my favorite character in Han Solo. Since I've become an adult and have seen in hundreds of times I don't care about plot holes like is Lando's security cyborg still locked up in tower with stormtroopers while they escaped.
I get negative reviews for all the films. Not everyone likes everything. The only difficult thing I had getting by was how Adam Driver was supposed to be the son of Han and Leia when he little resembled either. When you get past the things you may not care or be troubled by realize the director and writers were given an impossible task for any normal person and they succeeded on so many levels. Give the negativity and over analyzing a break and go to primarily enjoy it with whomever you're with. My wife and young kids loved it and though dark and more violent than most Star Wars films we had a great time watching it together.
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Well. You will wish that technology existed. Here are some points.
If you are a fan of Star Wars you already felt the millions of voices cry out, those issues are at the end, this bit is for any random audience member...
If you don't care much for physics and your Sci-Fi is more Fi only, you could ignore
Bombs Falling, Artillery fire arcing. Fixing complicated circuitry by shorting it all out, Openings to space without airlocks (Midship after explosion), Space fuel and Light speed contradictions etc.
Ok, Lets ignore all those minor issues in the name of fun. But Plot devices like...
1. Light speed through ships could not have been used as a weapon at any point? like immediately after abandoning in escape pods?
2. Finn, Rey and Rose arrive at the base in the same time the ATATs do? Really?
3. There is only one way in or out of the old base. Except they all go in and out of the top to fire guns?
4. Finn and Rose collide at the cannon, then are suddenly miles away inside the base, away from all the AT-ATs
The entire movie is laced with the type of humour you would be surprised to see used on the set of a slapstick comedy, Because it's so obvious. Unfortunately in this case it was also painfully unfunny. Barely a snigger in the theatre I attended.
The inconsistencies rage throughout the movie, and it almost seems like every time there is an opportunity to turn the movie around and you are about to forgive earlier stupidity... It gets worse.
And now for the geeks, I was never a fan of the prequels but they each look like flawless masterpieces when compared to this steaming pile of Bantha dung.
Luke has been soiled as a character in about as many ways as possible.
Drinking from an alien dick and getting it in his beard.
Contemplating the murder of a child.
Ignoring the desperate people looking for his help.
Rey is literally a superhero. More skilled than the Emperor, but then again, so is Leia now too.
The entire 'Resistance' is inexplicably lead solely by women.
Giant cat horse things are VERY important. letting one evade re-capure for 20 mins is equally important as the fate of everyone you know.
"Saving the ones you love" now translates into dooming everyone you know by somehow travelling faster than finn and heading him off in a high speed collision and neutralising yourself.
It's a cringe-fest. Too long. Zero emotion. Terrible Choices for every aspect with the exception of special effects.
And lastly. Porgs, Constantly. Shoved down your throat like a oral rape from a second rate Disney penguin.
Avoid. Star Wars is DEAD now.
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8/10
Hey now, a viewer that actually liked what he watched.
I noticed all the low reviews and scanned through some of the comments (without trying to delve into plot/spoilers), and I wondered; why the low ratings? I wanted to not watch it because of it (much less pay for it). I'm glad I didn't fall into that trap because my movie viewing experience would've been compromised to hating it before I could read that tag line, "in a galaxy far far away".
First, I was very curious as to why Hamill was bashing Luke's direction in this new film. Sure, I would've liked a Goku like outcome to see the "new hope" hero lay the smack down on some New Order goons, but come on now; we had to figure out first as to why Abrams had him go into hiding in the first place. So he failed his star pupil (nephew), and failed to stop him from sacking the new Jedi gang. Wouldn't you take that defeat kinda harsh as well? It made sense to me that he fled to lick his wounds and whine about how all of his philosophy and ideology was bs; because the same thing occurred with Obi Wan and Yoda. Where were they during Darth and Palpatine reign over the galaxy? What did they do while they hunted the remaining Jedi and rebels; while building up there forces and creating a world killer?! Yet, Luke's actions is questioned and is called a cowardly a-hole?! No one was tripping over that fact. So Leia reached out to Obi Wan, in which he was hesitant (sounds familiar, huh Luke) to where another force sensitive character came into play, and became the "new hope" that the light needed (hi Luke/Rey).
So then comes Rey, who's similar force sensitivity could be the "new hope" we (the fans) would expect. Who were her parents? Her parents must be a bunch of bad asses, and yet it's shocking to find out that they were a couple of nobody's? (yet Anakin, the "chosen one's" parents being a couple of nobody's is ok for the fans to accept, but Rey's parents identity isn't?)
Thanks to Luke displaying his great force ability to help the rebels escape (here's looking at you Obi Wan). So remains, Luke still being that beacon of "hope" that Yoda couldn't be, even in his isolation, haven't gave a grand push or rescue for the good guys (which Luke did). So Luke is still a legit character in that regard, still being that beacon of "hope" (If my eyes played tricks on me, that broom didn't just "fall" into that kid's hand; after hearing a Luke Skywalker story from his friend). The Jedi histories and teachings are still saved (inside the Millennium Falcon), so possibility of the Jedi coming back is possible. Yoda pretty much gave Luke the last lesson, to basically stop being a bitch like me and do something; in which he did in grand fashion (whine about not seeing an epic lightsaber fight, because he was astral, it wouldn't have happened. So no one thought the light saber fight with Snoke's body guards wasn't an epic enough light saber fight scene? I thought it was as good, maybe better the fight with Maul, and the battle with Anakin and Obi Wan. Luke redeemed himself, and provided the rebellion another reason to "hope" and fight another day).
So Luke to me is still a great hero, pulling an Obi Wan like sacrifice so the rebels can escape. So if Rian is wrong for portraying Luke in a cowardly way, lets remember how he got there in the first place (thanks J.J. Abrams).
I also read about how certain things are physically impossible. Such as the way they debunked the dropping of bombs in space. That seems illogical and physically impossible, yes; but yet we're all good when it comes to this world having a hand held laser beam that has the same physical characteristics as a solid saber. People, stop being petty, it's called science fiction, enjoy the ride. (Is it hard to believe that Leia can force herself from space into safety? Does it really need an in-depth explanation, considering her lineage and how much of a bamf her son is?)
Sure, cool characters that had potential for something great were "wasted" in their lackluster deaths (here's looking at you Boba Fett). But that didn't stop me from feeling the movie was worse because of it (did anyone, who had this criticism, have the same feelings when watching Rogue One!?)
So Poe and Finn's sub-plot was unnecessary? It made sense in a leadership point of few. To demote him, and because of his demotion, wouldn't have that leadership authority to be in the group that concocts the strategy of escape. It's what happens when you disobey a direct order that caused many lives, and their bomber fleet in the process. But because of his "hot head pilot" motives buying them time to flee, because of his brashness, helped the rebels destroy that epic destroyer (which apparently had the capability of destroying that whole fleet). Makes sense to me how he was still on Leia and Holdo good side after all that (it's not like they had the luxury of exiling him anyways). Considering Finn, could you expect Finn to just chill out and not at least TRY to help in some way!?
The dark helplessness I felt as the rebels tried hard to find a solution, only to be battered and defeated; reminded me of Rogue One in this regard. How it's not just the Skywalker's and friends that are in this fight. I felt this during the movie, and that's probably why the comic relief didn't get a giggle out of me.
I don't believe Disney and Rian are shills in the way that everyone thinks their out to make money, and carelessly destroying the historical story line that came before it. Let's face it, they can make a Star Wars movie about mayonnaise and it'll still make money. and selling fluffy Mayonnaise jars at Toys R Us.
I think Rian did his best to develop an original story, with the story that was laid out prior. The filmmaking and cinematography was great, and had some "Rian Johnson" signatures I've noticed when I recall "Brick" and "Looper". He actually managed to not rehash and create fan service (in which The Force Awakens clearly did); which I suppose is the reason for such hate. There's been worse plots with it's plot holes throughout the Star Wars canon *cough* episodes 1-3 *cough*.
As a fan, I've liked to have seen things done differently, sure. But let's watch this film as a FILM and not what we all WANT it to be. We'd all be able to get through it, and actually enjoy it. Instead of creating a wave of confirmation bias.
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If it wasn't for the above par special effects, I would thought it was a B movie. Corny script writing to say the least (worse than usual). Boring movie in which I almost fell asleep. I really can't believe how anyone could give it more than 3 stars. This franchise is surviving offs its die hard fans and I was one of them but this will be the last movie I will waste my time watching. This 2017 not the 1970's or 80's.. ugh!!
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6/10
Interesting parts of the film's predecessor are viciously stamped out of the plot, and what is left is too contrived and thematically confused to stand on its own.
I am not a Star Wars fan boy. In fact, my introduction to the franchise was with the prequels. Being of a younger generation, the magic of the original trilogy is lost on me. I can absolutely respect the phenomenon the original trilogy was at the time of their release, and the impact they have had on the movie industry.
Enter 2015's The Force Awakens: J. J. Abrams, riding off the success of similar sci-fi adventure films- Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness, is set to direct the reboot of the Star Wars franchise with a sequel to the original trilogy. With J.J. Abrams directing, I had faith that TFA would be at least, an enjoyable adventure film. To my delight, TFA was a successful reboot of the Star Wars franchise, introducing a cast of new, dynamic, interesting characters in addition to the older, supporting, less interesting ones. Despite the latter half of TFA following way to close to the plot of A New Hope, TFA overall was a great film introducing many new exciting characters and elements to the Star Wars universe.
In addition to many other problems, perhaps The Last Jedi's most monumental flaw is its disregard for its predecessor. Many plot elements foreshadowed or alluded to in TFA are stamped viciously out of the plot in TLJ- and what is left over is too contrived and thematically confused to stand alone.
SPOILERS:
For the past two years, fans of Star Wars have been speculating on the origins and identify of Snoke, the identity of Rey's parents, the reason for Luke's isolation, who the Knights of Ren are, and a whole slew of other theories. All of these interesting plot elements introduced in The Force Awakens are eviscerated in The Last Jedi. Personally, I am incredibly bothered by ignorance to continuity in film. As many other critics and fans online have said, Rian Johnson throws away the vision of JJ Abrams' new Star Wars trilogy as unceremoniously as Luke Skywalker comically tosses his father's light saber over his shoulder off a cliff.
Not all of these elements need to be explained, or tie into the plot and history of Star Wars. Rey does not need to be a Skywalker or a Kenobi, and her parents having no significance is actually subversive of a common film trope that all main characters in a film's universe must be related or have strong connections.
However, completely ignoring all the foreshadowing and elements introduced in the film immediately before this one is just poor film making. It creates zero payoff for viewers that have paid attention to these questions. And while this problem very well could be attributed the change in directors, it is still not an excuse.
Ignoring the ignorance to The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi still has many flaws, but also some strengths.
If I could attach a theme to this film, it would be one stated by Yoda: "failure is the best teacher." This is something I actually really liked in the film. The plans and actions carried out by each of the main characters in this film are very, very poorly thought out. And this is fine, if you address in the film that they are indeed poor plans. In fact, it is subversive of film tropes and refreshing to see in mainstream movies. While not completely embracing the flaws of its characters' actions, this film does let its main characters make mistakes, and acknowledges it. Poe's mutiny, Finn and Rose's trusting of a shady character, and Rey's confidence in turning Kylo Ren, all end in failure. Unfortunately, only one of these character's actually learn a lesson from their mistakes as Yoda mentions: Poe. Poe learns that being a hot-headed action hero is not always the answer to the problems set before him, and ultimately learns to be more level-headed, much to the pleasure of his in-film mentor, Leia Organa.
Poe's arc in this film is undoubtedly the best part. He tries something, he fails, he learns, he grows. Can that at all be said for the other characters? Perhaps, but are the lessons they learn even worth learning?
Finn learns about classism(?) and what the rebellion means to people across the galaxy. Rey- the film's main character- learns aboInut moral ambiguity(?) and the line between good and evil. But do their lessons affect their actions, or cause a change in their character? No, at least not in this film.
Ignoring continuity flaws, The Last Jedi's largest hindrance is pacing, and how the entire middle act of the film is based on absolutely contrived plot developments.
This film starts off with a space battle. It ends after about 10 minutes with a victory for the resistance but at the cost of many lives and battleships. The very next scene... is another space battle. There are cutaways to scenes of Rey and Luke, but it was a very poor choice to have two of the exact same type of scene right after another in the main plotline. This second space battle occur because the resistance discovers that the First Order can track them through light speed. General Leia is bait-and-switched killed (ugh) and then rendered unconscious. The main characters then rationalize that they can escape if they can destroy the tracker on the first order ship. To do this, they need a master code breaker.
At this point in the film, the pacing takes a dramatic and confusing turn. While most of the main cast is being chased and attacked by the First Order, Finn and new character Rose go off on a side plot on a casino planet to find the code breaker, so the other characters can escape. It feels very awkward to have part of the cast fly off to do an entire side plot in the time that the rest of the cast is being chased an exterminated.
Meanwhile, back in the "chase" plot, it is revealed that Leia's 2nd in command has no plan to escape. Poe, in his hot-headed, take-action style, commits mutiny and takes over the ship to buy time for Finn to get back and destroy the tracker.
About an hour later, it is revealed that Finn's side plot to get the code breaker, and Poe's mutiny were both pointless since Leia's 2nd in command actually did have a plan the whole time- but for some reason neglected to tell any of the main characters about it. This reveal, while redeeming Laura Dern's character, renders about an hour of the movie pointless. Why didn't Laura Dern's character tell Poe about her plan? Because if she did then Finn wouldn't have gone to the Casino plan to learn about what the resistance means to normal people! It is an incredibly contrived hour of filmmaking, and very annoying to any viewer that can pay attention.
All in all, the The Last Jedi is an enjoyable space adventure film that expands the story of the Star Wars Franchise with new and old faces. However, the story and themes fall flat as it abondons what was setup in its predecessor.
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What a visually amazing movie, the cinematography was mind bending, growing up watching the original 3 on VHS and a Tube T.V verse just watching the last Jedi in IMAX 3D.. just wow, there was parts where I was almost in tears from sensory overload...... that is the 3 stars.. other that that the movie is terrible, the characters are rushed, the plot holes are endless, the forced becomes some star trek gimmick that all these new Jedi powers can do all this things for certain situation, everything JJ Abrams built up in the first was wiped away like a dirty rear end.........and WHAT THE #$%& did you guys do to our beloved Luke Skywalker.. Just disgusting. Bye star wars forever. Fingers crossed someday they'll digitally remaster the original 3 and I can go watch those on IMAX 3D some day.
Final Thought.. I could've bought into your new story, but you betrayed every loyal fan that grew up dreaming of building a lighsaber and one day saving the galaxy, you could've given us original fans a respectable ending to our trilogy to begin your new.. F you Disney.. F you
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"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was a huge disappointment to a long time "Star Wars" fan such as myself. Okay, here we go.
The rebel Resistance are on the run, hunted down by the evil First Order ruled by the Dark Side. Daisy Ridley, who plays a young woman strong with The Force, seeks a Jedi master (Mark Hamill) who is in hiding; and begs him to help with the fight against the First Order and maybe train her to be a Jedi - sounds a bit like "The Empire Strikes Back" right? Why not, as "The Force Awakens" was similar to "A New Hope."
Then there is the puzzling and badly written (which fits right in with the rest of the movie which revels in its mediocrity and goofball jokes) subplot involving two Resistance fighters going to a casino to find a person who excels in hacking stuff so they can bring him back to the bad guys' main ship to sneak in unnoticed and destroy some gizmo that allows the bad dudes to track the Resistance fleet - what's left of it - even in hyperspace. Destroy the gizmo, and the Resistance can zoom away and escape to fight another day. But that may not be necessary because the leader of the rebel fleet intends to abandon the main ship and use escape transports to sneak into a planet that has been abandoned but has an old rebel base there. Oh, the escape transports have a cloaking device to keep the bad guys from seeing them on their monitors...but...you can still see the escape ships! Yes, the rebel fleet are miles from the bad guys' ships, but are you telling me there is no one on the bad guys' bridge with a super duper binocular to get an up close and personal view of what the good guys are doing? At this point I may as well continue with my beef with this movie.
The opening sequence, which was very good in a menacing way, was completely ruined by jokes.
John Boyega, playing a Resistance fighter and the only black guy with a significant role in this movie, is still a damn clown.
Hamill's character was handled badly. The movie tried to make him look like a tragic character, something out of a Shakespeare story; but the writer, who is also the director, mangled the job so badly that Hamill came off as a blubbering fool. In his first appearance of "The Last Jedi," Hamill casually tosses his lightsaber behind him like a half eaten apple. What a great way to start destroying a character that could have added sorely needed darkness and depth to this movie. I understand that this movie is supposed to demystify the Jedis; but by doing that the writer/director/producers/studios are destroying the essence of "Star Wars." On top of that, demystifying the Jedis was done in a half-assed way, so the result is a double whammy.
There was no interesting lightsaber fight. None. The one with Ridley inside the Supreme Leader's throne room looked like something out of a second day rehearsal. As for the last lightsaber duel, it doesn't even count - I can't say why or else I'd spoil a big surprise. A great lightsaber fight sequence could have saved this movie, but there was none.
There were too many elements stolen from "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return Of The Jedi."
Ridley's character is hinted as someone who already knows the way to being a Jedi, and she can continue without Hamill training her and be fine. Huh? What? It is established that it takes many years to fully train a Jedi Knight. As strong as Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) was with The Force, he still needed over a decade of training by Jedi masters. So...Ridley will be okay and be a Jedi Knight one day because of three lessons Hamill taught her, plus reading the sacred Jedi books that she managed to take from Hamill's island?
Captain Phasma was next to Boyega when the ship was damaged badly. Everyone around Boyega was hurt badly or killed, and yet we see Phasma entering the cargo bay hundreds of feet away, unblemished and marching through smoke. Yes, dramatic, but made no damn sense.
Hamill apparently has a newfound power that wasn't established in any of the 7 previous "Star Wars" movies (including "Rogue One"). So, Disney is just going to make s@#t up as they see fit, damn the "Star Wars" bible (the original three movies)?
There are more problems I noticed with this movie, but I don't want to write a novella here, so...my most memorable, movie moment of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was the scene when Chewbacca was about to eat a cooked and tasty looking Porg as living Porgs gave him the sad eye/horror-stricken look. This scene was genuinely funny, and it says a lot about this movie that this is my most memorable, movie moment.
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" are movies that shouldn't have been made if they were going to be this disappointing. I understand Disney sees this franchise as a cash cow. Fine, but Disney needs to put competent writers to work on this series. Imagine how much more money can be made if the movie is actually good!
To Hollywood writers/directors/producers/studio executives: please refrain from using alcohol and drugs when making movies.
Mannysmemorablemoviemoments
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Before it came out, Episode 8 was already seen as the next Empire Strikes Back-Level Star Wars Film. New directions, reveals and a character based story.
While it archieves to deliver on the character aspects, it fails miserably at the plot aspects.
The new Luke is as interesting it can get: Seing our hero as a broken man, as he is being responsible for the creation of space-himmler and losing all his students. Hammil shines and steals every scene he is in.
Him going from broken man to someone who regains hope was an intriguing development. Having Yodas cameo actually effecting Lukes character development and therby the plot instead of just making it hollow fan service is heartwarming.
Rey is okay in this one. I still consider her to be a Mary Sue in VII though. I liked her dynamic with Luke and was truly blown away with the Rey-Kylo-Thing. Yet, they went all the ways i expected them to with this character (not necessarily a bad thing)
Kylo Ren overcomes his inner conflict and decides to kill Snoke so he can rule with Rey, she declines. Thats something a Sith does. Hes full dark side now which is ok.
Snoke wasnt treated that good in this one. He seemed to be one of the most powerful beings and yet Johnson decided to insert a shot having snokes dead body with his tongue out, looking like a sleeping dog. C'mon....
Finn and Rose were only part of a trivial and uninteresting subplot. Sad.
Poe finally has some development. From the "cocky flyboy" to a responsible leader. Yet, part of his Arc also was to not question the ones above and follow all commands, which was really odd.
The Pink Haired one was straight up stupid by not telling anyone her plan. She treats the ones below her like trash and is later revealed as a shining hero. Nope, shes an A-hole.
The plot has too many holes this time. Why dont the Tie Fighters just destroy the Resistance Ship after all the X-Wings are destroyed? The throwaway-line to fix this plothole is unconvincing and makes no sense.
Why dont the first order just make 2 smaller Star destroyers cut the Resistances' way off by jumping ahead of them with lightspeed? Why follow them for hours? The ending though is a glamorous final with everything coming together. The reveal with Luke not being there is amazing.
With all the new interesting stuff, i still feel like they borrowed a bit too much from the Original Trilogy.
The plot structure was in many ways similar to ESB and some RoTJ moments also slipped through.
The movie is a lot of fun. The action is shot amazingly and the fights are well choreographed while still having a physicality to them. But for bit of dialogue in this film, we have an unfitting joke. While i have nothing against the Porgs or humor in general... it is just too much in TLJ.
For every amazing scene we have a Leia-In-Space or Freeing-Space-Horses scene. And for every great Character we have a big hole in the plot.
All in all its a fun Star Wars adventure, but too many Plot Holes, too many Jokes and too many odd things
retract form the enjoyment. Mistakes were defenitely made with this one.
Lets hope Johnson uses the Star-Wars-Lore-Knowledge of the people at Lucasfilm and creates a more coherent Trilogy. And make it bigger in scale pls. The galaxy does not have to feel like if it wasan empty place with 2 Planets.
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There are only three Star Wars movies. Just three. They are numbered episodes 4-6, which is stupid because they're actually episodes 1-3 because there are no other Star Wars movies. None. Any other movies besides 1-3 are not Star Wars movies; they are bad, very bad, amateur fan boy Lucas-needs-more-money homemade attempts (except Rogue One, which was purty good but is not a Star Wars movie, it's a Star Wars Universe movie). I have repeatedly made these point to my son but he insisted I accompany him to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi, episode...oh I don't know what effin' episode it's supposed to be. I'd rather have red hot needles shoved in my eyes, but it was his birthday so I went. And I was not disappointed, meaning that I was as disappointed as I expected to be because it sucked.
Suckity suckity sucked.
It had a purty good opening battle sequence, the special effects hammering away because great special effects means a great movie because story? What's that? George Lucas and the rest of the evil spawn know that the longer the laser shoot-em-ups, the later the gigantic gaps in logic and plausibility manifest, so let's blow some crap up! And, boy, did they, depicting fearless big cojone pilot Poe Dameron disobeying orders to get hisself a dreadnought, getting the entire rebel fleet wiped out in the process, but, hey, it was still fun.
Now, on to the gigantic gaps in logic.
Rey is finally on Luke Skywalker's island planet beach whatever and is finally ready to undergo Jedi training and Luke, after being a dick for some required period of time, starts training her and, five minutes later, she's a full fledged Jedi Knight. No, really, five minutes, that's all it takes. You just concentrate on feeling pretty good about yourself and, next thing you know, you're juggling boulders. Which means, of course, Yoda was having Luke on during that whole somersaulting-through-the-swamps while riding piggy back in Empire Strikes Back (you know, the second real Star Wars movie?). Turns out Yoda is a dick, which seems to be a Jedi requirement because Yoda shows up in this one all shimmery and ghosty and does some pretty dick things.
Becoming a Jedi doesn't even require your full attention because Rey and Kylo Whineface go through some baffling mind meld while Rey is undergoing her rigorous five minutes of Jedi training and talk to each other the whole time. Luke sends her off into the same tree cave that Yoda the dick sent him in to face his own fears and who do you think she's gonna find in there, huh, who? Darth? Whineface?
Nope. Just some books, which Yoda, in a really dick move, ends up burning to ashes. Or did he?
At any rate, the Wonder Twins keep up their Professor X/Jean Grey telepathic link throughout the whole movie and you'd think people in telepathic communication across an entire galaxy would get somewhat of an inkling of each other's intents but, nope. Because, see, Lucas is hoping you'll be stupid enough to think this is going to be another "save Darth Vader" moment and you're just waiting and hoping and, oh, no! Kylo Wineface has tricked everybody, including the Red Skull...er, Snoke. Snoke? What the hell kind of name is that for the leader of the Fourth Reich? Can you see yourself going "Hail Snoke!" without cracking up? Maybe that's why Whineface wants to take over: "Hail Whineface!" has a better ring to it.
While all that's going on, the three or four hoopdies that remain of the rebel fleet are being tracked through hyperspace by General Chucky Huxtable and his minions...wait a minute, you can't track someone through hyperspace, unless someone on the rebel command ship is, oh, I don't know, broadcasting? Five minutes after everybody figures that out, do they start looking for the obvious traitor on board? No, they decide to send Finn and a Japanese school girl one million light years across the galaxy to find a codebreaker who can breach the Death Star and turn off the tractor beam...wait, sorry, turn off the tracking device on Huxy's command ships. Because, you know, that's just sooo much easier than following the signal back to the traitor. I guess there was no other way for Lucas to recreate the Mos Eisley cantina scene and (a) add the required far left talking point about arms dealers profiting off the back of the cute little orphans taking care of the llama horses and (b) introduce Benicio del Toro, who talks with a stutter, either because of a defect or because he's mocking everybody, and who must be a Jedi because he turns out to be quite a dick. At least we got to see a llama horse race-and-escape because Japanese School Girl used to be one of the cute orphans and knows llama horses. I think.
So when all of this predictably gets bollixed up beyond belief, Admiral Purple Hair pulls off one of the best kamikaze moves in history and blows the First Order fleet out of the sky, which makes one ask why in the blue blazing hell didn't somebody pull the very same maneuver against the Death Star? Could have saved Luke's hand.
So when all of that gets bollixed up beyond belief, everyone ends up on Hoth for a classic Star Wars Imperial Walker assault, complete with red soil so you can track the five or six rebels left as they launch a direct head-on slow speed counterattack. Sitting ducks, that's the phrase you're looking for, and they get systematically blown apart until...Luke shows up! By himself, with a light saber, right out front looking all menacing and Whineface has about the same reaction I do...shoot him. Every gun in the universe lights Luke up in a spectacular blaze of laser cannons, nuclear devices, phasers and photon torpedoes, you name it, red soil flying everywhere but, please. I turned to my son and did the shoulder brush and, three seconds later, Luke is making exactly the same gesture. Turns out Luke is doing the old Loki trick ("Will you never stop falling for that?") to buy the three or four rebels left enough time to follow a bunch of cute ice foxes (who have suddenly become self-aware) out the back where Rey is juggling boulders.
Oy.
Next time, red hot needles.
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Sorry for the haters... :) but in my opinion this is one of the best Star Wars movies ever!
I already was a fan of the movies since I was a kid...
In my opinion, I do believe that episode 1,2, and 3 that where made in the beginning millies, where probably the most less interesting.
The level of acting was not that high from some characters, and some (like JarJar) were even annoying.
With The force awakens, JJ Abrams did a new approach of the movies.
I thought it was a goodone... I liked it, and was surprised that the movie was better then the last movies Lucas had made.
Still in a way I had the feeling the storyline was a bit like "a new hope" in a way that history repeats itself. Kylo Ren (the new vader) Snoke (the new emporer) Rey (the new skywalker) etc...
So in that perspective the storyline could be a bit more surprising.
I am not going into details about the storyline, cause you can find it all over the web now.
But what I have missed in "The force awakens" Definitely was there in "The last Jedi"
I went to watch the movie with low expectations, and was hoping it was not going to be a sequal full of Clichés and some kind of copy from "the empire strikes back".
It blown me away! for me it is a fantastic movie! one of the best Star Wars movies I ever saw!
The storyline and plotchanges were realy great and surprising!
This makes me hungry to see the new movie in 2019! and hope will be as good as thisone.
I understand the dissapointement from some people...
First of all you do not get all the answers in this movie,
I thought it was bit pity as well.
In the other hand it also makes it more mysterious, and that feeling had more impact on me then the answers you do not get.
This is also s a new approach of the franchise and not everybody is open for that, especialy if you were a die hard fan of the older movies.
I think this is probably a kind movie that you will love or hate.
But in my opinion.... I love it :p
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3/10
Entertainment capable of existing outside personal agendas seems impossible today
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." -Kylo Ren
That sums up pretty much the whole Star Wars storyline at this point but I'm afraid it's a little worse than that.
It's difficult to decide where to start because it was all just so bad. Plotholes. Acting. Pointless side-arcs. The special effects are really the only things that stood out but that alone isn't enough to carry the movie.
After leaving the theater I gave it a 6.5 until I went online to try to figure out how it could all have gone so very, very wrong. After I did that I had to drop it to a 3. It's fallen prey to the SJW cancer that destroyed Marvel comics(but strangely, is not present in the Marvel movies).
'The Last Jedi is the first properly feminist Star Wars'- "Warning: spoilers and deconstruction of the patriarchy ahead." -www.newstatesman.com
There were others but that one says everything you need to know. The men in the movie are either violent man-children, incompetent or just simps. The women are powerful, patient and ever mindful of the feelings of others but never willing to share any amount of control. Except for Phasma who seems to die quickly and easily, possibly as a message for what happens to women that choose to support 'the Patriarchy'. Luke has been reduced to a bitter old man that isn't up to the challenge anymore and betrayed himself by considering the thought of killing a child. Because, no matter how good or noble, all men are susceptible of turning into a monster. Rey is a 'Mary Sue', amazing at everything for no good reason. We can't even attribute it to some deep connection to her parents as it seems they were drunk nobody's that sold her off for beer money. Anakin was at least supposedly created by Darth Plagueis through midi-chlorian maipulation resulting in him being far, far more powerful than other force users which allowed him to see and do things a child wouldn't have been capable of. Rey? magic vajay-jay I guess. Capitalism is even attacked by showing the decadent lifestyles of gamblers that made their money from selling weapons with child slaves depicting 'the little guy' in society that can never get a leg up because someone else is holding him down. From start to finish it feels like it was just one long propaganda commerical.
One of the things I found that puts it all into better perspective than I ever could was some guy called Sargon of Akkad on Youtube with a post called "Gender Wars The Last Snowflake". If you have a few spare minutes it might be worth checking out.
With all that said, I won't be paying to see the next one. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This was like waking up and being promised three amazing meals for the day. You walk into breakfast and find a porridge like meal that Russians in the 16th century might have eaten during an exceptionally harsh winter. You think it's a joke but you're told lunch will erase any bad memory of this meal; it'll only get better. You arrive and you're given a barely edible, and quite possibly mildly poisonous, pile of mush but you're hungry so you eat it. And now you're told dinner will be a meal so mouth wateringly delightful that you'll feel like you've gone straight to heaven...Would you really believe them after the last two experiences, each progressively worse than the previous?(TFA was worse than the prequals, amazing but true). I think most people would choose to go to bed hungry rather than face the abomination that awaited them at the dinner table later that night.
Enough. You broke me. I loved the older movies and at one point had read all the novels and most of the comics that had been released up to around the early 2000's. You managed to target something a man loved as a child/young adult and destroy it because you hate it's primary fan base. I know you're happy about that and I hope you rot for it.
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Although by no means a Star Wars expert I've always been a life long fan, from binge watching my mum's original trilogy vhs to seeking out comics and graphic novels in my local comic shop to going through high school watching the prequels and gradually learning to appreciate the well thought out expanse they created for the SW universe. I thoroughly enjoyed The force awakens and thought that although it wasnt particularly ground breaking it set up an entertaining and interesting trilogy with some potentially great characters who became instantly acceptable into star wars canon. As for Rogue One that was just downright awesome! So wtf happened with TLJ?? The only film i've ever seen and left feeling so confused and empty that I didnt actually feel like i'd seen the actusl film!
One recurring theme I noticed was that literally any scene of emotional/ powerful impact was completely undone within the following 3-5 minutes. Theres too many examples to count. The final moment in TFA Rey found Luke and handed him back his lightsaber...what happens next is just insulting. Stunning scene wherp
Pe Admiral Holdo turns the rebel freighter and obliterates Snokes star destroyer in lightspeed...every single character survives and bb8 saves the day by being able to drive a walker and wipe out an army of stormtroopers until they can miraculously escape. Luke and Leiai's final scene together, genuinely touching and powerful until 5 minutes later when it turns out Luke was never even there in the first place. By this point its hard to even try and care about whats happening anymore and just seems like a bunch of pointless scenes tacked together with no genuine outcome or harm done to any character!
Speaking of the characters, the development was literally non existant. Finn - genuinely interesting character with a lot of potential, felt like he was shoehorned into this movie because he had to be there and was given nothing to work with. A boring subplot where he gets sent to a casino, gets arrested for a parking violation and free's some pokemon looking horse aliens because its the ethical thing to do (yawn)
Poe - hero of the resistance, made into an annoying, unlikeable, reckless asshole who aside from cracking awful cringey mum jokes is single handedly responsible for wiping out more of the resistance than the first order!
Luke Skywalker - along with his father one of the greatest characters to ever grace science fiction/ fiction. His cinematic return shouldve been handled with respect and grace, instead every recognisable characteristic is stripped away to leave nothing but a boring parody. And just when you think he's about to do something badass and tear apart a fleet of walkers and battle kylo ren nothig happens, it turns out he's a hologram and he dies. How did anyone think this was ok??????
Snoke - really interesting character and in the flesh came across as genuinely intimidating along with his guard. Killed effortlessly after 5 minutes of screen time and never mentioned again (wtf?)
Cpt. Phasma - cool character, shoehorned in again because she had to be there then killed off because they couldnt be arsed to find a way to put her into another film.
Literally at a loss as to where this trilogy can go after this and I feel for J J Abrams after his interesting first chapter in the trilogy got butchered into this mess and having to pick up the pieces afterwards. Thats not even to mention that the 'plot' was for the first order to slowly follow the resistance through space until they ran out of fuel. The fact that that got greenlighted as the 'storyline' of a near 3 hour film is laughable as it is.
Have to give props to Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver for doing the best with their parts but it couldnt save this mess. RIP star wars.
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I am a massive star wars fan. I loved that star wars already had a diverse cast and a one of the first super strong female lead characters in princess leia. what has happened to star wars is a travesty. an absolute mess of a film.
please god. make disney leave star wars alone and never do another movie. please please please just go away disney.
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My thoughts on the story in general.
It seemed like a good movie. Really good actually!
but in the end. it was more of a exchange between people in certain groups.
They said in the movie, there is no good or bad. Which says,, the story behaves of the exanches between leaders and people. No good or bad people. Only the most powerfull the seem to be good ones. In this philosophy
It really feels like a endless enlarging hollywood-story trick. I will explain what i believe is the case..
I mean it's hollywood right? A long lasting movie-serie we're dealing with. Loads of fans all over the world. Where there is a fransishe, there is cashflow. And movies are big business indeed.
Look at the jurassic park movies. The first ones where awsome, and the makers seemed to know the fransiche momentum was rolling. They profite it, to make every like 3 years a new one. But they forgot they sacrified the story on all aspects.. (accoarding to IMDB and the movies i watched).
Mannn, look at nolan. STAY TRUE TO YOUR STORY, IF YOU TAKE FILM SERIOUS. and if your not only a business man.
Nolan could've go easily for inception 2. But he didn't, because THE STORY WOULD STAY intact and MOST IMPORTANTLEY. THIS WAS PRIORITY NR. 1 above box-office digits..
This movie is the perfect example, To endlessly milk a story. What wasn't written in the books
"And then a new world was bornn" . New dart vaders, new rebellions..
Its a shame actually. It FADES THE MESSAGE for the movie to me. Because they could've leave a real message for people to think about.
Now they just left a message of 'Hold on guys, there's comming new movies!!!
And yeah it;s probably what they want. Just another story, just another one. Keep the starwars nerds happy, and fransiche alive.
C'mon leave a message after all.
You need to end the story on the best twist, to keep everybody believe in it man.
Other ways people will at some point lose faith in the story.
And the fransishe dies, in the most miserable way..
and start a new fransishe from a spin-off!
look what LOT/hobbit did
Vincent van den akker 24-12-17 3:06
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Before it came out, Episode 8 was already seen as the next Empire Strikes Back-Level Star Wars Film.
New directions, reveals and a character based story.
While it archieves to deliver on the character aspects, it fails miserably at the plot aspects.
The new Luke is as interesting it can get: Seing our hero as a broken man, as he is being responsible for the creation of
space-himmler and losing all his students.
Hammil shines and steals every scene he is in.
Him going from broken man to someone who regains hope was an intriguing development. Having Yodas cameo
actually effecting Lukes character development and therby the plot instead of just making it hollow
fan service is heartwarming.
Rey is okay in this one. I still consider her to be a Mary Sue in VII though. I liked her dynamic with Luke and
was truly blown away with the Rey-Kylo-Thing. Yet, they went all the ways i expected them to with this character (not necessarily a bad thing)
Kylo Ren overcomes his inner conflict and decides to kill Snoke so he can rule with Rey, she declines.
Thats something a Sith does. Hes full dark side now which is ok.
Snoke wasnt treated that good in this one. He seemed to be one of the most powerful beings and yet Johnson
decided to insert a shot having snokes dead body with his tongue out, looking like a sleeping dog. C'mon....
Finn and Rose were only part of a trivial and uninteresting subplot. Sad.
Poe finally has some development. From the "cocky flyboy" to a responsible leader. Yet, part of
his Arc also was to not question the ones above and follow all commands, which was really odd.
The Pink Haired one was straight up stupid by not telling anyone her plan. She treats the ones
below her like trash and is later revealed as a shining hero. Nope, shes an A**hole.
The plot has too many holes this time. Why dont the Tie Fighters just destroy the Resistance Ship after
all the X-Wings are destroyed? The throwaway-line to fix this plothole is unconvincing and makes no sense.
Why dont the first order just make 2 smaller Star destroyers cut the Resistances' way off by jumping
ahead of them with lightspeed? Why follow them for hours? The ending though is a glamorous final with
everything coming together. The reveal with Luke not being there is amazing.
With all the new interesting stuff, i still feel like they borrowed a bit too much from the Original Trilogy.
The plot structure was in many ways similar to ESB and some RoTJ moments also slipped through.
The movie is a lot of fun. The action is shot amazingly and the fights are well choreographed while still
having a physicality to them. But for bit of dialogue in this film, we have an unfitting joke. While
i have nothing against the Porgs or humor in general... it is just too much in TLJ.
For every amazing scene we have a Leia-In-Space or Freeing-Space-Horses scene.
And for every great Character we have a big hole in the plot.
All in all its a fun Star Wars adventure, but too many Plot Holes, too many Jokes and too many odd things
retract form the enjoyment. Mistakes were defenitely made with this one.
Lets hope Johnson uses the Star-Wars-Lore-Knowledge of the people at Lucasfilm and creates a more
coherent Trilogy. And make it bigger in scale pls. The galaxy does not have to feel like if it was
an empty place with 2 Planets.
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IN BRIEF: A good-looking but convention re-mash from most of the series.
SYNOPSIS: The Resistance fighters fight the First Order...once again and again.
JIM'S REVIEW: There is really nothing any critic could say, let alone myself, to stop the phenomenon known as Star Wars. The force has been (and will be) with this film franchise for decades to come, making this latest chapter in the most profitable series in movie history all the more memorable. And yes, Star Wars:The Last Jedi is a worthy addition to this space age saga, just not a very creative or moving one.
Rian Johnson (Looper) is a fine choice to serve as the film's director. He has enough visual panache to wow his targeted audience, although he doesn't stray to far from the tried-and-formula that sustains this franchise. (The use of blood red throughout the film gives it a stately look.) He delivers an action-packed thrill ride at warp speed, but loses the excitement and its characters in a middling story.
The plot remains simplistic, a good vs. bad scenario, with enough sub-plots to perk up the interest if one story strand starts to meander, which it does. Our heroine and female power player, Rey (Daisy Ridley), is now under the tutelage of Luke Skywalker (a winning Mark Hamill) to learn the necessary skills to combat the most evil Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). While she is gaining that knowledge base, other Resistance fighters are in combat mode. This includes, from our last outing, Hans Solo substitute, fighter pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac) and rogue soldier Finn (John Botega). And of course, that former princess turned general, Leia (the late Carrie Fisher) is there, bringing the needed nostalgia and pathos to her final role.
New additions to the cast include Laura Dern, Kelly Marie Tran, and Benicio Del Toro. A still less visible Gwendoline Christie, who was wasted as a mere footnote in the last chapter, has a memorable exchange toward this film's climax, although she is well hidden in her mask and armor..so much for emoting and acting lessons. Domhall Gleeson as General Hux takes on that challenge effectively. We even have cute pogs taking the place of Ewoks for the younger crowd. And the great Andy Serkis is center stage as the powerful Snoke, a great CGI villain.
Everyone is assembled to combat their personal conflicts and deal with their angst, ready to fight the fight most effectively...except it takes most of the film for these characters to finally come together. There is definitely a pay-off in the third act, but getting there is a challenge of sorts. Nothing seems to have been overlooked, well, except a real emotional drama. It's all surface treatment, visually stunning and artfully crafted...a very good veneer to behold. But when one looks deeper, less is less.
The basic problem is a screenplay (written by the director) that is essentially uninspired. The narrative is disjointed and not very creative, borrowing too closely from set pieces and similar characters from other chapters in this series for contemporary audiences (Mos Eisley Cantina vs. a casino on Canto Bight, both with jam-packed with delightful alien creatures / Rey is Luke / Poe resurrected to become the new Han Solo, etc.) Not very original but it's safe, cozy, and familiar to its fan base. However, these established and endearing characters deserve better dialog and are in need of some real tension and drama, Luke, Leia, Daisy, Finn should not be mere props for battle. Also, the editing doesn't allow flow of its chunky plot and undercuts the characters and their individual missions numerous times. Humor is apparently in short supply as the movie takes itself far too seriously.
Still, Star Wars: The Last Jedi still entertains. There is plenty of fine CGI, nicely staged aerial battle sequences, and some nifty hand-to-hand lightsaber duels thrown in for good measure. Excitement and tension builds to many ultimate showdowns so that action fans won't be disappointed.
Let us hope that the filmmakers for the next installment go a bit rogue and resist the real evil: conventional storytelling. Staying safely within the lines does not make a great movie. With such a force of talented artisans behind them that can dazzle us with enough visual showmanship. Star Wars: The Last Jedi remains a feast for the eyes, but does little to move the soul.
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1/10
A monstrosity among Star Wars films.. Making the prequels looks 'ok'
The movie was a monstricity, I dont know why Rian Johnson did what he did... and why critcs are talking so 'good' about this movie, they are definitely paid off.. Sure as a sci-fi movie it's an 'ok' movie.. but as a star wars movie, it's very confusing, the movie is all over the place, I felt like I was watching 3 stories mixed up into 1 movie.... The skywalker legacy has been thrown away like garbage.... the character development of Rey and Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) also wasn't in the movie at all.. Rey getting 3 tiny lessons and becomes powerful.. or as luke said 'I've only seen this raw strength once in my life' ... The side quest Finn & Rose had, was very unnessacery, if they left that part away, it wouldn't make the movie any better though, but at least it would've saved me some time... halve way through the movie, I almost fell a sleep, it just couldn't make it interesting for me... one positive thing though, the visuals.. and the 'action' was pretty cool.. But next to all the cliché stuff though... it's so lame, so predictable.. they might talk so 'good' about this movie.. but I dont see it... the choices that were made were wrong, and I dont see how this movie got praised so much.. it's a true shame that this movie is called 'star wars' JJ abrams has a huge thing to do with the number IX, but I do believe a lot of people have lost interest already in this franchise, some might call it 'bold' decisions Rian made, but I acan't stand behind them.. it's unfortunate to see the classic characters fade away like this.. especially Luke... Though Leia was the worst of all, how she can blown up and then flew back to the ship, was just out of character and to a point so disney-ish and hilarious, I laughed out loud when I saw they did that... after 30 years she felt the force and flew back to the ship? give me a break... Luke perhaps couild've done it, even though I would even find that weird.
And how they killed off Snoke is the worst though.. how easily he managed Rey when she tried to attack him, and he didn't even felt a single disturbance in the force regarding Kylo Ren trying to cut him in halve with a damn lightsaber... he was soo powerful, and we didn't even see him in action, yes force choking Rey but that's about it... it's so awkward and strange..
A thing I wanna address, Admiral Ackbar though, if they wanted him to die like almost all classic characters, so they can make room for a new generation, at least they should've made him go out in a bang, and not just being exploded together with Leia... they should've let him suicide for the Rebellion or anything like that.. but obviously that didn't happen or else I wouldn't be typing this.
Anyways, I can't and won't type forever, I'm just very let down by this movie, I wanted it so much to be an amazing and thrilling experience...
I won't forgive Disney and Rian for what they did to Luke, and General Akbar...
I can only rate this movie with an 1/10 , I would've loved to give it an 8/10 since I like the star wars movies.. im not an hardcore or anything, I just enjoy it.
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1/10
Too few things done well, while too many things done poorly.
I should preface this by saying that I really wanted to like this movie. About 1/3rd of the way through, however, I realized that I was in for disappointment.
Here are some of my reasons for disliking this movie. The first thing wasn't even story related. It was simply the amount of bad/forced/unnecessary/intolerable jokes that they tried to pack into this film. A major reason why I liked Episodes 4-6 were because they took themselves seriously. As far fetched as the Idea was, we were presented with this particular universe, and the things that happened throughout the films were taken seriously. There were some jokes in E. 4-6 but not many.
The film was not well written. Finn had some lines that seemed out of place. The story was building something up in the force awakens and pretty much everything that they built up they jettisoned in the last jedi. Specifically pertaining to the background of Rey, and Snoke.
I think they misused the Luke character. They could have done way more with his story.
I feel sorry for whoever has to write the next installment because this movie completely abandoned the projected story-line.
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Firstly, lets talk about what this movie does well. The directing is top notch. Practically every frame looks stunning with the perfect blend of practical effects and CGI. The sets are highly detailed and convincing. The cinematography is quite possibly the best it has been in a Star Wars movie since Empire, with some shots in particular being phenomenal.
The editing for the most part is solid, however I did have some issues with how scenes were linked together during the halfway point of the film; they seemed to jump from one to another far too quickly making it difficult to pay attention to what was going on. The soundtrack is once again composed by John Williams and is certainly an improvement from The Force Awakens, but still wasn't very memorable. And the sound design is as always amazing.
But then we reach the 'plot', if I can even call it that. The Last Jedi is a Magnum Opus of inconsistent storytelling.The story and writing in this movie is totally contradictory and a complete mess. It fails to capture any semblance of structure. I would barely consider this a film. It feels like a strange anthology of different smaller movies that don't even correlate to one another at all.
Plot points will be explored for 30 minutes and will lead nowhere and contribute nothing to the overall story, particularly true for Finn's arc which is downright awful. The dialogue is terrible and made me squirm into a foetal position in embarrassment at what I was watching. Character motivations make no sense and are all over the place. I do not care about any of these characters anymore. Rey is one of the worst characters in Star Wars. She's a boring Mary Sue who is perfect at everything without any explanation or arc. Kylo Ren is once again an afterthought and is probably the most inconsistent character in the film. But he at the very least changes as a character and actually contributes to the story even if his contribution makes no sense. The plot in this movie practically renders every positive aspect of the directing and sound design completely redundant because there is no context for anything happening.
This film squanders all potential from Episode VII. You thought Rey's backstory and how she gained all of these force abilities and lightsaber training out of nowhere would get explained? Nope. You thought Snoke's relevance to the story would be elaborated on? Definitely not. In fact, Snoke is given one of the most laughable treatments of a character I have ever witnessed. This movie not only leaves established plot points from VII totally unanswered but it also ruins a vast majority of them. The Last Jedi advances NOTHING from The Force Awakens. Nothing is different by the end of this movie aside from one change of leadership.
But worst of all is what this movie does to the entire Star Wars story. If you were to try and imagine every possible way to ruin the character of Luke Skywalker and the story of the original trilogy you would not be mentally capable of matching what Rian Johnson manages to pull off. This is probably the most magnificent failure of a sequel I have ever seen. It is so detrimental to everything that is Star Wars that it feels intentional.
The pacing is also abysmal. I feel like the movie was an hour longer than it needed to be. None of the scenes with the Resistance were relevant so they could've been easily removed or made significantly shorter to make this at the very least bearable.
The acting is fairly dull across the board. Mark Hammil, Andy Serkis and Carrie Fisher are standouts as expected. Oscar Issac is a great actor but his character is given absolutely nothing to do in the movie. The rest of the acting is mediocre. But in all fairness it is difficult to act when the script is as horrifically bad as this.
*SPOILERS*
There are too many plot-holes to count. How do the First Order have so much influence? How are the rebels reduced to a small fleet when they controlled a portion of the galaxy for 30 years and were backed by the Republic during that time? How is Rey capable of defeating Luke in a duel when she didn't even know she had the force a week ago? How is Snoke killed just because he wasn't paying attention when he can visibly force choke across space, incapacitate anyone with the force and throw Rey around like a rag-doll without any effort? How did Leia become space Mary Poppins when it isn't physically possible to be exposed to the vacuum of space for more than a second without instantaneous death? How did the First Order get the technology to track the Resistance through hyperspace? And the list goes on.
*END OF SPOILERS*
With all of these glaring problems in mind, this ultimately still isn't a BAD film. It is a uniquely messy film. I feel as though Rian Johnson read a Star Wars predictions sub-reddit for days and tried to write a story that was unpredictable and different in opposition to the incredibly interesting theories that the fans came up with that would've made this film infinitely better had they been used. But it is unpredictable in the worst possible way to be unpredictable; making no logical sense.
Sod's law is strong with this one.
5.5/10
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6/10
Good moments, but overall a step down in the saga.
I like some moments and ideas of this movie, but i was very disappointed with some of the characters and decisions they made. The movie has pacing problems, and the whole sequence with Finn and Rose could be replaced with more of Rey and Luke. Snoke and Phasma are wasted, Luke is dead and we didn't even get to see him slashing some fools.f
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2/10
Luke´s a jerk and so is Rian Johnson by killing our childhood !!
This is my first review. I´m an all time Star Wars fan since I saw The Return of the Jedi on the movies back in the 80´s. Each and every movie has been a wonderful experience for me, and for my kids, who became fans themselves with the prequels. Say what you want about them, but they were entertaining and captivating for kids. But enough of the backstory. THIS MOVIE WAS A DISASTER. I mean, it was beautifully made, the cinematography was gorgeous, but the story and the storytelling was pure and absolute CRAP. Rian Johnson and whoever wrote the script managed to tear apart everything we grew up admiring about Star Wars, turning Luke Skywalker, the same Luke Skywalker who abandoned his training to save his friends in Cloud City, the same Skywalker who turned the most badass villain in the whole universe into the light side, the same Skywalker, well you get my point, they manage to turn him into a bitter wimp who won´t get his hands dirty even for his twin sister. They fail to reveal the source of all mighty powerful Rey´s powers, they fail to explain Patricide Kylo Ren motives, heck, they even fail to explain who the hell is Snoke, who at time feels more powerful than every Sith before him. The movie is a mess, and only screws us by taking our greatest heroes in the galaxy and turning them to nothing. I´m beyond words to explain what a mess this movie created. BTW, kudos to JJ Abrams, who managed to create the least likeable and reedemable villain in Kylo Ren. I mean, Anakin/Vader´s story was great, because he was as great a hero as he was a villain, he saved as many lives as he killed, but he NEVER did anything to the point we could think was unredeemable. (not even killing younglings). He really became Vader when he tought he had killed Padme and his child by mistake, but we knew different. He saved Luke when he was about to die. But Kylo is a freaking patricide who killed his father in cold blood and saw his mother blow into space and did nothing. JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson only needed to make him a paedophile priest to make him the most unredeemable person EVER. So, it´s not as we are waiting for him to turn to the light, we COULDN´T CARE LESS if he was hanged by the balls by all eternity. Way to go screenwriters !!
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This movie is crap and don't even think of watching it. The whole movie is a SJW nonsense. From the purple hair to liberal nonsense of women are far better than men, the movie is a train-wreck. If you have watched previous episodes of Star Wars, please stay away from this nonsense.
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10/10
The best for true and devoted fans of the franchise!
Star Wars: The Last Jedi did everything right.
All the negativity on the internet is absolutely appalling and those negative nancys who call themselves Star Wars fans and write these rediculous childish reviews should not be allowed to do so.
Here's what I read in most of these "reviews":
-Bad writing, pointless relationships, too many new stuff, nothing happened what I expected, bad cgi (???), long and tedious first half etc....
Funny enough....those same people criticised The Force Awakens for being too much of the same...
It's this whole new generation of Star Wars "fans" who just recently learned to know about the series and now ruin it for everybody else, the true fans.
And on the other hand there's the older generation who also despised the prequel trilogy for being way to different than the originals. Just rewatch those originals over and over if you can't handle change...
And now we're here, with The Last Jedi. A Star Wars movie that changes the game. It's true....I also had many expectations of things I thought were gonna happen, and nothing did...and that's one of the main reasons I love it so much.
It surprised me over and over again. The movie does build up slowly, but that's a good thing, because the second half will have you sitting on the edge of your seat for the rest of the duration.
All the CGI beauty flaws we saw in Force Awakens have been fixed to perfection. How they handled Carrie Fisher's character after her passing was beautiful and Mark Hammill has given us his best acting performance ever.
Also Daisy and Adam were fantastic, their on-screen chemistry was a thing of beauty.
Now here's one of the favorite nitpicks of the critics (spoiler ahead)
-SPOILER-
This one concerns the Force.
Something new has been introduced in The Last Jedi and that is, what I would like to call, Force Projection, and another one I'd like to call, Force Telepathy.
During the movie Kylo Ren and Rey can see eachother, talk to each other and even touch eachother while being apart. This was a new experience for both the character aswel. They did not know what was going on and neither did the audience.
At another point in the movie we see Luke arriving at the rebel base and handing over a charm to Leia. I emediatly noticed Luke was looking younger then when we previously saw him. He didn't have grey hair, his hair was also shorter and overall looked younger.
When he confronts Kylo Ren and his troops, Ren commands his troops to open fire on Luke and Luke allone. What follows is a barage of lasers being fired at luke.
But Luke comes out unharmed and dusts of his shoulder (funny).
What follows is Luke taking out his old blue lightsaber and a lightsaber duel between him and Ren takes place. When Ren delivers, what seems to be, the finishing blow, his lightsaber just passes through Luke not doing any harm. The next shot we see old Luke still on his island in a meditative state, collapsing shortly after.
That was marvelous, and it added so much more to what using the force can actually do.
The attention of detail during this entire scene is something only real Star Wars fanatics will pick up on.
And i'm not gonna go in depth about this particular detail. I'm just gonna applaud Rian Johnson for that and the realest fans will have picked up on it.
It's not because what we, the audience, have seen what the force can do in previous movies, that that's just it.
I love this bit of originality and makes me extremely curious for what's more to come.
It's sad that people nowadays can't handle any kind of change and feel the need to ruin an experience for the rest.
All the hate The Force Awakens received for being too much of the same now pales in comparison with the hate for too much of new stuff with The Last Jedi.
That's all I have to say about the whole matter.
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More emotional rant than review. This movie was terrible. Cheap writing. Whoever Rian Johnson is he blows hard. Did he not at least WATCH any Star Wars before trying to pen one. And how did Disney clear this? How?!?!?! Flying Leia?! Seriously? Flying effing Leia? This movie has made it clear Disney is NOT the studio to back for these movies. I am done paying to see any of these movies.
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The only reason I give it a 7 is because is Star Wars and it will always have a soft spot in my heart. If it was something else I would have rated it much lower. The story was all over the place. Literally. It felt like I was watching a TV show where all the episodes were compiled into one part. The action was fine. Some good scenes and it seemed they tried to bank in on nostalgia too much. I understand it worked in the first movie and they did it properly in 'The Force Awakens' but it doesn't work so well here. The story for the characters felt out of place. The only thing I'm excited for after this movie is the next part which hopefully, they would do it right and have better characters and more action and a fresh story. The rating I gave for this movie would have gone WAAAAAY up if Rey actually joins the dark side. That would have been a really good twist.
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1/10
This isn't a bad Star Wars movie, it's a bad movie, the kind of CGI-heavy, mindless, soulless, watch-and -forget movie.
Instead of character development and solid story we're treated with a movie that looks like an uncut, waaaaay too long version made up from random and badly thought pointless scenes, cheap, hollow laughs, Leia floating like Mary Poppins, Luke killed for no reason whatsoever, spaceships "running out of fuel", bombing in space WWII -style, dumb, just dumb writing.
Snoke, the supervillain, killed like a cheap extra...
Oh, wait, instead of an awesome final fight, a hologram? Why, just why?
For sure, I'm not going to see another one.
* On the bright side, the prequels are not the worst of Star Wars anymore!
** This isn't a bad Star Wars movie, it's a bad movie, the kind of CGI-heavy, mindless, soulless, watch-and -forget movie.
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What bothers me most is how much did they pay to the so called "critics" to write such a positive reviews? This film has more negative parts than positive. That simply makes is unfit to be part of Star Wars. A lot of stupid moments (such as the bombers in space, the Lea scene in space, the slo-mo battle and many more). Combining these with unappropriated humor, new characters that were completely unnecessary and Luke's idiotic story line, we get some pretty messy film. The director is miles away from working on such important franchises and big budget Si-Fi films (actually where is the science in this episode?). It is one thing to work on independent and medium budgeted films such as Looper and Brick and it is completely different story to direct Star Wars with 250,000,000 million budget and billions of fans expecting at least an average result. Someone much more experienced and competent should work on the franchise in future - someone like JJ, Nolan, Cuaron, etc. - not this dilettante.
5/10
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2/10
"Very Angry" Disney has ruined the Star Wars Franchise with this Episode.
Being a Star Wars fan from the time I watched 'A New Hope' in 1977/78 I was truly looking forward (Excited) to watch the new Installment of Star Wars.
2 hours 30 mins later I was devastated that my beloved franchise has been ruined by poor writing and Directing (Rian Johnson) and a cast that have been let down by Disney for letting this pass the cutting room floor.
My Issue with this Film
1. How the hell did Rey become a Jedi with so little training? Sit on a rock and now your a Jedi Knight
2. Why have a character like Snoke (Probably going to be a really good bad Guy) then kill him off so easily?
3. When did Leia get the force?
4. What was the point of the casino/code breaker scenes?
5. Why the Jokes, Might as well get Jar Jar Binks back
6. Luke Skywalker (Probably the best hero of a film franchise) and in Mark Hammil's own words "I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you've made for this character".
7. Chewbacca being made a vegan?
The only half decent character within the film was Kylo Ren but thats stretching it.
I could keep going with the list but everyone should have there own opinion of films.
If this would of been a stand alone film I would of probably walked out after the first 30 minutes , but giving it was Star Wars had to hope that it would pick up but to dismay it didn't.
Disney pull your finger out and get George Lucas back in charge of the final film to hopefully pull this train wreck back on track.
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Okay, we've had the Star Wars joke. It wasn't funny. Now when can we expect to see the real The Last Jedi film? I'm talking about the film these so-called critics saw: the one they lauded as "Incredible" and "Amazing", misleading so many fans down to their local multiplexes to grab themselves a seat!
As it stands, and assuming this is it, I have to say that this is the worst of ALL the Star Wars films, jointly in story, story cohesion, pacing, scripting and execution. It was just plain terrible. I also feel TLJ was a slap in the face to anyone who genuinely appreciates and loves the Star Wars franchise; an unnecessarily harsh battering of nails in the coffin of the Star Wars universe.
When Mr Lucas handed over the keys to his kingdom no one could have foreseen or imagined the abysmal treatment his beloved characters would receive at the hands of its new owners.. Luke's handling, for example, one of the most disappointing I have ever seen in a film, was as mind numbing (heart breaking) and underwhelming an experience as one could imagine, invoking the intuitive, off the cuff comment, "Well, that was a wasted opportunity," as soon as the credits rolled.
Finally, let me just say that I would gladly pay again the cost of my admission to effectively erase the memory I now have of this awful film.
Suffice to say this will be my final Star Wars film. I'm done.
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3/10
This was one remarkable chapter in the Star Wars narrative. Yeah! NOT!
Well-then. Not to put in writing some novel concerning my disillusionment. Except! This was one remarkable chapter in the Star Wars narrative. Yeah! NOT! Presently! Watching this recent movie, I did become aware of some script continuity problems. First! In Star Wars - The Force Awakens, nearing the conclusion, various members of the Rebellion, were waiting on the shore, of Jedi Island, as Ray, climbs to the peak, after-wards, to come across Skywalker. Strange-now! Nearing the end of Star Wars - The Last Jedi, one of the same characters on that island, who were to be present, waiting for Ray, is facing her on the ship in The Last Jedi, although, she doesn't recognize him, by name.
Second. Some weaponry being fired was to be late, on their marks, throughout the film, by means of sound they should have made, once fired. However! Congrats to the writer and director, to have come up with this storyline. Nonetheless! I do consider the motion picture needed some project-ional characters of the precedent, like Hans Solo, to even Obey-One, principally in their original format, soon-after, encouraging Luke Skywalker, within his personal surroundings, to get back, to his factual roots, perhaps, playing some older images from the past Star Wars films (1-2-3), immediately building on the earlier period, now the prospect of the Jedi, or else, what the entire Jedi thing is all about.
In the original three films, Luke went through a lot, when it came to understanding what he needed to know, as a true Jedi would need. Therefore! To build on the theory, placing his mind back, the films creator should have used some older footage, as CP-3-O, did on the side of the wall, or, many should have depicted this many times over, while being on Jedi Island, building his confidence back into what is right.
I do believe this type-of arrangement could have brought further understanding towards the denotation, mostly, of, the last Jedi.
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There are some of the characters that don't make a difference if they where taken off the movie will have ended the same way.. I could have saved an 1 hour of my life for this.....
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Same thing.
this "movie" transmits a really bad message to the younger viewers: that you don't have to respect authority if you think to be right. Even if what you do is wrong for the most it doesn't matter. In the end you'll be forgiven, because you're special.
Also puts in ridiculous the entire system of leadership, showing one empire not being able ot overtake its enemy when there is a 100% chance, and letting them flee without any reason.
Just remember that people who write this shit is very well paid
I could write a dissertation on how this movie was bad but I will stop here
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6/10
Good if you don't think about it.....otherwise disappointing
The Critics scores before this movie was released gave everyone very high expectations. It seemed this was going to be the best Star Wars of them all!
Well after seeing the movie, those Critic reviews are now very are very suspicious. How could that many reviewers give such high praise to a movie that has such illogical sequences and a terrible plot? The answer, somehow they are all in bed with Disney, either too afraid to give a honest review or paid off not to do so.
Many of the user reviews I see here are trolling reviews created to counter the fake glowing positive review from the Critics. The 1/10 or 3/10 ratings seem over the top, because there are good elements of the movie, but this movie deserves no higher than a 6/10 in my opinion.
The problems of this movie for me:
First space battle where multiple Stardestroyer ships escorting a Dreadnaught ship do nothing while Poe single-handedly takes out the Dreadnaught defenses. Even the Dreadnaught ship waits until if becomes defenseless to the incoming bombers to send out and TIE fighters. Why even have the stardestroyers there? It seems they were only there so General Hux could be present to take part in a joke and to survive the Dreadnaught destruction because he is on a separate ship. The whole sequence is stupid, and ultimately only exists to set up some character depth for Rose.
The rest of the movie continues the same, illogical space battles, illogical space chase, illogical ground battles, Rey spending more time Skyping Kylo Ren than talking training with Luke, pointless secret mission to a casino, etc.
The forced chemistry/romance between Rey and Kylo is similar to Anakin and Padme, just there because it's what the story calls for but no believable natural chemistry like what we saw with Han and Leia or even Luke and Leia for a brief moment in the original trilogy.
The movie has too many jokes/funny moments that are set up rather than seeming to occurring organically.
Positives are we get to see the Force used in new powerful ways, we get to see new cool First Order weapons and ships.
Honestly during the movie there are parts that confuse you or make you wonder why things are happening the way they are, but you move past that because you're trying to enjoy the new Star Wars movie. And you can enjoy the visuals and special effects and some of the characters. So basically if you don't think about it it's a great movie, but when you do think about it, it just gets worse and worse.
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Finally went to see the film and had a huge feeling of disappointment. I expected to get some answers to questions from Force Awakens but don't get any - have to wait for the next movie, I guess - and that is aggravating. I felt I was actually watching a reboot of Empire Strikes Back - plot lines were so similar it made me wonder if the studio could not come up with an original script and story line so they just revamped the ESB script.
The good - acting is very good, special effects very good, action sequences done well.
The not-so-good - there are several so I don't want to bring them all up, but I got the feeling several times where i thought, "Why did that person just do that?" Or "Why didn't they do that a lot earlier?"
The bad - I am not convinced that Finn, Poe, and Rose can replace the original cast members moving forward. Their characters are not as interesting and some of their actions and/or abilities just don't make sense - nothing against the actors, only the characters. Especially Rose - a maintenance worker who can suddenly fly a ship at light speed and a speeder in an attack - huh? Don't you need a little bit of training to do that?
As a standalone film, it wasn't bad - mainly due to decent action and special effects. But considering it is a Star Wars franchise movie, it was very disappointing.
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I just saw the film so I may not be remembering some things correctly
Before I start the review, let me tell you my history with Star Wars series
I am a relatively new fan and I watched the whole Star Wars series as in the Original Trilogy, and the Prequel Trilogy and Rogue One and Force Awakens over last few months
I fell in love with it over the course of last few months, my top favorite Star Wars films are Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope and maybe even Force Awakens? Not sure about that but I love those films, I even enjoyed some of the prequels
I look at films as films and I review them without any kind of fanboy bias, I don't exaggerate my hate or love for a film set in a franchise just because I love or hate the said franchise
So let's talk about Star Wars The Last Jedi
I feel super conflicted about it and I'll explain why
This film had a lot of potential and it wasted most of it despite that it has some satisfying moments and a very small glimmer of light of a "GOOD FILM" shining through it
This could've been really good, it could've been amazing but it wasn't and that's a big letdown for me
A lot of the problems of this film have to do with it's writing because when it comes to cinematography, visual effects and even some of the acting, it was fine for the most part and really impressive in certain parts
The biggest issue with this film is writing
They set up certain things that are very interesting, in fact they set those plot points like they're the biggest mysteries in the Star Wars universe and then they don't follow them through, and they even scrap some of those plot points. And they save the remaining for the sequel to explore.
I avoided spoilers for this film for many days but after seeing it, I feel like there wasn't much to be spoiled. Yes there are some unexpected moments that happen, certain directions they take and one or two of them might get to you but ultimately they never live up to the hype or the build up
You are left with this void, I felt disappointed with the twists(I don't even know if I can call them twists, they weren't shocking). I am not saying I wanted some twists for the cheap shock value but the film sets up an intriguing mystery and the mystery element has always been a big part of Star Wars films, and when the pay off happens, you are left unsatisfied
Another thing I want to talk about is the dialogue, I don't understand what went wrong here because the talent behind this movie was impressive then how could the dialogue be like this?
A lot of the dialogue was so exposition heavy and it felt like they were trying to constantly explain the plot to the audience. A character would say something and you would get it and then the other character will dumb it down for the audience and you will feel like that was unnecessary
There were unnecessary one liners that felt forced sometimes. Although I would admit that some jokes were good but there were a lot of unnecessary ones too. Overall I didn't mind the humor and it didn't bother me that much
One of the most important things that bother me are the character arcs in this film because some characters are written fine and they are handled well and you can appreciate their overarching character development
And then there are characters with whom they take the wrongest possible direction they could take, or at least the most under whelming and uninteresting decision they could take with those characters. And I am pretty sure it will infuriate a lot of fans
It's a major problem you know? The certain direction they take with some of their core characters just feels ugh.. disappointing and lazy
Another thing that bothered me is how safe they played and they barely took any risks. This was the second part in the sequel trilogy. Now was the time to take out the big guns and take risks but they don't and you are left wondering if this was a worthy addition to the franchise or just an attempt to ride on nostalgia
The word nostalgia reminds me of the overall plot and how things go from A to B. It's starting to get stale and formulaic. Instead of changing things up or going in an interesting direction, this film takes a familiar route. Progress is another thing, it felt like this sequel trilogy didn't really progress that much with this film and it feels like there's more they haven't showed you yet
It's not a terrible film. It has a lot of satisfying moments and some interesting character conflict and character arcs but it feels very formulaic, takes absolutely no risks and plays it safe and doesn't fully satisfy you
It's kind of messy, Star Wars universe is such an interesting thing and there's so much you can do with it. So many different directions you can go in, so much rich history/lore you could use and play with, yet The Last Jedi takes a very lazy route to tell it's story which is nothing new
A lot of the dialogue, like I said, is jarring and felt exposition heavy and watered down for the audiences. I've already talked about the certain directions they go with some of their characters and how little satisfactory the twists are, in fact there are barely any twists or turns and the mystery is left unexplored or lazily solved
What's even weird is this film doesn't do that much to get you excited for the next film and the things that happen here, you don't even feel as if there's anywhere to go from here and it's like the writing has trapped itself and restricted itself by taking some decisions that can't be undone
They even try to break their formula in some parts with some stuff they do in here but they do it in a way that doesn't make it interesting or compliments the film
There are so many interesting and mind blowing theories and fan fiction ideas on the internet and when I compare that with the writing of this film, it is just unbelievable that this film doesn't live up to that, I mean the professionals are supposed to be handling a property like Star Wars with care, I mean talented professionals yet a lot of the stuff in this film feels like weak fan fiction
I think Rian Johnson is a really good filmmaker and I love his works like Breaking Bad episodes he directed, Brick and Looper but I don't know what the hell happened here with him and his writing. It feels like he had figured out how to perfectly handle a lot of the stuff, and then there's the other half where he had no idea how to handle it. He knows how to direct a film but the writing here, it's a huge missed opportunity
Maybe it's also on Disney for mishandling this property or watering it down? Or maybe Rian Johnson was never a good choice for this to begin with? I can't tell
It's an enjoyable experience but it doesn't compare to the Empire Strikes Back or A New Hope or ROTJ or even Rogue One and Force Awakens maybe
It's the kind of film that will divide fans, it has its positives and negatives which is why I feel really conflicted
I enjoyed a lot of it but it felt familiar territory and I didn't found myself to be moved by this film, I didn't get goosebumps a single time
There are moments that had me invested sure, they do an okay job of getting you invested in the characters but it feels like a big missed opportunity. They could've done so much better, that's the most frustrating part about this film. They could have much better. I had high hopes from Rian Johnson and this film
It packs stunning visual imagery and action sequences. Interesting characters. But the writing handicaps this film and holds it back from reaching its potential. The writing of the film is not horrible, but it's super under whelming and a big wasted opportunity
2 hour 30 minutes run time didn't help either, it could've benefit from a much shorter run time
It's not a 7/10 in the sense that it's the same as Force Awakens.
Force Awakens I think, is a better film? More coherent, absolutely, and much bearable, but I can't compare them
I gave it a 7/10 because I can't give the rating in points, it's a 7/10 but in the lower range of 7, definitely within 7.6/10, maybe 7.4/10 or 7.6/10. I am having a hard time deciding because like I said, it's a film that made me feel very conflicted
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In a nutshell - all white men are evil (must be their white privilege). If they are non-white men, they're not evil but they are definitely stupid and women need to tell them what to do. Also, animal rights matter and eating meat is bad - take note Chewbacca. What a terrible movie. It's like someone had an extra hot curry, took some laxatives and shat all over the original trilogy.
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According to IMDB, The Last Jedi has an AVERAGE rating of 7.8, which arouse my curiosity and I decided to dig deeper
10 - 21.5%
33,221
9 -19.7%
30,450
8 -20.3%
31,403
I scrolled thru at least 600 pages of review, I dun know what servers or programs is used to calculate but, over the 600 pages of reviews, I came across sporadic 7s-9s but mostly 1-3 (Almost 99% is below 5).
By the law of average and extrapolation, the trends was heading towards 1-5
Comparing with the 100K++ Audience Review over at Rotten Tomatoes, 1-5 is a closer match
I cringed the moment it become clear this is a Marvel "Superman" movie
Rian Johnson (Ruin Jedi) has had Rogue One climatic scene to know what creates goose bumps, Darth Vader ending scene alone was worth the ticket
I hope IMDB can backed up this number and not mislead the general population
My 4 decades of obsession with Star Wars is over
The 1 good thing that that came out from "RJ- Ruin Jedi (Johnson)" version of Star Wars (Superman) is I can now better appreciate The Prequels, at least it was still Star Wars and trying to tell a Star Wars story
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1/10
It is wise to rectify. DELETE THE WHOLE MOVIE AND REPEAT IT.
It´s the worstest, boring, nonsense,and so on of Star Wars world.
DELETE THE WHOLE MOVIE AND REPEAT IT and the I'm going to act like I have not seen it.
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I thought The Force Awakens was superb and finally we were away from the rubbish Prequels. Then came 'Rogue One' which was pointless so I decided to just stick with the main Star Wars films. This film is just as bad as Rogue One, so inconsistent and basically nothing major happens.
It felt like re-watching the same story over and over again. The rebellion is useless, all they do is fly from one place to another and don't really do any planning. I am not very good with picking out continuity errors but even I could see them in this film. Silly things like change of make up from one scene to another. The worst was when Lea was floating in space and then suddenly she turned all Superman. Had they let her die like that it would have been a nice send off.
The whole thing with the casino island was another waste of time. I mean, what do these rebels do? they don't ever plan anything. Also this thing with flying at the speed of light but waiting around to run out of fuel? and how do the bombs just fall in space? I thought there is no gravity there? Also if Yoda has enough power to burn down trees, why doesn't he do something to bring down the Dark Side? Hated how they built up Ray's mystery only for it to be actually of nothing of significance. Also Kylo Ren is so one dimensional. He is just BAD. For no reason.
It's really really dumb and it is quite clear that Disney just takes fans for granted. They don't bother with the story because they know they will get the money so who cares, right?
This was so bad that I had to actually sign up and write a review here!!
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Let's review the Star Wars Last Jedi. First of all let's understand who are the professional movie critics. These are individuals who are considered as professional moviegoers and their critic matter to the movie.
But that doesn't mean they are always right.
For the given reasons below I don't think Star Wars Last Jedi is a great or good movie.
I am going to tell you why Disney went on this route towards the end of this review. Let's begin!
Luke Skywalker is marked as a washed of Jedi who has lost his way in the movie. He is merely there to be killed off and make way for other characters there is no significance with Luke Skywalker. Great Skywalker was sidelined and demoralized throughout the whole movie. only to be back towards the end of the movie to bie.
There was no significant training from Luke Skywalker to Rey on Jedi training it was merely a Passover.
Look how hard it was for Luke Skywalker to lift the X-Wing Fighter from the swamp but in this movie for Rey to lift huge rocks was a no brainier.
That was no great Luke Skywalker moment for us to Remember by to show how powerful is Luke Skywalker.
There is no emotional attachment to Rey to her parents and the discovery of who they are. After all that was the main quest on her side on the first movie. She gave it up. That would have been a much greater story.
There was no great lightsaber battle in the end of the movie that we can speak off. That is a signature of the franchise.
They have a lot of plot lines left unanswered and blank. Knights of the first order, exploring General Snoke's abilities and Rey's parents.
Now anybody can be a Jedi, coming from nowhere you will be the greatest Jedi ever!.. I think this is a cultural effect where you can come from nowhere and you can be anyone in America. This is not necessarily A Bad Thing it doesn't fit with the overall arch of the Jedi Order. But in the context of Star wars it is better to have little mystery around it, on where and how the Jedi's become.
Being feminist is good it is not a bad thing but when you're pushing for it you can almost see it through the movie. Female characters over the male characters again this is not a bad thing it is just when you are trying too hard to do it the movie fails.
Why Disney sent on this route ? Movie is all about out with the old and let's make a New trilogy. I am not talking about this trilogy, I'm talking about Disney's next trilogy after this. I will not be surprised if they kill off Rey on the third movie and bring the kid from the end of the second movie to the next trilogy that is all about continuity and make more money and make more movies in the franchise. I am sad to say, this is going to be just like transformers.
Good special effect tho! Transformers any one ?
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2/10
How The Last Jedi and Rian Johnson destroyed the saga
Rian Johnson says The Last Jedi "deconstructs" the Star Wars mythos. This is an articulate way of saying it tears it down.
Therein lies the angst.
The Star Wars saga was based (to a large extent) upon the writings of Joseph Campbell, particularly "The Hero with A Thousand Faces". It is about stark good vs evil, heroes vs villains classic storytelling. This is what Star Wars is based upon and what original fans expect from it.
Is there a place in culture for "flawed" heroes and "benevolent" anti-heroes? Of Course! A perfect example being Nick Cage's character in "Gone in 60 seconds" (or Ghost Rider)... or any of a SHIT-TON of other entertainment franchises!
Disney and Rian Johnson didn't have to "normalize" or "humanize" this particular series - and in doing so, they "normalized" the product itself.
Star Wars is now just another "edgy" current socio-commentary with no mythos at all (How can you possibly maintain a "myth" when your expressed desire is to tear down the myths and expose their humanity?)
It's like coming out with a movie that exposes Mickey Mouse's latent alcoholism.
Rian Johnson specifically admitted he wanted to tear down what came before and build something "new". Congratulations. Mission accomplished. But don't expect those of us who waited for our Early Bird Specials to be happy about it.
Beyond the overall theme that is an attempt to "humanize" the Star Wars Universe, the film is littered with poor film making - countless MacGuffins and an overall attitude that tosses away previous Star Wars lore as casually as Luke tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder.
:::::::::: Recently uncovered Rian Johnson script treatment ::::::::::::::
Ray's parentage? "Who cares?"
Snoke's backstory? "Who cares?"
Luke's opportunity to go out in a manner befitting a Jedi Master fighting for good? "Who cares?"
Instead, let's spend an hour talking about how bad horse racing is and how it's okay to disrupt the lives of the casino clientele because they are really, really, REALLY bad people. Then we'll spend more time filling in the backstory of a new b-level character then we do Ray, Kylo, Luke, or Snoke (you know those characters we really could know a little more about?)
Let's emasculate every single male character and make the original cast members unsympathetic and unimportant.
Let's give our Mary Sue precisely NO training with Luke (you know, all those scenes Star Wars fans have been ACHING to see like building a lightsaber... yeah.. well, F'k the fans this is MY movie, not theirs!).
Then let's throw in meaningless and pointless sub-plots, a few titties jokes, a Mirror of Erised, Chewbacca busting down the door and growling "You're a WIZARD Lukie!" Let's make Leia from Krypton (Ya' know "I'm Mary Poppins!") Oh! And let's throw in a bunch of cameos for my friends and The Beastie Boys! Then let's mash it together, plot-holes and all, slap a "Star Wars" label on it and sell it at Disneyland.... we'll make BILLIONS because Star Wars fans don't know any better!
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My daughter and I have both been captured by the emotional excitement of the Star Wars movies. Its a great story with so many themes ..but we like the characters connection with each other and a story that puts them in conflict within an environment of turmoil, heroics and hope (among other things).
This movie destroyed everything Star Wars for both of us. At the end of the movie, the theater was silent(usually people clap). My daughter turns to me and says .."Where's the Star Wars" . I couldn't say anything. She summed up what i was thinking.
Kathleen Kennedy created some great new characters in The Force Awakens...but then destroys the entire franchise around them with The Last Jedi. When I say franchise...I'm understating the emotional involvement we had in all the Episodes.
I don't see any reason to see Ep. 9.
Our next few years will deal with healing and moving on....trying to find something else for both of us to enjoy. Slowly we'll detach from the saga...I'm sure we'll watch but not with the same excitement or enthusiasm. We hope that within a year that it will be a distant memory.
Goodbye Star Wars.
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As a Star Wars fan, I have spent these last two years boiling of excitement about this episode 8. I love the Star Wars universe, its heroes, its bad guys and all the great stories behind. While waiting for this episode 8, I had the great pleasure of watching Rogue One which is a masterpiece when it comes to respect what I would call the Star Wars spirit. Watching Rogue One, I felt home. Everything was just pure pleasure and fun. I have watched hundred times the original trilogy, the prequel and episode 7 waiting for this episode 8. And now I have finally been to the last Jedi. It would be exaggerated if I would say that this movie is bad. It is entertaining and full of good moments and fun. I loved Poe and the first space battle introducing the movie, I loved Kylo Ren and BB8 is just so cool. But the Star Wars fan in me is heartbroken. At the end of Episode 6 I imagined that Luke would have had a great life and is a great hero. What I discovered in episode 8 was not easy to understand. How could the guy who believes in the light inside bad people, inside Vader, try to kill his nephew? How could Snoke the guy who smashes people on the ground in another ships (just with his mind) not notice a lightsaber turning in his right? Where are the knights of Ren? Princess Leia flying in space? Seriously? I agree that Rian Johnson has all the freedom to make a movie in his way. I understand that sometimes it has to be different, we have to be surprised and things have to be disruptive to create something new and exciting. However I know that as a Star Wars I have as well the freedom to make my judgement and for this episode 8 I believe it could have been so much, so much better. I will take a break now from Star Wars hoping that episode 9 will be better.
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Disney seem to have spent a lot on their IMDB bot rating on this one. The film is a total culling of everything decent, rich, vibrant and deep in the Star Wars Universe. Disney bought the rights and then butchered the most popular franchise in history and they did it on purpose. I left this film feeling sad for Mark Hamill, for Akbar, for Chewy, for all of them. They did it to Ghostbusters, now they've done it to Star Wars. Well done, the film is utter crap.
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I was so exited for this movie. But it had some terrible jokes and lot of them, looks like disney wanted to create a comedy out of this movie.
Luke, Luke... i Agree with Mark Hamill, they just destroyed Luke's legacy
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I liked The Force Awakens quite a lot. I think Finn, Rey ja Kylo Ren are good characters and it's generally a good thing trying to move forward in the franchise. 'Kiling the past' is quite OK to me, but only if you can give something good back in exchange.
J.J. Abrams did surprisingly good work with TFA , but this one's a sad mess. There's no proper story and the movie doesn't work as a middle part of a trilogy.
Star Wars sure needs some updating, but not the Disney way.
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I cant tell you how many times i had to facepalm throughout this movie.
Beside the massive logic holes, it throws over every character that was ever introduced to the SW universe. No matter how hard i try, i cannot like this movie.
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Let's accept it, Star Wars is dead. At least the cult that the fans followed for 40 years ceased to exist. It hurts, it's hard to accept it. No more lightsaber duels, no more iconic villains, no more answers, no more political conflicts. Just pure fun for teenagers, with teenage characters, with teenage plot and twists that nobody cares how they got there. Let's welcome the crossovers between Disney and Star Wars. Mary Poppins was the first, perhaps in episode 9 we see how Kylo flies on the carpet of Aladdin, or Rey is trained by Pinocchio.
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The parallels with TLJ and ESB are mercifully less than the AFW's copy & paste substitution of ANH. Luke Skywalker is at a low point, as much a disappointment to the new trilogy heroine Rey as fans of the original trilogy. This is no honorable handing over of the baton to the next generation of Jedi.
Benecio del Toro recaptures a little of the magic and needs to be brought back for the final episode. The young crop of stars lack any connection.
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Was expecting a little more depth in script and clarity in plot twists like how leia could fly in space , how exactly did luke pull up a hologram etc. some of the action scenes were made like obviously this is not going to happen to this character . This made it bland and unrealistic. wondered if they were making this for kids. The scenes in movie were like how a 3 year old would have imagined and played with toys and including brand placements inside. I feel like this is more like a lego movie .
Just imagine if there were no good actors in this and star wars name to it, it would have gone as b grade movie which was hated by critics and made a profit slightly above it's investment. Stars for the stunning visuals and dedicated performances which is backed up by only a bleak story. Was expecting more after force awakens
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1/10
Nothing less than a deliberate insult to Star Wars fans
Having been a SW fan for nearly 40 years myself and my son were desperately looking forward to the new film. Went in spoiler-free and with low expectations following the underwhelming TFA two years ago. I had goosebumps with the opening scrawl and theme music (as always) but things went badly wrong almost immediately.
The sight of Ade Edmondson as a First Order officer standing next to Hux was the first red-flag. Hux and his whole 'comedy' routine with Poe was the next. The rest of the movie is a slow motion space chase interspersed with a truly boring and terribly designed pointless side quest. I could go on at considerable length regarding the rest of the film as almost every scene was problematic.
There was one memorable special effects scene where the visual spectacle itself is impressive, but that is countered immediately by the serious 'in-movie' rule-breaking that it's existence produces.
The prequels had at least tried (and failed) to be good films, but some of the faults of this film were deliberately made and the destruction it has now wrought on the entire SW saga is catastrophic. That's it for me, SW is finished.
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I rarely leave reviews on IMdb. I'm not a sophsticated film buff, but I know what I like and this wasn't it. I am not a massive Star Wars fan, although I have seen all the fims. I admit that as far as I am concerned, the original 3 are still the best Star Wars films.
This paricular installment was boring, way too long at 2.5 hours and could have been cut down significantly. The entire Finn/Rose story is completely irrelevent.
There is little character development, the charaters we do have are not very interesting (and somewhat unbelieveable) and the story really lacks anything exciting or original. It's all a bit pradictable and I was very bored for most of the film.
Very lazy writing, directing and editing. Don't waste your money or more importantly, your time!
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So Republic Bombers can fly through Hyperspace but cant fly faster than walking pace when they come out OR assuming for some reason this is not possible they cant come out of Hyperspace closer to the target? Then when they eventually get there the whole thing depends on a push button switch system more at home on a 1970s overhead crane in a Scunthorpe factory!
During the slowest most tedious "chase" through space why don't a few of the First Order ships jump through Hyperspace to intercept and surround the Republic ship rather than all follow sheep like behind it at the extreme range of their cannons!
Kylo Ren the supposed big force bad cant sense he's "fighting" a projection!! You should have been able to hear the mass chortling from assorted walker crews in Yavin!
And as an aside, why is Ren dressed like she's the worst extra in the worst remake of The Mummy?
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First of all, I had high hopes about this movie after Rogue One, it felt like Disney was on the right track, so I was cautiously optimistic.
The Force Awakens, I thought it was good, it was OK... but I didn't really understand why they had to make a "remake" or history repeats itself (it was basically 'A New Hope', in a new take)
But, The Force Awakens also made me cautiously optimistic... like Disney might not ruin the Star Wars universe after all...
Until The Last Jedi.
Even if you are a casual fan of the Star Wars universe, you should feel violated, dumbfounded, and basically feel like they are insulting your intelligence.
This movie effectively destroys the Star Wars universe and all the characters that we used to love.
This wonderful saga, this sci-fi opera, the fantasy western, gets completely eradicated.
The Last Jedi,
It's visually stunning.
The scenery, environment and surroundings, creative editing and amazing effects.
But when they mercilessly butcher the main original characters without disregard to the storyline and history of the saga - it quickly becomes horrendous.
If you only have watched, The Force Awakens, then follow up with this movie - you might like it, these two movies combined as a stand-alone with no connection to the previous Star Wars films adds up to an average Sci-Fi movies.
But if you have seen all movies (several times) and hope to follow the storyline and development of the characters over the past 40 years - then you'll be deeply disappointed, and even that's an mild understatement.
I am at loss for words, I can't even begin to describe how sad I am (over a movie).
Disney and Rian Johnson has effectively destroyed everything good about Star Wars.
This movie is 95% Disney with a dash of Star Wars, for selling new merchandise, toys, new characters, aiming at new younger audience.
It's like Disney and Rian Johnson haven't seen a Star Wars movie, never read any books or novels and are completely unaware of the lore surrounding the universe.
With completely disregard to the original characters, they are trying to reboot this franchise.
They have dishonored all the Star Wars fan base.
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The Luke character is not used at all. The death scene is pathetic. There is no magic. It destroyed everything in me. It was better to not use the first chracters at all.
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MY REVIEW WAS DELETED WITHOUT NOTICE OR AN EMAIL HERE IT IS:
I am so confused with this film. Nothing was achieved? The whole movie is basically the Resistance trying to escape the First Order with the death of three characters just put in.
This film has very little to do with the fans of Star Wars and just caters to the casuals. Force Awakens was an ok balance of fans and casuals but this one is just pushed towards that casual majority.
Finn and Rose achieved nothing this film. Their mission/plan failed and they did very little in the battle on Crait. Now this wouldn't be that big of a problem if their characters actually progressed from all that but no there is very little to no progression in their characters. Also why did they let a pipe cleaner (Rose) fly one of their only vehicles on Crait? Overall they were just a waste of screen time.
With the passing of Fisher I thought they would have gave Leia a death worthy of her character but they didn't. The Leia "sky walking" scene was debatable and I have mixed feelings so I won't touch on it. Instead of having the Vice Admiral sacrifice herself and destroy Snoke's ship they could have used Leia. It would have been an end worthy of a character like her.
There was too much forced humour. Some of it was ok but they just filled the film with it and used it as another way to please casuals. Ask yourself this question, if the prequels had that much humour how much more would they be accepted? Take away the humour from this film and you'll notice that it is a very poor film with two or three amazing scenes.
The mystery regarding who Snoke is and Rey's parents were answered in a very unsatisfying way. Snoke was presented as someone with great power yet was killed of easily. Rey was teased to be someone special but turns out to be no one. I understand Snoke was killed off to make Kylo take control but still. Rey and her parents was a lose/lose situation, if she is a no one then how is she this powerful and why did you tease her to be someone special and if she someone special then it would have been too obvious.
The death of Phasma was another questionable choice. This character was advertised, hyped up and built up through novels then appears very little in Force Awakens and then dies in this film with less than five minutes of screen time.
Untrained Rey is able to force grab Luke's saber but trained Rey isn't able to. Why is Rey so much weaker in this film? In The Force Awakens she was doing everything with ease, guess they listened to the feedback.
I could go on all day but those were some of my major issues. I really wanted to like this film and was waiting for it for two years. I love Star Wars but this is a let down and it seems like people that are rating this a good score don't know Star Wars and what it means.
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I have no idea what happen. Jar Jar Brinks would make the movie better... Finn's story was pointless, Snoke was the main reason ppl speculate before this movie what his story is... we got NOTHING.
From major soundeffects in spacebattles we got a semi-soundfree space. Stick to 1 director ffs
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1/10
A poor standalone movie, let alone when connected to others in the series
NO SPOILERS CONTAINED IN THIS REVIEW
Very surprised like most to see such glowing reviews from critics. Perhaps this is a film that will actually do some good as it has exposed the deep ties that the industry has, and the influence that it has, over supposedly independent critics. It is amusing to see how many articles are now coming out to try to explain the disconnect between many cinema goers and the critics. Most of them are twisting themselves in knots, blaming movie goers for simply being stuck in the past and not being able to take a new direction, but all ignore one main issue. And that is: EVEN ON IT'S OWN, THIS FILM HAS A TERRIBLE PLOT. You can read other reviews to see what I'm talking about. Suffice to say that the best description I can come up with is that it appears to have been written by a Star Wars/Lord of the Rings/Marvel fanboy who is 12 years old and has a severe case of Attention Deficit Disorder. Yes, it really is that incoherent.
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1/10
This is how Star Wars dies, with thunderous applause
Do you remember in Episode 3: Revenge of the sith when Darth Sidious declares First Galatic Empire with thunderous applause from the senate?
So this is how Star Wars ends, we could make an allegory of Disney / Rian Johnson as Darth Sidious, evil of this tale and critics are the senate.
This film as said earlier totally disrespects Star Wars lore. Heart and soul of the franchise has been scrapped.
The concept of the force which takes it's inspiration from Taoism and Buddhism is diminished to something like magic....
There is near to nothing as character development for Kylo Ren, Rey, Finn, Phasma and Snoke.
Although I admit Kylo Ren rebelling to Snoke is only good point of the story. But it executed as poorly as possible. Killing of Snoke this easily turns Snoke's character in to a joke and also Kylo doesn't grow after this decision, he is still the same enraged kid without confidence.
Also good structured characters like Luke Skywalker who inspired me and many others as kid, turned upside down. How could a character which is known to be the most optimistic person, who redeems the most evil man in the galaxy turns into a hermit? Lost his faith in his nephew and be responsible of his turn to the Dark Side!
Script is a simple chase down between First Order and the Resistance, which is the most unimaginative thing I could ever think of in a sci-fi movie.
Every good story ever written by hundreds of talented writers in expanded universe is scrapped and what we get as fans is this movie..........
I can easily say that this is the most dissappointment I have ever had in a movie.
Don't watch this movie if you are a Star wars fan, you will be heartbroken
PS: Listen Sound of Silence with Ben Affleck's face while you are reading this review
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No please never come this zero-acting-crap like Rose Tico ( Kelly Marie Tran )
This Rose is out of content ...so many sequences with her it makes me puke.
And who the F is her anyway ? Why so much time for her.... death ?
The movie ruined our main characters with garbage scenes and many rush and cut .. fast forword scenes and..... very tired and clumsy movie director.
I disliked the movie.
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Typically when I see a bunch of creatives and critics pushing a narrative that people don't like a movie because they have deep-seeded prejudices and hatred towards minority groups, it a) gives me a sense of where their own headspace is (which is clearly not making movies) and b) tells me that I'm in for something....well...special... So, since it's a favorite of SJW's, let's start with the aforementioned prejudice.
Sexism- Think you reserve the right to be actually entertained with your hard earned dollars? Oh no, ya don't. We in the entertainment industry see injustice and we'll shove that down your throat at every opportunity. After all, it's a misogynistic culture, right? Hollywood has no sexism of its own, right? That must be why it felt the need to run the audience down with the idea that all men, from Luke to Finn to Poe, are reckless, impulsive, dangerous, neanderthals, and their saving grace in every instance is strong, female leadership. Nothing wrong with solid, female leadership, but I get tired of the same old, "Men are foolish idiots who don't do anything right, and just assert their evil recklessness" drivel. Grow up.
Breaking the 4th wall- When this was done in Deadpool, it was at least canon. You expected the character to be aware of his own fantasy. When I hear Luke talk about his "laser sword," I know authenticity has gone out the window.
Plot- Not sure what to make of this one. This thing was so disjointed, I'm not sure what I was supposed to walk away with. In an almost three hour snoozefest, I saw something about a girl going to an island to get all the Jedi training she needed in three days, telepathic connections between the dark and the light, casinos, fields, "ski speeders?," tiny droids operating imperial walkers, a codebreaker who was in prison and able to break out, but decided to stay so he could apprehend rebels who happened to be in the same cell only to sell them out at the end? Make no mistake. Jar Jar is real, people. He wrote the script.
Characters- Minor characters we previously were uninvested in pretty much monopolized the storyline, major characters (i.e. Luke) apparently died after having projected himself to help the rebels escape. So he wasn't there, but he died anyway. Yoda was posthumously appearing to destroy Jedi history so Luke can go on teaching Jedi history, but he's dead. AAAAGGGHH!!
Snoke bought it way too easily, as did Phasma. Carrie Fisher has left us, but they kept her character, which leaves me to wonder how/if they're going to write her out in a way that pays her the tribute she so richly deserves.
The singular reason to see this anathema IS Mark Hamill. He has gravity. He's funny, and he's quite an actor these days.
The one upside is that with a gift card coupled with a 1/2 price movie day discount, we didn't have to pay a dime to see it.
Worth every penny.
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Its not that the Last Jedi is bad. Its that its soo bad...I really don't understand what move the critics were watching with this or if they are just so afraid of Disney at this point that they dare not give it a bad rating? The biggest disappointment for me on this is that after that massive success of Rogue One (I'm not talking about number of toys sold here but more to the fact that it was such a good movie) for someone not to sit back at Disney and say 'Well we've cracked it! This is the formula to make Star Wars great again.' instead they sat back and said 'Well lets not make another one of those!' There is honestly so much wrong with this film I don't know where to start. I think it may actually (whisper it) be worse than Phantom Menace. Phantom Menace had some glaring issues that if fixed would have made for a decent film. There is nothing that would redeem this. Luke hams it up, Leia (bless her) dials it in and Chewie is on steroids. I'll not bore you all with the problems with the film but simply choose one of my personal worst moments. The scenes with Snoke in are probably the worst CGI I have seen in any star wars movie. His throne room looks like something out of an original series star trek set design and the cgi for snoke himself is just awful and thats before I even start on the characters role in the movie. So disappointed and the only light at the end of the tunnel is a JJ (I'll do whatever Disney tell me to) Abrahams shaped train heading the way of the Star Wars franchise. Sad times.
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1/10
A great way to kill a legacy and start your own one.
I can see why George Lucas never wanted to make any more Star Wars movies.
How can you improve on perfection? The story dates to the 1970/1980 the reverse hero's journey was told well via a space movie. It was more about Darth Vader's redemption, than about Luke as a hero and this is what makes it so magical as the hero was Darth Vader
The depth of the story could be felt by those seeking an action movie or those looking for a deeper message of personal growth for one's own life journey.
There was a time when all boys wanted to be Luke Sky walker, all girls wanted to be Princess Leia and all angry people wanted to be Darth Vader. Letting go of these childhood memories is hard but something we all must do if we are to grow into adults and tell our own hero's Journey to help and support those around us.
As we grow we pass on the knowledge to the next generation with the hope they live a better life than we did. In other words, Star Wars fans, you need to get over it, as the younger generation will never understand the emotional connect we had with the characters. The characters are disposable like a bad razor.
We have moved in to the attention economy and that means short burst of dopamine in rapid succession otherwise the audience is going to check there Facebook feeds in the cinema
I gave force awakens a 7 but 90% of the story was wasted and an anticlimax now, the rating goes down to a 2 as most of the movie was a waste of time. My understanding of storytelling is you don't put things in a story if it has no meaning, it just causes distraction.
The movies main plot character is Kylo Ren I hope so otherwise why would you kill off snoke. and his journey to the dark side and back maybe. I guess we will see the Knight of Ren come into play in IX. Adam's Driver performance was A grade and was a stand out in the movie he personally can get a 9 star from me for performance and for how much he improved from the last movie.
Luke Light Saver seem pointless at this stage or is there more but judging form all the pointless plots I'm thinking not.
Snoke seems pointless at this stage this was a massive let down, but it does make way for Kylo to be a supreme leader and we can see his rise to power. I hope
Fin's pointless, like pointless and I think he will stay pointless after all we need a token black guy in the movie. Fin's obsession with Rey is disturbing any women would think that sort of behaviour would be creepy in the modern age.
Fin's and Rey's romance or is it Rose and Fin or are they going to have a three some that would make the film cover all the diversity issues.
Leia's new force powers and Luke's new force power seems pointless one keeps one alive and one dies from it. Come on you need to treat the audience with a bit more respect than that. Please I beg you to look at writers that do the miniseries now they write great stories. Hire the team from Breaking Bad that would fix most of the story telling problems.
Luke is back to his wimpy self, what was the Return of the Jedi all about. The hero's journey was wasted he learnt nothing but back to my point maybe it was never about Luke but about Darth Vader and now Kylo Ren. Lucky Yoda comes back as a force puppet ghost. He can now interact with life on earth and make lightning burn trees. So that is what OBI one was talking about when he said to Darth Vader strike me down and I become more powerful than you could possible imagine. Hope Luke can come back with some lightning action.
Why did vice Admiral Holdo have it in for Poe she told everyone the plan before him? Poe is the number one pilot ok, so he got demoted, really. I guess fin and Rose would not have been in the movie otherwise. Lesson learnt from this one. If you're not going to tell a fly boy something his going to go by your back and stuff up your plan anyways so you might as well tell him the plan.
Rey's new amazing force power now opens the way for anyone to have super amazing force powers just like picking up a broom and within weeks we just went from fine dining to eating at Macca's. The force now has no meaning, purpose or needs no special training just collect scrap metal or sweep a stable for a while and you're one with the force. Look what happen to Leia she picked it up while getting blasted out of the control ship. No need to put her in a Tauntaun the force will keep her warm. I guess this gives the writer the freedom to go anywhere now.
Not sure why there was such a political motivated piece with the Rose and Fin going to Canto, free the animals go vegan, put down rich people for making weapons and selling them to both sides and using kids as slave labour. Not sure that was needed
The Crait battle was epic but really rushed can we get back some of that time from Canto
Beside Snoke getting cut in half we get a battle with the Elite Praetorian Guards for most of it, it was great, but Ben and Rey force powers kicked their arse way to easy. How bad arse are the next Villains going to be, so they can beat Rey, that's not going to happen because she can create a hologram of herself, give Leah hans dice and kiss her good bye and then of course the dice have a force power of their own which can hang around long enough to disappear in Kylo's hands. I personal think Leah is very rude for dropping the dice anyways they were a present.
Regardless I be there in December 2018 thanks for killing my childhood I can become a man now.
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The Last Jedi is a weak movie. It starts with pathetic characters. Any of Kylo Ren, General Hux and Admiral Holdo are anti-charismatic and look like the kind of character that you would find either in a parody or in a fan fiction on YouTube made by a group of friends who try way to hard to be serious. I'm not even blaming the actors here, because I saw Logan Lucky and know that Adam Driver can have a powerful presence on screen. I think it's just an accumulation of bad choices on casting, costume design, dialogue writing and directing.
Then you have the storytelling, which is way too close in style to a TV series'. It seems that the crew did listen to the complaints from the fans that Episode VII was just a reboot of Episode IV, and this episode therefore demotes Rey to just some random character in one storyline, and focuses on other storylines as well. The problem is that it leaves no hero in the movie. For what character am I supposed to root here? They're all just different flavors of "the good guys" doing their business. Not imitating the first trilogy doesn't mean having no hero. Everything that J.J. Abrams built in Episode VII, and more especially Rey who had so much potential, is destroyed here. The worst is that her screentime and character development are diminished, yet they still try to make her an important character in dialogues. I guess "show don't tell" wasn't the mantra on this film.
At this point this would just be a weak film, suffering from the same problems than most modern big franchise movies suffer: anti-charismatic characters, bad dialogues and a plot that fucks around nowhere. But then it all becomes weird because The Last Jedi looks so much like a parody. The movie can't keep its seriousness more than 30 seconds, distributing gags, jokes and self-parodic goofs no matter whether the current scene is a epic, dramatic or dull one. It notably betrays the pompous-epic ending of Episode VII with a satirical gag, and never tries to reach any reasonable middle-ground. I've no idea how, as a spectator, I'm supposed to feel in front of such double registry, both dramatic and comedic.
It's obviously an assumed choice considering that the film goes as far as invoking the most emblematic character of the saga (who comes out of nowhere) to literally burn the Jedi mythology. I guess some people like to embrace this new lightweight storytelling that doesn't take itself very seriously, but I can't. The Last Jedi is a film that tries to hide its weaknesses behind comedy and that destroys everything that was built in Episode VII in the process, steering the saga to narrative nonsense and cinematographic mediocrity. The visuals at the end were rad though.
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I want to start of the minimal good stuff this mess has.
1. Great Visuals
2. Great Cinematography
3. Some nice action scenes
The rest is a huge pile of nonsense bullcrap that humiliated me as a fan and as a human.
Since when does a movie like Star Wars needs to put capitalism and treating of animals be a part of the universe. I mean I have nothing against political statements that someone has, is his free right but leave it out of Star Wars or try to make it at least good. The cast seems to have at least a good time but completely ruin their own characters. Rey for example became such a boring character where I don´t give a damn about her backstory anymore. Poe is such a moron and completely unlikeable and I really wish that they kill him off the next one. Even actors like Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro seem to be out of place and think that they are in some movie like Lord of the rings. I don´t wanna start about the villains but they are such a waste and very unsatisfying.
Look I don´t really hate this movie but hugely disappointed that Disney would to something like that. I like some parts of it. The third act has some nice action that kept me on my seat but character development and story (that what makes Star Wars great) left out.
And by the way since when did Star Wars became Guardians of the Galaxy? Star Wars always had jokes but not some child humor that you see in a Marvel movie.
In the end everyone has his own opinion but don´t give it 86% or 93% rating only because something brings out topics that are relevant now.
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10/10
Amazing Movie, bad user reviews are ultra sensitive nerd rage
The Last Jedi is definitely tied with Empire as the best Star Wars film of all time, no question about it. I loved everything about this movie. The acting was great all around, especially from Mark Hamill and Adam Driver. The special effects were superb and the filmography was the best in any Star Wars Movie. This is a beautiful movie. Rain Johnson has a unique style that worked so well on smaller budget projects (A few of the best Breaking Bad Episodes, Looper) and explodes with splendor here. The plot is unexpected and perfect, not only for the overarching Star Wars mythos but also for the era and circumstances surrounding this movie. This is the Ninth feature length Star Wars movie. If you want the same old tired rendition of this space opera you have eight other movies you can watch. The Last Jedi is fresh and exciting and pumps a ton of creative energy into the series, on par with Lucas at his prime. The bad user reviews are just ultra sensitive nerds who came into this movie wanting it to go a specific way. They try to point out plot holes in their reviews as reasons it's bad. Come on! Literally every movie ever has plot holes if you nit pick it apart and most of the plot holes I've heard people complain about in this movie can be rationalized through internal Star Wars logic or by the filmmakers choice on direction. The Last Jedi is where Star Wars needs to go, if not it will diminish into mediocrity by rehashing the same old stories again and again. Kudos to you Rian Johnson. You have made Star Wars important again on a story level.
******Next section contains spoilers********
Rey's lineage doesn't matter. It's like the whole point of the movie. That the force belongs to everyone not just one family. Get over it. Snoke was a red herring yes, Kylo Ren, Rey, and Luke are the main characters. Snoke was just the Emporer 2.0 and was boring and pointless. The main bad guy in this movie is the Dark Side which is exhibited through Ben Solo's story arch.
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In keeping with this brilliant new theme of killing off all the beloved original cast, I predict in the next film the Millenium Falcon will be put in a car crusher, Chewie set on fire and R2 and 3PO die of a mutual suicide pact.
And now that The Force is just plain magic (untrained force wielders can instantly fight like Jedi's and survive the vacuum of space), the Porgs will become force wielders and become dark Jedis riding a magical wave of green milk and shooting lasers out their bums.
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The worst thing I can say about the film is I nearly walked out of it, had it not been a Star Wars film I would have.
Taking my Star Wars goggles off, to review the film as just a sci-fi film, does not give it pass marks. Even if you had no love affair with the Star Wars universe The Last Jedi is still a bad film.
Very poor dialogue, acting and pacing destroys the film before we get to the implausible core of the movie. Star Wars was always about the audience connection with the lead character's, caring about there predicament, with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi we simply do not care about them. This is a culmination of poor casting choices, weak script and poor acting which is much more evident in The Last Jedi due to its slower pace and longer dialogue sections.
The directing of the film is very sloppy with much of the movie just an implausible chase. The side quests do not add anything to the film and some of them are totally irrelevant to the story, feeling like film padding just to up the run time.
Then there is the plot holes, non expansion of the universe, the terrible use of Luke and completely avoiding the questions film goers had from previous films.
Critics said that this film tied up the loose ends and had surprising turns, not the film I watched. It was very predictable and the pacing actually made it boring in the middle section.
Going back to the plot, the following really annoyed me (spoilers):
The Dreadnought/ Star Destroyer chasing a Rebel Cruiser being the main premise of the film. Would it not have been more plausible to hyper jump in front of it or attack it with fighters, the supposedly faster Cruiser never actually gained any distance through the course of the film.
Snoke, who is he? We never found out. What we did find out is that he was not that menacing and for all his power to see the dark/light conflict within Kylo, he did not see the light saber about to get lit up beside him?
Leia, the Mary Poppins scene was laughable, the point I thought about leaving my seat. It looked as if it was done on a wire, the idea she could survive the vacuum of space and somehow power herself like superman back into a spaceship was just too far.
Luke, killing him off, why? No reason too, Carrie Fisher is dead, killing off the last member of the original Trilogy does not make any sense. An expansion of Luke's story after the destroying of his Jedi Academy could have been used not only in this film but future one's, there was so much more to tell. Why give us a glimpse into his life post Return Of The Jedi and then end it before we get to know him again.
The fact Rian Johnson has the green light to direct more Star Wars movies could be the end of the franchise for true Star Wars fans, It does not look good. Gareth Edwards with Rogue One showed us an expansive Star Wars with a darker feel which I thought was amazing, exactly what was needed. To have the trilogy films being churned out like Transformer films by Disney is going to kill the Star Wars I loved.
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2/10
I started smiling and was confused and angry by the end credits
Good Disney movie and maybe the most horrible Star Wars movie ever made.
It seems to make a conscious effort to disrespect the original films and everything they stood for. Everything that made Star Wars special and more than just a movie series. The script and direction ignores the original vision and disregards everything we know about the original characters.
Hell even episode one was more on point than this.
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I left the movie feeling with a sense of disappointment; my initial concerns were raised when the same Marvel-esque sense of humour reared its head, completely ruining the tension in scenes (the first five minutes alone has a "your Mum" joke that makes a mockery of a major antagonist that makes it hard to take him seriously again during the movie).
Rather than one key reason for disliking the movie, it was a series of moments and events that kept bringing me out of the Star Wars universe, and made feel aware I was watching a Disney movie designed to make money by apealling to the masses and creating lucrative merchandise opportunities.
Whilst the original Star Wars trilogy unashamedly introduced characters and set pieces for the same reason, it never did so on this scale and at the expense of the suspension of disbelief.
Sadly, the death of Luke Skywalker had almost no impact on me, as the movie does its best to make him thoroughly dislikable and the way in which he met his end felt underwhelming.
By the third act I felt like I just didn't care what was going on and more worryingly, in the absence of a strong cliffhanger (or indeed, any cliffhangers), I feel there is little to look forward to for the next instalment.
The overwhelming praise from critics heralding the movie as "bold" is somewhat confusing, because whilst the plot certainly is bold, it does so in a way that feels wholly unsuccessful.
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I'm a fan of the series and tried so hard to like this movie. Thought a lot about it before giving it one star, but i just can't bring myself to find any good moments.
The characters are unlike themselves. The jokes are so bad i actually was feeling ashamed at times (yes that bad). The story is so full of plot-holes it just diverts your attention from the story-telling while constantly asking yourself if the director thinks all of the audience is 10 years old that don't need logic or any sort of consistency.
It was like watching Star wars: Fast and Furious only with more shallow characters and force.
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1/10
Horrible movie!!! Stupid script, destroys Star Wars as we knew and love
Horrible movie!!! Terrible scenario. Is Ryan Johnson even smart? Everything was wrong in this movie: Superman Leia? Luke fishing and milking? Lightspeed kamikadze, why didn't they blow up the Death star like this then? Doesn't work like this. Bombing in space??? Gravity in space, WTF? Useless Snoke? Also, it's the story of the Skywalkers. The only major character who has the right to be noone is Anakin, because he is the first Skywalker... and Rey, they just ruined her character. Finn is a wasted opportunity, Poe- great character, wasted with stupid script, Laura Dern wasted with stupid script. Stupid script about the slow space chase, stupid script about Poe's rebellion, stupid script about Luke's story. What happened with the Knights of Ren? What happened with Anakin's lightsaber story? What happened with who Lor San Tekka is? Luke wants to kill his nephew , because he feels the dark side in him? REALLY, after ep.6 where Luke was the only one sensing the good in mass murderer Vader, now he wants to kill his nephew for nothing??? RJ made Luke look stupid and miserable, he made everyone look stupid- Chewie, Phasma, useless Rose and DJ, Hux. Naked Emo Ren? Weird force skype talks between Ren and Rey Nobody? Mother jokes and phone prank in Star Wars??? Everything was just a big joke. A parody of Star Wars. And I've seen it twice, I hoped the second time will be better, but guess what, it got worse!!!
I liked all of the 6 Lucas movies. Ep. 7 was not good enough, but this one is just a horrible stupid joke of a movie.
I think Ryan Johnson has the brain of a Porg after watching this. How did anyone in Disney approved this pile of space shit?
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5/10
Last Jedi does not follow a story arc that is ment to last
I liked the movie at first, but the longer I think about the movie the more central issues bother me.
Right after the movie I thought it was a decent star wars movie and in fact it is a decent movie and quite a few scenes were just awesome. I don't have an issue with the jokes, I don't have an issue with the Poe and Rose plot. The movie as quite a few very good references to the old movies,
so "what the heck do I want more"?
But the movie made one rather big mistake. Rey.
I am a Star Wars fan as all of you, not better or worse, nor do I think I know it all better. Not at all.
In recent years (I am 35 now) I had the chance to understand what George Lucas really did; since I became a father and got my little twins. I started very early reading them German fairy tales. And that is when I really understood what it meant that star wars is not just a sci fi flic, but I really understood what Lucas did. Of course, I have read it all etc. etc. yada, yada, but I never really understood it until I read more and more of the old fairy tales to my kids.
It's all about (and I know that you already know this) the struggle and failure of the protagonist. And I know this sounds lame, but the extend of how much a protagonist has to fail until a story becomes something more than a short success but outlasts generations is the point of star wars. The story arc of the old IV, V, VI is a tale about failure and overcoming failure in a space fairy tale / opera. What does it mean:
Look at Luke. Luke hat to fail and suffer the worst. He lost his stepparents right at the start, he lost Obi-Wan, a friend and mentor, and he realized that using the force is training and hard work. All that in EP IV. And it continued to be a major struggle in the Empire strikes back, following the major fail on Dagobah and culminates with the loss of his hand and the realization that his father is a mass murderer. All that makes the character believable, you want him so desperately to get some happiness that it almost hurts, so EP VI is the big climax where he can finally find some peace.
This is a major part of star wars. The essence you could say. The struggle, the work you have to put into something to master it, the failure every one of us can identify with, but the hope that you can overcome everything no matter the issues you face.
The prequels took on the same story arc with Anakin only there you have to see it from EP I to VI. It's basically the same only worse. He lost everything before in the end finding the love of his son which saves him.
Take Rey on the other hand. Rey never really faced a setback, never faced the truly hard but character defining moments in the movies, yeah of course she also was a junk trader yada, yada, but you don't feel it, because you don't see it in the way that Luke lost is aunt and uncle, seeing them as burned skeletons, or Anakin who sees the death of his wife in a vision etc.
Reys character development is simply not present. Yes she gets more abilities from one moment to the other like a D&D level upgrade in the movie, but this doesn't resemble the struggles needed to make a story last for generations.
What exactly bothers the people concerning the Luke story in "Last Jedi"? The thing is: Luke already suffered, he already hat is story arc brought to a finish, is character didn't need a development anymore. Instead Luke suffered again and Rey just to be honest is now the Wesley Crusher of the Jedi. The know it all, literally. That is what makes the movie feel "cheap" not ment to last. I can't resemble, I can't feel Rey, I can't feel her struggle, I can't see her character development, but this movie should have made her the last hope of the galaxy and she in fact is. She should have been made the last Jedi. But she is not. She is the girl who got everything without training.
And the issue is: The next movie doesn't have the time to fix it all. The new trilogy didn't follow the fairy tale script every other star wars movie has (even the prequels), so this makes the movie lack behind and it will get worse the more you think about it.
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The Last Jedi is a problematic follow-up to The Force Awakens. There's hardly any character growth, intriguing twists are left abandoned, and it's just a cluttered tonal jumble overall; too many narratives with very unbalanced drama and comedic relief. On the upside, the action is still quite thrilling, backed up with some neat visuals and John Williams' musical score, but the storytelling is an absolute mess. A middle chapter should really end on an explosive cliffhanger, and it could've if one major revelation took the opposite route. It all just came off as formulaic. Also those Porgs were ear-bleedingly obnoxious. Tons of potential wasted, and a lot of room for improvement.
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1/10
Dont Believe the Critics...Its a bombastic Bore of a Movie
As a fan of "Looper", Rian's earlier film, I was actually looking forward for his take on this Epic. But what turned out is utter garbage. The comedy is flat and shoehorned which was a major turn down. Following Episode 7, i was expecting some sort of tense epic film that would address the questions raised by the earlier film. But what followed is a dumb needlessly talkative film, that neither tried to be smart nor cared to move the plot further. The plot holes OMG are so huge and instances that popped out of nowhere, that would make a micheal bay movie a better option. The acting is good, which is expected of a great cast. But it all feels very disjointed. Finn & new addition rose sub plot is awfully absurd to say the least. As a star wars fan, i expect whizzing dazzling action set pieces which in this movie are none. Not even a decent battle. The snoke bodyguards fight could have been a great one but a completely wasted opportunity. PLEASE DONT GO IN BELEIVING THE CRITICS. Its clearly Disney paid propaganda.
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Was so not particularly exciting that I even fell asleep in the IMAX theatre after drinking a medium cup of coffee.
The thing that always excited me about the franchise is of course lightsaber fights and duels, in this movie they are very poorly executed and very few. Poor choreography and almost no force usage.
Kylo Ren is just sad.
Ray doesn't feel enlightened she just runs around and cries. She isn't wise or smart, she is just a hopeless optimist.
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Rian Johnson, you are now among my top most hated directors. You ruined Episode 8, ignored Mark Hammill's wishes for Luke's direction, and you completely turned Star Wars into some filthy soap opera drama. Go away, and never come back.
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The force awakens was a decent star wars movie. The only flaw was the obvious recycling of the plot. This new movie is a whole different story.
They managed to make a star wars movie and completely removed everything that felt star wars. The movie seemed like an action comedy instead of a scifi epic. Scenes that should have been intense and epic fell flat and the writing was awkward and weird. Probably the biggest crime was the total disapointment that was Luke. It was no means Hamills fault, his performance was amazing. But the writers made Luke into something completely different, and in the end felt like a whole different character.
There were some things I liked though, and that was the reason I gave it a six. But it's a far off from the eight I was expecting to rate it. I have many other reasons why this is one of the worst star wars movies to date, including the infamous prequels, but I didn't want to tell any spoilers so people who haven't yet had the displeasure to sit two and a half hours watching this garbage might save their money and time.
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Dementia or an acquired brain injury is the only explanation for Luke's change in behaviour. His demise from illness was brilliantly, albeit unintentionally portrayed. A utterly meaningless and incompetently written ending for one of cinema's most iconic characters. Clearly an attempt to kill off the shadow of George Lucas.
A devastating folly of human error and perhaps even an enactment of aggression by Disney towards the father of Star Wars.
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10/10
Excellent Movie, with a whole lot of fake bad reviews her on IMDB
OK, perhaps more of a 8/10, but the fake reviews/ratings are getting excessive. I keep my reviews on my own site, but I wanted to put in a word here with all these 1 & 2 star reviews running around. The Last Jedi is a lot of fun: Great adventure, solid acting, meaningful themes. It is one of the better Star Wars films--stepping up from The Force Awakens. It isn't particularly different in kind as it feels like a part of the franchise, so it isn't going to shock you. It's just a really fun Star Wars film.
The grumbling is coming from a combination of nostalgia-kids who wanted exactly the same thing with exactly the same characters acting in exactly the same way and are unhappy that some things (mainly Luke) have changed, and Doomsphere residents who are angry that there are as many lead female characters as male ones and both a Black man and an Asian woman have prominent roles. Here on IMDB they seem to be mainly the first, and they are posting reviews here in mass. On Reddit and Twitter, mainly the second. Ignore both and just enjoy the show.
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2/10
Story was full of holes and boring. visually appealing, good acting.
From dropping bombs in space? In space you don't need to get over top of something to drop bombs. In space any direction you choose can be considered down, a space chase at the same speed???, Pointless characters and Cringeworthy humor.
Visuals we're good, acting was good and I liked the caretakers.
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2/10
Never thought anything would make the prequels look good, but here we are.
I'm not going to write a long review here, because many others have covered the many, many problems with this film. From the weak characters, to the lazy and nonsensical writing, to the total disrespect for the franchise... it's just not a good movie.
Never -- not even during the prequels -- did I find myself shaking my head in utter disbelief as I did during The Last Jedi. Mind you, this was technically a far better movie than the prequels. The effects were better, the acting was better, the cinematography was better... which just makes it so much more inexcusable that SO MANY poor decisions were made on the part of the writers and director.
At least the prequels were TRYING to recapture the Star Wars magic, even if they mostly failed. The Last Jedi was deliberately destroying that magic.
And even THAT wouldn't be so bad if it was done competently. But it wasn't. The story was nonsensical. Full of plot holes and wasted time. The action sequences, while visually appealing for the most part, at best lacked consequence -- and at worst could have been mistaken for the CGI-laden cartoon action of the prequels.
It's a shame too, because The Force Awakens -- for all its flaws -- was actually a thoroughly enjoyable and promising movie. I cared about the characters in that film -- largely the same cast as The Last Jedi. However in this movie they've become one-dimensional and boring. I genuinely didn't care if any of them lived or died, and frankly by the end I was rooting for Kylo Ren to win -- as he's the only remotely compelling character in the whole movie.
I'm afraid this will probably be the last Star Wars movie I actually pay money to see. These characters have been ruined, and unless the next film is an absolute masterpiece, I'm pretty much done here.
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This seems to be getting mixed reception from audiences. Some dig it since it's an original Star Wars outing unlike the previous entry. Whereas others believe it to be a mess made by a studio that shows no respect for the source material. However, I could see both sides when I saw this film.
On one hand it was great seeing another Star Wars film on the big screen and the spectacle was all evident on screen. I like what they're doing with the new characters, particularly Rey and Kylo Ren. The story this time is much more original with new ideas implemented, for the better or worse. The direction is pretty solid and it cements Rian Johnson as a great director. I'm looking forward to what he's doing next, however, I do think he should stay away from huge franchises.
Here's what annoyed me about this film. It takes Luke Skywalker from the end of Return of the Jedi who managed to redeem Darth Vader, one of the most evil individuals in the galaxy, and they just say 'SCREW THAT!'. Right from the first thing he did, I thought 'WHAT?', and It just gets worse from there. I question what Rian Johnson was thinking and funnily enough Mark Hamill disagrees with Rian's choices as well.
This is not to say this makes the movie unwatchable. There is plenty to enjoy about The Last Jedi but I can't say I thought it was a great movie. If they fixed Luke's character and some other plot issues, this could of been one of the best Star Wars movies. However what we got was a competently made movie with glaring issues.
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2/10
This movie spits on 40 years of Star Wars franchise
There is really nothing much to say here, about everything they make in this movie is absolutely nonsensical and opposite to what Lucas ever built.
Luke's character has been murdered totally, Yoda even worse.
Spaces battles make no sense at all, every decision made by anyone in charge is absurd, from the first scene where the dreadnaught doesn't fire on the ONLY capital ship that the rebellion managed to save after 30 years of ruling (compared to the Endor fleet under the most powerful sith lord reign ever).
If you thought Kylo Ren was ridiculous in episode 7, then oh wow, let the might lord snokes take his place of the most pathetic villain in history. WE HAD PALPATINE BEFORE, my God, how can we go from Palpatine to SNOKE, really ???
Let's not talk about Rey who has a master jedi level of alteration with crazy telekinesis power (remember, Master Yoda, young, fighting count Dooku, two MASTERS have trouble lifting a pillar on geonosis but Rey lifts about 4 tons of rubble without breaking a sweat).
Oh and yeah, of course, Rey and Kylo Ren, in all their mightyness almost get their ass kicked by power rangers versions of imperial guards, yeah ok, makes sense. Those power rangers having gloves that perfectly blocks lightsabers but not the rest of their armor, yeah, mkay, makes sense, very logical.
Also, Disney, this is Star Wars, not Avengers, don't pull a joke every minute... this is plain ridiculous.
well, in any case, i don't know what will happen on Episode 9 but it'll be the first movie that i won't watch in theaters.
To think that reviews top rank this piece of crap is baffling, The same critics that spat on the prequel trilogy that, while it was pretty poor in terms of screenplay and acting, was still a very very logical star wars story. Here we have a plot that has more holes than Gruyère, new characters that are utterly useless, pathetic villains, absurd lead, degenerate generals but yeah, let's praise Disney and Rian Johnson.
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7/10
Why even put Luke on the movie poster? But that isn't why I gave it 7 stars.
This was a good movie but it has problems. It is important to understand that everyone has the internet including the writers, so the movie should have been called "The Force Awakens 2" and happens over the course of the next 48 hours of Episode 7.
In that span you can't get ot all of the answers you want with the furious pace of the action. So the Knights of Ren will be in episode 9 (or there will be riots).
But the biggest mistake is to put Luke at the top of the movie poster and give us a broken Jedi master completely different from the one we last 3 decades ago. While it didn't anger me, it took some of the magic away from fans who've been there from the beginning. Thus, the theater was quiet, jokes that should be funny...all of a sudden weren't and puppets became well puppets.
This move is about "letting the past die" and I can't be the only person who felt that Snoke represented George Lucas himself. So it is no surprise that Rian wanted to create his own Empire Strikes Back with a casino instead of a cloud city. An Isolated island instead of a swampy planet complete with a hesitant master in hiding. But I say again why advertise that you are going to give me "Luke the almighty" on the movie poster and give him such a small role. It's like shooting Jaws and get the teeth at the end of the movie for 45 seconds.
This poor use of Leia and Luke could have been overcome if not for the following: The titty scene, Leia flying through space, the casino and super BB8 (this droid was literally everywhere).
Two and a half hours...
I just wanted Leia and Luke to raise hell at the end before biting the dust.
I will be back for part 9, if they bring back Phasma (and she becomes the new apprentice), Luke comes back, The Knights of Ren join their leader, Rey dawns a double bladed purple light saber and Finn gets some Jedi training.
Wait....Looks like I won't be back.
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1/10
Why does media \ critics keep trying to shove this movie at us?
This movie was not very good and no I am not a bot. I am a real person who saw the movie and didn't like it. Yes it had a lot of change and inclusion but those two things are not the only two things responsible for a good movie. I am okay with change but what I saw was not good nor did it make the movie enjoyable. The fans score matters. The only real question is where does Disney go from here? and how long will it take for critics and media to see this movie for what it is ... not enjoyable.
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The Last Jedi is a decent attempt at progressing the story and characters we were introduced to in The Force Awakens. By no means does The Last Jedi attempt to deal with any complex themes or issues. This makes watching The Last Jedi a somewhat relaxing experience: at no point are you required to think too deeply about a characters decision or actions are as they seem to fit with the pace of the film.
The comedic element seen in dialog and actions is heavily geared towards lightening the mood for a younger audience and sometimes feels out of place or hammy in a scene. Even the development in characters (building on people we met in The Force Awakens) seem odd at times: it's almost like we're being introduced to brand new people for which the events of The Force Awakens had no lasting effects.
Now one of the biggest issues I had with the film were some logic fallacies in the story telling. In one scene: a door on a ship is opened to space but this does not immediately depressurize the hallway of that ship and in another scene: a ship unable to jump to light speed (having also had all of their light spacecraft destroyed) miraculously has a light spaceship that is capable of light speed that somehow wasn't destroyed with the rest. Instead of doing the logical thing with this spacecraft and evacuating people the light spaceship is used in a precarious mission (with a setup that was lazy storytelling). Small issues like these crop up in the film and detract a little from the enjoyment of the story progression.
Overall I would say this film is easy to watch and geared towards a younger audience. Wait for it to come out on DVD.
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4/10
A poor attempt at moving the Star Wars series forward
The WALT DISNEY COMPANY reigns. Having decimated the Star Wars source material, Rian Johnson deploys his Disney fanboys to defend the numerous plot holes and poor script.
Only the band of reviewers stand against the rising tyranny, certain that some critic will return and give an honest review of this movie.
Plans for the Star Wars Cinematic Universe have been exposed. As Disney speeds toward cashing in on the series, the fans mount a desperate escape."
That's the title crawl we didn't get, but it's the title crawl we deserved. I am not a bot, a Russian hacker, or a neckbearded nerd. But I can safely confirm that this was not a great movie, likely not even good, and largely tolerable only due to its visuals and the hope for two and a half hours that some final redemptive act is coming up. Unfortunately this act never comes. Every bit of logic set up in Lucas' original six films is violated. From Leia's Mary Poppins-like float through space, to Snoke's direct Verizon intergalactic-line-of-communication between Rey and Kylo, the Force can now serve as any deus ex machina gimmickry the folks at Disney can imagine. The expansion of the Force mythology could be seen as a positive, except that it is done so haphazardly that it leaves gaping holes in our understanding of the plot. Who is Snoke, and how did he get so powerful? "He's the Supreme Leader of the First Order, duh." What exactly is the First Order then and how did they get so powerful after the fall of the Empire? "They're the bad guys obvs, and the bad rich folks keep building weapons for them". Perhaps the gaping holes in the plot could be forgiven if they were to serve some thematic purpose, but even that is missing. What motivates Rey or Kylo to the Light or Dark sides? These concepts are vague and unexplored in the movie - there are no moral dilemmas, only grandstanding about them. What drives Kylo to the Dark side? "Snoke got to him, it was too late". Really? Anakin and Luke have real and complex motivations in their respective trilogies which are lacking in this movie and are to some extent mocked.
The slapstick humour ("Resistance crank call to the First Order 2017" should be immortalized in stone somewhere), irreverence, and repeated and explicit confirmation that this-is-not-your-father's Star Wars is not only not a brave move by Johnson as indicated by some critics, it is a bold step backwards to a mindless blockbuster series designed to produce another 12 titles for the Disney Company's bottom line at the expense of any tangible message or narrative.
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1/10
If you want to throw jokes in, make it at least funny
I saw 'The Last Jedi' opening night with all the fan fare and I walked out thinking we had a contender for the worst 'Star Wars' movie. I've been wanting to elaborate further with a full blown review but honestly the internet drama has been so off putting and childish that meh...
I say 'worst' 'Star Wars' movie and take what you will but even one of the worst 'Star Wars' films is going to have outstanding elements. I mean how could you make a terrible unredeemable film when you have that cast coupled with that kind of extraordinary production value? It's one of the best looking 'Star Wars' films and for all the concerns of how they would handle Luke I think we at least got the beginnings of an interesting characterization which Hamill tries his damnedest to flesh out.
I loved 'The Force Awakens' and 'Rogue One'. I think Disney is more or less on the right track with how to do 'Star Wars'. In fact my biggest gripes with 'The Last Jedi' are that it is (in my opinion) such a poor sequel to 'The Force Awakens'. None of the story threads or questions are given an answer that is satisfactorily fleshed out.
I'm sorry but not giving any explanation whatsoever to who Snoke was is infuriatingly lazy writing. You have a character hinted in shadows who has rebuilt the Empire in his own image and is clearly possesses force powers at least on par with some of the most important Jedi/Sith in the saga and you have not even the slightest inkling of a backstory. I don't mind that he gets killed. It's a shocking scene and I love that Kylo Ren does what Vader could not in that he usurps the top seat of power. You need to at least give a little hint as to who Snoke was. Because on face value all he is a Palpatine double. There needs to be some difference otherwise all this is is a retread.
Speaking of which... I remember the biggest complaint thrown at 'The Force Awakens' was that it was a remake of 'A New Hope'. I could see little hints and parallels of 'A New Hope' but for the most part I thought the story had it's own uniqueness even when it did rhyme a bit narratively. Cosmetically change what Starkiller Base looks like and I personally think you don't have as much of a problem but I digress...
'The Last Jedi' is a almost a gratuitous remake of 'The Empire Strikes Back'. The film follows ESB almost narrative beat for narrative beat.
A weakened star cruiser is pursued across the galaxy by the imperial fleet. Check.
Rey enters a dark mystic cave in her training which vaguely hints at the mysteries surrounding her lineage. Check.
A scoundrel offers his hand at helping our heroes only to betray them to get a better deal. Check.
Luke even has blaring echoes of Yoda, whom we forget had more than a dash of cynicism himself on Dagobah. So Check.
I don't know about you but I'd much rather watch 'Empire' because it did it better.
The ending didn't do anything for me either aside from the acting from Hamill and Driver. Wouldn't it have been so much more effective had Luke actually gone to confront Ren in person? Hell, don't even have the lightsaber duel. Have Luke stare down the fleet and get gunned down. The whole vision apparition force power just crosses over too much into the realm of convoluted for me.
There's a moment that might have redeemed the film for me and that I hope is expanded upon in IX. DJ shows that the wars have been the stabilizing social and economic factor in the galaxy that the cultures has been built on. That's pretty subversive for a 'Star Wars' film. Of course Finn and Rose say nothing of it.
I don't think the sequel trilogy is beyond being saved. I still very much look forward to Episode IX and I still think Rey, Poe and Finn are worthy successors to Han,Luke and Leia. On a storytelling level though I cannot recommend 'The Last Jedi'
But it's just my opinion and you are more than welcome to yours. Personally I hope everyone had a blast with it. It's not worth any drama, certainly not the garbage I've seen over the last few days
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Would be ok if the story made any sense, "plot holes" don't even cover it. Was like an extended advert for Star Wars merchandise. Star Wars is indeed dead :(
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The plot doesn't make sense and has more holes than swiss cheese. The set-up left by the previous film was completely neglected and replaced with half-assed filler. The original cast was brought back solely for their payout value and were completely disrespected in terms of their characters scripts. Star Wars lore was completely overturned in favor of social and politcal agendas. All in all, this movie is worse than a second rate comic book movie.
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I was 9 when I saw the first SW and for me as for many it was incandescent and larger than life.
I think the reason for this is it brought big human questions and feelings on to the screen in a way that was truly new and exciting and easy to connect with. But I remember all the adults loving it and wowing too.
The main reason I dislike the new offerings, much more so than the prequels, is that they don't connect with what I feel the heart of SW is.
For me, the heart of SW is the force, described in episode 4 as something that connects all life together (this is not attempting to be a quote, more the sense of it). The feeling that we are all connected, all life, right out into the stars and galaxies far far away. And that this force or energy on the light side promotes life, nature, light, harmony, connectivity. And that this energy can be abused for personal gain and power over others, destroying love and connection, killing off light, covering in masks and cloaks, destroying nature and replacing it with faceless machines bent to ones will.
I won't say that as a 9 year old I would have expressed this the same way. But I do feel I got a strong sense of this. I think these are timeless questions about love and hate, selfishness and kindness, life and death, natural and artificial
/ unnatural / against nature, which I think we all have a sense of, even as children.
Apart from it seems the robots / data analysts (?) at Disney! What happened Disney? What went wrong?! There were once people who worked there who I'm sure had a heart and soul. You were famous for it I believe. I think Lucas has / had a strong sense of this.
The new films have absolutely none of this magic. Lights and spaceships and light sabres and new gadgets are just that, gadgets, things, if they are not a showing or example of the soul of the movie. And as we know, we tire of gadgets quickly. There are so many every day now. Gags, fly by night social commentary and ironic humour have no juice. They're like vultures or sharks feeding off the life of a once magnificent being.
I hope they manage to bring in people who really connect with this. It would be just wonderful. I believe so many people. children and adults, would love this, yearn for this and would get so much from it.
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This movie is not a bad movie, but it's a bad Star Wars movie. The continuity with the franchise and even The Force Awakens is not there. We still don't know why an untrained force sensitive person could defeat a very strong one trained by Luke and Snoke. The Force Awakens asked questions, and this film dodged them.
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I am officially done with the Disney 'Star Wars' timeline. They have shown zero respect for the beloved original characters and I am nowhere near emotionally invested enough in their new characters to actually care what happens to them. I'm done. TFA was bad enough but at least presented some hopeful plot points for the future. This new movie not only did not deliver on those plot points, but completely laid waste to the heart and soul of the franchise - Luke Skywalker. I trusted that Disney knew how to be a caretaker of such a legacy franchise. I cannot believe how wrong I
was.
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TL;DR If you're a Star Wars fan and/or loath the nostalgia of the infamous characters, you may not like this film. If you're in for the entertainment/action and can look past the plot holes, this film may be for you.
This is my first review, but I felt that I had to write this one out because it was probably one of the worst films in the Star Wars franchise. However, it wasn't a complete disaster as some may have already commented here. Nevertheless, I can understand why some reviewers gave it a really bad rating given there were a lot of plot holes and loose ends that should have been tied up, not to mention the fact that this angered a lot of Star Wars fans like myself. I've followed the series since the beginning and understanding the franchise straying away from the originals, I felt a bit of chaos going on in the film that didn't sit well with me.
For the plot holes, there were a few that I need to address. First: the part where the doors opened to outer space and dropped the bombs onto the Republic ship. Sci-fi films like Star Wars need to adhere to reality sometimes. Of course, you can introduce impossible, yet realistic sci-fi concepts like lightspeed and light sabers, but you can't just open a door in outer space and expect to survive long enough to drop bombs onto your enemy. Second: Leia uses the force to draw herself back to the ship and miraculously survives the coma. When you're in outer space, no human nor jedi can survive in a vacuum no matter how strong the force is. In addition, keeping Leia alive didn't make sense plot-wise nor living wise (still sad by her death). Third: Kylo Ren and his fighters were able to attack segments of the Resistance mothership, but a shield surrounding it was impenetrable by the Republic ships. I mean, the Republic could have finished the job if they wanted to, but decided to let them bleed dry of their fuel. Four (last): Luke Skywalker uses the force to create an illusion to everyone and fights Kylo Ren with this illusion. I had a hard time believing the force is strong enough to trick everyone including the audience that he was fighting with Kylo Ren especially if Luke was located so far from the planet where war was being raged. I mean, the point of Luke residing on a quiet planet in the first place was to get away from everyone and everything.
Conclusion: There were too many plot holes to cover up that made me feel robbed of my experience. However, I still enjoyed the fight scenes, the droids, the iconic characters, and the CGI (to a certain degree).
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Girl power! Every man in the movie was an idiot, and every woman a strong leader who would smack those men around. Then, Luke milked a weird space cow's boob and drank the milk while smiling perversely. Next, the movie kills all the beloved characters while spouting more than once that "old things must die" including the traditions and beliefs of the past... (get it). Finally, Luke fights Kilo but doesn't actually fight cause he's not actually there. Then dies for some reason.
There I just saved you 15 bucks.
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Maybe I'd have felt differently if I'd seen this in a less crowded theater where they didn't play 10 or so trailers before it, but this felt about five hours long even though I think it was two and a half. We were practically being held hostage. And yet, with it being so long, they deliberately withheld the answers to questions like Rey's parentage to manipulate us into seeing the next one! I fail to see how a story can be meaningful if it just keeps going without a definite, planned end.
Still, even a grand testament to commercialism can be entertaining. I enjoyed the originals as well as this; in spite of myself I needed to know what would happen next. If nothing else, this installment shows beautiful scenery. I am being generous giving it a 6. While part of me believes movie sequels just should not be, I can't deny that the criticisms I've seen of the new SW trilogy come from taking the franchise far too seriously. And let's face it, the critique of Rey is just a mask for feelings of emasculation--not that Rey is my favorite character. By the way, speaking as a lady, why do both she AND Rose have to be good with machines? I'm not going to judge a piece of media for not having any female characters interested in science or math. Do the humanities exist in the SW universe?
I realize this might be the wrong context in which to ask that. In any case, this is a mostly harmless movie which is consistent in tone with the originals. I might actually like it more than Force Awakens, though I wouldn't watch it again or anything.
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SPOILERS! They are targeting a different demographic, not the people who made star wars the franchise it is, not its hardcore and invested fans. Do you want to see Luke, on the big screen, in all of his extended universe glory? I did, and I'm really, really disappointed. Star wars, for me is an amazing concept that's getting totally ruined by people who don't understand why it's great. I wanted this not to suck, but this is really insulting. The whole movie revolves around one very simple to understand idea, which is thrown at your face at every occasion like you are mentally handicapped. It had its moments, I think adam driver's acting was good, some scenes were beautifully executed but PLOT HOLES EVERYWHERE DAMMIT.
If this wasn't a star wars movie but something different I would've given it a solid 7 and recommended it, but as a star wars movie its horrendous. It doesn't feel like star wars, heck it doesn't even feel like a movie. It feels like an average episode of a mediocre tv series.
No. I don't think having ONE SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND IDEA and shoving it in the audiances face for the whole duration of a movie and killing off actually potent characters which are actually interesting to the real fans makes a "great movie". No, that scene with luke isn't even impressive given the abilities he has at that time and snoke.. no. Just no. Do the movie makers have any idea how can someone gets that much proficiency in the force? How impressive the abilities he posseses are? We have about 30 years of lore to understand how that stuff works, and then this movie happens.. Screw that, seriously. This wasn't a good star wars movie, period.
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This Perspective on the Star Wars Universe Blew Me Away
Rian Johnson takes aim on all our preconceptions of what Episode VIII should be and blows them to smithereens. Good for him! It's time for the Skywalker hegemony -- on both sides of The Force -- to end.
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This film's Meta-narrative structure was thoroughly infuriating. Just tell the damn story already-- you don't have to make every single line ("Let the past die," "You want me to take on the entire first order with a laser sword?" "This isn't going to go the way you think!") a character's message to the audience about the direction the writing process is taking. This is an example of the Marvel-ified STAR WARS winking at its' own intrinsic absurdity and asking the audience to take the stakes seriously when its' central character bafflingly doesn't anymore. The reverse-engineered decision by Luke which creates the central conflict is completely out-of-character and his self-imposed exile is forced, weak, and a total head-scratcher, leaving his attempt at redemption and ultimate fate hollow, unsatisfying and infuriating to longtime fans. Johnson misfires way too many times by inserting hit-us-all-over-the-head social commentary into a ridiculous side-plot at the expense of characters who absolutely deserve to have that precious time devoted to them. I don't care what happens in episode IX, and I've loved STAR WARS all my life. Good luck, JJ Abrams- you have your work cut our for you...
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I will say one thing... No movie has ever made me so sad before. Unfortunately it wasn't the movie itself that contains sadness or any other emotions, but the utter destruction of the magic that Star Wars had.
The original trilogy did something very rare, it somehow captured magic, truly! You can still feel it today. In truth, new movies shouldn't really have the ability to destroy the magic of older ones... But if you continue to pile trash over diamonds, eventually their shine will be lost to the world.
I still had some hope after Force Awakens, I'm not ever sure why (as it was really bad in itself) but I guess that JJ at least had some respect for the original trilogy. He tried his best to make a movie that feeds the shrinking attention span minds of the new generations, and with that he succeeded... While putting in motion a wrecking ball that is The Last Jedi.
Where Force Awakens succeeded, The Last Jedi excelled and took it to a whole other level. It was a total home run, a once in a lifetime masterpiece for new generation kids who live on junk food and cheap thrills. Last Jedi was Fast and Furious in space, only so much better. And at the same time it was also the biggest insult that any sequel movie has ever given it's prequels before.
Do you know those moments in Fast and Furious after some character does something cool and they dramatically zoom-in to show insanely cool facial expressions? Kids will be happy to know that The Last Jedi has endless ammounts of such awesome zoom-ins!
From rarely capturable magic to a complete empty non-stop immediate gratification cheap thrill.
I am heartbroken for all true fans of Star Wars, this is a sad moment. Disney has taken a legend and turned it into a drug for teenagers, the next trilogy will be the drug for the next generation of teenagers, and so on, for as long as they can milk it, until any shred of dignity is lost even from the memory of the original trilogy. Making more money for people who are already beyond wealthy, while trampling all over something that actually has some real goodness in it.
It is also shocking to see the ranking the movie gets in all major websites. I don't know what else to say...
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In terms of visuals, The Last Jedi is the best looking Star Wars film, shiny bright, wonderful use of monochrome and then adding splashes of red in the climactic battle.
It is also overlong, flabby, takes an age to get going and at times feels dull. Just as The Force Awakens made you feel that it was a loose remake of Star Wars: A New Hope. At times you feel an air of The Empire Strikes Back here especially when you see the Imperial Walkers in the desert and the rebels being on the run.
The Last Jedi has three subplots. Rey (Daisy Ridley) who has the element of the Force about her meeting Jedi master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) who has become embittered and reluctant to help the rebels or Rey although he senses the Force is strong in her. Rey of course wants to find out more about her parents but she is also psychically linked to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) who himself struggling with his own identity on the dark side.
Then there are the resistance ships being hunted by the First Order. With General Leia (Carrie Fisher) sidelined, there is tension between impetus hot shot pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) as to how to evade the First Order firepower when you are running on fumes.
Finn (John Boyega) the ex-stormtrooper teams up with a clever mechanic Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) to go aboard the enemy ship after first finding a master code breaker to disable their tracking system. Finn might be impressed by the high class casino full of wealthy arms dealers when searching for the master code breaker but Rose schools him on the inequalities of life.
The film needed to be sharper, it needed a story that was zippy. What we got is a film that tried to be thoughtful but instead became portentous.
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I watched TLJ yesterday. I'd give it a 7 out of 10. So where are the missing 3?
The film keeps you going without reaching for the forward button, but at the end of it all, its like eating a heavy and full meal without any sense of what you had eaten. It was like a stale buffet over a la carte. It had all the ingredients - mini battles, mini light saber fights, mini romance, mini story-lines, mini character development, mini training, mini nostalgia (where R2 replays the original Leia plea!), mini easter eggs, mini a-ha! moments, mini everything. In fact, too many minis to co(o)pe with.
Let me tell you what I loved about the original series. It was a chintzy prince-princess love story. The fact that it was borrowed from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (Japanese influence on Hollywood such as The Magnificent 7, Lion King and almost all of Kurosawa's films is incredible) is an added plus. The fantastic parts were the light saber imagination (still my most favorite weapon ever imagined), the use of force to control many things. Story told by 2 droids. Names like Skywalker, Stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Han Solo, et al. By-plots like Han's romance with Leia, Luke's training - a la Gong Fu Masters and the God of all villains - Lord Vader. All too fantastic, too beautiful!
The problem is that all subsequent and supersequent (if I can use a neologism here) episodes tried to repeat trite and tripe formulae in making the movies. Each and every one of these missed the big picture and catered to smaller, populist events. Almost like political leaders pulling stunts for votes and missing the big plot.
Long long ago ...
Episodes I-III had a story-line to build on. It had the Emperor/Darth Sidious/Palpatine, it had the Darth Vader and Skywalker origins, the Jedi and Sith. George had his heart in the right place with expanding the plot backwards to the prequels. But killed it with too many shiny toys and over slick production, overdose of stuff like CGI and too many light saber battles. A wider political plot in these episodes should have been told like Game of Thrones all the while telescoping into a smaller story-line exploding into death of the Empire through the tide changing Episodes IV-VI that crowned the Star Wars glory.
Kurosawa is a genius. Leonardo da vinci, Archimedes, Newton, Einstein are geniuses. Aristotle, Socrates, Plato are geniuses. Lee Kuan Yew is a genius. Gates, Jobs, Buffet, Musk are geniuses. Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mozart all geniuses. Of these there is no doubt. George was a genius. Why was this so? Because these heroes did not give a shit. They made/did things their way and people liked/accepted it. This is a different type and kind of leadership. One that will bring admirers. But when you have ideas or thoughts that are garnered, consolidated and presented from a collective, that is where the danger arises. These will always be leaky ships of Theseus. A cobbled vision with no direction or purpose just catering to the immediate. Imagine cobbling a religion out of all the existing ones. It will make no sense. Fask!
Hence the destruction of the super and subsequent episodes of Star Wars. The problems with Episodes VII-IX is fan-subservience. Made for financial purposes and not for strategic purposes. The former makes a quick buck but kills the business while the latter builds the business but slow financial growth. There is no more story to be told. It was just bring back the fan base so that we can have more ticket sales and more characters to merchandise. Bring focus on future franchises. Story be damned. This is what saddens me about this franchise and others such as MCU, DCEU, Harry Potter, etc. All starts with wondrous story telling and then fades into commercialization and ultimately, a sad death. Its like Perelman's Principle with Marvel Comics all over again. Film houses sometimes do not make new mistakes. They just repackage/remix/remake/rehash it and resell it. Same mistakes. Its all about the money, Porks.
The new line of the latest episodes is flip flopping. Snoke, no Snoke. Vader wannabe. Light touches to the saber fights (pardon the pun). No stories. Callous treatment of lives in battles (everyone dies quite simply and without any aplomb). Political correctness by Disney - cutting across genders, races, ages, etc. These are all planks nailed to the leaky ship without proper water-proofing. Maybe Johnson is deconstructing and rebuilding - which is the right way to go about bringing in your own vision, but I would rather err on the side of my caution and presume its not; and just hope to be pleasantly surprised by him in future episodes (there is a double, reverse paradox for you, my dear readers).
... The Next Hope
In my view, what we really need is story-telling leadership. A plot unbefuddled by external and extraneous considerations. A story that is imagination and told imaginatively. Kubrick-style, Tarantino-style, Bruce Lee-Style, Stone-style, Scott free-style. Independent style is what it should be. Bring back the Jedi-Sith conflict. Episode VII should have had a Sith origins story and a new villain. Better than Vader if that is at all possible (let's face it Kylo is shit)! Episode VIII should have then introduced Rey. Complete with Ninja/Wing Chun/31st Chamber training. Episode IX - showdown with surprise endings. The Sith are, in reality, good and Jedi bad (or Jedi becomes the empire and the yin-yang circle twirls again ... and again)! Ha-ha. Simple stuff, but I would like that.
All these super and subsequent episodes made, make and are going to make are films that have a super potential sensual story-line, but going into a long drawn non-stop porn fest. No story, just whammy-bammy. Believe me, this is not fake news. They are going to make a lat-o-money. Billions and billions of dollars. There are no more great guys. They are crooked. They are not going to make movies great again. Sad. Very bad.
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As a star wars fan, I was saddened by this movie. These have been mentioned in other reviews but here are my main points:
Too much forced comedy
Chinese woman (can't even remember her name) was one of the worst characters in the whole of Star Wars. Boring, irrelevant and forced romance with Finn
The interesting parts with Kylo Ren and Rey's interaction left many questions. Who is Snoke? Why kill him off now so quickly? Why is Rey so professional with the lightsaber and force even though Luke didn't teach her?
Luke is taken as a fool in this film
Hux is now taken as a fool (Your mum joke in the first few minutes? Really??)
VII created a story which I was excited to find the answers to. Now this feeling is lost. These "critic" reviews are also fake.
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2/10
The Ultimate Betrayal of George Lucas by Kathleen Kennedy
This is the first time I have written a review but the film was so bad that it has forced me total up 'pen to paper'.
I am long time SW fan- I saw Ep 4 in 1977 as a six year old with my mum. I have loved- lived and breathed SW all my life. I enjoyed the prequels as they showed the slow corruption and undermining of the noble Jedi by the Sith and gave a great rounding out to Palpatine, Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin.
I thought TFA was OK but played fast and loose with the established order of the SW universe. I thought killing off Han without the opportunity of the three original heroes to share one last scene together was a travesty. I thought Rey was Ok, but never understood Finn's motivation for turning so quickly against his former friends. Phasma, a junior level officer- why does she have her own armour? Why is she singled out as being special? Her betrayal of the FO in TFA made no sense at all. The Resistance- what is that? How can the ruling power in the universe be the 'Resistance'- it made no sense. The Resistance also felt very unmilitary- compare that to the Rogue One and the Rebellion in Eps 4-6; it feels, looks and conducts itself like a military. Here in TFA, there seems to be no structure and everyone can speak up and contradict orders. The new characters are not likeable and have no gravitas. General Hux is too young and over the top in a moustache twirling manner- he scares nobody and is a joke.
Soo it was with a degree of trepidation that I attended TLJ- it could hardly be worse that TFA could it? Well it was and by a long way. Many of the other posters here have recounted all the problems- the misplaced humour, the illogical plot, the stupidity of the entire middle act on the casino planet, the sudden Force powers of Leia to survive space, the ability of a pipe cleaner (Rose) and a stormtrooper (Finn) to be able to pilot ancient aircraft and most of all the absolute betrayal of perhaps the greatest Jedi of all time, Luke Skywalker.
To think that George Lucas personally trusted and selected Kennedy to continue with his legacy. She has spat on it and with the selection of minnows such as Abrams and Johnson to play in his universe, has trashed his creation.
I am so sad and gutted I can barely write.
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I will start pointing out that for me this movie was plain garbage. I dont give it a one due to respect for the people that worked in this movie.
Everything is just nonsense. From the decisions for Luke´s character, till his death.
From Leia surviving somehow the space just cause she is force sensitive (f...k off Disney).
Snoke being killed like a child even though he was supposed to be more powerful than Sidious and Vader.
Ray learning how to be a Jedi in about 10 min
And the plot of the whole movie, a freaking slow-mo chase from point A to B, to end up in a rip off part of the Empire strikes back.
Literally piss off at this movie. It insults peoples intelligence. One of the worst garbage I've seen this year together with Mother
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6/10
i hate everything in this movie, but i give it 6 because it's SATR WARS
I watched nearly 2000 movies, and this is my first and only review on IMDb.
First, i wanna say that i give this movie 6/10 because simply it's STAR WARS and the visual effects are awesome ! and watching this movie isn't waste of your time, with that said, let me tell you why i hate everything about this movie :
the writers of Star Wars: The Last Jedi are idiots or A- holes, why? because they could've take the story from "The Force Awakens" in many awesome directions, but what they've done ? they took it in the most idiotic stupid direction you could ever imagine !!!
Rey parents? not Han & Leia, not Obi-Wan Kenobi, not Luke, just a couple of drunk losers who sold Rey for some money. and how she got to use her force? because of Kylo Ren existence. realy !!??
Finn and how he uses the force in TFA ? well, they don't give a f*** about that.
who is Snoke? is he Darth Plagueis ! maybe someone new with cool back story! Nope! he's just a place holder for Kylo Ren, he's a weak Mo-Fo dead after few minuts, no back story, no powerfull use of the force,no cool fight scene, nothing. suck it Star Wars fans!
Luke Skywalker !! THE MAN ! the Star Wars ultimate hero !! we gonna see him fight after 40 years ?!! we gonna see how powerfull he become now ?!! we gonna see him fight Snoke maybe !!? Nope, he's a coward depressed dude now, well at least we saw him fight Kylo Ren ! nope, he just dodge Kylo's lightsaber in Neo's way, and he's not even there just his image projection (WOW what a stupid twist !) and that's all, he's dead.
Princess Leia, she never used the force in a big way or physical way before, and all of the sudden she's superman in the space, cool.
Rey and Kylo using the force like Skype, i mean seriously !! "put on some shirt" realy ? now you can talk to others and see them Live using the force ? like Han Solo said "this is not how the force works !!!!" and stop with that "they're trying new things" .. please respect our brains. we can accept the projection thing that Luke did because he's so powerfull now, but this Skype thing , nope sorry, it's stupid.
i hate the Porgs (btw they never say they're called Porgs in the movie), Disney selling toys that's all guys nothing to see here.
there are many other things i hate about this movie, and this is the worst Star Wars movie ever made, worst then Jar Jar Binks movie, at least that one had a good story in it. again, i give it 6/10 because i enjoyed it but didn't like the story like a Transformers movie, or a horror B-movie, you enjoy it but still hate its plot at the end.
we thought Gearge Lucas ruined Star Wars with the prequels,we were wrong, now,we can see that Rian Johnson has done that, and there's no coming back from what has he done.
finally, (bipe) you Disney, the true villains in this world.
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The movie as a whole is bad, from 'forced' comedy, to bad story telling, lack of character development, changing the rules of the way the force works (force ghost), Rey is awesome with the force and a saber even though she had two lessons with Luke hahahahhaa and will now have no training as there is no one to train her. Rian Johnson doesn't deserve any praise for this movie its just awful, JJ Abrams has a lot of work to do in order to save this trilogy. however i will say the actors did great, Adam Driver smashed it to be honest but i cant get over the bad directing.
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I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because everyone's opinions are polarized and highly subjective, but as a 45 year old fan who's been to every theatrical screening and who is a ardent SW fan ( my initials are even SW) this film was the most disappointing trilogy film since the prequels. The cinematography, the effects, the score were all amazing as one should expect, but the story, full of quips, jokes, and unlikely scenarios felt convoluted and contrived. There was no natural Star Wars feel to it. My wife and I left dumbstruck at how poorly the movie came off.
I would never try to evangelize my perspective and I don't fault people who live the movie...art is subjective and there's no accounting for what people will like or dislike...mine is but one opinion. That said, collider suggested that bots or spammers are contributing to a lower score than would make sense, and thus I felt the neepd to opine and explain the position of one very passionate Star Wars fan. Why would I badmouth the most beloved movie franchise that has come to be one of the greatest passions and hobbies in my life? Only because it didn't work for me...because it didn't feel right, because my favorite movie fell victim to a plague that's runing most cinema today...bad writing.
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"The Force Awakens" was an average movie at best with some redeeming qualities such as the lightsaber battle, the character of Kylo Ren, and the reveal of the mysterious, in hiding Luke Skywalker, the man who took down the Empire and the Emperor that stood with it. The final scene of TFA was so dramatic and exciting that it left myself and many others hyped out of our minds for the start of this movie. Then when we first see Luke he throws the lightsaber behind him off a cliff, the lightsaber that has been was used by his father, and was given to him by his teacher, this spectical of Luke's past is thrown off the cliff without any questions. I think Luke throwing this lightsaber is an interesting metaphor for this movie as a whole, build up, some of it fantastic, only to lead to a bogstandard payoff. To keep this review interesting I'll start with Pros then move to cons.
Kylo Ren: I personally liked his character in TFA and found him the most interesting part of that movie, this movie only deepened my interest in him as a character, I found him so compelling, acted superbly by Adam Driver. His anger and rage is very reminiscent of Anakin before Darth Vader, yet done far better, his dynamic with Rey and the whole connection in the force between the two is outstanding and is shot in a way to reflect that.
Rey: I hated Rey in TFA, she was wooden and one sided, seemed very uninteresting to me, so to my surprise I really liked her in this movie, she was the second best character in this film, much to my surprise, and as I stated her and Kylos dynamic is by far the best bit of this film. Her relationship with Luke was also very engaging.
Poe: I thought Poe was very under-used in TFA, and I was glad they gave him a more prominent role in this film, from his expert flying skills to his morals and way of doing things, he was enjoyable to watch, notice the term enjoyable. It would have been better to see him integrate with actual interesting character and not Admiral Purple hair or the unfortunate lazy performance by the late Carrie Fisher. This would have brought a whole new dynamic to the film and made it at least 30% better than it was.
Luke: When he was on screen, it was cool to see Luke walk around and talk about the Jedi wanting to end, but it all seemed a bit out of character. However it was kind of redeemed by some moments, such as his fight with Kylo Ren. One scene that I found really nostalgic was when he saw R2D2, and he joyfully exclaims "R2", and that was a glimpse of the Luke we all know and love, it was almost as if you were teleported back to the OT again and saw Luke how he was originally portrayed.
Kylo and Rey teaming up: This was undoubtedly the best scene in this film, maybe even all the star wars films, when Kylo kills snoke and teams up with Rey to fight these Guards, the choreography here was just insane and seeing the two in action really made me excited for where it was going. Although minutes after this phenomenal fight and set-up, they ruin it all, I'll discuss that in the cons though.
Moving to the cons, these cons are primarily more missed opportunities than cons, (except that god-awful casino planet set-piece) without these, 'The Last Jedi' could have been a seriously great Film.
Captain Phasma: I did not care for her character in TFA, I did not care she was underused and she was completely forgettable and I did not understand where all this "Phasma is a bad-ass" crap came from, what annoyed me in this film was how they brought her back, somehow she survived the base explosion in 7 but that's a topic for another day, for ten minutes again, just to be killed off by Finn, she served absolutley no purpose to the story and I honestly forgot she was even in this movie, why in gods-name did Gwendoline Christie appear in all these press tours if she is in the movie for 5 minutes, lost to me.
Finn: Finn was very likeable character in TFA, whos comedy worked all of the time, and was so charasmatic that he stole every scene, whos idea was it to completley underuse him in this film? Why would you include all of this crap slapstick disney comedy in the film but not include anything from Finn except a prequel worthy set-piece that serves no purpose rather than a political statement from Kathleen Kennedy. Speaking of this set-piece...
Casino planet/anti-capitalism propaganda: This whole scene was a complete mess, it is almost like at last minute they went, oh wait a second we forgot to get Finn to do something, let's give him a gambling world to go sit in that serves no purpose in the grand scheme of things? Or even the very contained already story, I won't make a seperate section for Rose, as the only reason she exists is to promote anti-animal abuse, which would be fine anywhere else except star wars, I am all for animal rights 100% but that doesn't mean it should be included in a star wars movie, what Rian Johnson, a talented director, was thinking is lost to me.
To finish off, the most spectacular misstep in star wars history, even worse than the prequels, was the fact that Rey did not Join Kylo. They spent this whole movie developing a connection between these two, making for an incredible telepathic sequence in where you can see the two characters having some form of emotional communication next to a fireplace, where Kylo physically appears in front of Rey and they touch hands, that moment was genius directing, Rey goes so far as to nearly kill Luke to go and 'Redeem' Kylo, Kylo saves Rey and kills snoke, they have an awesome battle together, but as soon as the fight finishes, any hope for creativity for the rest of the movie is lost, why would Rey not join Kylo, its obvious that they have a bond with eachother, it would have been the most interesting twist ever in star wars, a sith with a jedi teaming up to rule the galaxy, but instead Rian decided to say "Nah let's just have it be a generic and standard good vs bad story", now whether that was failure on Rian's part or disney saying that he couldn't make it that deep and spectacular is unknown. Either way I cannot understand why this wasn't done.
Holdo: AKA Pink hair lady, was the most useless character to ever be put in star wars, she served no purpose, why wasn't Admiral Ackbar the one to fly the ship into the star destroyer, that would have had an actual emotional impact on people rather than this hollow character who for some reason hid the plan from everyone.
In conclusion, this movie was a good film, filled with great moments, where this film fails is where it builds you up for something colossal, then just says "Nah we're good we'll stick to a generic story thanks, good guys prevail". There are also a few moments that could be great, but are sacrificed for comedy, which is disappointing. As a side note, how did 12 people on a resistance ship outrun and effectivley destroy half of the first order, why are they so incompetent.
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4/10
Star Wars: Brought to you by corporate america and millenials with short attention spans, diluting the original since 1997
I was hoping that a change in director, from the steaming pile that was Force Awakens, would have helped to dramatically improve the direction of this great franchise, especially after the critical acclaim of Rogue One. Sadly I was wrong.
The plot was almost entirely pointless, with so many holes that it is as unqualified as a star wars sequel as one of Donald Trump's judicial nominees is for the Federal bench.
The slow speed chase that consumes two-thirds of the movie simply makes no sense. The First Order could in theory go around them, rather than wait for them to run out of gas. Apparently, the First Order killed off an entire galaxy of republic leaders, warriors, and citizens, leaving not a single person in the galaxy far far away to come to the aid of Princess Leia, the hero of the Rebellion. With the knowledge that Carrie Fisher is dead, one would have hoped that the writers would have had the good sense to give her character a grand exit in a meaningful battle, and NOT have her FORCE FLOAT her way back into the ship and essentially pass out for the rest of the movie.
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF SNOKE AT ALL... SERIOUSLY, I feel a great sense of sorrow for all the fans who expected something to come of the mystery only to be utterly disappointed by the lack of fanfare with which he is dispatched. The throne room fight was entertaining but absurd. Surely everyone has had their fill of Kylo Ren's emo/bratty Darth Vader knock off.
The lone saving grace of the film as a star wars trilogy episode was Mark Hamill's overall performance as Luke Skywalker, in perfect step with where his character was expected to be in this cluster of a plot. He performed well, only to be let down by the writers who kill off Luke just as he bids a prominent return to the series. His lackluster death left much to be desired and little hope that episode 9 will turn a corner and reinvigorate a great franchise.
I can only hope that LucasFilm will again game-change the cannon and simply make Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire series into a new sequel trilogy... though by the time that happens, hopefully the CGI will be able to bring the original cast back to life decades later...
This was disappointing...
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4/10
Typical modern franchise movie-making with no lasting impact
I left the screening of TLJ feeling depressed, sick to my stomach, and without any desire to see the next film. I thought that perhaps I was suffering from over hype and extreme expectations, but after seeing so many similar reviews by other fans, it seems clear that there is something fundamentally misguided with the film. This review is simply my personal attempt as a life-long Star Wars fan to process what went wrong.
For me the largest issue of TLJ is that it misunderstands or ignores the basic Star Wars mythos. Yes, Stars Wars is fun escapism. Yes, it is about hope and resisting oppression. And yes, the new installment needed to pass the torch to a new set of characters whose adventures had to be exciting and interesting in their own right and not just a slavish rehash of the old films.
But what made Star Wars such an extreme cultural phenomenon was it's foundation on the Power of Myths (literally the title of the book by Joseph Campbell that helped inspire George Lucas). Beneath the fresh and exciting space opera in which George Lucas set his story are deep, age-old ideas of heroism, good, evil, and the human journey for purpose that have captivated mankind since our inception. It was about hope, but that hope was based on specific tropes and long established ideals. It had shocking surprises, but those twist fed into a traditional time-tested story arc. So even after the "state-of-the-art" effects of the 70's-80's faded, Star Wars kept a firm grip on our imaginations because it had seeded itself within the larger themes of humanity, themes that no matter the cultural or political context remained relevant and inspiring.
The most recent Episodes 7 and now 8 seem to go for the Star Wars feel but only on a superficial level. There are X-wings and storm troopers, aliens and lightsabers, and a fight for freedom (sort of). There are great special (digital and practical) effects. Even John Williams is on board. But it is not founded on the same timeless themes and ideas like the hero's journey, which has very specific characteristics and arc. Instead it is all a muddle of plot and motif throwbacks, contemporary politics and humor, and a progressive desire to reinterpret and improve upon basic ideas that have been shared for millennia.
In short, the recent movies are just like any other above-average big-budget movie, especially in the mold of the Marvel franchise and rebooted Star Trek films. They have good production teams, talented directors and actors, and faithfully rabid fan bases. For the casual movie-going experience this is enough. The audience escapes for a few hours, has a good time, enjoys a few poignant moments, some laughs, and the studio rakes in millions of dollars, especially overseas. There's nothing really wrong with this, it's just show business.
But TLJ feels like such a betrayal because Star Wars, like other great, enduring films, was something more. Not just because we were kids when we first saw it (I enjoyed a lot of films as a kid that I can now see are pretty lame and uninteresting) or had the toys and loved dressing up for Halloween or conventions. It was something more because it drew from the shared human mythology going back centuries, a mythology that on the surface can seem childish or simplistic, but in the long run deeply resonated beyond its current context.
TLJ falls short because in trying to up-date the story for the next generation, it demands that we let go of, forget, and revise all that we knew and loved before. Luke Skywalker is more than just Mark Hamill in the right costume (though he did a great job with what he was asked to do in this film). Luke is a personification of the human ideal to find ones identity and destiny in an adventure to save their world from evil. Change this, muddy it, and he's no longer recognizable. Mark Hamill's character of TLJ is well-acted and conflicted, but he's no longer recognizable as Luke Skywalker to those who knew him. He's not on the same mythic journey. His age-old character arc is twisted and conformed to fit a contrived plot twist which should be interesting but ultimately defies and cheapens his previous development. It rewrites his destiny for the sake of a new idea. When Luke tosses away of his old lightsaber, and seemingly shrugs his shoulders at his last connection to his father, Obi Wan and his life's work, its as though we're being told to forget all that he stood for and we believed in. If this was just a momentary struggle in his character development that might be one thing, but instead it seems to signal a new modus opandi for the entire new and improved universe.
And although Luke's portrayal in TLJ is perhaps the most painful and dissonant, he is by no means alone. Rey is idealistic but she is not a student growing through her quest. She is more powerful than Luke (with only a stick) and Kylo Ren already. She easily resists the temptations and taunts of Ren and Snoke and finishes the film pretty much how she started it. Luke is not the wise teacher looking to preserve an ancient hope for the galaxy a la Obi Wan or Yoda. He has very little to pass on to Rey or anyone else amidst his own struggles and confusion, a sad reflection of modernistic uncertainty and relativism rather than the mythic hope in purpose and destiny . Kylo Ren is a bad guy, but his evil is uncertain and queasy. He doesn't know what he's about, so while he's is interesting and well-acted, his character doesn't resonate or generate much fear. In two movies he's thrown a lot of tantrums but achieved little. Snoke works while ominously all-powerful and all-knowing, but that is quickly thrown away in TLJ seemingly for shock value. Neither Finn or Poe fulfill any real trope or thematic purpose. The droids have lost their role as narrators and testaments to the story, and instead merely provide convenient solutions and comic gags.
Even the Force behind everything, we're told, is something altogether different than we thought both in practical application (now we can teleport and space walk) and meaning (there is no good or evil, only balance, or evil is just another part of nature, or something organic and homeopathic). So the Force too seems unsatisfying and alienating.
Star Wars fans take flak for seeming to want the same thing over and over again. They are often labeled as whining, obstructionists opposing anyone who wants to try something new. It's not that they're against new ships and planets and characters and stories. These are the superficial side, the mode of presenting the myth. And yes, they must be re-imagined and boundary-pushing, just like George Lucas in 1977. His Star Wars was radical and many at the time thought he was nuts. But as radical as Star Wars was in its presentation, was its conservatism in its themes and story arc. When Star Wars fans seem to want more of the same, it is not more of the specific plot elements or motifs (cantina scenes and cut-off arms), but recognition of the mythological core and characterizations that have stood the test of time.
Fundamentalism is often ridiculed as being stodgy and out-of-step with its current cultural context, but it is often the fundamentalists who endure while those who fail to recognize and maintain their foundational tenets who fade away. TLJ has all the same Star Wars elements but seems to reject or at best misunderstand the story's core of coming-of-age, good versus evil, guilt, redemption, and family. The critics seem to be lining up to praise TLJ for the diversity of its cast, nods to gender equality, shading of absolutes, revising past heroes, and providing supposed plot twists. There is nothing necessarily wrong with these on their own, and they are likely well intentioned. But when these contemporary values ignore and replace the underlying mythos that has sustained Star Wars and legends like it for centuries, we can't expect the same lasting impact. The ceremony is all there, but it has lost its meaning.
It may be possible to restore the current series, but it will require more careful attention to what truly made Star Wars timeless and a humble willingness to acknowledge the power of old ideas. By all means retell the myth in a new way, but don't try to reinvent what the myth stands for or else it will cease to matter. There are stories and ideas that reach far beyond us and our current culture. Rather than change them, we should aim to learn from them and allow them to change, challenge, and ultimately inspire us.
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Just watched this movie i had been so hopeful about.
okay, so this just happend, i didn't watch any reviews or anything Star Wars related prior to the movie.
When i let the Cinema with my 2 pals i had a bad taste in my mouth and wasn't happy, neither was one of my friends, the other didn't seem to mind.
But we talked, and the word that came up alot was "something was off"...
and we figured out, it tasted like Disney.. The Force Aweakens was very good, and i couldn't taste Disney very much, but this goes to show that we need lucas.
Now im home alone and upon further thinking i would might even maybe alittle say that this could be worse than Phantom menace?
Now was it or is it just me?
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This is was the 3rd movie from Star Wars that I went to see in the theaters, and it was by far the most exciting one, I'm a huge fan of Star Wars, I've seen all the movies more than I can count.
I was so hooked on the movie I've never been so excited to see a Star Wars movie.
Rian Johnson did and amazing job as the director of the movie, this ep brings new stuff to the Star Wars universe brings new things that we've never seen and it's really exciting to see that.
A few points that I've seen a lot's of complaints.
Leia using the force - If you know Star Wars well you know that everyone has the force, some more than others, Leia is doughter of Darth Vader aka Anakin Skywalker aka the kid that broke the Midi-chlorians chart, of course she could use force "powers", it's beens years she can train her habilities.
Canto Bight - This part shows us what the war is, people trying to make it show both wepons to the "good" guys and to the "evil" guys, and that in the bottom of the "pyramid" there's still hope(kid using the force in the end, and telling storyes about the rebelion)
Luke Skywalker "death" - yes "death" because he didn't died, he became one with the force, and this is really important because when a Jedi becomes one with the force he is stronger than you could ever imagine, this gives a great "ending" to the character it's a awesome way to finish is story.
The main plot in the movie, the chase - They couldn't just destroy the rebellion ships because they had shields, and smaller shits that could go closer and destroy the rebellion ships weren't in range to be helped by Snoke ship, so they played it safe and just waited because rebellion end would inevitable.
Overall it was an awesome movie, we learned new things that force user can do (Luke clone), we were introduced to new species in the universe.
10/10 Would watch again
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Honestly I'd rather give this a lower score but I will have to settle for mediocre. There were some good things (Snoke's power when finally shown, the fight with the Red Guard, the opening sequence of Poe's flying and the sacrifice of the bomber pilot, etc...) but a lot of bad things (the First Order forgetting that they could light jump a 2nd ship in front of the Rebels coming back the other way, Hux being reduced to a spoiled immature incompetent, Kylo & Rey's bizarre connection, ghost Luke, milking sea creatures, and the horrifically boring side quest).
Personally I'm annoyed enough at what a letdown this was that I'd like to give it a 3 but to be fair it's not Johnson's fault that his movie wasn't in the class of most of the series so judged on it's own merits I'd say it was okay enough to see and enjoy if you don't think too hard.
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3/10
Generally pretty awful, but with one or two good points
1. It's nice to see a few plot twists in a Star Wars movie. Usually Star Wars movies are very linear, with few shades of grey.
2. Until his ludicrously early and pathetic death, I absolutely loved Snoke in this film. I thought he was becoming an excellent dark and evil character, and was extremely well rendered.
3. For the most part, Kylo Ren's character development from a petulant child in TFA to a potentially very dangerous man was handled very well here.
4. John Williams score was excellent. Obviously, that's as obvious as saying 'grass is green', but it's still worth noting as the score is often overlooked.
5. Visually the movie looks great.
6. I still get goosebumps when the Star Wars logo and opening 'crawl' come on the screen in a cinema.
7. Errrr.....that's about it.
THE BAD
1. The Leia 'Mary Poppins/Neo/Superman' Organa scene. This could quite possibly be the WORST scene ever in a Star Wars moview. It went from being a poignant and suitably heroic end for Leia (and by extension for the late, great Carrie Fisher) to a stupid, pathetic, and frankly laughable Mary Poppins-esque space-flying joke. That one scene threw me out of the movie more than anything else. People in the cinema actually laughed... they LAUGHED at the stupidity of it. Why, oh why, didn't Mr Johnson and Disney use this scene as the perfect way to end Leia's story arc? As it is, we now have the spectre of her being written out off-screen as Disney have already confirmed Leia will not be appearing in Episode IX in any way.
2. Way, way, WAY too much slap-stick humour. If it's not Poe making prank calls and making 'your mother' jokes to Hux (within minutes of the film starting), or Finn falling off a table with water spouting out of his recovery suit.... it's all way too much. The only bits of humour that even vaguely worked for me was the scene with Chewie eating a roast Porg in front of a living one, and the 'caretakers' on Luke's island. The rest was just childish slapstick that felt forced and flat.
3. General Hux, who I thought was a boarder-line parody in TFA, takes the final step and becomes a total pantomime villain here. It's a wonder Domhnall Gleeson could get a single word out of his mouth with his tongue so firmly in his cheek. All believability for his character is now totally out of the window.
4. The slow-mo spaceship chase was totally out of keeping with everything we've ever seen in the Star Wars universe to date, and so easily solved if the First Order just 'hyperspaced' a few ships in front of the fleeing Resistance. Sloppy writing in an attempt to shoehorn in some tension.
5. The whole 'finding the codebreaker/casino-world' scene was totally unnecessary, childish in execution, and riddled with pathetic coincidences. Also, why was Maz the first person the Resistance thought of to contact for a codebreaker? How does Poe even know her? How did they find her? Why would she know anything? Again, sloppy writing to bring in a character from TFA.
6. Snoke kicking the bucket in the most pathetic manner was another "throw me out of the movie" moment. Here's a guy who was set up as one of the most powerful force-users ever in TFA and I felt he was turning into a great character.....and then suddenly he gets 'sabered in half without even noticing the lightsaber turning towards him. OK then. Now, some may say he was just another piece of misdirection, but frankly it seems to me that Rian Johnson just didn't like the character that Abrams created so decided to bin him off.
7. Luke's COMPLETE change of personality from the OT to here. Mark Hamill has gone on record saying that he fundamentally and completely disagreed with the entire direction that Johnson took his character....and I have to say, I completely agree with him. The Luke we see here has turned his back on all he stood for in ANH, ESB and RTJ, even to the point of almost killing his young nephew IN HIS SLEEP, despite in the OT risking his life for his friends and to 'save' Vader! It's almost like Johnson was just trying to be different to the OT at every possible turn, which is fine if it's done well and makes sense : but considerably less fine if he fundamentally changes key character's personalities. Guess which way that one went?
8. The end 'non-fight' between Ren and Luke was a total anticlimax. As with Leia's non-death in space, the scene went from a feeling of "we're going to see Luke in action again!" to "oh....OK, so it was a force hologram. That ended up killing him anyway". And I'm sorry, but "Force Holograms"? Really? How did Ren not realise it was a projection considering he's force-adept? And why if it was going to kill him anyway, did Luke even bother doing the whole force hologram thing? Surely he'd have been better off rocking up in person to face Ren : at least then he'd have had a fighting chance, and potentially gone out in style! As it is he just gives up on his island and dies alone from exhaustion. Hmmmm, yes, what a great end for one of the OT's key characters. Then again, Han's end in TFA was pretty ignominious too.
9. Captain Phasma once again proves to be totally overhyped and pointless. Why bother with her at all?
10. The frankly weird Harry-Potter-style 'multi-mirror' scene with Ren on Luke's island. What...was...that...about? Obviously it was meant to be a rehash of Luke's cave-scene in ESB, but here it just comes off as odd and having no place in a Star Wars movie.
11. As with TFA, there is just zero 'respect' for the OT characters here. Sure it's not the 70's and 80's anymore and things change, but the OT characters and story lines are what the Star War's universe is built upon, and as a result I feel they deserve more respect that Johnson (and Abrams for that matter) and Disney seem to be giving them. An unarmed Han being stabbed by Ren in TFA, Luke just giving up on his lonely island in TLJ, and the prospect of Leia being written out off-screen. Great...
Ultimately this film (and TFA to a certain extent), while not being absolutely terrible in isolation, just don't feel part of the Star Wars universe. And ultimately that's a real shame as these new movies should've respectfully added to the OT in much the same way as the truly excellent Rogue One has. As it is, TLJ effectively makes a mockery of all the story arcs that have gone before....and that is a real pity.
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6/10
A well made movie with an abundance of wasted potential
To start this review, I wan't to point out that I did like this movie, well the majority of it anyway, but I feel like my pointing out only what I enjoyed is not just when it is evident that this movie has glaring flaws. I'll list my Pros, then cons to give an analysis into what was well-done and not so much.
Pros:
Kylo Ren: I was one of the few people who watched the force awakens and actually enjoyed the character of Ben solo, I found his inner conflict interesting to a point that he became the best part of the force awakens, and this movie only deepened my interest in Kylo Ren, the dynamic between him and rey in this movie is also very new and inventive and works on all levels. The conflict inside Kylo Ren is familiar but also so fresh and new for the star wars universe.
Rey: When watching the force awakens all I could think when I saw her on screen was how wooden her acting was, and how unlikable she was as the main protagonist, so when I saw her in this movie I was pleasantly surprised with her acting and the direction her character goes (Even if some of her lines were borderline cringeworthy), having said that, one pivotal moment in the movie that could have made this movie phenomenal did slightly ruin her character for me, I will get to that later however.
Poe: Another character I was utterly uninterested by in the force awakens was Poe, which was surprising as I usually love his work as an actor. However in this film the way he was handled was much better, he was a much better presence to have on screen and his dynamic with Leia and even Admiral Holdo (Who I strongly disliked) was very engaging and I really liked his fighter pilot skills which were also drastically underused by JJ, whilst the opening scene was great to watch, do bombers not apply to the rules of gravity? How did they drop in space? That is nitpicking however.
Cinematography: The force awakens was built of nostalgia and cheap cop-outs, but the way that the film was shot was even worse, the shots in that film were like something an amateur shot, but this film is beautiful to look at, nearly every shot was spectacular, particularly the scene on Crait, and a scene that also stood out to me was snokes throne room, I loved the bold red that was on the walls behind snoke.
Luke: Luke Skywalker was an average character in this movie, not really anything special about his character, but Mark Hamill did the best he could working with this strange direction in this character, and he was always enjoyable to watch.
Moving onto the cons of this film, of which there are many, I wont go into nitpicking territory here as that would be a discredit to Rian but rather the bigger problems and massive missed opportunities.
Admiral Holdo: What was the point of this character, not to discredit Laura Dern's performance which she did fine in, but this character was literally useless, why not have Admiral Ackbar, a star wars icon, go out by going full speed into snokes ship rather than this underdeveloped lady who nobody has any emotional attachement to? It seemed to me that she was a plot device to develop Poe's character, but couldn't that have had the same result by using Leia?
Casino Planet: All of the star wars movies have an uninteresting and quite hard to watch sub-plot, but this whole set-piece with Finn and Rose was not only pointless to the story, as the resistance took off anyway, but also just a massive anti-animal violence/anti-capitalism campaign which felt completely out of place in this universe, and also, why include Benicio Del Toro's character? Jeremy Jahns made a nice suggestion in his spoiler review that I found very interesting, why not have Rose be this master codebreaker, and skip that whole casino sequence entirely? Rose was also entirely unengaging, however it is not really her fault as this is her first movie effectively, but when she releases this strange camel species into the wild she says "It was worth it", Rose seems to think that saving a couple of camels was worth the first order taking over the galaxy, give me a break. Then conveniently DJ shows up on a stolen spaceship with BB8 and whisks them off to snokes ship. Ridiculous writing, and a clear political message that does not belong in this universe.
The next point is more of a missed opportunity than a straight up problem, and that is how Rey and Kylo did not team up after that magnificent set up for it, for the whole movie they build this very well done connection between them, we have them telepathically communicating which I loved, and then Kylo phsically appears in front of Rey in that hut on the island, they spend the whole movie with moments like this, and you see Rey defending Kylo from Luke's critiscism, then we get to this scene where Kylo chops snoke in half after being ordered by him to kill Rey, then that lightsaber vs guard scene which could possibly be not only the best fight scene in star wars but the best scene in star wars full stop. When they 'Teamed up' I thought that Rian really did something here and that they were going to team up, the two most interesting characters in this movie were going to team up. But then for some reason Rian decides to keep Rey as this by the books hero who won't ever go to the middle between Sith and Jedi and is only good, after Kylo proposes a team up, which had my audience ecstatic and excited, Rey simply replies "Don't do this", Rey reaches out her hand and I thought oh my god they are really doing this, I am amazingly impressed, then she just tries to take the saber and the most missed opportunity in the history of star wars surfaces. How on Earth was this not a good idea in the mind of the writers, nobody wants this incorruptible hero anymore, that middle-ground not bad not good proposal by Kylo was so unbelievable and shocking that could have really made this movie great. Then we go back to Kylo is conflicting and the most interesting character and Rey is okay all over again and it's all ruined.
The way Luke died: I was one of the few who realised when he first spoke to Leia that he was a hologram, evident by his change in appearance from the rest of the film, and when he walked out even though I knew I still thought it was bad-ass him walking out to face a fleet of AT-ATs and when he was getting shot at by the whole fleet then brushed his shoulder, I thought that was also cool, then when Kylo Ren comes down and he starts attacking Luke, also great, but then when Kylo realises he's not really there I am thinking, what happens now? Then we see him on the island, worn out to the point of 'Death' (Not really death more becoming one with the force), well hang on a second, if Kylo was able to physically appear in front of Rey on the island and project himself there and come out unscathed, then why can't Luke, the most powerful Jedi also do that, why did he die? He was going to die in 9 if not this one but I just feel it wasn't a proper send off.
Captain Phasma: I never really cared for Captain Phasma, I never really got the hype surrounding her, and didn't really care that she was in the force awakens for about 10 minutes, that didn't bother me, but when she was brought back here for even less time I said to myself, why does this character even exist? She gets killed by Finn (A janitor) in her 5 minutes of screen time in this film, why was she on the press tours with the rest of the main cast if she is in it for 5 minutes? Why is she on the poster?
The children on the casino planet: To be frank, I do not care at all about any of those children on the planet at all, and they are like people out of the prequels to be quite honest, something I caught that many did not is at the very end, when he is looking at the stars, he uses to force to bring the broom to his hand, which could be one of two things, the boy will be the protagonist of Rian's new trilogy planned, or some stupid message about how the force is in everyone.
General Hux: I don't mind Domnhall Gleeson, I really liked his film 'About Time' but asides from that he has always been that unnecessary side character that most don't notice, and that is present in this film just as much as the others. His character in the force awakens was set up to be serious and almost Hitler like, but here he's the opposite, that brings me to my next con, Humour.
Humour: Humour in movies works a lot of the time but just as much of the time it doesn't, The Last Jedi seems to be inbetween these two, I'll go through what worked and what didn't here:
Luke throwing his fathers lightsaber off a cliff, didn't work at all, disgraceful to star wars legacy, and unfunny.
Porgs, worked some of the time, like when chewbacca was eating one of them, sure that was mildly funny.
General Hux, his humour didn't work at all.
Rey had one line I found quite funny, I'm paraphrasing here but she says something along the lines of "I have seen your daily routine, you have spare time" to luke, and that was quite funny as it wasn't the awful slapstick humour this movie often resorted to.
-Poe, Just like the force awakens, his humour was so hit and miss, sometimes he is funny, other times it's just slapstick humour, but I think his character doesn't take itself too seriously which is good for someone with Isaacs' charisma.
There was an awfully cringe line said by Daisy Ridley regarding the fact that Kylo didn't have a shirt on, which felt out of place and unnecessary.
This wasn't meant to be humourous but when Leia 'Flew' towards the ship, what was that? The way they showed that was borderline abismal, I mean whilst it was cool seeing Leia using the force, it was not a sight for sore eyes as the cgi in this scene was just poor.
Overall, this was not a bad movie, filled with so many great moments, but not a great one either, mainly because of the multitude of missed opportunities that JJ has to deal with, in episode 9.
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I was wondering how they are going to pull off that first attempt. What options did they have? Well, you can always turn to mambo-jumbo surprises akin to a telenovela, where simply anything is possible.
In the original trilogy, the story is surprising but it is coherent. Here, there are so many things happening accidentally related to each other that you can only enjoy it the same way as a firework. Logic, moral, motivation is there just to fill in the next gap between two effects.
This way you can make a movie with just anything. There are so much talking and explaining each particular situation of why it is working or not, that it sounds more like some pumped up version of Star Trek series but with couple of episodes combined.
Why, who, where, when is explained in whatever you like way. You could equally speak any foreign language in these segments and it would have more sense, because you could imagine that they are speaking something meaningful at least.
Why? Because it is impossible to create endless stream of these episodes and not falling into bad comics where the story is not very interested since the drawing is spectacular.
It simply cannot be better than this in general sense if you really have lost every guidance. And indeed this is bad. Amusing? Probably for one watching.
I have to warn that some humor is so cheap that I do not understand who approved it. That type of humor belongs to Guardian of the Galaxy where it is naturally bind with characters and really has its tone set all along. This one when that tone appears, it is very much out of the context.
I did not expect much. I got exactly that. I am really sorry to see that all these effects are spent for nothing, Well I watched a few telenovelas and I enjoyed some of them, for acting, emotions, music, costumes. Here it is music that is not going to help because you have to do a lobotomy before hearing anything and costumes that are... well already seen.
The elements that are similar to the second and third installments of Matrix are shockingly badly executed. The resolution of that part of the story is abominable. You see, the entire movie they are failing and failing and failing whatever they try, but they all still believe that somehow it will be good in the end. It was not.
It was stupid, and it is really bad that the legend has been abused in this manner.
I wonder if I will have to keep looking into all this developing mess each year, which is obviously what these all installments are until I forget that there was initially something worth watching and thinking about. Completely forget.
I really feel bad that someone is going to watch any of these pile of s*** first and then judge first three original episodes that way. That is not fair. That is really a historical injustice. Yet we are its witness. Soon, nobody is going to care about difference, it will be all the same.
Well, for me it'll never be that way. There is art and there is a crap. This is the later.
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7/10
**May include spoilers** Enjoyed......but not blown away....
If i am honest, i hated The Force Awakens (granted i only seen it once, which tells you why i hated it), this film seemed a bit more interesting in terms of story however I can't help but think they are just simply recycling the luke/leia sibling story from the prequels with rey/kylo, even though nothing is concrete about her past/origin, i can't help but think that these films now just purposely lead people on with mystery for specific characters just keep the audience interested and hooked on this franchise, giving it the only relevance to remain a franchise. The whole "who are rey's parents?", i don't think anyone cares anymore if i am honest, all people want to see nowadays is some decent lightsaber duels (which this film was ridiculously short on by the way, might as-well have left them out).
Even though the dialogue was laughable back in ROTS, at least the choreography spoke up for itself.
To add, Snoke was as much of a let down as a villain as Iron Man 3's Mandarin, talk about hyping someone up and leading people to theorise who this person is for not 1 but 2 YEARS, only for him to pray victim to a basic force skill to kill him which a padawan learner could have thought of!
The problem is these days is Star Wars is really nothing to get excited about as these films are now supposed to target a much younger audience, with die-hard veteran fans constantly wanting more of the old stuff. This is supposed to be a massive sci-fi action film, now it just seems too story-focused. (i bet you kids that saw the old leia footage from R2-D2 had no idea who that was or where that was from, but other fans (like myself) know better of course)
To add, i cannot help but think that every time I see some "cute" creature like those duck/bird/chicken's type thing that chewie tried to eat and those crystal covered cats, that it's just nothing but a ploy for Disney to sell thousands/millions of dollars worth of toys/teddies just so they can exploit this franchise, even if those creatures had no relevance to the story whatsoever!
To sum up, good film, but could have been alot better, still it's the best of these recent films so far.
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Your were the chosen one ! And Rian Johnson destroyed the franchise
Destroyed Luke Skywalker character , first order can't even destroy 3 ships. What happened to fighters/bombers, did Rian Johnson watch previous Star Wars films. Please someone crowd fund a remake.
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I went into this movie as a casual Star Wars fan who grew up with the originals. Force Awakens was an ok movie to me that was entertaining. I thought the story was ok, but after seeing The Last Jedi I now know that story was just bait. They teased all canon Star Wars fans with deep theories only to completely throw any potential good backstory out the window with little care (Snoke, Parents of Rey, Knights of Ren). They brushed over any that they covered (Kylo vs Luke History). And they didn't develop any new interesting one's going forward. There is almost no mystery left in the Star Wars Universe. Mystery is what spawned the Star Wars Universe for all its fans and created an entire culture within our world. They basically spit on all of that.
Next problem was the story was insanely bland. It was as if no thought was put into anything. You can tell these movies are the products of different minds. 70% of the movie is waiting for one sole transport ship to run out of gas. Somehow the First Order can't send half of their ships to cut off the Republics last ship and corner it, surround it and destroy it. Instead its like a dozen First Order Ships slowly following a lame Rebel ship. Anyone with any military knowledge is sitting in the theater annoyed as hell. Not only did you feel like you were watching a slow space chase for most of the movie but no other plot really went anywhere. Finn jumped around accomplishing nothing the entire film. Rey's story was somewhat interesting. Poe's story was he is not ready to lead. Snoke with all his power and mystery was all bark and no bite. I guess same with Phasma. Hux I guess is just some idiot white male who somehow rose to the highest ranks.
The next movie I guess is going to be about the 20 some Rebels left to fight against the small legion of First Order dudes that are left. Seems like some space pirate could sweep in right now and destroy both small armies and rule the galaxy. I mean at the end of the movie the Rebels put out a distress call for help and nobody even said hi. If there is any more Rebels out there I guess they have no honor in them. So I guess they are down to 20 some Rebels left and no ships outside the Millennium Falcon. In such a large galaxy this fight seems so small. Unlike the original and Rogue One where the Empire had a stranglehold on what seemed like everywhere. The First Order seems like the only place they exist is chasing the very small fleet of Rebel ships.
Its clear Disney only cares about making money. There is almost no plot or story to this trilogy. The writers could care less about all the plot holes.Nothing new or interesting is being added to the universe. Im not a canon guy but I wold rather scrub away this new trilogy and replace it with the canon material. The movie is like watching a 2.5 hour advertisement for all the crap you see in the stores. This movie also confirmed to me that the majority of movie reviewers are just in the back pockets of the handful of media superpowers that control 90% of the media that goes out every day. Its all about money and pushing their views. Pick up a book next time you think about going to the movies.
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5/10
Bring back George Lucas! Too much humor, CGI, Poor Plot & Poor Character Usage
Unbelievable move that was predicted through Disney. It's unfortunate Star Wars is ruined for me past Episodes 1-6, I can't get into the new Trilogy as it's too cartoonish and childish. STAR WARS did not need to be rehashed or remade into a new generation for people to get into. You should have stayed with the Skywalker storyline, it would have stuck; as everyone would appreciate the storyline as well as it would fit perfectly into the rest of the prequels; and then create movies like the TFA and TLJ (minus main characters) as side movies or combine in one movie or even episode 10 or incorporate the Ep. 7 & 8 story on the back end of the Trilogy.
I can't believe they made this film with the typical stretched-out, watered-down single plot for three movies. What's going to happen next? Rey kills Kylo? Kylo kills Rey? I guess the Knights of Ren will be great to see, but to me there's nothing left. I can't possibly see how a new boss will appear, because there will be not enough character development or anything interesting to wonder about, because all the main characters are gone; I didn't care for Snoke in the first place. Well Snoke gets cut in half in which he could not tell the lightsaber was turning towards him, this was dumb. Specially when Snoke just stated he made everything happen between Kylo and Rey. So who's left? Rey? A bunch of Life-like holograms fighting? Vader, Luke, Qui-Gon, Yoda, Maul all have a Ghostly royal rumble? The trilogy is still mirroring Ep.4-6. not original, just copying and adding twist here and there. I seriously can write a better story for Episodes 7-9 or use what you started with and made it better. How awesome would it of been for Ep. 7 to open with Luke about to kill Kylo and then started fighting and then he gets away; all while Kylo killing some of the other Jedi padawans and maybe Rey is there as a learner. Also how about Luke never goes into hiding and starts fighting the first order or How Ep.7 is about Kylo gets seduced by the dark side and then we see midway or later in the movie Luke trying to kill him. To me that would have propelled the whole story as to why Luke went into hiding and why Kylo was looking for him. Sounds dumb to just hear about it through the wide gap of the unknown between episodes 6 & 7. A slow space chase wow! When the first order's ships are 30x the size of the Resistance.
Next, the disgusting amount of sarcasm used in this film is beyond tasteless. It's almost like a parody or spoof of a movie. People who think sarcasm is truly funny is on the last rung of the humor chain. There was two parts of the movie where I thought it was used properly. Such as all the AT-AT's shoot at Luke and Hux turns to Kylo and asked him if he think he got him and then I think another part in the movie where it was properly used. Not when we were built-up for 2 years to see Rey hand the lightsaber to Luke and he just tosses it behind him. (Typical pause and then do/say something humorous) this was ultra tacky. Oh my god with General Hux in the beginning that was cringe at its finest. Nothing about it was funny nor entertaining. Can't believe that those lines were even allowed to pass the screenplay; as well as how much of a wimp they made him. Even if he was a wimp they could portrayed it passively or subtlety; not just throw him around the room like some cartoon.
Finn and Poe were used poorly, and Captain Phasma wow just wow. Here we have an awesome character Boba-Fett like, you would thought after watching episodes 4-6 and how Boba Fett didn't have much action movements in combat; that you would have made Captain Phasma better with her physical movements as well as showing off the titanium (misc. material) armor as more resistant to laser blasts, punches, Lightsabers and incorporate that into how the characters defend from that. Such a waste.
CGI please stop using CGI for characters that don't need it. Snoke, could have been intimidating if he wasn't CGI. After the hologram in Ep.7 I knew I wasn't going to like his character. Would be a different look if his hologram wasn't animated. Certain scenes there are just too much CGI being used in the background and all, would be better as built sets. Wasn't a fan of Jar Jar, General Grievous, and Snoke. Yoda to me was justified. The space scenes are amazing, thats where it should be used mainly. Costumes are just too plain for certain characters like, Snoke, Kylo, and the bulky Stormtroopers since Ep. 7 are off for me.
Lightsaber fights are my favorite about SW. Look at Episode 1, that is literally the best duel out all the Episodes. From the choreography to the physicality of how they swing the lightsabers. It feels as if any one of them messed up they'll get cut or die. I understand during that time the Jedi were more prominent and skilled, but still there are times where I wished Luke and Vader fought that hard (Ep.5 & 6). I still enjoy the fight in Ep. 5 & 6 between the two. Where is that in The Last Jedi? Seriously you could have made Luke go out like a badass, not just force a hologram security service. Cool trick but poor in timing and plot. Should have used that after he died. OMG the fight scene with Rey and Kylo after Snoke gets cut in half. Wow that was super cringeworthy and off. My Gf & I thought it looked like a Rap video lol. Compare the fights and they way they look between ep. 1 with 2,3,5,6 then 7 & 8. No comparison. Best Lightsaber fights: Ep. 1, 6, 5, 3, 4, 2, 7, 8
When I was a kid Star Wars felt serious as in the battle between the Light and the Dark. Now with this episode you're trying to say they're no different. What a load of BS, I guess in the real world bad and good are no different, Yeah ok. The previous six episodes also felt as a serious movie, they didn't give you this feeling as if you're watching the Clone Wars cartoon. Even the prequels has cartoonish like CGI parts, but the overall feel of the movie was in a serious medium. Now this new trilogy comes off as if I'm watching Scooby-Do or The Clone Wars cartoon. I get Star Wars has an unlimited universe, but you could have saved the modern ultra-violet comical look of SW for another story then it would fit in the expanded world or passing the torch to a new fan-base. Instead you didn't leave true fans of Star Wars justice you just said lets create Star Wars for everyone, when it was already for EVERYONE! You killed off all the things that made Star Wars SW. You portray a vast majority of the males in this movie as dumb or cowardly, but give the sacrifices to all the women and make them look tough. Nothing wrong with powerful women in films, but the reason everyone loved Leia and even Queen Amidala was because they were already understood as powerful people, real fans we knew how awesome it would be if Princess Leia became a Jedi after finding out she was a Skywalker, she didn't have to yell about grabbing her hand and pulling her, keep on sending subconscious messages to your younger audience who won't get this type of bs, you didn't have to use Finn in that manner at all, matter of fact when Rey is being jumped in Ep7 after she fends off the muggers, that was all the message needed to know she wasn't to be messed with. Im surprised I haven't heard the lines "I am a woman" in Star Wars yet. Nothing wrong with diversity but you shoved-it down everyones throat instead of paying attention to the story of Star Wars. Look at Rogue One and all the Episodes it doesn't feel as if its about who's race and gender, they're just characters in a story. No one for most part disagrees with having an inspirational badass Female Jedi true fans wanted that with Leia or someone. Rey is good just don't think she was used to her full potential as a character from the beginning.
This movie gets five stars, because of the people who are true fans that worked on this project that probably have zero say into production that put in time to give us something. What's sad is I didn't think it could get worse than The Force Awakens. With all due respect to the people who put in the time to make the new series. I know me and others could have developed a better story for this trilogy. Sorry George if these are your friends and are good people, but I'll be happier to watch Episode 9 if you George Lucas came back to finish. Would be nice to see how your version would have happened. I was always a fan of the first 6 Episodes even if I didn't agree with few certain things. The far far away galaxy was present. Other than that what can I do, I'm a fan of your work George you gave us something awesome to be a part of, wish I could get that feeling for the new Trilogy.
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2/10
Good moments, and visuals, but terrible writng and overall story
There were good moments, and great visuals, but the story was choppy with interludes that were used only to keep characters busy. It seems as though the writers had too many characters to use to develop the story.
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I will initially state that this movie is sloppy with the common star wars plot stopper in the middle (podraces,"i hate sand", diagona trash squid, etc.) and the characters were poorly written into this story. but above all this movie is a break in what star wars was seeming to become simple. stupid children's movies where the hero wins they all win a medal and the evil goes off and sulks for a year or so. this movie is giving the whole canon of star wars a chance to rehabilitate the story. If the same old routine would have been used for this movie star wars would have lost its touch. the force would still be a grip of midichlorians hitch hiking on jar jar binks. this movie took one for the team. new heros, new battles, new challenges and gave the force its balls back. i deduct 3 stars for the quality of the story line, useless time fillers, and the slow af space battle. but 7 for 1. development of Rey beyond a cliche 2. skillful taste in using canon facts,3. not recycling darth vader again. 4.not introducing a shitty mush mouth alien for comedic relief. 6. killing any ability to predict the next film.( suspense for the angry dips.) and 8. pissing off any so called "fan" that wants to see the same story again and again and is currently crying in their mamas basement about how they killed star wars and breathing heavy about my bad punctuation and use of 8 instead of 7.
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Honestly, I was apprehensive before the showing of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. This was primarily because I was one the few people that were frankly disappointed with Episode VII - The Force Awakens; and, as a result I ignored all the build-up to prevent any feeling of regret this time around.
Sadly it didn't matter, because once again I left the cinema an unhappy man. I will start with the positives. There were indeed some stunning visuals - now I am definitely not a movie expert, but to the casual albeit big Star Wars fan, the locations looked on point - although I was distracted by the lazy Crait - Hoth and Ahch-To - Degobah similarities, just like the use of Jakku to be the the new Tatooine from The Force Awakens. Regrettably, this is where the positives end for me as these great visuals were not utilised at all - how I wish the original trilogy could have had this technology to enhance the action and lightsaber duels.
Speaking of lightsabers - the one thing I was looking forward to most in this episode was the prospect of seeing Luke Skywalker engage in a duel. We did not pay money to see Snoke's totally inept guards get killed by Kylo Ren and Rey all too predictably and a weirdly younger-looking hologram of Luke to duck under a hopeless swing of a lightsaber. Then to top it off the "twist" at the end was a pointlessly depressing way to destroy what was a truly legendary character - if the previous 2 hours + hadn't already done so. Although after Han's death it again was far too predictable.
Yet, I must tip my hat to the writers as one thing I didn't see coming was the death of Supreme Leader Snoke, to the detriment of the whole franchise. The great question of The Force Awakens was - Who was this mysterious all-powerful character - a brilliantly interesting addition to the franchise (too many are feebly bland - i.e. Rey). Well, that doesn't matter anymore - all those theories count for nothing because he was ridiculously killed off just to show how superficially "conflicted" Kylo Ren has become. I must concede - this left me furious.
Much has been said of Disney's attempt to ruin this galactic franchise - it's all too true: 'BB-8 what a great idea for a toy', how long till we see stuffed toys of the Porgs. There was far too much "comedy" - even though I did laugh when Luke merely brushed his shoulder after being shot at. I haven't even mentioned the frankly boring casino "lets free some horses rather than enslaved kids - Yay" sequence and the terribly uninspiring plot in general - the rebels are slightly out of range - let's just follow them for the whole duration. The Force Awakens may have disappointed me but it left so many questions as to where this new trilogy would go, now we have all the answers and I can safely say that this trilogy is heading nowhere and it's not a nice place to be.
Help us episode IX you're my only hope!
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Mediocre. It feels like it was written by a committee to be what they thought most people would like. Almost everything is a retread of scenes from the original trilogy, but with the characters acting out of character. Nothing new is added at all. There are some good action scenes but overall not a worthy entry in the Star Wars saga. It feels more like a generic Marvel movie and lacks the magic of Star Wars. The humor was mostly wrong and out of place. This isn't Guardian of the Galaxy. There are too many cutesy animals and kids.
Established characters behave out of character or are completely wasted. For some reason Yoda acts like the crazy creature Yoda pretended to be when Luke first met him on Dagobah, not the wise Jedi master he is. It was bad. It's like the director hasn't even watched the earlier movies and doesn't understand Luke, Leia, Yoda, R2, Chewie or 3P0.
The newer characters don't progress either. The end up in the same place as they were at the end of Force Awakens. We don't learn anything of the mythology started in Force Awakens. Snokes is completely wasted with no explanation. Kylo goes nowhere. Neither does Rey. In fact nearly all of the carefully built mythology is thrown out the window and nothing new is added. We end up with a pouty Kylo, almost on the level of pouty Anakin.
The more I think about it, the more disappointed I am. This is the Disney-fication of Star Wars, geared strictly to put out as many movies as possible and turn Star Wars into a generic formulaic franchise like Marvel.
I just saw it a second time and came out liking it even less than the first time.
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As a Starwarsfan, I found this Disney movie utterly horrible.
There are so much wrong in this movie that I really don't know where to begin.
Instead I'll just make it easy for myself and list the best and the worst, I leave the rest to others.
Let's just say I really love Rey's character, Kylo also grows into his role (I know many disagree with me on this one). Well that's about it, what's good about the movie.
The biggest disaster aside from the plot (plot?) was the use of hyperjump as a weapon. If Starwars physics works this way there would have been countless adaptations of throwing mass into faster than light speeds. That said it would be kinda dumb to attack anything with a crappy X-wing when you could just point an old container filled with rocks toward a target. Something like a round big space station?
I am genuinely saddened by the direction they took with the last Jedi.
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I will offer NO SPOILERS at all, go see for yourself, but I will give my take on the movie I saw today. I saw the original at age 6 and went on to see it 9 times that summer. I think the problem people are having with the saga now is that we can not see the same story with are child eyes again. Did the dialogue suck, YES, did it also seem like an Empire retread, some what. Just like a good book Star Wars needs to come to an end. Characters will have to be killed off, this is basically a WAR movie and people die in war. Was I disappointed, somewhat was it worth my $6.00 sure. Do I want to see it again, sure on Blu-ray. Do not be afraid of these bad reviews, make your own mind up. 7/10
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I just watched this and I want to let you know that this is by far the worst Star Wars movie, even worse than the previews. It rehashes a lot of the same plot as in Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back with changing the character's name and subtle details. This movie tries too much with a lot of cheesy jokes to cater to the younger kids who might be new to Star Wars, leave it to Disney to make Star Wars too little kid friendly. The plot is a mess and switches so much and is all over the place. Without going into giving away too much of the movie, there is a character that is introduced and the way the character dies is stupid and you are supposed to feel an emotional connection, but I felt as there wasn't enough character development to care about her. Kylo Ren's actor is a terrible actor and if you thought he was bad and whiny in the last one, it's even worse than this. The trailers made this look to be amazing, but it was total crap and was such a disappointment. I enjoyed The Force Awakens and had high hopes but this movie close to destroyed all of the greatness of the original trilogy. I give it a 4 as there were some decent parts of the movie and Luke Skywalker was awesome but I so can't wait till the next movie when they have JJ as the director instead of this awful Rian Johnson.
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3/10
I guess there's no men left in the galaxy? Did the First Order draft them all?
So the pros, I liked the special effects, like the Dreadnaught and the imperial Walkers. Now for the bad... George Lucas told a story he didn't try to make social statements. I have no problems with anyone playing a part whether they are woman or man or black or white, but intentionally casting women just to make a social statement has no place in a Star Wars movie. No I'm not some old white male I'm just a regular kid whos tired of this social progressive crap. Rian Johnson said its time for a woman to direct a Star Wars film but yet he's agreed to do an upcoming trilogy of Star Wars films?! I wonder how he would feel if Disney said were going to give the job to a woman just because we think its time to let a woman have a shot instead of giving it to the best qualified director without any regard to race or gender. Sorry but the addressing social issues in the Last Jedi ruined the film for me. Every time they introduced a new female character I rolled my eyes, that along with Luke Skywalker drinking green milk from some random creatures tit and having Smoke killed with only seeing him for a few minutes was a deal breaker for me. George Lucas told a story, developed characters and embraced the Star Wars Universe. It seems like Disney will now pump out Star Wars films every year for the next decade to cash in.
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If you remove Finn and Rose and all their story from this movie, NOTHING would have changed: not the future of the galaxy, not the main plot, not the force...NOTHING. Phasma didn't even die because of them. If Finn died colliding with the buster gun he would have made a weak presence.
And I guess the question of "how powerful is Luke?" will never be fully and properly answered.
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1/10
Failure Despite Attempt by Mainstream to Make it Look Good
I believe the first night the reviews on IMDB were 9.3 and now are all the way down to 7.8. Despite all the critic fanatical scores, the media all over the internet surrounding it, it has done terrible by fans in Rotten Tomatoes that has it 56% despite critics saying it was 93%. Metacritic has it 4.8 out of 10 by fans despite 86% by critics.
There is something wrong. Haven't we all seen really awesome movies that critics have really simply given a simple score? All of a sudden this movie comes out and its really that good! We also have the lack of critical review on mainstream. Has Disney bought out everyone in the media? Do you really think this is a master piece for cinema history? Really?
For my review! The movie was bad. It was bad because it was a Star Wars film. There were times I felt as though this was a science fiction film or a reboot. It made no sense to the rest of the Star Wars series. This is the problem people who liked the movie have. They don't care that it makes no sense to the rest of the story. Its probable that they see it as a reboot. "Its new." But it isn't! Everything was connected and then just disconnected. Everything interesting from Force Awakens? Well that goes out the door. It doesn't mean anything. Are Jedi special? Apparently not. You can become one at will. Seriously, thats pretty much the reality. Why would anyone choose to be anything else but a Jedi now?
So be prepared to be literally disconnected from what was Star Wars. They literally do that in front of you. Again, they set up all these interesting plots and pretty much conclude them with ends that have you going.. what the hell, or if you liked the movie you go, oh thats something new. One perfect example is they really put all those questions about how the first order and how the characters like Rey, Poe, Leia, Snoke, Kylo are in the situation they are in. Remember, the Empire was destroyed. How did it get to be the "First Order." What is the connection between the new and old evil. Why is Rey special/ who are her parents? Why did Kylo turn evil/ what made him join Snoke? Kylo's story was kind of explained. Other characters are explained in a way were your like... "really? Like that?" The results are worse than any fan theory out there. It seems like the original ideas the Director and writers had were ideas which were a lot worse than the fan theories. It seems like they were so vain in their attempt to control every facet of Star Wars universe that they developed these concepts that were so bad so they could say... we got yah. I bet you didn't see that coming... cause it was so stupid... you would have never thought about it.
Disney is literally laughing its hinges off if you liked this movies. It was really bad. It was a warped version of Star Wars in every sense. Most times, besides for the battles, you have to wonder, was someone who hated Star Wars responsible for the direction of this film?
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I was at the midnight-premiere of "Star Wars - The Last Jedi". When the movie was over, nobody clapped, nobody whispered, everyone was just sitting there, as if they needed a minute to realize what just happened. It's not that the movie wasn't entertaining. Marvel movies are entertaining, but Marvel-movies know what they are. This movie doesn't. The biggest let down was, how director Rian Johnson handled the legacy of Luke Skywalker, who was ready to die to save his father in the original trilogy. Now he thinks killing his teenage nephew. WHAT THE FUCK? - Why does a movie like Matrix work? Because it has an internal logic and once you know the rules, you are ready to emerge in that world. "The last Jedi" threws everything you know about "Star Wars" away. Since when are Jedi's able to fly threw space. And since when is Leia a Jedi. You might think I'm nut picking. Alright. But then there are structual Problems within the movie that are so lazy. The complete second act follows Finn and a new girl on Adventure that has literally ZERO pay off. - I'm a lifelong Star Wars-fan, but I'm done with Star Wars. And it crushes me. This movie wasn't a Star Wars flick, it was a Marvel-movie dressed like a Star Wars flick. Bring Jar Jar back and make a stand alone, that'd be better than this.
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Terrible entry in the franchise. It is not that hard to make a good Star Wars film, yet somehow the creative team behind this movie seemed to have trouble. Luke didn't feel like Luke at ALL, we still don't know who Snoke is and now he is dead, Rey received zero training of any kind yet is still excellent with a lightsaber and the most powerful jedi (clearly done because Rey is a female), Kylo Ren is a weak baby, Leia flying in space..??, and an anticlimactic death for Luke Skywalker who really should have been showcased as the most powerful Jedi because he EARNED that position - Rey didn't. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND SKIP THIS FILM! Financially supporting this movie will only encourage Disney to continue creating garbage quality Star Wars films.
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I was in absolute awe when Rian Johonson was chosen to write/direct VIII. I truly loved Looper and Brick and was ready for "the best SW movie since Empire". Jezz, what a let down. The movie started with Poe's prank and somehow my head went back to good old Spaceballs...
Leia flew back to the Mon Calamari cruiser...a big WTF was blinking in red in front of my eyes
By the Casino scene I was already scratching my head wondering if this was a sequel to Guardians of The Galaxy, not a SW one.
Every single time Holdo or DJ popped in the screen something felt off, like "I'm not watching a Star Wars movie"
And when Luke died for no apparent or at least well deserved (plot-wise) reason I got really angry.
In the end Star Wars is suffering because of the lack of a clear map of how this new trilogy was going to unfold. When Rey, Snoke, Kylo or the Lightsaber were introduced in VII I thought that they had clear in mind their overall arcs and backstories, but as Rian Johnson has admitted there was no plan at all. And man it shows. It's clear that the plot for VIII was not what JJ Abrams would have written, and that Rian didn't like what JJ did in VII. Instead, the new director was obsessed with avoiding the pitfalls of VII (a copycat of episode IV) and thus he tried to surprise viewers...with almost every important decision made gone wrong. And since the trilogy was not mapped at all he could basically do what he wanted to do. TFA very clearly tried to set up new characters, mysteries...and Rian simply doesn't care at all. He is a man on a mission: getting ready a clean slate but doing it in a very surprising way. And in the process he lost track of what a Star Wars story should be and having characters acting out of character, even the new ones.
Is the movie a complete disaster? Should its rating be a zero? No way. It's beautifully shot, Hamill and Driver just kill it, John Williams is back, the FX are top notch and somehow you feel that there is a good movie buried under a pile of bad plot decisions. There are brilliant and thrilling sequences that should rank among the best in the series. But sure, I understand that for most diehard fans (like me) some of the mentioned plot decisions eclipse everything else. Now, the funny thing is thinking how JJ will try to fix the situation in IX...he created something promising, Rian thrashed it, and now he is receiving it back with the aim of closuring it ...somehow. We'll see
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I have never felt the need to write a movie review before but...this was just such a lazy, poorly written, incoherent mess.
If you enjoy lending a prized possession to a friend so they can break it in front of you and then return it to you while smugly explaining why you were stupid for liking it in the first place, this movie is for you.
The Last Jedi exists to tear down everything that has come before it. There would be nothing wrong with this if something worthwhile or significant can be offered or built as a replacement. So, what has Rian Johnson given us as a replacement for the stories from episodes I-VII and Rogue One?
The entire premise of the movie relies on the viewer believing that Luke Skywalker would sneak into his nephew's room wile he was sleeping and maybe/maybe not murder him. That's right, the character who refused to go to the dark side while being placed in the exact situation through three earlier installments of the series just decides, "meh, I guess I'll just destroy everything I have been working for my entire life for...Johnson Plot Twist...no good reason."
So, thanks to Luke forgetting everything he learned in the first three movies and becoming a completely different character, the Resistance must now escape after the destruction of Star Killer base. This is the entire main plot of the movie...a slow...ridiculous...chase scene...between a handful of star ships. That's right, the resistance is actually comprised of enough star ships to fit on one movie screen. The First Order? Same. The two largest military forces in the galaxy and they have a small group of star ships that are capable of one slow speed lower than hyperspace. Additionally, Star Wars ships now run on fuel, not any sort of fusion. Which means this slow chase scene now has an 18 hour timer.
This is where Johnson begins to tear apart all of the plot lines from Episode VII. Lets start with Poe. Poe is learning that his hubris and decision making is costing the Resistance too many casualties. Somehow they only have 6-7 bombers of an unmentioned type that all crash into each other and only one can drop their bombs...in space. Yup, space bombs. So why did Johnson ignore all of the bombers in cannon and give us the slow, ridiculous, space bombers? So that Poe could learn a lesson, except...Johnson Plot Twist...it doesn't matter. They all die later in the movie because of a plan no one told Poe about.
Finn joins the story after recovering from his Episode VII injuries and is quickly sent on a mission that is unnecessary because no one told anyone the plan. This does introduce us to a likable character named Rose, but the unnecessary sub-plot leaves the audience wondering why we need to watch her story. Also, we learn Star Wars are bad, there are bad people on both sides...One of them DJ, who could have been Lando, but oh well, somehow learns about the plan that no one told Finn and Poe about and Turns in Finn and Rose for money. That's right...Johnson Plot Twist...Finn and Rose gave information they didn't have to a character they just met and didn't quite trust.
Princess Leia is apparently leading a resistance that is comprised of dozens of loyal rebels! She is blasted into space, awkwardly discovers she can force fly back to safety, and then spends the rest of the second act in a coma. Introducing us to the previously unmentioned Holdo.
Holdo does nothing but watch the fuel reserves drain and the two or three other ships in their formation run out of fuel and get destroyed. She is then the victim of a Poe led mutiny.
Now Leia returns and...Johnson Plot Twist...Surprise! There was a plan all along. They are going to sneak to a base that is luckily located right below their slow chase scene.
This where the rest of the tiny band of resistance fighters is betrayed and slowly picked off one by one. I bet Leia and Holdo taught Poe a valuable lesson about leadership. No, wait...Johnson Plot Twist...all of the earlier lessons are now voided.
Throughout all of this Rey has been trying to learn about her powers from Luke but he refuses to teach her anything except, no wait...Johnson Plot Twist...he will teach her. Since we have an artificial 18 hour timeline on this story he gives her a couple meaningless lessons that...Johnson Plot Twist...don't matter anyway. She is put in a dark force house of mirrors and talks to Kylo Ren because now the Force has facetime.
Snoke is such a great, powerful villian He has Rey right where he wants her...Johnson Plot Twist...Snoke is a nothing, he couldn't sense or see a lightsaber a foot and a half to his right force move and slice him in half.
Nice Light saber battle with Rey and Kylo vs. Praetorian Guards.
Yoda shows up...says weird, meaningless things about how wisdom is stupid and everyone can do anything without work anyway.
Holdo, to save the escaping ships, hyperspaces her cruiser into the First Order's Dreadnaught and slices it in half. Saving Finn and Rey but somehow killing all of the Stormtroopers and allowing BB-8 to mop up by ridiculously piloting an AT-ST. One shuttle also survived the blast allowing Finn and Rose to join the Resistance on the surface of the planet below. Also, Phasma died again.
Now we are all on a salt planet that is totally not Hoth, you can tell because salt is red when you disturb it. The entire resistance lines up in front of Helm's Deep or whatever and the entire First Order lines up...wait really? 5 AT-AT's and some broken down albatross speeders? OK fine, these handful of survivors from both sides line up and...
...Luke Skywalker does come to save everybody. Nope wait...Johnson Plot Twist...its just a hologram...Luke is dead...Jedi Holograms are hard to pull off. The entire Resistance escapes in the Millennium Falcon because Rey can move rocks now.
The good guys have everything they need!
A child force sweeps with a broom....
So to summarize, the chartacters you thought you knew are gone. Only Rian Johnson knew the characters. You only thought you know how the force worked, only Rian Johnson knows. You only thought the force was good/evil, its...Johnson Plot Twist...actually a grey area force now. All of the battles and lessons in previous Star Wars movies are...Johnson Plot Twist... meaningless, light sabers can be activated with the force, ruining every fight scene whichever had one, star destroyers don't have shields and can be taken down with one x-wing, and leia is a superhero who can space fly and save people but hasn't ever used her powers for the Resistance. This movie makes everything that happened in eight earlier installments void and then offers nothing in their stead.
Just writing this was cathartic...this is a bad movie that, instead of addressing its own flaws before release, destroys the heart and light of all of the movies that have come before it. If you want to feel vacuous and sad or you already do...see this movie.
This is not a synopsis, this is a list of plot holes introduced by this movie. This movie is a three year old at the beach joyfully crushing sand castles and then mournfully realizing there is nothing left to play with after its done.
3 Stars because everything looked and sounded amazing in IMAX. 4 if it turns out to be a Back to the Future movie and this is just the Biff wins timeline.
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Oke so to be clear i think this was already the case with the other 2 movies before this one but it has to be told. The prequels were at least original in contrast to the first star wars movies. But this is just making more money out of those frist movies by putting old ideas in a new coating. It looks amazing thats true. But it is so predictive that i could have left after 20 minutes and regret nothing. If it wasn't for the 4dx i choose i would have been really disapointed. I will never go to a star wars movie again before there are enough reviews that tell me that it is new and fresh because at this moment it is a wast of money. Maybe it is Disney that does not dair to change it too much because they only care about the money and don't think about making a good original movie.
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I was going to ask why "5-year-old" men are allowed to make movies these days, and then I realized that kids can be very mature, so I don't want to insult them. In fact, if I had kids, the first thing I would do is to buy them episodes 1-6 because they are intelligent movies that teach moral lessons, and they depict how the world works accurately instead of sugar-coating it.
This movie does not do any of those things. It is stupid and immature, and I would force my kids to watch all 3 new SW films as a test to see if they could spot all the illogical nonsense and poor writing.
Another reviewer mentioned that this film is like this so that it opens up to a wider audience? What?? Are you that dense? What audience DOESN'T SW catter to? And what profits does it lack, that they should strive to get more of it? Sure... greed, but my point is that SW has been dumbed down to dumb down the population. I was forced into this evil film, but when are you people going to stop paying money for this toss?
I do not know who this species is that this movie catters to, but I imagine their diet to be roughly 70% Dairy Queen, 20% sugery drinks, living in the city, trendy glasses, and sips hot cocoa. Completely beta-male, soul-less, participation trophy-class trite.
Rogue One, TFA, and TLJ = not actually SW movies.
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Let's start with the positives, the opening and closing set pieces are phoenominal, Star Wars at its very best. These 2 parts however are the only shining stars in the whole thing.
The problems:
The acting like TFA was not up to par and at times the young stars seemed to be behaving like they where in a teen movie. The actors however may not have been the problem as the script time and time again went from lack lustre, to laughable to attempted humour completely off tone that was cringe worthy.
Whilst the effects in the set pieces where incredible in some of the other scenes they where naff. Take for example chewie and the roasted porg, chewie looked worse then he did in 1977 and the roasted porg look like red/brown pixles.
The plot had more holes in it then Swiss cheese and for more then half the film seemed stuck in boring mud. The interesting parts where ignored/killed leaving space for emo-darth to become the "big bad".
When are we going to get a defining SW film for our generation, one that isn't a carbon copy of an old one or that isn't flawed beyond reason. With so much amazing SW fiction out there why are we subjected to such inane plots.
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I just don't understand how so many people find this movie to be good, is everyone delusional or you just want to be good even if you know it isn't. I don't want to explain every aspect for which I believe the film was bad but I'll make a list without going into detail:
BAD:
1) The jokes with admiral Hux at the begging
2) A lot of the "jokes" spread arround the movie
3) A lack of logic and realism (giant ship and huge a fleet of republic forces can't take down a small rebell ship, director must've smoked some good shit)
4) Introducing side characters and directing the whole movie around them, taking away from the main characters. Also, I hate the movies in which the director randomly decides to put a character that is so out of touch with the story that it takes you out of the story and he puts that character in situations which have 10000000:1 chances of survival and he somehow pulls through every time.At least have the decency to not put him in those situations because we all know you are not going to kill him(talking about the scene with Fin and the cannon but mostly about the chinese girl).
5) Social correctness(I wouldn't mind it if it was done properly, I had no issue with introducing Finn in the first movie, but the chinese girl was just an extra, no need for her to be here and it only took away from the experience)
6) Whole sequences put there only to make the film longer(casino planet)
7) * nitpicking *, there was a scene on the water/island planet where Luke was and Rey just goes to him and says something like "Luke we need your help, the rebelion can't survive without you" or smth like that(it was much longer) and she said that in one breath like those kids in kindergarden acts.
8) Did they really kill Akbar without even showing us how he died? one of the most iconic characters in star wars. It's like not showing how Vader died and be like "so, Darth Vader died, moving on"
9) Luke dying, the f*ck was with that? Did he die? The f*ck happened?
10) Leah in space... Just....Don't
11) Same problem I had with the last movie, Rey somehow can lift all those rocks with minimal training(in the first movie she just almost beats Kylo Ren who is as strong in force as her but also had a lot of training from Luke and across his life)
12) I had more cons but can't remember them now, but in a nutshell, the movie is a joke and I would be surprised if the director could make good 10 minute video on youtube.
PROs:
1) the Porgs
2) the shots on the salt planet, really nice
3) Yoda's appearance
4) that's it folks
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Nobody cares about Finn and Rose, or most of the other forgettable characters like General Phasma...who is that? I saw the movie but most of this filler was extremely forgettable.
I didn't wait a year to see filler or Luke drink tit milk and wobble around like a grumpy old man.
I waited to see a bad ass Star Wars movie. This sure as hell wasn't it.
I wanted to find out who Snoke is. I expected to see a whole backstory on his character. But instead he dies before I learn a single thing about him.
I wanted to see Luke do some bad-ass Jedi stuff. But he pretty much does absolutely nothing and dies.
Thanks Disney, for killing Star Wars. Bravo! Seriously, what were you thinking?!
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2/10
No history or origin stories NOR any real hope or mystery of the future
The problem with this movie isn't in the details of what we would like to have seen or how we feel it should have gone. It is that it goes nowhere. No origins of characters or "why" questions delved into....No mystery or future to ponder either...just a wheel spinning goes nowhere movie. And that's the shame of it all...it wasted all that The Force Awakens set a stage for. Bad plot and bad character development. The glimmers of hope for either plot or character development are quickly killed, literally on many characters. This Star Wars film is right there with the prequels....such a shame. JJ Abrams has his work cut out for him in Episode IX.
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Hardcore fan, played out all of the games.
Watched the trilogy hundreds of times.
What can I say?
Big plot holes. Cheesy an predictable as f*** !
Figuring out how things could have become darker/cooler.
Twisted Spoilers ahead:
1 - Leia really, really dies out in the vacuum of space.
2 - All Cassino thing never existed. What's the difference anyway ?
3 - Rey DO accept Kyle offer, joinning the Dark Side, both THEN fight a barely kill Snokes who flees for a next confrontation
(somewhat like Palpatine did with Yoda).
5 - General Hux and Phasma rescue Snoke joinning him, a power struggle emerges in the First Order.
4 - Lukes now utterly terrified comes back at full Jedi Master mode to put balance for good in to the Force.
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To get me interested in this entire series I'd need to be convinced that Disney intended to treat this story with the same care and craftsmanship that Peter Jackson took with the Lord of the Rings. The story is all over the place, with a pace that is relentless and doesn't allow any of the characters to grow during the film. It's clear by the writing that the emphasis is on deus ex machina events and big explosions convincing us that this an epic tale rather than story and plot lines.
Disney, take a big breath and tell yourself that you can do better than this. CGI, the force, and light-sabers don't make this movie important, nor do the appearance of the original cast members. You can take your time with the writing and development, Star Wars is already a multi-generation experience, the question now is will be it a good one going forward?
This could be the last Star Wars movie I 'spend/waste' my life on, at this point I'm more apt to go back and read the books. Why? Because the story matters, plots matters.
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The main problem lies within the structure: every character follows its own storyline and very thinly was the movie connected. The story didn't feel contained; it was meandering through different settings, without proper time to breath between the different locations and scenes. For example the first scene was barely connected with the rest of the movie. It was a good action sequence though
I would say there was material for 3 or 4 movies in that film. And it felt rather episodic. But that is not what I wanted. And that is not Star Wars. It is hard to capture the essence of Star Wars. TLJ didn't feel like Star Wars. It felt more like a James Bond or a Marvel's movie. Every character had its own little mission. They tried to pull the strings of many different locations and several protagonists together. Lots of things feel shoe-horned in like Benicio Del Toro's character, Snoke, Finn's romance, C3PO, BB-8
I wish that TLJ would have put more focus on the main characters Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren, and their interactions, and the scenarios would have been more laid out to us. There is little to no time to breathe between the scenes, which can be both seen as good and bad: Good if you are in for a rollercoaster type of experience. Bad if you like clear focus on the main plot points. There is no main protagonist, and it kind of feels like the characters separated more than they united before, which is unfortunate.
It tries hard to be epic, but not effortlessly. For the longest Star Wars movie it feels rushed. It is a solid action movie. 7/10
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He movie is absolutly terrible.
Disney brutally murderes our most beloved childhood memories and has a laugh while doing so.
(1) Our favourite heroes act totally out-of-character. Watch Rotj (Epsiode 6) before and you will see what I mean. It is just terrible to see what Disney has done to the #1 hero of my childhood (Luke Skywalker). I know understand why Mark Hamill said he fundamentally disagrees with everything Rian Johnson (the director) has done to the character and I think it is an understatement.
(2) The movie is spammed by over commercialized stupid humor. What might work in Marvel movies (of which i like most) has no place in Star Wars.
(3) The story doesn't close any loose ends but creates even more.
(4) The movie often shocks for the sake of shoking instead of going along with the story.
(5) Star Wars was always conceived to be based on a steoretypical hero-saga and as a movie to teach moral ideals. This is simply not the case anymore.
(6) The Soundtrack is still John Williams, but we certainly know better from the Maestro.
(7) The story is written in a way as to devalue and annihilate everything the protagonists of the first 6 movies have fought for. Like Disney would want to make people forget that there were even SW movies pre-Disney.
(8) Disney/Kathleen Kennedy/LucasFilm promised for the last 3years that the whole point of rebooting the Canon (except for the 6 movies) is to make them more coherent which is a blatant LIE after this movie.
(9)The only good thing about the movie :The acting was professional, really good and the actors were really in their roles.
(10) The movie has a few bigger plotholes, atleast one of them big enough to change the outcome of the complete movie during the first 20 minutes (hard to describe without spoilers) - and a smaller one regarding the geopoltical situation for example
Episode 9 would have to put so many things right and retcon so much to leave me with even the slightest interest in the franchise that it is almost impossible.
I will take any future SW release with strongly reserved cautioness if at all.
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I would like to think that the press reviewers of this film where not in some way connected to Disney, but after watching the film and reading the reviews that have been written - I just cannot come to any other conclusion.
It's as if part of Disney's budget goes towards the 'gifting' of the press reviewers. And by the time people realize that they have been taken for a ride they have already paid their money and there is nothing they can do about it.
I would honestly have loved for this film to be great - and to have continued the wonderful journey of all the Star Wars characters that we grew up with. But instead it rubs their faces in the dirt, kills some of them off in bizarre ways - and bases all of this around a wasteful plot.
The characters used to be bold and noble - the films used to warm the hearts of the fans. But now it is cold, hard and damning. Luke's treatment was especially awful.
And in a way it has not only ruined the Star Wars saga for so many - but it actually changes the way that you watch the original films. You can't root for the characters while knowing what a final pathetic end they come to. The end of ROTJ was perfect - job done. This film spoils that all - and it I one of the few films that I wished that I had never seen. I won't be seeing the next one.
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1/10
I will never watch another Rian Johnson film ever again.
Whether you liked Force Awakens or not, whatever you may think. It set up a decent premise on what could have come afterwards. Rian Johnson, thanks to his own ego and hubris, throws it all away with Last Jedi. Sitting through this addition to the Star Wars cannon will feel like torture as you endure subtly hidden hints of personal political agendas, political correctness, and the absolute waste along with disrespect of characters people have loved and admired for alittle over forty years.
Forget the past, and let it die. The basic message of The Last Jedi. If there's any truth of a petition to annex the new movie from official cannon, then I hope that petition succeeds. Johnson's film is not worth your time, nor your money. Neither will his trilogy, for which hopefully the suits at Disney will reconsider.
Avoid this movie.
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Last Jedi movie was a beautiful Audio/Visual experience especially in 3D. That is pretty much all I can say about the PROs of the movie. I should make it clear that the 6 it received from me is a very generous rating, only given to acknowledge the amazing work people who were responsible from cinematography/effects/visuals and effects did.
TLJ is a very long movie, but not a rich movie at all. For a movie that takes 2h30m, it feels poorly structured with completely pointless and irrelevant events taking huge screen time, while characters/background stories/character developments that could have been interesting are either discarded in the most time efficient manner or left without addressing.
Story feels like a first draft, and for a production this size capitalizing on a IP that big with story materials so rich; this is very disappointing.
I could quickly recap other wrongs of the movie;
unnecessary and unfitting humour getting extended screen time, while meaningful plot points being discarded
First Order doesn't feel like a galactic menace, and its function in the story is being a comic relief
However, the biggest fault of the movie is erasing all the promise Force Awakens put on the table. TFA was not a very good movie, but it established a promising background for the new trilogy to build. And Last Jedi pretty much discarded majority of those potential in short efficient strokes, in a way it doesn't even add to the story.
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I don't know how this movie got made. You have Star Wars, a franchise that is guaranteed to succeed, with more source material than you could ever imagine. You have Disney, a megaconglomerate with virtually unlimited funding and resources. You have Rian Johnson, who I personally love as a director. You have Mark Hammill returning as Luke Skywalker.
How? How do you mess this up so badly? This is how:
By starting the movie off with "please hold" and "yo momma" jokes. By following up with the most nonsensical space fight in the history of Star Wars. By creating a superficial situation just to send your characters on a massive sidequest that results in absolutely nothing getting accomplished, besides taking up an hour of screentime. By inserting PETA messages into every other scene. By inserting SJW messages in between those PETA messages. By delivering these messages with such a heavy hand that they feel like satire, even to someone like me, who supports animal rights and the social movement.
The characters' actions make little sense. Not a single person behaves the way a normal person would, even in an alien galaxy. It's way too contrived just to fit a script that was nonsensical to begin with. Without spoiling things, someone has a plan, but won't share that plan, so other people make plans without knowing, and end up doing nothing but undermining the plan that would have initially worked had they not gone on an hour-long waste of time. It's just people running in circles the entire time, without making any progress.
I could rant all day, but I don't want to spoil the specifics of how atrocious the plot becomes, or how idiotic everybody acts, or how everyones' actions result in nothing at all. There are probably three redeeming parts of this movie, which is the reason I gave three stars:
1. Kylo and Rey have the only interesting story, and are the only actors doing a decent job. I loved Ridley in TFA, but wasn't a fan of Driver. Now, these two are carrying the entire movie on their backs. They also have the best action sequence, even if they completely forget how to use the force during the entire fight.
2. The hyperdrive scene was amazing. It might not make technical sense, and it might have been wasted on a horrible character, but it was the most visually astounding moment in the entire movie, and the choice of sound was beautiful. It definitely should have been given to someone with greater importance.
3. The movie tries way too hard to subvert expectations, but there are two specific times it does this perfectly. I liked these choices because it drew focus away from the characters' pasts to their present actions, which I feel is more important. However, their present actions amount to very little, so once again this idea was wasted.
I would not recommend this movie to anyone. Ep.7 was bland, but at the very least, it got me hopeful for future movies. After Ep.8, I have absolutely zero expectations for future Star Wars films. While I was watching this, I kept asking myself if this was real life, and if this was actually the movie or someone's idea of a joke. It honestly feels like someone is deliberately sabotaging the franchise, either Disney or Johnson or both.
So, as reviewed by a long-time Rian Johnson/Star Wars fan who is also a strong advocate of animal and human rights, and who favors strong character development and plot over explosive action scenes... This movie is a meandering, pandering, too-many-fingers-in-the-pot pile of steaming turds.
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Just come back from the cinema, was looking forward to it, and now feeling very deflated. It felt like they only had half script, and instead of sorting it out, they thought they'd just fill it up with benign, unrelated segments. I very nearly walked out when Carrie Fisher started to fly through space like Thor from a Marvel Comic; and after Mark Hamill milked a four nippled extraterrestrial walrus, well!! If your not going to do something properly, don't do it at all!!!
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As for all of these good reviews somehow being higher than all of the bad "as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced".
This movie sucks beyond words. It would not surprise me if Rain wrote this movie in High School. It felt like a bad fan fiction movie that was put on Youtube.
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This movie is a disaster. I saw it in a completely filled theater opening night and you could feel the sense of disappointment and betrayal hanging in the air. I was not a fan of the Force Awakens, and was cautiously hopeful of this movie. It was worse that I could ever have possibly imagined. Disney should be ashamed of what they did to the franchise; good luck at recovering from this one.
Even as a standalone movie it is bad. Weak characters, a disjointed plot, a confusing tone, abysmal writing, ridiculous attempts at "Marvel-type" humor, and the usual Hollywood social justice themes. This movie does not feel like a Star Wars movie, which makes sense since it shouldn't be.
The executives in charge need to seriously reconsider their plans for future movies. Sure the prequels had bad acting and pacing issues, but at least they didn't ruin one of the greatest fictional universes and storylines of all time.
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Is The Last Jedi worth watching once? Yes.
Is The Last Jedi a worthy Star Wars canon movie? Hell no.
I'll try to articulate my points.
Mark Hamill gives an excellent performance, and likely is the key that saved the film for me. While others hate what Luke Skywalker has become and does in the film, I am fine with the director choosing not to commit fan service with his character. Luke was a whiny, reactionary man in Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, and gave in to his emotions for a brief bit in Return of the Jedi, so I find his portrayal in the Last Jedi well within the bounds of his character.
Only Rey, Luke, and Kylo's characters seem to have any depth to them. So much so that it almost feels like the director was annoyed he had to include any other characters. The plot decisions made echo the choices made by one who has no interest in anything that has happened before in this universe, and all but poops on every decision made and question invoked in the Force Awakens. For example:
Kylo's cool helmet and voice? Get rid of it.
Kylo's scar? Move it.
Rey's parents? Answer it in passing.
Maz? Have a quick, mostly meaningless cameo.
Finn? Invent a new character and send them away to spin their wheels.
Poe? Give him one-dimensional dialogue to keep him busy until the next fight.
Hux? Trivialize his competition with Kylo and turn him into a toady by the end of the film.
Phasma? Use her enough to include in the marketing, then kill her.
Snoke? Use him as a McGuffin, then kill him.
Hyperspace? We can track that now and also use it to destroy entire Imperial fleets easily.
Kylo's torn insides? Yeah just kidding he's totally evil and one dimensional.
Miniature Death Star Laser? Has difficulty with 10 feet of metal.
This was a movie made by a typical Hollywood director who didn't want to be constrained by any tradition or prior choices in the ongoing saga. The entire Finn arc seems to exist only so the director could show a boy grabbing a broom. The director seems so dumbfounded and unable to do anything with this ensemble of characters, that his instinct is just to reduce the extended cast to typical film tropes or eliminate the characters entirely. The plot and direction just seems rushed and lazy, with the exception of Luke's and Rey's arc.
I'm not upset that this movie made a few bad choices. I'm upset that Star Wars is a saga that has traditionally been about lore and storybuilding. This movie is a cookiecutter blockbuster that really doesn't seem to care what came either before or after it.
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Terrible as Star Wars, ok as a movie. But as Star Wars... devastating. Don't get me wrong, if you're a millenial, someone that watched Star Wars movies the way you watch most other movies, someone who came late to it or didn't like the originals, then you might like this one. But if you have anything invested in Star Wars historically then you'll come away with a big hand print on your face from being slapped by Disney.
It wasn't all bad - there were a number of scenes that were very nicely done. The scene with the ramming of the enemy fleet was awesome. Cinematography was really nice, the sets were well done, etc. I thought the Rey/Kylo arc was fascinating, but they took all the possibilities there and dropped the ball, as they did with most of it.
First they took Luke Skywalker, the most powerful Jedi the galaxy has ever known, and turned him into a grumpy old man on a mountain. And not only a grumpy old Jedi on a mountain - there's a strong tradition of Jedi that withdraw in order to dedicate themselves to the Force - no, he spends the time cut off from the force and crying in his soup. And the story prior to that is pathetic. "He starts a school. Bad guy corrupts his school. School destroyed. Go hide. Make a very realistic vision of himself. Die." It was bad enough that they made Han a pathetic scoundrel and loser after a Trilogy of character development and improvement, but this was terrible. It's a slap in the face to decades of Skywalker character development in cinema, comics, and books, and a slap in the face to fans that have been with it from the beginning.
Having been handed a crap sandwich though, Hamill took the role and ran with it. I thought he did an excellent job at it for sure. I'm a little disappointed in him as a fan himself that he went along with it. But I guess you have to toe the contractual line to get paid. Very sad, though.
Then they took what was supposedly one of the most mysterious and dangerous baddies the galaxy had ever seen and just killed him off with no explanation. Mysterious Snoke! Terrible Snoke! Master of the dark side Snoke! Meh, just chop him in half. Having said that, Kylo's method of killing him was very clever. Kudos for that part of the scene.
And the mystery of Rey is... that there is no mystery? Her parentage isn't a larger story arc? Like Snoke, let's just build that up via one director and screenwriting team, and then let's have another come across who have a different idea and kill off all the ideas from the first one. Meh, just kill that idea off.
The training of Rey consisted of a couple of lessons on Luke's grumpy mountain? Man, Yoda and all those other guys must have been sooo wrong about how to teach Jedi after all those centuries. Apparently you just fall into it and it takes over. No need to practice or study. Just "Hey, there it is! Now I'm super powerful!". Light, dark, you're in between, visit the dark side cave and it's fine, something something force. No development, no nothing.
It took a hastily introduced character (Rose), attached her to Finn (who they still haven't figured out what to do with) and tried to create a relationship based on nothing. Not even close to believable. As a matter of fact, pretty much all of the new characters are totally flat and unrelatable.
C3PO gets maybe 20 seconds of screentime and half of that is telling him to shut up. R2D2 gets about the same. Chewbacca gets one scene with a Porg and a scene eating by the fire. Admiral Ackbar gets a minute of screentime and then gets unceremoniously jettisoned into space. BB8 gets a couple of really cool scenes, though, so that was a plus!
Do I need to talk about Leia force-flying in space? Do I really? Just go see Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a more well rounded and thought out film.
What was the point of Canto Bight? Were we trying to insert politics here? Social commentary?
And speaking of social commentary, we got that in spades. What did we learn from this little episode kids? We learned that the men (Han, Luke, Poe, Finn, Admiral Ackbar) can't get it right. We learned that only by listening to the female leads, and this was all female leads, is there any hope. The only men we see with any sort of power or influence, aside from Poe who is put in his place immediately, are incompetent. Did you notice that team darkside is headed by men? Men who appear comedic and incompetent? Did you see any gals on the bridge with them? No? And that's why they fail, young Jedi. Because they have wedding tackle. Because of toxic masculinity. Females lead team lightside and that's really why they win. Very politically correct.
Don't get me wrong - I love Rey. I love Leia. In a couple of movies after I see Rose actually develop her character I might even like her. But it's unbalanced and obviously pandering.
Phasma is the exception here in that she's female, but that was the crappiest character ever created anyway so I have a hard time feeling bad about the ending to that one.
And let's talk about the rebellion in general. This is another slap in the face to Star Wars story, but this time right in Leia's face. Was she able to accomplish nothing? The rebellion is now just a few transports full of main characters and a couple of extras? And they were defeated by the not funny but comedic team of Hux and Kylo? The rest of the universe doesn't give a crap about them and refuses to help when they ask for it?
In very obvious dialog, Kylo tells Rey that she has no place in the story and that she's a nobody. I think the idea was again to "free" the series from the Skywalkers. But nobody that's ever really been a Star Wars fan has thought that. The world of the Jedi and Sith has always been huge and wondrous. The Skywalkers had a big place in it at a certain time, but the universe itself was humongous. They didn't free anybody. They jettisoned what made it Star Wars.
Now they say that this is all "freeing" the Star Wars universe from the baggage of the past, and making it new and relevant, but that's a bunch of horse crap. Whenever you cast aside the roots of a story like Star Wars you throw away what makes it Star Wars. Now it's a space adventure. You're free of Luke, the Skywalker clan, the Jedi, the Sith, and all of that. Now you have what seems like a smaller universe and story that ends up being somewhat hazy and nebulous. The kid at the end with the broom I suppose we're supposed to think is a sign that now anybody and everybody can be a Jedi. It's free wheeling and fancy free I guess. But that was always the case. It was never just Skywalkers. And ity was never even all Jedi or all Sith. Had they not jettisoned all the books and lore they would know that. By originally declaring it all non-canon they made the universe smaller. And by "cutting themselves free" of the older movies they made it smaller still.
If you wanted to do a hand-off to a new generation, and even change a lot about the way things work, then you could do that with some decent storytelling. But this was just a travesty. It's sole purpose seems to be to get rid of anything prior and dump it. Destroy it all and star over with a clean slate telling what Disney wants to tell. This wasn't a hand-off, it was a corporate slaughter. It was the moneymakers at Disney taking something that should have been great and tearing it apart to give themselves more room to make some more cash.
And that's where we're left. A smaller universe without the millenia of story and history that made the Star Wars universe so huge and mysterious. Now that all of that baggage is gone we can do it right. Hand it over to the next generation. Yay.
But hey, Disney can pump out movie after movie for the next decade and do whatever they want with it. And that's what it's all about.
The only way to stop is to not buy it. And mark my words, this sort of subpar crap will keep coming now that Disney owns most beloved movie characters. Just don't buy it.
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Go watch it with your friends, make a conscious choice not to take it seriously, let go of all the hopes you may have for a grand space adventure or a fun, intelligent movie, or something that has any of the original star wars charm, and you just might be able to enjoy what is easily the one fo the best sci-fi spoofs ever made. Too bad it wasn't intentional though. As a comedy 10/10, as a Star Wars film, utter disappointment.
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First off let me share my Star Wars fandom credentials: lifelong enthusiast and collector of all things Star Wars. I have every action figure ever made, I've read every expanded universe novel and all the comic books. I've watched every episode of The Clone Wars and Rebels. I can name any cantina character, quote any line, describe every scene down to the finest detail. I even love the prequel films if I force myself to ignore jar jar.
Now on the movie:
Incoherent. Preposterous. Ridiculous.
There were some extraordinary missed opportunities that were one second within the director's reach.
Kylo Ren murdering Leia like he murdered his father would have been a glorious death for her. Instead, some random tie fighter pilot blows her away but she survives the vacuum of space and floats back to a resistance ship. I almost walked out at that point. I just could not believe it. She has no further purpose.
Last Jedi could have ended in a shocking way like ESB did, leaving us begging for ep 9. The moment Kylo Ren and Rey could have joined forces. Instead she retreats the same way Luke did in ESB. The story is all too predictable now.
In Star Wars films some respect is usually given to plausibility and timing. But they have 18 hours to travel an untold number of light years to Monte Carlo (I can't even be bothered to google the name of the place), pick up a code breaker who apparently spends 24/7 at the craps tables, come back, and run some crazy heist. No. I refuse. Oh, and you need gravity to drop bombs btw. Ramming one of those bombers with full payload into the dreadknought would have been much more effective as well.
Then there was the over the top attempt at humor. This is Star Wars, not Iron Man. The "I'll hold" bit went on for what, one minute? The "who talks first?" moment in ep 7 was okay but this is ridiculous.
The director inhereted some truly awful characters from ep 7 and made them much, much worse. That is, Hux and Snoke.
Hux is a horrible character. Over-the-top, not believable. Too young. Does not have the gravitas or silent menace of a Tarkin or the class and subtlety of any of the imperial officers in tos (think Admiral Piett.) He looks like he's barely concealing a laugh.
I don't even know where to begin with Snoke. Who is this guy? Is he a Sith Lord? Where does he come from? Is he actually Darth Sidious resurrected? Is he Darth Plagueis? Where did he get the scars? Nothing is answered. He's just there to repeat some of Palpatine's lines but without any meaning. He's characterized as some omnipotent force wielder who can read Kylo Ren's mind. Yet he can't see Ren's little lightsaber trick? And the name is horrible, "Snoke" sounds like a little penguin. He looks like Gollum. I do appreciate he got Kylo Ren to lose the mask though. That's an acknowledgment that the mask was a mistake to begin with,
Then there's the praetorian guards. Very cumbersome outfits. There's no way any non-force wilder should be anything other than lightsaber fodder for a force wielder. That these guys had Kylo Ren on the ropes is preposterous.
Poe Dameron is just too good a pilot, and too reckless.
BB-8 is cute but he makes R2-D2's achievements in AOTC look like nothing.
Benicio del Toro's character is pointless. We get no time to get to him, we have no way of knowing who he is, what his motives are, and at what point did he get the opportunity to make a "deal"? Why would the First Order honor it anyway?
Captain Phasma. Sigh. Complete waste, again.
Luke is great but his magic trick at the end is just several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything any other Jedi has ever done. If he was capable of that, he should have been capable of taking down the entire First Order just by thinking about it. Maybe he just didn't feel like it.
And I could go on and on and on. I'm not even going to see it a second time. I might wait for bluray for ep9. I usually see new Star Wars movies at least 5 times in the theaters.
SHAME!!!!
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5/10
Disney put their 'family friendly' spin on what could've been a great movie
Is this the worst Star Wars movie?
No.
Is it the best Star Wars movie?
No.
Is it a very average movie?
Yes
When I came out of the theatre, I said to a friend of mine people will either love or hate this movie, it seems I am right.
There are few issues with the direction with this movie, visually it looks like one of the best Star Wars movies out there, and one moment in particular looks amazing, and made people gasp in the theatre I was in. I thought there was a little two much slo-mo, and on a few occasions I was thinking; did I need to see that explosion?
However, the script was very, very poor.
several scenes were just plain irritating, as things were just in there to keep the younger audience happy, there are quite a few cheesy lines, and a whole subplot which was pointless, and boring. Some characters were well developed, interesting and made you think. But lots and just boring, have no backstory and don't change. Characters lose a lot of vulnerability, and although it is a funny movie, some of the humour was out of place.
Most of the acting was good. Adam Driver is great, Daisy Ridley is solid, Carrie Fisher was excellent - or at least for the first 25 minutes. Everyone else is also decent. That is everyone, apart from Mark Hamill.
Luke should be scarred from the lightsaber Rey gives him at the begining, he has not seen that lightsaber for 30+ years, and the last time he saw one was when his pupils were murdered (we learn that it episode 7), but I didn't get that affect coming off, it should have weight behind it, Luke should have a weight behind his character, but he doesn't.
Finally, whoever decided to put those chicken like creatures in should be sacked on the spot. There are in every advert, poster, and trailer and are obviously just there to make money. They are also CGI of which one to many alien creatures were for my taste.
This was Rian Johnson's first big studio production, and as I feared would be the case, the big bosses at Disney have forced him to make a mediocre, boring, Disneyafied movie.
However I see potential in the movie, and have hope for all the spin-offs, episode 9, and the new trilogy Rian Johnson is making
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1/10
we are disappointed, but are going to watch the next episodes anyway, and they know it
However disappointed we are people, this will change nothing. The franchise sells itself without any decent input, and be honest with urself, you will go and see the next movie even if every critic says its a sh.t. you will want to see it for yourself.
And Disney expects you to...
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1/10
Decided I like Sand Talk from the Prequels better than this
I COULDNT BELIEVE WHAT THEY DID WITH THE LAST JEDI.. SO I WENT TO SEE IT FOR A SECOND TIME. THEN I WAS SURE, IT WAS THE WORST MOVIE OF STAR WARS EVER.
POOR SCRIPT: SAD JOKES. COMMON PHRASES FOR COMMON MOMENTS. CHARACTERS WHO SHOULDNT MAKE JOKES LIKE GENERAL HUX TRIED BUT NOT SUCCEEDED. CHARACTERS WHO SAID LINES DESCRIBING THEIR ACTIONS, OR TELLING US WHAT IS THE MOVIE TRYING TO SHOW US
NO STORY: MORE THAN 2 HOURS OF NOTHING. IMPORTANT SITUATIONS WITH NO EMOTIONAL IMPORTANCE.
FILM EDITING:CUTTING SCENES WHERE THEY SHOULDNT HAVE. REPEATED IMAGES AND SITUATIONS OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
TOO MUCH COMPUTER, A FEW NATURAL LOCATIONS, CHARACTERS APPEARED JUST BECAUSE THEY EXISTS, NO BECAUSE THE MOVIE ASKED FOR THEM
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2/10
They should have saved the title "A New Hope" for when/if they actually make the sequel Star Wars deserves.
"And I knew if I wrote wondering what the fans would want, as tempting as that is, it wouldn't work because people would still be shouting at me, 'F- you, you ruined Star Wars,' and I would make a bad movie. And ultimately that's the one thing nobody wants."
So Johnson says this and proceeds to make a bad movie anyways. And who the f*** is this guy? Looper is his biggest achievment. The guy who directed Looper is entrusted with writing and directing Star Wars, one of the greatest cinematic universes ever?
This is my Last Jedi rant: Why is this movie so bad? The number one reason in my opinion? There isn't any character development. The characters are awful. Just horrible. Captain Phasma is in like 10 minutes of both movie combined yet she is talked about as if she is some cool character. You know nothing about her except she has shiny armor. Finn, horrible character. He only exists to fill the "coward will find his courage" cliche. Poe fills the cocky pilot (Han Solo) role but isn't funny, charming or cool like Solo he's just an asshole. Kylo Ren acts like an angsty teenager he even says things that I could only imagine a 13 year old boy saying to his parents because he has to be home at 9pm and he is probably the best character, which is sad. He is the only one with personality. Rey is just... I don't know...there. These characters either have annoying personalities or none at all. So you have no attachment or investment in any of the characters thus no attachment to the story. If Rey, the protagonist, died I wouldn't care. Zero attachment to any character. If you don't care about the characters, you don't care what happens to them, you don't have an interesting story. There are way to many arcs as well. Arcs that aren't developed they just happen so you are setting there thinking that doesn't make sense or left with an arc that is completely open and unresolved you just never see what happens and massive continuity issues.(cough cough Finn and Rose arc and Benicio Del Toro's character, I don't even know if he has a name. )This movie is just cliche after cliche. Flashy action scenes connected by a completely hollow plot. It's ok. I went in with low expectations and I gave up hope the universe I love will ever get the sequel it deserves. Disney and Hollywood will keep gutting this beautiful universe for a quick buck and to sell kids merchandise.
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A Jedi never loses his light saber- Luke just tosses it like garbage.
A Jedi knows that all is the way force wields it - But Luke is still broken and pathetic.
A normal human being would never try to kill a young boy just because he/she senses that the boy is evil- but Luke does just that. That is plain criminal.
This is a movie hell bent on discrediting the old characters and showing that the new kids on the block are the real deal. It will only appeal to those who don't know squat about why star wars is so much loved.
Add to this the pandering towards political groups and you have an abomination of the original Star Wars.
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Beginning was Star wars. On the island war pure pain to watch.
Luke was made fun of... They took away his balls and tried to attach them back in the end.
Vader was mocked indirect by the mask thing...
Considering how much they made fun out of things in the move. I think that walt disney gave lucas the finger.. Same thing to the fans..
How on earth people gave it 9 to 10 is just mind blowing. They must have been bots voting or something.
If you cant see how similar this is to the empire strikes back then you are blind...
I liked Rogue one.... That was a new story.....
You dont do a copy paste and then edit it on a move like Star wars.. Thats just suicide. Doesnt feel like a pro behind all of this
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Won't dwell much on this one, since it has been explained over and over. You can't just ignore a whole world of lore and expect to go unpunished, especially dealing with Star Wars.
Leia using the force to basically ressurrect and get back from space with 0 training?
A powerful Sith Lord cheesed with a cheapshot by a weakling of an aprentice who got outclassed in lightsabers from a girl with no training? And even WHILE READING HIS MIND?
A kid controlling a broomstick with his mind with no training?
Won't even go into further details about the horrible, out of place jokes.
Nothing about the new characters' history was explained. Everything just waived and tossed away.
After Rogue one I was really optimistic for TLJ. It was indeed a huge disappointment to every SW fans. Our job is to rebuke this film thoroughly so we can at least make the franchise owners think their shit through next time before completely ignoring the story lore. One bad movie won't make me stop watching SW, but something must be done now so the next one is not such a failure.
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Wow. "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," is one of worst, most pretentious pieces of garbage I've ever seen in my entire life, and this is coming from someone who makes their own short films that are nothing less than pretentious pieces of garbage. Whoever green lit this script and the ideas that are contained within this film needs to be fired as soon as possible. This review will contain some spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film then please do not continue reading, but know that my official review is this: "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," deserves no more than a 3 out of 10, and in fact it may deserve less; this is a film that will bore you to death, a film that will inspire hatred inside of your very soul because of the things that they have done to our beloved Luke Skywalker, and a film that will make you cry out of anger and frustration. If you want to see this movie, go see it. It's "Star Wars," and at the least you'll enjoy the action, but I'm warning you, if you are feeling suicidal this film will just push you over the edge.
Let's start with what they decided to do to Luke Skywalker in this movie: Luke Skywalker becomes a mopey, grumpy old man who does absolutely nothing of any value. Mark Hamill told director Rian Johnson that he fundamentally disagreed with every choice that was made for his character in this film, and after watching this movie I can see why. Luke acts in ways that do not make sense to the character that was built up in the previous movies. It honestly made me want to weep in the theatre. I don't want to get into specifics, but let's just say towards the end of this movie there is a sequence where it looks like we might get our old Luke back, where it looks like he might just show us what it truly means to be a Jedi Master, and instead Rian Johnson gives us all a cinematic slap to the face by filming a totally unneeded fake out that added nothing to the movie, unless you consider dashing away the audiences hopes and dreams as adding something to the movie. It wasn't clever, Rian, it was cruel.
I will say that, by far, Kylo Ren is my favorite part of these movies. I absolutely love his character, in that he seems to be just a scared, weak boy who desperately wants some meaning and purpose in his life. However, remember that one scene in "The Force Awakens" where Kylo Ren freaks out a little bit? Yeah, there's another scene of him freaking out in this movie as well, and while I understood its purpose, it really was unnecessary. We know he's hotheaded, we don't need yet another scene of him having an anger tantrum to show us what we as an audience already know. And even though I love this character, this movie did nothing new with him. He's still hotheaded and angry, a slave to his emotions, and I don't understand why they could not have just altered his character by having him learn from his mistakes that he made in the previous film (wow, I really hate this film, I can tell you right now this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, I'm currently debating driving back to the movie theatre to demand a refund.). Yes, we do learn a little bit of Kylo Ren's backstory, and I enjoyed watching him teeter-totter the line between full-blown villainy and slight heroism, and I will admit that his internal struggle to be the Sith Lord he so desperately wants to be was exciting viewing, but there is far too little of this in the movie because most of the film features a subplot that goes absolutely nowhere and that simply extends the films running time far beyond a reasonable length.
Now there are some good things about this movie, and by some I mean one good thing: the action scenes. There is not a lot of action in this movie, but when there is action it is nothing short of stupendous. I mean, the very first "real" action scene in Snoke's throne room is truly impressive and awe inspiring, and almost every single scene after that is filled to the brim with all the jaw dropping "Star Wars" action that you want and expect to see, and while this is all very entertaining, by that point the movie will have already bored you to tears and lost your interest; too little, too late, Mr. Rian Johnson.
When "The Force Awakens" was released in 2015, people were angry, complaining that it added nothing new to the table in the "Star Wars" universe, complaining that it was too unoriginal, a rehash of Episode IV. "The Last Jedi" remedies this by being completely original, but yet it somehow still adds nothing new to this universe. The movie is over two hours long, but yet by the end it feels like nothing happened; the long running time was simply the director stroking his own ego. "The Force Awakens" may have been uninspired, but at least it set up intriguing mysteries, two interesting villains (Kylo Ren being the most complex villain "Star Wars" has ever had, being complex with tangible goals and obvious faults in his character, he's the type of underdog that you really can't help but root for), was shrouded in mystery, and filled to the brim with exciting action sequences. "The Last Jedi," on the other hand, takes all of the set up and mystery from "The Force Awakens," throws it out the window, and tells the audience "ehh, it doesn't matter anyway."
3/10. (Review has been edited for length. Full review available to read on my blog - if interested, please click on my account and follow the link to my blog!)
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So disappointed. Like every other Star Wars fan, I couldn't wait to watch this new film but I left the cinema so annoyed. What is with all these utterly pointless non- Star Wars like jokes that have been thrown in?!! There's even a 'mother' joke!
Whoever thought up the Princess Leia Mary popping esq scene needs to be band from any further dealings with Star Wars! It was unbelievably bad.
It was a film that has definitely been made for general film goers and not Star Wars fans. So much more could have been done with this film but The writers sold out. The Porgs were a money cow for Disney as they brought absolutely nothing! So many bad things can be said about this film but I'm not gonna wind myself up listing them all.
JJ Abrahams really needs to do something special for episode 9.
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I've never been an overly critical moviegoer, and I'm very forgiving when it comes to Star Wars films. So much so that I genuinely have enjoyed every single one (despite the laundry list of problem that the prequels have).
I left The Last Jedi feeling disappointed, a little angry and betrayed.
If I could boil it down into a clear reason, it would be that this just did not feel like Star Wars.
One of the major issues that began to concern me was the humour. Starting with the 'On Hold' joke (which felt contemporary with our world, not Star Wars), it then quickly turned into parody - making Hux a mockery of the character that appeared in TFA. From that point onwards, he was a joke and couldn't be taken seriously.
If that were the only case, it would have been forgivable - but the whole movie was peppered with cheap laughs, many of which seemed completely inappropriate (and more suited to Spaceballs than Star Wars). I can understand that such a thematically bleak film needed to have some relief, but the judgement of Rian Johnson was way off base here.
Certain characters are suited to the comedy moments - BB8, Chewie (to some degree), and Finn. When they are on screen you know the tone of the scene. But
adding comedy moment to the scenes with Luke or Rey - scenes in which you're paying full attention for the drama that is unfolding, completely undermines the tension. It was so bad, it got to the point where during any dramatic scene, I was waiting for the throwaway gag.
Some jokes were in character and worked well enough (for example, when Leia told 3PO to take the worried look off his face). But others made me wonder what the hell I was watching, as well as constantly remind me I'm watching a film making fun of itself, rather than being immersed in the story of a sweeping space opera.
The tone was just all wrong.
This is further evidenced by the Canto Bight sequence, which made me wonder if I was watching a completely different movie entirely. It's clear that Rian Johnson just has no natural feel for the Star Wars universe.
While some reviewers have praised the movie for taking bold, new steps, there were several missed opportunities where the director just completely backtracked into safe territory:
The fake Leia death scene was one of the most powerful moments in the movie...until she did her goofy looking force-flying back to the ship. This would have been the perfect, quick shocking, moment for Leia to die. But instead, it was a worthless spectacle that lost all emotional impact.
The Kylo/Rey plotline itself was one of the better things the movie gave us. I'm not too critical of the choice to kill off Snoke they way they did as it provided the catalyst for a potentially powerful scene. However, just at the point where you thought that maybe Rey and Kylo could actually join together, perhaps form an intriguing combination of light and dark leading the First Order, Johnson again drops the ball and goes back to Kylo just being the bad guy and Rey being the good. The perfect chance for a unique and exciting plot to develop was wasted.
The whole theme moving to the point of resetting the series to Rebels vs First Order. There are so many stories that could be told, but it feels it's going back to the safe zone and giving what we already have, while pretending that it isn't.
It was also a great shame that Ridley and Boyega had pretty much no screen time together. Their chemistry in TFA was one of my favourite parts and to have Rey away on a deserted island for so long was just a waste, and caused them to have to invent a needless companion for Finn 'because'.
As noted by many other reviewers, Luke was handled very poorly in this movie. Now, I do understand the reasons for the 'grumpy old man' plotline and how it
ties in to the 'kill the past' theme (which was a bit too heavy handed in places and again felt like the movie was talking to the viewer directly). But it was just poorly handled.
I'm sure there must have been many takes of Luke discarding his old lightsaber - but the mind boggles as to why they chose the one that was a comedy lob.
If he had just dropped it, or turned and flug it away with all his might, that would have made a more dramatic moment and stronger character note for him.
The scene where he milks the alien cow's teat and drinks it is also quite bizarre and totally out of place.
Again, I understand that Rian Johnson was trying to subvert the established themes, but there are ways to do that without the movie feeling either stupid
or ultimately unsatisfying. Make bold choices! Do things differently! That's all great, but if the audience feels disenfranchised then what does that all achieve?
There are many other things wrong with The Last Jedi, but at this stage they are all nit-picks and might not have adversely affected my enjoyment if it were not for the accumulation of poor choices that just built up across the expansive run time. I don't mind the whole inclusivity thing. I don't even mind the obvious political statements or the other gaping plot holes that others have pointed out. I didn't even mind too much that Rey's parent are nobody - with the exception of that it was again poorly dealt with.
What I do mind is when Star Wars doesn't feel like Star Wars. Even if the (admittedly poor) script was the same, a different director with a better vision of the mythology could have made this work.
This movie made me sad and angry. And not for the reasons that the director intended. The fan division alone should be enough to tell Disney that this is the wrong direction to go.
Long time Star Wars fans should leave the cinema feeling excited, perhaps shocked, and eager for the next part of the story. Not cold, depressed and angry.
The whole thing felt disrespectful to the universe, the previous work of JJ Abrams, and the fans.
Shame on you.
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So, no need to see it again now! Promise. Again, a rehash of the original Star Wars - sequences, events, dialogue - plus too much unwanted comical scenes.
They need new ideas, rightfully brighter ideas rather just castrate the original Star Wars trilogy for plot and scenes.
Bright spot? Well...The graphic is fantastic. The bomber raid scene specially and the light speed slice! & that's about it. And that's why there's a 2nd star in my rating because of that.
The plot? What plot? A snail race was the plot. With their big budget, that was the best the writers can come up with.
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So, like most Star Wars fans, I've watched all the movies way too much and yes, I've put them on a smallish (size of Texas) pedestal. Fine, I admit it. But while this movie gets a checkbox for being added to the series and another for being mildly entertaining, it is a sad day for us hopeful fans who were seeking the next step in the Star Wars Universe. Here is my quick good and bad.
The Good
The continued development of a female heroine is good.
It's always great to see the Millennium Falcon, it just is.
The crystal planet looks cool on the screen.
The Not So Good
Sadly, this section has some big ones but like most I've talked with, seriously, a slow speed chase has to be the top of the list.
Leia surviving space.
Them needing this super special locksmith to save the day.
I get it that it must be tough to write a compelling story and that this movie series has lofty expectations heaped upon. Even with that said, I must believe they could have come up with something stronger than this. So, it hurts me to say it but this one was a miss for Star Wars fans.
Here's hoping they get better.
May the force be with you.
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5/10
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi Review/thoughts
I can't remember the last time Iv'e left a screening of a film and been so conflicted about the events I've witnessed. This review is going to be more of a general thoughts and feelings as I'm still trying to digest the film. I'll keep this as spoiler free as possible.
Firstly I thought the first act was the weakest, whilst the space battles were thrilling and engaging, the plot was essentially a rip-off of the the first season of the rebooted Battlestar Galatica. Whilst I loved the show, I wish that the 'story group' came up with a better story.
Another issue in the first act was the comedic clashes in the tone of the film. There were way too many jokes, a couple garnered a chuckle, but the majority were cringe worthy.
I was happy to see Poe get a larger role in this film, he is given a proper fleshed out character arc, unlike a-lot of characters. He brings charm and likeability to the story without it ever feeling exaggerated. I'm looking forward too seeing where his character will go in the next film.
Pretty much everything with Kylo Ren was brilliant, he really is the the standout MVP in this trilogy. His character is given extra layers of depth and turmoil, expanding on the great foundation he was given in The Force Awakens.
Kylo Ren and Rey's dynamic was the highlight of the film, anytime the film cutaway I wanted it to go back to them.
The cinematography, editing, score etc were all well done. Rian Johnson does a good job of capturing the Star Wars feel visually. There are a couple of standout moments the are just beautiful to witness. I won't elaborate further as I don't want to spoil anything, but when you see the film you'll know straight away.
One of the biggest issues I had was the poorly plotted scenes involving Finn, Rose and Canto Bight. It felt like it came from another film, when I was in the cinema I thought to myself that it played out more like Guardians of the Galaxy. I was really perplexed about why they went down this route. And that's not even mentioning the ridiculously on the nose politicising about animal cruelty. I mean WTF did PETA part fund this film? I'm all for subtext but this was badly misjudged.
The final act of the film was fantastic and it felt more like a Star Wars film. Crait is an excellent addition to the Star Wars universe. However the final battle felt slightly rushed.
All in all there were some great things in this film, however I felt like they misjudge a few plot/lore elements that I really didn't like. I'm going to talk about light spoilers in this next section so be warned!!!
I want to mention that i'm a big fan of the whole Star Wars universe, whether that's watching Clone Wars, Rebels, reading all the new Disney canon from the Aftermath books to Guardians of the Whills. Reading all the Marvel canon comics. Heck even the now defunct legends books like Heir to the Empire, Crimson Empire, The New Republic etc.
This film let me done in one major area. And that's Luke Skywalker. Whist iv'e started to come to terms with his 'arc'. In the end it felt like a character assassination. They took everything I loved about Luke Skywalker when I was growing up and stomped it into the ground. To be honest I can see why people say that it feels like a slap in the face to fans of the extended universe.
I get that Disney want and in fact need to move away from the original trilogy but this felt wrong to me. The Luke Skywalker I remember would NEVER, NEVER try and kill his nephew even in a moment of weakness. He helped bring Vader back who was so far gone, and this felt like a complete cop-out. In the EU he made mistakes, but was still revered as the greatest Jedi that ever lived, he was a hero and an inspiration. In thi this film he's a crusty old hermit that milks cows.....sigh!
I must say I wasn't to bothered about the changes to the lore about the Jedi and force powers. I actually think it opens up some interesting directions in future films. I also really like that they brought up the contradictions of the Jedi order which was expanded in depth in the Clone Wars.
Another issue I had was how this film essentially made the Force Awakens completely irrelevant. Everything J.J set up has been thrown out of the window, and that left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess I can't wait to see what Snoke's origins will be in a new novel next year by Greg Rucka or someone.
Don't even get me started on Phasma.
In the end iv'e given this film a 3/5. I really feel like I need too re-watch this film as there was a-lot too absorb. Actually this film would of been better if it was episode 9, as it felt more like a finale then a middle film. I hope a re-watch will improve upon my initial complaints, but something the first time round just felt a bit off. Either way I hope they don't bring back Lando in 9 and then just kill him off.
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Hello hello!
Okay so I review this on Thursday and I had a few things that I was unsure of.
So I went to see TLJ again on Monday and everything changed.
I found Snoke to be a fantastic character and what happened to him opens up for Kylo to go SOLO. Rather than a puppet.
The casino scene - I first questioned the types of aliens we saw there and was seemed to go back to the prequals. But it was fun with the Horse type creatures and a surprising Del Toro performance.
The action ... is just amazing
Mark Hamill as Skywalker... just amazing
Andy Serkis as Snoke... loved him
Rey and Poe were better than the force awakens.
The soundtrack was stronger than the force awakens.
The humour was good.
Overall I had an absolute blast
Just like I did the first time but I think what made me question a few things that happened was because I was generally shocked and caught me by surprise.
I am going to blame the trailers slightly because they did really good at teasing us and with a mind like mine... it wonders and creates possibilities.
Go see STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI
8/10
May the force be with you all !!
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Lazy Script, Kitsch Festival, Wasted Potential, Under-developped Characters, Bad Humor:
What have I just seen? Is that really the best you can do Disney?
This is so bad. How about you get real script writers instead of your rich talentless friends that have the imagination of a space cow?
Is selling toys the only thing you care about?
I mean we're in prequel territory here: Starts with a meaningless space battle we couldn't care less about, a bad guy that has absolutely no backstory, lame jokes, WTF?!
Wow, just wow. Next time you want a Star Wars story that doesn't suck ask me, it's going to be cheaper and be interesting. Like freaking Luke Skywalker is going to actually do something. There is no words to express how disappointed I am.
Way to kill the franchise. You can't dumb down Star Wars more than that. Anyway it's not worth it anymore.
Even the way the music is used is just to buy our nostalgia.
Cheap scam, now we can't undo this.
Never even going to bother again watching another Star Wars movie.
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Let's start with the basic structure of the film. It's a chase movie, with the First Order relentlessly pursuing the Resistance and the Resistance suffering heavy losses along the way. The First Order fleet can now track ships that jump to light speed, but apparently if they're traveling at sub-light they all have to go at the exact same speed as the Resistance vessels. The latter only have enough fuel for one light speed jump, so instead they flee at sub-light and even then will run out of fuel in 18 hours.
So why don't the First Order ships simply split their fleet and jump to light speed just ahead of the fleeing vessels? They have an entire fleet of ships that are not running out of fuel. Why not use their superior numbers and fuel reserves to surround the Resistance? I suppose one could argue that maybe ships in Star Wars can't make short jumps at light speed, except that Laura Dern does exactly that later in the film. And in any event, the First Order could simply have some ships jump away and then jump back. Or call in more ships. It is not an understatement to say that the entire narrative structure of the movie revolves around this incomprehensible slow-motion pursuit. It destroys suspension of disbelief. Why must we endure it? It's just terrible, lazy, stupid writing. It undermines the entire rest of the movie because the entire rest of the movie centers on this pursuit.
Apparently, 18 hours is enough time for Finn and Rose to cook up a mutinous plan with Poe, jump to a totally different star system, look around, get thrown in prison, find a guy who might be able to help, break out of prison, run around the casino some more, run around on the race track outside, run around in some fields, get rescued by the guy they met, jump back to the fleet, and infiltrate the lead First Order ship. The film devotes 30+ minutes to this sub-plot. At the end of it, Finn and Rose totally fail and are captured. They develop not one bit as characters on this excursion, unless you think that the realization that illicit arms dealers are bad people counts as character growth. What's the point of it all? To give Finn something to do? To give screen time to an Asian character to help juice the overseas box office? Sure, of course.
But the bigger reason is to satisfy director Rian Johnson's infantile need to subvert Hollywood narrative tropes. We expect this nonsensical plan cooked up by Finn, Rose and Poe to work-because they are heroes and because the film invests so much into it, thereby forcing us to do likewise. So when their plan fails, we're surprised-though our momentary surprise due to this trope-challenging is a very poor pay-off for a long and ultimately irrelevant sub-plot.
Similarly, we're surprised at Luke's cowardly betrayal of the ideals that Episodes IV, V, and VI establish so firmly in him. We're surprised that Snoke dies. We're surprised that Rey's parents are nobodies. In The Force Awakens, Rey clearly has a connection to Luke, Ben Kenobi, and Vader through Luke's lightsaber, implying that she is related to one of them. (She has no visions of Mace Windu, for instance.) So, given that she is not a Skywalker or Kenobi, what possible explanation is there for her force visions in Force Awakens? Don't hold your breath that we'll ever be given a logical explanation, because Johnson will happily violate logic in favor of subverting expectations. It's a cheap trick.
Snoke dying, on the other hand, isn't a cheap trick; it's just a dumb trick. Why should we care that Snoke dies? Johnson has publicly made clear that he never thought it necessary to develop Snoke. We never learn anything about Snoke's backstory or his motivation, so why should we care that he's dead? It's a fake-out for fake-out's sake only. It's the junk food version of subverting expectations: something that will fill you up momentarily but ultimately leave you wanting and worse for wear.
And then there's the ghost of Yoda, using the force to call down a huge lightning bolt and destroy the tree housing the sacred Jedi texts. They're sacred! They hold great power! Nah, says Yoda, they're just boring, dusty old tomes so I'm gonna destroy them. This is Rian Johnson's entire thought process-if you can call it that-in making this film, but it opens up a huge kettle of fish to have force ghosts like Yoda be able to interact with the physical world and use force lightning to destroy things. Does this mean that all force ghosts can do this? Why haven't Qui Gon, Obi Wan and Anakin all come back to fight for the Resistance? Or at least help them? They could have lifted those heavy stones blocking the Resistance's escape. Except, no, Rey has to do that because she's the hero-but, wait, I thought this movie was about nothing so much as subverting those expectations?? One imagines that force ghosts who can still exert their power could do any number of helpful things, great and small. But Rian Johnson doesn't care about logic or internal consistency. He just wants to blow stuff up, and unlike Yoda who at least had a reason, it doesn't have to make any sense.
It's strange that Johnson is so obsessed with subverting expectations when he's making a Disney movie. Does he think he's tricking his corporate overlords? Or just tricking us? It's also strange that from the failure of Finn, Rose and Poe's insurrection against Laura Dern (and Laura Dern being proved right and heroic in the end), the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is they all should have followed orders all along and obeyed the Resistance leadership?? In a movie so devoted to subversion? What a thematically muddled mess this film is.
Perhaps the biggest victim of Johnson's need to subvert expectations-aside from the audience-is Luke. Part of what made the original Star Wars such a phenomenon was that it came out during a terrible time in US history. In 1977, America was still reeling from Vietnam, Watergate, the energy crisis and the Iran hostage crisis. Star Wars lifted the entire country's spirits. Many of us particularly related to Luke-the farm boy destined for more, the innocent who saw terrible wrong and sought to right it. He had some hard lessons on the way, but he didn't waver. When his friends were being tortured, Luke flew off to face Darth Vader alone. When Luke thought he could redeem Vader, he again flew off alone to confront Vader, and the Emperor. And after the Emperor-a man so evil and powerful that he defeated all the Jedi and conquered the galaxy-tried his utmost to corrupt him, Luke still did not waver. Yet Last Jedi would have you believe that Luke was so scared of a Jedi trainee that he finally betrayed all his own principles, that a man who would face any challenge even if it meant his own likely torture and death would just give up and skulk off to die when he could still clearly play a very useful role in the galaxy.
At best, this is just nonsensical. Luke is not some new character. Three movies were made about him! It's fundamentally illogical, in the way that the slow-motion chase that undergirds the entire film is illogical: these things occur not because they make sense but simply because the director wants it that way. At its worst, though, is the careless discarding of a character who was a hero for my generation and subsequent generations. It's clear the Disney wants to pass the baton to a new generation of Star Wars characters. So why include Han, Luke and Leia at all? It's because they want my generation to be excited, to come, to pay, to bring our kids and indoctrinate them. Making movies with all new characters would have lowered the box office. So instead they pulled a bait and switch. The original big three didn't have to be the main characters to make us happy-look at The Force Awakens: Han had a noble death trying to redeem his son. And Force Awakens has a Rotten Tomatoes fan score of 88%. But the original big three didn't have to be cheap props either, which is what Rian Johnson turned Luke into. And then Johnson does what the Empire never could: he turns Luke into a weak-ass punk and then he kills him.
Then there's the "humor." The funny moments in this film weren't funny. The holding on the phone bit at the beginning is so weird and jarring that it offends one's suspension of disbelief. If it had been momentary and they'd nailed it, it might have been okay, but it just dragged on. It's bad writing. In The Avengers, when Cap says, "There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that," it's funny, but it doesn't break the scene. It makes sense that he'd say that. Movies like this need light-hearted scenes. But they should be, you know, actually funny. They shouldn't be painful to watch.
Due to these and other reasons, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is getting hammered by half the fan base. It's at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4.9 on Metacritic, making it the worst rated Star Wars movie ever. But Disney is using the fact that the supposedly scientific Cinemascore rates it higher to claim that botters are deliberately lowering scores on RT. First of all, everyone wants to like Star Wars movies, and they come out of the theater still trying to like it-and that's when they're surveyed by Cinemascore. Second, Disney is clearly much better positioned to artificially influence survey scores than are a handful of random botters. Third, there's virtually no evidence for botting save one or two folks who cop to it in comments sections. And fourth, there is no reason to believe that the botting is worse now than it was for Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. But Disney is already convincing gullible journalists that audiences secretly love The Last Jedi and anything to the contrary is fake news. It's amazing: they've literally created fake news that accuses others of fake news.
Full review at http://bit.ly/2BKB9et
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3/10
The Dark Side And The Slightly Darker Side Of The Farce
***Contains Spoilers***
This (like the last two films) is just stupid! "The Last Jedi" even the title sucks! The son of Han and Laya just happens to turn evil because of Luke's bad training?!? What?!? So yes kids sometimes don't turn out as well as their parents, but give us a good reason that he's become a psycho-serial killer! The way he hates his father and the Jedi Luke must have butt-raped him every night with his light saber! And the black storm trooper? Well I don't have any problem with a Maori, Black, Chinese, or a woman for that matter being a storm trooper, but the fact that he turns from bad to good just because he sees his fellow storm trooper killed and then instantly becomes a major force for good is ridiculous! (instant hero just add blood!) Yes the female lead Rey is a good character in every sense of the word (and probably the best actor in the new series) but there really is no character or personal development. She can fly the Millennium Falcon Like Han, Fix it like Chewy, Fight like Jedi Luke, And has the emotional moral compass of Laya. But there is no explanation why! They just state that her parents were junkers who sold her for drink or something vague like that. Oh that explains why she is the most powerful (at least potentially so) being in the galaxy. Really?!?
Now let's talk Luke Skywalker:
So he has been taken from a lost soul with wasted potential, dreaming and repairing old robots on a desert planet with a loving adopted family, when a mystery/quest to save a beautiful princess falls upon him. He finds a master and mentor for the Force (of good) in Obi-Wan Kenobi Eventually forming a rag-tag group which becomes the future "Rebel Scum" loses his master and takes down the Death-star (A New Hope).
To a Jedi in training having amazing adventures on different worlds and training now with his master's master Yoda where in the end he loses his hand, his friend Han Solo (frozen in carbonite), and along with those he loses his innocence when he finds out that the evil Darth Vader is actually his Birth-Father (Empire).
To a great Jedi conquering the evil crime boss Jabba The Hutt and rescuing his friend Han with the help of his other friends, fighting with the rebels on a forest moon to destroy once again the rebuilt Death-star for the good of the galaxy. Also finding out that the princess he once kissed is his twin sister who's in love with his best friend. And in the end winning back the soul of his father Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker and destroying the evil Emperor.
Now in episodes VII and VIII he has become a bitter grumpy older mountain hermit who, even though he's protecting ancient Jedi books, seems to hate the Jedi order and just wants it to die? WTF?!? He pretty much uses the force only for fishing now. And doesn't want anything else to do with the Jedi or the force. Luke tells Rey "Get off of my grass!" "You'll ruin everything!" "You made my soup get cold!" (Not Literally but Figuratively). He is helped in the burning down of the old (the Jedi temple with it's books by the ghost of Yoda who tells him that all the knowledge in the books is inside the girl Rey anyways) well apparently she hid an encyclopedia of Jedi up her butt before leaving because she does not seem to have any innate Jedi wisdom. Oh yeah and if she dies so what, the books are all burnt so f*** it. Then Luke apparently for no reason has a change of heart. He comes back to say goodbye to his sister (who earlier on a separate note all of a sudden has enough power with the force that she can survive being blown up into outer-space without a spacesuit and fly back to the ship like a superhero, again WTF?!?) And then Luke faces down a huge army of machine with guns and a fight with his angry nephew as a telepathic hologram, and then again for some reason he dies or ascends or whatever even though he never left the safety of silly bird mountain.
I only have two other things to say about the latest Star Wars Wannabe. First of all where did the new emperor (who looks like Sloth from The Goonies) come from? His character development sucked as bad as his visual creation does, So he is big and not so pretty, ooh scary. Secondly did they have to add the silly little birds straight out of Pixar? I heard the obnoxious child laughter 3 times during the film and it was that same laughter you only hear at a Pixar (now Disney Pixar) silly animal character film. Oh and I didn't mention Laura Dern's character because I really like Laura Dern and I just don't think there was anything that she could do with what she was given (except maybe refuse to don the purple hair).
I thought that Episode VII was ridiculously bad from the very early dialogue between Poe and Kylo Ren, it sounded like an episode of the TV show "New Girl" "So who talks first? You talk first? I talk first? It's just very hard to understand you with that apparatus." But now after seeing Episode VIII, I can feel a conflict inside me between the dark side and the slightly darker side of the force to never watch any Star Wars Films again besides IV, V, VI.
Thanks to George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams, and Rian Johnson for ruining what ever sludge of hope was left in the ashes after the disasters of Episodes I, II, and III
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They blew it. They really did. This movie that is an insult to the intelligence of any SW fan and there are so may plot holes that you need to be one to understand how bad the writing of this movie is. And poor luke. What have they done to him? Everything about his movie is wrong. The laws of physics, the laws of the jedi powers, everything. And humour should not be the reason why you see a Star Wars movie so why put some in it anyway. The side stories are boring. The absence of back story on Snoke is a shame. What does Disney want ?
How about calling George Lucas for a few ideas here and there ?
#SWbesttoworst 5-4-R1-6-3-2-7-1-8
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A Star Wars/Disney film made with story cubes.........................
Some cool scenes, some funny bits (bits) some great effects and angled shots.
That's it..... really that's it.... it's as if some rolled some story dice and went we will do that, that and that, add some talking, not worry about what happens to anyone regardless of new or old characters, change the laws of the universe to freshen it up (although anything and everything jedi-ish surely has already been done). Make almost every character stupid and throw in some immature comments and slapstick for the kiddies and explain what stuff is now and again cuz the audience is thick.
Terrible main plot, terrible side plots, you lose interest in the characters and when it ends you're not left with ESB and oh no what will they do empathy. Oh no, your left with meh, I'm not bothered or actually I think I'm gonna start rooting for kylo, the dark side and the First order.
If this wasn't Star Wars it would have gone straight to DVD.
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This is a bad film. It also neglects the previous film in its own trilogy to take the story on what feels like a different direction.
If you watch The Force Awakens to prepare for watching this movie, you're wasting your time. Honesty, the remnant of the First Order is magically in control at the beginning of this movie and every single previous character arc is ignored. Previous character growth is ignored and you may feel frustrated watching them make similar or the same exact mistakes again in this film. Otherwise, you may find that a character's personality is now completely rewritten.
Trilogy aside, this film suffers from many plot holes that will cause you to scratch your head at least a couple times. We even took a detour from the movie for a subplot with the lovable Finn and a cool, new character Rose but their portion of the movie dragged on. This detour saved us from having to watch a boring "chase scene" between huge starships taking place at a turtle's pace but makes the situation seem just as cheap as the lazy writing that created it. The lack of pace may allow you to ask why things are happening as they are but the story truly falls apart after reflecting back to the film after leaving the theater.
The film has some amazing special effects that are just spectacular. For example, the incredible lightsaber fight between young force-users and the final battle scene were pure art. However, the story between the beautiful non-speaking portions fails and hollows the story to not feel epic.
I'd say this is a must-see if you loved the previous film/films. I loved The Force Awakens and was ready for another adventure but feel disappointed. This film is where Star Wars "jumps the shark" and "nukes the frig", and I disgust those scenes... they make me upset. Still, go see the film because you may really like it like many others, but be warned that nearly half of the audiences are not enjoying this film and that is shocking to consider.
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ESB, ROTJ and ROTS are my favourites in that order. But seriously, I would rather have Jar Jar in every single Star Wars movie than watch the Last Jedi again. Stop defending it. It's not about theories, or about Luke Skywalker dying or about Rey and Snoke being nobodies. It's just that the movie sucks. End of story. The plot is not well written and it hardly develops throughout the movie. They build up the hype in TFA for nothing! If you want your characters to be no one, don't make it look like they are related to somebody we know!
Besides, half of the movie is about two characters, one of them we don't know, and what they do is completely pointless. Finn and the asian chick could have just sat at the corner of the screen waving, because they entirely made the movie boring, as NO ONE cares about them. The script is just ridiculous.
We understand that they want to make a new saga, one I won't be part of (I consider that without Skywalkers there isn't more Star Wars, as Lucas said Star Wars was about the Skywalkers), but they completely ruined it with this movie. They insulted our favorite characters and made their new ones look like invencible gods, aka REY, that without any training she is capable of besting Luke Skywalker... WTF PEOPLE. This movie is bullshit, bad written and completely insulting. Its becoming another Avengers: the plot is not interesting but it has good visual effects and we can sell lots of shit. Fucking Disney, I hope you crumble down to the ground like the Empire did. And thank you Mark Hamill for always supporting the fandom, even if it has cost you your character's life in this new garbage movie. People can say what they want and try to lie to themselves, but this movie has no redemption at all. What they did to Princess Leia... left me speechless. But what they've done to Luke? Fucking insulting.
I'm out of this saga, but at least I have the Original and god, even the PREQUELS are better than this BS.
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1/10
Trilogy veers of course while jumping the shark & "That's not how the force works!"
This is a bad film. It also neglects the previous film in its own trilogy to take the story on what feels like a different direction.
If you watch The Force Awakens to prepare for watching this movie, you're wasting your time. Honesty, the remnant of the First Order is magically in control at the beginning of this movie and every single previous character arc is ignored. Previous character growth is ignored and you may feel frustrated watching them make similar or the same exact mistakes again in this film. Otherwise, you may find that a character's personality is now completely rewritten.
Trilogy aside, this film suffers from many plot holes that will cause you to scratch your head at least a couple times. We even took a detour from the movie for a subplot with the lovable Finn and a cool, new character Rose but their portion of the movie dragged on. This detour saved us from having to watch a boring "chase scene" between huge starships taking place at a turtle's pace but makes the situation seem just as cheap as the lazy writing that created it. The lack of pace may allow you to ask why things are happening as they are but the story truly falls apart after reflecting back to the film after leaving the theater.
The film has some amazing special effects that are just spectacular. For example, the incredible lightsaber fight between young force-users and the final battle scene were pure art. However, the story between the beautiful non-speaking portions fails and hollows the story to not feel epic.
I'd say this is a must-see if you loved the previous film/films. I loved The Force Awakens and was ready for another adventure but feel disappointed. This film is where Star Wars "jumps the shark" and "nukes the frig", and I disgust those scenes... they make me upset. Still, go see the film because you may really like it like many others, but be warned that nearly half of the audiences are not enjoying this film and that is shocking to consider.
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3/10
Having "looper" as your only decent film does not qualify you to write or direct Star Wars films
The biggest issue with this movie is that Disney took this beautiful seed planted by JJ Abrams with Episode VII, Nurtured it with Rogue One and then pee'd all over it when they hired this unqualified, low-rent, wanna-be Rian Johnson to direct it. He had no understanding of the universe, fans or even the vision he was entrusted with,
The only good of this film is that Abrams will return for Episode IX but even then, it may be too late to save the series.
Disney has worked to destroy the characters and even the planets of the original trilogy to allow a blank slate for a new universe but even with that objective, at least they originally was doing it in a way the fans could appreciate and that was respectful to the universe we all love and the characters we have looked up to since childhood.
Hiring this jackass and letting him destroy all of it for the sake of being different and unpredictable is the biggest insult so far. Even worse than those 3 jokes Lucas dropped on us as the original prequel trilogy,
If this is a sign of things to come from Disney, then they are not the caretakers of our childhood icons that they claimed they were going to be as they purchased Marvel and Lucas..
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Has a social and political agenda, trying to offer commentary on cultural issues of the day, which is ultimately a distraction from the sci/fi joy of Star Wars.
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If you are a not a Star Wars fan then this is your movie, go have fun, leave. If you are casual or more Star Wars fan then this is going to disappoint you. Too many plot holes, broken continuity, poor characters. The more I think about the movie the worse it gets. Help us JJ Abrams, you are our only hope
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1/10
Terrible Plot/Writing/Worthless Finn and Rose mission/ Awful Character Development etc.
I am very disappointed with this film.. It made the same mistakes as The force Awakens, just another giant introduction that kept leaving cliffhangers for the next movie. I can't believe disney accepted this as the final draft.
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I think Rian Johnson should give up the new trilogy Disney offered him. The plot has so many holes in it. So many questions unanswered, like who's Snoke? He was able to merge Kylo Ren's and Ray's minds together, but not powerful enough to feel a lightsaber is moving towards him?
So many disgusting things about Luke's character. Why did he try to kill Kylo Ren, if he went to try to turn the second most evil man in the universe because he thought there was still good inside of him? Now he acts like a homeless apathetic man.
Fans waited 30-40 years to see him on screen again and he dies after two swings from Kylo Ren? Make him kill himself in the island if that's the case.
When he was in front of the entire AT AT fleet I thought they were going to show how powerful Luke was, but NOPE. Make the battle! Accept what people are expecting to happen! If he's coming back as a ghost, then he better be the best force ghost ever, not like Yoda or Obi Wan.
If you are a diehard star wars fan, realize star wars died when corporate disney wanted to target a younger audience.
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1/10
I nerver been so disappointed and angry at a movie !
I think Rian Johnson should give up the new trilogy Disney offered him. The plot has so many holes in it. So many questions unanswered, like who's Snoke? He was able to merge Kylo Ren's and Ray's minds together, but not powerful enough to feel a lightsaber is moving towards him? So many disgusting things about Luke's character.
Why did he try to kill Kylo Ren, if he went to try to turn the second most evil man in the universe because he thought there was still good inside of him? Now he acts like a homeless apathetic man.
During the casino scene I thought I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean... that's all I'm going to say about that scene...
Fans waited 30-40 years to see him on screen again and he dies after two swings from Kylo Ren? Make him kill himself in the island if that's the case. When he was in front of the entire AT AT fleet I thought they were going to show how powerful Luke was, but NOPE. Make the battle! Accept what people are expecting to happen! If he's coming back as a ghost, then he better be the best force ghost ever, not like Yoda or Obi Wan.
If you're an old school diehard fan of SW, realize it's dead.
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6/10
Stars Wars The Last Jedi: Episode 8 is all about heroes and legends.
Fantasy Sci-fi adventure, which picks up directly from where 'The Force Awakens' ends. The film starts with the distinctive, unmistakable screen crawl and straight into a space battle action sequence.
Starring Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo). Made special by the last ever performance from Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), who gets more lines and more screen time than in 'The Force Awakens', although it would be impossible for him to get any less.
Rey is in search of Luke Skywalker, the Jedi master. She wants training in the ways of the force. However, Luke is a damaged man, he is reluctant to start with but agrees to provide three lessons. The middle (quite lengthy section) is slow with many interweaving plots, some come together at the end, some fail. At the end Luke reunites with the rebels and faces Kylo. Luke however is revealed to be a hologram projection, which kills him through exhaustion.
Every new Disney instalment has always been preceded by loads of hype and glowing reviews, and I anticipated something special, but surprisingly felt a little let down. My spontaneous reaction is that besides some new characters and new CGI creatures there was very little 'magic'.
There is nothing wrong with this film but nothing very special either, and it will make tons of cash for Disney. Don't bother with 3D, there's dark scenes an very little depth. The message in this film is all about heroes and legends.
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The last third of the movie became very terible unenjoyable, no star wars feeling there at all, Some star wars music and scenes which wanted to trick you belive its a star wars movie, I say its not enough for such a movie. They wanted to put to much twist in the story and it just got a nightmare. Also those lame jokes, and what they did with Leia and Snoke is a big joke.
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2/10
Star Trek V used to be the biggest heartache....until now.
When I came out of the theater, it was as if I were in one of those nightmares....you know the ones, when you see a horrible version of Star Wars concocted by your sub-conscience in deep REM sleep....The ones filled with Ewok Puppets and smurfs....that cause you to wake up screaming in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. You know what I'm talking about. Well, this pile of dung was not far from that. I feel as if someone sucker-punched me in the gut, and I am still reeling. Mr. Rian, What happened? No really...I don't get it...Did you just write this as you were filming? Was there a cohesive plot in mind before you began filming? Why did Luke want the Jedi to End? Why was Yoda complicit in his despondent attitude? There seems to be a story with allegory centered around FAILURE. Well, congratulations, The theme of failure has culminated in a film that is most certainly a failure.
RIP Star Wars.
Help use, George Lucas, you're our only hope.
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Worst Star Wars Movie ever to be made, Horrible plot, character development, just plain waste of time. I suggest everyone go to change.org and petition this movie to Have Disney strike Star Wars Episode VIII from the official canon.
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2/10
Ms. Kathleen Kennedy: Please rethink your vision for Star Wars... you can start by firing Rian Johnson before he pulls a Michael Bay
You were given the task of caring for and preserving Star Wars for another generation. After the Force Awakens, I thought George Lucas entrusted it to the right person. After the Last Jedi, I am now worried that he might have made a mistake.
I don't know in what universe you thought it was a good idea to signed off on the Last Jedi, but, as Yoda said in this sad entry of a film, we learn from their mistakes... I hope that you will too before another spark of childhood magic goes out in this increasingly tumultuous world.
I cannot believe how effectively this movie managed to turned textured characters into one dimensional caricatures, rehashed old plot points and ideas in what I can only assume was an attempt to move the story in an original (?) direction, so utterly ignored a GALAXY worth of lore and background material for the sake of cheap "shock" plot moments, destroyed childhood dreams in the name of comedy (?), and so effectively violated the magic and mystery that was set up by the Force Awakens.
Please Ms. Kennedy, please learn from this mistake and fix this. Hiring JJ Abrahams was a good first step. Hopefully, he'll be able to turn this mess around.
Now please fire Rian Johnson. And for the love of god do not let him touch Star Wars ever again. After this disaster of film, the last thing we need is for Mr. Johnson to develop a new trilogy and do to Star Wars what Michael Bay did to Transformers. Mr. Johnson should go do sequels to Looper or direct more tv shows, but please do not let him touch Star Wars again. We already lost the magic of Transformers and I don't want to see the same thing happen to Star Wars.
I have officially entered the 3rd stage of the 5 stages of grief with this movie. This movie has actually made the prequels look good. That is the only reason I'm giving this movie 2 stars... it has lessened the pain of Jar Jar Binks by forcing me to share it with this movie, which inadvertently has the benefit of letting me enjoy the prequels more.
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After seeing this movie, I am extremely disappointed.
I don't even know where to begin. This is certainly the worst Star Wars (I'won't even call it that!) movie, ever made!
Basically they came up with ideas that do not belong to the Star Wars universe. Here are a few examples (warning: spoilers!) : Since when did ANY ship in the Star Wars universe could ran out of fuel? Don't they have some sort of super power generators on every large ship that can never run out of fuel? Another totally bad idea is: If a ship can jump to lightspeed with the intention of hitting and destroying another large space ship, why wouldn't this kamikaze tactic was used before in ANY of the previous Star Wars films? If it is so easy to do then why invented only in this newest film? Yet another example: Previously when a ship was traveling in lightspeed, nobody could communicate with that ship. In this movie, they can have radio communication, it's now possible. Similarly now a ship which makes a jump in lightspeed can be tracked. Until now, we all thought that it was totally impossible. Now ghost characters of dead Jedi can light up fires and touch living characters -- this is ridiculous, it was never possible until now. This film simply breaks every single existing rules of the Star Wars universe.
Then those jokes are just so bad, nobody laughed on them in the cinema. :(
I hoped that at least the origin of Snoke and the parents of Ray would be revealed in this sequel but no they just don't. Okay, so who were the knights of Ren? No explanation at all.
Unfortunately Carrie Fisher passed away, so I expected that someone in the movie her character would die. But know, she still lives on. But why? So we can be informed in the opening scroll of the next film that Princess Leia died? Why not kill her character in this film? I don't understand.
This movie is so bad. I agree with all the other reviewers: Disney destroyed the Star Wars universe for good. Shame on you Rian Johnson for doing this!
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(If you like this movie, I am happy for you. This is just my opinion and how I feel about the movie. Thanks for understanding and spoilers ahead)
Anyway, where do I begin?
Rian Johnson tossed all the Star Wars lore, the things we loved and cherished about the universe for so many years, just as Luke tossed the lightsaber in that odd moment in the beginning of the movie.
I am deeply ashamed and hurt by this movie, since Star Wars has been like a family to me for almost 30 years now. But, in this moment, I feel like as if a dear friend perished without a trace or, even worse, has been murdered.
Why did they turn the Star Wars franchise, that was so special to millions of people, into corporate marvelesque and forgettable crap? The movie dragged on for too long, without a plot, without any aim, just torturing us with its mediocrity and cringy humor.
From the beginning to the end, we do not learn anything about anybody, we learn nothing at all. From start to the finish, weak plot devices shamelessly insult the audience, while the essence stays the same. The rebellion is weak and it remains weak, the first order just exists and the weird force connection between Ray and Kylo Ren remained unexplored. Also, the lightsaber battles felt stale and poorly choreographed.
Rey's character, though very well delivered by Daisy Ridley did not go anywhere and saw no development at all. There was no Jedi training and Luke almost did not pass any knowledge on her, so what was her purpose by coming to the island? Such a shame and missed opportunities, since everyone expected her to be a total badass by the end of this movie. As a "bonus", we also learn that she is "a no body". She is no Skywalker, not Solo, not a Kenobi, no one. What the hell Disney?
However, the worst heresy was done to the iconic character of Luke Skywalker. Character that inspired millions of games, art, cosplays, books and comics, butchered just like that, just for the pleasure of that one clueless director and the greedy Disney exec. How dare you Rian Johnson, how dare you Kathleen Kennedy?
Would Luke Skywalker lift his weapon to vanquish an apprentice? And not any apprentice, but his own nephew, the only child of Han and Leia Solo?
Would Luke Skylwaker run away from everyone, leaving his family and the republic to rot in ruins? No, he wouldn't, at least not the same Luke who did not give up hope even on Darth Vader. No, he wouldn't, at least not the same Luke who lowered his lightsaber and opposed the very will of Darth Sidious disregarding his own life.
This Luke, from Rian Johnson's movie, is not the Luke Skywalker I grew up with. That is not the Luke Skywalker we know and love.
Similar thing was done to the character of Leia as well, with that stupid "fly through space" sequence and she being in a coma for the longest part of the movie.
It was not the actors fault though, let me be clear about that. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern - they are all wonderful and talented people who just did their best with the script and the (miss)direction they got.
Rest in peace Star Wars, you have been a faithful friend for so long. I am so sorry Carrie Fisher that we send you away with such mediocre piece of garbage. You deserved better, much, much better than this.
I am angry, I am a fan, I am emotional, and I will need time to recover.
Farewell
p.s. Hey Rian, the Jedi do not use texts, they use holocrons, bitch.
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2/10
If you've seen one star wars then you've seen this rehash
Sucks, first 10 min is great then it just gets stupid.
Almost like if you've seen one star wars you've seen this one. A rehash.
Why are the rebels always on the run for the last god knows how long and now there are what 10 left so why would an Empire give a dam about 10 rebels who suck anyways.
Stupid stupid stupid. Really not worth your time after the first battle scene.
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For starters I never write reviews on the IMDB because %95 of the time i agree with the average IMDB rating given.
Secondly, as a fan who grew up with Star Wars read every lore,played every single game, watched all of its movies at least 3 times , I must say they ruined my childhood favourite.
SPOILERS AHEAD
1)Yoda using lightning even though he is dead.How is that even possible
2) %90 of the movie is about spaceship trying to escape another spaceship.
3) Rey starts to use force like a Master Jedi when normally jedi's have to go through years and years of training in order to achieve half of it.
4) Reys parents are no one. Are you fucking kidding me?
5) Kylo Ren as a Sith must be a joke. He is like a teenage kid with angry issues who also has lightsaber.
6) So our Luke who went to Death Star by himself in order to save Darth Vader who is one of the darkes villians, tries to kill Kylo in his sleep just because he sensed dark side.
7)The same Luke decides to hide in an island when the rebels are dying one by one. I'm sorry but whoever wrote this script must have no idea who Luke Skywalker is
ETC ETC.
This movie has no soul. Writers of the script are just brainless monkeys
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5/10
So mind-twisting that I don't even know if I'm a Star Wars fan anymore
I saw this film last night and came out of the cinema with very mixed feelings. Reading the other reviews here I really do identify with people's criticisms, but I think it's all too easy to get swept up in hyperbole and drama-queening, so I'll try and bring a bit of balance to the force here...
Let me start with the things I loved... (I'll also put out a general SPOILERS ALERT).
I thought some of the decisions made by Johnson were immensely brave, refreshing and admirable. Some people hate where he went with Luke Skywalker but for the most part I loved how he had fallen into this hopeless, nihilistic funk. "This is not going to go the way you think," Luke said in the trailer, and it turns out this was a warning for us all.
People have also complained about how so much mystery was set up in TFA only to be dashed in TLJ. Rey is told that she's no one special, there's no significant revelation about her parentage. What an awesome decision! It's been such an overused tripe in blockbusters about this 'golden child' or 'chosen one' rubbish. Yawn! I salute them for turning this one on its head, but let's still not get ahead of ourselves. This is just what Kylo Ren told her. Darkside characters are noted for telling lies, right? Even Jedi have fed such lies before, yes?
Assuming it's true about Rey though it does leave me with a bit of a 'so what?' feelings towards her character, and although I liked the surprise of Snoke getting popped off mid-trilogy, it does leave a lot unanswered. Who was he? What were his motivations? Such important aspects that could have made for a more intriguing film.
I don't really know where the saga goes from TLJ, and I do actually wonder if I even care anymore. The central Star Wars characters have been replaced with new faces for a new audience. The classic SW fans, along with the SW characters, have all been let down with merciless ageism. Old people can do more than just die, you know!
Okay, so I'm already into the things I didn't like... Whilst there were one or two moments were I laughed, too often the humour jarred with me. Things like Poe saying he was holding the line when speaking to General Hux, or Rey telling Kylo Ren to put some clothes on during their mind meld were too jarring. It felt like sitcom style humour, or like something you would see in the endless SW parody films. Have these become too prevalent that this self-aware humour is inescapable, that it's impossible to make a serious film these days without any 'winks at the audience'? These sorts of moments remind the viewer that they're watching a film, that these are actors in costumes, "a child in a mask" as Snoke says to Kylo Ren. Family Guy isn't going to be able to make parodies of these films. Disney have already done the job for them.
There's something too self-conscious about SW now, too irony-aware, as is the vogue, and perhaps it started with TFA but certainly not as bad as this. Disney have got the keys to the theme park and they're riding the rollercoaster all caught up in the thrill of 'being part of Star Wars'.
There are indeed some great performances in TLJ. The standouts for me were Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver, Mark Hamill too. Whilst I like Domhall Gleeson as an actor, there is something far too pantomime villain with Hux. He seems as though he belongs in a tame BBC Children's drama. Daisy Ridley has received a lot of applause but I may be the only one in the universe who feels her performance is a little too forced (if you'll forgive the expression), maybe a little too stage schooly. She does present a powerful character but at the same time, I don't know... just trying slightly too hard?
The planet where Finn and Rose go searching for the code breaker seemed, like the humour, too real-world, not a galaxy far, far away. It was far too reminiscent of 1920s Las Vegas or something. Whilst I applaud the attempts of social / political commentary in terms of the theme of arms dealing, or with the idea of philosophies and religion needing to evolve as Luke was grappling with on his island, at points it was perhaps a little too spoon fed for me. It also felt somewhat awkward... Oh no, Luke's about to destroy the Jedi books!... Oh wait, no he isn't! Look, there's Yoda to calm him down! On no, Yoda's destroyed the books himself anyway, and now he's about to give Luke a lesson on why he's done what Luke was about to do anyway.
A lot of criticism has been pointed at the general plot ideas. For the most part with Star Wars I think you just have to go with it. The rebels are low on fuel? You know what? Don't fret too much about the ins and outs of how that would work. It's not worth it. What DID bother me though was the constant device of 'someone making a noble sacrifice to save everyone'... The bomber in the opening battle, Laura Dern's character zooming off in the ship, Finn attempting a kamikaze maneuver into the First Order's weapon, even Luke's appearance at the end. I got really tired with that.
The whole search for a code breaker sub-plot was messy too. So they find him, but then get locked up in a cell but it just so happens they they're put in with ANOTHER master code breaker, who even has the ability to break out of the cell, but he was just waiting around for two rebels to be locked up with him with the very specific goal of finding a code breaker? He didn't want to just break out of there earlier? Wanted to show off to someone? Again, such slickness and convenience reminds me that we're watching a movie.
What has killed the whole Star Wars deal so much for me is with what happened with Luke. First it appears he's been blasted to crap by the First Order, but that was just the filmmakers messing with us... He's dead! Oh no he isn't! Oh yes he is! Oh no he's not!... Okay, so yeah he does actually die. Disappears into thin air for the sake of contriving another emotional ending. I detest how all our classic characters have been resurrected and systematically executed film by film. At first I could sort of forgive Han, considering Ford's personal desire for the character, but repeating the trick becomes so formulaic. Plus, we know that, sadly, we won't see any more of Princess Leia. Who's up for execution in Episode 9? Chewie? C-3PO? Is this as imaginative as we can get, that we just have to sacrifice another icon of cinema for the sake of squeezing a tear out of the audience? Is killing someone off the only go-to device that filmmakers know of these days?
Without these characters it just seems somewhat pointless now. I know there's some interesting and strong new characters that have been set up in this new trilogy, but there's something horribly disjointed about the whole thing, to the extent that, after the best part of two films, two of these major characters have only just met for the first time and have to clumsily introduce themselves.
I think I'm still processing what I saw last night as I don't know exactly what to make of this film. I don't think I brought balance with my review, in conclusion. I'm on the dark side now but maybe I'll watch it again next year when I've had the chance to grieve the loss of Luke and I'll see this film differently.
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1/10
Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson don't belong in a Galaxy far, far away!!
Why can't Disney have a fan on set to tell the director they are being dumb.
First, the whole "Bomber Scene" was awful. There isn't gravity in space. Just shoot missiles, it's easy. Then we get a great Snoke scene building his character (when he was tossing around Hux). Cut to Luke and Rey. Luke: "Waa waa waa, I don't want to train another Jedi. The one I did train was baaaaaaaad. Oh did I mention that I uncharacteristically tried to murder a child"???!!! The entire Jedi temple story arc was horrendous. The plot of the race to Crait was just utter nonsense. These ships can travel at light speed. They were escaping from their base, would they not have remembered to gas up??!! The Casino was pointless, didn't even advance the story. Why did Luke have the blue Light Saber at the end? That was horrendously dumb.
Mark Hammill, I understand what you were saying now. I just wish you put up more of a fight. I don't blame you, just as I don't blame Hayden Christiansen for his portrayal of Anakin Skywalker. The job of an actor is to do what the director tells you. You both had bad directors.
Finn was a coward in the beginning (which carried over from Force Awakens, that's fine). When he tried to bail on an escape pod that was fitting for his character. At the end though when he tried to martyr himself... nothing along the way of this story would have compelled him to change his colours.
Carrie Fisher's Leia, flying through space with the Force?? What a god awful idea. Also, killing off Admiral Akbar with zero pomp and circumstance. He was a hero of the rebellion, and an afterthought of a terrible writer.
Snoke, way to build up an interesting character and just not deliver on him at all. Ancient evil force user, disfigured and damaged, let's kill him off before explaining any back story. This is actually what I'm most upset about. Andy Serkis deserved better. The fans deserved to understand his motives and rise to power.
I didn't mind Rey and Kylo's story. I'd say Daisey Ridley, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaac were the only good parts of this movie.
Prior to this movie I was a die hard Star Wars fan. I even defended the prequels on occasion. There is no defensible part of The Last Jedi. If this is the direction you want to take the story, count me out.
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4/10
liked 70% of the film...But the 30% I disliked where enough for me to say : " I am done with star Wars" ( LUKE WTF !)
How do you say to a nice guy and a good filmaker that he just slapted you in the face, and let's say it "gave you a finger" ?
After 30 years of waiting to re- encounter a long lost dear friend, the way the encounter happened, in "the last jedi" film was painfull, " hurtful" and completely wrecked..
Not only you can't recognise Luke (he is shown to you in a way wich is the exact opposit of everything you knew of him) , but the explanation of why he became like that is weak and mostly unbeleivable.
More than that, when there's finally hope to see him again rise from ashes, starting to act as his old self, fighting with a lightsaber, reconnecting with a long lost sister .. you're told after 10 mn of this that Nope.. this was not REAL, this never REALLY happened ( and NO, it's not the same, it's the same ersatz that phone sex is to real ), and..WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN !
The issue with this is not the "letting go of the past", the obviously natural moove to new caracteres, it's the radical and violent way of doing it.
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First time I saw it, I left the theater angry. But then went home, read some reviews, and thought maybe I was just in a bad mood - or something else had tainted my experience.
So I saw it again, and I think I'm angrier than the first time.
Why was Rian Johnson trusted with this movie?
We can only hope JJ comes back for episode 9 and pull a hail mary and clean up this horrible mess Johnson has left us with.
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It pains me to say it but The Last Jedi just wasn't a really good movie. Yes it had the big action spectacle, the ships, droind and creatures. The acting was generally pretty good. I did find Carrie Fisher to be a bit bland. The whole story on Crait was totally not needed. an what about Snoke? That was just plain silly to me how his story was ended for no good reason. I was waiting for a good reveal but Rey's backstory was a total let down. Most importantly the story was to full, too many things going all at once. I gave it a 7 for effort.
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Maybe a real movie critique should be harsher and expect more, but I gave The Force Awakens(from now on "TFA") 10/10 stars. I too saw that it was regurgitating A New Hope's plot and I did see that some of the humor was very J.J. Abrams (or even Temple of Doom'ish) and also that some of it was too fan-service'y, ...
but overall I thought it DID capture the spirit of Star Wars, had an amazing art direction, a brilliant and lovable cast of diverse main characters as well as a John Williams that finally created something very special again.
Sure, TFA's plot played it very safe and I have to assume that Disney hired Abrams to make one starter movie to set the right tone for all the movies to come, which he did brilliantly.
Now that I've talked too much about TFA, let me say that The Last Jedi is a gigantic failure and ignores the tone set by Abrams for the future of Star Wars under Disney.
What works:
The Acting: All the actors tried their best and gave good performances. Some even extraordinarily so like Mark Hamill and Adam Driver.
The Score: Williams did the main work for TFA already, but mixed it together very well again here to match the individual scenes and cuts.
The Effects: It's Industrial Light and Magic, of course they are great. It's Star Wars with lots of money behind it, so yes, there are lots of them.
The Art Direction: Not as strong as in TFA or Rogue One, some designs seem too aggressive like the new AT-ATs with their red eyes. They don't capture the Nazi design that the original saga was inspired by for the empire with white-black contrasts, concrete-colored greys and little but strong red. I also noticed a Rebel rifle prop that was clearly recognizable as a German G36 with just some added parts to make it look "space opera". The Art direction needs more time, more professional editing and less intervention from people who don't know what they're doing (like Last Jedi's director and screenwriter).
What doesn't work:
The Plot: The whole movie is based on one giant plot hole with many, MANY, M-A-N-Y smaller plot holes and misconceptions inside of it. Some of them related to physics, space, military tactics and military technology, which of course were always an afterthought in the Star Wars universe, but all the movies before managed a degree of coherence in this regard - like George Lucas made up a rule set of how things work and what degrees of liberty were allowed. The Last Jedi has ZERO understanding of coherence in sci-fi and fantasy.
The Tone: About 25% of the individual scenes hit the right tone. 50% were as off as Episode I and II and the last and sadly most impactful 25% were absolutely missing the mark, transforming the movie either into a comedy with jokes that didn't hit or a fantasy film with involuntary jokes that you *want* to laugh about at first but then can't, because you're that much in shock that this can happen in a usually test-screened and child-proofed to death, gigantic production effort like a modern Star Wars movie under Disney.
The Characters: Director and Screenwriter Rian Johnson doesn't understand who these characters are or how they would behave... no scratch that. Actually, maybe he DOES know, but chooses to write them like a self-indulged puppet master without coherent motivations and an inner self, giving up their individuality to support misguided theatrics and illogical interactions.
The Humor: Original Star Wars humor comes from the characters. Han Solo never fully takes a situation serious and this then leads to some funny scenes or character interactions. In the Last Jedi the humor is written like in a comedy. Characters and environmental actions don't result in humor naturally, they are artificially designed - against odds and coherent behaviors - to be funny, creating a great disconnect between the few scenes that do belong in a Star Wars movie in a way that suffocates any immersion in this world.
If you want a good comparison:
The Last Jedi is missing the mark for a coherent plot, tone and understanding of its characters as much as INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE (though that one didn't even have any particularly great footsteps to follow). It's that bad!
Really, this movie is baffling and tragic to watch... and I, in all seriousness, asked myself if I was seeing the wrong cut of this movie, if there is some strongly edited cut (with the director and screenwriter suspended from duties) playing in another theater, which all the RottenTomatoes.com critics reviewed.
3 out of 10
(5 out of 10 if you don't care about Star Wars and just want to watch something trashy with lots of effects on the side, fully aware that it's modern Hollywood CGI junk food)
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This is poor movie making at its best. (or worst?)
A bad script badly directed.... some vague idea of what should happen... and getting there in the most dumbass ways possible.
They add characters that don't get nearly enough backstory and screen time to ever be interesting. And the group we were introduced to in TFA progresses in nonsensical ways.
Poe does nothing all film, except in the begining where he jokes about with the enemy general in a pretty cringe worthy way.
The entire Finn and Rose plot is... just non credible. not to mention that scene in the casino which, seems so far from the universe established in previous films. I honestly wasn't sure if i was watching Star Wars or Men In Black.
Rey is the only one that actually progresses (slightly) in this film, and even then, half of it is pretty annoying. why is she all of a sudden telephatically connected to Kilo... who are her parents... welp who cares i guess.
The most annoying is the portrayal of the original characters.
Say what you want about TFA but at least Han was recognizable... he was an older version of the same character, and he goes out in a dramatic but credible way.
Luke didnt get the same treatment at all.. None of his actions are understandable or recognizable from the Jedi we knew and loved. And he goes out in the most stupid way seen in this franchise yet, with no valid explanation.
Finally the overall plot. the big picture if you will.. is so damn uninteresting.
Theres nothing going on in the universe at all in this film.
The first order is trying to kill a resistance fleet.. and guess what the resistance fleet is trying to not be killed.
...that's it. No death star, no senate coup, no mass war between factions.
Just one fleet chasing another..... yawn
What a shame
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The Phantom Menace = Star Wars film;
Attack Of The Clones = Star Wars film;
Revenge Of The Sith = Star Wars film;
Rouge One = Star Wars film;
A New Hope = Star Wars film;
The Empire Strikes Back = Star Wars film;
Return Of The Jedi = Star Wars film;
The Force Awakens = Star Wars film;
The Last Jedi = WTF?
Tommy Wiseau would have made a better Star wars movie than this steming pile of horse dung!
Old characters are unrecognizable by their actions and new characters are either bumbling fools or nowhere near a heroes quest. The magic is gone. Thanks Di$ney!
This movie ends up being a middle finger to what star wars has been and what the fans wanted.
When Luke threw his father's lightsaber over his shoulder I didn't know he was also throwing away every plot point from TFA over his shoulder also. Two years of waiting and Disney couldn't even answer the plot questions they created. As a life long fan this will be the last SW I watch in theaters.
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1/10
Please Disney sell the movie rights! RIP Star Wars
Terrible plot.
Huge plot holes.
Snoke was a joke.
Finn's character had zero impact.
The legacy of Luke Skywalker was destroyed. We waited 30+ years to basically see Luke wither into nothingness. The milk scene was absolutely misplaced. There was no point whatsoever in killing him off (and we all know he is going to return as a force ghost).
We are going to see yet another duel between Rey and Kylo in Episode 9.
Leia was turned into Superwoman and can fly in space.
I think we heard "there is still good in him" from Rey like 10 times in the movie. Jesus, think of something better to say....
etc....
I could probably write a 10-page review on why this movie was terrible and killed the franchise for me, but what's the point? People are going to see it, it's going to make 1 billion dollars +.
But the heart and soul of Star Wars is dead to me and I don't know how they are ever going to rectify it.
Help us Obi-Wan, you're our only hope...
Get the director of Rogue One to do Episode 9
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So they are trying to explain the high ticket sales but low scores with people messing with the system? Gimme a break. History shows they are going to make there money regardless because its star wars(I,II,III), and now it really shows that the know it. I'm a long time fan and I this movie may have killed my love for SW. Think I'm going to be sick for typing that. And I lived thru the prequels.
May the Force be With You... If you still believe, I don't know if I do anymore.
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So predictable, not funny, too long without reason, it seemes like they made a second sequel only so they can say you will find out everything in the third movie.
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They killed Star Wars. The ambition and passion of the original is something to admire. He looks like a defeated man. What Emperor Palpatine, the Dark Side, the Empire failed to do... Disney succeeded at. Star Wars is dead. Bury it.
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I'm writing a review and I never write one. It's the holidays and people need to be warned about this.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
First off, the movie was too long, unnecessary long, the first hour passes and nothing happens, but anyway here we go. The rebellion and the republic is at war AGAIN!, you start with them "fighting" because of plot, little explanation whatsoever and never really caring about them. Finn could have had more story potential but somehow someone decided that they needed to add another character, pretty much for "inclusion", because she is chinese, add nothings to the plot with ZERO chemistry with Finn but she is his partner throughout the entire film. Rey parents background? no need to look further, there's nothing there, just a couple of drunks who sold their kid for fun. THATS IT!
Who is Snoke? some creep that liked the old stories and was a fan of darth vader and the emperor. Luke? wasted 50 years in an island drinking yellow milk and fishing. just having the time of his life. The island knowledge? we don't know, some books were there but thats it. apparently there was a hole with the dark side but nothing in there either, just an old magic mirror borrowed from Harry Potter. Poe having lots of ideas, wanting to add action to the film but because of plot he couldn't. Finn and Rey have 5 to 10 minutes together and acted like they were not longer friends. Kylo maybe is bad maybe is good, is weird but at least he got rid of that stupid mask.
The entire movie felt forced, the plot was forced, everything is forced. the end with the kid and the ring, I see a time jump ahead. So yes Disney is milking it.
Happy Holidays!
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If you want an hones review from a fan, look at the scores of reviews on IMDB. Most of those reviews written after premiere weekend are very negative. The movie is very bad, with no hope of redemption. Few good moments only emphasize the ugliness of the whole movie. But all the details you will find in other reviews.
Please, don waste your time, and this one is unnecessary very long. Do not feed trolls from Disney. Marketoids from Disney trampled the dreams of Star Wars fans for another buck. They also consider their audience to be a bunch of idiots. Apparently, the expectation is, that the movie with stupid jokes, little to no sense in story and cheap cliche characters, with the name behind it large enough, will still make enough money.
Unfortunately I believed to bought critics reviews, I wanted too much for TLJ to be a brilliant they wrote about. And it is obvious now, that I should have waited for few days and few thousands of reviews to avoid so much negative emotions. I needed two days to figure out, what just happened. I wasn't able to believe, that I became a victim of scum.
The idea is very simple: take huge name, create hype around before opening weekend, save on movie making, but declare huge budgets. And if you let your money go to Disney this time, you will only see more of the same simple scum schemes in the future.
Please, save yourself from the misery - do not waste your time, don't go to the movie theater. Don't reinforce this ugly practice of pure marketing movie making.
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I am a giant Star Wars fan so it is hard to be objective when rating these movies. I feel like Rian Johnson dropped the ball on this chance to show how bad ass Luke with the force. The vision the director had for the film did not come to fruition. Hopefully I watch it and see that I missed the point, but for now I'm bummed. Help us JJ Abrams you're our only hope!
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I was really hoping they'd step it up from TFA to this film. But really all they did was take two steps forward and one step back off a cliff side.
*WARNING- SPOILERS*
First off I want to talk about the forced humor. I sure as hell did not enjoy it and so did many other people. Certain parts of the movie there was injected humor when there didn't need to be any. The forced humor being stacked upon tense scenes or scenes that simply didn't need any basically turned this movie into a marvel film except the jokes weren't even funny to begin with. I'm fine with some humor but the moment you start using it incorrectly or having too much of it is when I start getting pissed off.
Second off is the character development. I think out of everyone in this movie Kylo Ren is the most improved overall. He showed more emotion and reasoning behind his actions adding to the complexity of his character. But EVERYONE ELSE was terrible, except maybe Rey in some cases. Now one character that made me furious beyond no ends was Snoke. He died towards the mid/end of the film in the most obnoxious and ridiculous way possible. We had no information of his past, if he was even Sith or anything at all just nothing. TFA hyped him up to be a bad*** but I guess he just turned out to be some old dude who gets sliced in half pointlessly. - Towards the end of the film Luke Skywalker has this fight scene with Kylo (sort of) that ends up with him basically "dying". He just vanishes into thin air becomes of one Star War's ghosts. Wasted potential is what it was.
Lastly lets talk about the plot. The ENTIRE movie revolves around the main resistance ship running away from the First Order. That's literally it nothing else at all just a really long chase thing that could have been easily avoided if the ships sped up a few meters to destroy the ships. There's some pointless casino scenes that add almost nothing to the plot with the addition of a new character "Rose" who is one of the WORST characters in Star Wars history. Anyways I digress, the movie ends with Luke turning into a ghost and Snoke dying and the last of the resistance force escaping from the First Order and flying off into space to find more force sensitive users I guess. No cliffhangers or anything, nobody knows what could happen next.
TLDR
Pros
-CGI
-Soundtrack
-Camera Work
-Any action in the film
-Kylo's character development
Cons
-Entire plot
-Useless boring casino scene
-Snoke dying way too early
-Dumb and lazy ending
-Wasted actor potential for Phasma
-Pretty much the entire movie??
Summary: This movie isn't the worst Star Wars film I've seen but by no means is it the best, it's definitely in the bottom 3 worst Star Wars movies. Wasted plot potential and character direction for the whole movie and just more dumb setup for the next film. I'd definitely recommend waiting to watch this when it comes out on DVD.
Rate: 6/10
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1/10
More hero-killer-garbage from disney and hollywood
Disney and Hollywood have taken the choice to kill every good, righteous hero or legend in the popular story. They converted king Arthur and the roundtable knights in a procurer and his band and with the return of the star wars saga they have seen the opportunity to kill all our childhood heroes. First, Han Solo. Now, Luke Skywalker. The third movie is obvious: Leia will die. But this is trivial because I have chosen to do not watch the last movie or, better said, the last apocryph movie of star wars. They wanted to destroy the saga, the legend. I decided to erase from my memory episodes 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9. Because the real star wars movie, and hero, are Han Solo, Leia, and Luke. C3PO and R2D2. ENOUGH of this bullshit.
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The rag-tag Resistance, down to one capital ship and a handful of support ships are fleeing their latest compromised base, but they cannot make the jump to hyperspace because the First Order possesses a Deus Ex Machina in the form of a tracker, which can track ships through hyperspace. So, the Resistance have just enough fuel for one more hyperspace jump, but cannot make that jump because they will just be followed, so their lone tactic is to flee under normal power, giving them 19 hours of fabricated tension before they run out of fuel. Something must be done in that 19 hours or they are doooooooooomed!
Run out of fuel? This is Star Wars, a fully blown and even hyperbolic space opera. Mundane concerns like fuel and ammo have never once been mentioned in this series. Contrived.
In the backdrop of this ridiculous plot you have several subplots.
The first is Rey attempting to convince Luke Skywalker to come back and aid the Rebellion. Mark Hamill stated in an interview that he didn't like where they took Luke Skywalker in the plot, and I can see why. Instead of a man who has traipsed around the galaxy looking for the origins of the Jedi, finding their first temple, and wisely transcending the Jedi/Sith artificial binary, we have a whining, insecure, aging Jedi who has petulantly cut himself off from the Force and is the middle of a fully blown mid-life crisis. Where's the confident, calm Luke Skywalker who grew into his powers, converted his father back to the Jedi, and took down the Galactic Empire? Vanished so that Mary Sue, I mean, Rey, can play far wiser and more experienced than she actually is, badgering him to do the right thing in the end. Contrived.
The second is Diversity Insertion 1 and his new sidekick, Diversity Insertion 2, needing to get to a casino full of wealthy gamblers to cajole a professional codebreaker away to help break the security on the Supreme Commander Snoke's vessel, so they can disable the tracker. Yes, in 19 hours they have to hyperspace out, convince a total stranger to undertake a suicide mission, and then hyperspace back in time to sneak on board an enemy ship in the middle of a pursuit. And of course, a romance develops and there's some vague political and environmental cues. Contrived.
Which leads me to the ubiquitous diversity insertions. This is the only military in human history where exactly half the pilots and soldiers are female, and Disney fell all over themselves trying to amp up the female character ratio, to the point where they contrived a rationale to wipe out the entire leadership cabal of the Resistance. Yes, much beloved Admiral Ackbar is killed in an afterthought, and a lesser, female ship's captain is upjumped to Vice-Admiral. We don't know her, have no history for her, and she's there largely to fill a few minutes of screen time and then sacrifice herself so everyone else can live. Contrived.
Seriously, Disney, female:male ratios in films are asinine. Of all the female characters in this galaxy, and all their stories that could be told, you decide instead to cater to juvenile feminist number crunching? Contrived.
Then, onto the Force ...
The Force itself is ramped right up, well past the limits of what we've seen from the stories so far. Now you can have galaxy spanning conversations between force users, where they can even see elements of each other's setting. The force is just a galaxy wide Face Time call! You also have force projections that are more than illusions and can actually interact with reality. They can touch and be touched, and these projections can be literally sent across the galaxy. The force is supposed to be subtle, and easy to discount, which is why it has been over the years, not some all-powerful magic. Contrived.
Finally ... Rey. Good at everything she touches, well past any reasonable explanation, I hoped that our protagonist would see some watering down so that she would become a character to be loved but ... no. Instead, she's wiser than Luke Skywalker, despite the fact he's done all this before, and walks around on screen like she's a bona fide Resistance leader, not the kid from the sticks in over her head her dialogue indicates. So, to recap, she's a mechanic, a linguist, a warrior, a pilot, a preternatural force user, and now she's a diplomat and a natural leader. Her ascent is meteoric and unbelievable. I want to love her, but I can't. She's contrived.
Such wasted potential, which leads me to Snoke, to Phasma, to Hux to Holdo to Chewbacca and all the other characters that could be something but were wasted. Just filling screen time, filled with caricature and hyperbole. Poor General Hux ... hard to believe he ascended to the peak of the First Order when he's painted as such a round buffoon.
The space battles were nice. The marketable aliens were cute. The acting from Hamill and Fisher was very good despite the lousy material with which they were forced to work. Adam Driver finally shows a Kylo Ren with teeth and intelligence - a man with a plan. He's rounding into a pretty damn good villain.
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You know, once you get Rian Johnsons concept of legacy and mythmaking, The Last Jedi turns into a decent film. It suffers from inconsistantcy, such as having a dreadnought with no shields get utterly destroyed, while a little Rebel cruiser can potter along getting blasted and suffer no damage until its "fuel" runs out. Yes, Finn and Rose add nothing to the movie, and yes there was pacing issues in general....
But the choices made are exactly what make TLJ different and I just can't understand the absolute almost violent rage that has encompassed some people. This is a decent movie with cracking action scenes, excellent acting all round and a new direction which makes PERFECT sense. The simple fact that TLJ didn't follow the storyline people seem to have already made in their heads, is no reason to hate a film so deeply.
It's flawed, but this is still interesting... think about it a bit and all the choices make sense....
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8/10
By his choice, The Last Jedi renews the Star Wars myth
It contains the ingredients that made the success of the saga but especially a true renewal of the genre after all 8 even films in the universe of the Force.
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Disney does NOT take chances. Not a single one ever. They calculate everything to the last scene, to the last frame. They make group researches to find out what people want. I'm pretty sure the whole Marry Poppins Lea scene was something that came up at a research for what the 10 years old groups want to see. Those new Star Wars movies are the biggest money-grabbing scum any big studio has ever pulled of in the history of Hollywood. It's sad and at time even infuriating to see people talking about bold moves and big chances this movie took, just because they didn't make a second in the row remake from the old trilogy. This is a bad movie simple as that.
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In my opinion that's the only way we can ever get a satisfying follow up for the originals. Hollywood continues to amaze me. In what universe do we live if we can't even make a decent story with budgets like Disney's. Do they really want to degrade Star Wars into a mindless shallow blockbuster for the whole family? Sure, the numbers are good now, but keep doing this for a couple more films and you will become the next DC.
I was so happy when they scorched EA for damaging their franchise, but ironically EA's actions are like a slap in the face compared to the kamikaze that we call The Last Jedi.
I won't go into any more details, since the rest of you have already done that perfectly before me.
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4/10
This is like "New Coke": bad product from a good brand name
I am not a Star Wars fan. Yes, I have seen all the movies, but I never quote them in conversations or defend/sell them to anyone. I just see them as interesting Sci-fi movies. This one, however, isn't a good story. I went to see it in theater because critics praised it and I was shocked to see how bad it was. I won't go into details as to why it's bad -it's a bad story - but I am puzzled at critics points as to why it's good and I like to argue against it.
1) They say it's very original: Well, I know the makers wanted to go for "I am your father" kind of twist but here is a thing about shocking twists - It must have consequences. It must make the conflict more challenging, just like Vader being Luke's father made things more difficult for Luke. One exception is when it's a suspense movie, where you can have twists just to play with audience. The Last Jedi isn't a suspense movie. The thing with bad guy makes the conflict less challenging, hence it's a bad twist, however original it is.
2) I like the visuals: Frankly, it's hard to find movie with bad visual effects now a days, unless they are small budget. The Visual Effects do not add to the story telling. The things feel real, that's all. It didn't do anything that I could say was beyond imagination. The matrix did things that wasn't imaginable at that time or the original trilogy did things that couldn't be imagined, this one does not.
3) It's funny: No it's not. Audience at my theater laughed just once or twice. Most of the jokes were predictable.
When I see critics vs audience ratings, I want to believe the conspiracy that Disney has bought all the critics. I know it's not true, but it feels like it. I won't be able to trust critics review now. And I won't be able to trust big budget blockbusters from big studios now. Time to look for good indie and foreign stuff.
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No story, no dialogues, no epic, badass lightsaber fights, no SW feeling.
There are some characters without motivation and we dont know anything about them. Who the fuck is Snoke? Who the fuck is Rey? Who was her parents in fact?
I feel that, everything is about the money, and Disney looks the fans stupid.
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Rian Johnson ruined the whole saga in 2 hours... no wait. In a few minutes.
This movie is without a doubt the worst star wars movie ever. How this man could be able to direct such a thing is beyond me. I mean we all know that every star wars movie has a big climax moment at the end. Episode 1, Darth Maul, Episode 2, Count Dooku. Episode 3 , Obi-wan and Anakin. Episode 4: Darth Vader and Obi-Wan/Luke destroying the Death Star. Episode 5 Darth Vader and Luke/I am your father. Episode 6 Vader vs Luke vs Palpetine. Episode 7 Rey vs Kylo Ren vs Finn and Han Solo. You see the connection?
Episode 8... Luke sends a force ghost when he's not dead and then he dies anyway when not doing anything but repeating the original trilogy. Thanks Disney. You literally killed my childhood. You made luke into a sad old killer who thinks killing a boy is better than talking sense into him. Btw how the hell did snoke get hold of Kylo Ren if he was a student under Luke in the Jedi Temple? Did Ben Solo just ignore that he was a Jedi in training? Or did Snoke go and visit Luke because they're old pals? This whole plot don't make any sense. Disney knows this by playing on all the kids feelings. With rehashing the old trilogy in the new films. Yeah it's so much better now when Luke is a mentor who kills his students in their sleep. No wonder Kylo Ren got some to come with him in this ridiculous story line.
It's just sad. This movie don't even deserve to be called Star Wars. Even Rogue One was better than this jesus christ... what happened?
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5/10
The reason - after years of being a part of this community I had to register - to say my piece about this movie...
So... I dragged my GF to the movie yesterday evening: She is not big on Star Wars but has nothing against it either. But even she noticed how simply everything about this movie felt wrong.
There are so many great reviews so I won't bother you with another in-depth review.
My point is: Excellent technical effects, good acting, some nice jokes here and there (some say it was too much but I was kinda fine with it)... BUT BUT BUT BUT: The plot and main story spits on the whole star wars legacy.
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Like someone else said (Hamill?), this is a space comedy for kids. I don't like it, but can understand why Disney heads in that direction. It's all about money in the end and they don't really care about us older Star Wars fans.
I just don't get why they had to ruin all the SW lore of the previous movies, and why be so disrespectful about it?
In many ways this movie is much worse than The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. They were at least made by the creator of the SW universe and even if it was targeted towards children, it was still felt like it took place in the same world. If you take away Jar Jar, some cheesy CGI and a few questionable ideas (Jango Fett clones), it's at least "Star Wars movies", even if I and many other Star Wars fans didn't like them.
I liked The Force Awakens. Yes, it was basically a scene-by-scene remake of Episode 4, but it brought Star Wars back in a respectful way. As a DoP myself, I also enjoyed the great visual story telling by Abrahams and Mindel.
I really loved Rogue One. Sure, nostalgia had a lot to do with, but it was also respectful to the universe.
On a personal level I thought the slapstick comedy was awful and I really disliked all the "cute" aliens and especially the casino scenes. The Empire acts like they are led by "Dark Helmet" in Spaceballs.
Finn was a great character in TFA, but here the director just throw all his character advancement away.
I feel really sorry for Boyega, Fisher and Hamill. Their characters are totally ruined in TLJ.
To me, this movie is a parody of SW. It would be more appropriate to call it Spaceballs 2.
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8/10
A great Star Wars film that needs more appreciation.
Anyone can have their own personal opinions about the Star Wars saga, but I personally believe all of the hate from this film comes from the people who grew up watching the original films. I do personally believe that the original films are still better than The Last Jedi but this film doesn't sit far behind. I grew up in the time of the prequels and I loved them then and they play a big part in the story and even though they were hated they still tie the saga together, just like this new trilogy. People need to understand that even though Luke Skywalker was portrayed in a disappointing way which I felt as well, this film is trying to set up for the new characters such as Rey and Kylo Ren, which has easily the best fight scene I have seen in Star Wars, the way light and dark came together in the film and then were split apart from their different choices was great. Yoda clearing up the prequels was a very good addition to the film because it gave an understanding to it and a great deal of coverage. Something that people seemed to hate is Snoke and how pathetic his death is, which I thought when watching it but then later on in the film it shows that it made Kylo Ren more angry and make him seek more power which will make the ninth film extremely good. I do believe that Rey and Luke's scenes needed to be more important than Finn and Rose which had a plot which officially went no where.
But overall this film gets an 8 out of 10 because it had an amazing set up for the next film and we got to meet new characters and creatures which was amazing. The Last Jedi was incredible and needs to be more appreciated.
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4/10
A pale and poor imitation of the original and great Star Wars movies
The Force Awakens and the Last Jedi are a messy mix of a new story line interwoven with the underlying original story. The result is weak movies which are only held up by the Star Wars legacy that so many millions of people around the world love. This is the only reason that the movie is and will become a huge box office hit.
Luke Skywalker has been written as a weak and beaten character, which is a travesty. The film makers would have produced a far superior movie by using the Alan Dean Foster story Jedi Academy.
There are no memorable characters in the movie, this is not the fault of the actors - this is 100% the responsibility of the director and the Writers - and Guess what they are one and the same person.
Kylo Ren is not in the same league as a bad guy as Darth Vader..., and Is just a kid with daddy issues.
The last Jedi is terrible compared to both the original and the prequel Star Wars movies
But hey I am a die hard Star Wars fan and yes I went to the movie theatre to watch it - if you like me do go to watch the movie, be prepared for a huge disappointment.
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I have no words for this. I just felt so much randomness in this one.
There is no magic in this movie, I could write like so many aspects why this movie is so bad... But a lot of other people already mention it. I guess the Headline is enough so once again: bad plot, no red line, not catchy.
Thank you for nothing Disney and Rian Johnson.
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For the second time in my life im reviewing a title on IMDB, and again it's a Star Wars movie.
I cannot understand the hate the movie is getting. I see 1 star reviews, worse then the prequels. I mean really? This is the worst movie you have ever seen? This is worse then f*cking Jar Jar Binks? I mean come on people. I could understand that maybe you din't like the story, or something else in the movie, but bashing it with so much negativity ? I mean really? What kind of Star Wars fan are you that you can't appreciate a new Star Wars movie, and absolutely destroying it with comments that have absolutely no valid arguments why its bad. I mean seriously, look at the reviews here on IMDB, and it's a bunch of fanboys saying they hated it and have no good arguments why they hate it.
I saw this movie yesterday in a 4DX theatre. Let me begin with the experience. My god was it amazing. From the beginning of the film to the end, I had a huge grin on my face, like I was an a epic rollercoaster or something.
The film, I loved it. There was so much nostalgia in the movie which gave me goosebumps. The story itself was good, I do have to agree with some people on the whole happening on Snoke, Reys parents and the knights of ren. It kinda felt left out, I was hoping on answers with the questions that the The Force Awakens left behind.
I freaking loved Luke Skywalker. I loved the fact that he was an old grumpy man. And I can understand his behaviour in the film. He has been through some sh*t, so no wonder he looked so irritating when Rey came. I do agree with Mark Hamil that they wasted an opportunity with that the iconic trio could be put together for an awesome scene. I am kinda disappointed.... SPOILER>>>>
That he died, or vanished or whatever you would call it at the end. I felt that they could save that for the last film, in that way really ending the Skywalker saga.
All in all I left the theater happy. And thats what matters. Of course we can now all argue about the film and that's kinda cool as wel. I mean look at how many youtube channels have put their reaction on the new film. No movie ever is as big a Star Wars movie. I hope that JJ can make an epic conclusion to this trilogy and that all the questions we still have now, can be answered in good way.
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9/10
Star Wars it would seem has now spawned it's own fan internet rebellion
I'm stunned reading these reviews and maybe it's time the review section on IMDB went the way of the forums and are retired.
Single line reviews are just moronic, vapid and bare as much impact as they do their words, This film is not a rebuke of how the Star Wars universe is constructed it is a reality check.
All the big scenes play to one theme that the charging hero into the jaws of death and suicidal attacks are just that, from the opening battle yes they take out the dreadnought but at what cost , one to high to pay.
Again when fin and rose boost off in star wars style to save the day , they just get more people killed as DJ gives the cloak details to the first order.
only when poe charges the walker at the end , does he finally realise it is time to withdraw and run, fin charges in and rose saves him to make him also understand you have to live for the rebellion and that dead heroes are just blades of grass in a field without end.
I do agree the casino parts where not fantastic they missed the point they where trying to make about wealth and power , it also should have been much darker in tone.
Snokes death was again part of a theme just as the Jedi's hubris led to their downfall so does the sith, many people have issue with how snoke died but miss what actually happened , kylo did not kill snoke , kylo and ray killed him.
Snoke seals his fate in 2 conversations first he tells kylo how useful hux can be even though he is a cur , and when he berates kylo for his mask and holding on to the past, he then connects kylo and ray and creates something he cant control , the power of both of them combined.
Both of them planned this , why else would ray land solo on snokes ship..just to confront kylo ?, kylo twists the saber and turns it on ray then pulls it through Snoke , snoke can only control one of them at a time thus he is doomed by his own hubris.
In this star wars film , they where brave enough to face reality and exploit the weakness that has always existed and turn it on it's head, for me Luke sky walkers was the cherry on top.
Not the bold young jedi or the wise jedi master, here is a man broken by his own failures and the knowledge that like his father the daemons that haunt him are of his own making , he makes it clear the jedi's don't have claim to the force and like everything else are just part of it and like the dark side they try to control something that belongs to everything.
Thank you for being brave RJ...
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10/10
The flaws awaken. A perfect score for a less than perfect movie
On release day of the Force Awakens I sat in my cinema seat with a level of excitement and anticipation similar to that of a small child on Christmas morning.
I loved every second of J.J. Abrams take on the Star Wars universe.
I even reviewed the movie on IMDB giving it a score of 10/10.
It was only weeks later when my pea sized brain finally realised
"Hey wait a minute, they've had our pants down here!"
"The Force Awakens is just a loose retelling of the original Star Wars movie!" I exclaimed.
Never mind, I forgive you J.J. because what you gave us was a nostalgic trip down memory lane. A transportation back to our childhood.
However with the Last Jedi, I want more than just a modern retread of The Empire Strikes Back.
No sir you guys at Disney aren't tricking me twice.
Even George with his crap prequels did strive to give us something original.
So what director Rian Johnson has created with The Last Jedi is thankfully an original film that still manages to take just enough inspiration from what has gone before without being a carbonite copy.
It's not a perfect movie but if we first start with the good then we do have a lot to talk about.
Johnson's film is beautifully shot and looks stunning from the very first scene. It's an exciting movie too. With some real edge of the seat moments.
Memorable set pieces that will have children reimagining them in school playgrounds for years to come.
I'm not going to go into plot or talk too much about storyline.
This movie is best experienced with little knowledge going into it. Whatever you think you are going to see in continuation from Episode VII you will be totally surprised.
That's perhaps Johnson's greatest accomplishment with his movie. The path Abrams sent us down in The Force Awakens is taken in a direction that is completely unexpected.
The slate is almost wiped clean by the time credits roll making The Last Jedi feel more like the end of a trilogy, rather than being the middle section.
I don't know if Johnson has done this intentionally with a devious smile knowing J.J. Abrams will now have to pick up where he has left the Star Wars universe.
How J.J. will carry the saga forward and give us an actual real conclusion is going to be rather interesting to see.
Performances from everyone are fantastic, particularly Mark Hamill returning as Jedi Luke Skywalker.
Once again an unexpected take on a character we think we all know.
Daisy Ridley has grown into the role of Rey but it is perhaps Adam Driver as Kylo Ren or Ben Solo if your prefer that really steals the show.
There's a fitting tribute to Carrie Fisher, how they will carry the story forward without her raises further questions.
Oscar Issac as Poe Dameron gets much more to do this time around.
The movies opening spectacle proves he is every bit the X wing pilot we believe him to be.
Laura Dern makes her Star Wars deput as rebel leader Vice Admiral Holdo and it's obvious she's loving every minute of it.
So let's talk about the bad.
Sadly it's John Boyega's return as Finn that's the most underwhelming.
His story arc with newcomer Rose played by Kelly Marie Tran takes them both off on a mission that proves fruitless and causes the middle part of the movie to sag.
This is by no means a criticism to Boyega or Tran. John Boyega is a superb actor and one of the best things about the new franchise. Frustrating then that he isn't used to better effect in this episode.
The character of Rose seems forced and unnecessary. Almost as if she is no more than just a sidekick to Finn to accompany him on his pointless trip.
Another disappointment is obviously Supreme leader Snoke. When I say obviously.
I'll just let you watch the movie and then you'll see why.
I'm a little torn by some of Johnson's choices.
Just as Mark Hamill said he was when he saw the direction his character was going to he taken.
Part of me wants to applaud Johnson for his bold choices. The other part of me wants to Force choke him for changing the way I have viewed my Star Wars heroes since being a child.
It isn't just the unexpected that is jarring. A particular scene involving Lea and an explosion just doesn't work for me. You'll know when you see it. Think Mary Poppins in space!
This nearly ruined the movie for me.
I was a little underwhelmed with Luke's climatic scene too.
After all we never even saw him in Episode VII. So I wanted more from him.
I wanted to see him do some awesome Jedi stuff. Maybe pick up an AT-AT or crash a Star Destroyer by using the Force.
Still there's a wonderful wide shot with both Kylo and Luke as they stand off like two gunslingers from the Wild West.
I really don't want to go into too many negatives as I don't want to spoil the experience for you.
Truthfully this is a fantastic movie. I would happily give it 10/10 despite its flaws.
The Force Awakens wasn't perfect either but still gets a 10 from me.
Why?
Well because they're both movies I'll watch over and over again in years to come. Something that I don't do with George's original but very poor prequels.
The Last Jedi does borrow a little from The Empire Strikes Back but it still has lots of its own originality to
stand proud amongst the best Star Wars movies.
The Force is definitely with this one!
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It's insane that The Last Jedi managed to be worse than The Phantom Menace. Where can you even start? The only positive thing about the entire movie are the effects and that's not a selling point in 2017. People like to hate on The Force Awakens (rightfully so to some degree) but this movie not only renders TFA completely irrelevant but it also managed to make everything worse. Plot points that were established in the previous movie are simply ignored or finished in ways that contradict important lore. Luke Skywalker was completely ruined as a character. Maybe they tried to simplify him so that he fits in with Emo Ren or Rey Sue, there is no logical explanation for his sudden change of personality and goals. Mark Hamill was extremely unhappy with the direction his character and SW itself is going but they just ignored him anyway. It's hard to write a review without spoilers so all i can do is repeat what Hamill himself said about TLJ: "If you think you're gonna go into the movie and recapture your childhood, you set yourself up for disappointment". The trio from the OT signed their contracts before Disney acquired the IP. They were all extremely unhappy with that decisions. Now they are finally free from the devil. Let's hope our suffering won't last much longer.
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It is really weird reading all the negative reviews about this movie when it contains absolutely everything we need for blockbusters nowadays: new ideas, risky decisions, respect for what came before but still looking forward. I applaud Rian Johnson for being ballsy enough to completely ignore fan theories and create something fresh and unique while still being truthful to what was created before. I loved this movie so much and will be seeing it again this week. For the first time a Star Wars movie made me feel excited and giddy since the first time I saw the original trilogy. Rian Johnson, you're my new hero.
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This is STAR WARS at it's best, and STAR WARS as you've never experienced it before. It reconciles the 5-year old with the XX-year old in you. Indie, visionary, even cerebral and art-house film making, with pure blockbuster fun and thrilling sequences. 9 stars not because it's perfect, but because it's a captivating, brave, thought-provoking, satisfying film, that makes you think everything is possible again. Go see it, and support it in any way you can!
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5/10
Dear Disney, we had a good run but it's time to part ways
The storyline is an absolute mess, the few revelations don't really make too much sense, some questions were left unanswered.
Please, please tell me! Who the hell is this supreme ruler Snoke? Where did he come from? How can he get into the minds of young padawans so far away? It took Palpatine some effort to turn Anakin, including having to take him to a theatre play.
In this movie, the force really became... Magic. It's simply a device used to further the plot as the writers please.
I do admit the second part of the movie was... entertaining. Good over popcorn. Doesn't save it, though.
TFA was a bit of a mess already, TLJ just upped the ante. Sorry, Disney - too much for me. I'm folding on future SW "main saga" movies. Do keep bringing on the spinoffs though, those keep me enjoyably entertained.
I know this review is disjointed and not easy to read. An appropriate style for this hardly bearable movie.
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I didn't go to see the last Jedi for comedy sci-fi, for that I have Red Dwarf.
Two years I waited to see this and I am so disappointed! What have they done to star wars, I cannot think of any positives for this movie.
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Rian Johnson finally had the guts to divert from the standard Star Wars formula, something that lacked in The Force Awakens. This is very much Rian Johnson's version of Star Wars, playing with comic relief, being creative with audio to build tension and surprising us with the plot over and over. My viewing party laughed, cried and celebrated.
All of this however, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The movie admittingly had its fair share of excellent moments, however some were amply abysmal.
MISSES
Firstly, there were plenty of things that grinded my gears; Rebel bombers being useless due to their lack of speed and large size. Fighters being able to blast capital ship turrets without any problems and the Rebel celebration at the end of the movie after being utterly decimated by the First Order.
Secondly, I am disappointed by how the movie handles Leia's near-death-experience. I am all for Leia having Force powers, however her flying back to the ship all Mary Poppins style seems over-the-top, especially considering her lack of impact in the rest of the movie. I would have preferred Leia to have piloted the Rebel Capital into the First Order's fleet, instead of Holdo. Finally, some dialogue was downright terrible, on level with the prequels. For instance, that moment when Leia and Holdo said goodbye and they both go "may the fo-" and then laugh nervously; I didn't come to watch a teen romcom.
PLOT
The plot, however, was excellent, finally delving into the relationship between Kylo and Rey. Learning about the turn of Kylo to the Dark Side and Luke's reason for hiding was an interesting revelation. It makes Luke seem less of the hero we thought he was, although he does redeem himself fantastically on Crait at the end of the movie. I would have loved for Snoke to live longer, so we could get to know him and his story better, however Kylo rising to the position of Surpreme Leader is very promising, and Snoke dying was a beautiful twist. On the other hand, the arc between Finn and Rose seemed bland. They search for the 'master codebreaker', however they divert from this quickly and hook up with another dude. The guy Maz sent them after was only given about five seconds of screen-time!
A point that I haven't seen made yet is that this film resonates very much with the current political scenario:
The Original Trilogy was a cold war film, where huge empires were taken down by ragtag heroic organizations. The Prequel Trilogy was a critique of Bush Era politics (even with a direct quote by Anakin), how war can be a tool in consolidating power, how many of the conflicts are fictitious.
The Sequel Trilogy is set in an era where we are becoming seemingly overwhelmed by forces of evil. Intolerance, cyberwarfare, an almost unstoppable surge of populist strongmen... all at the leisure of a super-rich elite. I thought Canto Bight was the most important part of the film. It threw in everybody's face how rich people profit from suffering, how they enslave, humiliate and exclude for their own gain.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the movie excellently builds further on the plot established by The Force Awakens, and it will be interesting how the Rey and Kylo conflict continues. It is, however, plagued by some bad
dialogue and mis-timed humour. Luckily the great moments outweigh the terrible; Yoda's appearance, the Rey and Luke plotline and the break in to Snokes ship save the day.
VERDICT: 8/10
Plagued by some terrible mistakes, the movie expands the force-users plotlines excellently and manages to entice the audience with an amazing story.
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Like most crazy star wars fanboys I was really looking forward to this film - and the trailer looked like it might be a great follow up to the Force awakes, which despite the obvious parallels to A new hope, I really enjoyed. But unfortunately only 5 minutes in to the film I was already rolling my eyes and fearing the worst. The scene in question was when Poe (Evidently the greatest pilot ever known) drives out to the destroyer to speak to General Hux and, after his rousing response we get the old "Can you hear me?" joke - not funny the first time we hear it, and certainly not several minutes later when the joke is still going on. Unfortunately this misplaced humor is all too frequent in this episode (Reach out and feel the force - Oh, you don't mean with my hand? No Rey reach out like you did in the first film without any instruction!!!!)
Rian Johnson has to shoulder a lot, if not all of the blame for this. Why it seemed like a good idea to have someone else follow the story on astounds me as all the first film teased and built up is ruined in this one (EG: Snoke/Rey's parents) and leaves the trilogy in a worrying position for the last episode. This is the middle episode and should've left something for the final episode to deal with. I honestly have no idea what is going to happen in this film now. The end of the movie talks about how the story will inspire hope to the rest of the galaxy and feed the rebellion? How exactly? Being chased through space until you run out of fuel and then being picked off whilst you hide in a base whilst an old man distracts the bad guys whilst you escape isn't at all inspiring! if blowing up starkiller base didn't send people swarming to join the rebellion then how would this?
On to the cast.
By far the best scenes in the films are those involving the old characters, Carrie Fisher is fantastic in all of her scenes (Well, aside from the Mary Poppins scene - less said about that the better) and Mark Hamill is brilliant, despite how his character is written, And Chewie is excellent, if not criminally under used. I even enjoyed the Yoda cameo! However the young stars fail to grab my interest yet again. Poe constantly comes across as annoying and has no real depth to his character, and generally has no real impact on the story either. Finn at least has some sort of drive to him in this film by wanting to find Rey, yet his whole story arc is a pointless plot point which has no relevance to the overall story (I actually hoped he would sacrifice himself at the end of the film), what happened to him facing his demons from being a stormtrooper? This isn't even touched upon, except when he meets Captain Phasma, who again is a terrible character, why even bring her back? She is quite obviously this trilogy's Boba Fett - looks quite cool, but is actually pretty terrible! Even the scenes with Rey don't really endear me to her at all and she seems to go back and forth with her ability to use the force. Kylo Ren is explored a little more in this film and I would've liked to have seem more of his past with Luke as I thought this was the most interesting story in the film. But I'm not convinced of him as the big bad now, he seems constantly confused as to what to do and simply doesn't have that evil presence on screen. Darth Vader, whilst basically serving Grand Moff Tarkin still took no crap from folks, yet Kylo Ren and Hux constantly bicker with each other and neither convey any fear at all. It's like having the chuckle brothers being in charge of the first order.
Even though the film picks up a bit in the second half, overall as much as I hate to admit it, whilst not on prequel levels, this is one is one of worse Star wars films. Hopefully episode 9 restores some faith in the galaxy...!
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I was not one of those disappointed by episode VII, yes, similarities with the original went too far and some silly scenes like the convenient abyss just as Kylo fell. But the characters were likable(not as much as in 1-3 but 10x more than 4-6), lightsabre fights were no longer ridiculous, I was anxious to learn more about Snoke(well good luck with that...), etc.
I wish J.J.Abrams was still directing the sequel, instead of some guy who made a kid's tale. I think he was going for cheap emotional moments with the usual "heroic sacrifice" and "escape death by a hair" recipes, but desperately went so over the top that the scenes are obvious and forced, you realize what he is spoon-feeding you halfway through the scene and instead of biting your nails at the edge of your seat, you roll your eyes with disappointment and wait for it to be over. I think if he dialed it back by about 75% those scenes could actually have worked, we don't need 30 second slo-mo closeups to get that someone is lost or saving others at the last moment (actually, trying to prolong that moment of suspense is what kills it).
I'm getting used to the laws of physics and time sequence taking one for the team in movies, but here it goes so far it's a mockery, I felt offended that people who made this either think moviegoers are retarded, or even worse, couldn't be bothered to think a bit harder on connecting the dots to take the story where they want. I don't want to spoil it and I'm pretty sure whoever saw the movie will think of at least 3 scenes where he was just shaking his head... If they cut out most of the space battle scenes the movie would actually be better.
Lastly while the similarities in Episode VII were kinda cute as a restart and only crossed to the dark side of uninspired copying from time to time, here it stops being cute and the "few daring rebels against an overwhelming force" motive is really getting old. Oh, and Kylo was disappointingly predictable.
I'm only giving 4 stars because parts of the movie were actually good, Luke was the one character I could sympathize with. Funny that I'm actually a fan of action movies, but lately the action parts of them are those I like the least...
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There are plot holes all over the movie and when you include the very bad writting on top you get the "Last Jedi" no wonder they sellected this name because they wont be any more "Jedi" movies if they continue like this.
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I don't normally bring myself to write reviews but I felt compelled to after watching The Last Jedi (predominantly for a sense of catharsis rather than thinking i'm any good at writing).
The Last Jedi is overall quite a good film. It has a solid storyline with genuinely surprising and interesting twists. I liked the Porgs (in particular the part where Chewie is about to eat a roasted one), the battles at the beginning and the end of the film are enjoyable, the acting and directing is good and I personally found the comedy to be enjoyable. For this it does deserve some of the praise that has come its way (hence the seven)
The problem I have with it, is that it is clearly a film aimed at impressing critics and maybe bringing in a new generation of followers rather than for fans of the franchise (nothing wrong with that except i'm a fan of the previous films and I wanted something different).
And with that in mind these are the things that irritate me about the new films and in particular The Last Jedi. Nothing in this film (or the previous one) has made me care about Rey. I have no interest in what happens in her journey. All I can think of when watching her is that Anakin, Obi Wan, Luke etc etc have all had training and I am supposed to just accept that Rey can pick it all up through a brief connection with Kylo Ren?
Kylo Ren just makes me think of a Force wielding Red Mist (Kick Ass 2 in case you didn't get the reference). We don't find out how Snoke turned Ben Solo or why he feels such an affinity towards the dark side. For all the faults with the prequels (and i'll admit I actually enjoyed them for the most part) at least Anakin had numerous reasons to turn.
And for me the big thing was Luke Skywalker. I wanted to see Luke as a Jedi Master at the peak of his powers. I wanted to see him beat Snoke and Kylo Ren with all manner of previously unseen force powers, and although I knew this was unlikely to happen what I got instead was so far removed from my ideal scenario that I found it deeply unsatisfactory.
As previously mentioned it's a good film overall. If you have no real attachments to the previous films or have no desire to see your favourite characters stories pan out in a certain way then it probably warrants the critics scores. If you deeply care about the characters from the original trilogy however, it might be worth just leaving it. I certainly have no interest in seeing the next film after this.
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1/10
Too aggressive against people's love for the mythos
Absolutely agree on everything said from most people here. The major problem with the film that some people dont understand, is the AGGRESSIVE nature of dishing everything people liked about SW mythos so as to establish new grounds. Aggressiveness breeds resistance, and I sure felt insulted and angry. Case in point or the whole movie in a scene? Luke throwing away his lightsaber in disdain and together our fandom and love for the series
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After the rather underwhelming entry to the saga in 2015 (The Force Awakens), and an outstanding edition to the extended universe that we saw in Rogue One, we were introduced to The Last Jedi. And needless to say, it does not continue the positive momentum created by Rogue One. The film truly shows that the direction in which the trilogy wants to go in is in turmoil between executive producer, JJ Abrams, and director Rian Johnson, as many of the choices that the picture makes is truly unjustified and/or unnecessary.
The film does have some positives and we are going to break them down (note: spoilers ahead)
The Directing: despite all the films flaws, The Last Jedi is a beautiful and well-directed film. Its aesthetic choices (I particularly liked the climax aesthetic wherein the red salt conflicted the white snows of the planet, Crait) and its CGI and shot-list truly make it one of the more stronger-directed films of the franchise, perhaps more so than JJ or Lucas. It's truly a visual spectacle and a delight to view in Real 3D / IMAX 70 MM / IMAX 3D / Laser, practically every A-list cinematic format.
Imagery: Yes, the sets were truly spectacular, especially the Production Design of the Monty Carlo-like planet, and the planet, Crait where the Rebel Base was located), and the lair of the Supreme Leader, Snoke. Production Design / Art Direction has always been strong in Star Wars film, but I feel that this film had the strongest of them all. Ahch-To, the planet wherein Skywalker has secluded himself to is itself a beauty.
Symbolism: Entangled within the weak plot was symbolism that was well executed and director Rian Johnson uses symbolism to perfection. Prior to the "reveal" of Rey's parents, we were given a scene on Ahch-To wherein we see multiple Rey's all asking similar questions as to who her parents are and we see a silhouette of two figures emerging toward the ice, where Rey is, however, the silhouettes manifest into a reflection of Rey emphasizing perhaps a conflict in her to face the truth that her parents were indeed just folk that abandoned her. Not only was it one of the few instances of tension and interests within the movie, it was smartly executed and showed us just how conflicted and tangled a character Rey is. She is no simple hero. She is manifested from a tragic past, which as Master Yoda has explained to us in the prequels is, one of the paths to the dark side. It is just brilliant. And thus, her projection of hope and light, even behind a tragic/dark past, makes her stronger than anyone could imagine. If only he made this the basis of his narrative, we could've perhaps seen a better product. That was only one aspect of brilliance in symbolism. The second being (MASSIVE SPOILER AHEAD)... the final moments of Luke Skywalker. The Binary Sunset. He died witnessing two sunsets in Ahch-To... it brought back the nostalgia of Episode IV. Now I'm 18, but I know for those who saw A New Hope in 1977, they would've have seen the nostalgic element. The Binary Sunset (with the force theme playing in the background... where we first heard the iconic theme, mind you) was first seen when we were introduced to Luke on Tatooine and where his journey to becoming a Jedi Legend began.... and thus it creates the cyclical narrative structure, he saw the binary sun when the legend began and saw it again when the legend ended. It was brilliant. I too felt that element of journey's end when I saw it.
Acting: Though I was no fan of the directing they took Skywalker in (which I will explain why) I loved Mark Hamill's acting. He gave it his all and was the best thing about this movie. You can see the defiance in him, the conflict in him, the shame, the desire for everything to turn to the light, but his constant embracing of darkness, and more so than all we see in Luke, a strength. A strength we've never seen, as we've only seen his journey as a young Jedi Knight. Performances from the late Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Domnhall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, and Adam Driver were also brilliant. I was a fan of John Boyega's portrayal of Finn, but his storyline lets him down and we will break that down.
Music: As always, John Williams is brilliant.
And now we will breakdown the negatives, there is quite a lot to go through:
Snoke: Yes, JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson went to great detail as to why he was a big threat to the galaxy. And what does Johnson do? Gives him 5 minutes of screen time and then kills him off. Now, that's not a problem, the problem is that they never built him up! He was the generic bad guy, who wants to rule the galaxy and he was all powerful, but we didn't get to learn the history of his power, or what makes him so powerful. So his death is just ambiguous, considering that we did not get to learn so much of who he was. Even after his death, there should've been some sort of build up of Kylo Ren's power considering he killed of a powerful villain. But nope.
Luke: George Lucas created Luke and we saw Luke as this ray of hope in the original trilogy. He could see beyond the darkness and held within him a belief that anyone could be turned to the light, as he saw in his father, Darth Vader. He believed in all that was good. So, him trying to kill Kylo Ren in that "moment of shame" is unjustified, or if they wanted to go down that route, they should've shown the extent of Ren's acceptance of the dark side or why Luke was unable to appeal to his light side, like he did to his own father, considering that this was his nephew, it just seems so unjustified. Furthermore, a lot of fans have been upset with his portrayal. I too am on there side. He becomes the stereotypical Jedi Master, who has lost faith and hope, and considering that Luke was the symbol of hope, this just felt wrong. But of course, I am all for change. I don't mind if they wanted to try something new, they should've went more into detail though! Show how he went from the symbol, the ray of hope to this grey person. Explore it. The use of flashbacks could've been paramount here, and the key to us, as an audience, unraveling and understanding why Luke is who he is now. We don't accept this portrayal of Luke because we are still kept in the dark as to why this Luke is this Luke. If you don't show us how it happened, how do you expect us to accept him? And the burning of the temple can't just be the spark of this new attitude, it had to be built up somehow over a long period of time! Johnson, however, does not explore this in favor of an awkward Monty Carlo-Star Wars crossover subplot.
Rey: Daisy Ridley's portrayal of Rey is brilliant and Rey is a brilliant character. Now, while I wasn't a fan of Episode VII. What it did so well was that it created an enigma of Rey, an enigma that would become the next Jedi Knight/Master. Rey's mysterious past intrigued me so much and I was so adamant in exploring it, and the constant mentioning of her parents really got me excited, but then, Johnson just expels that hype. Her parents are "no one", but she is "someone". It's funny because from the look of Episode VII, it seemed as if JJ wanted to explore her roots, but here Johnson expels them. Rey seems to be the epicenter of the turmoil of different ideas between JJ and Johnson. This difference vision ruins the continuity of Episode VII, while Luke's portrayal ruins continuity between the previous trilogies and this one. Nice one Johnson. Her training also feels incomplete. She learns of the force, does a bit of lightsaber training, learns why the Jedi should end and there we go... Kind of reminds you of what... perhaps Empire Strikes Back maybe? But at least in Empire, the training feels a bit more surreal and Luke affirms that his training is incomplete.
THE ADVENTURES OF FINN AND ROSE - yes I capitalized this because this just made me upset. While I was getting intrigued by the stuff on Ahch-To, we kept cutting to this plot. The search for the Codebreaker. Yes okay, whatever so fun! What makes this Finn and Rose angle on the Monty Carlo-like Star Wars planet more annoying is that the codebreaker just becomes a side joke. He comes, offers help and sells them out, and sets up a 45 second final battle between the irrelevant Captain Phasma and Finn. If you wanted Finn and Rose to be captured, I could think of several other ways than to go through all that commotion. It was almost as if they were thinking: what is more interesting? Snoke's story? Rey's story? Luke's story? Nah, let's stick to this nonsense. This arc felt force and while it did fit into the Resistance vs First Order arc, I feel that they could've come up with something more interesting or at least shorten this so that we could focus on the Luke-Rey dynamic.
The Empire vs. The Rebels - call it whatever the hell you want, but this whole Resistance-First Order thing has turned into the Empire-Rebels thing. The film establishes that The First Order are now in charge of all major systems of the galaxy and are squeezing the Resistance out. And the Resistance must fight back for its survival, all that crap. Doesn't that remind you of I don't know.. THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY! YES, the problems from Episode VII have returned. This is exactly where we find ourselves in The Empire Strikes Back... the Empire trying to squeeze the Rebels out of the Hoth system.
The Plot: the entirety of this Episode is the Resistance is running out of fuel and are being tracked by the First Order, and they're trying to escape them. That's it. Yes. THAT'S IT. The film is also VERY THIN on character development, to be honest.
So overall, its a disappointment. Clearly a turmoil in which direction JJ/Johnson want to go in the franchise. Could possibly be the worst entry to the franchise. What will become of Episode IX and the future trilogy? After two lackluster installments, can Episode IX impress us? PLEASE JJ, PLEASE DON'T FUCK UP EPISODE IX.
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I thought it was imposable to make a Star Wars film that would be worse than the prequels but yet after the last Jedi I hanker to see them again to wrap myself up in them like a child with a favourite blanket.
SPOLIERS AHEAD
I did write a much longer review but there is so much wrong with this film it went on and on much like TLJ slow-motion space chase.
They just threw everything that JJ had set up in TFA, destroyed all the history lore and mystery surrounding the force and characters built up in TFA.
As a sci fi film it was visually very good in places but as a Star Wars film it was very very bad.
Luke states he went to the island to die, so WTF was the point of leaving a MAP! He is just portrayed as a cowardly old man who's character bears no resemblance to the one we have seen over the last forty years in books, comics or in any of his SW history.
Finn and the Plumber (Rose) head off to find someone that is never needed and their whole story arc is just PC bull or filler. You decide!
Rey is pretty much a Jedi without needing any training whatsoever who's parents were in fact junkies.
Snoke the mysterious dark side user who has been around and watched the empire come and go from afar. Who turned young Ben to the dark side while Luke was training him gets maybe 10mins screen time and is killed off.
Who was he?
Where did he come from?
Why does he want to find Luke? is it to kill him? turn him? was they friends once?
The knights of who?
All this will be answered. It will cost you however as I doubt it will ever be answered in the films, I suspect you will have to buy all the novels, comics or tv shows that will be coming to find out.
It is interesting the Critics and youtube reviewers jumping through hoops claiming that all the negative ratings are "Fake news people Fake news"
At the end of the film we end up pretty much where we started except Luke is dead from exhaustion, Leia is alive thanks to a superwoman moment. Rey can seemingly lift half a mountains worth of boulders without any training. Finn is nursing the Plumber (Rose). Admiral Ackbar was dead and had about 30 seconds worth of screen time but no one cared. Who knows what happened to C3PO or R2D2 in the end. At least there will be plenty of food on the falcon. Porg anyone! once they get Chewie cooking, as he did little else in the film apart from playing Uber. As the handful of rebels left all piled onto the Falcon and that's it until 2019.
I have no real interest left in any of the characters, I wanted to by the end but feel there was such a lack of character development with most of the interesting characters being killed off. I find I have no real emotional attachment to any of the ones that are left.
There were so many more plot holes, questions raised or left unanswered. That I think once you sit down take a few hours/days to let the film soak in that you will find much the same.
If you don't and in the end you enjoyed the movie then I'm happy for you, but don't hate me for putting my opinion out there.
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I was pleasantly surprised with how many risks this movie took, and I was even more surprised with how many of those risks paid off. I liked The Force Awakens, but I thought it often played things too safe. This does not.
But these risks are character-based. Mark Hamill gives a fantastic performance as a cynical Luke who has an understandably dim view of the Jedi order. His decisions may seem shocking, but they make sense considering what he's been through. All of the other performances are also uniformly great.
This film is a study in how we can learn from failure, how we can take the mistakes of the past and create a better future. Every character in this movie makes major mistakes, and there are consequences to those mistakes. I found this far more dramatic than much of the conflict in The Force Awakens.
There are some truly beautiful images in this movie, from the opening space battle to a particularly thrilling lightsaber fight. Director Rian Johnson takes influence from samurai movies, WWII movies, and much more. That's exactly what the original trilogy did, and it makes the movie more dynamic.
*Major Spoilers*
The Last Jedi shows us how the Force can be used in ways we've never seen before. And I loved the revelation that Rey's parents are nobody jerks. She has no legacy to follow, which is in stark contrast to the overwhelming legacy that burdens Kylo Ren. Therefore, it makes sense that he'd want her to join him as he burns the past down.
*End Spoilers*
This is a great Star Wars movie. It has beautiful scenes, particularly ones between Luke and some other beloved characters. This isn't a very organized review, but these are some of my thoughts on the movie.
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2/10
Disney doing what Disney do best - ruined a franchise
Where to begin with this mess of a film? Weak plot, weak writing, confusing story arcs, poor and confusing direction, poor acting - this film has it all. I saw it in a packed cinema and the audience were quiet all the way through. No laughs, no ooohs and aaahs, nothing, just a lot of quiet people trundling out at the end.
They've done a proper character assassination on Luke Skywalker, and on Snoke who was threatening as Janice in Human Resources. The feminists will love it because all the female protagonists were good and heroic whereas the men were all flawed and/or evil. But for any fan of Star Wars this is a massive let down. Most damning of all..... it was boring. The set pieces were tedious, they didn't make use of 3D to enhance the fight scenes, It was long, it was ponderous, a lot of it was unnecessary and at the end of it all you realise that you haven't seen a film, you've just seen a set up for the next film in the series.
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It was just a bad movie and the fact it was a bad movie had nothing to do with how they treated the mythology of Star Wars or Luke Skywlaker. Honestly, that was the least of the movie's problems.
Many plot holes, poor dialogue and surprisingly poor acting from some great actors, boring story of little consequence, boring characters with zero chemistry (makes you appreciate Padme and Anakin's relationship). Kylo and Rey gave us a little glimmer of hope but eventually both journeyed to the boring side. Even the sets made the movie feel claustrophobic unlike say Rogue One which made tremendous use of its locations...
I appreciate the inclusive and socially relevant message this movie was imbued with. But even that is not sufficient to transform this clunky movie, or any clunky movie, into something good. Case in point: I like Rey a lot and I like girl power. But even Rey got lost somewhere in this movie which lacked a center and a purpose.
Overall, this whole movie was very emotionally sterile. It really was; sure it had twist and turns, but there was no passion or ferocity or swashbuckling bravado... the movie created a sense of righteousness and it is a great sensation for the audience is it were not the only emotion viewers were left with.
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It is clear that the people that worked for this movie are not able to understand the reason why the first 6 movies were a big success. This is not a god movie, it is a bad joke. The story is bad, the dialog is bad, too many errors and plot holes, some of the characters are useless in all the ways. The story is using again that lame actor and that lame character Kylo Ren. The story of Rey is not according with the Jedi logic; we all know that a Jedi has at least one Jedi parent or has The Force as a father, but in this case The Force has no apparent connection. We waited for Luke Skywalker to appear in the story and expected him to bring back a bit of magic from the old story, but that is not the case, Luke is simply not Luke. Overall the movie does not have the Star Wars feeling.
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This poorly scripted and directed edition to the franchise, which showed little empathy to the main characters story arcs. Particularly disappointed with the treatment of Luke's character.
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This is my second review. The first, straight after I came back from watching it, was probably not a critique. So here are my thoughts on the film after waiting 24hrs.
The first issue is story. It just did not make sense. The First Order has found away of tracking the rebellion ships even when they jump through light speed. The rebellion ships then stay just out of range of the TIE fighters, whilst Finn goes to find someone who can sneak into a First order ship to do something with the tracker. Rey tries to get Luke to help, even though they may be thousands of miles away. Ray also communicates with Kylo, even though they are thousands of miles away. Finn doesn't stop the tracker, but still ends up back with the rebellion. The rebellion is now back to where it started, so they turn a ship round, and send it flying into the First Order ship, something they could have done at the start. The rest of the rebellion land on a planet. Before the first order destroy them, Luke appears, and fights Kylo, purely for the purpose of getting the rebellion away. so they pretty much end up where they started from. Surely someone could have come up with a better idea than this?
If they had, they would have been able to get rid of characters that do not advance the plot in any way. Finn, Rose and JD are pointless. Their story is almost comical, if it had any heart or humour. Their dialogue is bad, but they make some of the others look good.
Another issue is theme. Having a character that is used as the stock comedy vehicle, either by words, or actions, is in a lot of films. Didn't work with Jar Jar, but it did with C3PO and R2D2. Here, everyone wants to get the last line in, or the banana skin slip. But the problem is a lot of screen time is taken up with scenes that merely function to get in a joke. This got to the point where I half expected someone to turn and stare straight into the camera.
And whilst watching this, there is an underlying notion that the producers do not know what audience they are trying to reach. No child wants to sit through a two and a half hour comedy. No adult will look at the Porgs without thinking that they are watching an advert.
I am not a massive sci fi fan, but I enjoy films and write scripts, and remember the original trilogy. so was there anything good about it? Oscar Isaac stands out whenever he is on screen. Its a shame they didn't make the story about him. As for the rest of the film, I was bored when scenes were targeted for kids, and my son was bored when scenes were targeted as adults. For the money that must of been spent, and the history behind the film, it was simply not good enough.
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As an avid movie goer and star wars fan I can not imagine how Disney could have screwed this up more:
Unrealised characters - tick
Nonsense plot - tick
Forced attempts at continuous humour - tick
Lack of depth - tick
Abandoning plot points set up in the previous movie - tick
That's objectively. As a star wars fan it's worse:
Characters we have grown to love being written out of character - tick
Ridiculous new powers and star wars lore - tick
Sacralige of jedi artifacts for no reason - tick
No meaningful villain - tick
Treating star wars fans as a money pit and a joke - tick
I only stayed in the theatre so I was not rude to my friends. I apologised for buying them tickets to see the movie and am sad to say I won't watch episode IX. Absolutely no interest. Was going to go to Disney in 2019 to see the star wars land too, but now, absolutely no interest.
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The purpose of The Last Jedi is to kill the idea that the Resistance need Luke Skywalker to "spark hope" in order to grow the Resistance and further it's aims. In order to achieve this end the film destroys all of the pillars established by the original and prequel trilogy about who the Jedi are and the value of what they bring to the light side and the Rebellion: individualism, heroism, mentoring future generations and traditional doctrines. This film doesn't just kill off Luke Skywalker - it destroys his legacy too. The Last Jedi renders the events of Luke's inner journey, the high points of the original trilogy that shape and build him as dangerous and misguided.
Quentin Tarantino lists the first Matrix film amongst his favourite but also said that the wider trilogy ruined the mythology established by that first film (interestingly, by going too far in the opposite direction to the Last Jedi - over-investing a hyper-individuality in the hero and deifying him). The Last Jedi also ruins the Star Wars mythology but here it is a deliberate agenda against individualism that drives it. This fire sale approach to Luke's legacy has echoes of the way (General!) Solo was portrayed in The Force Awakens - his medals are thrown in the gutter as if he never earned them, he's a deadbeat dad scraping a living, hustling and smuggling and the iconic decisive hardware from the battle of Endor that could have made for a gate guardian outside Resistance HQ is back to unrecognisable junk.
The Last Jedi has a strong anti-individualist message: the opening scene shows ace pilot Poe Dameron performing heroic deeds but disobeying orders leading to the death of Resistance pilots- for this insubordination General Leia Organa reprimands and demotes him. His individuality is shown to be toxic to the cause. We see many other acts of individual heroism but they are shown to only have value if they are suicidal - this serves a dual purpose for the Resistance: they stall the First Order and they also rid the Resistance of an individualist. Individual acts of heroism are tolerable if the price is paid by the individual not the collective - and collectivisation increases if there's one less individual on board. Individuality has value as a latent resource that the Resistance subordinate can activate as one final act to elevate their status - but it is only hallowed if they don't return, otherwise they're penalised. Luke Skywalker ultimately takes the same path after prodding from Yoda about the folly of his adherence to any material manifestations of the Jedi tradition of imparting knowledge of the force and thereby mentoring others. Luke is the ultimate individual in the movie, the cult of personality the Resistance have been risking everything to locate and rehabilitate. He is allowed the dignity of committing suicide on his own terms, just as long as he disappears according to the collective's guidelines on individualism (stalling the First Order, then dying) right after Poe informs the Resistance that Luke Skywalker no longer "sparks hope" only the collective can, at the turning point where he realises his own individuality is toxic, egged on by Leia to become the team player who can run the fastest in the tunnels of Crait.
In this new trilogy, force powers are no longer latent or inherited, force users arrive well formed without any apparent need for mentoring. This film shows Jedi training to be fraught as it takes the mentored to the height of their powers whilst relying on the Jedi doctrine to levy their free will - this is risky as they can choose the dark side and thereby further the conflict. The Last Jedi posits that it is much better to do away with mentoring altogether... the force user will not hit their individual potential but it's a lower risk for the collective if they don't. The tradition of Jedi mentoring is shown to be the junction point where the entire conflict emerges. After Rey abandons her Jedi training, Kylo Ren reveals she is a nobody born to junkers - she declines his offer of a high status role in the conflict instead finding purpose as a force powered rock lifting machine. When she does this, she is not a trained Jedi, she is a mere Resistance worker who uses her innate skill to help the cause. She has no baggage of royal lineage like Ren, she isn't special - she fits right in with the collective. This is the new aspirational image of the good force bearer: a low status worker in the service of the people.
DJ (Bencio Del Toro's Judas/hustler character) showed the iconic machinery of the 2 sides to be from the same source - analogous to the problematic Jedi training that can swing both ways. So, what separates the First Order and the Resistance? In the final image of the film the Resistance is shown to offer hope to an oppressed child labourer who demonstrates force powers and adopts a Jedi stance - but in the context of the preceding narrative the value of the Jedi is now reduced to a second order image repertoire, aligned to the collectivised Resistance, divorced from previous ideas of individualism, heroism, unquantifiable mysticism, mentoring, tradition and doctrines. It has now been reshaped to inspire a new generation of prosaic force users to subjugate the basic machinery of their powers to the collective will of the Resistance. The limitation of massive human potential to manual labour (lifting rocks!) and a Fahrenheit 451 style knowledge-suppressing library burning are the key images of this advertisement for a totalitarian suppression of individualism. It's a world of lowered expectations of individual achievement, reduced risk and a safer collective.
There are echoes of the Maoist implementation of Marxism-Lenism in China (a.k.a. the Cultural Revolution) which led to the brutal slaying of the bourgeoisie - not only the teachers, factory managers and business owners (small and large), but also the artists, writers and individual thinkers who didn't fit with the revolutionary class consciousness demanded by the new society. The takeover of the Star Wars franchise by The Walt Disney Company has now shown a similar approach to the Jedi creed and it's adherents: the entire project and Luke Skywalker have been liquidated and force users are now deindividuated class conscious nobodies who perform manual labour in the interest of the oppressed people - the Resistance.
The message of this film: mediocrity is the price of safety. The last Jedi indeed - tall poppy syndrome took care of that one.
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This is only getting 2 stars as its star wars, should be 0. This was a massive kick in the teeth to the hardcore fans and the great work Disney have done with the last two films.
Was so excited to see the next episode after JJ did a good job with force awakens. What a joke last jedi was from start to finish. The call between Hux (who i cannot stand) and Po was a joke and this was the start of my cinema head in hands, huffing etc. Should have Po on his own in a X wing taking on the entire empire considering his invincible flying.
To base the main story on a horrendous space chase which contained no common sense (why didn't the empire light speed half its fleet in front of the rebels?) including the rebels deciding after so many died to finally crash their mother ship into the empire to save the day was embarrassing to say the least.
I could moan on about the pathetic jokes and moments forever (inc luke lightsaber toss, shoulder brush off, milking a alien, pointless nun aliens, equivalent of pod racing with giant cows and silly children that annoyed me as much as anakin and his little mates in menace) and the plot holes like Rey's sudden appearance on the Falcon from Snoke's flagship after his ludicrous demise and i'm still angry about it all now, 4 days after seeing it.
was the casino scene just to allow bb8 to be filled with coins to take out a imperial? Total waste of time.
The luke saber toss ruined the amazing tension set up at the end of force awakens with a casual joke.
what training did Rey actually get? I was expecting great things after the force awakens. Considering how automatically tuff she is perhaps she doesn't need it.
Whats was the point of the dark side area on luke's island that Rey visited? Nothing happened, not even to the extent of Luke in the cave on dagobah.
where were the knights of ren in the flashbacks and perhaps some visuals of ren and the other students.
less said about super leia the better.
There are so many other stinky moments and very little if any scenes worthy of even the last 2 films, let alone the classic original trilogy.
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1/10
Not-Luke, stupid humour, pointless plot points, flat characters, not SW fun enough - needs a redo (seriously)
The story points are so dumb, the humour is very badly put in serious / interesting parts, and the characters are not smart or true to themselves. There are some really good things, but they are massively overshadowed by the bad things. This movie is so much worse than SW7... it's on part with the stupidity of Rogue One's story points and use of characters.
SDestroyer would have sent out faster bombers (Tie bombers) to take out the main ship... end of story
They would have used a droid (eg. BB-8) to hyperspace a smaller ship through the bridge of the bigger ship if that was possible... end of story
Luke maybe was a hermit... okay, I understand his sadness / motivation, but there's no way he would have stayed away... that's not in his nature. You can see him struggle in ESB, but he sees Yoda raise the ship because he doubts and that is why he fails... he would have come around. He would have raised his x-wing from the depths, taken R2-D2, and away he'd follow Rey etc. It is NOT in his character to be mentally defeated like this. It ruins the whole story arc and everything he seems to stand for... and how that DEFINED the star wars experience.
Him flinging the lightsaber behind him was soooo stupid. Awkward humour... wrecking the weight of the situation. And this was done again where you should reach for the ___... literal reaching. Dumb humour. Ruining a moment that many fans were waiting for. This type of humour is very misplaced. Some humour is great (eg. han saying tauntauns smell bad on the outside as he's cutting it up... but it will keep you warm). Somebody needs a lesson in how to not mess the feeling of the story up. What the hell? Who okayed this slapstick attempt at humour... AND FROM LUKE??? No... he is not old-yoda.
Someone would have taken Admiral __'s place
the infiltration of the SDestroyer was a total waste of time, and the trip to get the master code breaker. I know they freed the horse and the stable boy now has hope, but other than that, the whole story arc was a waste.
... and now Rose loves Finn (?)... weak
What were they trying to accomplish by sending out the super-old skimmers against the mega sized atats???!!! It would have been cool if they had accomplished ANYTHING... maybe brought one down using the acidic dust churned up with the ski... then the atats start to disolve and fall over. Not all of them, then the story kicks back in, but to have them all die basically... just like all the bombers???!!!! What the hell? Nobody (including Poe) is this stupid.
-Snoke going into Rey and Kylo's heads and then to facilitate a connection is dumb. That's too powerful... this is why Superman is so much worse of a character than Spider-man. If the character is actually so powerful, it's not interesting. It's cool that Kylo could mask his feelings / thoughts, and that's a great way for him to Darth-Sidious his way into control... but the general way Kylo brings Rey in is so dumb.
... there are so many ways this could have gone better. Hey SW... hire me to come up with ideas. This stuff you're doing is not reasonable.
eg. If Luke doesn't want to be found, what the hell is the map in SW7 for and who made it!?... and if Luke didn't turn R2D2 back on, are you telling me the force turned him on? It's more awesome if Luke does it... and it's more in line with his character.
... which is something that is absolutely ignored in SW8 (SW7 was mostly great, but SW8 is so much worse because of problems that SEEM small to you guys in production).
BB-9E should have battled BB-8, or at least BB-8 could have taken him out with the ATST... anything???? nope. Huge FUN Star Wars opportunity LOST! There are so many things you could have done to make it FUN and star warsy... nope. Such a waste.
so where did Snoke come from?... nothing... not even a little bit? - great movie plot opportunity lost.
how did Snoke find Kylo?... nothing? - great movie plot opportunity lost.
knights of Ren?... nothing? - great movie plot opportunity lost.
Snoke in SW7 acts like being the master of the knights of ren is a big deal... but in this movie, he's scolding Kylo for wearing a helmet JUST like the knights of ren do. - sooooo stupid.
... have someone check for consistency!!!!!... it matters!
Chewy leads the tie fighters away... skier speeders still all get destroyed. - whole thing, flying under the surface basically pointless
Poe's revelation about winning a battle where almost everyone dies (bombers all die) is so absolutely dumb. From SW7, he's a smart clever guy. There's no way he could have thought that was okay... and there's no way he values life so little (eg. seeing Finn or BB-8 again). Give me a BREAK! There's no way he'd be okay seeing numerous friends in the bombers just die. This story is retarded. Someone must see this was a mistake!??... and in SW4-6, it was a big deal going out to war... everyone busy and helping and comerarery...
... nothing? - great movie plot opportunity lost. (I know it was the beginning of the movie, but still)
It was great how Poe took out all the guns before the bombers came. It would have been better to see the bombers accomplish anything before all-but-one died. So, in summary, ALL the bombers blew up for that ONE bad-guy ship... and Poe was okay with those odds? No. Anyone can see this is stupid.
The bombers could have swooped around at least a little (?), and maybe bombed something with little results to validate their numbers and hulking existance. So stupid... but you guys get to sell toys. And all the kids can go - watch my bomber blow up without doing anything too! (you should put that in the commercials... that's the intelligence level you're aiming at). They all die without doing anything!!!???... except for one that uses gravity in space with the bomb doors open (?) for the remote to fall and then the bombs fall. Come on! Ask anyone to fact-check any of this (even within what's sci-fi reasonable). There are other ways you could have accomplished this without it being so dumb.
Why the hell is there a remote for the bombs? The control would be in the control panel. This is on the same level of stupid as the *other* computer for alignment in Rogue One where she has to walk out on a catwalk and then nearly fall etc.
Luke almost didn't help Rey with any training... and now she knows all that's in the books? Wow. - HUGE opportunities lost to make the story WAY more interesting. I can't say how stupid this is... so many interesting ways to go, and at least leave the door open for more in future movies? Why does yoda say she knows all she needs?... so she's a Jedi after learning 2 things (can't remember the 3rd), and not getting any lightsaber form training from Luke... or anything else (no standing on your head and levitating rocks type of cool challenges?). I would have loved something more. It's like you guys meant to jump the shark on purpose... but why? Why truncate what could have been the coolest part of the movie for many fans who love the mystery of what a Jedi is and how they become one. So it's 3 steps... that's it? Done?
the black hole under the island... it's a mirror. Come on!!!!!!!! That could have been epic if there was actually something profound (eg. the SW5 tree where Luke fights vader and ends up seeing himself in his perceived enemy). Where the hell is the profoundness / message in seeing a reflection of yourself off into the distance that "is not infinite"... then we get to the 'end'... and it's still just you. No revelations about parents, or the force, or even ANYTHING about the darkness down there.
... nothing? - great movie plot opportunity lost. Huge fun opportunity lost.
SW is supposed to have fun stuff (like Poe taking out the cannons), but there should be a force-luck-related reason. So, Rey gets pulled into the black hole, goes for a swim, sees many reflections of herself, and then climbs back up and tells Luke about it. That's so dumb and pointless.
the use of 2D characters is about on par with how bad Rogue One was in the story / logic department.
Rogue One was GREAT for space battles, but there's the story and the logic behind character motivations... and then there's the FUN that must be in every Star Wars movie.
I hope SW9 does this better. Someone should have dealt with the stupid Michael-Bay type jokes that ruin the feeling of the movie. I can't believe nobody caught this or fealt strongly how I do. It's so weird that these 'jokes' made their way in... there are not many, but they are profoundly wrong and they STRONGLY pull you out of the moment (eg. learning about the force... JOKE!)... you have cancer... JOKE! There are good times for jokes and bad times for jokes. Learn the difference.
Spend MORE time on the small things (interesting story points, consistency, etc.) rather than spending little time on everything (and ignoring the character motivations?). SW7 was so much better in this regard. It was completely FULL of quality content (much more than people claim).
Great special effects alone does not make a movie good... eg. Rogue One.
You need more good clever ideas to build the characters and the plot (with a story that makes sense) while maintaining continuity and allowing characters to be true to themselves. Hire me for ideas! I'd love to help.
There are so many problems with this movie that overall wreck it hard, but there are great things too...
Great things:
Leia everything
some of Luke as a hermit and his stubbornness and explaining his sadness and unwillingness to help
Luke with Leia
Poe and Admiral __'s issue where you're not sure who's right
no sound when the SDestroyer gets light-speeded
cinematography was great... epic shots... very well done
Unfortunately, the few bad things STRONGLY destroy the feeling of the film and do not let the good things shine.
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8/10
Give it a chance, experiance it yourself and don't listen to the reviews.
I'll try and wrap up this review very quickly. This is a movie you need to experience yourself. Rating it by comparing it to the other Star Wars movies is something you perhaps shouldn't do, but if you do it then it is perfectly fine. Why you may ask? Because it is different. It promised to be different and it is different. This is not your every Star Wars movie and this is truly something new and a utterly new take.
Star Wars means a lot of things to many different people. I personally believe that the fact that this movie did not stick to the general star wars formula and took risks and tried to break stereotypes was a good thing. I love it for that. However despite this it cannot be denied that many things will depend on your taste, and some things out-right are not good in general and noticeable flaws.
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It's about conflict and balance. That's what the whole of the Star Wars saga has been about. Luke and Snoke are at opposite ends of the Force spectrum and both meet their ends in this film. Dealing with internal conflict over which side to choose, Kylo kills his master after deciding to save the life of a person he clearly has connection with. Sounds similar to how Vader betrays the Emperor doesn't it? Luke exiles himself on a remote planet after seeing himself as having failed the Jedi order, which parallels Yoda's journey between episodes 3 and 4. Having turned his back on the Force, he continues with his struggle to find his position. Why retreat to an ancient Jedi island if you're through with the religion? He decides to burn the Jedi texts before changing his mind, even trying to rush in an rescue them once Yoda makes the decision for him. His words and actions contradict one another until he finally re-embraces the Force, provides a distraction for the beleaguered Resistance and finds redemption by sacrificing himself to save the day. Again, his arc mirrors that of both his father and his first master, Obi Wan.
In this film we see more than in TFA that Kylo and Rey are different sides of the same coin. Their hostility carries through from TFA until Rey senses good within Kylo during their Force chats and allows herself to be cuffed and taken into custody, just as Luke did in RotJ. The light within Kylo seems to win through as they work together to defeat Snoke's guards. They have the same goal - the end to the war - but chose different paths to get there, and, after realising this difference, are at odds again. It's worth noting that Kylo offers Rey the opportunity to rule alongside him, just as Vader did to Luke, and Anakin did to Padme.
I understand the grievances about the storyline and the character arcs but look at the message and themes of the film and how it ties into the saga as a whole. We often hear about balance in the Force but, for me, in TLJ, it's the first time we see signs of it. It's this symmetry which brings together the prequels and original trilogy, that really makes the film stand out.
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1/10
Disney should be ashamed to destroy this saga like that !
I mainly made an account to post that review and balance all the excellent one bought by Disney ! It's a scandal to use money like that it should be FORBIDDEN !! It' should be a crime ! Not only to buy good review on your movie but also to destroy such a nice saga. Lucas must regret so badly having sell his creation to that company without soul.
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This movie is full of plot holes, no character development or any idea how or what the Star Wars universe has become in since the first movie came out. How can you start making a movie with no general idea on what would be best....oh, wait i know... MONEY!!!
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As someone stated on a message board, "I should have known that it was horrible from the moment that I read that George Lucas loved it." Like his prequels, it seemed like they were just throwing CG garbage on the screen for the sake of throwing CG garbage on the screen. Most of the scenes between Rose and Finn were the worst offenders. It seemed like their side adventure was getting deeper and deeper into the realm of a Saturday morning cartoon. It culminated in an ultra-goofy moment when BB8 is revealed to be the thing that it shooting up a bridge. He/it looked completely unnatural in that moment like it was in a Space Jam movie. I know that even a lot of J.J. Abrams's critics admit now that there is something to be said for using CG sparingly as he did.
People have praised Mark Hamill's performance, and I agree with them-- for the most part. When I read all of the spoilers in advance, I thought that when I actually watched the movie, Luke's death-- as moronic as it was-- would at least cause me to shed a few tears. Nope. Instead, it looked like (sorry to sensitive readers) a constipated man was trying to defecate and somehow forced a smile in the middle of it. Luke died an undignified, Elvis Presley-like death. And I felt nothing. Later they said, "he died in peace." Really? That intense, sweaty expression was the exact opposite of peaceful. If Rian Johnson were a real director he would have said, "please just look at the sunset in the same manner that you did in the first film." But let's be real-- he probably *was* taking on that expression, then Johnson ordered him to look like Elvis in his last hours.
In addition to the bad CG, there is just god awful video editing in general. There were a lot of awkward cuts in the scenes and between scenes that just took me out of the film. It's why people complain about the film's pacing.
It somehow got a few things right: I enjoyed the lightsaber teamup battle with Kylo and Rey throwing down against Snoke's elite guards. The striking red colors in that set the scene in that battle really impressed me. I guess that it's one thing that Rian Johnson read about Star Wars lore-- the red guard is fierce. Unfortunately, they seemed like a much fiercer challenge than Snoke ever presented, which is laughable. Why didn't they just strike them down themselves if he was that weak? It's one of the tenets of the dark side: if an underling senses a master's weakness he pounces on it, and in the spirit of evolution and keeping the chain strong, the master welcomes the challenge. I can't imagine any dark side "master" was ever as weak as Snoke.
I also enjoyed... well, the porgs. And, frankly, the porgs, as loveable as they are, should not have been one of the few "great" highlights from the film.
This thing is just as depressing as the ardent fans are stating. I know that Abrams will direct the next film (thank god), but I doubt that I will care much about it. And each film that Rian Johnson makes in the next trilogy will just feel like a painful chore for me to watch. The man just does not know how to make a Star Wars film.
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At about two hours I started to get bored. It is a good movie but it is too long, mostly due to the fillers that have no relevance to the story. Why did we need to see Luke milking that sea giraffe? What was the deal with those bird looking things that Chewy brought onboard the Falcon as a snack? And flying in tight spaces? And the entire part down on that casino planet which name I've already forgotten. So much time wasted with so little content and relevance.
And all the things they can do with the Force with virtually no training these days. That is some Deus Ex Machina shit right there.
I think the best that could happen to The Last Jedi is that some creative soul gives it The Phantom Menace treatment, where they removed Jar Jar Binks. Removing the fillers could probably shave off at least thirty minutes and improve the story a whole lot.
I grew up with the original trilogy but i totally get the need for killing off the original cast and introduce younger characters with more appeal to the target audience. That is not really an issue. I'd wish they could have decided on whether this is a kids movie or a movie for teenagers. Some parts are just silly, but then they go totally Game of Thrones on the Rebels in other parts. I don't understand how they thought trying to cover that wide a age range would be a good idea.
I am not really disappointed. The good parts of The Last Jedi are very good. I'm a little bit indifferent though, like, I've wathced it, but I don't need to watch it again.
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1/10
So disappointed, a disrespect to the Star Wars story
I can't believe what I just spent time watching. I am horrified that this is now Star Wars cannon. It was a parody. It mocked meaningful things about Star Wars' lore. Whereas the original movies had funny moments in an overall serious story, this was about poorly turned jokes at every possible moment. It was like watching current day fanboys play at Star Wars. Characters even showed fandom over Luke Skywalker, which was annoying because they are supposed to be part of the Star Wars story too, not outside fans.
So many plot holes, too many jokes and was poorly thought out. All the questions raised in TFA were either not answered at all or made meaningless in this movie. The storyline was not a story at all, nothing moves forward, no character development, nothing to look forward to.
The casino/codebreaker/Rose subplot was ridiculous, felt cheesy and insignificant to the overall story. That whole section was a waste of time and felt more like a Disney teenager movie. Rose "saving" Finn towards the end was just plain stupid. The Rose character was irritating and her voice sounded like an animated Disney princess. The purple lady looked more appropriate for The Hunger Games franchise or as a Disney fairygodmother.
Leia in space, that whole scene, I just can't even... I have no words for that. It was ridiculous. And Luke. They ruined his character. They took what was pure and made it weak and pathetic. What he does with the lightsaber was absolute slapstick. They were calling him a Jedi Master, instead they made him a Jedi fool. I am crushed.
Too many PC messages, it overtook the story. I am a woman, I support feminism. But sometimes a story should just be a story and not used as a forum to convey current PC issues as if it were an after school special for children. There are things to be said about subtlety.
I feel like they'll probably come out with more information about Rey's parentage in the next movie. I don't believe they'll leave it at this. I think they're trying to do something clever, key word: trying.
I felt like I was watching a movie of kids having tantrums, of magically being able to do things that others had to work for, of inconsistencies and flakiness, where everything is done irresponsibly and badly but still has a positive ending. It was a millennial teenage movie. They clearly were trying to convey "a passing of the torch" to a new generation, it was just badly done.
This was not made by people who like and respect Star Wars.
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Finn < Jar Jar, Rei = Not Enough, Kylo = Not Even Close, Snoke Story = Epic Fail, Hux = Too soft, Plasma = Pointless, Maz = Joke, Poe = OK, BB8 <3, Luke Character Destroyed, Leia = lmfao, Scenario = null
This is not Star Wars. This is the end of Star Wars and start of something new.
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I've seen the plot before... only better. A ragtag bunch of ships fleeing from an enemy that pursues them relentlessly. They are being tracked and can't escape. Dogfights in space and several plans to escape the tracking. It's the episode "33" from Battlestar Galactica. Only they cut back on the fighters (why?), had them running out of fuel (why?) and had no interesting character arcs, development or tension.
The film begins with a single X-Wing stopping a fleet using jokes and relying on the first order holding the idiot ball. I first started screaming internally "deploy the TIE fighters!" and "Just shoot them!" at this point, I don't think I ever stopped mentally screaming that as scene after scene relied on the first order being useless idiots. TIE fighters are expendable, you have a numerical advantage... big ships struggle to shoot little ships so you always need a fighter escort and there is absolutely nothing stopping them throwing wave after wave of cheap fighters at the last enemy they have. *shudders*
The funny thing is that turned out to have been the best bit of the movie... I'm not sure how it managed to get worse from there but it did:
Rey is a Mary Sue character.... fine, easy to sum up in one clear description... but still abysmally poor writing with no character arc, weaknesses or development to make her even slightly interesting.
Snoke was incomplete, the outline of a character. Perhaps he'll be raised from the dead and fleshed-out, given a backstory and motivation so we can get a proper boss battle later rather than merely the evil speech.
Luke's legacy was thrown away as quickly as his lightsaber, his character torn to shreds as they make him into a murderous uncle.
Poe, Finn and Rose had a silly sub-plot and terrible case of poor communication kills after they ask "what's the plan" and are insulted in response. The concepts here sound good on paper - explore the corrupt and wealthy side of the galaxy, show the next generation of the rebellion growing up and being inspired. Ask the question, if we fund these arms merchants are we part of the problem? The execution is painfully bad and entirely detached from the main story.
Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (I had to look up her name) is one of the rebels holding the idiot ball. Her lack of communication kills the rebel plans and causes a mutiny and then she steals a death scene that would have been better fitting for either Leia's death number 2 or for the beloved Admiral Akbar.
Leia had a perfectly decent death scene... which they immediately and utterly ruined by reviving her and making her Mary Poppins/Deux Ex Machina her way back into the ship. Adding new powers when the plot demands it was the theme of the movie - Leia using the force to fly through space, Rey connecting with Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren evading Snoke's mental eavesdropping, Snoke creating a bridge between characters, Luke astral-projecting himself to other worlds, Luke dying from the astral projection. If Luke was going to die anyway why not just fly in his underwater X-Wing? It's survived a swamp before, you didn't need to make a new power here... or in any of these cases.
*shudders*
Talking about new powers we have to mention the worst sin of all... using ships to faster-than-light ram through other ships was the biggest, most idiotic thing I have ever seen. In one moment it introduces the largest error, logical inconsistency and idiotic plot hole of all time into the franchise. The clone wars involved Jedi, clones and robots... imagine how those battles would have gone if they could smash disposable crews into each other. Or perhaps picture the Death Star being destroyed easily by a single automated cargo ship. Who needs weapons, pilots, crews and shields when you can tele-frag an entire fleet with 1 ship? I actually like the idea that realism may one day enter sci-fi fantasy, I hope we will wonder about how to prevent lone terrorists with spaceships from using their drives to accelerate themselves or asteroids to relativistic speeds and cause mayhem... but that's not this film. In this film it's used as a deus ex machina that breaks the logic of the universe and ignores every other film.
I keep wanting to add more to the list of issues, I have to stop at some point but know that I have barely scratched the surface: They phone people while the plot involves them being unable to send a distress beacon, they send out lots of ships that the first order ignore/do not see despite them having super-advanced sensors (on all the ships! So they could even send one to follow them easily) that can even track through lightspace (a gravity well generator would have made more sense, that stops them jumping away entirely and is already part of the universe... but then they couldn't have had the stupid sub-plot either)
Anyway...
TL;DR Do not pay to watch this. Watch "33" from Battlestar Galactica if you want to experience a better version of the story. This film is riddled with plot holes, deus ex machinas, Mary Sue characters and generally bad writing.
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I mean, pretty much a Star Wars film through and through. I'm shocked that it;s this film that fans are going crazy for. Ridiculous. Anyways, it's good. As others have said, I do think that it's more flawed than The Force Awakens, and sometimes a little more boring, but other times it's also more intense and exciting. Overall, it's pretty standard and pretty much on the same level as TFA. I don't see how people could get so passionate about their annoyance with it though. And it doesn't hold a candle to Blade Runner 2049 (not that it ever was going to).
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1/10
great parts but stupid humor, not-Luke, and dumb plot points wrecked it
SDestroyer would have sent out faster bombers (Tie bombers) to take out the main ship... end of story
They would have used a droid (eg. BB-8) to hyperspace a smaller ship through the bridge of the bigger ship if that was possible... end of story
Luke maybe was a hermit... okay, I understand his sadness / motivation, but there's no way he would have stayed away... that's not in his nature. You can see him struggle in ESB, but he sees Yoda raise the ship because he doubts and that is why he fails... he would have come around. He would have raised his x-wing from the depths, taken R2-D2, and away he'd follow Rey etc. It is NOT in his character to be mentally defeated like this. It ruins the whole story arc and everything he seems to stand for... and how that DEFINED the star wars experience.
Him flinging the lightsaber behind him was soooo stupid. Awkward humour... wrecking the weight of the situation. And this was done again where you should reach for the ___... literal reaching. Dumb humour. Ruining a moment that many fans were waiting for. This type of humour is very misplaced. Some humour is great (eg. han saying tauntauns smell bad on the outside as he's cutting it up... but it will keep you warm). Somebody needs a lesson in how to not mess the feeling of the story up. What the hell? Who okayed this slapstick attempt at humour... AND FROM LUKE??? No... he is not old-yoda.
Someone would have taken Admiral __'s place
the infiltration of the SDestroyer was a total waste of time, and the trip to get the master code breaker. I know they freed the horse and the stable boy now has hope, but other than that, the whole story arc was a waste.
... and now Rose loves Finn (?)... weak
What were they trying to accomplish by sending out the super-old skimmers against the mega sized atats???!!! It would have been cool if they had accomplished ANYTHING... maybe brought one down using the acidic dust churned up with the ski... then the atats start to disolve and fall over. Not all of them, then the story kicks back in, but to have them all die basically... just like all the bombers???!!!! What the hell? Nobody (including Poe) is this stupid.
-Snoke going into Rey and Kylo's heads and then to facilitate a connection is dumb. That's too powerful... this is why Superman is so much worse of a character than Spider-man. If the character is actually so powerful, it's not interesting. It's cool that Kylo could mask his feelings / thoughts, and that's a great way for him to Darth-Sidious his way into control... but the general way Kylo brings Rey in is so dumb.
... there are so many ways this could have gone better. Hey SW... hire me to come up with ideas. This stuff you're doing is not reasonable.
eg. If Luke doesn't want to be found, what the hell is the map in SW7 for and who made it!?... and if Luke didn't turn R2D2 back on, are you tellling me the force turned him on? It's more awesome if Luke does it... and it's more in line with his character.
... which is something that is absolutely ignored in SW8 (SW& was mostly great, but SW8 is so much worse because of problems that SEEM small to you guys in production).
BB-9E should have battled BB-8, or at least BB-8 could have taken him out with the ATST... anything???? nope. Huge FUN Star Wars opportunity LOST! There are so many things you could have done to make it FUN and star warsy... nope. Such a waste.
so where did Snoke come from?... nothing... not even a little bit? - great movie plot opportunity lost.
how did Snoke find Kylo?... nothing? - great movie plot opportunity lost.
Chewy leads the tie fighters away... skier speeders still all get destroyed. - whole thing basically pointless
Poe's revelation about winning a battle where almost everyone dies (bombers all die) is so absolutely dumb. From SW7, he's a smart clever guy. There's no way he could have thought that was okay... and there's no way he values life so little (eg. seeing Finn or BB-8 again). Give me a BREAK! There's no way he'd be okay seeing numerous friends in the bombers just die. This story is retarded. Someone must see this was a mistake!??... and in SW4-6, it was a big deal going out to war... everyone busy and helping and comerarery...
... nothing? - great movie plot opportunity lost. (I know it was the beginning of the movie, but still)
It was great how Poe took out all the guns before the bombers came. It would have been better to see the bombers accomplish anything before all-but-one died. So, in summary, ALL the bombers blew up for that ONE bad-guy ship... and Poe was okay with those odds? No. Anyone can see this is stupid.
The bombers could have swooped around at least a little (?), and maybe bombed something with little results to validate their numbers and hulking existance. So stupid... but you guys get to sell toys. And all the kids can go - watch my bomber blow up without doing anything too! (you should put that in the commercials... that's the intelligence level you're aiming at). They all die without doing anything!!!???... except for one that uses gravity in space with the bomb doors open (?) for the remote to fall and then the bombs fall. Come on! Ask anyone to fact-check any of this (even within what's sci-fi reasonable). There are other ways you could have accomplished this without it being so dumb.
Why the hell is there a remote for the bombs? The control would be in the control panel. This is on the same level of stupid as the *other* computer for alignment in Rogue One where she has to walk out on a catwalk and then nearly fall etc.
Luke almost didn't help Rey with any training... and now she knows all that's in the books? Wow. - HUGE opportunities lost to make the story WAY more interesting. I can't say how stupid this is... so many interesting ways to go, and at least leave the door open for more in future movies? Why does yoda say she knows all she needs?... so she's a Jedi after learning 2 things (can't remember the 3rd), and not getting any lightsaber form training from Luke... or anything else (no standing on your head and levitating rocks type of cool challenges?). I would have loved something more. It's like you guys meant to jump the shark on purpose... but why? Why truncate what could have been the coolest part of the movie for many fans who love the mystery of what a Jedi is and how they become one. So it's 3 steps... that's it? Done?
the black hole under the island... it's a mirror. Come on!!!!!!!! That could have been epic if there was actually something profound (eg. the SW5 tree where Luke fights vader and ends up seeing himself in his perceived enemy). Where the hell is the profoundness / message in seeing a reflection of yourself off into the distance that "is not infinite"... then we get to the 'end'... and it's still just you. No revelations about parents, or the force, or even ANYTHING about the darkness down there.
... nothing? - great movie plot opportunity lost. Huge fun opportunity lost.
SW is supposed to have fun stuff (like Poe taking out the cannons), but there should be a force-luck-related reason. So, Rey gets pulled into the black hole, goes for a swim, sees many reflections of herself, and then climbs back up and tells Luke about it. That's so dumb and pointless.
the use of 2D characters is about on par with how bad Rogue One was in the story / logic department.
Rogue One was GREAT for space battles, but there's the story and the logic behind character motivations... and then there's the FUN that must be in every Star Wars movie.
I hope SW9 does this better. Someone should have dealt with the stupid Michael-Bay type jokes that ruin the feeling of the movie. I can't believe nobody caught this or fealt strongly how I do. It's so weird that these 'jokes' made their way in... there are not many, but they are profoundly wrong and they STRONGLY pull you out of the moment (eg. learning about the force... JOKE!)... you have cancer... JOKE! There are good times for jokes and bad times for jokes. Learn the difference.
There are so many problems with this movie that overall wreck it hard, but there are great things too...
Great things:
Leia everything
some of Luke as a hermit and his stubornness and explaining his sadness and unwillingness to help
Luke with Leia
Poe and Admiral __'s issue where you're not sure who's right
no sound when the SDestroyer gets light-speeded
cinematography was great... epic shots... very well done
Unfortunately, the few bad things STRONGLY destroy the feeling of the film and do not let the good things shine enough.
The story needs to be good. The characters need to be true to themselves. Luke is not anywhere close to luke-enough.
This movie seriously needs a redo with good ideas and story points that make sense. This movie is a mess in that regard.
I'm glad JJ is doing SW9. Keep Ryan's humour out of it please.
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1/10
This "New Direction" - ins't what Star Wars feels like...
Star Wars is a world of details. Small tiny, but recognizeble details. Despite everything we can say about the prequels, the rule for attention to detail and a certain "seriousness" of the narrative (even with the whole "humor" thing, wich was actually not so annoying, as it's obvious now after TLJ). After Lucas left there were so many lines about the "new direction" for SW and the "new generation of the fandom" - well, I guess this movie is supposed to be OK for this ghostly new generation, I don't wanna be part of.
So the movie. SPOILERS AHEAD!!
I'm not a critic or a person who can say that I make reviewing Cinema a living, but I am a fan, and as I understand and respect other people's right to have\express their opinion, I undersand mine to do so. So, here goes.
1st.
Humor... Oh, my I don't even know where to start.. I wanted to smash something, after I walked out of the cinema. WHY tell me, why do we have to witness SO much humor in today's movies!? Especially at a moment when a whole bunch off characters is about to die (rebel Base evacuation). Poe Demeron trolling Hux over radio... Seriosly!? Luke milking an alien trough its penises?!? Throwing away his father's lightsaber?!?! Fish-nuns!? Rey almost killing two keepers with a piece of rock?! Leia superwomaning in space, yet the airlock she opens doesn't suck anyone to space, Akbar is killed off stupidly... The dialogs sound like they're written by a stand-up comic. Shirtless Kylo - why?!?!?! so, this is a overstuffed with humor not-kinda something movie, wich starts to bore the sh*t out of you after half an hour.
2nd.
Plot. Oh man.... I'm pretty sure Large Capital ships in the SW Universe DO NOT NEED FUEL. As far as I remember they have reactors connected to the drive (those who don't believe me can check the old battlefront II space missions where you MUST DESTROY THE GENERATOR on the ship). So the main plot - is the dummiest ever: slow chase!? Charaters come and go, ships fly to and from the Rebel ship unnoticed, Hux acts like he's a 5 year-old girl.( For all those who will say I'm a complaining fanboy - that's your opinion and this is mine. So, you know, as you all say, "deal with it". From the opening scene to the last one the movie doesn't feel as Star Wars at all. You can tell that from the very first sequence of obviously 3d oriented of running the camera through the escaping resistance transports. The gravity - yeah, this heartless bitch, as well as the force isn't with this movie either. The bombs star to fall down from the bomber as if they were pulled down by something - BUT THERE S now gravity there! It is of course inside the First order ship, but obviously it would be ridiculous if the ship itself could attract nearby objects! This is just stupid. It wolud have pulled down the bomber itself as well!
So it turns out, this is not a review in general, it's more of a list of terrible, impossible to witness things that leave you empty and devastated after seeing a new installement in the Galaxy far far away. For me, the SW saga ended with Rogue one. The last movie to give me the old, Star Wars feel.
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This movie, is one of the biggest atrocities ever committed in cinema history. After the previous movie, Episode VII I was very optimistic that we were in for a real treat. I was shockingly mistaken. From the beginning this movie lacked any sort of a legitimate believable plot. For what plot there is it is butchered together with many far reaching scenarios and garbage acting. Another thing that made this movie stink out loud is that lousy comedy sprinkled throughout. There was no need for the wise crack jokes in the serious moments of this film. It is sad for me to say but the Disney "PC" culture took over this movie. Kylo Ren was more often crying in an elevator being soft, than actually being a villain. But hey, at least we knew his feelings, right? The overall biggest disgrace in this film is the way Luke portrayed. The great hero we used to know is only replaced by some scared, grumpy old man. I cannot believe Disney could screw up one of the great characters in cinematic history but they certainly did a great job of screwing it up I must say. It is only fitting the company that destroyed ESPN also destroys Star Wars. To all Star Wars fans out there, stay home, do not waste your time, money, and emotions on this complete waste. Just live with the first seven episodes and enjoy the ride that was. Don't ruin it by watching this horrible movie. In fact this movie is so bad it makes the other seven movies not as good to me anymore. How is that possible Disney? You guys ruin everything. Way to go.
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I've been using IMDB for 15 years and this is the first time I have ever logged in to write a review.
In fact it's less of a review but more of chance to vent my disappointment and disgust with this film. What the hell happened? We have a massive budget, a director who I really appreciate, a fantastic new cast and it's great that we have some of the old cast not just for the purposes of nostalgia but also because they are a massive part of the Star Wars history and narrative.
Then what we are presented with is an incredibly lazy and disjointed script, wooden acting, really poor choreography and the laugh a minute gag reel kills the tone that was set up in TFA. TFA wasn't perfect but it left me leaving the cinema pretty pumped and really looking forward to the next installment. This left me feeling numb, frustrated and even a bit confused.
I hope that this can be turned around in the next installment. No doubt this film will make a ton of money and I'll still stick by the Star Wars franchise. But I'm quite happy to omit this one from my memory.
1 star for the visuals though, especially in Snoke's throne room.
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I was really disappointed with this movie. And I can't understand why all the critics are so enthusiastic. I admit the movie is skillfully made, but as a Star Wars movie it is a total bummer. And this for a very simple reason: nothing works. This is not a heroic movie, it is a slaughter. And ultimately it doesn't move the Star Wars saga much further: all the progression in the story and development of the characters could be told in ten minutes in the next Star Wars. So pretty pointless.
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4/10
Spoilers!! And the Biggest Cinematic Letdown of my 39 Years, unapologetically written from the perspective of my rambling inner brat
SPOILERS: Grief is one of those processes that do not sink in immediately, and one that best describes what I feel after sitting through and processing this movie. As the big plot twist Is finally revealed after a few teases-did he just-oh wait, there he is!! Phew....WHAT!-I found myself smiling, maybe wincing and grimacing at my fellow movie-goer, as if I'd just consumed an entire lemon. I was sort of in denial. "no. Nahhhhhhh. Nope, they can't be THAT stupid. They didn't take a 40 year legacy, one of the greatest cinematic icons of all time, and drop it into the trash like a moldy zucchini in the back of the fridge. So...he's immortal, right?" But, here we are. And, much in the way that the film fumbled through most of the potentially emotionally powerful scenes, leaving any impact squandered, (especially the moving-saber tip-off when Emo-Rem is about to bisect SNOPE, an undevelopped villain-who'll probably get fleshed out in some other prequel-remember, every plot hole is now an opportunity for future shameless cash-grabs) the impact was ruined because this is simply bad writing. It's a crap idea. Relying on Luke (and Leia's) well and wonderfully developped characters to drag us into the theater, while barely breathing life into the new generations, and then having them ripped away from us, leaving us with character dynamics with almost NO emotional depth-no, they're not doing this. A few days later, it sank in that they had in fact done exactly that. After a few glimmers of hope and promise that we were getting to embrace the world of Skywalker again, to see what this childhood deity had blossomed into, I was enraged that he was just another cheap plot device-and these seem to be the cheap nostalgic fumes that the sequels are now running on. Another scene where beloved character X swoops in (Wookie, droid, what have you), queue day-saving music and high pitched droid noise-wookie/tribble scream. Star Wars was always hokey, based on plot lines and far superior filmmakers' work, yes, but it pulled is into its new world and made us love it. Seeing the trailers for these films used to choke me up, as they represented another chance to revisit that galaxay far, far away and a piece of my childhood-character and actors who weren't master thespians of their time (okay, well, one or two exceptions, haha). There was the possibility to bring the heart and soul of those original films into a new, turbulent era. The fact that whatever morons made this film aspired to nothing more than resuscitating a global brand for another generation, is an artistic tragedy. A promising new cast, and perhaps the biggest hero in cinema history, and it's all been reduced to recycled devices, and a 2 1/2 hour product placement for its own legacy. CGI space battles will never match the impact of the models-watching the Making of Star Wars specials impacted my imagination as a child, to see all of the creative seem and stuffing of every giant puppet and exploding green screen star base, now replaced by lazy paint-by-numbers explosions.
Please fix this. Get a director who's heart and soul are into this.
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Honestly, this movie managed to drop the ball even in the first minutes of the movie. I have no words to describe the meaningless of this movie, the characters are so boring and undeveloped.
The lack of story is painfully obvious when everything just passes by like some sort of arcade game, they could have shortened the movie considerably and noone would have missed the cut out parts.
The acting is just bad, I guess Benicio does perform in some way, but his ticks are just completely unnecessary and contributes nothing since he is a nobody and just passes by in the movie as someone.
Spaceballs had more depth, better acting, interesting character builds and it was actually funny, but it was a parody of Star Wars.
The Last Jedi felt like a parody, it actually felt like Rian Johnson wanted to make a parody, however he didn't even manage to do that.
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6/10
This might be the beginning of the Star Wars franchise collapse
So,when I heard that Star Wars The Last Jedi will be release this year I really wanted to see the movie and to see if it will be better than Star Wars The Force Awakens.And it is as good as the prequel,not better and not worst than it.
The thing is that,if the company as well as the directors of the upcoming Star Wars movies will continue in this direction than the hole Star Wars franchise will soon be ruined and hated by the fans.
What do I want to say by that? Well,by that I want to say that if the directors of the upcoming Star Wars movies will continue to kill the major characters as well as the minor ones from the old Star Wars movies,than the franchise won't survive with the characters from the new Star Wars movies.
They already killed in just two Star Wars movies 2 major characters from the old Star Wars movies and those are Luke Skywalker and Han Solo,not to mention that,got rest her soul,Carrie Fisher died just after she finished filming for this movie.
So be ready in the 9th film to see her character,Leia Skywalker to die and with her death we can say goodbye to the major characters from the Star Wars movies,except C-3PO,R2-D2 and Chewbacca.
But let's not despair,there's still hope for the new Star Wars characters like Poe Dameron,Finn,BB-8,Rey and Kylo Ren to become the next big Star Wars character,who will become almost as great as the old characters.But that will take a lot of time and it will depend on the directors of the upcoming Star Wars movies.
Overall,I enjoyed watching this movie and I found it as being just a good SF movie and almost a good Star Wars movie. I think that what I didn't liked was the fact that Mark Hamill's characters was undervalue by the director of the movie and i think that Mark Hamill's character deserved more than we've seen of him in these 2 movies:Star Wars The Force Awakens and Star Wars The Last Jedi.
Again,in the future I hope that both the company and the directors of the next Star Wars movies won't repeat this mistake again or they should be ready for what will come next,if they'll do it again.By the way,I think that the only great thing that didn't make this movie to be bad is the great performance that Adam Driver is doing with his character,Kylo Ren.
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This movie was more about being political correct (they call this progressive now). Luke to many fans was a good old fashion hero but made into a wimp. Skywalker who is a jedi master gets beaten quickly by Rey.... Then dies at the end of the movie pathetcally. No real characters to like in this movie
I think the main lead Rey was boring. The rogue one actress was much better and had a edge to her. Kylo did a much better job as the bad guy. Snoke the super bad guy, must of come out of the shower in his bath robe and forgot about having light sabers to close to his chair.
Poe was made into a idiot and shown he was incompetent my a older woman with purple hair. Fin and the engineer can ride alien horses well. Leia can fly in space because she once had a nice tea at the justice leagues base and superman gave her lessons (should of just given her a kick arse light saber!). The list goes on and on.
How about for the old fans make a Star wars with Jedi knights and Sith Lords, good guys, bad guys and a good plot. Then for the progressive Star Wars fans make flying Mary poppins Jedi, super bad powerful guys get beaten with a good talking to or slipping on his bath mat, All males to behave like idiots, Change the light Sabers to bubble gum guns while your at it.
Frankly left the movie depressed. Good bye Luke, Han, Leia, Jedi, Sith, smugglers, bounty hunters, good light saber duels. Good bye Star Wars.
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To say this was a peice of crap is to insult all the great craps I have had in my life.
I have two points to make here. one about the film, and secondly to support the people complaining about the credibility of IMDB in its ratings. you only have to look at the reviews to know that something is awry with a HUGE majority of people giving this 1* to attempt to give people a true notion of this film.
Back to the film. Currently with a rating of 7*+ on IMDB, despite...well Ive gone down two pages and not seen a positive review or one that scored more than 4, I suspect shenanigans.
When Disney first got this franchise I thought, oh well, there goes Star Wars, but I ate my words, they did a great job previously.
But this, this is EXACTLY everything you thought Disney would do wrong with the franchise.
I can see the scriptwriters now at the beginning of this project. A bunch of 30 something marketing executives who simply have not lived a world where star wars is almost like a right of passage.
One sparks up, ok "Empire Strikes Back Was the greatest Star Wars film of all time, lets watch it and do that again!"
they sat and watched it, quite possibly their first star wars experience and then in fan fiction style took all the elements, juggled them around and applied it to new characters.
most of the poorly sequenced bits can be recognised as bits from the original films, we have a new Lando Calrisian character, who does what lando does. we have a Snow battle, but in salt...we have brother sister connections.., we have betrayal....... and then we have...."put the characters in a scenario where they run out of options and all hope is lost, and then as luck would have it, someone turns up to save the day"...repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...and keep repeating as that is ALL you have for the film, change scenario, change the characters as it darts between expositions and has split the story into a weave of subplots each with their own duo. throw in some weird love triangle between Rey, Finn and the new "Token asian" IMO Rose.
so many things wrong its hard to avoid spoilers by avoiding specifics.
All goes well until "That Scene"...you'll know it when you see it, but I'll just say "superman scene", only those who have seen the film will get it. from there out its downhill all the way.
Oh, and if you didnt like JaJa Binks...get ready for merchandise overload. In classic disney fashion. They have toys galore going to poor out of this and I hope they have pre-ordered billions of them, and that the public see this film and its merchandise for what it really is..not worth your time.
To leave this film as Carrie Fishers legacy, well words cannot express how angry I am. And I think most of the world will share this sentiment. The producer, directors and writers should never be allowed near a studio again.
if disney had any sense of moral decency they should give this franchise away to anyone else, anyone in the world.
is there a single positive?
A couple of jokes, were well placed.
Some sentimental speeches in light of Carrie's passing were well placed.
Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), stole the show, wasnt keen on him in the last one, didnt think he suited the role. In this he really showed he could have been a great new Darth Vader. If I ever watch another one?
Wooden Oscar to Domhnall Gleeson..seriously dude! I know the lines were terrible, but it was almost like watching a school nativity where you played joseph.
I say from the bottom of my heart, there was so much wrong with this film, anything they got right was smothered. Please do not go to the cinema and pay cinema prices to see this garbage, even die hard fans, wait till its on TV. A message needs to be sent from the fans.
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Is there a very big danger for resistance? Yes it is, but who cares(!) this is Walt Disney. We must have fun, in this episode we could't see the WD characters as species, may be in next episode ;)
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Maybe my expectations were too high.. Throughout the entire film I felt a sense of disapointment. I left feeling empty. The film felt thrown together, rushed and confusing. It did not flow. I hope JJ can pull all the strings together again.
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The Last Jedi had a lot of pieces of what could have been a good movie and then instead of becoming one kept adding more and more and more. Most likely due to the criticism the Force Awakens got for being too much like A New Hope, The Last Jedi really wanted to keep the audience spinning and not be The Empire Strikes Back. Unfortunately more is often not better. Also, it is not always a good idea to try and beat something that already was amazing.
Sure a lot of people were kept guessing and were surprised by decisions but a good movie needs a good story and good characters and general cohesiveness. The entire movie came off like a group effort mad lib of sci fi and action ideas mushed together in a giant mess. Parts were pretty but as a whole it was not well shot, poor directing detracted from an awesome cast of actors who acted wonderfully. Most of the criticisms I've seen before are petty jabs at individual decisions such as whether or not a character should have died or that a theme was bad etc. The really problem was there were too many good ideas that were squeezed together in an inartful manner into a confusing mess that created a story that lost all of its continuity with the previous movie/movies in the long series it was supposed to be a part of. ...And several VERY BAD ideas. Literally there is an entire plot line that was a senseless waste of time and I think deleting it from the movie as a whole would have left me enjoying the movie far more.
I hear all the people who claim that those critical of this movie are die hard fans who didn't like their expectations of Star Wars go unmet. While I admit that I am a true fan (let's please pretend Episode I never existed...), I was only let down by how not good this movie was as a whole. I did not enter the movie with any pre-existing expectations of who should live or die or what any of the answers to the questions left by The Force Awakens should be but left the movie greatly disappointed and upset. I can think of really only one positive thing this movie had to bring to the table: the development of Poe's character that was left sadly dismissive in the Force of Awakens but in all other manners this movie fell flat.
First of all, to really surprise me as a viewer I shouldn't have all answers to all questions given to me in the middle movie of a trilogy. The middle needs to be the biggest cliffhanger of a trilogy. The first part is the scene setting and the middle is the rising action leading to the climax and resolution. While seemingly insurmountable devastation abounded in this movie, with all character and plot questions neatly tidied up it does not leave one just not being able to wait until the next episode. Secondly, many characters completely abandoned all character development made in previous movies. The most notable is the story of Finn. For a character who grew from cowardice to heroism in the Force Awakens pretty much nothing that that Finn did or said made much sense in his character arch. It really seemed like the director didn't like the development of Finn so started from scratch with the same general idea. It just didn't make sense.
Thirdly, while I appreciate some of the more progressive themes that were attempted it felt like a stew of morality rather than a part of the movie as a whole. Pretty much none of us like cruelty to children, or animals or corrupt wealthy people etc. etc. but it would have been nice to see like one strong idea besides the word "hope" repeated unnecessarily like a broken record when the story wasn't the sort to really lead there yet, instead a smattering of snippets of moral themes not flushed out well at all. I felt the same thing with the characters. This movie added countless named characters who had approximately five minutes on screen to do something pointless and ultimately just detracted horribly from the story as a whole. Each additional character by themselves was a decent possible addition but the creators needed to pick just like 1-2 and really develop them instead of wasting time on the others. A movie isn't like Game of Thrones where season after of season or chapter after chapter can tie together seemingly unconnected events and people; they had 2 1/2 hours to tell us a story and I left unsure of what that story was and terrified at what they might do next.
Finally, this was supposed to be a Star Wars movie. That doesn't mean the expected needed to happen but it should have felt like part of the Star Wars story as a whole. I couldn't keep track of whether I was watching Battlestar Galactica, Sliders, Tarzan, or Casino Royale and that is problem. I am very glad that JJ Abrams is coming back for the finale. I can think of no one better to fix this mess and let Star Wars end in the epic manner it should, worthy of all those shouty words dramatically marching across the screen to John Williams deserves.
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I am disappointed. As a fan of Star Wars, this movie has completely and utterly sullied the universe it is set in. Completely out-of-character dialogue, frequent unwelcome attempts at humor, and poor character development just to name a few issues. The writing and story feel so far removed from the general atmosphere of the previous movies, that I wondered if I was really watching a Star Wars film.
tldr; If you're a fan of Star Wars, you'll be happier and better off watching episodes 1-3. If that doesn't tell you all you need to know, I don't know what will.
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Though I have watched all Star Wars movies multiple times, I do not consider myself a fan. I did not read any comics/books or additional information about the universe, I just simply enjoy watching the movies and be amazed by them.
In my opinion TLJ is worth only 4 stars. 1 star is given because it is a Star Wars movie, 2 stars for the nostalgy factor in the movie and 1 star out of respect for Carrie Fisher. And that is it.
The movie lacks of a plot. I remember watching the animated Clone Wars series back in the day and sometimes I felt more excitement in those 20 minutes then now in the 150 minutes.
Though it is said in the movie to leave the past behind and forget everything etc. (which probably is an indication for the future movies) it would be nothing without the past - first they set Luke as a grumpy man who lost his faith, but then Yoda from the PAST guides him back to the path, new sweet looking creatures which we could see in the PAST etc). Not a single new tune in the score, not a single answer to the new questions, we don't really know more about our new heroes, they are just running around during the entire movie. Basically the best moments were the ones which has to do something with the PAST and without those moments the movie would worth 1 star.
I particularly like that many fans were creating stories about Snoke and the parents of Rey, none of which gets answered since it is said in the movie that 'it doesn't matter and forget the past' and the huge amount of fans are simply OK with it and consider this one of the biggest twists in the movie. I consider it lack of creativity and letting people down.
Hopefully for the next movie they will get themselves together and create a good story with some excitement and better twists and also some deeper characters, and please at least a new great tune.
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So I've been a fan of Star Wars movies all my life. Can't tell you how many times I've seen the Original Trilogy, and I'm even a fan of (certain aspects of) the Prequels.
I came into this movie, unlike so many of people my age, without any predetermined opinions of this film. I take things how they come and base them on face value. That being said, I'm incredibly torn about this movie. Part of me really likes it. . . Part of me just was "hmmmm."
For starters, the Plot. This is the smallest Star Wars move of all the films. There's only 3 worlds and the vastness of space. In fact, this movie nearly feels claustrophobic, and I really liked that. Everything was intimate and enclosed. Being enclosed on an island, being enclosed in the dark of space, and being surrounded by the First Order, all of these things made me feel secluded like a "12 Angry Men" Vibe.
In fact, there are a lot of vibes from different films in different genres throughout this film. There's a 12 Angry Men vibe, the start of the film was reminiscent of "Memphis Belle," many films with the reluctant teacher trope, and many others. There are some Empire and Jedi vibes, but there wasn't anything that made me stand up and scream "this is just a reboot of Empire."
The movie definitely takes some risks. Won't go into Spoiler territory, but there are some moments where you feel like this is the 3rd movie in a trilogy and the scenes just don't feel like they are in order at times, but as a second film, this is just serves to make me more excited about the final film. There are quite a few jokes in this film - some will hit, some will miss, some will feel out of place.
Characters: This movie has some great characters and character progressions. Finn and Poe especially stand out in this area. Kylo Ren is pretty great as well. I love the connection between Rey and Kylo. There's a true intimacy there. And I simply loved Rose and her connection to the Star Wars world. She truly belongs here. There were some disappointments however. Phasma specifically was underutilized, AGAIN, and Maz Kanata served no purpose at all whatsoever other than serve as a video game advertisement. Everyone else served their purpose extremely well save for BB8, who actually was a little annoying in parts. It's strange, cuz I loved him in The Force Awakens.
Settings: Like I said earlier, this is a very claustrophobic film in a good way. Perhaps intimate is a better word choice. You're on an island. You're on a Spaceship, you're in a Casino, or you're in a Rebel Base. That's it. That being said, they work well for the film. You feel like you're there, not on a set, not anywhere but in the Star Wars Universe.
Ultimately, I think this is a film that I'll have to watch a few more times to truly appreciate.
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Mark Hamill was right when he said 'it's not about making a good movie it's about a movie that makes money'.. With Luke's sad demise I can now part ways. I'm not bothering to learn the names of the new forgettable characters because I disrespect how they killed off the original cast. It would be great to see Chewie retire and return to Kashyyk but I'm sure Jar Jar Abrams will have a horrific Game of Thrones/Hunger Games type death for him in store for episode 9. Hey Disney, I won't be going to any of your parks, seeing any of your future movies, or buying any of your products in the foreseeable future. Kathleen Kennedy is trashing Lucasfilm by not only these movies (Rogue One the exception) but getting rid of Rebels in favor of girl power Disney Wars. I'm done. TLJ isn't really worth talking about other than if you were a fan of the George Lucas films seeing this one will kill your childhood.
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Dear Disney! I am not a bot, this is not a multiple review! But this film is a big fat 0! One star is too much for it! The Last Jedi is a bad joke, in the film nothing happens, just a bunch of ridicolus things!
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There were no good fight scenes that lasted more than 2 minutes in this movie. The only decent parts in the movie were cut short and everything else was super boring and dragged on. I was super dissapointed. please bring back J.J to save this series!
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1/10
Plot holes + Character development flaws + Disney Propaganda (feminist agenda) GALORE
Just to start off - I've never wrote a review before and I don't plan to going forward, but I had to create an account just to write a review at how bad this movie was.
I have to admit (and I assume many others had a similar experience), I left the movie actually thinking I it was pretty good. I don't know if it was adrenaline or what, but after some time passed and I had some time to dwell on the movie I came to recognize the many glaring issues with it.
For lack of a better way to attack all the issues I decided to make a list.
In order of significance:
1. Disney SJW liberal feminist agenda/propaganda - "women are strong leaders and men are hot headed and trigger happy dummies" Ie: That purple haired female character is the perfect embodiment of this. The overt attempt to make all the female characters ridiculously powerful or strong leaders Ie: Rei with the force, Leia "Supermaning" through space, Purple haired gal leader. And on top of all this pretty much every actor in the First Order is a white male! DISNEY - STOP PUTTING YOUR POLITICAL BELIEFS IN YOUR MOVIES - its ridiculous. Slipping in your identity politics is just propaganda BS. Women ARE strong. I love women, but overcompensating and making it so glaringly obvious with this hidden feminist agenda BS actually makes it seem like you actually think they that women are pathetic/weak so you are giving them a leg up!!!!!
2. Luke's character flaw - he would NEVER have done what he did PERIOD. He would have talked face to face with Ben Solo about the darkness he saw in him first and tried to convert him that way. What happened in this movie is not in line with his character at all and I'm pretty sure everyone that has watched the original trilogy would know this.
3. Leia supermaning through space - WTF?!?!
4. Snoke death and no backstory. Yes, the mysterious Snoke who I was looked up countless hours of fan theories Ie: "Who is Snoke?" is dead. WITH NO BACKSTORY?!?!?!? WHO IS SNOKE DAMNIT!??
5. Captain Phasma death and no backstory
6. Benicio Del Toro character - just so happens he's a codebreaker, just so happens Finn and Rose get put in the same jail cell, just so happens he can break them out of jail. Why is he in jail in the first place if he can just break out? Makes NO SENSE. Also, no backstory.
7. Why didn't the Purple haired gal just TELL POE THE PLAN?!?! WHY, WHY, WHY WHY?!?!?!? JUST TELL POE THE FREAKING PLAN!!!
8. During Rei's training she sees that black hole (the darkness) Luke tells her to resist the darkness. Within 5 minutes she finds black hole and falls through the black hole. I really thought we would learn something cool about Rei Ie: Why she is so strong with the force? - Who are her parents? - NO!! We learn NOTHING! Nothing at all! What a waste of a cool/suspenseful scene.
9. Luke milking that cow alien thing and drinking the milk - just so random and weird and unnecessary
I could really go on and on and on.
My final comments - What do we have to look forward to in the next movie? Seriously. Rei converting Kylo? That's it I guess. I couldn't care less. You've ruined everything. Will not be paying to see the 9th episode when it comes out as I feel you have stolen my money on this one. I HATE THIS MOVIE. Star wars has always been my favorite Universe and it's completely ruined. There is no doubt in my mind that I could have made a better movie then this.
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For me this was the second to last worst Star Wars movie. I guess the writer was a young man believing every cliché he thought was cool, but the reality is that it wasn't. I can say that this movie broke for me the connection I felt back with The Force Awakens.
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Another step towards the new wave of stars to carry on the legacy of this saga. Lots of fun and plenty of surprising twists, done with good humour. Some of the sentimentality is a bit forced, but this seems to be done to appease some of the old school fans. Very much loved it, I did!
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OK so I'm crazy.
Here is why.
Story seemed well laden for character direction and evolve. Even Star Wars evolves.
What was horrible was action. Where the hell was the vertical sway like on Ewok bikes? That's the feel that was missing and it sucks. It wasn't a damn lack of story feel and I'll get to that.
Where the hell was the dizzying, swirling vertical sway effects. I felt like a watched a damn good Star Wars story but I didn't watch a damn good Star Wars overall movie. Screenwriting outshone direction in this one. Carrie's portrayal was one of a sense of capturing herself in a timeless moment almost as if premonition of real life was driving her. Daisy's was pretty damn good too.Character portrayal was pretty great all around for all characters.
Forces better understood and more elaborate, maybe even more sci-fy tech might be coming: heck I don't know where evolutionary direction of this world is going. I could conjecture guess and have fun thinking about the next one usually right away but this one left me thinking the energy of the world of Star Wars was missing a bit. Future thinking seemed to be left uninspired and perhaps maybe that's another lost feel good or bad in the end.
In the end of this one the story is very organic maybe too much so for those devoted hopes, assumptions, set standards but the organic action definitely wasn't .there. I think J.J. did better.
Michael Lee Burris
"I will never stop driving a creative revolutionary wheel of desire and determination always truly needing help along the way."
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3/10
Many of the new ideas are good, but film doesn't coalesce as a whole
Many say "those who dislike the film don't say why." Well, briefly:
1) Too much jumping from place to place; we were never allowed to take in a setting, feel the characters *living* in it
2) Over-the-top slapstick humor, especially the "milking" scene on the island
3) Ridiculous idea that young Jedi/Sith need no training, can just become masters in about 10 minutes
4) Enormous amount of time wasted on meaningless casino scene that could have been spent on character growth and interaction (Luke and Chewbacca mourning Han together; giving Phasma *something* to do, etc.)
5) Leia using the Force is one thing; space walking back from death? oh for heaven's sake
6) Making Poe a stupid, sexist jerk when he was such a noble hero in TFA
7) Snoke dying *that* easily
8) Laura Dern's admiral wearing an evening dress? Not to mention telling *no one* of her plan for no good reason.
And so on. I liked some of the film's ideas: Rey not having famous parents, Luke guilt-ridden over his failure with Kylo, but the film didn't come together as a whole. I was never swept away, never felt the old thrill that made me want to seize a lightsaber and join the fight.
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The latest Star Wars movie, the next installment in the new trilogy, the long awaited sequel to highly acclaimed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, possibly my favourite Star Wars movie has finally arrived. Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The Force Awakens received more or less positive reactions. it had it's lovers and it's haters. I was among the lovers. Having grown up with Star Wars and loving it to bits as I heavily emphasised in my review for The Force Awakens, I loved The Force Awakens so naturally, some hype was up for it's follow-up. The promise of more Luke Skywalker as an older, wiser but broken man, some new characters, some answers to mysteries from the previous installment, a script that apparently shocked the cast in a new way and a director who has quite the reputation as a director of some of the highest rated episodes of Breaking Bad, a director who "thinks outside the box" but is himself, a huge Star Wars fan. My hype was definitely up. I had a countdown on my phone, a shirt with the logo on it that everyone told me I wore too much, midnight screening tickets and a marathon of every Star Wars movie prior to the screening.
Did I like Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Yes! I had a great time watching it. Like The Force Awakens, I could hardly believe I was even watching it because my excitement was through the roof. The Force Awakens had it's shocking moments but wow, The last Jedi was packed with some twists and turns! Some moments made me think I was just dreaming about seeing The Last Jedi. It was great to return to this trilogy. I loved seeing Rey, Finn, Poe, BB8, Kylo Ren and Leia again as I love them all. Seeing Luke was certainly interesting. He was different. An older but broken man who has given up on training Jedi after what happened to Kylo Ren. May not have been the Luke we remembered but so what? This is not Luke's story anymore, this is 30 years later! Luke is human and changes like everyone does. People change, people go through rough patches so we saw a different but interesting Luke. But thanks to Mark Hamill, he never lost the ability to be recognised as Luke Skywalker. He was different but he was still Luke. Captain Phasma and General Hux return but aren't really that interesting. Hux seems weaker and Phasma was there for such a short time, it almost felt crammed in but her appearance didn't give her any kind of redemption from the events of the last chapter in my opinion. But I'm not really bothered. I never had hopes that they would be huge characters. I didn't let my expectations taint my viewing. Vice Admiral Holdo was just kind of meh to me. She came across has a bit nasty for a while for an unknown reason but had one huge memorable moment later on. Supreme Leader Snoke was once again just okay with the exception of being a bit more intimidating and villainy and sporting what I thought was fantastic motion capture CGI performed by Andy Serkis. I was fond of the Porgs, they are adorable. I'm actually glad they didn't serve any purpose to the story because I think that would have just been silly. They were cute and they were there to be cute, job done.
There were two newcomers in Rose Tico and DJ who I did not care for. Rose came across to me as someone a little bit crazy who at one point waved around a stun gun while telling a brief story, chuckling about stunning deserters which made her seem a little crazy but then she became a character all about animal rights and pretty much having a problem with 90% of the galaxy. It was like some variation of a 2017 vegan in a Star Wars movie. As for DJ, he was announced as "a new villain" in the films early stages and after seeing the movie, I don't see how. Kylo Ren steals the villain spotlight whereas DJ came across has a drunken oaf most of the time who had a difficult to understand accent with a stutter on top. I didn't understand him or enjoy him. I also wasn't so fond of the whole sequence with Finn and Rose on Canto Bight. I found it to be a bit boring when it came to animal rights, the broom kids and the casino type world. A casino world sounds new and interesting but it really wasn't. It was too much like Earth for me. I just found myself waiting for the movie to get back to Luke and Rey. I didn't hate it but I wasn't so fond of it. This movie kind of made me realise what I do and don't really want in a Star Wars movie. The message of the film is that greatness can come from nothing and that failure is the greatest teacher which are great subtle messages about life. However, when there were some real life problems in the movie like animal cruelty and a conflict between the rich and the poor, I just didn't really care for it. I guess I always saw Star Wars as an escape from the real world so I don't really like Star Wars being so close to Earth. I actually didn't have an issue with the humour. Most people I've spoken to thought there was too much, I thought it was just right.
Rian ultimately wanted this movie to be a little shocking and it certainly was. There were several shocking moments in this film that freaked me out, leaving me on the edge of my seat, not being able to predict what happens next in any way. However, this film has received very very mixed reviews. Some people love it, some people absolutely hate it and I don't understand it. The Force Awakens was disliked for being too much like Star Wars and now The Last Jedi is being disliked for being too different from Star Wars. The Last Jedi does some different things, doesn't rely on a formula, stands on it's own and does it's own thing. For people to dislike the answers to some questions or disliked certain moments for not being what they expected or wanted to happen is, in my opinion, ridiculous. To those fanboys who give Stan Wars fans a bad name, who support the prequels by saying you have to read books, play games and watch the terrible Clone Wars TV series to understand certain things, who complains that Luke isn't the Luke that they know, who complains that all Disney wants is money and no one working on the films cares or grew up loving Star Wars: It is not your story, these are not your characters, the films are not made to your expectations, you are not in control. You people put too much emphasis on things, build up your theories and expectations and ultimately dislike the film you were excited for because it didn't play out the exact way you thought it would or wanted it to. You go to see someone else's film.
Anyway, I hope, like The Empire Strikes Back when it first came out, that the negative reviews calm down and more people start to see the positive aspects of The Last Jedi. I personally liked it a lot. Everything I didn't like, I discussed earlier. I liked everything else. I liked what happened to all the characters and where the story went. I was happy with the decisions made, I was happy to see someone else's take on the new trilogy, let them tell me the story.
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The biggest problem with The Force Awakens was that it was too much like A New Hope. It was too predictable.
The Last Jedi is the exact opposite. Everything you may have been expecting after The Force Awakens is turned upside down, or brushed aside even. The Last Jedi is everything we weren't expecting, and to be completely honest, that's actually a good thing. But, if you are the kind of person who has trouble letting go of two years of speculation about a number of plot points, you'll probably not like where The Last Jedi goes.
For me, The Last Jedi was an ever surprising, cheer invoking gut punch of a movie, and I loved it. It's not perfect - some plot lines don't work as well as others - but the characters are great, the actors play them very well, the movie is hilarious at points and offers great drama at others. The score is brilliant and the visuals are incredibly impressive. The Last Jedi gives us a few of the most impressive scenes in Star Wars canon ever.
Let the past die. That's the only way this movie can become what it's meant to be. Hold on to what you think you know and want, and set yourself up for at least a few major disappointments. It's up to you.
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I really wanted to love this movie, but left the theatre completely disappointed. I had mixed views on TFA, and was excited to see a new directors take on the Star Wars universe. Maybe I'm just too old now for Star Wars, and my love of the original trilogy is nostalgia. I thought there were too many weird character choices, strange and unnecessary plot points, and the general feeling that this trilogy is not taking us anywhere new. A group of good people (rebellion/resistance) must fight against an evil (empire/new order) to create a good new republic. We already saw this happen, didn't we? Maybe build off the original trilogy and tell a new story. If you're going to tell a similar story again, at least make it good! I understand that they want to take the series in a new direction, but why not do that with the next trilogy? This is the conclusion of the Skywalker storyline, so it's OK for it to feel like the first movies, then you move into the new trilogy in the same universe, with a new feel and new characters (maybe with some cameos), etc.. You don't need to re-invent the wheel in the middle of a unified story.
It did generally look good, minus some complaints about SOME of the CGI, so I'm not giving it the lowest score.
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The Not-Too-Revealing-Summary: Large, bad guy army tries to squash rag-tag rebel army. Desperate and longshot guerrilla style missions give the underdogs hope and viewers an opportunity to better know the characters.
The Not-Too-Revealing-Review:
The Lows: Editing, Slapstick, Creature CGI, New Casting, Side Plots. Editing: Star Wars has always been choppy. The transitions between scenes are something you could easily work into your Powerpoint presentation, and the blocks are so obviously blocks that the fact of editing comes to the forefront instead of remaining a behind-the-scenes technicality. This was the worst edited Star Wars movie - ever. The choppiness and blockiness was exaggerated by snippets of awkward dialogue and frames of irrelevant people being blown up or pushing buttons. Adult viewers know that this is not the way to make movies today, Star Wars geeks know that this is homage, but everyone can tell that it was done badly. Paying homage to the original is a staple for reboots, but you have to master those technical aspects for it to work. It didn't here. Slapstick: Everyone likes a good laugh. There were a few - perhaps even several - in The Last Jedi. For every good one however there were three flops. These were all the worse, in many cases, because the editors planned the moment as a humorous one, made the joke central to the scene, and then left some seconds free afterward for the expected laugh. When these failed, it was especially awkward. Even when they worked, it was obvious how contrived the moment was. The best laughs were those that weren't centered, that moved forward quickly leaving the viewer surprised as well as humored. Creature CGI: Way too many new creatures. Way too edited. The contrast between those creatures that were wearing suits and makeup and those completely generated by computer were stark, so stark that it often felt like I was watching movies from two different eras at the same time. Like the editing, CGI creatures are a place where their generation should not come to mind, but it was a distraction in this film. New Casting: Vice Admiral Holdo was awful. Cringing, there-must-be-something-up-their-sleeve mind-boggingly bad where the only possible explanation was that it was foreshadowing. And maybe it was, but it foreshadowed all the wrong conclusions.DJ was awesome. Far too awesome, in fact. His very presence can't be lent to a minor character when the acting and personality are that good. Side Plots: Okay, let's put it out there. These were dumb. One excursion was largely a waste of fantasy potential and the other gratuitous and mindless. So many moments and dramas were strained - people making dumb decisions, caricatured villains, implausible traps, and contradictory sacrifices and lessons. This was both badly written and badly envisioned.
The Highs: Acting, Character Development, Cinematography, Second Half of the Film. Acting and Character Development:Rey and Finn are excellent characters. They have contagious strengths and very real weaknesses. The respective actress and actor live these roles, and it is a genuine pleasure to watch them. Rose and Luke also had great performances. What is surprising about the film is that it was a very good drama first and a satisfying action-adventure second. The nemesis-turns-into-something-else relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren is without a doubt the highlight of the drama. Cinematography: Forget the space action sequences, aircraft, and weapons. There were some stunning scenes from the secluded island - the dark place hauntingly so. The sets were passing at best and distracting at worst, but the aerial views and more artistic shots of nature held a lot of value. Then, of course, there's that heavily edited CGI battle scene that everyone is going to be talking about and that all are going to remember. It might have been dumb, but it was breathtakingly beautiful. Second Half of the Film: I can understand reviewers and critics who watched the first half of the movie and had decided that it was bad. It was made for families and children and with such poor justifications for the taken upon dangers and decisions that one could easily let that ruin the rest of the film. Once you get past those cringe-worthy attempts at humor, past the awkward supporting actor performances, and let yourself get taken up into the dramas of the end, one can find a very good movie in here. This is where the drama and character development met the action adventure. No longer separate tracks, distractions, or filler, things came together in the movie. We viewers understood who was fighting for what and why, and we cared. The action scenes become not simple additions to the story but culminations of long-walked paths. There is both a very good movie in here and a very bad one. Wearing blinders helps one to ignore those mind-numbingly dumb moments and focus on the personal story arcs of the main characters.
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An excellent movie with lots of twists and turns. This movie is a bit different from the traditional Star Wars saga so far and has expanded the reach & nature of The Force now. There are endless possibilities now in the 9th part - the director has opened up various results now.
However, the movie still has its flaws - it doesn't give the backstory of Snoke or how & why he came to power. It doesn't show details on the Knights of Ren. Neither does it address satisfactorily on who Rey's parents are. Also Rey's training was not completed and with Luke's death, it doesn't answer how Rey will complete her training now.
Nevertheless, the movie is a must watch for Luke, Leia and the strange connection between Rey & Ben. Awesome performances from the lead cast and good performances from the supporting cast as well.
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Well, it looks like there is no where to go in the Star Wars franchise now that the rebellion is dead.
Thanks for ending the story for us Disney, no need to make that next movie. No need at all.
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For me Star Wars ends in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi with the Rebel Alliance's victory over the Empire. The trio Luke, Han and Leia will always remain as they are and as we remember in the three episodes, and so with another characters, like R2-D2, C-3PO, Yoda, Vader, and Obi-Wan. And the vast galaxy will remain there, unexplored anymore in another installment. It satisfies me just to keep wondering what could happen there.
At the end of Episode VI, we know Luke Skywalker is the last Jedi. I do not give care whether Luke Skywalker will restore the Jedi Order or not. The galaxy is at peace at last and will remain that way forever. Any attempts to rule the galaxy will have to face the entire systems, leaded by Luke, which do not want to be conquered by any tyranny anymore.
Sometimes it is just amazing to think that the vast galaxy came from the thought of one person: George Lucas, and through the help of his co-workers, he managed to bring that galaxy to life and became a world wide phenomenon. Disney may have bought Lucasfilm Ltd, but never the thought and idea of Gerorge Lucas of that Galaxy Far, Far Away...
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So I'll be straight. I'm from the team that loved the movie. Not only because of the excellent special effects, the photographs, the action scenes and also in my opinion (from now on) the performances - MAs was not only that that made me put The Last Jedi, like one of the best films of the franchise, but by Rian Johssom do what no director would dare to do, and what JJ Abrans (Today I recognize), did not want to do, that was to leave the comfort zone, to present something new to the new public, a range of open possibilities, and not just do the that ALL SEVEN MOVIES did that is bring the same journey of the hero, Siths X Jedis and Skywalkakers and Skywalkers.
Because a nobody can not be chosen and finally bring pa to the galaxy, besides re-establishing the Order of Jedi ?? Because Snoke was not just another Sith who succumbed to his own gain and that of his apprentice and died deceived, just as it was Plegueis and Palaptine ?? Why Rey MUST HAVE A FAMILY with the Jedi to be a Jedi ?? Why can not women earn their space in the movie ?? And why Luke's redemption was not a beautiful tribute ?? Why was it horrible for the first time to see Leia Organa use the Force ??
in short, these attacks that the hates are doing will unfortunately undermine all that Rian Johssom wanted to bring, which was a range of possibilities well beyond a galaxy that was always in the same things ..
What a pity...
Why is it so hard to accept new things ??
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5/10
Spoiler free: What George Lucas did right and The Last Jedi screenwriter and director did wrong
What George Lucas did right in Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - and the Star Wars 7 and 8 writers did wrong.
(Besides: Engage me for writing Star Wars screenplays and give me the f... millions ! But I am not a native English speaker :( )
1. Lukas operationalized the idea: to trust the force - turn off the computer an trust his feelings to drop the bomb into the death star slot. This kind of original and useful and efficient operationalization of an idea no other Star Wars screenwriter could fulfill till now.
2. Lukas has red about religion and mythos to make it a key element in the first star wars trilogie (1977, 1980, 1983). his knowledge and sense flowed into star wars movies. The audience can somehow feel this background knowledge! In the later movies, this feeling of the audience of a deeper knowledge about religion, mythos and force has vanished, disappeared. The force really disappeares if you don't work and learn about it as a screenwriter and story teller.
How much (or little to nothing) the latest Star Wars (7, 8 ) screenwriters have red about these literature?
2. the suspence at the end of Star Wars (1977) comes from: will luke skywalker drop the bomb by the right time. the suspence is concentrated in just one target! that maximizes its power!
3. the main characters got what they deserved. Psychological research shows that people like that. Normal people have an inner sense for justice. It makes them angry to see people die who do not deserve that.
4. Lukas did not let killed one of the main good characters with whom the audicence has entered a strong emotional bond. That was a golden decision from Lukas. Because...
5. Lukas' Star Wars is leant to Joseph Campbells theory/model of the Hero's Journey/ Monomyth. According to Campbell the heroes do not die in myth, even if they would die in reality. Mythic stories are not reality, they are wishes, potentials, phantasies, targets of people. Mythic stories should prepare the audicence for the smooth transition into physical death and the believe into a justice, unvisible, everlasting force!
The latest Star Wars authors (Star Wars 7, 8 ) want to shock people and want to show strong turning points and want to leave hold of the beloved good figures of the first Star Wars trilogy. Why? They think it is original, it is art, it is realistic. They don't get it, that Star Wars is MYTHOS! They can not feel the force because they have not red deeply about religion, martial arts philosophy, zen, mythos and so on. They just can write turning points which should shock people and they think, that is art and intelligent.
Letting these beloved figures killed in the movie (Star Wars 7, 8) is a cheap, narrow minded, psychological misguided idea from the storytellers. It proofes just that these storytellers need to have deeper knowledge in psychology, religion, fairy tales, philosophy. Just writing a screenplay in a few month with shocking turning points is not enough for the mythos of Star Wars! The audience feels it!
6. psychological believability, -reality is not needed. Luke Skywalker slowly gets more powerful, in the old trilogy. Han changes a bit, Leia, too. GRADUALLY!
7. appropriate humor! humor at the wrong places and times kills the suspence in star wars 8. the audiences mind gets out of the story at that moments.
8. storylines, plots which are just required. star wars (1977) and empire strikes back are good at that.
in star wars 8 there are needless plots.
9. believable dialog. star wars 8 has lots of dialog which i do not believe in, it kills the story, kills the seriousness of the moment.
10. boldness to show new believable worlds!
George Lukas - bring yourself in shape with the force again like your preparations in 1975-1977 and buy back Star Wars. Oh, that is a wish, but you feel better ! Why? It is a fairy tale, not reality. But sometimes fairy tales become real!
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(2 screenings)
+ Great visuals
+ Some characters showing better acting
+ Some awesome space battles (as expected)
New character choices are painfully convenient
Overload of humour. The exchange at the beginning from Poe is really painful and only made the kids in the cinema laugh.
Very poor timelines as to Rey's Jedi training. Three lessons from Luke and she is battling Kylo 1v1 and pretty much wins? Even Luke had training from Obi-Wan and Yoda over two movies before being close to taking on another Jedi.
Absolute disgraceful treatment of signature characters.
Admiral Ackbar: Senior leadership from the Rebellion and Resistance and has absolutely little or not interaction with the fleet coordination and battle plans? What? He should at least have been given a send-off via the suicide warp jump.
Luke: I am really struggling to understand why we went from an intense action-scene, to him being "at peace" from facing Kylo. Just not at all sure who is supposed to be leading the Rebellion now?
Leia: Given her death, the moment when the bridge is blown out would have been a fitting end to her involvement in the series....yet when everyone is pin-drop silent in the cinema with reflection from that moment...that ridiculous superman scene occurs. Completely wrong, leading to her inevitably being written-out with some poor excuse from characters, or having to go through CGI overlays. Not a good position Rian.
Snoke: Who? Whilst I really had hoped it wouldn't repeat Return of the Jedi, his death made no sense in the situation. The only reason I can fathom is that some decisions were made to restart the franchise for further movies and thus they needed to reset the entire galaxy again.
Summary: My second viewing was much better as I was able to ignore the parts that were painful and just enjoy the scenes that were good. Whilst a lot of other reviews did not like the interactions between Rey and Kylo (via the Force link), I thought both characters developed well. Adam Driver seems to have settled into his role now he got rid of the helmet and I found him to be much more convincing.
There is but one positive from this current position, with the Resistance all but destroyed, it will open up the Franchise for more movies. In ten years time we may reflect back and be joyful in the position that Star Wars may be in, but at the moment it is dangling on a string.
Have tried to keep this honest. I am a fan, and I gave the movie a second change. Ultimately, Disney was going to take the franchise in a different direction for a more modern/young audience. It is just a real shame that this movie was the one to instigate that split before another great saga was completed with Ep 9. Rogue one, it seems, is a rose amongst the thorns.
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Nothing to say other than this was just awful. The story line was ridiculous, it didn't follow a star wars format. How they could release this pile of junk is beyond me. You could tell Mark Hamill wasn't into the role and wasn't happy to be there. And they didn't give us any more background on the main female. And they should have killed off Leia since Carrie Fisher has passed they had several chances to do so.
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Most disappointing of all the Star Wars movies. It was a mockery. 1/3 mocking the Star Wars story, 1/3 silly teenage Disney movie with the storyline around Rose, 1/3 I don't even know what, but it definitely did NOT have the feel of the original movies or storyline. No serious Jedi training, new force abilities that are ridiculous, misplaced humor, no storyline development. It did not deviate in a good way. So disappointed.
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You know I came into this movie hoping for some good action but instead it is all just boring social commentary. I mean this movie is so bad it could almost be compared to the Original Trilogy. Honestly I was hoping for big space battles or long light saber battles but it never came. I mean the whole reason people go to star wars is for the action, I don't want to have to listen to some terrible incoherent plot the entire time. I must commend this movie for getting rid of some of the terrible characters and showing the fans that they mean nothing. Honestly I feel if they had a good writer like Zack Snyder or David Ayer this movie might be good and have enjoyable moments but instead they get some nut job who doesn't know what they are doing. Another thing this movie gets right is adding new music instead of the terrible music which came from the original trilogy, occasionally the classic star wars music pops up and it really just ruin the scenes . Overall if you are a brain dead star wars fan you might as well hand your money over to Disney and speed up this franchises suffering.
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If you can imagine your sister piloting star fighters, your mother ordering seasoned soldiers around and your grandmother giving sage advice then this movie is for you. However, if you wanted to see Luke prove what it is to be a bad-ass Jedi then you have the wrong film.
The Last Feminist takes everything you know about the Star Wars universe and shoehorns female characters in literally everywhere at a comedic pace. Every time this movie is about to get good a new female character shows up to derail it. It was the equivalent of your girlfriend/wife walking in front of the TV and wanting to talk about her 'feelings" just when a quarterback threw a football 80-yards into the end zone in the last 30 seconds of a tied Super bowl game.
The few leading men in the movie are constantly emasculated by feminists or whine like little boys. Poe who is the sole male character that attempts to hold onto his manhood throughout the film is still too weak for the "wisdom" of the feminists and succumbs.
Moral of the story: Men should never act heroic or question anything feminists say but instead blindly follow them without explanation.
But hey maybe your son will want a Rey doll for Christmas right?
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8/10
Faithful to the series and answered many questions.
Looks like the film succeeded and satisfying, but a number of fans decided to get whiny over nothing. This was superior to The Force Awakens, as it was more coherent and answered important questions about the series and the characters. It was faithful to the series and it's themes, and with lots of surprises.
Some of the reviews suggested some fans felt disappointed, but mediocre fans are for naught, this film is worth seeing.
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You have an awesome teaser of Luke in the Force Awakens only to have him (The Should Be Most Powerful Living Jedi) reduced to the equivalent of a weak remorseful drunk. He went from a farm boy to face an entire empire, fight his father and had to watch him die, his aunt and uncles death and he resisted the emperor and the darkside. It makes NO sense that because he failed in the training of his nephew that now he's gonna go sulk and wants to die.
Yup it sure seems like Luke to just pack it in while multiple planets are now being destroyed and the rebels and HIS SISTER would need him the most.
It would be more likely that Luke would become more like his Father in the face of such adversity before he'd go into hiding and do nothing.
I could overlook a lot of the other things I didn't care for in this movie if they didn't totally screw Luke up so badly. I really enjoyed The Force Awakens but this was just painful to watch on so many levels. Hamill did a great job but deserved better material...what a shame.
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Felt disappointed and cheated. No, we're not bots or trolls. We're real people with real love for the Star Wars saga. We're the ones who actually pay, not the other way around.
Here's where the new filmmakers got it wrong when trying to relate the story to the real world:
1. Hillary didn't get to be the president.
2. Out of the main three, Hamill and Ford are the ones that actually still alive.
But back to the story..
1. Luke is not Luke in the genuine trilogy. This one is fake.
2. Too much pointless drama.
3. Totally scrapeable subplots. You'd save our time watching this crap.
4. Useless characters.
5. Independence Day's kamikaze ripoff.
6. Unfunny "funny" moments.
7. Rehash scenes and making it worse than the original.
8. Rey is better off being a Sith than a Jedi.
9. Kylo is boring as villain. He's giving villains a bad rep.
10. This is no Star Wars.
I could go on and on..
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I am not a die hard star wars fan. As such I am not looking for anything specific, nor do I have any expectations that can be crushed if the writers were to take the plot in a slightly "different" direction than one might expect.
That is what has caused such a polarized set of reviews.
Without expecting anything specific the movie delivered pretty much the same quality as episode 7. That is: a large dose of nostalgic star wars fanfare, a beefed up level of humor, solid graphics, typically good music, big space ships, aliens, and the bloody dark vs light side of the force!
There was some clever use of the prominent characters, and some great moments.
Having said that, the massive numbers of negative reviews probably revolve around character roles/choices. Some may be questionable, in particular in comparison to what a die hard would like to see.
Another con may be the fact that some of the newer characters are stronger than others. With a few of them getting their own stories, it is only natural some stories may be less interesting.
Some people seemed to take issue with the plot.
Seriously? Has star wars ever delivered profound, thought provoking bursts of brain activity?
The plot is always a bunch of random detours until green light saber meets red.
At the end of it all, this is a solid movie best compared to Guardians of the Galaxy due to the higher degree of humor. IMO this was a better version.
Those who haven't tired of 8 prior Star Wars installments should have a good time.
I would warn Die Hard fans that they will either love it or hate it. (tho I am sure most die hard's have already seen it)
For the record I went with 2 far bigger fans of the series than myself, and both loved the movie.
On that note, 1/10 reviews always make me laugh. This only happens when you have a very strong negative emotion attached to a film.
These reviews only come from those who already hate the series, are growing very tired with it, or in this case, die hard fans being horribly let down by some of the choices.
I picture anyone who gave this a 1/10 yelling ERRRRRRR, and smashing the mouse down like a hammer as they submit that score.
Now the only thing left for you guys is to troll around and smash that unhelpful button for reviews like mine. :)
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7/10
Overall empowering film for women and people of color, not enough lore expansion IMO
I'm seeing a lot of just completely negative responses to this film on here, so I thought it was important for the other side to speak their peace so that many do not read reviews thinking it's all over and everything has gone to hell for the Star Wars universe.
Firstly, this film is very funny, and i'm *not* really sure what the heck other people are surprised about. I mean this is coming from the same universe that has given us Jar Jar Binks (whomst I do not like), Ewoks and all manner of silly droid comic relief characters. This film is a vast improvement in its use of comedy overall compared to the previous films, except for Han Solo because he will almost be the most hilarious.
The plot, admittedly is strange and plot-holey however.... guys. This is coming... *again* from the universe who gave us the Death Star and its magic 'splode button (although that was thankfully ret-conned in Rogue One.) There are plenty of "Thats not how SCIENCE works!" (see what I did there) moments and *every* other Star Wars movie is like that. Think back to when Obi-Wan and Anakin have a 15 minute lightsaber duel on Mustafar above Lava that would literally burn their skin off if they were that close to it, just so that it looks *cool*. Also they ride like... pieces of floating metal over the lava like hover boards... how. does that make sense? But, idk, it looks awesome so I just said, you know. It's fine. So why can't we do the same thing for this movie. Why are we being THIS hard on this one particular iteration of the universe.... hmmm? I wonder... could it be perhaps because it has unusually strong female and non-white characters and a deeply anti-status quo theme? Idk, I don't wanna believe Star Wars fans are that stupid, but I feel like the complaints about this movie that I see are dancing around that being their underlying complaint...
For instance, name a character in the Star Wars universe who is magically good at everything without having trained for more than about 15 minutes, and then goes to a suicide mission after having a *vision*.
Were you thinking the answer to that was Rey? Because Luke fits that exact same description. Luke trains for 15 minutes on Dagoba with Yoda, then freaks out and has to bounce, but is somehow a god with a saber..... But it's okay. Cause he is a dude.
I mean, overall this film has wicked cool special effects, epic dog fights (not real dogs... i'm talking about the ships), kickass new characters who do all kinds of crazy things that I feel only serve to expand Star Wars canon. Canto Bight was a plot device to expose the seedy underbelly of the bipartisan crooked elite, something we see ALL THE TIME IN THE NOVELS but never in the movies! Furthermore, this film decided to play with the whole concept of light versus dark, the epic black and white cut and dry, us and them mentality that has driven the plot of the last 7 movies before it, I mean come on!!! Didn't you guys want something fresh and new?
Take for instance the new understanding of the Force, one of a way of life, of spirituality and depth of emotion, instead of "let's test em for midichlorians", something that even the expanded universe never really made good use of anyway. Stupid concept that makes only the genetically worthy able to be cast as "Jedi" or "Sith" by special blood. This movie expanded upon our ideas of the force even more than any previous Star Wars film... it introduced Force Sensitivity as a concept, and the Force being a spiritual understanding and depth. It made FORCE SENSITIVE LEIA Canon! I mean come on, that's freaking awesome.
This movie is full of badass beautiful women taking on the elite ruling class of war mongering imperialists and shedding a whole new light on the idea of a Resistance in general. Instead of a bunch of white, pasty guys with beards flying the X-Wings into battle you have Indian women, Asian women, and all manner of different looking beautiful people taking the Resistance into their own hands for once.
Anyway, this is running long, but I think this movie did a great job building badass Star Wars terrains, Crait, Canto Bight and Ach-to and introducing interesting, relatable people, Rose, Codebreaker and Holdo.
The only major problems that I have with it are the fact that the First Order could have easily just boosted their jets a bit to reach up to the Resistance Cruiser, but like I said....... Death Star 'splode button. And the fact that it should've been Leia who sliced Snoke's ship in half out of epic sacrifice. I have other minor issues, but not enough to warrant giving this a freaking 1 Star.
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1/10
The one movie I actually go to the theater to see and wtf ?
This is the only movie I take a chance on in movie theaters and now I have no more reasons to watch anything from the movie industry. Thanks to whom it may concern. The movie was horrible as a Star Wars movie ! So much potential thrown completely away for jokes and to have plot twists is stupid and lazy. I won't watch another Star Wars if this is the future I'm done. I will not buy anymore Star Wars merchandise if this is the future. No more video games and so on. 100% disappointed. Way to go.
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1/10
This is like Marvel garbage. Don't believe the critics
Movie Critics are complete hypocrites. This movie has everything that they hate in a blockbuster picture:
Convoluted and simultaneously boring plot
Undeveloped characters
cringey and juvenile jokes that undercut any drama or emotion
it tells you what happens instead of showing it
and yet they love it.
The director, writers and producers elected to model this film after the Marvel formula of endless action without consequence. Of joke after joke, so hamfisted and formulaic you can predict when it will comes. LAUGH YOU PUPPETS
The plot itself is actual garbage. It completely contradicts the first movie of the trilogy let alone the entire saga.
Here's a detailed reasoning of why the plot is so bad:
The film had a few major problems. It didn't advance the story from the force awakens. It scrapped the tone, mood and plot of the force awakens. It completely changed the personalities of Hux, Kylo and Snoke.
The plot was a boring chase sequence. Star wars is known for developing characters or showing a vast and expansive universe, and most of the time it does both effortlessly.
This movie did neither.
The subplot at the casino ended up being inconsequential. If Finn just stayed asleep they'd actually be better off. Complete waste of time and was actually boring.
Starting almost immediately, the movie kept faking us out with dumb "twists"
Leia is dead, wait nevermind she flies like mary poppins.
Snoke is powerful. he is a dark and mysterious antagonist
Wait nevermind, he does not matter at all, he was just a plot device for Kylo Ren, even though this completely contradicts what was set up and implied in the previous film.
Kylo is developing as a potential protagonist or Anti-Hero. A first for Star Wars!
Actually no. He is no longer conflicted or interesting. He turns full evil and no one knows why. His implied motivations are weak and unconvincing.
Finn is a sacrificial hero! (I actually felt emotion as he was about to die)
Nope. They rob you of this moment at the last second. He remains an aimless character.
Kylo and Luke have a badass duel!!!
Nope. Once again cut to luke on the other side of the galaxy.
The minor characters were just complete disappointments.
BB-8 was ridiculous and utilyzed far too much than what was believable. A real deus ex-machina.
Poe did nothing. Just a lot of talking about something that could ahve been solved by him simply getting the information he asked for.
Captain phasma was the same disappointment as the last film.
Finn barely developed and had no real place in this plot. Hence why his subplot was only written for him to have something to do. IT ENDS UP BEING COMPLETELY INCONSEQUENTIAL.
Rose was only there to push an obvious nod to politics, DJ did nothing. Even Yoda looked and acted wacky.
Luke from return of the Jedi is unrecognizable and it doesn't make sense.
In the end both sides are crippled, the Galaxy is completely oblivious and none of it seems to matter.
On top of it now Leia will have to die offscreen because they made her Mary Poppins herself back into a ship. Kylo will either be redeemed or killed, that's the only two possibilities.
They didn't kill star wars they killed their own trilogy.
The ending? Please...
Completely missing from this movie is the magical moments of Star Wars.
Remember when luke finds his family murdered in the original. Thus setting off his hero's journey?
remember Han and Leia's romance and Luke's trial of dealing his father's evil in Empire Strikes Back?
Remember Vader's redemption? Obi wan telling anakin he was his brother?
The dual of the fates? Hell, even anakin and Padme's romance had beautiful music in attack of the clones.
Even JJ Abrams had this magic in Episode 7, when Rey takes the skywalker lightsaber instead of Kylo ren. The music soars and we get wide eyed.
None of that in The Last Jedi.
There was seemingly no room, which is ironic considering so little actually happens in the plot.
We do not hate this film because of the diverse cast, or because we hate strong female characters.
We hate it because it insults the vision that made star wars what it is.
The writing is amateur, the direction is clunky and even some of the visual choices are bad.
The movie is an absolute travesty, and they should all be ashamed of themselves.
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The Last Jedi is an awesome addition to the Star Wars universe. It's entertaining, fun, and I believe it to be the deepest Star Wars movie to date. It focuses heavily on the force and how it works to balance the light and the dark. This brings something new to the table of Star Wars, and has changed the way I view the previous movies, to a degree. For me I had to watch this 4 times, and loved it every single time. I cannot wait till 2019 for the conclusion of this trilogy.
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I cannot imagine why folks feel this movie was a 1/10. Have they seen truly bad movies before? This movie had a few spots where I felt characters should not have survived, but it had genuine surprises, humor, good character interaction. This movie was way better than Force Awakens which seemed to be a pandering to make the movie friendly to folks who wanted to see the original movies as they remember them but the payment for that was the movie had no real substance.
All the folks who felt betrayed by the direction Luke went, write your own book and movie. Its a direction. It certainly is plausible the way his character changed over time especially with all the solitude and stuff he might have experienced since we last saw him.
Folks who give this movie a 1/10 are not being objective at all in my opinion. I agree Leia flying through space seemed a bit farfetched (though it was done in some of the books) but overall, it was a great experience.
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1/10
Please do yourself a favor and watch infomercials at home
Instead of watching this garbage, you are better off watching infomercials at home, at least you don't have to fork money to watch something that makes your colon go all watery. And in which case, your toilet is very near.
But I digress and let's review this movie in the most simplest manners:
boring
confusing
not related to previous star wars movie, except the title.
bad acting
PC propaganda filled.
worst storyline.
On the bright side, and poetically speaking, at the end, I managed to take out that serpent that was hanging out of my lower back, which basically made the movie earn 1 star.
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7/10
VIEWS ON FILM review of Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
An enraged Luke Skywalker, a ritzy Cantina revision, a few out of place comic bits, an occasional whipping camera movement from the guy who made Looper. That's some of the things you'll experience if you take in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (my latest review).
Earlier this year, director Denis Villeneuve attempted to expand on the world of the original Blade Runner circa 1982. Now, we have Rian Johnson undertaking the role of expanding the Star Wars universe. Guess what, Johnson does it better and with more consistency via Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
"Jedi", with its showcasing of returning stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher (from the early installments) and its standout performance from Adam Driver (he's incredibly charismatic as Kylo Ren), closely resembles 1980's The Empire Strikes Back. Hold up though, that's where the slight comparisons end.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is unlike any film I've seen in the Star Wars canon. It doesn't adhere to the swashbuckling residue of Episodes "IV", "V", and "VI" nor does it lolly in the CGI overkill possessed by the prequels from 10-15 years ago. "Jedi" shows that Johnson doesn't want to be George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, or even the late Richard Marquand (Marquand shot Return of the Jedi). He gives the Star Wars charter a blooming makeover and yeah, he's all the better for it.
You can tell early on, that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the in-between movie or better yet, the 2nd act of a symphony. It plays just like what unfurled in "Empire". It has been rumored that Rian Johnson won't be directing "Episode IX". That's a shame because I wanted to know what the man had in store next. In 2019, I guess it's back to J.J. Abrams and the meat and potatoes movie making he rallied for in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
All in all, "Jedi" is happily rooted in complexities, cerebral nooks, sumptuous visuals, and some neat, kooky creatures (I loved the crystalline foxes and the Porgs). Johnson is a visionary filmmaker but he doesn't quite go over the top (that's a good thing). His flick lags a little bit in the middle until it goes full throttle in the last half. Watch for a mesmerizing, intergalactic battle in the Bolivian Salt Flats. Also, look out for some obligatory yet dazzling lightsaber battles that every Star Wars endeavor is contracted to have.
Bottom line: Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, might be the first actual art film associated with the Star Wars franchise. It may seriously appeal more to adults than to the fanboys and kiddies. I could care less because I dug Johnson's solidified groove anyway. Rating: 3 stars.
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There are two sides to my review: The Last Jedi as a film on its own, and as part of the Star Wars saga. The former is more objective, the latter more subjective. I found this film disappointing on both levels but want to give as even-handed a review as I can.
Firstly, how good is The Last Jedi as standalone cinema? It's hard to find the right word, but I found it to be a surprisingly messy, clumsy piece of storytelling saved to some extent by a few big, shocking, spectacular scenes. Do those scenes cover for the lackluster connective tissue? To some extent, but not nearly enough to merit a rating higher than 7/10 maximum. Significant portions of this film could have and should have been edited out. They serve purely to give screen time to certain characters, but are largely superfluous otherwise. There is also the matter of humor used in extremely counterproductive ways, i.e. appearing at the wrong moments. That aspect of The Last Jedi puzzled me.
There are other points of criticism, but overall being objective I'd give this 6.5/10 on its own merit. It's not as well-made a film as either The Force Awakens or Rogue One, although it is more complex and interesting in some ways. But if I was to have described a Star Wars film to you, a year ago say, by saying that it was complex and ambitious but kind of a storytelling mess full of cringeworthy dialogue and watchable primarily for a few big fight scenes, what would that bring to mind? The early prequels, of course. Yes, those are the films that The Last Jedi has the most in common with, from a technical standpoint.
On to the second point of perspective, TLJ as a Star Wars film. Here, I'd have to be feeling very generous to give more than 2/10. I'll get it right out of the way: I feel that this film assassinates the character of Luke Skywalker. I've waited decades to see him in action again, and never in my wildest dreams imagined that I could be so profoundly disappointed. I feel betrayed, and more than that, insulted. I know, that's strong language, but many of the choices of story, direction and dialogue in this film feel not simply like interesting subversions of expectations, but rather sadistic stabs at me as a longtime fan, as someone who took The Force Awakens as a hopeful indication of the new trilogy's approach, and as someone who has always found inspiration and something special to take away from Star Wars, even the lesser stories. I left the theater after this one feeling sick to my stomach, disillusioned and again, betrayed.
Beyond the character of Luke Skywalker, TLJ largely makes good on its motto of letting the past die. This film doesn't just take a few pieces off the board; it very nearly burns the whole board down, and what's more, seems to take a really perverse pleasure in it. I can't fathom how this film made it past the much talked about censors at Lucasfilm. This neither respects nor feels like Star Wars, and I mean that as a bad thing. There are ways to move beyond the past without trampling it, to do the unexpected without insulting the expectations. Rian Johnson either did not care to do so, or has what I would say is a very weird and twisted notion of what Star Wars is.
Circling back to the prequels, I'm no great lover of them aside from being fond of Revenge of the Sith. But I want to clarify that my comparison of The Last Jedi to either The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones is not meant to insinuate that either of those older films left me feeling bleak and disgusted the way that TLJ did. George Lucas may have lost his touch. JJ Abrams may have played one too many nostalgia cards. But I'd take either of them back in a heartbeat after seeing Rian Johnson's work. I'm not sure what Abrams can do with Episode IX or indeed if I can bring myself to go and see it, but right about now I yearn for the days when some minor disappointments about TFA's plot were the extent of my grievances. TFA promised great things; TLJ delivered something else entirely, for better or worse. I say, definitely for worse. Overall, 4/10 for a roughly made and contextually abhorrent movie.
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8/10
I seem to have seen a different movie than most commenters.
This movie was a lot of fun. Perfect? No.
But it is easily better than the the prequels, but that is no feat.
I admit the new characters introduced don't add much, Rose was dreadful, Del Toro felt unneccessary. I think Purple Haired chick would have been better if they had replaced her with Admiral Ackbar.
I thought Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were both good. Ridley was great. Isaac did well. I did think Boyega's scenes in this were a little weak.(not his fault though)
My order of preference for the Disney Star Wars Films.
1. Rogue One - Great Movie, sets a proof of concept for making different genre films set in the Star Wars universe.
2. The Last Jedi - A fun Star Wars movie. This is what I want.
3. The Force Awakens - Fun but a little too much like a remake for my tastes.
I don't relate to the nay sayers on this movie.
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I must say when i first saw the movie i was utterly shocked, sad and disappointed to the point of feeling that a major part of my life had been destroyed, but then i saw it again two times and I've managed to split the movie in "like it, don't like it, hate it" categories.
I expected more from TFA and got disappointed, but I've held on but TLJ however, is tremendously painful to bear. I haven't lost my "spark" of hope and i do agree that thing will inevitably change and should change but at least do them right. It is sad to see/hear this from such a fan like Dash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gLsukihjVg&feature=share
Here are most of my negative points:
Something that i didn't like already in TFA, the Resistance is an extremely small military force (if one can call it that). Not even the Rebellion was that small in its early days in such harsh/dire circumstances. In TLJ they are even more ridiculous.
No politics, no New Republic current situation nor the galaxy's as a whole for that matter. The New Republic was heavily demilitarized but damn, don't they have other forces throughout the Galaxy! -.-'
One single fighter takes out a 7 km long Mandator Dreadnaught's 26 point-defense laser cannons specially built to deal with such craft. Ney!
Hux is even more incompetent, coward, and stupid than before. He does not convey a proper "imperial" officer attitude nor depth of a Tarkin or Krennic type for example. The only FO officer that stood out, albeit briefly, was Captain Canady. I loved that character.
The bigger part of the film is a "Battlestar Galactica" chase.
I can't digest that a ship such as the Supremacy couldn't destroy 4 ships once it came out of lightspeed nor why didn't the FO sent the Resurgents or even swarms of TIE Fighters and Bombers alongside Kylo to catch up and put an end to the Resistence. The FO capital ships are toned down on one side and 4 TIEs (including Ren's) are capable of inflicting such damage to the Raddus. -.-'
Admiral Ackbar (love that character) is even more irrelevant this time. Where is his tactical genius? DEAD! R.I.P. Sucked into space just like that! -.-' He should have been the one to pilot the Raddus in the end and, by doing so, he would have gone out in glory and Holdo could have lived.
I can accept that Leia survives the vacuum of space, hell, Vader survived being burned to a crisp and other Force users are known to do impossible things in both canon and legends, but the way that scene was done. Ney!
Porgs should have been toned down a bit, they are cute and funny but overused in my opinion.
Canto Bight and all the subplot of Finn and Rose is crap! I think that their mission plot could have been "saved" if, in the end, DJ had had a change of heart, like solo in ANH, taken control of the FO ST and saved them. Unfortunately, DJ was just another wasted character. In the end, That subplot brought nothing but distraction to the story as a whole.
I can accept that Snoke was not important to Rian Johnson and others, but the character should have gone out in a more impressive way. Such powerful and mysterious being sliced in half by a sleazy cheesy trick with a lightsaber!? Really!? NEYYYY!
Phasma, OMFG!! Ultra mega disappointment!!!!
Why do they keep messing with Yoda. GOSH! Puppet Yoda worked great in the OT and CGI Yoda in the PT, why mix both and have that hideous thing. If they've made such a great job with Snoke and Maz, why not making a state of the art CGI Yoda.
That hyperspace suicide move from Holdo (another excellent and wasted character) left me with mixed feelings. A ship powerful as the Supremacy being destroyed like that... oh man. There is a precedent of a sort, in legends when Admiral Griff orders his and another 2 ISDs to jump into hyperspace and accidentally collide with the Executor bringing down its shields and disabling it for some time but not destroying it.(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/8/8f/GriffMeetsExecutor-CSW.png/revision/latest?cb=20150112001227) I expected another kind of spectacular demise to that ship.
The whole Battle of Crait was another wasted event that could have been great. The set was staged for such an awesome land battle but no. 13 falling apart junk speeders against such a massive FO invasion force that result in nothing but waste of life and accomplish nothing.
Finns junk speeder manages to hold against that super cannon beam!?!?!? Another crap!
Mary Sue saves the day by diverting all the TIEs from the battle and destroying them! -.-'
Luke dies without some fight. He should have fought a bit, even though as a projection to stall Kylo even more, while at the same time, add more depth/credibility to the tremendous power he was using culminating in his death by overtaxing his body, and giving us fans a memorable go "down fighting" moment.
The Falcon leaves Crait without any fight. Holdo managed to destroy all FO forces in that strike? No! Otherwise where the hell did the invasion force come. In the end everyone is happy like nothing has happened. -.-'
May the Force be with Star Wars.
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As marketed by the trailers, "This will not go the way you think!" This movie takes everything you believe and spins it upside down, but in a good way. The movie is challenging. I would rather have it be challenging than boring and predictable. This was thankfully not Empire Strikes Back part II.
The mindset of Luke Skywalker is believable. I encourage people to explore the other points of view on the handling of the character of Luke Skywalker, it is totally believable.
The hate comes from fans who are set in their close minded theories, and who cling to what they want to happen, rather than going in with an objective mind set.
People believed The Force Awakens was too similar to the original Trilogy, now people are complaining that it is too different from the trilogy! I swear.....
Some points my peers I do believe have a point, but creating false and non-existent plot-holes because you theory did not come to fruition or your taste in action or execution differs from the decision the director took.
Of course this movie has some flaws and some missed opportunities, but it truly is one of the most interesting, entertaining Star Wars movies since ESB. It is also probably the one with the most consequential set of events which drives the saga in a new and exciting direction overall. This will probably be the most divisive Star Wars movies since the prequels, but objectively this movie is great.
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Never have I left the cinema with so many mixed feelings... this film reminded me of the Matrix sequels in that - I desperately wanted to explore and enjoy the universe, but the vapid, clunky plot and unspeakably tedious, ludicrous, overdrawn action sequences left me almost forcing myself to try and enjoy what was unfolding in front of my eyes. That being said - while I can understand the hateful backlash from thousands of Star Wars fans, it still has redeeming qualities.
PROS:
-Nostalgia. While I also fundamentally disagree with the way they treated the chartacter of Luke, it was still exhilirating to see him back in action, and Mark Hamill did a great job of executing his poorly written character. And I got a tear welling up when he meets Laia.
-Rey - Kylo relationship. I have mixed feelings about both these characters, but the development of their relationship was one of the strongest aspects of the movie.
-Technical execution. TLJ has a weaker plot than the prequels, but it is unquestionably superior in terms of effects, cinenatography etc. There are a fair few visually impressive moments, such as the red/white planet at the end.
-Red Guard fight. A decent fight scene, not a classic, but it was one of the stronger moments.
-Snoke's sparkly dressing gown. Yes this did turn the previously mysterious arch-villain into borderline-comic-relief.. but amidst the 10,000 poor attempts at jokes this was the one thing in the whole movie that actually made me laugh...
CONS:
-The Middle Finger to the Original Trilogy & TFA.
I can understand the hate from the hardcore fans, there was something about this movie that was deeply offensive to the original trilogy, and even to TFA.
I could go on at length about this movie's inherent disrespect to the original trilogy... making the force far too free & easy, the heavy-handed application of what was once a mysterious power, the obscene trivliasation of the whole concept of Jedi's in the first place...
Perhaps even more significantly, is its trashing of the TFA. All the interesting plot-threads set-up in TFA get whimsically brushed away. I had little issue with TFA being a reboot of ANH, but most of the characters that were kinda interesting in TFA became irritating and dull in TLJ, which leads me to...
-Jedi Training Island. This constantly perked my excitement whenever it came on-screen, especially as the space-chase & meaningless side-plots were so boring and drawn-out. There was huge potential here, but it was constantly poorly executed. The backstory behind Luke's cynicism is incredibly weak, he comes across as about as naive as he is at the start of ANH. The whole "the jedi must end" thing made absolutely no sense. I enjoyed some aspects, but its hard to see why such a crucial aspect of the story was dealt with in such a sloppy manner.
-Finn & Rose. Finn started off as an interesting character in TFA, but he is barely developed beyond that. Fine if he is to be a one-dimensional character, but if that's what he's going to be, he doesn't need anywhere near as much screen-time. The casino trip was boring, Rose saving Finn at the end was possibly the stupidest moment in star wars history.
-The Plot. There's not much . Even the prequels easily out-do TLJ in terms of plot. Clever Surprises are good, but TLJ mostly prefers to indulge in endless CHEAP "twists".
Respect the Universe you're working with, cut-down the incessantly boring/unnecessary non-Jedi plot by an hour, put some more thought into developing the Luke-Rey-Kylo stuff so that it stands up to more than 5 seconds of critical analysis and does justice to the Force & the Jedi, and this could be a halfway decent movie (oh and cull that weak slapstick humour, almost as insufferable as Jar-Jar).
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So weak, so little left over for a 3rd movie. Luke's character traits from the original movie which made him a hero.... Gone.
Luke had to train to become what he was, he worked for it. Now such traits are given without explanation. This mocks the original characters and makes the new characters unbelievable.
If you measure substance and not flash you will not enjoy the film. If you are the "Shiny Thing" type get your ticket without delay.
My 1st review... and I had to do it because I feel I was totally misled by apparent good ratings.
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This film presents an audience with a glorious visual spectacle, exciting plot twists and adventure, and better dialog than some previous installments of the Star Wars franchise. As a science fiction action adventure film, if it were not posing as a film in the Star Wars universe, it would deserve a high rating of 7 or 8. However, as a Star Wars film, it presents an insulting betrayal of the audience by asking them to believe that Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Master has, after years of meditative exile, devolved into a petulant adolescent, an egotistical dissembler, and a person lacking in wisdom and moral insight. The scriptwriters and director did not need to do this, as most of the conflict and tension necessary to the plot involving Luke's reluctance to train Rey or get involved in galactic politics could have been maintained while portraying Luke as a wise and honest Jedi with wisdom and empathy. The director and scriptwriters have stated that they thought the character Luke Skywalker had already achieved his role in the Return of the Jedi film, evidently unaware of the scores of novels and comic books covering decades of Galactic history following the Battle of Yavin. This Expanded Universe material (now "legendary Star Wars") proved that the Luke Skywalker character could be used again and again, and show character development and growth over a lifetime of adventure, but this film shows the lack of imagination and petty egotism of its creators who could think of nothing significant or respectful to do with this central character of the Star Wars universe. The lack of integrity in the Luke Skywalker character (he was so out of character in this film), and the betrayal of character coherence and the nearly total rejection of the deeper backstory to the Star Wars saga was so insulting, egregious, and unnecessary that as a Star Wars film this movie deserves only two stars. And so, on balance as an "8" as a generic action adventure science fiction film and a "2" as a Star Wars film, I give the movie 5 stars.
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Okay so my first problem with it is how they character assassinated Luke Skywalker, he was THE Jedi Master and instead, he became an old man who complains about everything, then they killed off Snoke before we even got to see what he could do, then they kill off Luke but not Leia really? Sadly Carrie Fisher is no longer with us so I'm surprised Leia is still alive and Luke isn't. Also, the whole thing with Rey looking into the Mirror of Erised from the first Harry Potter was pointless and stupid and did not do anything for the plot. AND they killed off the potential of who Rey's parents could have been. JJ Abrams even said he told Daisy Ridley who her parents were and that they were something big. And then this new director just completely killed that idea. Phasma once again had only seven minutes of screen time and it ticks me off, I love Phasma and Gwendoline Christie and they just keep on wasting her awesome character. She is so much cooler in the comics. AND MY FINAL problem with the film was how Rose saved Finn, it made the whole him being a martyr thing stupid because we all knew he wasn't going to die. Now it wasn't all bad so here is what I loved and honestly what gets it a six from me and not a four. I loved how they went more in depth with the actual Star Wars Universe by that I mean the creatures and the planets. It totally felt like star wars, I like how they did Ben Solos turn to the Dark Side and why it happened, and I liked Poe's character development in this film. We didn't get to see that a lot in VII so I'm glad they made up for it in VIII.
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1/10
If I wasn't with my girlfriend I would have cried from how bad this movie was.
We could have had Luke bringing down AT-ATs with his powers. Instead Luke is gimped so he does not outshine Rey. Awesome pilot is gimped so we can have some random character win the day in what would have to be one of the most contrived sub-plots ever. Princess Leia 'just has powers' after putting in *what!?!* effort and time to obtain them? Same for Rey. Crap sub-plot involving Finn and Rose to give them something to do, with no payoff *whatsoever* other than to possibly make that pilot dude look like a jerk. Epic fail is epic.
Better ending: after all of the AT-ATs blast at Luke, we cut away to Rey having lifted all of the rocks from the back of the cave, ushering the resistance out. They fly over the battleground. All of the war machines have been destroyed. Luke is standing there waiving. He is Luke Skywalker, Jedi Grand Master. He is a force to be reckoned with.
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I am completely stumped by what is going on here. I can only guess that everyone with a negative attitude to this film has an anti Disney attitude, or decided how they wanted the movie to go and were dissapointed by what they got instead.
Some of the scenes in this movie are the most spectacular I have seen in all the movies so far. The story is perfectly fine, the new characters are fun and add to the enjoyment greatly and the existing characters are advanced in ways I never would have guessed. I went from laughter, to tears, to nervous dread several times over and loved it.
All I can suggest is see this movie for yourself and do not believe everything you read by the haters. Everyone I have spoken to enjoyed it immensly, hense why the rage on here is so hard for me to comprehend.
Can't wait to see what comes next...
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1/10
Destruction of the Original Trilogy for no good reason
So many other reviews share my opinion so I'll keep it short. Mark Hamill fundamentally disagreed with everything written about his character. Watch this movie and you'll know why. I fundamentally disagree with this movie. No longer a huge star wars fan am I. KK, RJ and JJ have ruined SW. I wish I could give zero stars. George Lucas where are you, your our only hope.
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6/10
fun to watch but disappointing for a star wars fan
To do justice to the movie, it is probably fun to watch - unless you are a star wars fan. if you are, then don't watch it; just wait until episodes 7 & 8 are removed from the star wars timeline and completely re-written.
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Let me clear: This film isn't as mind-blowingly fantastic like the film critics say.
It also isn't as godawful as Star Wars 'fans' make it out to be.
It's just a really good movie, one that I extremely enjoyed.
Sure it has its problems and plot holes, but Star Wars movies have never perfect. I believe one of the main reasons this particular title is getting so much hate from fans is because while this film has the same problems that you might see in other Star Wars films, all the great parts come as a result of Rian Johnson merely pushing the boundaries of what can make a Star Wars film great.
To all those people claiming 'feminism' and 'diversity for the sake of it', why not just enjoy the actors instead of worrying about their race or gender? Who the hell cares if a new character called Rose is asian; I thought she was a fun addition!
Honestly, people need to lighten up and just be open minded. The original Star Wars trilogy wasn't an untouchable holy trinity of cinema, and need to accept that the Star Wars is being handed over to another generation.
I may be being naive as to why so many Star Wars fans are hating this movie, but I'm certain a lot of it comes down to just being offended over the little things that should never offend any reasonable person.
If you're a fan of Star Wars, please see this film with an open mind. Along with the Force Awakens (and possibly Rogue One?) this new trilogy is testing you, entertainingly too I might add.
Sure the dialogue can be corny at times, but it's nowhere near as bad as the Prequels. And as I mentioned before, the problems and plot holes may be many, but on top of the acting, visuals, and pretty much any scene with Kylo Ren, this film is one of my favourite Star Wars flicks.
I'm not asking anyone to like it as much as I do.
I'm just asking any and all Star Wars fans to really consider why they don't enjoy it, and not to write it off as the end of Star Wars.
One more point: My dad, a man of 45, who is a bigger Star Wars fan than most, who grew up with the OT, was in tears at the end of it. He told me it what I've pretty much said here: this movie hands the baton off to the next generation of Star Wars perfectly.
I would recommend this movie to anyone open to change and progress, a dumb laugh here and there and the ability to almost, but not quite, turn your mind off for a few hours and just frickin' enjoy it.
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I want to know what movie are these critics watching? have they even seen the other star wars movies? do they actually know a thing or two about the lore of this universe? because if so, just the heck dude. I honestly can't believe that someone who KNOWS and loves this universe would just say "oh yeah this movie makes so much sense"
I can't even begin to explain all of the things that are wrong with this movie, just who put johnson in charge? and why if the dude's getting his own trilogy that has nothing to do with the main did he have to meddle on this one? At the core of its being, Star Wars is about family, friendship and hope. How dare they take all of our characters, their personalities and just butcher them likes this? I feel almost as cheated as with EP I, but at least I always felt the heart within Anakin and Obiwan, even Padme. I've even lost hope for the last episode.
TLDR; movies makes no sense, the plot is ?¿? every single one of your characters is OOC, beautiful music as always, lovely special effects.
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I get why some did not like this movie. I disagree with them, as I think most of the criticism comes from discomfort with taking things in a new direction, which was my problem with TFA, that it was too much a rehash. I've been a star wars fan since 1977 and seeing A New Hope in the theater as a 4 year old and 500 times since then. Han shot first.
I just don't see how folks can say things to the effect of this ends Star Wars as we know it, it's the worst of the franchise, etc. It is light years better than the prequels, and far more true to the heart of what I feel star wars is about.
It's fine to have issues with a movie. I wasn't a huge fan of Canto Bight, and Leia floating around could have been done better. But I think all the angst over parentage and snoke and Luke couldn't have been done in any other way that would have satisfied the vocal critics. Star wars is supposed to be for all fans, casual and hard core, and I feel the hard core folks will never be happy because the years they spend on theories and minutia will never be validated. I say this as someone who watches star wars podcasts every week and soak up all the news I can. I just don't let it run my life.
It's a really good movie. And I've seen it twice, liked it better the second time and my 3 kids all loved it.
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How can you ruin the magic of a legendary movie saga?
1) the story is 100% predictable, no creativity
2) jokes...every 10 minutes in any scene there is a joke by one of the characters. Is this supposed to be a comedy? insane
3) the movie wants to be 100% politically correct so the heroes are: 1) black 2) asian 3) hispanic 4) female character. Are you kidding me? How about developing 1 decent character throughout the entire movie? No to busy being politcally correct...ridiculous
4) movie length: almost 2h30min on a predictable movie. Some people on my row were snoring. I kid you not. Period not further comment.
What's sad is that IMDB is somehow initially hijacked with a bunch of fake ratings.So it started at 8.4, now, read all the negative reviews, already at 7.8. Definitly it should not be over 6...
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Please end this torture! If there will be a third installment released in this new Star Wars series, I will NOT be one to want to see it. (In fact, I'll avoid it like the plague.)
I'm going to echo the rest of the legitimate reviews here: this film is not only bad as a Star Wars film, it has the worst writing I have ever seen in a sequel film. No, Disney! You don't stuff up the first movie, and then try to reboot the story in the second movie by negating all that the first movie has established. And you don't throw all that we know about Star Wars out the window in order to create a shallow spectacle in a sequel trilogy to the franchise!
This movie represents the worst of Hollywood's newfound extremism: make movies for the sake of making money -- who cares how good they are! Not only that, but it shows the world how monopolising the market allows even the worst of products to turn extreme profits. And yes, I am looking at your 8.0 rating, IMDB, as well, and I'm very disappointed you let money (and paid reviewers) influence the quality of your movie ratings.
In a nutshell, I'm utterly disgusted. No more Disney Star Wars (heck, no more Disney anything) for me, thank you very much!
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5/10
Spoilers. I thought it was fine, but I can see where people are coming from with the negative points. (Edit. The more I think about the more I realize it's overrated.)
Spoilers........If you don't care about spoilers then please by all means.
I saw the film and I thought it was OK. It was definitely entertaining in some aspects, I even felt a little of the old movie magic coming in....perhaps a testament to Disney's obsession with making this trilogy as close to the originals as possible so as to appease "the fans" that were all stirred up over the RLM Plinkett Reviews. I also see this as possibly a negative aspect.
The film had points of excellent cinematography, wonderfully done scenes that could definitely engage the eye. The Plot however.....eh...meh...and sometimes OK.
However, despite some of the things I liked and some of the things I appreciated I definitely see where people are coming from with the group that didn't like it.
The story did seem to creep at times and upon hindsight, the casino plotline served no purpose other than to get Finn on the ship to kill Cap'n Phasma (One of the wasted characters that could have been absent from the film at this point and not missed at all. )
I suppose they were going for a "the Heroes aren't right all the time" subversion to the usual "the commanding officer is wrong" plot........(DISNEY SAYS OBEY YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER!!!!)
There is definitely overt agenda in this film,some of which I didn't mind (I do now), some of which I felt was rather on the nose. The latter of which would be the whole "save the animals" message intertwined with a weapons dealing message that I can only imagine will have to wait until the next movie to see if the plot line goes anywhere. Turns out Star Wars is Iraq and Syria in Outer Space kiddos! ......Topical....so Topical.....weapons dealers are selling to both sides! (Sarcastic Gasp!)
Some logical inconsistencies. Finn only met Maz Kanata once, Poe and Rose never met her.....so how did they know how to contact her?
Perhaps one of the most contentious topics. The Princess Leah Marry Poppins scene. I have to admit when they first did this I thought they were killing her off. I actually began to well up with the hindsight of the death of Carrie Fisher. But per usual in this movie, they turned that cliche on its head. Leah uses the force and survives the vacuum of space. I will say that in a Fantasy Universe I am not averse to this kind of break from reality,(i.e. fire in space, tanks with legs.....the force for God's Sakes) in fact, I would prefer that the Niel Degrasse Tyson types leave most movies alone unless the films themselves claim scientific accuracy. But....I also expect the Fantasy Universe to follow it's own set up rules so long as it's not set in Wonderland. Leah was sucked into the vacuum of space along with our beloved Admiral Ackbar. Only to use the force to a door that opens for the main characters who then retrieve her. My question?.....why didn't Poe and Finn get sucked out the minute they opened that door to a breached bridge? I guess it's in a deleted scene? There was smoke in the door, but......how does a puff of smoke save you from the vacuum of space....oh well Metichlorians I guess.
Snoke has to be the biggest disappointment in the film. I can already hear the counter argument. I've heard him described as a red herring, a sort of tool to accentuate Kylo Ren. I expect the counterargument to be that in the original trilogy the Emperor was a mysterious figure that we knew nothing about. (Disney you wouldn't happen to be watching the Plinkett Reviews would you?)
That was true until the prequel trilogy, and making a mysterious Emperor is effective. However, this Disney trilogy is based off of and dependent on the afore-mentioned original trilogy. Snoke played a tremendous role in the period between the two trilogies. Luke and Leah know him by name, and he apparently had access to Kylo Ren. I suppose it could be argued that he could influence people from across the galaxy, but with the establishment in the other two Trilogies of balance to the force, the only other argument would now be that Luke and Darth Vader's plot is somewhat muted. I think in the next film we need to have a refresher course on just exactly who Snoke was, where he came from, and how he was so good at using the force.....and also how he was not able to pay attention to multiple things at once ;)
Luke's character I thought was very good, though I can understand the disappointment in many fans that his character would become so unlike the older Luke, and that he would nearly kill his nephew. Again the cinematic ending to Luke on the rock before a twin sun was emotional. But why he wouldn't have gone with Rey to right his wrongs I still don't understand. It is also somewhat of a betrayal that he would turn on the Jedi.
I thought Yoda was funny......I also think it was completely out of a wise sage Jedi character to burn books. Wise, Yoda is not. Puppet he is. Book burner he is......(Rey stole books I hear I missed that.) Yes everyone, Master Yoda (tried to) burned the original books of the Jedi. Apparently those books were completely worthless since you already have the force in you........so why even have them in the movie to begin with?
While I somewhat enjoyed the attempts at subverting common tropes and cliche's in the film, I feel that they may have stepped a little too far in attempting to deconstruct the mono myth. I think this is a window into the intention of Disney. I don't know if I want every pop corn flick deconstructed and subverted....before you know it the subverted elements themselves will become the new cliches.
One thing they completely failed at subverting was the overuse of coincidence and convenient plot elements. Finn just happened to know Maz Kanata's holo number. They just so happened to find a hacker in a jail cell. The force suddenly can do things that were never established before like...communicate clear across the Galaxy and force project while you are still alive. The last Snail bomber just so happened to drop the pay load right on the exact spot of the dreadnought that would completely blow up the ship. (Admittedly I can forgive this particular one for dramatic effect.) Rose suddenly "loves" Finn......Disney c'mon I know you're pushing the diversity stuff, but can you at least get Rey and Finn to make us some caramel Jedi young lings for Darth Vader to kill? Admiral Laura Dern for some reason just didn't think it was right to tell her subordinates the plan to save their Asssses from running out of fuel. The First Order just so happened to suddenly be able to track you through hyperspace. C'mon writers......a little convenience can be fun.....but this is ridiculous. --- BB8 and the gambler just so happened to find Finn and Rey on the cliff.
I did like the way they used some of the rehashed plot points from Empire Strikes Back and the Last Jedi. This is where subverting the expected, really helped in differentiating this one from J.J the Jet Plane's "The Forced Awakening" and it's uncanny similarities to A New Hope.
I'm luke warm (no pun intended) of the subplot of Rey wanting to convert Kylo Ren. It seemed forced and somewhat ripped off. It copied the Luke Skywalker attempt to convert Darth Vader plot line, it then subverted it for Kylo Ren to remain on the Dark Side and now become the main antagonist. I don't know, it may have worked.
One part that I thought changing expectations was sort of dumb was when they revealed that Rey's parents were underwhelming peasants. I don't believe Kylo Ren personally. I'm of the opinion that she is Luke and Leah's daughter..... I mean after all she is extremely proficient in the force.....and Luke and Leah would definitely not want people to know about her being "their daughter," if you catch my drift. XD
I agree that Disney is both agenda pushing (again it was rather annoyingly on the nose in some parts) and also using this as a bulwark to increase their profits (duh). I can't tell if Disney has lost it's first love, or if it has embraced another (actually with the Fox acquisition it looks like it has embraced several lovers--- and then buries them in the basement).
I can tell you that ....eh it was fine. Not terrible....only remarkable here and there. The Laura Dern Kamikaze scene was epic!!! That was one scene I thought was visually stunning. It also makes me wonder if both the Empire and the Rebels are now both crippled.
Nitpiks: How do you go from Y-wings and B-Wings......to slow Asss bombers that can barely maneuver? I mean I'm fine with fire in space and tanks with legs but.....I can't suspend my disbelief that you would downgrade to something so slow. I don't blame the 1st order for annihilating those snail bombers. Oh and Snoke.....more like Joke! (Wah waaaaaaaah!) And What! No Lando Calrissian? I was just expecting him to pop up on casino planet scene. I would have rather had him be the hacker than Benecio Del Toro. You could have made that plot line work so much more.
The CGI animals.....use them in short bursts. There is a reason the animals in the original trilogy were kept to a minimum screen time.
There are force sensitive peasant children in this movie because Disney Movie....we must wish upon a star, quite literally.....for the little green force conscience calls us from afar. (but literally Disney No more kiddos kapeesh?)
[Edit: About the Rey's parents element. What a terrible example of under whelming story. I mean what lazy writing and plot convenience to just have a character say "Oh I force sensed the truth about 'random important storyline' explained because reasons."......The more I think about this movie, the dumber it sounds.....maybe all Star Wars is that way.......maybe they should quit making these. Y'know instead of "redefining for a new generation" they should probably try to give the New generation something new....something that isn't their parents.]
At this point I'm just hoping Disney doesn't build a Death Star and explode the Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny, you're our only hope!
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Ultimately this movie was generally boring and full of old has-been clichés that resulted from very poor writing/storytelling Clearly this movie was not written by an actual writer and that is where the faults lie. Too much cronyism and nepotism in Hollywood where people are no longer hired for talent. This movie prove it.
The Good:
The music was good, the soundtrack is worth listening to on its own.
The Bad:
The main characters are far too wooden and clichéd.
Cartoon level dialogue and dated 1980s cartoon humour.
1980s cartoon sequences.
Jarring violations of physics, again 1980s cartoon level.
The characters lack motives for their action beyond cartoon level motives. Their is absolutely no back story to explain anything about the First Order, the Resistance, or why they switched to Empire vs Rebels half way through the movie. Seriously, Shredder had deeper motives back in the 1980s Ninja Turtles cartoon than Snoke or Kylo Ren. Disney called this a story, what story? As an antagonist, Snoke was far under utilised and comes across as a video game boss, nothing more. Kylo Ren is still a cartoon level antagonist on the same level as Shredder from the 1980's TMNT cartoon series. No motives, no menace, just a ranting, childish cartoony baddie. No shitty laser sword fights can make him better unless he loses.
The protagonist characters are so clichéd and so wooden they're have less depth than characters in a video game. Fin was boring comic relief character like in the last boring movie. getting beaten up by little girls, always trying to run away, always spouting shit jokes and generally being incompetent. The Rose character was just a waste of space, utterly bland all she does is bungle around behind Fin while spouting jealous crap about rich people. This shows up in that cartoon leve, cringy casino setting. Princess Leia dotters about the warship like Granny May, until she does the superman cartoon flying trick after being spaced. Moe Futurama than Star Wars.
Outside the Sega Megadrive video game plot with Fin and Rose, the Luke Skywalker and Mary Sue sections were pointless and dull, not even Luke milking that seal thing for green milk could save it. Rey Mary Sue shows up Luke then proceeds to follow up her magic chit chat with Kylo Ren by helping him flog Snoke and his red guards. By this stage in the movie it is beginning to make movies like Elektra absolute Oscar Award works when it comes to combat and combat dialogue.
The cheesy Futurama level spaceships-stop-when-they-run-out-of-fuel bullshit was jarring. All the three ships had to do was accelerate for a short burst then switch the engines off and they'll still keep going as space is a vacuum, no friction to slow them down. Christ, its bad enough they have humans running around 290 million years ago in another galaxy, now space friction. What next, Space Whales? The ending has the traditional Star Wars poor military tactics and poor aim as expected. No Star Wars character would last two seconds in a gunfight on Star Trek.
The main reasons this movie was so boring was due to the total lack of actual storytelling and background combined with bad character design. The original Star Wars movies had classic characters who did developed over time, hence the reason why the 'death' of Luke Skywalker is just as stupid as the Han Solo death scene in the previous movie.
Fin was a boring character with crummy dialogue. A pussy run away who bungles his way around while constantly needing help from another boring, forgettable character. Boring.
Poe was a dated cliché better suited to an ole 1980s Vietnam War movie. Boring.
Rey is still a Mary Sue. Boring.
Snoke and Kylo are both cartoon baddies. Megatron and Shredder. Boring.
The rest of the movie had cartoon nonsense like Kylo using the force on General Ginger to make the children laugh just like they did when they saw Shredder to the same thing to Beebop in the TMNT cartoon.
In short this movie as about as intellectual as a 1980s cartoon. The dialogue was atrocious, the jokes woefully childish and the subplots right out of the Saturday morning cartoons. To call this childish, infantile cartoony movie Star Wars is an insult, even Star Wars Rebels had better stories and characters and that is a cartoon series.
keep watching these Disney Star Wars movies for too long and you'll end up a god damn Trekkie.
BORING!
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This time around, "Star Wars" delivers lots of action and fun in a stylish fashion. Giving the torch over to Rain Johnson, "The Last Jedi" explores the galaxy far far away with focus on the returned Luke Skywalker. Johnson struggles to find his place with this film. "The Last Jedi" feels as if it was written on the spot and was unorganized form the beginning. There's. o real sense of direction and it feels like Disney is scrambling to figure out what to do for the next film. That being said, the spectacles still deliver. Space ships, creatures, ridiculous action, gorgeous visual effects and then some are all present throughout this epic journey. "The Last Jedi," while disappointing in many ways, delivers hard and promises a fun movie experience that "Star Wars" fans from all wakes of life should enjoy the hell out of.
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First and foremost, I am a huge star wars fan since I was a kid, I collected the toys, adored most of the Star Wars games (Knights of the Old Republic, The Old Republic, and so on), then something happened with eps 1 - 3. It became corny and a joke to itself, and I pretty much gave up then.
Then.. TFA happened, and I was pleasantly surprised at the light tone. Sure it was a bit on the campy side, but I found it enjoyable, and the part of my brain that always plays devil's advocate took a chill pill and soaked in the new characters, but I did wonder why they made John Boyega use an American accent as opposed to his real English accent (anywho, just nitpicking).
The Last Jedi is... something else. When they announced that they were going to use Rian Johnson, I knew what I was walking into. I'm a big fan of the underrated sci-fi thriller, Looper, I appreciated the dark tone of time travel he introduced, and so is his vision. He's one of those underrated directors that kinda came out of nowhere. And to my surprise, he has directed some of the BEST episodes of Breaking Bad. So I was like, "OK, this is going to be a very interesting experience, knowing what this director can bring onto the table.
Walking out of the theatre with a friend, I was left perplexed and a bit haunted. All in a good way. I felt the despair of the rebel forces, the true despair of being hunted constantly outnumbered and outgunned. It felt human. Clearly this movie is not meant for everyone, it's so bloody dark if I might say so. And the best kind of movie, in my opinion, is the kind of movie that leaves you thinking after I'm out of the theatres.
Did it divide the star wars fans? Most likely. Why? Because this instalment wants to "move on" from the past. Star wars fans are a tough crowd to please, and radical change will probably upset the status quo. I appreciate Rian's message throughout the whole film, "Let the past die". And I agree. Newer Star Wars fans love this new approach (from what I've gathered). Old Star Wars fans are divided and I am one of those whom wants this change and push it further.
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I'll start off by admitting I'm not a die-hard fan of Star Wars, but it is indeed one of my most favorite movie franchises, and I probably see it as the best movie series of all time. With that said, Disney and Rian Johnson gave zero f***s about that fact, and totally raped this movie. They disrespected fans, the series, George Lucas, and film making ALL TOGETHER. The plot was awful, unrealistic, cheesy, and completely pointless. The Last Jedi is mindblowingly bad, I cannot believe the unusually high critic reviews of this film, it is baffling.
First, the PLOT. It's bad, it's the worse part of the film. There's a day long chase between the Resistance and The First Order. This is a pathetic attempt at a story. Come on? So TFO can't send Tie-Fighters to blow those ships up? They couldn't send another ship to jump ahead and close them off? And that salt planet, SO CONVENIENTLY STUPID. Then the island, which serves little purpose for the story, and no real connection to the plot. Rey doesn't go through any real training after finally convincing Luke to train her, then she finds a dark hole that gives zero answers or meaning, and she feels a call to the ancient books but doesn't read or engage with them?!? Then don't get me started on the huge tangent plot filler for the casino world. Such a huge waste of time. BUT WORST OF ALL, the coolest villain in this stupid trilogy gets killed with incredible ease? Super anticlimactic, FOR THE ENTIRE TRILOGY. Now we are left with annoying, trying-to-hard-to-be-bad, Kylo Ren. Then Rey, who has extraordinary force powers, is a nobody. NO EXPLANATION. The plot was pointless, and we barely took a step from where it started. It didn't drive the story forward well at, and it really hampered the fluidity from Episode 7. It was all-around, a pointless story.
Second, the CHEESY SCENES and acting. Gravity in Space? No those space bombs don't fall like that, the people on the dreadnought should have been laughing. Leia in space? That was the most cringe-worthy scene, such disconnect with the reality of SW. Then the awkward force connections between Rey/Kylo. It felt so off, cheap, and poorly executed. They should have had a Sense8 type moment. Then there's Yoda, who looks very fake and out of place. He served little purpose to the story, and somehow can summon a giant bolt of lightning? The part with Luke Force Projecting was novel, and almost successful. It didn't feel believable at all, and terribly out of place. I'm into the idea of the Force-users obtaining new abilities, but do it where we aren't scratching our heads, and do it carefully.
Third, the HUMOR. It was so out of place. Star Wars, and not to mention the TFA, didn't have any humor like that. I mean it was a nice touch, but it wasn't at all appropriate or relative to the series.
Overall, there's a HUGE disconnect this installment has with The Force Awakens, not to mention Star Wars in general. Big story elements like Rey's parents, Snoke and his origins, Luke's Jedi Training Temple, are all underwhelming and vastly forgotten in this film. It's as if Rian Johnson hated what JJ did, and decided to just scrap it selfishly, and awkwardly steered this new trilogy in a whole new bad direction. This film was a disaster, and left me with zero f***s of where the story is now going, and left with this ugly feeling for the last chapter.
Disney raped Star Wars, BIG TIME.
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First the books. Now Disney ruins the Star Wars movie legacy. YouTube is full of parodies. We don't need a $200 million one. The Last Jedi is painful to watch and it broke my heart. To quote Mark Hamill from the may 2017 Vanity Fair: "after reading Rian Johnson's script for The Last Jedi, Hamill said, "I at one point had to say to Rian, 'I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you've made for this character". It's pretty depressing that Disney and Rian Johnson didn't listen to Mark who's been there since the beginning. It's easier to add jokes and sarcastic remarks to entertain in the moment than to create something intelligent and profound that will last. They took the easy way out, just to be trendy. It's possible to create something original without being silly and taking a dump on the past. Just because it works for some Marvel movies, doesn't mean you should apply that formula everywhere. I hope Ron Howard brings some of the dignity back with Star Wars: Solo.
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"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was a huge disappointment to a long time "Star Wars" fan such as myself. Okay, here we go.
The rebel Resistance are on the run, hunted down by the evil First Order ruled by the Dark Side. Daisy Ridley, who plays a young woman strong with The Force, seeks a Jedi master (Mark Hamill) who is in hiding; and begs him to help with the fight against the First Order and maybe train her to be a Jedi -- sounds a bit like "The Empire Strikes Back" right? Why not, as "The Force Awakens" was similar to "A New Hope."
Then there is the puzzling and badly written (which fits right in with the rest of the movie which revels in its mediocrity and goofball jokes) subplot involving two Resistance fighters going to a casino to find a person who excels in hacking stuff so they can bring him back to the bad guys' main ship to sneak in unnoticed and destroy some gizmo that allows the bad dudes to track the Resistance fleet -- what's left of it -- even in hyperspace. Destroy the gizmo, and the Resistance can zoom away and escape to fight another day. But that may not be necessary because the leader of the rebel fleet intends to abandon the main ship and use escape transports to sneak into a planet that has been abandoned but has an old rebel base there. Oh, the escape transports have a cloaking device to keep the bad guys from seeing them on their monitors...but...you can still see the escape ships! Yes, the rebel fleet are miles from the bad guys' ships, but are you telling me there is no one on the bad guys' bridge with a super duper binocular to get an up close and personal view of what the good guys are doing? At this point I may as well continue with my beef with this movie.
The opening sequence, which was very good in a menacing way, was completely ruined by jokes.
John Boyega, playing a Resistance fighter and the only black guy with a significant role in this movie, is still a damn clown.
Hamill's character was handled badly. The movie tried to make him look like a tragic character, something out of a Shakespeare story; but the writer, who is also the director, mangled the job so badly that Hamill came off as a blubbering fool. In his first appearance of "The Last Jedi," Hamill casually tosses his lightsaber behind him like a half eaten apple. What a great way to start destroying a character that could have added sorely needed darkness and depth to this movie. I understand that this movie is supposed to demystify the Jedis; but by doing that the writer/director/producers/studios are destroying the essence of "Star Wars." On top of that, demystifying the Jedis was done in a half-assed way, so the result is a double whammy.
There was no interesting lightsaber fight. None. The one with Ridley inside the Supreme Leader's throne room looked like something out of a second day rehearsal. As for the last lightsaber duel, it doesn't even count -- I can't say why or else I'd spoil a big surprise. A great lightsaber fight sequence could have saved this movie, but there was none.
There were too many elements stolen from "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return Of The Jedi."
Ridley's character is hinted as someone who already knows the way to being a Jedi, and she can continue without Hamill training her and be fine. Huh? What? It is established that it takes many years to fully train a Jedi Knight. As strong as Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) was with The Force, he still needed over a decade of training by Jedi masters. So...Ridley will be okay and be a Jedi Knight one day because of three lessons Hamill taught her, plus reading the sacred Jedi books that she managed to take from Hamill's island?
Captain Phasma was next to Boyega when the ship was damaged badly. Everyone around Boyega was hurt badly or killed, and yet we see Phasma entering the cargo bay hundreds of feet away, unblemished and marching through smoke. Yes, dramatic, but made no damn sense.
Hamill apparently has a newfound power that wasn't established in any of the 7 previous "Star Wars" movies (including "Rogue One"). So, Disney is just going to make s@#t up as they see fit, damn the "Star Wars" bible (the original three movies)?
There are more problems I noticed with this movie, but I don't want to write a novella here, so...my most memorable, movie moment of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was the scene when Chewbacca was about to eat a cooked and tasty looking Porg as living Porgs gave him the sad eye/horror-stricken look. This scene was genuinely funny, and it says a lot about this movie that this is my most memorable, movie moment.
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" are movies that shouldn't have been made if they were going to be this disappointing. I understand Disney sees this franchise as a cash cow. Fine, but Disney needs to put competent writers to work on this series. Imagine how much more money can be made if the movie is actually good!
To Hollywood writers/directors/producers/studio executives: please refrain from using alcohol and drugs when making movies.
Mannysmemorablemoviemoments
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Parts of this movie were deeply inspired. Some of the best material since The Empire Strikes Back in some places, particularly the scenes between Luke and Rey. The movie does not disappoint, visually stunning action sequences, which were typical but beautiful and fun to watch. The anticipation built up from the months of waiting, about what could possibly transpire between Luke and Rey on that island, will be satisfied about as well, if not better than expected. Story choices were made involving Luke Skywalker that, lets just say, make his character___________ (You'll see).
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Rian Johnson hates the original Star Wars trilogy. JJ Abrams loved the original trilogy and wrote a love letter to the franchise with the Force Awakens, even if the movie was a rehash, you feel respect and reverence. Rian Johnson hates the original trilogy, and all the silly macho pulp trappings it represents. He intentionally made a movie that shits all over what Star Wars stands for (destiny, and family lineage, lightsaber battles, evil emperors, the notion of heroism). The male heroism here is tossed aside as recklessness. The film represents a hatred of Star Wars; a hatred of fun time escapist films.
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The biggest problem I had going in to this movie was the preconceived idea's of what I wanted in the next installment of this saga, and ultimately what I got or more to the point didn't get. The results aren't in the same ball park, hell they're not even in the same universe. So to that end, disliking this movie is mostly my own fault, but man did they take a massive dump on the lore of Star Wars.
The originals were part of my childhood, the EU, I read almost every one until it was scraped by disney. Video games, yep played them all. I wouldn't say I'm a diehard fan but just love all things star wars and they mystical universe that has been created as a form of entertainment. I didn't like the prequels but accept them for what they are. This movie sits firmly bookended by the TPM and ROTS and you can place it either side of AOTC.
I walked out of TFA with a smile on my face, mainly because of the fan service. I could see the reboot, while not great, was on the right path. I enjoyed the new characters but wanted to see a decent closure for the original characters. After this film I had no smiles and I honestly don't know how JJ can pull this one out of the fire for EP IX? People keep saying ESB was hated initially, bullshit it was, at least not by me it wasn't.
There are some positives. The movie looks brilliant, the key actors do a good job with a horrid script (pretty common for all SW films) especially Adam Driver, but from there I'm still trying to work out how this could be so wrong on so many levels?
The force using princess Leia scene is just cringe worthy, the great space chase plot is just cheese, comedy used at all the wrong times, pacing that was so slow I was clock watching, off shoot sub plots that just didn't need to be there, and then there is Luke. How can you fuck up such a beloved character? I get it, it is his time to go but give the guy a decent send off.
The emotion of him holding the saber at the end of TFA only for him to toss it over his shoulder slapstick style here just set the tone for what was a total fucking mess. He could have looked at it, asked 'where did you get this?' then with great hatred/anger forcefully thrown it away. So much more impact, perhaps then when finally agreeing to train Rey made her retrieve it as part of her training from the depths of the ocean? Don't get me wrong Hamil was great, but his story arc was pure filth.
In the end he goes out like a complete pussy. I'd say most fans would have accepted his death and this entire movie if he alone had he gone out with a bang.
My end sequence would have been something like this - he raises Red 5 from the ocean, throws R2 in the back for old time sake. Jets off to the salt planet and relieves the falcon which is getting a hammering by the first order.
He flies like a total mad man taking out a gaggle of ties while performing a few strafing runs to take out a few walkers with proton torpedoes before being shot down himself. Upon crash landing he sends R2 back to the base, goes it on foot with the green saber for one last time.
Kylo eventually orders all guns fire on Luke. Luke absorbs it all creating a epic nuke type build up of the force. You can see him straining, pain building, his energy draining, yet the power building to such a point that Kylo calls retreat!!! (which he does) and then it goes ground fucking zero, leveling the First order armada in front of Luke - The great last jedi, his last final act, saving what is left of the resistance to create a new rebellion. Shit I would have cried had he gone out like that hahahahaha.
Instead what we get is just so underwhelming. Yes the twin suns was a nice touch but I think it is safe to say all fans wanted to see Luke swinging the green blade one last time in the flesh, not as a force hologram. Hell he didn't even use the green saber, it was the blue one which only a few minutes before was destroyed explain that to me?
So much wrong with this movie. I'll watch the next purely to see how they try and fix this mess, good luck JJ you're on a hiding to nothing, if you somehow fix it you may go down as an all time great! Star Wars has taken a massive kick to the ballz with this one. I took my two kids 8 and 10 along with their two cousins also 8 and 10, and they all said the TFA and Rogue 1 were better, that tells me enough.
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This entry to the series perfectly blend so the original trilogy and the new Disney era of films. Many of the complaints are from the floating Leia and disappearance of Luke. In Empire, we learn that Leia can speak to Luke through the force, meaning she has it, so it's not out of the question that she can pull herself towards places using the force. Luke's disappearance, while strange, I believe was necessary. As we've learned, sadly the stars won't live forever. The movie perfectly sets up upcoming films that are soon to follow.
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Best Star Wars in a long long time!!
Many fanboy theorists are mad angry because they did not like the payoffs from mysteries and open questions from TFA. They are just cry babies.
All others love it.
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9/10
You're probably sad, because this wasn't "The Empire Strikes Back" Revisited.
I honestly enjoyed this film. People were pissed because "The Force Awakens" seemed too much like "New Hope"...and now they're mad because "The Last Jedi" wasn't "Empire Strikes Back" revisited. Make up your mind people...
Honestly, I think Snoke will return... what Sith/Dark force-users always do? They kill their master when they're strong enough. I think it would be absurd if Snoke never thought about Kylo betraying him.
And it's funny when people say that Luke was "Weak" in "The last Jedi"...he just projectiled himself from other part of the galaxy! How is that weak?
And about the " grumpy old man" aspect, I can understand why Luke is blaming himself about what happened to Ben Solo. But after all, he stopped dwelling in his misery and made Kylo Ren look like a puppet.
It seems like people are forgetting that there will be third movie in this trilogy?
I think all the plot holes (at least most of them) will be filled in episode 9.
+ It's good that Disney brought lightsaber duels back to basics. It's not about backflips, crazy choreography and stunts. Lightsaber duels are far more entertaining when it's all about like "battle of minds" aspect.
In the end... I think "The Last Jedi" made "The force awakens" even better.
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Poe enjoys a good Crank call. They left out the scene where he calls Snoke and asks him if his fridge is running.
One X-wing can disable a Super Super Star Destroyer all on it's own. Just one!
Luke is not good at training Jedi. And if you fail at any of his classes he will kill you.
The Dark Side lives down a Blowhole right under Luke's Island.
Yoda is a Vandal even though he is a ghost - and likes to dance while doing it.
Rey needs no training to wipe out elite guards, lift a hundred boulders, Conference call Kylo all times of the day and magically transport to the gunnery turret of the Millennium Falcon.
A Super Super Star Destroyer can shoot a rebel base from outer space but can't shoot a cruiser right in front of it.
Rubber dinosaurs hang out on cliff sides just waiting to be milked.
Porgs are almost as annoying as Jar Jar.
If you are related to a Jedi you can get blown up, sucked out to space, freeze, fly around in your blown up frozen unconscious state and knock on the door of a passing cruiser.
Snoke has no peripheral vision.
R2-D2 is now only good for being a Cameo. C3PO is only good for a background character. Chewie can blast doors and make a camp fire.
If you fly a small decrepit open top vehicle into the beam of a giant battering cannon that is cutting through a giant steel door, the arials on your wings will melt.
If you are about to be executed in front of a million storm troopers you may get lucky: A ship can crash into you and kill all of them except you.
The Last Jedi makes Revenge of the Sith look good.
Life saving plans from impending doom are on a need to know basis with the rebels. Everyone must think they are about to die. Its a job performance thing.
No two Aliens are alike (unless in a group) You see them once and you will never see their kind again.
Mindblowing Visuals and Adam Driver held the entire movie together with considerable support from Daisy Ridley and a last minute showdown save from Mark Hamill (but ruined by a pointless exit).
With respect to that is the Star Wars universe - this really effort should never have been a part of it. Rian Johnson should stop trying to make movies.
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DISNEY is trying to get as far as can away from George Lucas' vision of Star Wars.
PROS: A visually stunning film.
CONS: This move is so parallel to Empire and Return of the Jedi and not in a good way. They crapped all over the Original Trilogy and characters. The Force Awaken was a waste of a setup. I feel for JJ Abrams they took what he had setup and ripped it apart. They killed off all powerful Snoke. They took him without so much as a fight. He was weak and ultra trash. They wasted a perfectly good villain. Who are Rey's parents? They are nobody. Drunks who traded her for drinks. Who is Finn? Is he Force sensitive? We don't know. They killed Admiral Ackbar who deserved better then being blown out of a ship window. They gave a better end to a newcomer Vice Admiral Holdo. Never heard of her and she got the best part of the movie. They killed off Luke in the most shitty way. Yeah thanks Disney.
The movie starts off with the First Order finding the Rebels on a planet and transports ships are trying to leave the planet. That's kind of how it happened in Empire Strikes Back. The Empire discovers hidden base and the have to escape.
Rey going to a deserted island kind of how Luke did in Empire to learn from a Jedi Master. Rey/Luke patience are tested.
They even have a cave scene similar to the cave on Dagobah were Luke enters to face a vision of Darth Vader. Rey entered a cave as well to face her own vision.
Rey/Luke leaves to confront Kylo/Vader with warnings from Yoda/Luke.
Then there was Return of the Jedi parts. Rey/Luke willingly surrenders to Vader/Kylo.
They are both taken to the Emperor/Supreme Leader. Both Emperor/Snoke release Rey/Luke shackles. The temptation of the Dark side. Luke/Rey are shown the Rebel Fleet being destroyed. It triggers Luke/Rey to go for a light saber. The destruction of a Super Star Destroyer/Snoke's ship. Emperor/Supreme Leader being killed by their apprentice.
Fuck you Disney.
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This movie makes very little sense wheter you consider it as a single film or/and also part of an ongoing saga of episodes with established canon and characters. It's main strenghts are having some really good performances (Adam Driver & Mark Hamill) and a nice OST but it's very weak in every other department and only superior to Phantom Menace in acting and special effects.
Some people that like the movie and cannot accept a different opinion rely on the very poor argument of fans not embracing a fresh take on the SW universe and hating change. In reality, it's quite hard to defend this movie's plot. Even if you disregard questionable writing like Luke's backstory with Kylo Ren, Leia's use of the force and other qualms about continuity, the story is still a mess. The pacing is off and scenes seem eiter padded out or cut short; the humor is often weak and doesn't land and ultimately very little of what happens feels earned:
*Snoke can do a skype call video chat between Kylo & Rey and perceive every bit of the former's inner struggles yet he fails to notice his murderous intent and a freaking lightsaber moving next to him. His death is also anticlimatic and nullifies any chance of ever seeing how The First Order came to be and what his connection to the Sith was, making the whole background of the conflict very sketchy, simplistic and child-like.
*The praetorian red guards that are supposed to protect Snoke and hilariously adopt fighting stances at the drop of a coin fail to realize what's going on and do their work the ONE time that very thing is required from them.
*Finn's story ultimately does nothing for the overall plot and even what it does for HIM was already established in TFA. Rose's romance with him feels contrived and underdeveloped, a desperate attempt to give them something to do. This is the one point that even positive and negative reviews agree upon and it's a considerable chunk of the movie.
*Poe's arc is all over the place and unnecessary. Vice Admiral Holdo is a character that is written and performed in a very ambiguous manner just for the sake of a later plot-twist. You literally feel nothing for the character.
*Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship over the course of the movie makes little sense considering what she already knows about him (having witnessed Han Solo's demise) and is only possible because of contrivances with the force and a flashback that does its best in writing Luke as an asshole. Some of it even feels like it came right out of a Young Adult movie adaptation but with better actors.
*Benicio del Toro's DJ is protagonist of some of the most implausible sequences and outcomes.
*Anything I could say about Phasma would require more effort than what the writers actually did with her.
As stated in the beginning of this review, the movie not only barely works as a standalone but it also knowingly decides not to further develop many threads The Force Awakens started, making the previous chapter almost skippable.
I could go on but at the end of the day anyone that loved the movie will fail to acknowledge most of its flaws as a big deal and those that thought it was horrible are already speaking their minds. Overall a HUGE disappointment.
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The Last Jedi is fantastic! They take risks like never before this is not only a great star wars movie but it is a great film. The whole cast gives great performances especially Adam Driver and Daisy Ridely
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The Last Jedi. Some of you will like it. Some of you won't. I didn't like it. It was okay, but very average and missed so many opportunities. Both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are riding on the goodwill of the original series, and quickly draining it.
No real spoilers here. Just comments about the film rather than the plot.
It's a narrative & thematic mess with some of the hands down, lamest plot devices ever thought of. Some really interesting ideas as well, to be fair, but some entire sequences & characters are completely irrelevant to the plot and only seem to exist so the director could make some pointed social comment.
No wonder the rebels/resistance keep losing. Militarily they're disorganised and stupid. At least in the original episodes they were half-competent. Here they're reckless and short-sighted.
The biggest thing though is that it seems that Disney is desperately trying to drag Star Wars away from the original episodes. I think Rogue One was the last actual Star Wars movie we'll see (maybe Solo will be though). Obviously they need to do so in order to recoup their costs in buying the franchise. The Last Jedi also kind of trashes a lot of what The Force Awakens set up (which isn't a bad thing, that movie was crap).
The Kylo/Rey parts were the best and had some amazing potential (which was summarily ignored), and I hoped they'd save the film, but instead we just got really thin characters and absolutely zero development for the next film. The original trilogy had the Emperor and Vader. Although they were pretty under developed characters (in some ways), at least they were villains who cast a long shadow. Here, the villians are barely part of the story in a lot of ways. Remember Darth Maul from the Phantom Menace? Remember how evil he looked and you just knew he was going to be a cool character? Then he did practically nothing and then died? Awesome, wasn't it?
After these latest two, it's obvious that Disney has no plans for the current trilogy. Each film trashes what came before it and provides very little for what will come after it. There's almost zero continuity between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in terms of story. Thematically they're empty (although I suspect it may be part of trying to drag it away from the original episodes a little, ie: no Skywalker family).
Ultimately, this is a corporate film rather than an artistic one. I dispair that the director has apparently been chosen to write a whole new trilogy after the hack Abrams wrecks the next film. It'll be less and less Star Wars.
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I am a massive Star Wars fan. I have watched all the Star Wars films, as well as Clone Wars and Rebels. I am 26 and am vehemently not part of the old guard who only liked 4-6. This is officially the WORST Star Wars movie I have ever seen!
The plot was just ridiculous for starters. There were so many pointless things that happened - people surviving being flown into space, a stupid mirror scene, pointless deaths of key characters, the brief artificial addition of a romantic scene, and much more pointless nonsense! The villain was also weak and emotional. They also thought it fun to try to make good and evil less black and white, but it was done in such a way that it lessened the impact and resonance of the film. They also ruined Luke Skywalker and made him a lame & uninteresting bum. The purple-haired Vice Admiral character seemed simply condescending and ultimately uninspiring. Don't know why the writers had to add that secret plan, hold it back from Poe just to be a tool, and then have it backfire anyway - pointless, pointless pointless. I cannot express how disappointing this movie was. The Star Wars universe would be better if it we all pretended this film never existed. In my opinion, anyone who likes this film is a noob who knows nothing about Star Wars. As for all the rave reviews from prominent critics - all it proves, to me, is how out of touch they are with the general audience. The fact that the audience reviews and the critics' reviews vary so widely makes me wonder if something is up. Is there something in it for them if they give this trash the right review? I just don't know how else to explain this huge divide in opinions. It should be noted that I created an account solely to express my disgust at this horrible horrible rubbish of a film. The script writer should be barred from ever writing anything ever again! The director should be sacked and made a pariah. The only thing I liked was the development of Rey's character and the opening space fight scene.
Additional criticisms: No development of Snoke, Rey's backstory was uninteresting, ATAT's come out of nowhere (their appearance the the planet is not explained), why did the ATAT's land so far away? Hux or Hox (who cares now?) is not an amusing villain to laugh at, Poe is a trigger-happy douchbag and no hero, there's gravity in space somehow, suddenly a lack of space fuel becomes an issue for the first time in the franchise, Leia somehow gets back into the ship after flying through space with out any sort of depressurisation (and yet everyone was fine and dandy)... that's all just off the top of my head.
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The only thing I liked about this movie was the character development between Kylo and Rey.
The rest of the movie was really bad!!!
I especially didn't like how they portrayed Luke. They made him into an elderly coward.
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There are two things that are worth seeing this for long term Star Wars fans (since 1975-76), over 40 years. Top two on my list -
* Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia's last scene together. While it is brief, it does have the emotion I expected. It is even more powerful because of Carrie Fishers real life death.
* The renewal scene of Luke Skywalker and Master Yoda. Frank Oz does give voice to Yoda again and once again, though brief, the long term fan should really appreciate this reunion too.
The film has the special effects and John Williams music that we expected, rousing to the ears. Seeing it in 3D as I did is okay, though I think it plays well even without that. There is some of the trade mark humor in the film, more of it is later in the movie. Laura Dern makes an interesting commander.
There is a bonus romance that is underplayed, but okay. Other reunions of Skywalker with C3PO and R2D2 are welcome scenes too. The new characters are fit into the film like a glove and there many of the other past ones along for the ride.
The reasons I am not at 8 on this are minor but there is no sequence to explain how Rey arrives on the Millennium Falcon late in the film. I am guessing there was a scene but it got cut due to the 2 hour and 25 minute run time. The new philsophy lines in the film are rather shallow. The stuff that comes from the previous films are this film strengths.
I am glad Fisher's entire role was filmed before her death. I believe it is all here, a fitting tribute to Carrie. I was afraid early in the film they were going to have her leave early. Chewbacca is back in this one too, always a pleasure to see Star Wars Flying Carpet in the mix. This might not be the best film in the series, but it is better than Episode 2, and Jar Jar Bings is not here. Thank goodness, and there are a few things that can lead to episode 9 which is the last of Lucas original plans. It would be nice if Lucas would write that conclusion, though as Yoda would put it, "Seeing of things ahead, they might not be."
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I went to the cinema with the praise of the critics (normally they are very tough with the Sci Fi/Fantasy genres) in one hand and in the other hand, some disappointment by some "fans" (should I say haters?). I was very confused in which side to believe. After watching it, I share my opinion.
- Powerful acting by the major characters. Of course there are disappointments like Captain Phasma. But the death of the Supreme Leader Snoke was part of the surprising twists. Rey came from common people...So? Where did it come from Anakin? Let's try not to forget the lore when it goes against our will to criticize things. That is a very human thing. Luke's disappearance? Remember Qui Gon Jinn, Obi Wan and Yoda's fates.
- Great visual effects.
- Surprising twists in the story, with new good Jedi powers.
- Eternal soundtrack with John Williams. The new main theme (the one used in the trailer) is great.
Good mixture of action, adventure, sciente fiction, fantasy, comedy, drama and suspense moments.
Like we all learnt with the Star Wars saga, perfection doesn't exist. There has to be a balance and some sacrifices. Today we criticize this film like some criticized the first trilogy and look today. Ewoks, for instance, are much more respected nowadays. Star Wars will always be part of my life. I grew up watching great sagas that help us believe in a better future. And hope is balanced in life, love, determination, courage, tears, breathtaking moments. And that I had with The Last Jedi.
P.S.: Please stop creating accounts to give 1 star. Seriously. Since when this movie can be compared with the worst films of all history? Rian Johnson isn't a Uwe Boll. Share your true opinion, not jokes. Cinema is not all about superheroes or La La Land stuff. Let us try to share a brighter future for all of us. Did I like La La Land? No, I gave five stars. Is there a reason to give the lower ratings when I dislike? No. There are good and bad aspects in these films.
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If you want a predictable movie that takes zero chances and is fan service through and through, you'll probably dislike this movie.
If you want a movie which goes in different directions, takes chances, makes you second guess every story arc and keeps you guessing going forward too, this is the movie for you.
People wanted the same old Luke with no character progression, the man has aged and changed with experience like a human does.
Don't go in with your checklist, watch whats given to you.
I loved it from start to end.
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TFA was okay, Rogue was very good, this is total garbage. A mix of cringy rehashing of the original trilogy wrapped in the most boring ridiculous plot of any of star wars movies. Characters all miraculously surviving as the first order do everything in there power not to kill them, totally pointless subplots. Can't fathom the scores critics are giving it.
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I'm confused on what I just saw. It's taken me a few days to write this review because I've gone back and forth with reviewing a Star Wars film badly, but it needs to be done. "The Last Jedi" was by far the worst "Star Wars" film I have ever seen, if it can even be called that. I'll start with the beginning of the film. It began much like many Star Wars movies do, a big grand space battle. My expectations were high and this beautifully filmed battle met those expectations.... until the most cringeworthy comedy I've ever seen. This began the downfall of this movie. Poe decides to have silly banter with General Hux (our big bad Tarkin like figure) and it comes off ridiculous. The joke brought laughs, but it had absolutely no place within the Star Wars universe. Never would Tarkin have been made fun of in such a way. Why now is the First Order used as a punching bag for terrible jokes? Shouldn't they be even more feared than the Galactic Empire? This scene was terrible, but it was hopefully just a one off right? Nope. So the resistance ships proceed to jump to hyperspace and evade their enemies only to....not evade their enemies? When could a ship ever track something from hyperspace? This part is fine though as in Rouge One this detail is actually said to be in development by the galactic empire so okay, this works, but what follows next does not. The First Order ships (and there's many) are not able to destroy the Resistance Ships because of the shields. And so begins the slowest chase in a movie. The First Order ships obviously could have moved faster to make the Resistance ships lose fuel faster but this is not done. Kylo Ren along with other pilots fly into battle in an effort for Kylo to prove his evil to Supreme Leader Snoke and murder his own mother. This doesn't happen and what happens next is inexcusable. A First Order pilot is the one that pulls the trigger to blow up the Command room of the Resistance Ship housing fan favorites Admiral Ackbar and General Leia Organa. This seems perfectly done. It shows Kylo is still heavily conflicted while also dealing with Carrie Fisher's untimely demise in a near perfect fashion story-telling wise and dispatching Ackbar. The audience then sees Leia's body floating in space and it is a haunting scene that carries emotional weight....until she moves. As a viewer, I was so confused. I prayed they weren't about to do what I thought they might. Then Rian Johnson proved me so wrong. Leia literally uses the Force to pull herself into the ship in the worst scene I've ever seen. This coming after she should have been blown to pieces by a massive explosion and then blown up due to being in the middle of space. They wasted this perfect opportunity to dispatch Leia and lost all emotional weight as the audience went "Oh well Um I guess she's alive?". It was ridiculous. We then go to the island planet that we last see Rey at during the ending scene of the Force Awakens and at this point an already sour taste is in most of the audiences mouth who is a Star Wars fan. Rey hands Luke the lightsaber and he then throws it behind him in a clear comedic fashion yet again. Sadly the comedy gets even worse. We then see Luke as he spears for fish, drinks green milk directly from the teets of an alien, and walks up and down a mountain. Sounds as good as Yoda at Dagaboh huh? After this, Luke finally talks to Rey. Mark Hamill performed amazing here with his terrible lines given to him, but he did not feel like the Luke of old. It isn't even a matter of "Oh well Luke can change, he's years older", this felt like a different character entirely. That's the problem. Not a change, but a powerful deviation. I've seen many reviews that say it's only fans that didn't like it and that's actually accurate, it's fans because the characters lost their true emotion and the trueness that made them so memorable in the beginning. Rian Johnson lost this completely. He lost the feel of Star Wars. Rey and Kylo establish an interesting dynamic with them being able to form a connection with the Force and this is actually interesting and a cool take on the whole Force communication. This connection provides Rey with the idea that Kylo still has the old Ben Solo still within him, but Luke sees this and freaks out. The audience then comes to find out the true story of Luke and Kylo. Luke thought about murdering Kylo and actually pulled a lightsaber on him while he slept only to decide against giving the killing blow. This is more of the same, Luke not acting like Luke. This is supposed to be the main reason that Kylo turns evil, but this shouldn't have even happened. Luke fought to save his father because he sensed he had a little good left within him, but one hint of darkness in his own Nephew is where he draws the line? Give me a break. After this scene and the island, the movie goes back to the First Order and Resistance in their slow chase. Vice Admiral Holdo is now in charge and is clearly the foil to Poe and acts as if there is not a plan and they are only giving up (this becomes important later). Poe disagrees and contacts Maz (who is in this movie for almost no reason) who says they must go get a Master Codebreaker so that a plan thought out by Finn and a random mechanic named Rose can happen. Finn and Rose must now travel to Canto Bight to find this codebreaker. Much like a video game, this is a pointless side quest to get to the main quest of boarding the First Order ships and turning their tracker off. This whole side story bogged down everything. The planet of Canto Bight possesses no emotion. It seems to only be there as a social commentary on war. That isn't what audiences come to see. They come to be taken away by a sprawling world. Suffice it to say, the whole scene ends with them finding a codebreaker, but not the one that they originally came for. They then escape Canto Bight on big horse aliens with the help of stable children. This whole thing takes about 20 minutes and it it 20 minutes too long. Rey has now decided to go find Kylo and talk him into joining the light. She is captured by his ship and taken directly to the Supreme Leader. This scene is the best of the entire movie as Supreme Leader Snoke possesses that same awe that came with seeing the Emperor for the first time in Return of the Jedi. He was powerful and evil and so well done.....then he died. Like that. 10 minutes and he was sliced in half by a lightsaber that was not even wielded, but turned on a chair by Kylo Ren with the Force. The big bad was now gone and had gone out in an even more embarrassing way than the fan favorite Darth Maul. At least Darth Maul fought two Jedi in being bested, Snoke sat in his chair and died. Snokes guards then attack Kylo and Rey in a very cool scene, but the power of this scene was overshadowed by what had just occurred with Snoke. It seemed as if Rian Johnson had no interest in revealing Snokes backstory or keeping him around. The movie then does the same disservice to Captain Phasma and it seems like a cop out. The movie then reveals that Holdo had a plan to move all the Resistance members aboard shuttles to fly down to Crait. Why wouldn't she have just told Poe this and avoided the whole Finn/ Rose quest and avoid a mutiny on the ship. It was a time filler and it was just dumb. It makes no sense. Finally, everyone is now down on Crait. The First Order and Resistance are doing battle again....for..the..third..time. It feels so overused because the audience has seen the same battle now three times in the same film. First order has a big cannon, The Resistance has to take it out. Sound familiar? The planet of Crait is beautiful and unique, but we only see a little bit of it as battle starts. The First Order is winning the battle easily until Luke Skywalker shows up. He comes out and faces the First Order and Kylo tells the First Order to fire every piece of artillery at Luke. Luke is left unscathed and Kylo then comes down to meet him in battle. This is another beautifully filmed scene, but it is found that Luke is just Force projecting himself there as he sits atop his rock at his island home. This seems like just a gotcha moment from the director, but makes no sense. Why wouldn't Luke actually battle Kylo? Even if Kylo won, it would make him seem very powerful and dangerous. Instead Kylo fits a projection and the fight feels lame. Luke then dies. From nothing really it seems. They kill off the best Star Wars hero not in a battle, but on a rock by himself. It could not have been a worse way to send Luke out. The Resistance then escapes by the Millennium Falcon flown by Rey and the movie feels over until one last scene of a stableboy making a broom fly into his hand due to the force and staring into the night sky. Boom. Movie over. This was not a Star Wars film. This was a good scfi film, but not a good Star Wars film. It lacked heart, it lacked emotion, and most of all it lacked common sense. It was filled with terrible comedy, stupid plot holes, and an underwhelming sequence of events. The Last Jedi is a terrible Star Wars movie and it's hard to say because I love Star Wars and always have. This just wasn't Star Wars. Period.
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I've seen in these reviews the smart distinction made between those who love the EU of Star Wars and those who see this movie as a one off Sci-Fantasy event. I've not, generally speaking, seen many reviewers point out how, as sequels go, this is a failure.
I loved SW as a kid. I read about a dozen or two of the extended universe tie ins, from Zahn to Stackpole, with their Thrawns and rancors and Dahlas. They have no bearing on my appreciation of this film. In fact, when I first heard Star Wars would be receiving sequels, the reaction was "well, if they don't do Thrawn or etc, let them explore a fractured galaxy. Let them look at what happens when an Empire is overthrown and create new epic heroes."
But TFA and this film gave us so, so, so much less. These movies are so small, so tiny, so "there are only 1000 people in the galaxy". So the opposite of what was hinted at in the original trilogy.
Was that a fault in the originals? No! Because that story was the hero's journey. And if the sequels wanted to repeat this, it would be uninteresting, but acceptable. They don't. These sequels want to look at every element of the hero's journey with a self-aware wink and a hip joke. Like a modern American buddy cop movie.
Star Wars is space opera. Good and evil writ large... in space! The Last Jedi is "oh, they wanted us to make this big space opera thing. What a joke!"
I can't say that the model is one I'd like to see replicated often. But I'd have liked to have seen it upheld once. Rey's heritage, Snoke's... anything... these were points of high drama denied. And they weren't alone. This movie went low. And the tone of its action is so wholly inconsistent with the OT that I felt bored and pulled from the film.
I play a lot of vidya. The cutscenes, which I could bitch about from a logical point of view, but won't, of this movie, were no better. Just a lot of flash and sound set to a so-so soundtrack and nothing more.
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Its been a while since a movie has driven me to a review, but this I think deserves it, warning on spoilers
Director JJ Abrams creates an amazing trilogy plot line only to have Director Rian Johnson ignore it and create a movie that is a waste of a good 122 minutes of run time. I'll give it half an hour of a decent showing of some good cinematography.
The good:
The visual effects are brilliant, clearly a lot of focus has been put here, the space battles (though you could argue that's all the movie is), look brilliant and its underpinned with the falcon brilliantly manoeuvring its way underground. Though I do wonder, since episode 5 was such a success and the amazing shots in the asteroid scene, if this now just a part of the staple Star Wars diet? RotJ had it but still not huge, Force awakens had a great one, was it needed here? Im torn but I do appreciate it still. The end scene with the Falcon and the standoff of the walkers and Luke. Really they finished the movie well on this with the least amount of issues sitting in this scene.
Luke giving a balanced context of the Jedi was also well done, illustrating the Jedi's are not the legends made out, though this was the subplot to the movie ('everything has a balance' which is jammed down our throat like a stale donut), I think it started what may have been a very interesting future to star wars
The bad:
Leia, Everything Leia. An amazing character and woman playing superman, come on there's no pretext for her surviving a missile blast, the oxygen and freezing cold temp of space and calming knocking on the door of the ship which when opened should have immediately sucked its occupants out into space!!!
Merchandising, I could stand your BB8 (who should have a bad point of its own considering the screen time it got above the other things that deserved screen time), but I don't want your ferret or diamond cat plush toys!!!
Phasma - pointless, just kill Finn! why the complexity; how did she get off star killer base? She was in a trash compactor then it blew up and now shes here. You have Brienne of Tarth, one of the most badass female actors ever and she has what impact?
The humour! Every 5 minutes you need a joke? None were that bad individually but every 5 minutes?? Or a very impactful and poignant scene does not need to be dulled by a sh!tty joke.
Finn and Rose love interest like a pie in the face and how did they get off the cruiser in the first place??? This girl falls in love with Finn after how long? And we are just meant to accept that? Its like in the Avengers: age of Alan Shaw when the hulk and Johannsen's character are in love. really? As a viewer I'm just meant to accept that's the state of the play now? At least this had 15 seconds of build-up (1 conversation at an escape pod, then shes in love with the guy)
The casino: Are you trying to set us up for episode 10-12 already
Finn hurt in ep 7 and fine in ep 8, what was the point in this big deal about him getting hurt and carried back by Chewy and then put on a medical table. Just to have him up and running around within 5 minutes
The huh?
Luke: everything about Luke was just odd, wants to kill his own nephew? This from a character who is self-sacrificing for the mere chance of saving his father who he feels a conflict with, decided to just go kill his nephew? Luke would never do that, who proof read this script? Obviously not Mark Hamill. Oh wait, I believe he did, and no one listened to him clearly! Luke drinking the green milk WTF was that about?
Missed opportunities:
Luke's background between 6 and 7, if I recall theres a point in the lore that Luke does turn briefly to the Dark side, it would have been so easy to have this hinted, it would have given so much depth, not just to explain why hes suddenly 'hmm my nephew is having bad thoughts I must kill him' but you could sense a Star Wars story movie, that would have been really good and started to explain how the first Order came to be with Snoke. Speaking of Snoke. Who is he?!? The biggest question of Ep 7 was who is snoke, which was carefully and beautifully scripted in. only for this director to just ignore it completely. You know you could have cut that stupid moronic Casino scene and given 10 minutes to Snoke!!!
Rey's parents are nobodies? Come on seriously, talk about a treasure chest of mystery , for a year everyone was either asking who is Snoke or who are Rey's parents. While I feel Abrams could fix this and get it back on track, how much more does he need to cram into Ep 9 to save Ep 8?
The Knights of Ren, such an interesting pathway into one of the background cults on the force, clearly demonstrated by Kylo having Vaders mask, and if you were interested in this, be interested no more with this new past is the past and forget it strategy.
How did the blue lightsabre get back? "a good question for another time" remember? Oh of course you don't remember Rian you never watched the original trilogy to know what happened to it.
It appears really the Rian got to his interview for episode 8 and sold Disney episode 10,11 and 12 and Disney neglected to ask if he had seen any of the others. So he rolls up to work like this
Day 1: yeah I don't like snoke.. gone
Day 2: Luke really doesn't seem that important. Lets keep him to the side and get rid of him
Day 3: everyone likes Leia, I know. SuperLeia
Day 4: Rey's parents? Who cares really
Day 5: Snoke again! A throne room. Oh look playboy magazine, hmm I have an idea
Day 6: oh no! there needs to be a love interest, quick! Finn and umm
Day 7: theres how many other movies? Im not watching those.. I know! The past needs to be forgotten! Perfect, we can ignore everything
All in all, I really struggle to rate a star wars movie low, and I put more depth into Episode 2 than this one. Its still a must see for the Star Warsian but my recommendation, have a drink or two before hand, and be prepared for the most stand alone confusing and dull plot line of the entire series, including senate talks and blockades. If you sense Im overly negative, please see that I still do recommend seeing it, but for me, every interesting question raised by Abrams is destroyed by Rian, who clearly had motive to set up ep 10-12, am I disappointed? Yes, am I dejected? Yes, Do I think this movie will appeal to some fans? Yes I still do. Will my future children now watch star wars in this order: 4,5,6,1,2,3,rogue one, 7, 9. probably
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Good god bruce almighty, its bad! It is beyond terrible. It is a meandering mess and the script, the plot, the dialogue, is on par with the prequels. I swear to you, you could almost believe that George Lucas wrote the script for this, and that's not a good thing, but if he had, I'm sure Lucas would have done a better job at it.
I would rate this 1 star, if it wasn't for the fact that Luke Skywalker actually does 'stuff' in the film. I would rate it 3 stars if Luke Skywalker did anything that his actual character would do. Unfortunately we are left with the shallow empty shell of a man who resembles nothing like the Skywalker I grew to love in the original trilogy.
This film has become so disneyfied it no longer resembles the Star Wars that I love. In fact, you could almost mistake it for another film... Spaceballs ring a bell? Nothing wrong with Spaceballs. It was a comedy. You knew what you were expecting. But people don't walk into a cinema and expect slapstick unfunny comedy one after the other. No wonder JJ Abrahms wanted to direct this film after he saw the script, cause he butchered Force Awakens and this new film has received a similar finish.
I never thought I would ever, in my lifetime as a star wars fan, rate any of the new Disney films below the prequels. That changes now.
If you want a star wars film, go see Rogue One. Avoid this!
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1/10
Gags and surprises over character integrity and continutiy
I don't know where to begin, but I'll sum up the problems with this observation: it's apparent that priority 1 was to ALWAYS surprise the audience by doing the least expected, and priority 2 was to add lots of laughs. These overshadowed the film so much that character consistency and continuity with things like what can be done with the Force and how technologies like hyperspace work were compromised. So were all the story threads set up by TFA. All other saga films are in the genre of "space opera" hearkening back to the old 30's serials. This move was an action comedy like "Guardians of the Galaxy". Switching style and basically rebooting the film in the second trilogy are bad enough, but the utter disrespect for the established characters is too much. The worst part is that casual fans and critics are giving it high marks, because if you know nothing about Star Wars lore, symbolism, ties to Eastern philosophies, and general cinematic style than it seems entertaining. As such though it's a terrible terrible Star Wars film.
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This was easily the worst Star Wars movie of all time, even compared to the horrible Jar Jar movie. The plot is very weak and bortows many elements from the originals.
Disney spends too much time trying to preach political elements, it runs the movie completely. Add in elements that are there for no reason other than marketing, and you see the hypocrite nature Disney is turning this franchise.
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This is a 10 star film if you like and loved the prequels episodes 1-3 and the holiday special and have always dreamed of a star wars film written directed and produced by Jar Jar Binks, also throw in a slice of Superman IV ( the Leia scene of her floating through space (marionette style) ). I'm a Star wars fan But this has seriously made me hesitant and nervous about Episode 9.... Help us JJ your'e our only hope. JJ abrams has some serious mopping up to do.
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4/10
You know that feeling of awe and excitement when you leave the cinema after a great movie? It didn't happen after TLJ
Interesting film from Rian Johnson due to the decisions he made throughout the film. I have been an avid SW fan since the early days and have followed the story with a very close eye. Although The Force Awakens wasn't a major movie in some people's eye, I felt they did a good job with the production and storyline and successfully used it to prepare us for this film. However there are some big issues.
1. Rey is now a bit by bit character that I dont really care about anymore. In TFA I loved her and was excited by her. She was refreshing and delivered as a female protagonist. After this film however, I know don't care. She has a lot less screen time and her backstory still hasn't been answered, or if it has, is a pathetic story (Kylo Ren told her that her parents were junkies from Jakku). JJ Abrams did so well in creating a lead female with such power all for it be blown away.
2. Snoke. My my how pointless was he? Dubbed the next big super sith and more powerful than both Vader and Sidious? From seeing his hologram in TFA I was excited to find out about him and to have the fear and awe I had with Vader. After watching this film, Snoke is as useful as a diet water. I thought Count Duku was an average sith, however he makes Snoke look like a schoolboy.
3. Finn & Rose. Finn and who? Someone I don't care about that's who. After giving us minimal background information about Rose I found it hard to feel empathetic with her. Her character was used as a time killer rather than a credible one. As for Finn, well, what a waste of time. Similar to that of Rey, I know do not care what happens to him. The hour or so I watched of Finn and Rose travelling to an American looking casino to then stumble across strange political messages such as child labour and animal cruelty was utterly pointless and embarrassing.
4. Luke Skywalkers decline is steeper than Mount Everest. Quite possibly one of the most iconic and famous characters in the history of cinema has now resorted to hating and being a coward of the force. Something which he arguably made his character so poignant in the original trilogy. To see him milking strange cow looking animals on his island summed it up really. Not only that, he has also turned into a failed comedian. I cant remember a time where more jokes were made and each time they got worse and worse? Oh, and what an amazing death he had?! What a complete offence to the Star Wars legacy to kill him off like that. I know don't want to watch the original trilogy as I know that he turns into the equivalent of a homeless drunk looking for a pint of special brew. Desperate, pathetic and embarrassing.
The sad thing is, I could go on and on. I haven't spoken about the matter of there being 0 lightsaber duels, the poor choreography, the stupid Harry Potter like creatures that appeared on too many occasions, and Leia's new ability not only to all of a sudden use the force, but to help her survive in outer space (her ship explodes and she drifts off into space only to survive).
What i can't get my head around is the critic review hasn't been too bad. After reading the reviews, the general feeling is that the film boasts strong acting, amazing graphics and cinematography. But my argument for this is a simple one. In 2017, with the budget they had, isn't this the bread and butter?
To finish with, what saddened me the most is that when I left the cinema, it was as if the Star Wars magic that has encompassed my life since I was young, drifted out of my body, much like Anakin's did when he turned into Vader haha! This is the most un-star Warsy film of them all. I didn't completely hate it, as there were aspects that were quite cool. However so much wasn't answered and so many exciting stories that they created in TFA were just dropped.
I remember watching Rogue one, and thought 'this was OK, not my favourite and I probably wouldn't be too fussed if I didn't see it for a while'. However TLJ isn't much better at all.
Sad to see it go this way!
If Rian Johnson is employed for the last film of the trilogy, which I believe he is, may the force be with him! As he is going to need more than just the force to turn this saga around.
Josh
.
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Well,
where to begin? Anywhere.
Beyond incredible special effects, and as everybody is saying, Snoke is now a Joke. How is it possible that the wrtitters, director and the whole crew of a 200-300 milon dollar movie don't see as spectactors all this plot anticlimaxes? It is some sort of mistery how making a movie will really be, there must be so many unkown production interests and therefore biassed opinions that the thing put together becomes rubish in the core. On the other hand, good news ideas, as force telepathy in order to explore the intense and somewhat complex relation between characters and its development turns into nothing at the first opportunity. Then, the meditation-holograme part with death as a conclusion by exhaustion, no words. There are so many ways of incorporating quality drama mixed with light-sabers and spectacular earth-alien or space scenarios that, again, one asks: how is it possible? Then, the philosophical teaching part is just embarrassing....contradcitory in itself. And finlly, the idea that the good and the bad is relative is thrown to the garbage and the movie ends again with the good and the bad conflict, so wasting the previuos time and killing the dramatic tension
again.
And a lot of things more, time wasted with Finn ant the planet of rich and insensitive people looking for a decoder (it is incredible how almost idiotic subplots emerge in order to diverge the story and to give room to some characters, and also the childish B-movie aspects of the first movies, which could be succesfully overcome now, are mantained as if it were a Star Wars caharacteristic: the decoder of the speed of light tracer and so on !!!). Also, too much Poe ( certainly is not Han Solo: will they see that?), etcetera and on and on. Then, the humorous part works in some scenes but there are other where you can see the Marvel style, the need to gag out of place which cuts the narrative when does not work, as it happens.
The are good things of course, some good elections with new creatures (the nuns of Luke and many others) and as I said some intention in the good direction that is sabotaged in the same film minutes ahead!!!! As the strong parts of the force awekening are sabotaged too. Perhaps, this indicates that two or more people had wanted to do its his way, pulling the creative process in different directions, triying to satisfy economic, social, racial, gender, productive, artistic interests...of course, the outcome: a messy film that will produce a deep hurt into the collective perception of star wars... perhaps earn lots of money taht they will earn too with another whole aproach, in fact more risky.
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The movie about Rey find Luke Skywalker who will teach her to become Jedi who use the force, meanwhile their been attack galaxy before First Order following them. Luke tell Rey about Kylo Ren backstory he has the darkside inside him and Luke didn't want to kill him. but Rey wish to see him again and meet Supreme Leader Snoke before Kylo kill him with her lightsaber and fight with red guards when First order ship got blow up. But Luke is here to see his sister Leia and its up to him and Kylo Ren for his final lightsaber fight, and yes Rey is the last Jedi
A fantastic second sequel trilogy of Star Wars between Empire Strikes Back Vs. Revenge of the Sith
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The Last Jedi marks one of the first times, the future success of the franchise is guided by someone other than the man, George Lucas.
One throwaway aspect of TLJ, is that it relies on common humour. In prior films, the humour had a sheen, of being thread into the politics of the films, or as a result of the editing stage, whereas now there is an onslaught of one-liners, and the apparently necessary reminder, that Finn is obnoxious in a way, that hinders the values of (his and his love interest's) coveted Rebellion, in a movie that has more than a few morose moments, focusing on the grey areas of the Jedi Order's remembered history. The new character Rose is the straight-woman of the relationship, who can't help but correct him on the fine details of the war on their recovery mission to Canto Bite, that they didn't know of, until moments before it happens.
The light-hearted moment, of Yoda's return to Luke, is meant to involve humour, but his appearance has trouble lifting him spiritually, apart from being reminded, or learning of his obligation in a new way, that he must return to protect the Resistance.
RJ holds back to some degree, the film is not completely experimental, the people now in the position of evil power, are predominately white, and the Rebellion has Finn and Rose, which serves as call-back attempt, to the bureaucracy aspect of Lucas's original trilogy. The scenic design, of Snoke's ship and the landing bay of The First Order's mothership is gorgeous, but hinted at, instead of being fully realised.
Maybe there is reason for moviegoers to start rooting for RJ; all the elements have been thought of and are in place, but the slug is still safe in the chamber.
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It was meh, I enjoyed it because it's Star Wars, but I was underwhelmed, I get the where the director was trying to go, out with the old in with the new. But it could have been done so much better, delivered so much better, all the jumping around, unsatisfying answers to TFA questions. I wasn't even that big of a fan of TFA for ripping off ANH but it still felt like Star Wars, I was intrigued with the new characters and where'd they go. TLJ, just idk what it is, but it just didn't sit right with me. I'm hoping Ep. 9, can pull it all together, but really TLJ felt like an ending not a middle, so its over all tone, continuity, etc, just felt off.
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I thought J.J Abrahams ruined Star Wars with The Force Awakens and I was right, but The Last Jedi is completely incongruous and Rian Johnson went beyond that.
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Where to begin....
People ask me, "what didn't you like about it"
I reply, "what was there to like?"
Let's face it:
1. Acting was atrocious. From the get-go, it was bad.
2. Space battles: what space battles? Oh, you mean ships moving along slowly being bombarded from cruisers without returning fire? Oh yeah, that was 1/2 the movie. And it sucked.
3. Lightsaber duels: which....there were none.
4. Luke is still a cry-baby. Didn't he end on a high-note after the 6th? He still hasn't gotten the deal on the force after going through the whole motions of the original trilogy? Christ, I thought we all got it by now.
5. The need to satisfy: seriously, they went out ahead of themselves to make sure EVERYTHING was PC. A black, a woman, an asian, a hispanic, a Wookie. Really? I would have been happy with an actor/actress.
6. What was Luke's point in the film again? remind me cause I missed it.
7. Plot? Who needs one of those? "we win this thing by saving the things we love" - literally said when she foils his attempt to strike at the First Order AT THE VERY MOMENT they bust through to destroy the entire rebel alliance. What....an.....idiot....
8. Daisy Ridley kept her clothes on. The same clothes. For the entire movie. Wow has she got to stink. She also NEVER showers. Ever.
9. a land battle of rebel fighters running to engage ATAT walkers. And they never even get there. not even a nudge. What was the point?
10. Luke and Vader were absolute badasses with the force who needed YEARS of training to do anything. Rey needs no trainnig and she's a f'n Jedi master. Suck it Yoda.
11. No plan works for the Rebel Alliance. None. Everything fails. Miserably. Anybody want to let me know how long we keep the exceedingly aged Princess in charge? Which, by the way, her Dad blew up on Alderaan. Shouldn't she be a Queen by now? It's been 50 years already. I think she's ready for the big chair.
12. Imperial Guards are apparently a pretty close match for a freaking Sith/Jedi ass-kicking. Huh?
13. Goodbye Snoke. We hardly knew you. No really, we really didn't know you. Who are you again? And how did you end up looking like Christopher Walken on a good day?
14. Bombs are dropped on a ship. In space. No really. With a bomb door too. No oxygen needed apparently for the crew.
15. "Their ships are smaller and fleeter". Apparently someone failed to read a Physics book here and the laws of momentum. The same applies to "They're running out of fuel". Really? And what, precisely, is causing their ships to slow that they would need to expend fuel?
Let's see. What happened? Um....basically nothing happened. In the whole film. Luke did nothing. The rebel alliance did nothing. The First Order really did nothing. I basically did nothing.
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Rian Johnson is a good director. He's already proved that multiple times. I genuinely think he, and the entire cast, set out to make a great movie. The original cut for this movie was supposedly over 3 and a half hours. That means an hour of this movie got cut. Was the hour that got cut:
A) The pointless cameos and jokes that every Disney owned property has and that only make the movie worse
or
B) The plot
It is so blatantly obvious that this movie got torn to shreds in the editing room. That silver stormtrooper from VII we all got promised we would see more of? Nah. Snoke's backstory? What lol? Giving Finn, the best new character something to do? Nope.
This is two movies. On the one hand you've got some great action, great performances (from some people) and about 80 minutes of excellent film making, while at the same time you've got a weak plot that doesn't accomplish anything whole lot of Disney bullshit that's on par with Thor: The Dark World (ask the director of that how he felt working with Disney).
I enjoyed The Last Jedi but when all your movie does is some good action scenes, sell some toys, tease a sequel and leave everyone wanting more then all you've really made is a commercial.
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Just because the movie didn't go how you wanted it to, doesn't mean it's "the worst movie ever." The film takes great risks, that for the most part pay off. Rey and Kylo are two of the greatest characters in Star Wars, and every moment they spend together on screen is amazing. Ridley, Driver, and Hamill were all great. The movie overall was an amazing joy ride.
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What a waste of time. It will make money, because of the fan base that was built on the backs of the previous movies. If Disney doesn't work on the story and move forward in the star wars universe. Disney will loose a golden ticket or loose the 50% of the fans that keep the franchise making money.
Force Awakens did look a lot like episode 4, but it at least added new questions to hook us a bit. It was a pretty good reboot to get the fans worked up and launched into a new Gen of Star Wars. Problem is all of those questions have been completely thrown out the window in The Last Jedi or made trivial. They also spit on the biggest parts of what made me a fan. I am a Star Wars fan, because of the Jedi and the Skywalker legacy. It was like hey we hooked you for one more movie and now lets cut the line, so the fish can get away. Hurting and with a hook still stuck in it.
If Rian Johnson is making the next Star Wars trilogy. I am out. I would spit on them and him. Just like he did the legacy, that built Star Wars.
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3/10
Fundamentally Broken and Disrespectful to Franchise Veterans
A fundamentally broken film that boasts stunning visuals, a peppering of great action and a few scenes of tense drama but ultimately requires audiences with any prior knowledge of the Star Wars universe to disengage their brains completely. The film's treatment of legacy characters comes off as disrespectful to long time fans and yet also fails to deliver any compelling character development for the new cast outside of the main antagonist. Established plot points and mystery set up in J.J. Abram's The Force Awakens are squandered for the sake of shock value and the film compromises the integrity of its characters to hold together it's flimsy plot. In The Last Jedi's few moments of brilliance, it is on par with what audiences have seen in the Original Trilogy. In between those few moments of greatness, The Last Jedi's struggles to gain a leg up over any of the films in the Prequel Trilogy.
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So eager were we to see the return of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi that we went to a 12:30am screening at a local cinema. From the outset, we couldn't believe what we were seeing. The story was terrible, the acting was terrible (save Mark Hamill) and the direction was terrible - even some of the special effects were suspect! And things went downhill from there. Following on from the brilliant Episode VII and the excellent Rogue One, Episode VIII is a poor, shameful and disappointing successor. Our main issues are:
1) This movie was promoted as the return of Master Luke Skywalker, and the promise of taking young Rey under his wing and training her in the ways of The Force - but no. What we were given instead was a lame inter-stellar space-ship chase that I can only liken to the now infamous 'O.J. Simpson White Bronco' Police pursuit (please look it up if you are unfamiliar with this), with only a handful of scenes with undoubtedly the most central character in this movie - he's the main figure on the poster, for goodness sake;
2) I cringed so hard at the scene where Princess Leia uses The Force to return to her ship after being blown out into space that I'm sure I poo'd a diamond the next morning;
3) This movie clearly and obviously followed the 'JJ Abrams Star Wars Formula Handbook for Beginners' with cute critters providing comic relief and strange and alien places with strange characters doing the same things we do here on Earth. However, so poorly was this formula followed in constructing this movie that you could obviously see all of the 'rough edges' and 'outlines' and 'joins' of the formulaic pieces, making the movie jarring, obvious, shameful and embarrassing to watch;
4) This movie lacked any of the desperate hope that underlies all of the other movies in this franchise. That ever-present darkness that is clearly saying to the audience, "We're outnumbered, we're outgunned, we're outmanned, the odds are heavily stacked against us - but we're going to fight, anyway!" Also glaringly absent was the presence of The Force and the ongoing battle between The Darkness and The Light. The reason Star Wars has endured for 40 years is due to that core message, as decent ordinary people -both young and old - can relate to this battle in myriad ways in their daily lives. These core elements are fundamental to a Star Wars movie, of which Episode VIII certainly is not; it was just another sci-fi movie, and not part of cinematic royalty;
5) Sure, we all know that these new movies are a passing of the torch from the old guard to the new, but that time has absolutely not arrived. The return of Luke Skywalker and the establishment of a resurgence of the Jedi in Rey should have been the cornerstone of this movie and Episode IX. Kill off Luke?! Kill off Snoke?! They are the two main protagonists of The Force, but this movie wants to replace them with two children who haven't earned the right to occupy that position. They are not Masters of either side, and we cannot take them seriously as representatives of the Sith and the Jedi, respectively, because they're neither. Where are their cool Master light sabre moves and other exotic uses of The Force? Who will they learn them from? The books stolen from the archive and glimpsed in a bag at the end of this movie? We're not buying that.
6) This movie is entertaining, and has many expected large-scale battle scenes and lots of humor - and attempts at humor! But the central and end battles scenes were ridiculously drawn out and scenes and conversations took ages to develop, but, yet, their ships still hadn't been blown to pieces! Where was the usual expert handling of such battle scenes with fast-paced action and constant threat, danger and destruction, as is realistic?
It is the general consensus between myself and my friends that we shan't be attending the midnight showing of Episode IX. Nor will we be seeing it the next day or the next week. Such is our dejection and disappointment, we are all happy to wait until Episode IX reaches television... and only if we're not busy.
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Unlike the most of the people who reviewed the movie as completely garbage I am pretty impressed by it .First of all,the acting was superb.The way Kylo Ren developed from confused boy to a powerful and unwavering sith lord was one of the best things in the plot.He fullfilled his destiny as a sith(killed his Master) and has the ability to force choke-just like his grandfather which is pretty neat-o.Compared to episode 7, he was a freaking master.And he is not even realised his full potential yet.Can't wait to see him in the next movie.
I wonder why so many people say that Luke's characters is ruined - it was a great decision of Disney to show us that part of his character showing us that like every human being ,he is capable of making mistakes.I think that Yoda explained that prety ellaborately and still people hate this part of Luke's character.The whole Star Wars movie franchise shows us that everybody makes mistakes at some point(Anakin,Yoda,Obi Wan,Palpatine,Mace Windu etc. ) so why you hate the guy?The fact that he confesses the mistakes he have made and trying to fix this shows us even more his good-hearted nature and wisdom.One thing I was always confuses me is that George Lucas have said that Luke is the strongest force user and yet we have not seen much of his potential(saying that Luke is stronger than Yoda,Palpatine and Vader is pretty confusing) .But this thing he did was f*ckin epic badass sh*t.I was literally amazed.I mean this scene explained to me why he is the most powerful force user ever.
The thing that totally dissapointed me was Snoke.I mean wtf is he doing.He was pathetic.Having said that he is stronger than Palpatine is such a garbage. I mean the emperor twisted Vader to the dark side , almost did it with Luke , killed Mace Windu and the other jedi's without a lot of struggle, ruled the galaxy , made everybody fear him.And this guy just comes out of nowhere and tries straight forward to kill Rey who is incredibly strong with the force , not even attemting to make her his apprentice.And finally is beaten in his own game.
About the movie , and this is personally my oppinion and interest - I wanted more of the empire theme and more of the jedi-sith battle.Most of the movie shows us the rebellion , the First Order , unlike the other films when we hear the empire march every 5 minutes.
All in all the movie is great and worth watching.
I'm waiting for fan theories and explanations to many plot decisions because I have many questions yet.
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Honestly, I do not understand why people hate on this film so much. It is the best Star Wars movie in my opinion and even the best film I have seen this year.
I cried a lot and laughed and was excited the whole damn time! A masterpiece!
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So apparently I'm supposed to hate this movie, seeing as I'm a long time Star Wars fan but honestly I don't understand why everyone is so mad! I've have been watching these movies since I was really little, my father had the original VHS tapes and I watched them religiously! And I was lockstep with the rest of the fandom in tearing down the prequels, but nope no this movie. It's not perfect but nothing is perfect and I really appreciate that we weren't given what we expected. I feel like the film does a great job of distancing itself from previous films and still holding on to the charm of the Star Wars Universe that we all know and love. I personally believe the fandom is up it's own ass on this one, but that's my opinion. Feel free to tell me I'm not a real Star Wars fan but I have nothing to prove to you. I love Star Wars and I know seeing this movie made me feel like I was a kid again, I was giddy and excited while watching it and left the theater feeling a sense of wonder in the world.
SPOILERS!!! I want to tear down some criticisms. Those who criticize are not wrong to do so, your opinions cannot be wrong. I'm just offering a bit of counter-criticism.
So I just want to talk about Luke who was the best version of himself he's ever been here period. He was wise but still a bit selfish, blaming himself for everything that has ever gone wrong in the universe. That's the thing, the Star Wars universe really has a bad habit of hinging the fate of entire star systems on the Skywalker bloodline as if they are the most important characters in the universe (more on that when I talk about Rey). Luke threw away his saber because he was done with that life, done playing the hero, because he didn't understand how to fail and live with his own failure. He was The Hero that defeated the empire! And believed himself to be infalliable until Ben went dark side and everything changed. He collapsed, took it way too hard, and turned away from his hero status. That lightsaber meant nothing to him, why do you think Mas had it in her bar in the first place? He probably pawned it.
Also what did people expect him to do against Kylo? I've seen complaints that he didn't show off any lightsaber skills. That would've been dumb, as dumb as it was to see Count Dooley and Yoda leaping all about. Luke's projection power was so neat and well established throughout the film as much people want to believe he just pulled it out of nowhere. It's the same thing Kylo and Rey had been doing the whole film, projecting to each other as we saw when Luke saw the two of them in the hut. It's cool and fits in the canon. If you can make Firce ghosts that project beyond the veil of frigging death, I think we can allow force Holograms to be a thing
About Rey's parents: it's a good thing they aren't anybody!!! I'm so thrilled that we didn't have to deal with another "I'm your father!" Moment. The universe does not revolve around one friggin family! Sometimes incredible people come from nothing, a bloodlines are meaningless when compared to the heart and soul of a person. Let it go.
Also I'm glad Snoke is dead and turned out to be nothing as well, it was another thing where we speculated "oh man who's this guy?! I wonder if he's X dude from Y extended universe or if he's related to the blank stuff from the Old Reublic or..." just stop. So he doesn't matter... honestly it was surprising to see Kylo kill him and I was crowing when it happened because I was Surprised it happened! We need more surprises in films, less plot armor for people is always good.
And finally I want to address the "not telling Po" thing that Admiral Holden(?) did. She had no reason to trust Po, a man who was solely responsible for the deaths of dozens of soldiers only hours before. He would have rebelled no matter what her plans were, he is a trigger happy flyboy. I love app I really do but can you tell me he wouldn't have tried to make some crazy plan that wouldn't have gotten people killed? He would've said something like "ok well I'll round up a squad and we'll distract them while you guys evacuate" and more people would of died. If Po has just sat still and done nothing, no one would've died perhaps.
All in all I loved this new movie and yeah I have my criticisms such as I didn't like the whole casino planet nonsense. But it was a fantastic movie and I think people need to take off the nostalgia glasses and look forward into the rising twin suns of the future. Learn to be happy with being surprised as opposed to getting fed the same dynastic bloodline feuding and expected reveals.
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Ok I've seen the screeds upon screeds of negative reviews for TLJ all over the net, not just on IMDb! I can understand why a lot of people will be negative about this movie. In fact I feel theres been more negativity aimed at this installment of the Star Wars Saga than even any of the prequels!
The first thing I will say is it's different. VERY DIFFERENT!
This is perhaps why a lot of people aren't quite so enthusiastic about it. I have to admit that I left the cinema with A LOT of questions and a sense of WTF just happened to the Star Wars Universe!?
However after digesting things for a few days I have to admit I do like TLJ. I'm not gonna say it's the best Star Wars movie. Not by a long shot. However this installment has in fact broken a cycle that in many ways has hindered the Saga since the release of the prequels.
I have to say that since 1999 and the release of Episode I theres been a strange sense of deja vu within every Star Wars movie. The other two prequels, TFA, and Rogue One all suffered from it too! There was a comfortable familiarity within them all but at the same time it also brought an air of predictability to them!
Now TLJ does have some of these echoes throughout - Lost Jedi Master in Exile reluctant to teach a new pupil reeks of Empire; The separation of the main protagonists and their temptation to the darkside also has undertones of Empire and of Jedi (and ROTS to an extent); Crait looks like Hoth and the battle is a very similar set up; Slave children also play a big part in the overall story too!
However there are many new elements that have been brought to the table which whilst they may not sit well within the franchise now does mean that it's future will forever be broken from the deja vu cycle that Lucas had underwritten into his parts of the series.
Now I will admit that some of the new elements are perhaps not as well introduced as they could be! There are characters who I feel should have had a more expansive role in the story than they did. Also some of the new elements related to The Force are just sprung upon you with no real explanation given. That being said it does expand a lot on the new characters such as Rey, Kylo Ren, Poe and Finn. Its gives us more insight into their personalities and potential for the future.
The humour is another bone of contention with the fans. Personally I quite enjoyed a lot of the funnier parts of the movie. Some of the gags where perhaps lingered upon a little too long in some cases but again it was a fresher approach to some of the situations that could otherwise have been very repetitive if handled as they always were in Star Wars.
The Porgs I have to admit were fun and funny. Theres also a lot of humour in a particular scene with an old friend that put a smile on my face! Yes some may consider it a deja vu moment like the ones I was slating earlier but I can forgive this one as it was probably the highlight of the movie for me being a life-long fan!
For once I now face the coming of Episode IX with a genuine sense that I have absolutely no idea what it will entail. For some that will be a scary prospect. Many people are already saying that Star Wars is dead after this movie but I say give it a chance!
The one thing I always wished for from the Sequel Trilogy is that we would get something different. TFA was criticised for being too similar to all that came before...now TLJ is being slated for being too different, Maybe, just maybe EP IX will get the balance right.
I know I may be in the minority of fans who actually like this entry to the Saga but I hope that in time people will realise that just because its different doesn't mean its bad.
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TLJ was an okay film for me. 10.000 times better than the garbage that is better known as TFA. This movie doesn't try to push their feminism down your throat as much as the previous one. TLJ is better than Rogue 1 and maybe TPM, but that's where it ends.
The twists were surprising and I cheered when I saw Luke going in all alone, I laughed when I saw he was just meditating. And that were the strongest parts. Poe was probably the next best character because he actually tries to save people and doesn't automatically succeed because of his gender like Rey. Since I'm talking about Rey now anyways. Garbage character, 0 development in the entire movie. Hell since a quarter of the seventh movie she hasn't had any development. She was OP from the get-go and she is still OP. Everyone is worried if she can beat Kylo, because he is supposedly so strong, but she has beaten him twice now and has 0 training. Oh except those 3 lessons from Luke which happened in like what? A day, maybe three at max?
Luke yes, his death is just, wtf, just..... The hero of the OG SW, the one person who believes in good in all people, who tried and succeeded in getting his father back to the light, that same Luke tried to murder a child because he saw a glimpse of darkness in him. They grabbed Luke's character, twisted it, rolled it in some poop then decided to eat and vomit it out again just to prove that they are talking shit. Mark Hamill (actor of Luke) fundamentally disagreed with the direction they decided to take Luke, but the director decided he just simply doesn't care and rather gets a quick buck by doing something that people won't like.
Let me talk about Leia briefly, (R.I.P. Carrie Fisher) she was an okay character in this movie, not a lot to say about. Prefered her in the old movies when she ran around with a gun, but that's kinda hard at that age and she is now a general and stuff. Her force superman trip was really weird and I don't really understand why they put it in. They already made it clear they didn't want to follow the path where Leia becomes a Jedi too, and it never gets mentioned in the movie again about her being force sensitive. She feels like a wasted opportunity.
Snoke: Ye, he is most likely not dead. We saw Luke as a force projection and looked way younger than he was. Snoke looked way healthier and younger in TLJ than in TFA (lots of scars were suddenly gone). So I'm not too mad about his "death" for now. Was a great twist though, so I support the decision as long as he returns in episode 9.
Summary: Poe really got a lot of development and I'm looking forward to seeing more of him, Luke is wasted (literally) as a character, same goes for Leia, Rey is still a stupid Mary Sue who can achieve everything because of her vagina. Finn, well I didn't talk about him in this review. That's because of his significance to the story, his whole part could be cut out and the story would not change at all. Pretty mad about that as well. Rose? Same as Finn. Chewie, great character, also not used enough. We should have seen him mourn about Han's death or atleast something. Kylo? Ye, great performance by Adam Driver, but his character was just yo-yo'ing around (no clue how to write that). The movie was okay, not great, not horrible: 7,2.
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....Everybody is aware that Star Wars is basically a space-opera western....right? Try not to take it so seriously, & enjoy the flick. I mean, character's in Star Wars are notorious for lying....all because Kylo said what he said...doesn't make it true.
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Upon seeing the trailer, I entered the theatre with high expectations. Upon leaving, I felt as though I'd just watched a parody. The plot is awful and the script is even worse. The origins of of Snoke are never explored. The story teases the audience into thinking we may learn the identity of Rey's parents, and we do... sort of. As Kylo explains, they were 'Bums'.
We also get a scene where Leia somehow manages do survive being sucked into space, by using the force to pull herself back inside. Even though there was never any indication that she was strong enough with the force to do this.
The First Order has learned to track the Resistance through hyperspace, yet they can't catch up with them when they're battling RIGHT NEXT to each other!
Finn and Rose go in search of a Codebreaker who can be used to deactivate a Star Destroyer's hyperdrive. This would've been a good subplot had it not been for the fact both characters are blander than Lisa from 'The Room'.
All in all, this movie is awful. I've been a Star Wars fan for twenty years and have always stayed optimistic, even through the sub par prequels.
Do not pay to watch this movie. Watch Tommy Wiseau's 'The Room' instead - as even though that script was also awful, it was entertaining.
You are tearing me apart, Rian!
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Forty years later,
Change is inevitable,
New generation.
See veteran characters,
Plus feisty new ones,
In this film with a message.
Kylo Ren and Rey's
Intense on-screen chemistry,
Yoda's cameo,
Luke's controversial moves,
Finn with new love Rose,
Princess Leia's last hurrah.
Upgraded cantina scenes,
Gorgeous galaxies,
Spacecraft we'd love to explore,
Droids that make cute sounds,
Cute birds that do nothing else,
Epic lightsaber battles,
Familiar themes
Like good and bad, light and dark.
Somewhat selling out,
But the message is quite clear:
The Force is still strong
Presenting the new Star Wars,
The Rebellion is reborn.
Choka (long poem) was an epic storytelling form of poetry from the 1st to the 13th century, known as the Waka period. The choka is an unrhymed poem with the 5-7-5-7-5-7...7 syllable format (any odd number line length with alternating five and seven syllable lines that ends with an extra seven syllable line).
#Choka #PoemReview
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If Chapter VII is called the Force Awakens, Chapter VIII should have been titled the Force Goes Back to Sleep.
I think perhaps the most exciting this about this movie was the opening crawl. . . . and then there the audience sat at the cliff of sure disaster.
There was little if any redeeming value and by the time we got about 90 minutes in, I wasn't sure if I was going to stay or go. It was painful.
If we were to compare the second installment of this latest trilogy to the second installment of the original trilogy, we should expect a much darker, compelling story-line where the good guy doesn't get the win. The previous chapter sure set it up to be that way. Instead, Rian Johnson gave us something entirely different. The Last Jedi tried to be lighthearted and funny. It was neither.
You're lucky to get 20 minutes of movie time if you're expecting answers to questions you were asking after The Force Awakens. Who is Snoke? Who were Rey's parents? What was Luke going to do about training Rey?
Instead, this follow-up gives us Star Wars legends who have become incredibly weak, worthless character introductions, insignificant cameos, annoying creature introductions, a planetary side adventure that could have been cut out altogether. . . . AND above all else, a very weak and disjointed story line. To me, is seems like Disney put their efforts into marketing and selling toys and completely ignored substance.
I wish they could get a do-over on this one because the opportunity to hit the grand slam was there. The problem was we had Casey at the Bat. and Mr. Johnson whiffed badly.
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Where does one even start with this disappointment of a cluster f**k?
Lets start on a fundamental film level: So many plot holes as well as so many major points from The Force Awakens completely abandoned. It fails as a sequel, much less a Star wars film. So many story points do not make sense and an entire 20 minute chunk of the movie could have been cut without the plot changing at all.
On a star wars level: It is a slap in the face to the loyal fans and a welcoming hug to all your friends that made fun of you for liking Star Wars as a child. It is an abomination. Super Leia/ Alien tit sucking, murderous, coward Luke... I mean for real, Luke could face the emperor and the most feared evil man in the galaxy, his father, Vader, in hopes of saving him, but will slaughter his best friend and sister's child in his sleep because he was brat with a little dark in him? Piss off./ C3p0 and R2, as well Chewbacca are reduced to afterthoughts to please old fans. The entire mythos is altered in disrespectful ways.
My other problem with the Last jedi is the feminist message that is beaten into the ground. Every man in this film is flawed, weak, and reckless. They even went out of their way to reduce the greatest male hero in Sci Fi history, t o a sniveling, fearful, shell of a coward. Finn is not allowed to save everyone because of some random chick's (ROSE) "love" and teaches him a lesson. Laura Dern has to teach poe a Lesson. Rey, a complete Mary Sue, teaches Luke a Lesson and so on. We get it, men are sh!t and liars.
What I liked?: Cinematography, the Pretorian fight scene, ummmm that is it.
What I hated: Super Leia, Snoke resolution, Rose/Finn story, Laura Dern and being stubborn, treatment of Luke, Ending on the random boy, Humor, plot holes, the "F" you to Force Awakens, Phasma death, entire Canto Bright saga, some crap CGI, stupid "chase" about running out of gas, an X wing taking out a Dreadnaught by itself and why that is possible... I am sure there is more but I will have to watch again.
In the end this movie is a solid 4.5/10
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George Lucas you had better be pleased with yourself. This film was the worst one I have ever seen in the Star Wars franchise. I totally regretted seeing this film. I just wished I saved my money. This film was not worth watching and I hate to see what IX will bring. Disney has nothing but ruined Star Wars. Even the prequels including Attack of the Clones was not as rubbish as this.
Set right after the events of the Force Awakens Rey does her Jedi training with Luke Skywalker but he fears she will suffer the same fate as his former apprentice Kylo Ren. Elsewhere the Resistance continue their struggle against the First Order as the war continues between both sides.
This film was both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi all rolled into one from Rey doing training on a deserted planet to Rey meeting Snoke a la Luke Skywalker meeting Palpatine and like Vader killing Palpatine Kylo Ren kills Snoke but does not repent however. Like Vader Kylo Ren offers Rey to join sides with him and rule the galaxy together. And I felt Mark Hamill was a disappointment. He played one of the main heros in the franchise and we only get less than 20 minutes of him and he dies and becomes one with the force like Obi Wan Kenobi.
To be honest I wanted the film to end. It was a hash remake of the last two films of the original trilogy and having a lack of key characters was simply dreadful. JJ Abrams may as well had directed this piece of crap especially how he directed the Force Awakens and will also direct Episode IX. If you want to see great Star Wars films just stick to the original trilogy and even the prequels. In my opinion the sequel trilogy is going to be worse than the prequels.
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Despite what long-term Star Wars fans will have you believe, this film is very well made overall, and in my opinion it is in par with logan or similar modern films. There is one scene, however, that I did not like. CGI aside, the opening scene is inconsistent, random, and simply ridiculous. The basis of this scene is that one of the main characters, Poe, irrationally decides to single-handedly take on a massive star destroyer in a head-on attack. This is simply inconsistent with Poe's character, and just seems like a stupid decision. It's like they created the irrationality for this film just to draw parallels to the original 3 films. I was bugged throughout the entire film that this arrogant and frankly stupid side of Poe was just shoved in our faces. However, this is a mistake that even some classic film franchises have made (I'm looking at you DC) so I'll only take one star off for it. But in general this film absolutely blew me away. Also, some have complained about the comedy in this film. While one part seemed forced (May the force be with you), most of the comedy was modern and effective. star wars fans to go and enjoy it. This is definitely the best film to come out of disney in a while so I recommend any casual For the hardcore star wars fans who want it to respect the source material to no end, maybe stay away.
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I honestly don't understand all those critics about this episode.. This star wars is by far the best we've seen in a long time !
Everything about the story, so generous, is surprising and you never thought it would go this way. The action scene in space are just epic, the shots that Rian Jonhson offers are just mind blowing, the acting for the most characters are top notch !
I think the problem is a lot of people had some expectation concerning the story, and didn't get what they wanted. And because it didn't go the way they thought it is bad..
For certain the Last jedi took some risks, but I prefer by far a story that surprises me in every way than something I was expecting.. I am so happy about this movie and I hope JJ will conclude this trilogy without restraints !
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9/10
Watch with an open mind and don't let the past control your expectations
I can understand how some people do not like this movie, however, I really did. I was never a big Star Wars fan, but I grew up with it because of my brothers. This movie made me want to go home and watch all the movies and learn everything I could about the universe.
I did that and then I watched this movie again. It was much better the second time and I still enjoyed it.
This new trilogy is not done yet and I think many people are forgetting that, just because some questions weren't answered in the obvious ways they were in the past films. I think this movie is beautifully done and the acting is superb (Adam Drivers acting is amazing).
Star Wars (In my opinion) is not about the Jedi Order only, it is about good and evil, the fall of a civilization and the fight for freedom. What I think many people don't see is how wrong the Jedi actually were, they focused so much on their own light and their own path to stay good that they did not see everything change around them.
I think there are a lot of disappointed fans because this movie took a different direction than expected. But personally, I loved it. It was fresh and had such a deep level of emotions in it that captivated not just me, but many others. The characters from the old movies are not the heroes anymore and it is time to let the past go, kill it, if you have to.
Luke Skywalker is the last Jedi because he is the last one to try and live by the ways of the Jedi, which ended in failure again. I really hope the fans who are sad about this movie will rethink their expectations, because did you really expect Luke to be the main character again? Save the day and have another surprising father?
It is a new area, a new fight and if a new way of order is to rise, the old one has to fall. No more Jedi order and no more Sith. They have to go back to when everything was stable, to the grey area between light and dark.
I think this movie points out these things in a beautiful way, the inner battle between light and dark, showing us one person can truly not be only one of them and there has to be a middle ground.
Luke failed because he pushed himself so far away from the dark that he feared it when he saw it in someone else, but for a Jedi, fear is bad. So bad that Luke did not know what to do and was considering killing a young man who was conflicted and had no idea what to do. The Jedi created another villain by not embracing human errors and doubts.
This is why I think this movie deserves 9/10, because if you watch it with an open mind and love the universe and the ideas in it, it will surprise you. Put away expectations and face reality, the Jedi are gone.
The only reason I am not giving this 10/10 is because of the obvious way Disney used that bird to make the toy sell in bulks. Also, the thing with Finn and Rose was a bit forced, but ended up working out.
Sorry if I offended anyone with my review, but this is just a personal opinion.
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I wish I could get my money back after watching this crap. Thank you Disney for killing Star Wars - you idiots. I was ten when the first star destroyer flew into shot in one of the best opening scenes ever and it was magical. It's a shame the people who wrote, produced and directed it didn't watch it themselves, that way they wouldn't have made the worse movie of all time. Ed Wood could have done better. AVOID AVOID AVOID.
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10/10
10 only due to massive fan hate. Really I'd say 8/10
The new trilogy is a departure from Star Wars in many ways.
But to say it is bad...?
No, it is not bad. I have seen all movies and have appreciated them all.
There are bad things in TLJ, sure, but there are also good things.
I have read several die hard fans review, and I will say a few things about the most disliked issues:
1. Too little character development. Partly true, there is no classic development, with defining moments for all characters - all action paused for the audience to understand the moment. But the characters grow in real time. There are many new characters, which is normal if you think of it, and the movie cannot be paused for all of them.
2. Bad subplot with the codebreaker. Well, shockingly as a fan of SW, I enjoyed it. Always knowing what happens, it kills the suspense.
3. Too many build ups not used. Yes, they were many. But I fell for all of them. So in my opinion, they were well used. Not being sure what comes next, I would say it was refreshing for the SW franchise. It is what was missing in parts 1-3, where we knew how they end.
4. Snoke died too soon. Arguable I would say. This levels the field and allows a range of endings. And it is in the spirit of the entire series. Both Jedi and Sith were defeated by their arrogance. In a way, it made a lot of sense. As we did not think it was possible, because Kylo Ren was young, and inexperienced, probably the sith thought that as well.
5. Lack of real romance between characters. Sort of. And is love always shared? Finn has 2 ongoing possible relations. I would say both are not for him. He cares about Rey, but their relationship is kinda platonic. Same with the other girl (don't remember the name). My bet is he did not meet his partner yet. Rey fits well with Kylo Ren. Not sure that they don't end up together in the end. But the movie was very fast, so it is true, you can't build romance @ that pace.
6. The First Order not making a small jump to catch the rebels. Yes, you have that right. I agree. Did not think of it myself, so I enjoyed the movie.
7. Luke's development. How is his withdrawal ruining the series? Why do you expect a man with all the answers? You assume that wisdom implies action? Sometimes, wisdom implies inaction. And his emotional scar was indeed deep. To train his sister's kid and be so close to killing him? That was a difficult decision to take and such a thing can break a man. In a way he ran from the consequences of his actions. He knows he is to blame, and that fixing things can lead to making them worse. In a way, he does fix them, as the force comes to visit him, and reactivates him. He was once again needed.
I could go on, but I will stop by saying this:
A departure from known paths is a risk, but so is staying in the same mindset. For me, the most difficult thing to accept was the new setup with a First Order so strong. It really did set a dark tone to the new trilogy, and I disliked that it made the efforts of all characters in the original trilogy to be for nothing.
But as I rewatched episode 7 now, without watching episode 6 before, I think that judging it on its own, it was not bad. So episode 8 was also not bad. A bigger departure from Star Wars than all other episodes, but in my opinion, something the series really needed.
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I have used IMDB for close to 10 years but today is the first day I have had an account and the first review I have ever given, The Last Jedi is the reason for this and its not a good thing.
This was the film that my group of mates had bought tickets for 3 months in advance for opening night.... we spoke about TLJ at least once a week up until the day we found ourselves in the cinema finally ready to continue our love for Star Wars, as the opening slow crawl made its way across the screen the crowd erupted, this was the moment that anyone from ages 16 through to 50 had been waiting for.....
2.5 hours later the cinema was silent, no cheers, no claps... nothing.
Welcome to Star Wars: The Last Jedi
TFA was a good start to getting this trilogy up and running, everyone knows and understands that it is essentially an exact copy of episode 4 but I accepted this as it was a good way to get back into what star wars is about, everyone saw how The Phantom Menace was received and I thoroughly believe they were trying to avoid this by creating ep 4 again. People complained as always but in general it was a strong base to build a new empire upon.
In Rogue One they moved away from the classic Star Wars model but still kept some of the original feeling. This was a fantastic film that felt like Star Wars but at the same time was different to anything we had seen before and should be seen as one of the best Star Wars films ever made.
We were told not to expect your classic Star Wars film but TLJ is not just a bad Star Wars movie but it is a bad movie any way you look at it.
Luke is meant to be the strongest Jedi to ever exist, this is the guy that turned Vader back to the light, he defeated countless enemies and armies, he helped take on and defeat Abaloth. But your telling me that this same character saw the small chance of evil in Ben Solo so straight up tried to murder him without any further reasoning.....he then created a force image that was apparently so straining that it caused him to fade away and die.....
This is an insult to the character of Luke and an insult to Mark Hamill.
This movie contains an entire adventure to a casino world that is completely irrelevant to the progression of the story, they literally could have cut it out completely and no one would have known any difference.
By the end of the film you will completely forget the Finn and Po even exist, their characters have literally 0 Progression other than Po taking out every surface turret on a fully shielded dreadnaught....by himself.... with an X wing.....seriously...
Finn is just useless and is there just to have a dumb relationship with an diversity character.
Leia is beyond dumb, she literally gets shot into the vacuum of space, seems to be completely frozen then decides to wake up and superman back into the ship.... Why didn't they have her light speed through the dreadnaught cruiser? and give her a fitting end. Now we are going to probably have her killed off screen which will be stupid.
They brought in two dumb animal like creatures purely for making money off screen, both the ice cats and weird orange bird thing have no value in the film and are there for merchandising only.
Oh but wait I'm sure they will save it with who Snoke and Rey's parents are right?
Wrong, Snoke is a no one who gets killed by Kylo halfway through the film with not explanation into his character.... and Rey's parents are also no ones who dumped her then died on the same planet.
I honestly believe that everyone that writes professional reviews is being paid off by Disney, because there is no possible way that this film is an 7.9 when every single user review is below a 5 and in most cases between 1-3.
I hope that Rian Johnson is dumped after this film because what he has created is beyond belief and is a big screw you to anyone that has supported the saga.
Good luck to everyone watching this film and I hope you make it through.
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It's just a disaster. Worst movie, which could ever been made under Star Wars title. All good things which were in TFA were completely wasted. Beloved classic characters are raped. All stories of the new characters are completely failed. No cool action scenes at all. Stupid dialogs (George, please, come back!)
The story itself is just one giant plot hole. Rose and Finn subplot ruins the entire movie. Snoke is wasted, droids can now drive vehicles flying Superleya, completely pointless Rose, Hacker and this new kamikaze admiral characters, milking space cow scene (Seriously? They actually think that we waited for almost 35 years but not to see cool kick-ass action scenes with Luke, but to see, how he milks some alien CGI crap??? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS??). And one more question: Rebels say, that the have fuel only for 16 hours, but we clearly see that Rey spent minimum a couple of days on that island. WHAT THE FUCK???
The whole movie is filled with humour, but it's much more boring than Attack of The Clones.
But what totally ruined this movie for me is what they made with Luke Skywalker, the most beloved character for many Star Wars fans. Rian Fucking Johnson tries to tell us, that the most inspiring character, our hero with whom we all grew up with, tried to kill his own nephew while he was sleeping, refused to help his friends and sister, when they needed him most and then died for no reason. It left me totally heartbroken, and i refuse consider that man as Luke Skywalker.
The whole trilogy is ruined for me. i'm not any interested to know what are they going to show us in Episode 9. it's not canon for me. Just a disaster.
P.S Oh, in that "New Star Wars Episode" there are no proper lightsaber duels and even no proper gunplay action scenes at all. But who needs cool action in Star Wars, it's better to show us space "Mom Jokes".
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So let me first say I loved the Force Awakens. I get that it mirrored A New Hope but at the same time it reintroduced Star Wars to a new generation of fans while providing the nostalgia for the life long fans. The story was built up and has left us wondering where it will lead for two years now. We have been waiting TWO YEARS. So this Rian Johnson guy gets hired. Wow well he must be the laziest and most uncreative storyteller I have seen thus far. It's like he fell into a depression after writing the opening scene. We wonder who Snoke is. "I don't care, Kill him." Phasma is back and didn't die afterall so what are you going to do with her? "I don't care. Kill her." Whats been going on with Luke? Whats his place in this new story? "I don't know. Kill him." How are we going to write Carrie off now? "Not." I mean are you kidding me, Johnson??? This is the best you can do. Not to mention having Luke drinking some weird titty milk from a random creature. 35 minutes of the film is centered around Rose and Finn on some bogus casino planet riding some huge CGI horse cats. And what is the point of building up Rey's lineage and the scene with the mirror wall? Give me a break. You are lazy storyteller and you should've never directed this movie. I wish we could have a redo. I really hope Disney rethinks their decision of hiring you.
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9/10
Deep, inteligent, thought provoking, no wonder so many don't like it
Once again, I go against my own rule and write a review for a movie with over 1000 reviews as of now (over 2000 says the number oa the bottom). I'm writing it because I've got a bone to pick with many Star Wars funs, and I already know this review will be disliked from here to eternity by most of you, but I believe in speaking my own opinion as is. I believe in explaining my own opinion to the best of my ability and that's what I'll do.
So here goes: as my title says this movie, which none can blame of repeating a previous plot line, is deep, inteligent and thought provoking. There's very little I would ask from a movie that isn't here already. The acting is first rate, by each and every member of the cast. I almost feel that singling out some members of this cast would be wrong but I have to mention Kelly Marie Tran and Oscar Isaac, not because they're better than the others but because they're given the first real opportunity to shine and they make the most of this opportunity. I won't dwell on any other technical aspect of movie making. It's all of the highest class there is. But I will go into the big argument I have with most of Star Wars funs, which is, basically, what is this film all about.
The entire franchise in my mind is a long discussion about the nature of power; the difference between good and evil; about the nature of hope, anger, and most of all about what's being human is all about. Not all the episodes dealt with these issues with the same success, but these issues are always there. There's nothing scientific about it, hence it's not science fiction. It's in fact science fiction comics, of the highest quality. What's the difference, the difference is that in sci-fi comics, the scientific elements are external. Simply a tool to extend the range of options before the writer. There's so much more you can do when you can jump from one planet to another, use weapons that none ever heard of before and so on. They simply serve the point of comics - a never ending story. All that doesn't mean that comics have to be superficial, as proven by masterpieces such as The Dark Knight, Logan, and the recent revival of the Star Wars franchise.
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Disney clearly does not care for the fans. Disney just wants that big money and does not care about trashing what has been done before. The movie was boring and too long.
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A lot of positives here. The acting was solid and Adam Driver was excellent, despite the hammy script and it had a number of fantastic set pieces and spectacular space battles. After the predictability of The Force Awakens, it was a pleasant surprise to have some actual plot twists. Its not perfect and dragged a little in the middle (which could have been fixed by replacing the whole codebreaker section with a 2 minute montage) and despite the long running length, there was a number of unanswered questions. Ignore the haters, whilst some editing and a script rewrite would have improved the movie, only a fool would score it less than four stars.
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Loved its not full of clisché scenes, loved new staff, unpredictable story, actors performances, bright and funny dialogs, looking forward to third masterpiece
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THE GOOD:
The special effects were amazing, as usual.
THE BAD:
The 45-minute subplot on the Casino planet, ultimately did nothing to advance the story, and should have been cut. Had it been, the outcome of the movie would have been exactly the same: our heroes failed in their mission, were captured, escaped, and joined back up with their friends. The time spent watching this subplot play out was a complete waste of time. May as well have shown them folding their laundry.
Leia being blown into space, unconscious, and then somehow using the force to pull herself into an airlock, still while unconscious. That is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen in any movie, period. I'm speechless. I just ... how did anyone think this was a good idea? Did no one speak up? If anyone involved with the movie knew this was a terrible idea, and didn't speak up, then you're complicit - shame on you.
Luke Skywalker's archetype being completely ignored. This is the guy, who when he had the opportunity, wouldn't kill his own father, Darth Vader: murderer of children, and thousands, if not millions of others, all in the name of the Empire. The reason he wouldn't kill him? Because he could see the good in his father, and chose to save him. Yet, Rian Johnson would have us believe that Luke had no problem murdering his own nephew, who hadn't even done anything evil yet. Luke represents the best of us, all that is good and right and hopeful in the Star Wars universe. He's essentially the Star Wars Jesus. But his character in this movie was unrecognizable to me. A Star Wars fan would know this. And as director, it was Rian Johnson's job to know this. Shame on you, and shame on Kathleen Kennedy for not protecting Luke's legacy.
Killing Luke Skywalker because he projected himself to another planet? Why? How taxing can that be? Yoda would have us believe that you shouldn't judge an effort by its size, or difficulty. But I guess you just wanted to kill Luke. Because Rian Johnson is "bold and gusty."
The slow-motion chase through space had several common sense, logical issues. Among them: (1) at least two ships hyperspaced into the area to meet up with the New Order fleet. Since the New Order has Faster-Than-Light communications, why didn't they just contact some of their other ships to hyperspace in ahead of the fleeing ships and cut them off? (2) Why didn't the New Order send its fighters and bombers to take out the engines on the fleeing Resistance capital ships, like they did with the bridge? They still had fighters and bombers, because we saw them in the attack on the planet. (3) Are we expected to believe that a single Resistance cruiser has the shield strength to repel the bombardment from the entire New Order fleet that's pursuing it? I can suspend my disbelief for science fiction and fantasy, but it's very difficult to suspend disbelief for logical nonsense, or going against already established canon ("our ships can't repel firepower of that magnitude!")
Rey's parents being nobody of consequence. Of all the interesting people Rian Johnson could have made her parents, ranging from Han and Leia, to Luke Skywalker, to Obi-wan Kenobi, he chose nobody. That choice is as unsatisfying as Anakin being immaculately conceived by the force, and the demystifying, techno-babble explanation of midichlorians. Almost any answer would have been better than nobody.
Killing Snoke in the middle of the trilogy. When that happened, people sitting around me laughed. Afterward, my 16-year-old daughter told me she laughed because she couldn't believe they killed him. I agree. That leaves the only real villain as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo, but he's more of a tormented teen-like character than an archetype villain. And any student of Star Wars knows (or should know) that Star Wars has always been about large, sweeping, archetypal themes. Star Wars needs a clear, powerful, brilliant villain to be the instigating force behind the wars among the stars. Kylo Ren just seems to be in way over his head. Furthermore, if I didn't know this the second film in a trilogy, I'd just assume the story was done. Now that Snoke is dead, and the rest of the Resistance is small enough to fit inside of the Millennium Falcon, I honestly don't know what the final movie could possibly be about. After the Empire Strikes Back, we all knew Han had to be rescued, and maybe that Luke would have to confront Vader. I don't know what comes next, and more importantly, I really don't care.
I've seen this before, and The Last Jedi has the fingerprints of somebody who made a "bold and gutsy" choice, just for the sake of being edgy or artsy. The same thing happened with the movie Alien 3, when director David Fincher killed Hicks, Newt and Bishop, rendering the outcome of the previous movie, Aliens, completely pointless. It's like Rian Johnson intentionally made the choices that he believed people would hate, just because he could, and just to get a reaction out of people. Congratulations, Rian. And I hope it was worth it, because you just may have ruined the most valuable movie franchise of all time. The Alien franchise never recovered after Alien 3, and I can't help but wonder if the same thing will be true of the Star Wars saga films (I still have hope for the Han Solo movie.)
I rewatched The Force Awakens, and the incredible Rogue One, multiple times. Sadly, I have zero desire to rewatch the disgrace that is The Last Jedi.
Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy forgot the #1 rule about making a Star Wars movie: it's always about the fans, and giving them what they want. It was their job to thoroughly understand the franchise, its characters, the rich history of Star Wars, and to nurture and grow the Star Wars universe, while also protecting its legacy, not spitting on it. Making a Star Wars movie is never about the director, producer, actors, or even the profit. It's always about the story and the characters. Rian and Kathleen forgot this. That is why they fail.
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9/10
Heavy in theme this confident addition inspires a new perspective on the Star Wars saga, although it won't come without controversy.
I have many feelings about this film and I do not quite know how to arrange them or how they will evolve with time. It's a film that is dense with theme, legacy and character without drowning in them or looking backwards in order to find inspiration. If The Force Awakens was a celebration of what Star Wars was this one uses the legacy as a jumping off point to criticize, inspire and recontextualize parts of the Star Wars saga.
For me two themes ring the strongest - kill the past and the theme of toxic masculinity. The first one works in two ways. Partly it's a driving trait for characters in the movie trying to define themselves in new ways in new contexts without past actions or relations holding them down or limiting them. It's about strife as well as struggle. Kill the past is also about audience expectation and where the saga is going. Star Wars is no longer going to be something that simply celebrates its past heroes, it will also deconstruct them and criticize them. The Star Wars of the future is not the Star Wars of the past.
The second one is about toxic masculinity and I assume this is one that will get a lot of people riled up in the comment fields of the interwebs. The male characters in this movie constantly think they know better than their female superiors and choose to act on their own thinking it's for the good of the many when really they're acting according to their ego and a selfmade image of heroism. Early on in the movie this is often portrayed as heroic, although it's not entirely black and white, but as it progresses we are shown that this is not only short sighted but that it is also to their own detriment. Kylo Ren, Finn, Poe Dameron and Luke himself are all related to this theme in one way or another. One scene strikes me as especially strong, and subtle, when it comes to this theme (and thus will probably be overlooked) and it's when new character Rose and Finn both try to explain a plan to Poe Dameron. In this scene Finn interrupts Rose and moves in front of her in a way that completely obscures her. Here he chooses to take control in a room that did not require it and which limited the actions of his female counterpart. This is a theme between the two that will resonate later in the film as well.
However, the movie does not simply criticize men, although I'm sure some will claim that it will. Poe Dameron is a great example of this. Even though he time and time again goes against his female superiors choosing to not put his trust in them and their historic expertise that does not mean that he does not learn. By seeing how he made an error, and because they let him see it (not to be forgotten), he is changed by the end of the movie. He goes from impulsive and foolhardy to someone remarkably wiser by the end, mostly by the sacrifice of female characters but also because masculinity does not have to be toxic. The theme of toxic masculinity is not a dogmatic perspective but a pragmatic one.
The performances are strong across the board. I'm amazed by how Disney managed to cast each character so perfectly and I am especially fond of newcomer Rose. I have some criticisms to how Poe is characterized as a witty jokester early in the movie - it did not feel in tone for him or the movie - but his journey and the overall acting is good nonetheless.
Visually the movie is a treat as well. Simple motifs of red and white and red and black work as striking palettes for a surprisingly varied palette in a confident directors hand.
There are many, many things I have not commented on in this review and this is not a perfect movie. I thought that the first twenty minutes or so dragged a bit and that the scenes were cut off a bit too hard. A second viewing might have me reconsider my rating but as of now it's a movie strong in themes that resonate with me and that inspire confidence in future films - much like the very last scene uses a meta commentary and callbacks to inspire confidence in future generations.
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1/10
If you love star wars, this is not the movie for you
First off, Disney did a great job with the media and PR for this movie to make it seem like it could be the best in the series, or even the best star wars movie of all time.
Instead what we got was a great start that leads into a faltering story, full of plot holes. They keep just enough mystery to keep up entertained until they kill off people without regard to their significance or backstory. Even Luke's backstory is fraught with character flaws that are so obviously not akin to how he has been portrayed in any star wars medium. it is no wonder Mark Hamill made several negative comments regarding Luke's character in this movie. The crescendo to this film is so lack luster that I walked out as soon as the credits hit the screen. I say this because I was expecting a great deal more out of Luke, Kylo, and Rey. This movie was poorly written and a waste of two and a half hours.
In short, don't waste your money. Rent it from Redbox, or watch it on a streaming service.
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10/10
the greatest Star Wars movie after The Empire Strikes Back
I'm not great at reviews, but hundreds of other consumer reviews on this site are unjustiably negative and childish, so don't be fooled by them.
Not for a single second does this great film destroy the franchise. On the contrary, it enriches it in so many ways. It's audacious, it challenges the original, the "authorities", but it's just as big. It's new, it's fresh, it brings in the nostalgia, but it is never a reproduction.
The Last Jedi is an amazing reconstruction of the the whole Star Wars universe, a complete invigoration, reigniting the interest for the story and setting new standards and expectations.
And no, Luke never disappoints, in fact his part in the movie is anything a true Star Wars fan could wish for, and can only be beaten by The Empire Strikes Back.
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I was eagerly awaiting this film. The promise, the questions I had and the intrigue of what the new Star Wars universe was going to be like post Darth Sidius and during Supreme Leader Snoke.
Furthermore we had the promise of Rey, Finn and Po and what role they are intended to play in this new story. The way the Force Awakens left us asking so many questions I am very disappointed at the lack of answers.
Also I was very disappointed in the way our heros were treated within the storyline. Rey was given her answers about her family, but left me incredibly confused. Especially since there were apparent clues to the answer in a Force Awakens.
Finn was left to go on a non sensical rediculous quest, which was pointless to the storyline in the end. A new character was also add to the Star Wars saga and was given a new interaction with Finn, but again I was left completely disatisfied at how pointless it was.
Po's storyline was again an annoying addition to the storyline. I was screaming internally, who would behave like this under regimented military command?
Luke coming back was a welcome sight. However even his reasoning for being isolated on that planet was scattered to the wind like so many other questions we had been pondering during the first film.
Snoke and Captain Phasma (it's a recurring theme) gave a rubbish addition to the story and didn't have much time to make a meaningful impact.
In summary if you have been inspecting the Force Awakens with a fine tooth comb for clues and hints as to why, who, where and how in the new star wars story? I can promise you will be very disatisfied with the answers. The characters were treated like bit players in a larger story which was badly written, conceived and doesnt flow.
I have never said this during a trilogy I have anticipated for so long, but I'm not even sure if I want to see the final film in the cinema. I may just wait till the netflix release as to give Disney anymore of my money to sponsor this tragic conception of star wars is something I don't think i can do.
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1/10
lower than phantom menace.. about equal to the holiday special
Lower than phantom menace.. about equal to the holiday special story wise..
visiaually the movie looks amazing, the shots, the ships, the planets..
story wise my god it was horrible
1. Continuity. Luke was the one to bring balance to the force, a force user that was born of the greatest sith and reestablishes the jedi order. willing to go into the emperors throne room to save his father, because he wants to redeem him.. in this they make him afraid of a little dark side he seances in kylo.. mark hamil should have said im out after he read the script.. quite honestly i think they cgi his death scene there a video of him after the premier and he looks pissed..
2. im very liberal but this is a femenist wet dream.. all the men in the movie were diminish at the sake of making the females look stronger... poe suddenly turns into a hot shot fly boy that needs to get slapped up.. finn is still a bitch the entire movie until the end where he going to redeem himself with a heroic act gets stopped by a female forced love interest.. and luke and kylo getting beat up by rey.. my god this film makes me upset.. all the females in this movie could have gotten the sara conner treatment or the rippley treatment.. but no johnson was like nah..
useless characters .. rose useless. the new admiral didnt need to be there. del toro useless that whole story arc was never needed..
4. the characters you wanted to be useful were glossed over.. chewie, admiral ackbar, snoke
5. TWO movies in and we still dont know how the new republic was rebuilt.. the state of the galaxy besides somehow to first order is now in control of everything again, who WAS snoke, and a good back story for rey..
6. At the end they want to establish new jedi are being born.. but they could have easily done that with the characters we already know.. poe is a awesome pilot = because he is force sensitive. finn a storm trooper top of his class that escape mind control = force sensitive..
conclusion this was a cash cow for disney.. was suppose to see it on wed with friends.. just wanted to see it last night to get a quick peek.. but i told my friends to not see it.. and i will never support a disney branded star wars film for the rest of my life..
STAR WAR IS DEAD!!
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8/10
Refreshing and worthwhile addition to the Star Wars Saga
As a life long Star Wars fan, I went into the cinema with an open mind. I'd avoided spoilers and reviews, as I wanted the full impact and surprise of seeing a new Star Wars movie unspoiled and with fresh eyes, not tainted by other peoples opinions. As the movie started with the usual fanfare and crawl, you could feel the excitement and anticipation around the cinema.
The movie did not disappoint! The action set pieces were amazing, and there were large doses of emotion too. As always, there is plenty of humour thrown in also, to lighten up between the more serious plot points.
I thought the pacing of the movie was OK - but the middle part of the movie was a little more slow going. This was more than made up for though, by the first part of the movie. And the final third, oh my word! When this movie got going, it was one hell of a roller coaster ride! It had shocks, twist and high adrenaline - in my opinion it felt 100% STAR WARS!
I've been reading some pretty scathing reviews on here, where the plot and approach by new director came under some very harsh scrutiny - I was quite shocked by the level of what I can only describe as "hate" for this movie. I know some of the more "hardcore" Star Wars fans can be a little bit "militant" - but guys - this is a great action movie - and I found the new approach refreshing and fun - but at its heart, it was still STAR WARS - Good job Rian (and Disney) :)
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When you look at all of these comments you have to imagine how a fanbase can claim to know more about Cinema than the critics who have been doing their work for years.
The movie was beautifully made, so much so that it is mind boggling to think about all of the hate. Sure one of our beloved characters isn't the way we want him to be, but does that warrant the title of the worst Star Wars movie? Not by a long shot.
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The movie was beautiful. The problem is TLJ had nothing else to offer except its visuals. For me it really came down to just two huge flaws in the film: stupid, stupid story and characters who I didn't care about at all.
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I'd love to know who decided on the script for this film. It is terrible!!!! I have given three stars because some of the acting is great, the music is great and some of the action scenes are awesome.
Unfortunately production alone can't save a incredibly poorly written story-line. I think It is time for Disney to accept defeat leave the "sequels" alone to die and focus on other completely un-related periods of time in the SW universe; where they can do what they like without upsetting fans.
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1/10
Last time my expectations are that high for a Star Wars film.
I have never left a movie more puzzled than I did leaving this film. Is it shot well? Yes. Are the effects amazing? Yes. Everything just went down the toilet.
I understand wanting to take things in a different direction for a new generation of fans but you need to finish of the story that was started and do it in a way that pays respects to some of the most beloved characters every created.
Luke was a cowardly disgrace
Leia was superman?
Kylo is either a really good villain or a complete tiddy baby
Rey is a good character but absolutely no development of her character really exist.
Finn turned into a side character even though I think he had more potential.
Poe is just another pilot with a smart mouth
Snoke.........
Fans are always going to have things they hope to see happen in a series that they love. I am a huge Star Wars fan but I am always a huge movie buff. This movie had some of the largest plot holes I have ever seen.
Disney created a cash cow only to create a dumpster fire of film that completely spits in the face of a series so well loved.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but there is something seriously wrong with the critics on this one. You can only punch fans in the face for so long. Critics don't make movies. In fact I am beginning to wonder if Disney knows how to make a film anymore.
........The force is not with Disney or The Last Jedi
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The movie starts out with the threat of the First Order looming over the Resistance base.
An entire fleet of star destroyers and a super star destroyer (dreadnought class) gets confronted by one small x-wing which is piloted by (you guessed it) Poe Dameron.
Now before Poe attacks he hails the command ship with Hux on it and redicule him with a bizzare dialog about his name being "Hugs" and not "Hux". Hux gets trolled and tilted and shows off a side which reflects him as being dimwitted and mind you Hux is the commander of the entire First Order army.
Poe carries out his attack and more or less turns their feared dreadnought into a stranded whale ripe for the taking. About a dussin Resitance fighters gets taken out which is an upset to general Leia and results on Poe getting demoted. Now if you ask me a dussin fighters in exchange for a dreadnought is a very small price to pay.
As the Resistance jumps to light speed they are being tracked with a technology that we don't really understand how it works because the explanation was rather vague. This explanation was given by the new character named Rose who gets a seemingly unnecessary romance with Finn (who is obviously in love with Rey - this leads to as many has already thought; the love of Ren and Rey manifesting throughout the trilogy).
Rose and Finn travels to a new world which is renowed for their casinos. This seemed like a very cool place which we would get to discover but it was rather dull and just felt like some plot-filling. The code-breaker, the animals, the children, all of it was just lacklusting.
Meanwhile this is taking place Rey is visiting Luke who has turned into a big grumpy baby and not the cool and powerful jedi master who would oversee her training. Rey gets three leassons and none of them invovled fighting, just philosophy. Don't get me wrong that's good too but it's not enough to take on the siths.
The story would have made more sense if we didn't start off where we left with Rey presenting Luke's lightsaber to him (which he tossed away? Even if there is no need for jedi's should their weapons be forfitted as well?). Rather then that being the case Rey should be knee deep into her training and be a lot more powerful, that would have made it more acceptable when we see her fight. I know Rey is familiar with her staff but still... Perhaps if Rey gets a staff-saber for the next movie we can relate better to her combat experience.
Throughout the movie Rey and Ren has this weird force-bond which we've never seen before. Their dialogs were weird and got tedious rather quickly. Kylo Ren just seemes so confused and shattered and weak. He is hestitant about Rey, lacks the determination to kill his mother and gets treated like a dog by Snoke.
Speaking of Snoke (stupid name for a character that is quite unncessary to begin with). He sees that Ren is a child, hiding behind his mask, a mask which was never needed, I mean he can breath fine as it is, probably even better without it. Snoke points out what many felt was strange in the first movie; that Ren lost to Rey who had never held a lightsaber before.
Snoke also seems obsessed about Vader, why I don't know. Why does he want a new Vader? Snoke seems more powerful then Vader and Sidious put together. He toyed with Rey like she was a ragdoll. Who was Snoke? Where did he get his powers? He looks old enough to be older then Sidious. Was he hiding due to the rule of two? And why would Ren who has fought so hard to please his lord kill him?
Meanwhile Finn and Rose are captured and about to be executed in the hangar bay. The execution is however interupted by the noble sacrifice of admiral Holdo as the Mon calamary cruiser sets its course onto the dreadnought with lightspeed. When we return to Finn and Rose they are both safe and sound and Phasma and her troops are on the other side of a huge hangar door. Yet she was standing just a few feet away from him and there were no signs of any injuries on her that would indicate that she got blasted away.
Now lets move down to Crait. I was stoked for this scene. Like a new take on Hoth which is probably the most iconic fight throughout the entire Star Wars sagas. There wasn't much going on down there, nothing that would classify as a real battle. The little band of the Resistance which at the start of the film consisted of 400 soilders were now down to about 200 (estimated numbers due to all the ships which got destroyed).
I was a bit excited when Finn was about to give his life for the Resistance but sadly Rose couldn't let him go due to her feelings for her which she had developed over a 24-hour~ period.
After the so called "battle" of Crait Luke enters! Oh wow, this will be climactic moment of the movie. Ren and Luke will finally have their battle. But no... Ren freaks out and orders every cannon to fire on Luke. More! More!! More!!!. After the dust settles Luke's apparition still stand, completely unblemished. No lightsaber duel takes place because Luke's force move claims his life...
Other things which felt unresolved or misfitted:
What kind of force bond does Ren and Rey have? We've never seen any such interaction before.
What happend to the knights of Ren? Luke trained 13 jedis, Ren took of with a group of them but we never saw them, did we? And it seemed as though there were quite a few bodies on the ground. Do the numbers add up?
It was said that Luke went to discover the first jedi temple ever built and these scrolls in the tree were a thousand years old. The jedis have been around for many thousands of years. Even back in TPM Windu says that there hasn't been a sith around for over a thousand years. Again, do the numbers add up?
What kind of training has Leia undergone to be able to use the force whilst floating in space? That scene was so strange and it didn't make sense. It would have been better (and I say with a heavy heart) to just let her die there and then seeing as she is no longer with us today.
And what did Yoda, Obi-wan and Qui-gon say to Luke when he was on the island. Surely they must've tried to talk some sense into him?
This movie failed so hard. I would deem it to be the worst of all the movies. It didn't feel as Star Wars at all. It felt as if they tried too hard and had too many things going on at the same time. Sometimes less is more.
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1/10
Why make so little effort in order to produce a movie?
I don't know how to describe the disappointment that I felt watching this movie. Started kind of too normal, nothing special, and kept this pace for almost the entire next hour.
Then I was shocked by a scene. In a good way, you might ask, but unfortunately it was really bad. Leia, out of nothing, starts flying in the middle of the space using the force. My shockness wasn't being able to end, because after that all goes down hill.
Luke is now a grumpy old man, capable of nothing, that doesn't use the force and only wants to die (this is granted at the end of the movie, and how it happened was the only "good" scene in the whole movie).
A lot of bad and poorly prepared jokes all along, that doesn't feel right or natural to the scenes they are in.
Snoke was discarded, with no backstory or nothing added to the character, not even how he was so strong using the force was explained.
After what I saw yesterday, I think it's pretty sad that a series this good can be destroyed by people that don't do their job properly and only wants to sell.
If you think the TFA was bad, believe me, it is much much better than this one, and I'm really sad about it.
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I don't know what this steaming pile of crap is, but it's definitely not a Star Wars movie. Don't believe the "critic's" reviews; all the low-rated reviews on this site are true. Boring tension with stupid chase sequence, epic villains getting zero backstory, pointless sub-plots, it's all true.
The fact that this POS has such a high rating is testament to the marketing machine Disney has set in motion behind their latest Star Wars installment. Not only is the machine hard at work to gloss over how awful a movie it is, but indeed the film itself is just a vehicle for the behemoth merchandising industry behind all things Star Wars. That's the *only* utility this film serves, because it sure as hell fails in the "entertainment" category.
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Nice going Disney! You took a wonderful Lucas franchise and totally flushed it down the toilet!
Your investors will be overjoyed with the financial outcome of the film but your loyal series fans will now be skeptical when they see the name "Disney" above the title.
Save your hard earned money folks....this ain't worth it!
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I can make this very easy for people thinking of watching this film...
People wanting to see this film will probably fall roughly in to two groups; there are those who probably love the original trilogy (but not necessarily the updated special addition alterations), dislike the prequels, enjoyed The Force Awakens, generally love films and TV and are excited to see this next installment.
And then there is the other group, the people who have an altogether unhealthy obsession with all things Star Wars, who collect the toys and merchandise, watch the spin-off animations and read all the published books, learn the Star Wars universe-law, know the backstory of every character and the complete names of all the ships and the droids, and probably their backstories too.
The first group of people are likely the kind of people who understand and accept that it's the decision of the writer / director, and his creative team of filmmakers, as to which direction the film's plot takes, and the way the individual characters stories develop at this point in the story. People who like surprises and don't mind where the story necessarily goes, just as long as it's delivered in a way that is largely cohesive and enjoyable to watch as a piece of filmmaking. These people will likely enjoy the film and score it anywhere around a 7 to a 10 out of 10.
The second group, who have probably spent the past two years theorising what's going to happen to the characters, all the possible plot twists and outcomes, and have already pre-selected the versions they'd like, will probably score it anywhere between 1 to 4 out of 10, and probably likely throw in a claim about how Disney has ruined not only Star Wars, but also the entire film industry and possibly life on earth itself as well.
I fall in to the first category and have therefore scored it 9 out of 10. I think Rian Johnson has done a fantastic job in creating a story that surprised and delighted me. And considering the pressure he was under (after such a sucessful first film from JJ Abrams) I think he's done incredibly well to equal JJ's achievments. Throughout the film I felt excitement, tension, emotional highs and lows, and ultimately sheer joy. I felt like a child again, a feeling I haven't had since The Force Awakens, and prior to that probably all the way back to the original trilogy, along with some other 80's classics, such as the original Superman.
I enjoyed being surprised by the plot twists and character arcs that I wasn't expecting. I liked the new characters and felt emotional seeing Carrie Fisher for the last time as the iconic Princess Leia.
I can't wait to see what JJ Abrams and Co. will do for the final act of this topsy turvy saga that has captured the imaginations of people all over the world for over 40 years. Long live Star Wars! :-)
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The treatment of Luke and Leia as characters is insulting to Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Terrible story writing and no character development, Disney have pushed the reset button on star wars. They even ignored what happened in episode 7. This is no longer Star Wars, I'll watch the original films a hundred times more but never will I watch a Disney Wars movie again. Disney is the new evil empire.
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1/10
The saga continues? More like the saga is destroyed
Most of these reviews are spot on and express the disappointment perfectly.
So I'll keep this short......
The star wars franchise has been completely ruined and I do not see a way back from this abomination.
Thank you Disney for ruining my life long love for star wars.
Never been so disappointed at a film in my life!!!
Would prefer jar jar Bink's being a Jedi master!!
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4/10
Feel free to dismiss this review if you like your movies illogical, flashy for the sake of flashy and full of cringe worthy CGI
NO SPOILERS - Like many I'm I lifelong Star Wars fan. True, I have a soft spot for the Original Trilogy but over the past four decades I've been open to many of the additions and changes brought to the Star Wars universe. THE LAST JEDI is where I drew the line though.
For starters the film makes little sense. Situations the characters find themselves in are ridiculous, overly complex yet easily picked apart. Even the core idea that the narrative is structured around is heavily flawed (a slow speed space chase could easily be ended by the First Order summoning more ships to attack from all angles - duh!) The respect and dignity that the characters deserve, not just the Original Trilogy characters, is sorely missing. Instead of powerful, memorable cinematic moments almost each and everyone of them is subjected to either terrible CGI shenanigans, insulting comedy bits or just nonsensical subplot devices just for the sake of having something for the characters to do.
This is not a well written film. It may be a well "made" film, with some nice visuals and yet another fabulous score from Mr. John Williams, but it's not a good film.
It's a shame, while THE FORCE AWAKENS had it's issues I felt it was a soft volley for a follow-up director to slam dunk - Rian Johnson missed the boat. Such a waste!
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1/10
Disney had a boardmeeting and they wrote a movie...
So when Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke "The force will be with you, always", I am now to believe Disney and Rian Johnson that "always" only extended to Part VIII...
Im am just dumbfounded at how Disney buys their way in to this. A movie website today posted a survey done by a private social media firm that said: "All the negative audience reactions are fake - the fans really love this movie."
Are you kidding me?
How did that PRIVATE firm do that research?
How do they validate this?
And this movie was just an abomination for us genuine fans. Yes, us fans who know the saga inside and out.
I see comments from young fans saying "I didnt know what to feel when I saw the movie the first time, but after I saw it a second time, it was better."
REALLY?
You mean that was the audience reaction back in 1997 when we went in to see Star Wars A new hope, and we all came out full of energy, full of passion, wanting to be a wookie and a smuggler and oh, to wield a lightsaber (NOT a lasersword).
The whole world got spaceoperavirus and fell in love.
You mean they should have said "WARNING - to fully appreciate this film it takes mutiple viewings".
Then came Empire Strikes Back - did that movie have a text on the poster saying "WARNING - to fully appreciate this film it takes mutiple viewings".
Remember all you who call us true fans who have a deep love and understanding of the original saga, of what George Lucas created and of his template for what defines a Star Wars movie - now you young folks cal us "fanatics", "oldtimers", "fanboys", "right-wing" - but remember:
The ONLY reason you have your Lats Jedi is because of US, because the love we felt for a true creative effort and mind entertaining us to the degree that we fell in love with the saga, with the heroes, with the villains.
Thats why the saga has lived on, because of the original fans who was there when the magic happend. Our love has fueld this saga and is the only reason for the largest moviemachine on this planet to now start churning out movie after movie after movie...
This movie is not Star Wars.
Its not passion.
Its not saga.
Its not giving the fans the credit we deserve by honoring OUR LOVE that actually has kept this saga alive.
For me - it all ended on Endor that heroic night.
What we have today is just soulless filmmakers for hire trying to get people to make Disneys corporate bosses get a bigger salarybonus each year.
Sad. And oh so pathetic.
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1/10
Don't waist your money... worse movie I have ever seen.
This is the most Hollywood fake movie I have ever seen. You might enjoy this movie if you are a brainless ape that cannot handle any conflict or "negative feelings"... Also if you have already seen this movie I'm sorry... ... I'm just as crushed as you are. What would have been good in this movie would be if princess Leia died when she legit took a death Lazer to the face.... And then after the emperor is dead and Rey and Kylo kill the emperors guards .... When Kylo asks Rey to join him she should say something like "the dark side is weak in you Kylo" then Rey turns and kills Kylo... And Rey becomes the emperor... A real dark side bad ass... Someone that kills for fun and is evil as fuck.....not like some pretty boy we all know(Kylo) ... then Rey hunts down Luke and literally and brutally murders him for the darkness that is growing in her... ... And we all know that fin and that Asian chick should have died in that accident as he was charging into that battering ram Lazer ... This movie was the worst movie ever and I will not be at the next movie.
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10/10
Star Wars: The Last Jedi's force is strong, as a great story, great character arcs, and great action make this movie a true jedi
Ever since Disney bought the Star Wars franchise, a lot of consideration has been put together from the fans about whether the output of more content will make the popular series less special. It's safe to say that Star Wars is more then a fun space opera; it's a story that changed how Hollywood defines blockbusters. I've gone over this more in my Force Awakens review, but I mentioned that before Star Wars was made, most science fiction films were scene as fun little B movies that, while having an audience, didn't have a lot of respect when compared to classics like Citizen Kane and Ben Hur. Of course, things are different.
For a while, most people seemed to be happy with the original trilogy. Then in the late 1990s, George Lucas returned to make a prequel trilogy that had gotten a mixed response. Even with that, people seemed to be content with that, along with a galaxy full of novels, games, and content that expanded on the universe of Star Wars. Now whether more movies like Force Awakens, Rogue One, and more will make it less special seems like an odd question. People already seem to be used to them, and if The Last Jedi shows anything, that it's not stopping anytime soon.
General Leia (played by Carrie Fisher) is evacuating the Resistance from a planet when the First Order tries to take them out. Hotshot fighter Poe (played by Oscar Isaac) takes down a destroyer, but ends up getting fellow fighters killed doing so. Though the Resistance escapes, they are followed by Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver) who sends several TIE fighters to take them out for good. In this process, Leia is injured, leaving Admiral Holdo (played by Laura Dern) in charge. Not agreeing with her strategy, Poe, Finn (played by John Boyega), BB-8 (played by Bill Hader) and ship mechanic Rose (played by Kelly Marie Tran) embark on a secret mission to find a code breaker that could get them in to the First Order Battle Carrier.
Meanwhile, Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) and Chewbacca have found Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill) on an isolated world where they see that he wants nothing to do with the current fight. Rey eventually gets him to train her on the Force and the ways of the Jedi. While doing so, she learns some things about Luke and Kylo that questions just who is right and whether Luke can even help the resistance.
The Force Awakens, though I liked, did borrow a lot from A New Hope. I can say that while The Last Jedi does take a little from Empire Strikes Back, it mostly feels like a more original story. A very entertaining story to say as this had to be one of the few Star Wars stories that I didn't know where it was going to go. This finally found the right balance of good story, great action, and of course, strong characters.
If the last movie proved to be phenomenal for Harrison Ford, this movie reminds me of how good both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are. It's fascinating to see a more distraught Luke Skywalker given everything he's gone through. You get an understanding of him, but he pushes himself further away to make you question if he's the hero you've always seen him as. Carrie Fisher would be glad to hear that her final performance may be her strongest as Leia. This time, we get a sense that even she doesn't know if hope isn't coming this time, thus a sadder, but interesting kind of Leia.
I can say that both John Boyega and Daisy Ridley continue to prove why their personalities and charisma make them ideal Star Wars actors. Their likable and both characters go through character arcs that I won't spoil. Both Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac, who didn't have a lot of screen time in Force Awakens, not only have a lot more to do this time, but they too have large character arcs that are just as fascinating as Darth Vader and Han Solo's in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Again, not spoiling anything.
I'll give this ten blue lightsabers out of ten. Director Rian Johnson has not early improved on the mistakes of the pervious movie to craft an amazing Star Wars movie, but an amazing movie in general. I didn't even mention that that cinematography and special effects are just as good as the story, but what you don't know make this a great movie. I'll simply say go see it, and may the force be with you.
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2/10
The most illogical plot i have seen in a while, without any nuance and epicness that characterizes STAR WARS
Ok, its hard for me to write this review. Its really hard for me to dislike a STAR WARS movie, i am somewhat positively biased against STAR WARS. The first time i saw the movie at the premier i was stunned, and shocked on how poorly written and how ridiculous the plot is, i however, hoped that in a second viewing i would come around and like the movie just a little bit more, so i could forgive the poor story choices. But in my second viewing i noticed much more writing and creative decisions that dont´t make any sense, story-wise, character-wise, logic-wise, starwars universe-wise. Lets start with the good things.
THE GOOD: The technical aspects of the movie are really great, the cinematography and the visual effects are incredible. This movie plays with the color palette and its balance, to a beautiful degree. Also the score its amazing, JOHN WILLIAMS is awesome, and it shows. They way sound mixing and editing blends with the score is jaw dropping. The lightsaber sound effects is a little off, but is nothing major. Now my only gripe with the sound effects is the manner in which Kylo Ren mask sounds, its terribly off.
THE BAD: ALMOST everything else. The story is beyond LOGIC for me. Its like if MILLENIALS teens were behind ALL the story decisions in this movie. Its incredible the amount of forcing a viewer has to do to make SOME sense out of the illogical storyline.
Right in the start they show you the tone of the movie that will be along the 2.5 hr feature. Its unfathomable , for me at least, that a FIRST ORDER "GENERAL" will not engage fire on a ENEMY fighter in attack mode, possessing the highest and most skilled pilot of the RESISTANCE. I mean in FA they did blow up planets with millions of innocent people just to decimate the resistance, and in here you hesitate to BLOW UP the highest and most skilled pilot of the resistance. no, no just no. Then, right after that, why in the world (or galaxy) would they not put any SHIELD to the MOST ADVANCED AND DEADLY attack ship in their arsenal, it just doesnt make any sense. STORY WISE it doesnt make any sense, along with the incredible fact that in space, there is no gravity, how in the heck, did the bombs go vertically down directly into the spaceship, they didnt even bother explaining that.
In almost every scene of the movie, there is a sense that the writers and director decided to defy logic and common sense purposely, just why??? I know for a fact that this movie will not held to scrutiny in the future, specially when the BLURAY comes. Watching scene by scene is painful, if any other movie made this, CRITICS would shred it to pieces, but because its STAR WARS and disney. They suddenly lower the standards to the movie, and forgive all the plot missteps and llogical nonsense.
Other aspect, is how the characterize LUKE SKYWALKER. I don´t mind him being and old and scared, and cowardly against everything he stood up for, JUST GIVE ME A LOGICAL EXPLANATION for this. Right off the start, he throws his DAD´s lightsaber to a cliff, WHAT?? Does this play in the same universe emotionally and logicaly??? It was his DAD´s lightsaber, the one he heroically saved from the EVIL SIDE and died in his arms. Wouldn't he at least show some interest on the memento of his father´s main piece of history. Why throw it for a laugh? its really cheap and bad writing, PRACTICALLY ANYTHING would have been better. He then accepts to train REY without any emotional scene about it, just a cheap scene reminding how he helped LEIA in the first film. WHY in the world would REY be capable of beating LUKE with the force and throw him to the floor. I mean she of course force grabs the lightsaber, and LUKE force grabs an antenna?? WTF. It just doesnt make any sense. LUKE character is really miles off of what he should represent, and there is no logical explanation behind it. The poor explanation is that he failed his nephew student because he sense "some" weird darkness in his sleep and hesitated to kill him. WHAT? Its just lazy and poor writing all around, it has no emotional resonance or anything. before he saved his EVIL DAD against the odds and faced the most evil person in the galaxy just to vindicate his FATHER, he was willing to sacrifice himself and face death just to see his dad becomes who he once was. Here, he tried to KILL his nephew because he sense some darkness in his dreams? ( i mean everyone from time to time, dreams about darkness). There is no in between, if you sense darkness in somebody, you open dialog with them, talk to his parents, but no, the only explanation in TLJ is to avoid talking any sense into the other person, and kill him. Also why did this point KYLO into the dark-side, for me its not enough, he saw his master tried to kill him in his sleep, just because of that, you instantly decide to abandon everything you stand for, kill your peers in rage, and go with SNOKE. Come on. Even then, i was like ok, this is poor writing, but if they vindicate look or go full selfish mode with him, and completely disregard the force, but no, WEIRD YODA appears, telling LUKE basically that he has learned nothing and REY already knows everything, with just 2 lessons. Also, how did YODA managed to from the beyond call lighting from the sky and incinerate and empty tree. Is he full god now?, why doesnt he appear other places, and incinerates everyone else posing a threat to everything he stands for. Its just very messy storytelling.
The space chase is also very thin and ridiculous, time will give people the opportunity to really question RIAN JOHNSON logic behind this. Its just shows the cartoonish incompetence in the first order, its almost like a parody on how to do everything wrong if you want to eliminate your enemy, the problem is that is not funny. There are INFINITE ways the FIRST ORDER vessels could have managed this situation. There were are at least 3-4 ships, added to that of SNOKE´S planet sized ship. and why in the heck, dont they simply allow a single STAR DESTROYER to warp speed ahead of the resistance convo, and attack from different sides. Or even better, if you can now WARP ATTACK into VESSEL, why wouldn't they sacrifice one star destroyer that would go full warp speed and destroyed the resistante once for all. IF YOU TAKE THE MOVIE scene by scene, and really dissect it, you would see that it doesnt make any sense, unless you are child, or blind because of the STAR WARS love. This movie actually feels like a parody of SW. And the character assasination is not only exclusive to OLD TRILOGY, but to new interesting characters. SNOKE, for example, was shown to be incredibly force-powerful, he did manage to force pull a person in hologram mode, probably millions lights year away. He managed light struck KYLO REN into air, with his fingers. He managed to stablish a really complex bond between his apprentice KYLO and a person he didnt physically know, he didnt know about her location. He managed to see into REY´S mind, a person, he really didnt meet or know, because apparently she is from knowhere. He sees and feels everyhing surrounding him, yet HE WAS NOT ABLE to hear or sense, or see the SQUEAKY ROTATING LIGHTSABER placed a few centimeters from HIM. That is really just cynical. There is only one explanation, or the writers think that the audience is really dumb, or they are really poor writers. KYLO being able to use the force like he did in FA, he suddenly forgets about them, and melee fights the imperial guards, that just incredible. EVERY decision in this movie, cannot withhold the test of logic and storytelling.
I will not delve into the subside quest, while i believe is rather force and pointless, i did enjoyed the politicals themes brought upon in this plot. I mean evil and good really is blurred sometimes, and money plays a powerful force in the world and in this world. I am upset that storytelling is left to die in the process. Also, the animal cruelty with the horse like creatures and the cute porg scene for me specially is a right choice. I enjoyed seeing that. Also that greatness can come from anywhere, a la ratatouille, is brilliant. Its so true, there are some elements to it, that did resonated with me i rather enjoyed.
I dont have a problem with REY being from nowhere, in fact, i think is BRILLIANT, it would have been one of the greatest story parts of the new starwars saga, if it wasnt handled so POORLY here. First in FA they did convinced that are something special to rey and her origin. They even hinted a scene when he touches the lightsaber, and you can hear OBI WANS and YODAs voice in this scene. And she seems to really dont know who they parents are. But in TLJ, apparently she has had known the whole time that she knowed her parents were NOBODIES and trade her for money, and she was rather conflicted by it with this past of her. But they didn't show that in FA, she doesn't seem that conflicted, they didnt explore this enough to carry emotional resonance to the moment. Its just very disappointing the way they handled story lines here. Its totally incoherent from film to film.
There are many other things that left me really dissapointed, i will finish with the last scene. I mean, how in the heck did ROSE managed to turbo-boost herself meters ahead of FINN, and struck him from the side, he was clearly ahead of everyone else. This in a nutshell is the movie, nothing makes sense.
To end the movie on the lowest note, they expects us the audience to believe, that KYLO REN didn't notice that LUKE was carrying the very same LIGHTSABER he just DESTROYED minutes ago, how in the heck KYLO REN didn't notice this,Also, LUKE´s lack of footprints also gave away that something was wrong. Anyway this movie is an incoherent mess, where logic goes to die, and story telling is thin and without emotion. I am really torn on how this movie turn out to be. There are many other things i didnt like, there are some things i did like. But its appalling how bad it is.
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3/10
Disney is counting on you not spotting the many flaws
There's a moment at the beginning of this movie, when Rey hands Luke a lightsaber that numerous people fought and died for her to bring him... and he tosses it over his shoulder onto the rocks below with disdain. That perfectly sums up Disney's attitude towards the Original Trilogy, and all of its characters, history, and magic.
This movie was a series of bad decisions by its creators.
From a purely Star Wars standpoint: Luke is an immensely powerful hero who is deeply loved by fans. His character role was to pass on the torch to Rey, and make those same fans love her, as they do him. They needed to have him love her, so that we would love her. They needed to have him train her (actually train her) so that we would believe in her potential. They needed to have him die in her arms(figurative), heroically, and give her his blessing.
But instead, he did not love her, he didn't even like her. He refused to train her, and when he finally said he would, he spent five minutes, then re-decided he didn't like her. Instead of displaying his Force abilities physically, in destroying the First Order AT-ATs and ships, they gutted it by making him a Loki-like illusion, and then had him die quietly, light years away from the conflict. He never directly gave Rey his blessing, so we don't feel it. Hence, we now have an inexperienced, untrained, nobody that we're somehow supposed to love as much as Luke.
From a purely narrative standpoint: Payoff is the number one rule of storytelling. If you set something up, you must make it pay off. The Force Awakens set up some major questions:
Who are Rey's parents? This is significant not just because we don't know, but because it will define her character. It will inform both Rey and the audience as to who she is.
Who is Supreme Leader Snoke? This is significant because he has a face malformed by scars, and scars always have stories behind them. He is immensely powerful, despite being old enough to have been alive when Palpatine was in power. So where did he come from?
But they cut off both major questions without answers, and left us with a vacuum. We will never know who Snoke was, and his character is now a footnote in the universe. We will never know who Rey's parents were. That will now probably only be fleshed out in some crappy comic book a year or two from now. That is TERRIBLE, unsatisfying storytelling, and shows that they knew they could not deliver on the promise they made in TFA.
Character is the number one ingredient of storytelling. You first define who the characters are, their motivations, what they each care about, and then every action they take from then on MUST flow from that. That is actually what creates great tension and authentic feeling conflict.
Luke, we know, is a hero, with a pure heart, who believes in the good in people (Han, Anakin, etc). That's not who was in TLJ.
Rose is a hollow, uninteresting nobody who is somehow supposed to be a worthy love interest for Finn, who already has a legitimate bond with Rey, who is more attractive, and more significant in every way.
Rey is at a point in her arc where she needs answers to lay a foundation for her to build into a hero. Luke's training, her parent's identity, and her face-off with Kylo should have all built that out for her, but instead she's just as unmoored and drifting as she was in TFA. Somehow reading old books is supposed to make up for this later???
Kylo Ren had a beautiful, conflicted beginning in TFA, and in this film he acts from that place when he doesn't kill Leia, and when he does kill Snoke. But then, without an inciting incident, he abruptly becomes a power-hungry megalomaniac bent on destroying the Resistance. Why? No one hurt him after Snoke died. Nothing happened that would change his mind. He logically should have tried to come back, but then been hurt a final, brutal time to send him all they way into the dark side.
Vice Admiral Holdo: First, she is leading troops in a ball gown. Where are the strong females of the Resistance? Second, she has a perfectly good plan, and only a small number of people with her to tell it to. BUT SHE DOESN'T TELL A SOUL. This is mind-numbingly illogical character behavior.
There are more, but let's move on from character issues, to the final problem:
In the world of making a good movie, everything has to happen for a reason.
There's an old saying in writing: "Murder your darlings". What this means is that no matter how badly you want someone or something to happen in your story, if it doesn't serve the story, it has to go, or else the story will be bad.
What was the reason for:
The twelve hours of slowly driving away from the First Order? Why didn't they send out the shuttles right away if the First Order wouldn't scan for them or see them? Because they wanted a prolonged engagement without the FO destroying them in the first 60 seconds
Holdo staying aboard the cruiser? If it required someone to pilot it, why was she standing on deck looking out the window? It's the future, with FTL tech, how do you not have autopilot? Because they wanted to make her seem heroic after hollowing her character with the stupid not telling anyone subplot. And they wanted...
Holdo being able to destroy the entire First Order fleet? If you can obliterate an entire fleet of enemies by jumping into them at lightspeed, why didn't they do that 100 times before? Why didn't they do that to the Death Star? Because they wanted all of the events on Snoke's ship.
Captain Phasma being alive? How did she escape the trash compactor, find a ship, and escape the planet exploding in time? Why did they bring her back, only to kill her again? Because if you make a big deal about having great female villains, and then portray them as weak and pathetic in TFA, you have to make up for that in your second film.
Finn going to Star Wars Vegas? American politics aside, this was a clumsy, overt liberal statement about war, wealth, and capitalism being evil that didn't serve the story. Oh, and also the Rebellion is a little evil too for funding them. It was also a clumsy attempt to bond Finn and Rose, and make us care about Rose. Which we do not. Another reason they had to have a 12 hour space-chase. The whole thing could have been cut.
So overall we got a VERY high-budget Star Wars film, with excellent cinematography, some great jokes, and some callbacks to the originals - but it was delivered by people who either do not love or understand Star Wars, and what made it great. They are trying to force an entire generation to accept new characters and storylines, while brutally murdering the characters and storylines we love so much. They might respect the source material, but they don't love it, and it shows.
Thanks for reading.
May the Force be with us all in the darkness to come.
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Whatching this just made TFA feel a little less of a horrible disaster of a movie to me. As a "cinema session" it´s OK, and plot-wise I found a good thing they had the courage to subvert the order of things and start to leave the old SW universe behind. Yes this is perhaps the only true, real merit of TLJ: to propose the destruction/death/retirement of the old, beloved and well-developed characters and truths of the SW saga.
I´m not talking about something like killing Han Solo or Luke or Leia, it´s more subtle and delicate. Like the natural order of life, the new replacing the old and time advances. That´s a very powerful idea, but even that comes out half-baked and ill-implemented. It´s like at some point they found that a very good idea, then later on during filming or screenwritting or whatever, something happened and they thought this could be dangerous. The feeling of uneasiness and weavering is palpable even before the film ends.
As for the rest, it´s yet again a feist for the eyes. But that´s pretty much it.
The connection between Luke and Rey is incredibly thin, weak and superficial and it transpires. Not even a spark of what was Luke and Yoda, and man that was a puppet!!! Goes to show the state of things... The dialogs are pure nonsense. In fact, most of the connection and interaction between characters is very shallow, quick and meaningless, most times taking place to justify the moment and not much else. And it´s pathetic how they used some of those interactions (and too many dialogs) to justify the mistakes of TFA, namely the flawed characters and actions of the villains and heroes alike.
The film goes everywhere and ends up nowhere. I get it that a "hook" is a good thing, but only when done with very focused purpose and with some mastery. In TLJ it´s not used, but rather abused. There´s a lot of loose points to be tied for the next 38 sequels and 100 years, showing that Disney is intent on sucking the living life out of the SW myth and charisma to the last drop. But the crazyness of TLJ reminds me a lot of the Luca´s prequels and it´s sickening.
I can´t say I´m left unsatisfied or hopeless of frustrated, for I no longer have any high expctations about this pure commercial endeavor. I´m also aware I´m ruined for being almost 50 and as such spoiled by the original trilogy being part of my infancy. That can´t be matched because it was a product of pure inspiration, courage, intensity, originality, execution, a bit of naiveté and lots of vision. And those things are very hard to find alone, don´t even mention together, in these days of numbers, formulas, dillution and commercialism. And I´m not becoming a kid or a teenager again either (I´d like to know if guys that age today will be so deeply impressed by this new SW era... doubt it!!!).
If that´s what they want, Disnly will get my money and my mind forever, for the absolute raw power of the original trilogy. But never my heart, that´s still stuck in the 80´s sorry!
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I am in my 30s, and when I was a kid my dad made me see the original star wars trilogy.
My dad has always been a kind-of-serious guy, but even him fell in love with the mystery, the creatures, the lore and story of those movies.
Star wars always had a special place in my heart, even after growing up.
I hated the prequel movies, but then I got some hopes high 2 years ago when I saw the force awakens.
It was not a perfect movie, all the opposite. It had big plot holes, it had 0 originality, and some choices really pissed me off (no reunion of Luke and Han? not even for a scene? Rey crying with Leia about Han after just meeting them for a few days while chewie, long time friend of them both, was on the side? no Luke intervention until the last scene?).
However even with its flaws it restored a bit of faith in me in the franchise, it managed to deliver some of those childhood feelings that I thought lost, and overall gave me some hope for the following movie to truly deliver the sequel that I was waiting for for so many years.
And what a disappointment this has been.
Every single choice and scene in this movie has been just terribly bad.
It's a star wars movie, it's a fantasy movie, I am ready to believe a lot of crazy things to happen if they can at least be written somehow with a little coherence, but the writing in this movie has really reached the worst possible level.
From the first scene where one single tiny xwing alone handle half of the enemy gigantic fleet, I started already had a really bad feeling.
So many things are just so incredibly stupid.
Leia becoming an immortal superhero that can survive deep space.
Luke, a living legend that we have waited 30 years to see again just reduced to a grumpy old man with incoherent motivations, out-of-character actions and dialogs.
Rey, the perfect, flawless lady hero that can master the force without any training.
The bad guy, so anonymous that nobody will ever know who he was, what he wanted, where he came from. 0 Depth, 0 background, 0 anything.
The whole plotline of the spaceship fuel, completely , absolutely stupid. Why the empire could just not send one of the ships ahead with lightspeed?
Why, if one single ship entering lightspeed could destroy the whole fleet, didn't the rebel do it before we lost every single one of them?
Why making such a big deal for the admiral the death of the admiral flying the carrier if she already 4 scenes before was clearly doing the bait and sacrificing herself anyway?
What about the whole idea of one single empire ship keeping a lightspeed-capable tracker? They mention that if they would have found out that it was destroyed, they would have immediately replace it with one from another ship. But why they could just not keep multiple ones activated at the same time? Were they running on an energy-saving budget?
What about the whole useless casino plotline, so much wasted time to simply result in the discovery of the rebel camouflage and the death of all rebels?
What about the nonsense of Luke's death, unexplained, unnecessary.
What about all those forced jokes and laugh moments, that were completely out of context?
What about the decision to make fun of the empire from the first scene where you see the enemy admiral? How can it make a serious, threatening menace if its mocked in that ridicolous way?
I understand that Disney and the directors/writers wanted to open up star wars to a newer and younger audience, and I understand that sometimes you need to accept that some things change and go with that.
I am not against change, when it's for the better, or at least when its at least justified and coherent.
But so many things have been done wrong with this movie, so many things were simply forced completely out of place purely to go with that distorted direction.
They managed to kill everything that made star wars special, and even to kill any hype for the next movies.
Congratulations.
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It must have been a parody. The amount of slapstick and senseless humor that was put into the movie was meant to turn this into a parody, right? I can't explain this mess any other way.
I had to laugh so many times during the movie and in many situations for all the wrong reasons. I couldn't take Hux or Kylo Ren serious. Especially whenever Hux was on screen he was acting all serious and trying to be this slimy commander. But he just looked ridiculous. And if Darth Vader would have been around that man would have died so many times...
He was a pointless character as well. One scene stood out in this regard. Towards the end Kylo Ren said some orders and the soldiers were in the immediate area to hear him. Suddenly Hux screams the exact same commands again and Kylo Ren just looked at him like "Really dude?".
Unfortunately this movie actually tried to have a very dark and serious story comparable to "Empire Strikes Back". And it failed miserably at it. The characters had all the wrong reactions. I didn't really see the pain of losing the people because it was overshadowed by to many "light humor" moments. How am I supposed to care about characters that die for the good side if in the very next screen we have fluffy characters scream at me and do slapstick?
The story doesn't really work. There is to much stuff that doesn't add up and so many characters are just wasted - especially the supposedly oh so great leader Snokes.
The effects are pretty good and you can laugh a lot. But unfortunately as a Star Wars story I consider it as one of the worst.
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I watched this movie last Friday, with high hopes of getting all the answers to the questions I had after watching The Force Awakens. It had been 2 years since that movie was released, after all. I felt we, as viewers, deserved to get at least some questions properly answered.
I walked out of the cinema, feeling very confused and underwhelmed.
This movie, on it's own or as a part of a trilogy, isn't good. It's watchable, sure, but it's not good. The plot is...boring. The space shuttle runs out of fuel and the rest of the movie is about the rebels trying to get to another currently inhabited planet, that conveniently lies close to their vessel? A character never seen before, which the movie set up to be a traitor whilst Leia was out, sacrifices herself just to save the rebels? Since we don't know anything about this character it didn't make any impact. While we're talking about Leia - since when can she Force fly out of space back into the ship? How the hell did she just enter the ship through the front door without everyone nearby being thrown into space? This will never, ever be explained, as it wasn't addressed in the movie after it happened, and Carrie Fisher sadly passed away after filming of this movie had wrapped up. So they showed this character having incredible powers and everyone were like "oh, cool." Why make that happen if you're not gonna bother explaining that? We've never seen Leia do anything like that before.
Then we have the main villain, Snoke. I feel so sorry for all the fans who had these amazing fan theories posted on the internet. They had these good questions we all needed an answer to. Who is he? Where is he from? Is he really more powerful than any other character? All this work these fans put into analyzing every single scene with Snoke in The Force Awakens - for nothing!
You would think this movie would at least give a hunch of who this character is. But NOOO, instead they kill him off in the most absurd way possible! I would have accepted if this happened in episode IX, as we would've then gotten some decent development for the character, but now he was killed off before he even got to be a villain!
Don't even get me started on Luke. His character was totally wasted in this movie. Not to mention he acted out of character for 95% of the time! He doesn't use the force a single time during the entire movie (unless you count the ending), despite being the last jedi AND training Rey. He doesn't even touch his father's lightsaber, which Rey brought with her. Instead he throws it off a cliff, resolving the 2 year old cliffhanger we got in The Force Awakens in the worst way possible. He passes away at the end of the movie without having gotten any redemption at all for almost killing Kylo Ren. I would've understood that he died if he had done that whilst doing something heroic. Now he went into battle as a hologram, and vanished into thin air on the same island he'd lived on for so many years. So he died alone. People needed his help for the war against the First order and he barely does anything before dying?
It was a big mistake killing his character off in this movie. It should have happened in the next movie, if ever. Now we won't have any of the human characters from the original trilogy in Episode IX. It was part of the attraction of this new trilogy, a bit of the old, a bit of the new. And to be honest, these new characters aren't interesting enough to carry the movies on their own. Not in my opinion, at least.
What was the dark hole on the island Luke lived on? Why was it an important detail? Nothing happened while Rey was down there. It could've been cut as it was totally uninteresting and provided no answers.
The reveal of Rey's parents was a total cop-out. Nobodies? It was hyped up that there was something special about her parents, and in this movie that rumor is debunked as if it was nothing. So underwhelming.
The sideplot with Rose and Finn was so boring to watch and brought nothing to the story. It was as if it was impossible for them to find something better for Finn to do, so they made him do just SOMETHING. So silly.
When Rose sacrifices herself to save Finn, they make it look like she dies. But then Finn says she needs medical help? Did she die or not? It was never addressed. How did Rose fall in love with Finn so quickly? They barely talked about personal matters, if at all. They hardly knew each other.
Even if it was fun to see, Yoda's cameo made no sense. How did he burn that house down if he's dead?
I can give this movie some good points too. +1 for great CGI, effects, space battles, acting and soundtrack. That's about it. The movie is way too long and does a poor job at using it's time correctly. I am so sad and disappointed. Force awakens was better and made more sense.
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I'll admit, I'm a Star Wars fan. Not an ultra-mega-fanboy fan--just a regular, mortal fan who maybe read some EU when I was a kid.
So when I walked into The Last Jedi, I tried to be pragmatic about it. Of course I wanted to be floored a la Empire Strikes Back, but I was prepared to be simply entertained like I was by Rogue One or, to a lesser extent, The Force Awakens. Sadly, when the movie was done, I left really disappointed. While I absolutely agree that the film delivered great special effects and exciting moments, I found much of the plot to be forced and hollow.
Some of my complaints are problems with modern action movies in general. For instance, the original SW movies spent enough time in each setting to establish some sense of place. For example, when Luke trained with Yoda, it actually felt like he had been training for long enough to gain some knowledge. In these new movies, one or two lessons and boom: Jedi Knight. Then it's off, breathlessly, to the next contrived problem.
Other issues, however, are specific to this movie: character overload, corny jokes, unnecessary plotlines, a stupid premise, Laura Dern's character (why?). Where critics gush over "Nonstop Action!!!!" I was thinking "This movie is just throwing stuff at us because it doesn't know what else to do." It like, when the writers outlined the story, they were just like "and then, this! And then, this! And then, this! And then, this!" and so on, ad nauseum. It felt more like Marvel or Fast and Furious than Star Wars.
And that's what really bothers me--the series feels lost from a story perspective. The Empire had this great, rich history as the benevolent Republic turned fascist. The First Order, in comparison is just thin. It seems like something writers came up with to deliver "Star Wars" action. There has to be a bad guy, so let's just write one in. Oh and we'll need stormtroopers.
Star Wars is supposed to go somewhere. Trust me, I'm no fan of the Prequils, but in comparison, at least they knew where they were going. The issues with the Prequils were mostly technical-bad acting, bad directing, a bad script-whereas the issues with this new series are both technical and fundamental.
Is it the worst Star Wars movie? In absolute terms, no. It's still more watchable and enjoyable than any of the Prequils. To be fair, I loved Adam Driver's character and I thought the Snoke plot twist was brilliant. But in exchange, Star Wars has sold its soul. Disney is churning out Star Wars-flavored cotton candy. It's all sugar, no substance. And given that these movies are the last opportunity to use much of the original cast in a meaningful way, that's really sad.
Finally, I'll focus on the real world for a moment: I don't understand why this movie has gotten such good reviews from critics. Maybe Disney's scare tactics really have moved the needle on intimidating publications out of writing bad reviews. In any event, with all the praise and the giant box office opening, there's no reason that the same formula won't be used again and again in the many future movies currently planned.
The Evil Disney Empire won. Lucasfilm has turned to the Dark Side. There's nothing for Star Wars fans to do but flee to exile while their galaxy is twisted and plundered, hoping that someday, the light will return.
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I feel like this movie had some very strong strengths, but also some very weak weaknesses.
Strengths:
-This film deviates from The Force Awakens by being its own story. The Force Awakens was alright as a movie in general. But, it just borrowed too much from A New Hope for me to really care about it as a part of the franchise. Say what you want about The Last Jedi, but it has its own identity.
-The Last Jedi addresses The Force in a way that I feel the franchise actually needed to at some point. This film emphasized The Force as more of a divine entity than we've really seen in the franchise. The journey was fantastic between Rey, Luke, and Kylo Ren. All three characters had to question and redefine their own concept of The Force, Light and Darkness, Right and Wrong, Jedi and Sith, etc.We saw a graying of the lines between these concepts for these characters which signifies the struggle of The Force to achieve balance.
-Poe had a similar character journey where he had to redefine his beliefs. He began with a very bold and somewhat violent philosophy on how to lead. But by the end with the guidance of Leia and Holdo, he discovered a new way to lead. Also considering his plan was the cause of a lot of deaths within the resistance, I'm sure this sets him up to carry a lot of emotional weight in Episode 9.
-Snoke. He honestly was not needed. I have heard people complain about disposing with him so quickly, but he honestly just was an obstacle for Kylo Ren to overcome, and nothing more. I'm glad he's gone so that Kylo can come into his own as the true main villain of this trilogy. Although it would be nice to get some background about who Snoke was in Episode 9. I'm sure there's a way to work it in.
-Rey got a lot more development in this film. She honestly just seemed like the blandest miracle protagonist in the previous film. She came into her own in this film by having to confront her own weaknesses, and redefine her preconceptions on The Force and who Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker were as people.
-I'm sure there are more strengths to this film, but these are just a few big ones I wanted to touch on. It's worth noting also that the film was visually stunning and full of the unexpected.
Weaknesses
-The humor definitely fell flat at points. It was much more forced than the previous film. The opening sequence between Poe and Hux was too much. The humor didn't fit the situation and it cheapened the initial threat of the First Order. The fact that Poe was able to gain a strategic advantage just by using what amounts to basically a "Yo Mama" joke was just far too silly.
-The scene when Leia pulls herself back onto the ship from space was the worst scene in the entire film. It made no sense. I suppose her ability to survive the pressure vacuum of space could be explained with the force, but it was far too much of a reach. It's made worse by the knowledge that we have actually lost the beloved actress Carrie Fisher. Also now that she survived the movie, how are they going to handle her character in Episode 9? I think it would have been a better idea for them to CGI her in as the character to sacrifice herself by crashing the ship instead of Holdo to give her a triumphant exit from the series.
-The entire Canto Bight sequence was far too silly and irrelevant. The same can be said for Finn and Rose's character arcs. None of it was very important to the film in hindsight. There were far better ways to utilize these characters. This is especially true for Finn who was already well established in the previous film.
-Luke's force projection technique was a bit puzzling. We'd never seen anything like it in the series before which made it feel like a stretch. If they develop it as a concept in greater detail later, then it will make more sense. But for now, it's all just a big mystery.
So yeah those are my basic thoughts on the film. I'd give it a 7.5/10. It had a lot of potential. If they had just cleaned up some of the sloppy/convenient writing points, it would have landed a lot better. But even the way it played out, it brings some interesting New philosophical points about The Force. The keyword there is "New." There are a lot of Star Wars fans who hate new ideas. That's one reason why the bland, risk free Episode 7 was such a hit in comparison.
Lastly, in response to everyone who is losing their minds and giving this film a 1/10, really? I'm not going to pretend that this was great. I have my own issues with it, clearly. 1/10 is for Emoji Movie level bs. Stop being overly dramatic. And mostly importantly, don't demean the tastes of others. I don't know how many times I've seen "I liked the movie." and then in response, "Well it's made for people like you."
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Both this and TFA feels like two avarage blockbuster movies that completely ignore the legacy. It's STAR WARS! It could be amazing. But it's not. It's just... okay. And that's exactly why it's not okay.
These movies could be so much more. Instead, they settle for mediocracy.
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1/10
Last Jedi ignores everything build or setup by Force Awaken!!
Biggest fan or not I loved Force Awakens and the originals. But what the FRACK is this script, and editing was off, light saber battles vague and an illusion. It seemed as if Rian Johnson never even watched the force awakens
Rian, Lucasfilm and Disney agreed to ignore everything to shock us and mock our heros, this insulted the fans!! We were all cheated into a deceitful skywalker win...but it wasn't a win! Nothing changed...the bad still alive..the situation was not improved ...he lost! It was a delusional win.
Ok lets get started, first if Luke went to Ach to to die.. then why did he make a map for someone to find him?? In time of need why would he do that if he went there to die!!!!!!!
Disappointments:
1. LUKE SKYWALKER what the frack is this. why why would me or any star wars fan want to see Rey hand Luke his old saber and have luke toss it over his shoulders. (The Lightsaber that belonged to his Father, the lightsaber Ben gave him, the lightsaber that he lost with his hand. Ok he's angry bitter, i get that.. give us a moment. Now training Rey opk refuse her but actually train her, does he want someone else to train her, this ignorance of Luke makes noo sense. Next-Luke milking an alien, come on.
2. Supreme Leader Snoke? This guy was setup so beautifully in Force Awakens he was so powerful i was looking forward to this. Instead we see his funny and using Rey's lightsaber to hit her in the hit (can you imagine when Vader brought Luke to see the Emperor in ROTJ if he hit luke or vader in the head what a joke). And he insulting Hylo with his mask. Anyway, the point here is he is sooo powerful that your going to tell me he didn't hear that lightsaber turning or sense the force vibration being used to turn it on him. Now that he's dead and there is No need to explain him right. Rian Johnson did you watch force Awakens!!!
3. Knights of Ren???? Where are they? I was looking forward to seeing them with Ben Solo
4. .Yoda and Luke laughing and burning the tree need I say more???
5. Lack of a light sabre duel, seriously people, there is no light sabre duel in this film. I saw nothing here. Rey had no training at all but when she meets up with Snoke and his guards she can defeat them with NO lightsaber training. How can she defeat these guards it makes no sense!!
6. DJ, in fact the entire canto bight part should of been aborted, Benico's character was pointless.You dont need it, if Laura derns character told the truth with PO he wouldn't have turned on her with a mutiny and stopped Finn and Rose from that mission. Done I scene not needed waste of time the scene looked like it belonged in the movie "The fifth Element"
7. Phasma is another waste of screen time, for 2 movies now she has been pointless. She could have killed Finn on the spot she instead wants to do combat instead of just shooting him and pulls out a smaller gun, makes no sense.
8. Leia flying through space without a space suit? With no suit, when your in space you freeze and you cant breathe. No they had her float to the door like superman and knock on a door that had already sucked out the air when they open it to let her in. Then everyone is like, Leia your back ..no amazement no reaction. I get they were trying to show her use the FORCE, but she didnt in force wakens why now. And you cant tell me it wasn't funny seeing her fly or float tot he door. O adore Leia... did it not occur to anyone there at Lucasfilm and Disney that you made a 60 year old Leia look silly. Shame on you all!!
9. The dream sequence with Rey In The cave, there is zero explanation for this, what the hell happened here
10. LUKE SKYWALKER!!! First we see fishing tehn we see nun-fish (contradiction here)....
Ok lets talk about Luke wanting to kill Kylo/Ben in the flashback because he sensed there was evil in him or struggling with it.
Fisrt of all Luke learned that lesson, your going to tell me that Luke Skywalker THE JEDO in ROTJ who went on a suicide mission to save his father because he still sened there was good in him, Vader the second most evil and powerful sith in the galaxy that that he can be saved!!
Yet his nephew, only nephew to his sister and his Fracken best friend Han Solo that his best choice is to kill him!! Frack off!!!! That is not his character, Luke knows he can be saved or at least try. Makes NO Effin sense here!!
Then when i saw luke at the end to talk to leia I cried beautiful moment, sister reunion and Luke was there....I said Ooooh shit.. LUKE is Back.. This is going to be amazing. Luke is going to use the force like we've never seen before.....then when i realized it was an illusion! I felt my moment robbed again, i felt we as fans were robbed and mark hamill of what could have been a beautiful moment for luke! Luke dies floating on a rock. Really. It would have been amazing if luke raised his X-wing from underneath the ocean and on the battle of crite we see his X-wing fly in and land at the front door. That would have been amazing. If they want to kill off Luke do it here, Not on the island like a coward. You killed off Luke's legacy. we as fans waited 30 years for his return!! If they wanted to kill Luke off whats the difference why not there!!
Lucasfilm, Rian, Disney..you all agreed to this script... Rian you made a film for yourself (you said this in an interview) not the fans. You all ignored the brilliant setup in Force Awakens it was an easy home run and ignored J.J. Abrams set-up, just so you can do something different and shocking. Fans I know I am ranting I'm sure some of you like it But remember it's just my opinion and how I feel I'm not the only one I have to admit I have never written a review on here but I was so disappointed I just had to join my fellow fans in this rage of bad star wars film making.See you all in Episode 9!
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I saw Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope in the theater back in 1977, so as a longtime fan, I'm thrilled to report that this film is everything I wanted and more!
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I know that many fans are upset about the choices Luke's character made in Last Jedi. However, as someone who has classified himself as a failure for the majority of my life I can relate the to arc that Luke follows as he begins to doubt himself after his failure with Ben Solo. No! It is not the Jedi way to execute a "Padawan" (even in a moment of weakness). This is why Luke stops training young Jedi and goes into hiding. Searching himself for why he felt the need to destroy Ben Solo, Luke confronts his temptation to join the dark side once more.
Luke admits it was a momentary lapse that led him to act against Ben Solo, and that moment of weakness shows the audience that even the greatest Jedi Master has more to learn. Luke hesitates to kill Ben as he realizes that darkness has guided his actions. Luke is then left for dead and awakens to see everything he has built destroyed by Kylo Ren. In his sorrow and anguish he recognizes his failure in training the next generation of Jedi as he surrounded by the bodies of his pupils and the burning remains of the Jedi temple he has built.
Luke must realize that it was his own doing that has transformed Ben Solo into Kylo Ren. Yes, It was Kylo Ren who killed the Jedi trainees, but it was because Luke was about to kill Ben. Ultimately Luke is responsible for the deaths of his students. He has to see that as he pulls himself from the rubble.
Luke's single moment of weakness defined the path that Kylo Ren was not aware was in front of him. Witnessing how ruthless his nephew was added to the torment inside Luke. If there was a line where Luke said "I did this! It is all because of me!" the audience might be more understanding of Luke's character arc.
Luke's story is how he deals with failure. How he takes full responsibility for not just turning Kylo Ren to the dark side, but for the actions of Kylo Ren who killed the other padawans and burned the temple to ashes. Tempted by the dark side to kill Ben Solo because he sensed Ben being drawn to the darkness, Luke realizes that even the strongest Jedi is not immune to the dark side and if he had killed Ben Solo then he, Luke Skywalker would have turned evil. It makes perfect sense then that Luke would disappear and go into hiding. In that moment of temptation Luke abandoned his Jedi beliefs and if he could be tempted after everything he went through in episodes IV, V and VI, then what hope does any young student of the force have against the dark side? If Luke recognized this (and I believe he did), then his decision to let go of everything in an effort to find inner peace makes sense.
Luke acted appropriately to banish himself to the outer reaches of the universe and await death. In his solitude he seeks peace in the only place he can...the first Jedi Temple. Frustrated by his failure by being unable to help Ben Solo control his rage (and knowing how difficult it was for him to overcome the temptation of the dark side as he faced both Darth Vader and the Emperor), Luke Skywalker feared that he could not live up to the legend surrounding his past.
The constant fear of training a Jedi who might turn and become the next evil dictator is something that may have been gnawing at Luke's conscience. Knowing that fear is the first step toward the dark side he decided to stop fighting and simply gave up both the good and evil. Luke found the true balance between Light and Dark by recognizing that both exist and counter each other. It is a fascinating study in human behavior to realize how Luke justifies his actions.
I know that fans will argue Luke was out of character and on the surface I would agree, but as you peel back the layers of the human psyche to reveal the true meanings and motives behind Luke's actions you will begin to understand why Luke was where he was. Why he acted the way he did. And why he resisted training Rey. Even the lessons Luke does teach are inline with his philosophy of life as he now sees it. Luke lives with the pain of losing everything he built and being tempted or tested again. I believe Luke Skywalker made the only choice he could by sequestering himself from the universe to be the Last Jedi.
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I have very mixed feelings about this entry in the franchise. I loved The Force Awakens and I had really high hopes for this one...well let's just say I was a tad disappointed. Good parts: Acting(Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are great!), a pretty good start, good visuals and some really nice shots,some funny moments. Bad parts: bad character development, making a mockery of Luke Skywalker and what he represents for this series, drawn out plot(this movie is 2.5 hours long and they had time to show the whole casino scene),presenting Supreme Leader Snoke as an unstoppable force just to get rekt and go out like a bi*ch and ALMOST NO LIGHT SABER ACTION. Overall a decent movie but far from the best in the series, I hope Ep.IX will clear the air a bit.
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The movie has some of the best space action sequences the SW universe has to offer however Rian Johnson has single handedly destroyed everything Luke Skywalker stood for. Luke's legacy and lucas' vision are both a joke now. We are basically left with a poorly written, non-compelling but for no good reason an overpowered female lead who I am sure "will prevail against all odds". Wow this isn't a Star Wars movie at all guys. This is just another Disney fairy tale for 12 year olds!
Mark Hamill and Luke deserved way better than this!
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This movie is undoubtedly going to be divisive and coming out of this film my immediate reaction was very mixed on this film. There were some things about this film that I hated and other things about it that I loved. Rian Johnson really tried to do something different here in this movie and for that I applaud him, but that doesn't mean I have to like all the changes he made. I cannot talk about what I dislike about this movie without going into spoilers. I do recommend seeing it though just to see some of the things that are done.
CAREFUL FOR SPOILERS
The biggest issue I had with this film was the treatment of Leia. I found they way Leia was used in this film to be horrible and awful and almost disrespectful to Carrie Fisher. They had a chance to have her character die in this film, but instead they toyed with her death, and thus played with the audience. The scene where Leia opens her eyes and comes back to the ship was cartoonish and stupid. It was the dumbest stupid scene in the entire movie. Like what Leia is Superman now?
The handling of Luke Skywalker also isn't that great either. While I did gelt like this was Luke the choices they make with this character in the second half of the film is terrible for me. They have Luke face Kylo and not even actually face him instead choosing for it to just be simple force ghost and then have Luke die in a really lonesome way making him feel more like a coward than anything else.
There is also this forced romance between Finn and this girl named Rose that comes out of nowhere. And the character of Rose in general is poorly done.
Now lets talk about Rey......cause man...Rey is a really intriguing part of this film. The relationship between her and Kylo is really interesting and thought provoking. The bond they share for me was really nice and beautiful and kinda sweet too. Even if it all does kinda start to crumble down. Whenever it cut to them was when I really enjoyed the film.
There is of course the whole Kylo knowing Rey's parents stuff too which was really interesting, but the problem is that the movie itself leads you to believe it something bigger than it actually is so when the reveal happens your very much let down by it.
Also while Finn and Rose bond was meh the fight between Finn and Phasma was amazing!!! For me it really did redeem Phasma for me and make me like the character a lot more than before.
The film is very experimental in nature. There are a lot of interesting scenes like the weird mirror scene where we see multiple Reys is really something else, and asks a lot of different questions about Rey as a character.
The death of Snoke I also found to be really great as well and really cool look at Kylo's unsureness too. And Kylo being the leader of the first Order was a great choice as well
So for me this a pretty much half and half film. There is a lot of great stuff and a lot stuff I hated. And yet it is weird cause oddly enough I want to see it again and see where the story goes from here.
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I don't understand how it can be praised by some. It was average, certainly not great. It could've been something, there was a lot of potential in my opinion, but they managed to completely butcher the first movies and the trilogy.
The setting was very minimalistic, the only 'new' and exciting part besides being inside spacecrafts or space was the Casino. Don't get me wrong, I like it simple, but the Star Wars universe has so, so much to offer.
Rose was a forgettable character; it almost seemed forced on Luke to be anti-Jedi and a grumpy old man; why did Yoda give Luke a meaningful speech about being a teacher and burns down the tree, but then we only see Luke in that last bit again and he vanishes? Why was he even there to begin with?
The space scene with Leia was ridiculous. She would've been dead within 90 seconds - and come on, where did her 'force' come from?
It would've been an actual twist if Kylo Ren (the most amazing, intriguing character in the movies) would've actually turned against his darkness. Snoke's end, the end to the ultimate bad guy, was...very simple. They just made Kylo Ren into another hateful, raging Darth Vader.
And that's also my last point: It's all circling back to repeating the story we already know. The visuals were still stunning, nevertheless.
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The biggest disappointment - to me, at least - of the entire Star Wars series. It even had me thinking fondly of Jar Jar Binks.
The last time I felt this let down was when I watched The Hobbit trilogy, after the high standards set by The Lord Of The Rings - The Hobbit Part 1 was good, Part 2 had me squirming in my seat and I nearly walked out of Part 3.
The Last Jedi has ripped up everything that was good about Star Wars and recycled it into toilet paper. I enjoyed The Force Awakens, but The Last Jedi has ruined the story line so completely that I will probably not bother watching the last one, whatever its title will be.
Disney should stick to making animated movies about fairy tale princesses that are aimed at a market of girls no older than eight or nine.
This disaster gets one star from me, simply because IMDB's rating system will allow no less
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4/10
Illogical things I want say out loud about this movie
Like many here, I'm a long time Star Wars fan and a first time reviewer. This movie got me writing because it has so many things I want to say out loud.
Here's some points that are not menitioned in every other review. So no wasted Snoke or Flying Leia -complaints here.
And sorry for my possibly bad english.
The good:
The movie looks 95% of the time truly amazing. Cinematography is flawless. Actors are good. Soundtrack is good. Unlike TFA, the locations are now fresh. Dialogue and direction are good enough to keep you entertained. And this is why this movie gets so good ratings.
The bad:
The super long space chase has no logic at all. So, every ship of the Resistance and the First Order fleets are exactly as fast? Rebels aren't getting away, and the first order are not gaining on them at all.
At the beginning of the chase TIE fighters are attacking the rebel fleet and causing some serious damage. Why did they stop the attacks?
Generally, what do the Resistance want to do? -Send a message to all their allies. Why not use a UNTRACEABLE, smaller ship (what Finn and Rose use to travel to Canto Bight) to get few guys to salt planet or where ever and send the message? Or at least evacuate some of their passangers.
Seems like the smaller ships are not a part of the chase: Falcon, Finn's and Rose's shuttles etc. all come and go to the Snoke's ship without a problem.
Why are Snoke and Kylo Ren so obsessed with finding and killing Luke? He's gone exile, "gone to die", doesn't use the force anymore. He's basically good as dead. After Ray is caught Snoke shows off his power by telling he's gonna destroy the WHOLE ISLAND Really? Didn't First Order just blew away a bunch of planets like it was nothing.
Half of the movie is about Rey and Luke on the island. I've seen the movie twice, and it's still hard to recall what were they talking about. Like their conversation doesn't lead anywhere. Rey asks Luke to help the Resistance. He refuses. Rey follows Luke around, Luke catches a big rubber fish... Somehow it all turns into some weird jedi training (that Rey didn't ask for). Actually, the whole training is about one sentence long: "Reach out". And now Luke goes from scared to super scared. Ray is wielding a stick and a light saber alone. Finally she cuts this one stone in half. Does this mean she's an exellent fighter now?
Where is Chewie all this time? Sitting in the Falcon alone?
Wasn't the island supposed to be some super secret hideout? Then, why is there this huge, ancient jedi temple and stuff, surely someone else would know this place.
Why are the most sacred jedi books stored in a hollow tree? In a place were it's raining all the time?
In the end, why are the books at Falcon? Did Rey stole them? That's a new jedi trick.
When Rey and Kylo Ren first start to chat, Rey tries / wants to shoot him. That's ok, he's super evil and wants to kill everyone. But when Kylo tells that (also) Luke once tried kill him, Rey suddenly is turns to Kylo's side and attacks Luke.
Luke looks like he's about to cry all the time. He's now a total mess because years ago one of his pupils turned to dark side. Really? It's the same guy who saw his family and friends die, fought Vader, Emperor and the whole empire for years. And won.
In the end, the Resistance reach the salt planet. And then do what? They lock themselves to a cave just to wait for Fist Order to come and destroy them. They had some ships, why wait for the Falcon? The Resistance are devastated because nobody came to help them. Doesn't the Falcon count? Or Luke?
There's no more wampas, minoks, banthas etc around. Now we have super cute puss-in-boots porgs, some beautiful tame horse-reindeer -things, and the worst: those crystal foxes. Ok, Disney could have made them all pink with a long hair and a perfect singing voice. That might sell even more toys.
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The story is very small in scope, juxtaposed with a massive film budget. Rian Johnson turned the whole story into a simple and linear McGuffin chase scene. Beyond that, the whole idea of the entire Republic being wiped out with just a few planets being destroyed is just lazy. Also lazy is the fact that this minor power (New Order) somehow magically makes and mans endless ships from the region of space that didn't have whole lot of humans and very limited trade (according to canon). All the while, the main industrial centers of the Galaxy with well-established and large economies suddenly just collapse. Whether anyone realizes it or not, this is a super lazy attempt to reboot the franchise while hoping no one notices. I noticed.
I appreciate the Joseph Campbell philosophy being applied here. Yes, you do need to recreate stories for each generation. But, execution in this movie is horribly lacking.
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1/10
Second worst Star Wars film after The Phantom Menace.
Awful Star Wars film. So many bad writing and directing decisions. Second worst Star Wars film after The Phantom Menace. Obvious director didn't know what to do with Phasma and Snoke so he just killed them. Slowest chase in history, why did Hux not just send ships ahead of Rebel ship by light speed to cut them off? Why did Haldo not just tell Poe the plan? So many awful scenes, Luke throwing the lighsabre over his shoulder, Luke milking the creature, the ironing scene, Leia's scene in space had the audience in stitches, every scene on Canto Bight, topless Kylo Ren, Anakin 2.0 and the list goes on and on. Johnson should be removed from any future Star Wars project as this was a terrible attempt at a Star Wars movie. I've seen every Star Wars movie in the opening week since 1977 and am a huge fan of the franchise, this one doesn't belong. Awful awful movie.
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Watch this movie if you have to, but don't have high hopes for it. It's bad. It's probably the worst SW movie ever made. I try to write this review spoiler free, though it's hard to do so.
Here are the things that ruined the movie:
1. Political message: there is a subplot that pushes the typical leftist agenda: capitalism is bad, every rich person is bad, they are the ones supporting the dark side, fight for love, etc. This ruined the movie for me. I really hate when they are pushing an agenda in a movie. Doesn't matter if it's left or right (though 90% of the time it's the left), I hate when modern day politics have a message in movies.
2. Subplots: There is one subplot, about 30 minutes long, that has nothing to with the original story-line. It's there to have the political message, other than that, it's garbage. It's boring, it's long, and adds nothing to the whole movie.
3. Charaters: I absolutely loved Carrie's actring. She's that Leia whom we loved in the original trilogy. Kylo Ren is also really good.And that's all the good I can think about. Finn and Poe does nothing to develop their character, Rey is kinda OK, Luke is messed up, he's not really acting how Luke acted in the original movies. Mark even stated that he did not like the way the new director formed his character. And the new ones... annoying, boring, good for nothing characters. They are doing nothing to advance the main plot, just there because?? Who knows? Not to mention Phasma: not going to spoil anything, but you'll say: "That's it?" And there are other characters from TFA that are completely misused in this part. Also there's one friend from the original trilogy who comes back once again but his character is so bad, you really want to forget that scene.
4. TOYS: This is the main reason I hated this movie. Porgs and other "cute" animals or whats are in the movie just to sell children toys. They have really no purpose in the movie other that they are REALLY annoying. (Also: porgs can fly, yet they have smaller wings than an average chciken)
5. Humor: They messed this part up really bad. The movie is full of overused one-liners and they are 90% boring and not funny at all. To make things worse, some great daramtic scenes are ruined by these stupid jokes. There are like 2-3 jokes in the entire movie that are really funny and work well with the SW saga.
6. Continuity: this one is a technical problem but it's a big one. The final movie should be 3 hours long but they had to cut it for obvious reasons (thank god). There are many scenes when a certain subplot cuts to another, and when they cut back to that one, you need to think for a few seconds to pick up the pace. Hard to explain, but if you see the movie, you'll feel it, and it's fustrating.
7. Technical stuff: The movie is full of technical problems that couldn't even occur in the SW universe. Defying gravity, biology, etc. You need to see the movie to understand it, but it's full of these stuff.
All in all, the movie was not a disaster, I'd give it a 7/10 if it's a standalone movie, but as a SW movie, it's 5 compared to the others. There are indeed AWESOME minutes in it, and yes, those were really great, but only a few. The special effects were fantastic, space battles were great, but that's not enough for the Star Wars saga.
As much as I don't like JJ Abrams, he should have directed this one. He started it, he should have finished it. Rian Johnson totally twisted the franchise, many great lores (Knights of Ren) are gone in this movie and it really ruins the movie.
I really hope that JJ Abrams can do something in the LAST movie, because the damage is already done and it will hard to overcome it.
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Rian Johnson has recounted the story of how, after seeing Star Wars as a child, he went straight home and threw his toy Millennium Falcon across the room to watch it fly. It of course crashed into the ground and was ruined.
The Last Jedi is exactly the movie you'd expect from a director, who as a child, was so inspired by Star Wars that he went home and threw his toy Millennium Falcon across the room only to watch it be destroyed.
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10/10
Who the hell paid all you people to leave these garbage reviews? The movie was incredible. It's just that simple.
I don't know who paid these ppl to write these reviews but WOW are they WRONG. I was on the edge of my seat until the end. The character interaction and development was amazing. To all the folks who said Snoak was not like Palpatine blah blah you're exactly right because he's NOT PLALPATINE. Every Sith Lord master was murdered by their younger more powerful apprentice INCLUDING PALPATINE AND PALPATINES MASTER (Palpatine killed him in his sleep). The only way Ben killed him was because in his mind he saw him turning the light saber which he was doing with his own at the time.
When Leia was in space she was within the shield, is one with the force, has mitichlorians galore, and the human body can withstand as much as she did in vacuum and mind you she was in a med pack for a while.
Luke made sense completely. Oh and to anyone that said Mark Hamill fundamentally just disagreed with the script is right. He fundamentally disagreed after heat read, I repeat read the script. Then he is quoted to say then I then he is quoted to say then I watched the film and boy was I wrong. Reading a script and seeing the film are two completely different things. Luke Skywalker was just as whiney as the Skywalker before him. Of course he went to seclusion. He thought he'd FAILED the force.
I've seen the film four times now and each individual time was at a different theater. At the beginning and all parts throughout the movie and at the end everybody cheered and was clapping. All colors all shapes all sizes and all ages. Don't believe these insane people who have no idea what they're talking about in their mommy's basement. See the movie and actually see what was intended to be not what you were just expecting which was another episode 5.
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I left the cinema with the same amount adrenaline as when the opening credits started. A brilliant story going back to the original Empire Strikes Back type drama. Reading these reviews which paint such a bad image of this film just makes me glad I'm not a complete geeky nob head, after the disappointment of 1,2&3 Disney have saved the star wars saga, not killed it by any means. Go see it and enjoy it, I certainly did and I can't wait for 9 to arrive
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I was disappointed with the 7th episode, so i have given a chance to the 8th.
But i realized that it's definitively a copy/paste of the original trilogy... without originality... Again !
There were so many possibilities to have a very good star wars (just take a look to the Extended Universe)
Disney and Kathleen Kennedy, those who validated these poor scenarios, have betrayed fans and ruined the saga !!!
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Star Wars has always been a swashbuckling adventure story. Even when everything is going wrong, like in episodes 3 and 5, its still a fun and swashbuckling adventure story. That was completely lost in The Last Jedi. There was no heroism, no revealing of new knowledge, no clever antics to save the day, no spellbinding and unpredictable action sequences. There was nothing to move you or engage your heart. No soul. Star Wars is dead.
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7/10
A huge but un even rollercoaster ride of entertainment and disappointment
Star Wars the last Jedi is a very long movie, and there was ample room for cuts, witness the jarring and completely pointless scene of Luke drinking raw seal milk on the beach... uh... yeah....
We are treated to amazing visuals, and some fantastic scenes. The death of Snoke was very satisfying, even if it made no sense from a story perspective.
The humor was in places very funny (Chewy and his roast chicken) and in places extremely awkward (the milk drinking scene as mentioned above)
Luke does a serviceable job in the end of what he is portraying, a shell-shocked hermit who has lost most of his high hopes for the Jedi but tries to cling to the origins, namely the Force.
Daisey is at times well done, her trip into the cave of darkness, and at other times clumsy and ham-fisted (her pathetic attempts to convince Luke to join her by physically assaulting the poor old man).
We have new characters that just.. do not fly. I know with the MASSIVE Chinese investment of audience now for these movies, it is essential that Disney get more Chinese characters in play (rather overdue and racistly so...) but the new Chinese character, Tran, is not doing it, her acting is atrocious and her hair-do is an abomination.
And Laura Dern.... I have no IDEA what they were thinking with this one.... and it fails miserably. Every second of her screen time is cringe-worthy.
Then again, throwing in big name actors turns around and actually WORKS with Benicio Del Toro, even if his lispy stutter doesn't. The man has GRAVITAS and he brings it to an otherwise luke-warm (lol) showing.
The writing is uneven as well. I actually am starting to like Adam Driver (blasphemous as those words are) and his story arc. Finn OTOH though, continues to plod along as the love-sick b/f. He even get's a completely useless comedy scene of him staggering around in a giant suit of saline solution which only serves to ridicule his character.
Poe is played strangely here, he is clearly an audience favorite, but the Rebels go around hating on him constantly. It is very annoying and could only have been explained if Laura Dern's character was an Empire Agent, which, sadly, she is not.
And finally a huge GEEK RAGE OUT on the DEUS EX MACHINA of using a hyper-jump to destroy an entire fleet of Star Destroyers. Why doesn't this destroy all fleets that hyperjump together then? We all know for the entire Star Wars series entire fleets of ships have hyper-jumped together. So now all of a sudden this causes a huge explosion that destroys all the ships??? It made ZERO sense, and then to have the flagship, which has literally been torn into TWO PIECES, still have the ability to land a AT-AT assault unit???
THAT is SLOPPY WRITING.
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+Excellent visuals
+Brilliant score
+Great acting, in particular Adam Driver, Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley and Laura Dern
+Excellent plot with good expansion of previous lore/mythology
+New and old ideas/plot points etc mixed much better than in TFA
+Great cameos
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8/10
Much better than the prequels, why all the hatred??!!
As a life long Star Wars fan (my first VHS was "Empire Strikes Back" and yes, I can quote the entire movie!!) and after reading the plethora of poor reviews posted on these pages, I felt the necessity to contribute my first review on IMDb.
Let's be honest, us Star Wars fans are not the most subjective and have our own very personal views on the galaxy far, far away. We ALL however, want to know the outcome of the Skywalker legacy and have incredibly high expectations for every movie.
If you are looking for an action packed, thrilling, emotional, character driven sci-fi film, then this is your movie. Characters commit fatal mistakes which add value to both plot and individual character story arcs. The plot, twists and turns throughout, adding intrigue for new characters and empathy for others. Yes, Luke is not what we expected but this subversion of expectation only adds to the suspense. Yes, Disney have slotted in a cutesy (and very marketable) Porg but there are moments of genuine humour throughout which only help to carry us along in the tightly plotted story.
With expectations as high as they always are for each installment, I believe that Rian Johnson should be commended for having the audacity to take us longstanding fans on a thoroughly entertaining and unique thrill ride.
I for one will be looking forward to his proposed trilogy and will be waiting in anticipation for JJ's last chapter.
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4/10
Beautiful, well done from an artistic and technical standpoints, and a colossal misfire on pretty much everything else.
In brief, The Last Jedi beautiful, well done from an artistic and technical standpoints, and a colossal misfire on pretty much everything else.
Following all the intrigue and questions posted by The Force Awakens, the Last Jedi was expected to give some answers or follow up with questions like, "who is Snoke" or "Who are Rey's Parents" and "What happened to Luke." These questions are either not answered or given such weak throwaway answers that they simply disappoint.
Luke's return is also one of the most disappointing things in a Star Wars film. His triumphant moment of return is simply embarrassing, and a cop-out on the film's part from taking a risk or making the character do anything exciting or meaningful.
Still, from a technical standpoint, the film is well done. The battle on the salt planet, in particular, stands out for being visually arresting and simply beautiful, and the new planets look vibrant and alive, with charming new creatures to boot. But a lousy plot, poor pacing, feeble solutions to intriguing questions from previous films, and a lack of simple Star Wars moments make this film tank. The critics are wrong, it is not a good film, and hopefully they learn where they went wrong for the next nine instalments.
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I loathed TFA, full disclosure. Beat for beat rehash of ANH, blah, blah, blah, usual complaints. But it was still better than this crapola.
They're OUT OF GAS!? SERIOUSLY!? A problem that has never ONCE been encountered in a SW movie before to the best of my recollection?
We're back in the throne room from RTJ? I could hear Ian McDiarmid's diaphram-cackling in that scene.
Completely ruin the character of Luke solely for the purpose of killing him off and thereby the most important and arguably beloved character in the franchise? The screenwriter of the first film was more right than he knew when he said Luke couldn't be in the first film because everyone would stop caring about what's-her-name as soon as he showed up, except I didn't care before, either, and I sure as hell don't care now. The only remotely interesting character was Oscar Isaacs and he turned out to be an idiot.
There's a lot more of lazy fanboy-exploiting money-grubbing recycled story beats I could lament, along with the ridiculous "Leia Poppins" scene that everyone else is howling in resigned laughter about on YouTube, along with the tacked-on, totally unnecessary b-plot to give what's-his-name and Artoo, Jr. something to do, but you, dear reader, must have got the point by this time.
I saw "Star Wars" in the theater in 1977 and loved it with all the passion of which a five-year-old is capable. Now I want it dead.
I'm rooting for the Empire.
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Wow. I never thought I'd see the day when this franchise is ruined. Shame on you, Rian Johnson.
The Last Jedi is not only the worst Star Wars movie, it is one of the worst movies of 2017, maybe ever. The whole thing was just a jumbled mess of clichés, plot holes, and just plain awful acting. The writing was all over the place, introducing new characters and concepts that did not need to be there at all. TLJ also contained some of the most cringeworthy scenes I have witnessed in cinema, mainly due to the fact that every character was trying to be a comedian and failing in the process.
This movie did not seem like a continuation of the Force Awakens, but a completely separate and dumbed down take of the Star Wars universe.
The original trilogy had it all: terrific acting, well-written scripts, dry humor, and outstanding cinematography. The orignal storyline was also clear and to the point with no need for nonsense in between. I now fully realize that Disney has taken the reins and is trying to appeal to a younger audience with no-substance , "flashy" crap that kids just eat up. The Star Wars saga ended at Return of the Jedi for me.
How this movie received 8 stars is beyond me.
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I'm not really good at writing reviews so I'll just throw out some random thoughts/impressions:
* Canto Bight/Benicio Del Toro were the weakest parts of the film. All seemed rushed and ultimately kind of pointless. The message was kind of ham-fisted. Del Toro felt really out of place, like he just wandered onto the set from another movie, mumbling and stuttering, and then basically just disappears.
* When Rey ventures into the dark hole on Ach-to and sees mirror visions of herself and starts snapping her fingers and whatnot, I swear I thought she was going to break out dancing and we'd have this big choreographed musical number with her dancing with her own reflection.
* Kylo spends a lot of time standing around looking mopey. He didn't feel as menacing to me as he did in The Force Awakens. Hux is basically a punching bag, frequently getting thrown around like a rag doll.
* Laura Dern's character left no impression on me. When she died I was like, OK? Guess she won't be in Episode 9. Whatever. Same with Phasma.
* Luke was great. Yoda was great. Rey and Luke on Ach-to was definitely the best and most engaging part of the film. I wish we could have seen more of Rey's training and generally just more of her and Luke interacting.
* I have no idea how they are going to explain Leia's absence in episode 9. She is alive and well at the end of this one, so for her to simply be gone in the next film will be odd.
Overall the film was a mixed bag, in my opinion. I think The Force Awakens was a stronger and overall better-made film.
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This film was a complete disaster. The story was just stupid, the script and dialog was underwhelming. Leia in space? Luke the biggest icon of the series is a complete joke, and accomplishes nothing in this movie. The resistance-story was just meh, and Finn/Rose/Poe/Phasma story was not important at all. Boring!
How could they release this?
Disney and Lucasfilm should be ashamed of themselves. Episode 1 was WAY better than this.
This is the worst part of the series by far. I'm sad, disappointed and angry that they had to ruin the Skywalker story :(
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So, overall the movie was good! There is flaws big and small that needed to be fixed/cut.
BAD:
-Reys parent reveal is soooo hyped up, but just get ruined by something dumb, but there is still hope(kylo may have lied to her about light side lineage)
-Lukes initial behavior when he meets Rey. why does he throw the lightsaber? They were trying to symbolize how exile changed him, similar to yoda acting goofy. THIS JUST DID NOT WORK. they tried to hard to make everything funny and ruined a good moment. SAD. I enjoyed some of the stuff on that island like the things that fix reys mistakes.
-PORGS were funny the first time, OVERUSED
-Carrie Fischer is a horrendous actress, she is so unbelievably bad(but what can they do about it) when leia survives the space explosion it was cool but kind of funky
Battle of Crait was cool, but it would have been cooler if Luke wasn't a hologram and did cool force stuff
Snokes death felt rushed and they never went in depth with his character
Humor was horrible and kiddish, but there was some instances of classic star wars humor(they forced in down my throut in the first 5 minutes of the movie)
characters were really dumb at parts. Finn had no character development and Rose was a crybaby. their pot together felt boring, pointless and rushed. They even tried to throw in an animal cruelty message which i found stupid
it was soooo cheesy, rose's line made me cringe so hard when she saves finn
i wish they spent more time on what happened at the temple on the island
Hux humor HAS TO STOP
GOOD
kylo and rey relationship is fantastic
poe has some good development
great fight scenes and visuals
CHEWY IS CHEWY
yoda is amazing and funny(star wars humor)
Mark Hamil was amazing at most parts
great development for rey
THATS ABOUT IT
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When I was young, I watched Star Wars in my home with my family, but I was the only who liked. Today, I've been teaching my nephews and my students to have a worship of this wonderful story. I still love this story and to watch The Last Jedi I had the confirmation of why I am so in love with Star Wars.
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3/10
Succeeds where other SW films have failed : Not being excited about the next film
That is saying a lot because as much as i hated the prequels, at least i had hopes it would get better. It turned out i was deceived (to memain polite), but i had hopes.
Here, what do we have left ?
Kylo ren as the main villain. A villain so "powerful", that despite all his training, gets beaten by the first jedi he encounters. Why is he so mean ? We don't know. The dark side took hold of him...don't look any further. Being attracted to the dark side when the siths exist no more, that's quite an achivement. He's whiny, uncharismatic, acts like a coward and couldn't order à cheeseburger. I can't wait to see him rule on the galaxy.
Rey : So powerful in so little time. Makes the rest of all jedis we came to know padawans. Two weeks before she used the force to clear the boulders off the escapees way, she knew nothing of the force. All of a sudden she uses it to influence the mind of a stormtrooper, beat kylo ren, to communicate with him AND EVEN TO SEE HIM. I know snoke says he linked both of them together, but they did that again once he was dead. Forget about vador being the one. SHE IS. It just took a few weeks. Ridiculous.
Solo : dead
Luke : gone in the most ridiculous way
Leïa : gone
Finn : brings nothing to the saga. His role in this film pretty sums up what the director thinks of that character.
Rose : see finn.
Poe : hot head, great pilot but a dimwit. Awful strategy at the beginning of the film, and his superiors don't trust him to tell him about the plans to save the resistance. Great character.
Excepted for who rey's parents are, explaining why she's so powerful, there's nothing to look for in the next installment.
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The Force Awakens had it's share of problems, but overall it was a nice attempt and in the end it did enough right to make it an enjoyable experience. The Last Jedi is like an empty shell.. it has nice visuals, the same likeable characters are there but the plot feels contrived and forced (heh).. the whole movie is a desperate attempt of escape but after 2+ hours of desperate escaping it just fails to feel meaningful.. the plot is illogical and not in tune with the rest of the star wars movies. if you're not a die hard star wars fan you might enjoy this movie, but if you care at all about what made the originals great then this will surely disappoint.
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The main motto of this franchise: Our song is good - start over! Obviously, it is already clear that a serial is produced on the basis of ZV by the type of Slave Izaura. In general, those who have been waiting for some answers after the 7th film - get ugly, and then what was told, it would be better to keep silence at all ....
Well, yes there are graphonies, a beautiful picture, an operator and an artist - earned on bread with a little. But the director and screenwriters The film turned out to be boring and protracted, battles especially in space no. Six star destroyers hang in a vacuum and do nothing ...
As usually a bunch of pianos in the bushes, especially "pleased" mega-epic drain of two characters.
You can go, spend nice time under a good picture and an action.
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This movie had beautiful scenes and some very high moments but never had the courage to actually change the status quo of the new characters. The heroes (at least the ones that really matter to Disney and Rian Johnson) are all alive and well, without even a scratch, and the bad guys are still Kylo Ren and General Hux, both not imposing or feeling as a real threat to the Resistance (General "Hugs" is actually used as comic relief and at the end of the movie I was even waiting for something in the line of: "I'll get you next time, you meddling kids!!!!").
Without going too much into spoiler territory, the movie completely disregards 40 years of Star Wars lore (including the movies that came before) ending up feeling disconnected from the Star Wars Universe. Many plot holes and out of character moments will make you dislike the movie the more you think about it.
The lack of any real threat left little interest for me to see the next movie.
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The reason for my title is this. I saw the film with my Dad on Friday and I have to admit I liked it. I thought it was an okay film for what it was. The reason I said this is because I liked the Force Awakens a lot better than Jedi because at least their was a story there. The Last Jedi was basically the same rehashing of the same Star Wars plot the Empire is trying to take over and the Resistance is trying to stop them. That's it. That's basically the film. And no that's not a spoiler because I don't do spoilers.
What I liked about The Last Jedi I loved Rey and her journey to find Luke and trying to find out who she is and learning the Jedi arts. I loved BB8 he was basically doing everything in this film from piloting the airplane, helping take down some guards or helping out anyway that he can for the Resistance against the Empire. I did enjoy seeing Luke even though he was asking like he was an manic depressive disorders douche to Rey but that sort of reminded me of when Yoda treated Luke that way in Empire Strikes Back which was cool but sort of mean to be honest. I did enjoy seeing Carrie Fisher in her last role as Princess excuse me General Leia BUT to be honest she didn't really do much in the film but whatever at least they didn't cut her out because she passed on but I do have an issue that I'll get into in my dislike part of the review.
What I disliked about the film which isn't much BUT the major thing I'm disappointed with and it's really not a spoiler BUT the way they honored Carrie Fisher's memory at the end of the film. They didn't do anything! They just said in loving memory of our princess....that's it. Of course her role in the film was a bit weird as well which I can't say because I don't want to give away anything but I found it weird the way they kept her in the film.
Other dislikes where maybe the so called training of Rey which didn't live up to the hype and that's all I'll say. Kylo Ren was a bit lame in this film at least in Force he was interesting in Jedi he was just an emo kid on a bad acid trip but I did like the lightsabor battle with Rey that was pretty cool so I guess that would go in my like part of this review. I did not care for that Asian chick Rose she was a bit annoying with Finn. One more she hates him and then she somehow loves him it's like pick an emotion girl.
Should you see this film? Well I mean if you're a Star Wars fan you're going to see this film and possibly love or hate it. Will I buy this film on Blu-ray probably so to add to my Star Wars collection. If I were you I would wait until a few weeks to watch Star Wars because it was a bit crowded when me and my Dad went to the theater but that's normal for any Star Wars film.
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As a star wars fan throughout my life, I could not have been more dissapointed with the direction of this film. Lack of storyline and character development. Just a dull experience and the lack of any interest in characters just took the movie nowhere. Crushed by this mess.
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The middle of the trilogy is another Empire - full of surprises! I was on the edge of my seat throughout the film never sure what was coming next. Utterly delightful.
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I watched this movie on Thursday, but i can't process everything in 1 viewing so the next day i went to my nearest theater and watched it again. And after i'm done watching it, i need a few days to process everything. So it's been a few days, and here is my review for Star Wars The Last Jedi.
First of all, i have some issues with the movie that i want to start of with, The Finn and Rose story line just didn't work for me personally. And the Canto Bight sequence should not be in this movie, but they can't just delete the entire Canto Bight sequence because it ties in later on in the film, whenever the movie cuts back to the Canto Bight sequence, the movie just drags. Now it leads me to my next issue and that is, sometimes the humor just doesn't land for me. And the next issue with the movie is that certain characters in the movie is poorly develop, and i think some characters should get more screen time. The run time of this movie is two an a half hours long, and the movie does suffer some pacing issues but it doesn't really bother me because i was so invested in the story in the first viewing, but when i watched it the second time it, does dragged a little.
Now let's talk about the positive of this movie, the chemistry between Luke and Rey is fantastic. Whenever the film cuts back to Luke and Rey is was invested in the story. The space battle is freaking awesome, the dog fights is brilliant and so well done, and the third act of this movie is so spectacular. I liked the story overall, and it goes to a different direction that none of the other Star Wars film has ever gone to, and i liked it. All the actors did a great job of portraying this characters.
I know there are some fans loved this film, and some hated it. And i understand why some of them would dislike the film, because some things happen in this movie that i thing a lot of fans will say it's bullshit. And i agree for the most part, because this film makes you question the mythology of the force and Star Wars in general. But it doesn't take you away from the story.
Overall i had a great time watching this movie, i personally think it's a great sequel to The Force Awakens and i can't wait for episode 9.
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Fast paced and all thrown at to the audience without any sense. Some of the most ridiculous scenes ever, as example, Luke draining Milk from the tit of an alien and drinking dirtly from it, or Luke jumping to a pole in a cliff to a very thin border only to catch a fish at the bottom of the cliff... Not to mention Luke wanting to kill his nephew becouse he felt the darkness in him, the same Luke that didn't kill Darth Vader, remember? Those two? Vader that was his father and was completly turned to the Dark Side, killed alot of Jedi's with the order 66 at Emperor's order? Yes, that guy was absolutly light sided when compared with a kid still learning about the Force, sleeping in his bed, at a remote island... Makes sense. Leia, the kryptonian, is another example, etc, etc, etc. Simply written with the worst possible understanding of Star Wars. After a good Episode VII, we get an awefull Episode VIII. Thank the CGI Gods for saving it's face. Period.
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I've had time to digest this movie... so here I go.
Last Jedi was beautifully shot.... having said that....I have been a star wars fan for 38 years, and that was one of the biggest disappointments I've had in recent memory. I am at a loss for words, what a piece of garbage! When stripped down, not one character mattered.
Snoke... pointless--he was just a place-holder.
Rey....who?.....a junkies kid! Really! Two year wait for that!
Titty-milk drinking Luke, complete bitch....NO big badass moment. I agree with Mark Hamill in that they fundamentally destroyed Luke Skywalker! I thought for sure we were getting the big LUKE moment at the end, but no! Produces a force ghost and then dies...the end---literally!
Kylo... tried to arc, but came right back to teenage tool. Driver was the one bright spot, but even he fizzled out! Rose and Finn.... pointless filler mission. What are the odds that the code breaker they need is on that planet just down there?!
And Leia... I'm sorry "Super" Leia--- what a bullshit scene that was and, I'm sorry, but they missed a HUGE opportunity to have HER be the one to jump into lightspeed and save the last of the rebels!! What a swan song that would have been!
Only one lightsaber battle that barely did anything.
I'm truly sad and in awe over this piece of shit. I will NOT be watching a Rian Johnson trilogy...he's already murdered a great franchise. I'm off my soap box now.
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3/10
Great kids movie...Adults only need the last 30 minutes
After an hour into the movie I was ready to go home. The magic was not there. I cared little about any character, the strategy and the over emphasis on special effects. There was little to no comic relief and the little comic relief was childish and not clever.
***Spoilers ***
It was not until the death of the Sith and the battle with the guards that i started taking notice. The fight sequence was well done. I liked Kylo Ren wanting simply to wipe out everything both light and dark...anything which reminded him of the past and start something new. God knows i feel like that sometimes. It was a touching moment to see Luke and Leia holding hands in reunion....an end of an era...this scene brought me back to 1977 and the first two sequels...what a ride back then! This reunion redeemed an otherwise worst of the Star Wars saga movies into an acceptable segue. So skip the first hour and a half and watch the last 30 minutes and you will have everything you need to know for the next one which I hope will spend more time in intergalactic intrigue, suspense and more adult cynical comic relief rather than puppet penguins imitating the "Home Alone" face burn and the giant fish complaining about the damage to their cottages. I give it a 3/10 because this is a great movie for kids and the reunion of Luke and Leia...otherwise it is a big fat zero.
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Before the movie I was watching people come out of the imax cinema, and 90% looked depressed or bewildered. Compared to the smiling faces that emerged from Force Awakens and Rogue One, the change was clearly noticeable.
I won't belabour the same negative points raised consistently in these reviews -
terrible meaningless story,
negating the intriguing plot lines established in Force Awakens,
transforming Luke into a grumpy wet paper bag of a character,
then killing him literally with a puff of thin air,
killing snoke / phasma without any character development,
Leia flying through space without a suit,
too many slapstick CGI puppets (probably the only part Lucas would like) that trivialise the spiritual aspects of the original trilogy,
Rey's parentage anti-climax,
BB8 shooting casino coins,
the Maz holograph scene where she has a conversation while in the middle of battle,
the strange 'save the horses' subplot (seriously wtf),
yoda giggling with his legs wriggling around (so out of character)
and many, many other examples of bad script and plot holes that went nowhere.
The good: Filming was awesome, as was the CGI and sound. Visuals couldn't be better, and in imax 3D it looked unbelievable. The opening scene with Poe in his Xwing was incredible - he's a good actor - and Carrie was fantastic too. Kylo and Rey also acted well despite the poor script - they did their best with what they had.
But give me a solid story and character development over visual effects any day - I'm sad to say this movie has pushed the Star Wars saga back a step, and has done a lot of harm to our beloved heroes. I only hope Jar Jar Abrams can restore the hope that was lost .. there is another..
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It is safe to assume, given that users rated Justice League 7.2, that they don't know what they are talking about and are just a bunch of butthurt nerds, complaining that somebody played with their toys.
They don't own Star Wars, this is a good movie, please go and see it.
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I'm probably getting on the older side of SW fans now and Ive never been motivated to create an account for any of these movie sites although I read them often and am a total nerd with these kind of movies. But the last Jedi,although there are moments, its just overall disappointing.The old school fans are being left behind and Disney does not care. There is so much more I could say as to why I feel this way but it seems a lot of others are saying the same. they will make their money and the younger fan will probably like it more, but I am no longer interested on how this story plays out.
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Star Wars has never been known for excellent writing. But the original trilogy, and to some extent the prequels, at least made sense.
This one, not so much.
Let´s get the good out of the way. The cinematography is top notch. Excellent camerawork, solid classic editing and good rhythm. The fx look more integrated than in TFA.
Unfortunately that doesn´t save the movie from being a frustrating experience. Several plotpoints and questions raised in The Force Awakens are simply ignored or quickly brushed away.
Why did Luke leave a map if he actually wants TOTAL isolation from his friends and allies? Because he wants to suck milk from mutant walrusses.
What was the story of Anakin´s lightsabre after cloudcity? Wait for the reveal in a comicbook...
Who are Rey´s parents and why did they abandon her? Pff, just someone selling their kid, don´t worry about it.
Why did the Rebel General wait for half of her escaping fleet being shot down before doing her (admittedly cool) lightspeed collision? Because she likes to see rebel scum burn in space?
Why did Finn and little Miss Racequota go to a leftover planet from Valerian? To bring back a scumbag to help them disable a device they shouldn´t even know about in the first place?
The main characters are directly responsible for killing off 90% of all rebels...with no repercussions whatsoever except for a demotion which was totally half-hearted. Poe was responsible for the rebels losing all their attack ships, Finn is directly responsible for the dropships being decimated. But hey, in the end they´re all a happy family again.
Who is Snoke and how was he so easily killed by someone he could mindread? Is it as easy to defeat a powerfull mindreader as just thinking in broad and generuic terms? Ehh, just swallow it.
The whole fleetchase idea was direct copy from the recent Battlestar Galactica, which is ironic as the original Galactica was basically a rip from the original Star Wars.
Why is the Porg flying around in the Falcon cockpit? If centrifugal forces were an issue in Star Wars spaceships, all passengers would be flattened by every single manoeuvre.
Chewbacca gets almost no screentime at all, yet he is the one saving the two dozen remaining rebels in the end. Also interesting that Disney made him look cleaner and younger than in the OT.
The big issue some seem to have with TLJ for me was no problem at all. Leia using the force to save herself. I don´t understand how this is a problem for so many people, yet they ignore the deep plotholes in the rest of the movie.
Leia is Darth Vader´s daughter too, and she already exhibited some force sensivity in the OT. I found it totally believable and in canon that 30 years later (living for twenty years next to Luke training people in the Force) she would have some telekinetic abilities to preserve athmosphere around her and forcepull herself to an airlock. No problem at all.
TLJ made the Star Wars galaxy feel small again, and that´s not a good thing. How legitimate can a Resistance be if none of the allies want to help them? Who are those allies we never see, and what connection does Leia have to them? Why was Leia and her band of misfits called Resistance in TFA, before the Senate is destroyed by a planetgun that can shoot several beams hitting several planets at once?
This Star Wars galaxy consists now of the First Order, 20 rebels in the Falcon, and some semi primitive planets.
It all just makes no sense since Force Awakens.
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2/10
Disposable legends. Starwars ruined. Most of these reviews are better written than The Last Jedi.
What an epic waste, monumental failure. Cheesy dialogue, terrible plot, bad cgi. Luke turns out to be a constipated hermit who dies struggling to give a sh..t. Felt like some kid has pulled a crumpled up piece of notepaper with snot stains and chewing gum and etched out a star wars plot on the school bus. Why should we care? let the past die the film asks. Ok we get it, this movie isnt made by Star Wars fans for Star Wars fans - it's a cynical tick-the-box crap shoot made to sell cutesy merchandise. Everything is disposable, even legends.
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Remember when your mom told you not to look directly at the sun? Yeah, Luke does that and suffers the consequences...aparantly.
Okay, I don't normally go aroubd trashing movies, and I went into this movie just hoping they didn't screw it up. But from the open scene I was flabbergasted by the shoddy writting. Never in the entire series did they use bombers that required gravity for them to fall out of a ship...in space.... I do know that if you are in a bomber though you fly far enough away from your target not to get incenerated by your own blast.... (and if they would have been carreening down because the pilot might have been incapacitated than the bomber would not have been horizontal to the ship and the bombs would not gave flown out in that direction)
Yeah, that was just the opening scene. I can go on and on. I almost left the theater twice because the movie was so boring and poorly written, my wife literally fell asleep a time or two. When she was awake we were sharing open mouth glances at not being able to believe the crap we just witnessed.
Sure, the acting was amazing and some scenes were really cool to witness, but the exact same thing can be said about the Star Wars Holiday Special. Yes, I went there, because even that made for tv special that everyone speaks horrors of I have witnessed more than once and am proud to have done it. The Last Jedi though, I should have walked out to save myself the pain of watching the series pay homage to what looked to me like a suicide, as look, coming off an incredible win, just looks dorectly at a sunset and gives up on life....
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A movie full of fan service, incredible scenes, great art direction and technically above the level, but it's also a movie that has its problems, often appearing as a movie of scenes that work well in isolation, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi "It delights the most loyal fans of the franchise for its" Ahhhh, that's what I wanted to see "moments, but in a cooler view, we have script, rhythm and development issues. The script makes the first two acts of the film look like great fillers, because it does not walk, the intention was to develop the character of Rey, which does not happen, we see only 2 acts of discussion, thoughts and training, everything half played and superficial, in the lack of depth of the legendary Luke Skywallker, or in the character of Finn who is wonderful in the first film, with dramas and dualities and here he is played on a cliché secondary mission, with a romantic cliche, following the traditional journey of the hero that adds little in the movie, the only character you notice some development is Kylo Ren, even so, he ends the film still in a certain conflict, we do not feel confident in it. "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is a legitimate half-story film, a movie that will serve as ground for Star Wars episode IX. The highest point of the film is his art direction, which explores a new fauna, and features gorgeous costumes, extra costumes and absurd attention to detail, as well as the classic Star Wars soundtrack, the soundtrack is great and not for a second, dictating for many times the pace of the scene, without fear of open plans or zoom in's, the camera behaves very well, always trying to bring the maximum of wealth to that world that really gives an impression of being alive and the rhythm of the film's assembly of the one compensated in the pessimo rhythm of the script. The performances, which in episode VII are one of the great highlights, here are obsolete and cloying, but stands out for Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver and Carrie Fischer, in addition to the great screen presence of Mark Hamill. Finally, it's a movie that cardboard fans will love, like me, and the movie has very good things outside the direction of art, such as the exploitation of force and all the symbology that is exposed around it, or the bridge of communication that unites the Jedi, or even the clean of the past seeking a renewal for Star Wars, that renewal, which is happening even though it is difficult to detach from the characters of the past, and this movie was where it had to happen part "boring", to serve as the basis for what will come. Lastly, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" may even leave a wish, but nonetheless, it's an absurdly exciting and entertaining film.
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3/10
Not worthy of the name! Wish I had waited till HBO to see it!!!
I really wanted to like this film, it had great moments with amazing special effects BUT with that said there is serious issues with the storyline. Let's start with Yoda, I love Yoda but why is he "old" and barely moving around when Anakin was made young again at the end of Ep6. Also he's solid not a ghost. Why was Admiral Akbar killed off with no fanfare and who the hell is the second in command with Leia? Why should I care about here???
Speaking of caring, what's up with Finn & Rose and their pointless adventure that was painstakingly slow. Not a fan of Rose's acting ability just not good...
I'll end with Luke's ending (but I could go on). For a powerful Jedi, they never let him go full Jedi. I mean when he faced off against Emo, sorry I mean Kylo, I was so ready for him to raise arms and knock down AT-AT's like dominos, I have played games with Jedi's who brought down Star Destroyers. Hologram Luke was a fail!
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1. Luke is not inspiring anymore, they've turned him into a woe is me character.
2. The rebels could have easily been killed when they went out the backside of the mountain, the First Order has starships and ground troops it shouldn't be that hard to circle around and bombard them out of existence. They could even have done this before the rebels escaped making them DEAD by default.
3. Even if Leia survived being blown out into space she most certainly didn't have the Jedi powers to avoid all the debris floating in the area that would've easily impacted her body and killed her.
4. No idea why the rebel ships were running out of fuel when this has never occurred in any Star Wars I've seen but even if we buy into it they didn't do that many light jumps so I find it hard to believe they're running on empty already. How many times does the Millennium Falcon jump into light speed without refueling in the originals? LOL
5. Snoke dies, but was boring anyways so I'm glad!
6. Kylo and Rey would not be friendly especially once he'd killed his own father. Entirely absurd.
This is a truly sad film, filled with depressing notions that excite the mind for what might've been. I consider this more of an alternate universe separate from the originals.
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After watching the latest piece of this amazing saga I can't help it but get angry at people! The film, in my own humble opinion, is great - it had amazing scenes, acting was good (except Hux), pacing was good, the whole feeling watching this movie was great. And now as I read the reviews I see hate everywhere. Diehard Star Wars fans are just mindless idiots who can't be satisfied no matter what. First they were angry at "The Force awakens" because it was too similar to "A New Hope". Now they hate "The Last Jedi" because its too new and different. I can't understand you people, WHAT DO YOU WANT??? "The Last Jedi" is something fresh and expands the powers and uses of the Force in a never seen before way. Nowhere in the saga is there a limitation to what someone is capable of doing with the Force, nowhere! I love the fresh taste this movie has and I hope next movies get the same innovative and different vibe. We can't just have "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" in every Star Wars movie we get. Sorry fanboys!
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Star Wars has become bigger than media. It's bigger than just a movie. When a Star Wars movie comes out it's an event not just another day at the theater. Only Harry Potter compares on a similar level (marvel and DC are getting there), but even that doesn't really compare. Star Wars is so ingrained in our culture, so beloved by so many people, I find it's almost become it's own worst enemy.
The expectations for these films are almost unattainable and I feel bad for anyone who tries to handle one of these movies. The backlash can carry a painful sting I'm sure. I have loved Star Wars since I was a little kid. Watching A New Hope so much my VHS tape broke twice and we had to buy new ones. These new films will never compare to those originals. How can it? I feel people love those movies so much it makes it too difficult to enjoy the new ones sometimes. But there is still magic in these movies. Hope. Good vs Evil. Doing the right thing. Friendship. It's all still there and in my opinion it is worthy to follow those films I have loved since I was little. And here is why I say that.
When I first saw the trailer for Star Wars TLJ I knew that there would be many who would be upset by the final product. The trailer clearly showed a damaged Luke Skywalker haunted by his past and the decisions he's made. His actions, much like other Jedi's before him (Obi-wan and Yoda for instance), caused him to run into exile where he punishes himself for the things he cannot forgive himself for. (Keep in mind Yoda disappeared after losing to Darth Sideous. He never came out for exile to help the Rebels. He could have. Much like Luke does in this movie)
At first viewing of The Last Jedi it's hard to see the correlations between the original trilogy, but it follows everything that happens in Empire Strikes Back more than people want to believe. It changes enough to be it's own movie, but we've seen this before. We have the rebels being pursued by the First Order just like the Empire was chasing the Millenium Falcon with Han and the gang. Rey travels to find Luke hoping he'll train her just like Luke went to Yoda to get help training. There are slight differences sure, but the biggest one is that Luke is in more pain then Yoda and Obi-wan were. But it's still the same. Yoda doesn't want to help Luke at first, he resists. Ultimately he does help but Luke is brash, head strong, and stubborn. He doesn't want to listen and refuses to believe in much of what Yoda has to say. Yoda has to constantly prove himself with moving X-Wings and explaining the force. Luke goes into the jungle with his weapon even though Yoda tells him not to. Does he listen? No not Luke. He then refuses to finish his training despite Yoda's pleading with him and runs off to save his friends from Vader and the Empire. Just like Rey runs off to try and turn Kylo Ren at the hands of the evil Supreme Leader Snoke. Luke of course handedly gets his butt kicked by Vader, doesn't save his friends at all, and learns the horrible truth of his father. Empire was not well received when it first came out either. Many were upset at how dark it was compared to the first. They complained that it ended on a sad note which prompted Lucas to have a more upbeat finale with Return of the Jedi. Yet now it's mostly considered to be the best of them all.
When Luke returns in the Return of the Jedi he never does finish his training. Perhaps this is the biggest reason he falls so far from his path and helps create Kylo Ren much like Obi-wan helped create Darth Vader. Luke is just like Obi-wan and Yoda and refuses to help at first but ultimately he can't help but teach young Rey. He still has too much good in him no matter how hard he fights it. Luke is a little more grim then Yoda and Obi-wan was but that's just like his character. Brash, head strong, and unwilling to listen to reason until it smacks him in the face just like in the original trilogy. For those that say this Luke isn't in line with his character at all I would argue that's not the case. Wasn't the reason the Jedi Order fell in the first place because of their overconfidence and (as Luke put it in his brilliant speech in TLJ) too vain thinking the Force belonged only to them? They didn't think the dark side could ever grow strong enough to stop them which is why Palpatine was able to do everything right in front of them? Luke in Return of the Jedi is so full of himself at the end that he stands against the Emperor and Vader and tosses away his Lightsaber because he's now a Jedi. Had Vader not intervened the Emperor would have killed him. It makes sense that same overconfidence would extend in his teachings to Ben Solo.It also make perfect sense that Luke wouldn't blame Ben Solo but instead put the full blame on himself. This is Han and Leia's son after all. The weight of is failure is too much for him to bare. The stubborn Luke isn't capable of handling that weight.
There are many who will be upset that Snoke dies too soon, that Leia should have died on the bridge, that Kylo Ren is not a strong enough villain or even that the Jedi do not have the abilities that Luke uses in the movie (haven't we always seen a progression with Force powers? Vader reads mines in Empire then we learn the Emperor can shoot lightning from his hands in Jedi). Some will probably even say the plot is stupid or that there are too many unanswered questions. I'm betting many will also be mad that Rey isn't of a strong background like the daughter of Ben Kenobi. I would argue that these are more to do with heightened expectations and wouldn't make the movie better or even more compelling. Darth Maul was a cool villain sure, but he just looked cool and fought well. Snoke was menacing but beyond that what was he? He created his own downfall the way he used Kylo Ren. I argue that Kylo is a better villain having killed his master.
The new Trilogy we are witnessing is not about Han or Luke or Leia. All three of those people are now dead in one way or another and their story was already told. The trilogy was never supposed to be about the Skywalkers. They are in the movie sure, but this trilogy is about Rey, Poe and Finn fighting the First Order and Kylo Ren. Personally I'm happy to see we won't have to go into the next movie with the teasing of whether Kylo Ren will turn or not. We saw that already. We got that answer already. He's not turning. In fact I argue that Kylo Ren has turned into a fantastic villain. We saw how powerful Snoke was, how Rey was no match for him, but he was killed by Kylo. Someone who was devious enough to trick his master like most Jedi who turn to the dark side do. He's stepped out of the shadows of Darth Vader. He was smarter than his master. He no longer has Luke Skywalker to deal with now that he's dead. He has taken over the First Order. He'll hunt down Rey and the Rebels with a furiousity that will be compelling and powerful. We've seen Kylo murder without thought, without hesitation. How interesting would it be to see Kylo still Snokes lapdog in the next movie? I look forward to the next movie and enjoyed the Last Jedi. It surprised me on a number of levels. It's ok if you didn't like it, but consider the similarities and try to rethink it. It's better than you think.
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As a die hard Star Wars fan, I can safely say that I hate die hard Star Wars fans. The fans are ridiculous (as am I but for different reasons.) I have seen the original Star Wars trilogy so many times that the VHS tape wouldn't play properly anymore. The picture itself began to look like it had been dragged down miles of dirt road. We'll just say I've seen it more than once. I had toys and other Star Wars apparel as a kid but I didn't read the books because Star Wars was meant to be a series of movies and if it isn't in the movie, it doesn't count (sorry Star Wars geeks.) I just watched The Last Jedi and I liked it. I realize that it has "robbed people of their childhood" and "ruined Star Wars forever" and that it's "the worst movie ever made" but is it really that bad or are you just too dumb to see the point of the movie? At the end of the day, Star Wars is a series of space-traveling soap operas with classical music, typical fantasy characters and explosions. The Last Jedi delivered on all fronts and attempted (successfully in my opinion) to be more. To get a better sense of my feelings towards this film, I should briefly describe how I felt about the others:
The Phantom Menace: "It's a kid's movie."
Verdict: The worst Star Wars movie I have seen but far from the worst film I've seen. Anybody seen Manos, the Hands of Fate? That's a craptasterpiece worthy of 1-2 stars. The Phantom Menace had production value at least. Grade: D
Attack of the Clones: "Filler."
Verdict: It was boring. Grade: D+
Revenge of the Sith: "Imperfect but redeeming film."
Verdict: Horribly flawed but at least things happened in it. To be fair to this movie, it had to cover a lot of ground after the first two movies went nowhere fast. Grade: C (C's still get degrees.)
A New Hope: "The most fantastic feast for the eyes in cinematic history."
Verdict: Yeah, pretty much. Grade: A
The Empire Strikes Back: "The best of the series."
Verdict: It's a dark and dreary masterpiece. Grade: A+
Return of the Jedi: "Add the previous two films together and this is the result."
Verdict: Good+Good=Good. Grade: A-
The Force Awakens: "A New Hope on Steroids."
Verdict: I feel like I had already seen this movie before but I didn't care because it was still good and if it can work once, it can probably work again. Grade: B+
Rogue One: Doesn't count because it is a Star Wars movie, not Star Wars (hence the differing credits, music etc., in case you couldn't put the pieces together.) That said, I liked it a lot because it was a downer and I am morbid like that. Grade: A-
The Last Jedi: "The anti-Star Wars Star Wars movie."
Verdict: I loved it! Grade: A- (may climb on the second go around.)
I liked this movie because it was the polar opposite of all the other movies (Empire and Rogue One were the closest in most respects.) Everyone whined that the last one was a reboot of the original. Now, everyone is saying that this one didn't fit in. That's just plain dumb. If you don't want what you already had and you don't want what you've never had, then there's no pleasing you and good luck making your own fan film about how it would really go down...great. I'm sure it will be certified fresh. I will be sure to miss it.
For those of you with a brain but questions, allow me to answer them. I have seen a lot of people tear this movie apart for various reasons and I will address some of those reasons now:
The jokes: There weren't nearly as many as people seem to think and most of them landed which is more than I can say for the prequels. They weren't nearly as immature as Jar Jar Bink's ridiculous antics and were more on a par with the smart ass comments of Empire. I say that's a win.
Leia flying was weird: It made sense to me that someone who has always felt the power of the force might be able to use it at some point. Using it in an attempt to save your own life makes more sense to me than using it as an aggressive tool (which leads to the dark side and blah, blah, blah.) Plus, it was kind of cool just to see Leia actually use the force for once.
...but Carrie Fisher is dead, why wouldn't they write her out at the end?: The movie was already made and about to be released. They'll figure that out later.
Snoke's death and lack of character development: He didn't matter. Snoke's background is irrelevant and so was his future. He's not the point of the story. He's a tool and for that matter, so was the Emperor before the prequels gave him a back story. The struggle between Rey and Ren and their internal struggles and conflicts is the entire point of this new series and the point of all of the movies really. Snoke was an easy way to introduce Ren as a master of the dark side of the force. That was his only real purpose. How did he know how to use the dark side of the force? Who cares? How did any of them learn? Someone passed down their knowledge to them. The point is that he did know and he passed on the knowledge to Kylo Ren before he was killed. In death, he also solidified Ren (even more) of being a spoiled, psychotic brat with his own aspirations to rule the galaxy. Ren reveals himself as an anarchist which means that all bets are off as far as what he's willing to do to have his way. Control is often less terrifying than chaos. I liked it. As for why he didn't see his own death coming, even powerful beings are still able to be stabbed in the back by the person they least suspect (Julius Caesar.) Granted, Snoke has powers that could have assisted him but when you don't see it coming, it's hard to duck.
Rose was bad: She wasn't worse than little Anakin or Jar Jar Binks (and they weren't even the worst characters in that movie.) I thought she was fine. At least she didn't fumble around like a court jester.
Luke does the opposite of what you would expect: Yeah, he basically became Yoda (which makes sense to me anyways.) He was reluctant to help at first but came around. By the way, Luke's method of saving the day was brilliant!
There's no big explosion or awesome lightsaber duels: That's right, there isn't! The movie tricked you into thinking there would be some epic sword fights but it fooled you. I enjoy being surprised. I thought it was a great twist. Plus, how many times do you want to see the same fight revamped? As for the explosions, everyone complained about The Force Awakens ripping off A New Hope. This movie didn't rip off much of anything. That makes it at least somewhat original.
Luke's demise ruined your childhood: He's a ghost like Yoda and Obi-Wan. Relax...he'll show up again.
Rey's parents: Again, they don't matter. It shouldn't matter who your parents were. The point is that she's tuned in. I loved this anti-plot twist as well. I thought it was cool that they made her back story underwhelming. Star Wars is incredibly incestuous! It needs some heroes who come out of nowhere and don't have significant parents or upbringings. By the way, Kylo Ren could have been lying in case you hadn't thought of that.
The pacing is slow: For the MTV crowd it's slow as hell. For fans of the film, 2001 (which is a great film by the way,) this pace is like lightning. So, it depends on your attention span but as Star Wars movies go, yeah, it was on the slow side. Taxi Driver was pretty slow for a while too.
The "high speed chase" is slow: Perfect! This movie had small explosions, slow chase scenes and anti-climactic plot twists. It was everything Star Wars hadn't been yet. The First Order couldn't use their light speed to their advantage because they'd blow right past them and for the rebellion it was a brilliant (although less used) tactical move to gain position or buy time rather than outrun their opponent. Smart!
Where was the rest of the First Order's fleet?: You got me. I was wondering that too. I didn't say the movie was flawless.
The sub plot was pointless: It's about damn time one of the rebel's plans went nowhere! The rebels are constantly going for kill shots that always seem to work out for the most part. This was the first time the rebels truly failed. So, yeah, you could say it was pointless but I think it served a great purpose. It actually proved that the rebels are human. The fail also helped boost the feeling of impending doom.
...but why wouldn't she just reveal her plan and spare them the effort of trying to destroy the tracker?: The reason she didn't reveal her plan is because they wouldn't have listened anyway. They're used to winning through aggression. Even when told no, they didn't stop. Do you really think they would have if someone explained why they said no? Not likely, they'd still try to win, not just survive (which is what ended up happening.)
I loved this movie because it was the exact opposite of everything that everyone was expecting (much to the dismay of countless fans.) This was a thinking man's Star Wars movie, one for the anti-heroes not the heroes. If you didn't like this and you didn't like The Force Awakens, then you just don't like Star Wars. One was the best of what you remembered (revamped obviously,) the other was nothing you had ever seen in a Star Wars movie. Guess what the third one will be? My thought would be a cool combination of the first two...but then again, it could progress even more.
The fans will cry over their shattered dreams but as sad as it may be for them, it's already in the books. There's no changing it now. For all the "Luke wouldn't have done that," people, remember, as good as Luke was, he was flawed, as all the characters are. That's what made him so good. In this movie, he was also flawed. If you really hate this movie then nothing anyone will tell you will change your mind but if you feel disillusioned or thought it could have been better, consider what I have written. Again, do you want the same movies repeated forever or do you want to see a potentially more interesting and still exciting future for the franchise?
Kylo Ren did tell you to let go of the past, didn't he?
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Most of the reviews have already said it all. It was the first time in my life with a movie with "Star Wars" in the title (I was about to write "a Star Wars movie" but this one is certainly not) when:
I wanted to leave the theatre and barely managed to stay till the end
I wanted my money back
I was bored
I felt ashamed of taking my friends for this
Besides not being Star Wars at all, this is just a terrible movie generally. A huge spit in the face to the whole mass culture legacy.
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The thing is, Disney doesn't know what to do with Star Wars, except push feminist agenda. One by one, all men (especially old ones) of power die out, in meaningless and silly ways, while women prevail. Men do silly, immature, irresponsible things, while women save them, scold them, do great and mature things, sacrifice for the greater good, etc.
Otherwise, it's a Rian Johnson movie. Interesting, visually appealing, with things that "break the genre", but full of holes, inconsistencies and, at long last, a shallow and "meh" story.
Let me bring out a few things other's haven't. First, let's think about Snoke's comments about Kylo and Rey:
If Snoke is correct that Kylo's raise in the Dark will bring rise to his counterpart in the Light, then who is Snoke's counterpart? It actually can't be Luke, he has "excluded" himself from the Force...
why does he want to kill Luke? This will just bring about a rise of someone else to replace Luke? Isn't keeping Luke "out of the picture" actually the _perfect_ way to rule the Galaxy?
The whole "Luke rationale"... the idea is OK - he's hiding, has given up, then at the last moment changes his mind and sacrifices himself. But:
if that's the case, why did he leave the map behind?
he had a moment of weakness. Don't all men? OK, go, get drunk, go to a desert island (planet), gather your thoughts, talk to the wise ones (Yoda et al). Then, after a few years, figure it out and do something. Don't let your best friend and only sister out to dry. You don't have to train new Jedi, you're a bad teacher. But, go help out. IOW, it had to be something, much, much deeper to have such an effect
Luke wants Jedi to end because they thought they "own the Force". But, they didn't and he should have learnt that from the books and Yoda/Kenobi (Anakin/Qui-Gon). Also 'they are a failure'. So, they were defeated by Palpatine, after a thousand generations maintaining peace across the Galaxy. You call _that_ a failure? What's a success then? 10 thousands generations?
And, at long last, why don't Kenobi or Anakin appear to Luke, but only Yoda? Anakin knows a lot about the Dark Side and Kenobi is the only Jedi "with a perfect morale compass".
For the last tid-bit about the feminist agenda: Yoda says that Rey has all she needs for success in her (and Luke thought her failure). Well, other Jedi had it, they were trained in how to _use_ it, not how to _get_ it. So, a woman is the only Jedi in a thousand generations, that doesn't need _any_ training. All other spent years and years of rigorous training. But, no, not Rey. She is perfect "just as she is".
I don't want to explore more, because in Rian Johnson's films, you quickly see that it's a futile effort.
This film is about "letting go of the past". Well, it succeeds. After this movie, Star Wars is the past and we need to learn to let it go.
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1/10
As the prequels proved terrible story telling is not covered up by special effects and CGI
I cannot understand how the critics like this film? unless they had incentives to do so of course :)
I am not going to repeat what has been said by many on here already but here are my pros and cons.
Pros
Some fantastic action scenes and awesome sound track.
It was not another death star movie.
Cons
Plot felt very mixed up in places with some moments not very believable (e.g how Leia escapes death) and didn't make a lot of sense at times. For me this was highlighted by characters in the movie having to explain to other characters what they should do/or were doing next and why! Didn't seem to flow and fit together as well as the Force Awakens. Pacing seemed too rushed in places and too slow in others.
Slowest movie space chase in history. It was so boring and tedious at times.
Some of the dialogue seemed really cheesy and was a bit cringeworthy at times.
Quite a few one-liners and jokes that didn't work for me at all. This is not Guardians of the Galaxy but the director seemed to think it was acceptable to try that kind of humour. It just proved that comedy is the one of the hardest things to do right!
I think this movie greatly missed the Han Solo and Chewie comedy double act that the Force Awakens had. That does work well!
Some of the decisions made by characters seemed really stupid beyond belief probably just to bring together plot lines. The casino plot line is just stupid and proved unnecessary filler.
Very very disappointing. Save your money and time. Wanted to love it as Star Wars has been a part of my life since I was 7 when I remember seeing the original. Absolutely gutted! Cinema is meant to pick you up! this left me feeling very low and unhappy.
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Once upon a time a creator of beautiful childhood memories - Disney - took such a monumental piece of cinematographic history, Lucas' "child", pi**ed on it and threw it away in order to create an insignificant, dissapointing excuse for a Star Wars sequel. I didn't hate The Force Awakens, I found it quite interesting actually. However The Last Jedi not just failed to deliver, it failed in almost every aspect.
Storyline is (as it should be) dark, the freedom of galaxy is at stakes (once again) and all hope is lost. It all sounds great - on paper, but you don't get that terrifying feeling or the seriousness of the situation at any point of the movie since it is poorly executed and overwhelmed with annoying, unnecessary and (at some points) absolutely idiotic dialogues and humor. I almost walked out after the opening scene. It wasn't clever, or funny and the actors (or extras) that appeared were so bad that it hurt. Anyone who tought that scene should be filmed, and that it should open the movie, should be shot immediately. And to sum everything thats bad, we still have the pathetic, frustrated, emo Dark Lord and the General Hux who still treats this "powerful" Lord like his little bi*ch. What happened to this universe? Vader, or any other Dark Lord would force choke the sh*t out of him if he acted out of order. Oh, and there is this mistical, "almighty", "all-knowing" *SUPREME LEADER* Snoke... really? It took less effort to kill him than his guards! Repetitive scenes, too many "close calls", but seriously, they pushed it over the edge this time and it was a looong stretch for almost every one of those. The movie is an overall disaster.
It's not all so bad, the movie is visually stunning, the stars of the movie are great and there are some good scenes, but unfortunately that is not enough to save this one. My first thought when the movie ended was "I have to watch original 6 titles in order to push this cr*p out of my head."
And on that terrible dissapointment - it's time to wrap this one up.
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I watched the movie yesterday with my brother. We have never walked out of cinema so disappointed and so speechless.
From the get go the audience is confronted with a disjointed story, scenes that build up only to fall apart quickly, unrealistic characters (or badly cast actors), painful and cringe-worthy puns and humor, and repetitions of past scenarios.
Warning spoilers follow from here onwards.
Here is a roundup of the nonsense:
1) The movie starts off with a massive new type of ship belonging to the empire. A Dreadnought - looks big, deadly and you think cool there is going to be action now. Along comes Poe, in this little fighter, picking off the canons on the Dreadnaught and for some reason the Empire, with all its resources, manpower and organization did not think to give this massive ship defenses or any escort. Super realistic, well done.
2) The Rebellion sends off a small band of X-Wings and bombers to attack the Dreadnaught. For some reason the bombers fly slowly, you know because we have air friction and gravity in space. On top of that they are also designed to drop their payload (round bombs) downwards, you know because... gravity Super realistic, well done.
3) At some point in the movie Princess Leias command ship is attacked. The command center is bombed. Leia is blasted into outer space. We then have her floating around space, in slow motion, is she dead or is she not? Camera zoom in to her seemingly frozen face, then her hand.oh look a twitch. She then uses the force to pull herself back into the ship fully awake and aware while a few seconds ago she was seemingly unconscious. This scenes just looked comical.
4) Another amazing highlight. Vice Admiral Holdo. Never seen such a miscast character. Played by Laura Dern running around in an evening dress with dyed hair. Here my brain because exhausted and I could not keep up the willing suspension of disbelief. I am all for putting some gender balance into films, but this was so in your face I cringed with shame. She looked and acted nothing like a battle hardened admiral but more like she had just come back from a Gala Dinner with DJ Bobo. Throughout the movie she looked like she was about to cry. Painful.
5) Hoping for something new? Forget it, once again we have the Empire, with all its might, resources, man and woman power making dumb decision after another and having all their plans outsmarted by a band of misfit rebels. This aspect is getting old and boring.
6) Humor. Was painful. Far too many scenes of people trying hard not to take themselves or others seriously while trying to say something funny. All that was missing was a pause by the actors and fake laughter in the background and the 80s sitcom experience would have been complete. That's the level reached by The Last Jedi.
I could go on, but it is too painful.
Overall the story felt fake, unrealistic and forced. Everything about it was forced. Total let-down.
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7/10
A Simple Honest Review (Minor spoilers so proceed with caution)
Never felt compelled to write a review before but so many trolls giving 1/10 and 10/10 on this I thought id just give the pros and cons as I see them.
PRO
>Its visually stunning some of the best SFX i've seen in a movie
>The acting is good-great throughout
>Quite a few surprises, nothing quite goes the way you expect it to.
>Funny in places (although it goes a little too far at times)
>More original than TFA (still a lot of call backs though)
>Over all the story is good and well written, if a little loose.
>The action/fight scenes are very entertaining and well done/shot.
>Lots of Lump in your throat moments (some a little forced)
>A Fitting emotional farewell to one (maybe two) beloved characters.
CON
>It's over long, this movie could have been easily trimmed down or tightened up to 2 hours.
> Too many story lines the movie should have focused on the Rebel fleet, Rey/Luke and Kylo-ren.
>Finn's story-line felt like "got to give him something to do" it would have been much better if he had stayed with the Rebels and helped Poe defend the ship or something (maybe a Phasma lead boarding party to defend against).
>The whole Canto Bight (casino planet) part felt dangerously close to prequel/kid movie territory.
>The pacing was "off" not bad but very "off" (Kinda hard to explain)
Overall I think it's probably the worst of the new movies (including RO) but it's still pretty good even when compared to the OT and very good compared to the prequels. Hopefully when the trilogy is complete TFA and the 3rd movie will pull it up a little as part of one big story.
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When this movie started, the audience was whooping and clapping. When it ended there were about 5 faint clappers. I think that sums up the audience's feelings for this movie.
The Pros:
Visually this is a masterpiece. The last fight sequence on the planet was beautifully choreographed to make use of the environment. The first space battle was great, even though the plot holes were irritating. Also, the Kylo and Rey fight against the royal guard was really cool. It was also nice to have a Star Wars that was not almost entirely parallel to it's predecessor. Not to mention, even though terribly executed in my opinion, it was nice to see that the screenwriters took chances on darker themes like Po throwing a coup d'tat that eventually fails, The Code-breaker turning on Fin and Rose, Po watching a bunch of his friends get blown up by Kylo Ren, and Rey learning her parents sold her off. Story wise this was refreshing. There were funny jokes too, as I'll point out later; too many.
.
The Cons:
Oh the cons. What probably makes this movie just so aggravating, is that everything I want out of a Star Wars movie is there in the story, but so terribly executed. Subtlety was tossed out the window, and now were watching Lea pull herself out of space and make a full recovery using the force like its nothing. WTF. I'm sorry, but that scene brought forth so much nerd rage, I couldn't control myself. Seriously though, expect a lot of lazy writing from now on that just has the force magically resolving things with absolutely no subtlety. Getting away from Lea destroying the force as a surreal entity; the Rose and Finn arc, besides the very beginning, was terrible and threw the pace of the entire movie off. If the entire trip to the "Las Vegas Planet" was taken out, this movie would definitely improve in terms of pacing. As I mentioned before the dark themes of the film were screwed up big time: Po watches all his friends get blown up, and he's barely phased at all. Milk those dark themes, let them play out, not everything has to be kid friendly. I have a lot o f more specific problems with the movie, like plot holes, but I'll leave that out because that might be too subjective.
Conclusion:
This was an amazing visual experience, but a terrible story ultimately makes this film no better than a "turn your brain off and enjoy" film. From a more observant view, one can also notice the re-branding Disney is attempting, since all the OG fans are grown up, they are trying to adapt the film to the kids of today who, apparently to Disney, like explosions over a good story. You can notice this in different ways. Of coarse most blantly, a meta-piece of the movie is about dumping the old ways and continuing with new: A theme that is developed well, but shows Disney has no intent of being careful with Star Wars otherwise perfect core. Also, you'll probably notice more subtle re-branding: Mocking "May the Force be With You" and propping up the phrase "God-speed rebels."
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8/10
An exciting and emotional addition to the Star Wars universe
In every way this film improves on its immediate prequel, The Force Awakens. I attribute that to the previous film's careful, almost shot-for-shot recreation of Episode IV, the original SW film. While I enjoyed TFA a great deal, and I understand the reasoning of essentially rebooting the franchise by reintroducing all its main themes and plot points, it did feel a bit over-familiar to a long-time fan. But The Last Jedi takes off from that beginning at top speed and delivers an exciting ride full of twists, dangers, spy missions, humor (rather a lot of that!), possible romance, and drama. Mark Hamill is excellent as a bitter and reclusive older Luke who slowly rediscovers his hope for the future. The new characters all step up to stronger roles, with an intriguing subplot between Rey and Kylo Ren and a great turn by new arrival Rose. There are important discussions on the workings of the Force and the place of the Jedi, and an ending that seems to leave the Resistance at its lowest ebb but contains great hope from unexpected sources. I did think it tried a bit too hard to be snarkily funny, and it plays very fast and loose with physics, but i don't think those are major flaws in a film that is so very much fun.
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6/10
I still perfer the Yoda in The Revenge of the Sith
The corny humor came across tacky, especially in the first scene. The plot felt so hollowed out and boring. Not to mention the majority of the dialogue was god awful. Honestly, there were good parts in the movie as well as bad parts, but the bad parts were so bad that it was hard for me to enjoy the good parts.
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I was so waiting for this movie, just as I did for TFA and I knew JJ was out so I was convinced that it can only be good. And now, three hours after watching the movie I'm not yet sure whether this was the worst Star Wars I have ever seen or TFA.
-- The Plotholes -- (Obviously, from now on SPOILERS ahead.)
Well, there are so many of them - again - that it is a disgrace in itself. The movie picks up literally after the events of TFA, like there is less time between the the movies, than there is between Rogue One and New Hope. The two major story arcs are: the Struggle of the Rebel Fleet and Luke's island. Now, there is no better way to put this: the two arcs are not happening within the same amount of time. It is quite clear that on the island, days are passing, while with the fleet only a handful of hours.
Then there is a third story arc, where Finn and the girl (don't really know her name) have an idea, after skyping with Maz, that they should go to a planet, while the First Order is literally on their tails, to find a man, bring him back, make him break into the system of the capital ship of the Order and escape. Now this whole terrible idea takes them like a night. Of course they manage to do all of this, whatever.
But there is this guy, Benicio del Toro (we don't really know his name either) who later betrayes them, but I don't actually get how... The betrayel is portrayed as that the guy makes a deal with Brienne of Tarth, tells her about the escape plan of the Rebels, which he got from Finn and in return get paid. The problem is that, not only him, but Finn is not aware of this Rebel plan either. It is crystal clear they can't. This is rubbish.
Earlier in the movie, Hux, the resident imbecile fails to destroy the Rebels, Snoke is angry about it, but later on the imbecile tells Snoke about a plan, that they are capable of following the Rebels in hyperspace. But Snoke must have known about that, because the device was on his ship.
And there are so many more, annoying plotholes, which I'm not gonna explain all, because I'd get a stroke.
-- Characters --
Supreme Leader Snoke, is in the movie. Why? To die a pointless death. But it is not the worst of it. We've been waiting two, TWO years for this movie to finally get information about the guy and finally in this installation... Well, we didn't get anything. Like... really... we did not get ANYTHING.
By the way, he looks awful... I mean, not because of his scars, but his motion capture is just so bad.
Admiral Ackbar, is in the movie. Why? To die a pointless death. And by the way this one hurts a lot, as he is and has always been a fan favourite.
Captain Phasma is in the movie. Why? To die a pointless death. I'm not willing to say more, because there is nothing to talk about her.
Luke is finally actively in the movie, but I'm not satisfied with his arc. He is just not the Luke we knew from the original triology.
Leia is in the movie. She dies, but than she doesn't. She uses the force to stay alive in space, which is remarkable. I don't know how she did it, but it is remarkable.
Maz is in the movie. Guess what? We do not get to know anything of her. She is a badass, but that is all.
Yoda is in the movie!!! I was super excited when I saw his head from the back. And then they showed us what they call Yoda. He looks awful. He honestly is ugly, because of bad CGI. Btw, now he is all mighty, he can control thunders, which is cool.
-- Other stuff --
There are some good jokes in the movie, but for a Star Wars it felt a bit too much.
And they pushed the cuteness level to the top, in a very-very bad way. Those chicken-penguins are properly annoying.
I think I'll finish now, but I could go on for hours I'm afraid... And what is the most annoying in this, is that with the backing of Disney - which means infinite money - they could do something SO good. And they are cabale of that as Rogue One was properly amazing.
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7/10
It is not bad but still it is not better than original or the prequels.
I dont write reviews that much and havent wrote one for the TFA because i was divided in opinion. I didnt know wheter to like it or hate it. Now i know. But this time i have to defend the movie because it didn t deserve the hate it got.
Everybody in the movie tried their best including new director who brought some fresh ideas and turnovers in storyline which i found very interesting. I think we shouldnt blame the director because JJ Abrams played it safe in the first one and thus made it dificult for anybody who was next in order to direct.
In TFA Abrams made a copy of new hope and except the character of Kylo Ren and much needed return of Han solo and Chewie didn t give us anything exciting ,intriguing or fresh. Instead he gave us a copy of luke skylwalker in female form , copy of a death star , copy of r2d2 , same enemies (stormtroopers,supreme leader) bla bla the list goes on. I have to add that the biggest problem was that characters were bad. I didnt feel connected with Rey , Finn was also very boring and non charismatic didnt care about him , maz katana also felt very unneeded , Poe was mediocre at best , Snoke non present .... Final battle was also very cartoony...
Having exposed all these problems i have to say that it was very difficult for a new director Rian to step in to this mess. And i think he was very brave to follow his vision and tried to do something different. He gave us the longest movie, he gave us very gritty Luke , he made us care for the villain Kylo Ren , he killed of the main villain which was a ballsiest and very cool move in my opinion. It wasnt a great film but after that mess disney and JJ have started in TFA i think it is the best we could have got.
This film has few bad elements .For example we dont see lightsaber fights that much anymore which should be the crucial part of every star wars movie. We should have always have more of these fights and duels and somehow they keep making less and less. I dont understand this. And big spoiler ahead , they shouldnt have killed of Luke , much better way to go would be to leave Luke for one more movie and let Leia rest deservingly in peace.
For me a big improvement over TFA and i am looking forward to seeing what Rian Johnson has to offer in episode 9.
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1/10
Mark Hamill is on record saying the new trilogy sucks!!
Mark Hamill compared the new Star Wars trilogy to the Transformers movies. His quote was:
"It doesn't matter if it's of high quality, what matter is if it makes money."
That quote explains how this movie was so bad that I will not watch anymore Star Wars films in the theater or ever! I will not even watch Avengers: Infinity War in the theaters because of this atrocity!
However, people will still watch them because Disney own everything and will pay every critic to praise their movies. I will not give money to Disney!!!!
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You waited long and hard for answers, revelations, resolutions - anything! And you got it all, with a twist.
The twist being that they were far more boring than anything you could imagine. Or indeed, that thousands of people on the internet imagined.
Snoke has no background (or wasn't given any); Rey's parents were nobodies; all-powerful, mysterious Luke gives way to this kind of wimpy sociopath; Knights of Ren - who, what?
Aside from the general letdown of Johnson's rubbish unexpected twists, my other main gripe is Finn and Rose's pointless subpar, sub-adventure. What incredible look they ended up in that cell with that codebreaker, eh? Such fortune, am I right? Terrible terrible writing.
And what's the deal with Finn? Claims he was just some sort of First Order janitor, but knows every intricate detail of every First Order ship with absolute genius-level knowledge, as if he designed them himself. I found him really unlikable in this episode.
What else was there... Holdo, Laura Dern. What an unnecessary character. Speaking of pointless characters, Captain Phasma dies maybe (*shrugs*). Oh and the Yoda puppet, lol.
It's not all bad, there are some great fights and action sequences. Those little owl things on Ahch-To were pretty funny. But ultimately conclusions craved were killed off in most unsatisfactory, underwhelming fashion.
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Honestly, I wonder if director Rian Johnson ever watched a Star Wars movie before getting this gig. And J.J. Abrams hasn't done us any favors either as Executive Producer. Like the first seasons of 'Lost', 'The Force Awakens' was brilliant, when Abrams had heavy involvement in the project. Then, just like the last seasons of 'Lost', where they needed to add subtitles just so the audience could figure out what was going on, 'The Last Jedi' seems to have suffered the same fate when Abrams became distracted by other projects and largely delegated creative control of the project. I have never forgiven him for the disappointing conclusion of 'Lost'. Let's hope Abrams doesn't screw this one up the same way with Episode IX.
The story line in 'The Last Jedi' is clunky, like how does Rey get from the Battle Cruiser to the Millennium Falcon? The character development is inconsistent and awkward (mainly Poe), and why does Benecio del Toro's character have a stutter. And why are we only now seeing certain Jedi abilities that we have never seen IN THE PREVIOUS SEVEN MOVIES. Overall, the whole thing seems like a rushed and hacked together gap filler between Episode VII and Episode IX. Maybe this is just the story that needed to be told as the penultimate episode working up to Episode IX, which will now need to be super awesome to make up for this disappointment. I would say you could almost skip this one and just wait for Episode IX and not feel like you missed anything, IT WAS THAT BAD.
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2 years of anticipation for one of the worst wild goose chases in cinema history.
The burning and seemingly important questions raised in TFA, thrown off the edge of a cliff like some history enriched relic light saber.
The so-called mysteries of TFA that saved the day in a re-hashed storytelling of another new hope, all gone to an unsatisfying conclusive graveyard.
Killing Snoke so early on though for me was the biggest flaw of the film. Good against evil films are nothing without a rock solid villain, preferably one that lives to near the end of the film.
Kylo Ren is still a clueless kid and needs more time to develop into the new supreme leader of the first order and with Snoke dead so early on is a bit like Anikin taking over from Sideous at the end of Revenge of the Sith. With so many key characters gone in this movie, it left me feeling lost.
I think it has left the franchise lost too. I bet George Lucus is thinking, "See, I told you the prequels weren't that bad.
E9, whatever it is going to be called, has to perform a miracle in order to save SW from extinction.
So many people are hating TLJ, myself included. I came away from watching it, not caring what happens next. People have invested time and energy in the anticipation of this saga and RJ has let us down on a biblical scale.
There were a few enjoyable scenes in this movie but they were completely overshadowed by a lack of care in the story line. The questions we had after watching TFA just ridiculed as "not important anymore".
GL shouldn't have sold out to Disney. TLJ has done more damage than any previous SW film ever did.
Yep, it should've permanently stopped at Return of the Jedi.
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3/10
If everyone is super, no one is. (Syndrome - Incredibles)
Instead of making Rey epic, they made her ordinary. But the whole reason Luke and Leia were epic is because they were the offspring of Anakin? The amount of lore and cannon the writers and director take a dump on in this movie is epic. Participation ribbon social crap has killed what was truly special about the Star Wars universe.
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No need to be a fan to dislike this movie, awful script and edition, awful new character, awful all the way, soundtrack is good but but pacing horrible....Rian johnson was definitly an extremely bad choice.
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This is my honest review of this movie and it will contain SPOILERS. I maybe change my opinion about things later but this is how I feel about it for now. In this review I'm discussing things that standed out the most to me. This review includes my first impressions and more in depth thoughts.
First impressions was:
Visually stunning
great performances
It had great humor
Amazing environments
Great lightsaber fights and great space battles
Yodas return was amazing
Sad to see Snoke and Luke die
Lastly, why have some small annoying birds literally screaming in your face with the most annoying sound ever. It was so disturbing and did nothing good to the movie but bad (wanna be jar jar birds).
More in depth thoughts a few days later after have thought about the movie.
Pros:
Yoda's return. I was geeking out of happiness when Yoda came back and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw him. I started crying instantly of happiness. It really made the movie so much batter for me to his return. he brought some nice lines and it felt like the Yoda from Empire was back. He had his old funny humor and still was the wisest of them to.
Luke's last battle. Even if he sadly died he got an acceptable end. He had a cool and visually stunning battle against Kylo with some nice movies and really cool effects. In the end Luke won thanks to being the wisest of them to. His send of was exactable because it was the same as Ben Kenobi got, and it leaves the door open for Luke to come back as a force ghost to guide Rey. That's the only reason for me that his death was acceptable.
Reys and Kylos battle against Snokes bodyguards. This fight was the best choreographed sword fight I've seen in a Star Wars movie. With some new moves that I've never seen before and it was executed beautifully. The set that the fight took place in was so cool. With the big red background (so menacing), Snokes big throne and his bodyguards that had a really cool design. It was just breathtaking.
The Environments. The Environments was stunningly made. It hade some great set pieces especially the Snoke fight scene, Canto Bight had some great sets especially the casino place with all practical aliens and whatnot. The end fight was so amazing, a really nice call back to Hoth with all the white open area and the walkers. What made that scene even better was the red salt thing that came out of the ground when you touched it.
Cons:
Luke throws away his old lightsaber. With other words Disney throw away that epic cliff scene that they had built up for in ep 7. It felt like that they just applied bad writing and just jokes away let's continue with the movie. It had great potential to be much more than just a bad joke.
The movie didn't do justice to Luke. Luke basically was an old grumpy man and it didn't do any good to the character whatsoever. Towards the end of the movie he became more like himself the young Luke that we wanted to see from the beginning but we didn't get to se. When the time came he showed that he was back, he had embraced his young badassness, did his awesome fight but in the end it didn't matter because he still was going to die. Yes he did it to save the last remains of the resistance, but they could just have written the end of the movie differently so both Luke and the resistance could have stayed alive. Although Marks acting was on point and it was great but sadly it got overshadowed by the bad route the character was taken.
Snoke. Nothing bad about the character I liked him he had great potential of being a good villain, the only problem was that he died! WASTE OF CHARACTER. Image Luke and Ray against Snoke and Kylo in a battle, would have been perfect but sadly no.
Last small thing where was Kylos villain gang, nothing was told about them hopefully they will be in ep 9.
This doesn't mean that it was a bad movie. I still loved it and it was a really good movie. I had a great time watching this movie with my friends. There was only this things about snoke and Luke I preferred that wouldn't happen. This isn't the only bad or good things about the movie there's lots more things that I didn't choose to discuss. I choose to discuss the things that felt the most important to me and that I cared the most about. Example a scene that I cared a lot about was the scene where Luke throws away his old lightsaber. They had built up to that moment through the hole ep 7 on that epic cliff scene. Later in 8 they just throws it away, it disturbed me deeply. Yes it's a little thing but I care about the small details in life especially when it comes to my baby Star Wars. Because in the end every little thing becomes a bigger thing (you gotta enjoy the little things). Any way It was still a good movie and maybe in the future I'll change my opinion about things but this how I feel about The Last Jedi for now.
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My expectations were high about this movie, but I couldn't be more disappointed. The story was too simple and boring. Finn and Rose could have benn cut out entirely and nothing would have been changed at all. It was too long anyway. The jokes were forced, although sometimes they were funny, but overall just ruined the experience. I really missed a lightsaber duel from the movie, that would been great. Overall the action and the visuals were great (except a puppet's ghost, that looked strange for me..) and some scene were epic, but Star Wars should be more than a stunning action movie. The characters were boring and acted stupid, there were more plot holes than in the Force awekens and I couldn't belive, that is literally possible. The movie was too long not to put some twist in it, but these were the worst opportunitys, any fan theory would make it better. Although I trust in Rian Johnson, and hope he will make a better trilogy if it's his own project from beginning to end. And J.J. better fix the mistakes, but I think some year later this trilogy will be the worst from the three and people will appreciate the prequels more, because what Disney does just terrible.
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10/10
I don't get the negativity, but we're all different
Yeah. I gave it 10. It had everything I wanted and then some, so I seriously enjoyed it to the fullest. No, it's not exactly like the other films in the saga, but they shouldn't be either. If you just keep doing the same thing over and over again, it gets boring in the end. This was far from boring. It was intense. It was hilarious. It was unpredictable. I have been a star wars fan right from the start (when I was old enough to know what it was) and I'm not disappointed. Far from it. I love it. I love everything about it. But we all have different opinions on how we want a movie to be, can't satisfy everyone unfortunately. I'm in love with the characters, especially Kylo Ren, cause he seems so unique and different from what I've usually seen in any of the Star Wars movies or other movies for that matter. Adam Driver is a damn good actor, right along with Daisy, John, Oscar and Mark of course. I'm watching that again. And again. AND AGAIN, oh yeah, try and stop me.
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As a simple human being who just enjoys Star Wars for what it is and who doesn't want to reignite his childhood, this movie sucked pretty hard. Even though the production was high it still fundamentally fails in writing and characters. Everything that was build up in the last movie was dropped and shit on and so many unnecessary scenes and characters with no impact just for the sake of.
And also as a non white male I don't give a flying shit about your diversity (even though all upper people are white) I want some goddamn quality and not empathy!
I won't support any of the future star wars movies or products in general.
And don't tell me this movie is only for children or crap like this...Disney is fuckin aware who they are marketing this shit to. But if you wanna go that route than yes there are kids movies who are far more adult and doesn't insult our intelligence and have some respect and good writing.
I don't care if you want money but at least do your shit right!
In the end it appeals to nobody and will be forgotten in time.
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The Last Jedi, a great movie, a bad star wars film.
This is one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. It gave me more emotion than Interstellar did. Which was previously my number one favourite movie. The only reason I watch movies is for the emotion and pleasure. And this movie gave me so much pleasure. No matter how much you hate this movie, don't you think it was a shame you didn't feel the way I did and gain happiness from this?
So I do sympathise with you, the hater. So many things are off about this movie. At the end of the force awakens, you can see that Luke's expression was one of surprise and a sense of seriousness. He tilts his head downwards, and almost nods dramatically to Rey. But in The Last Jedi, he almost doesn't care and chucks the lightsaber that she gives. So there a lot of continuity errors. Most jarring was when Luke learned Han Solo was dead and there were no scenes to show exactly how that affected him. Was he sad? Angry? Guilty? Honestly, he seemed pretty chill about it, as if he's thinking, 'people die all the time'.
And there were just so many risky and bold moves that Rian did which I can understand would infuriate fans. Snoke dies almost instantly. And he seemed extremely powerful. Rian also did not explain his backstory. I'm not a star wars fan, so it didn't bug me. But I get it. It's like if Darth Vader died in empire's strikes back, and we never knew who he was or anything.
Another thing was Leia's force sensitive powers. These are deus ex machina tactics that are not good for a story's plausibility. We never learn about how Leia developed or strengthened these powers. And she nor anyone else comments on them ever again.
The similarities with empire's strikes back also angered fans, and I understand. The whole thing about Rey being trained is like Luke being trained, the thing about Rey's parents being nobody and the shock of that, is just like Luke finding out his Darth Vader is his dad. To me, these are beautiful metaphorical/thematic/artistic 'reflections' if you will of the previous movies. I don't find them displeasing.
There were also a lot of one liners, but I found them funny. Then again, it's easy to make me laugh so I guess that's why.
The biggest thing that fans hated is Luke's grumpiness and his change of character. Luke would never even think of hurting his own students just because he sensed the dark side in them. Granted, he stopped and regretted it. But fans say Luke would never do that. To me, fans are forgetting that Luke is several years older than he was in the original movies. He's seen a lot more shit. A lot more deaths. A lot more epic battles etc etc. And people obviously change. It's Rian's biggest risk and I think it's a beautiful and refreshing take on Luke's character.
These criticisms are valid and I empathise. This movie is a complete failure (Rian's favourite theme) of the Star Wars saga. But it's still a great movie with great shots and orgasmic levels of acting. Fans completely ignore and forget about Luke's epic return and his kiss on Leia's forehead. Don't forget that it was Carrie Fisher who wrote that!
And c'mon, don't tell me you didn't pee a little when they fired all their blasters on Luke and he came out unscathed? That's some dragonball epicness right there. And the choreography of the fight between Kylo/Rey and the Praetorian guards was simply amazing. And yes, they are NOT the knights of ren. That's why they're easy to kill.
The only disappointing thing I would say was the ending. I really didn't care about a kid who had the force. I feel like those extra few seconds could have been focused on Rey and Finn bonding for instance haha.
Easily my favourite film of all time. So glad I'm not a star wars fan! Phew, I sure would have been wasting my money then HAHAHAHA.
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Okay its not a perfect movie! But what do you expect? Was episode 3 tm 6 perfect in every single way. No offcource Not. It is a fine star wars movie, great action and cgi, bringing back to old stuff and giving new elements to the force. Giving it 1 star that just silly...
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As a bit of a preface, one of the resons that Lucas has had such a lasting impact on so many fans is because he created an alternate reality that had creative properties and themes that helped lead to the creation of a an alternate reality universe that fans could immerse themselves in. This was built up over decades, and love or hate any of the prior films in this series, they kept that alternate reality in place. This movie destroys it.
First off the absolutely insane condescension towards women. I don't want my young daughter to ever see this movie, the level of patronizing and superficial treatment is utterly demeaning. Leia will be the one people point to first, exhibiting the powers of one of the most powerful sith lords ever to have lived- while she was a never trained force sensitive? Then she violently assaults a subordinate non force adept for making a call she didn't like- you would be hard pressed to find a more demeaning portrayal of a character. She is in a position of supreme power and resorts to violence against her staunchest ally? What message is that sending? Someone with nigh god level powers beating on a layman. Disgusting.
Admiral Holdo is even worse. Trapped in a situation where you are facing overwhelming odds and every person in you command is convinced they are going to die you refuse to tell them your gameplan..... why? Are there truly women who are stupid enough to do something like this? Managing morale is paramount to being a good leader, and Admiral Holdo fails in this aspect more spectacularly then anyone I've seen in any movie ever. What's worse- there were a plethora of modifications she could have taken to greatly increase the odds of survival for her people which she didn't even contemplate. She lost the lives of almost every person under her command unnecessarily due entirely to gross ineptitude.
The character Rose, as a story driver was shockingly poor. She came across as a third tier club comic that offered absolutely no emotional weight, wasn't funny, had no chemistry with anyone she interacted with and every moment she was on screen was utterly irrelevant to the plot. This is shamefully terrible story telling, sub par, at best, acting, tonally off and nothing but an anchor around the neck of an already terrible movie. In the final battle scene when all of them are racing full throttle into the enemy line, she drops back as she is told to do while Finn hammers full throttle to try and kamikaze the enemy canon. Somehow- Rose manages to T-Bone him out of the way with utterly no explanation on how she was driving an identical vehicle started off way behind and managed to loop around. This plays out like the director realized at the last minute he had marginalized the women yet again and magically made her have super powers over the laws of physics so she could do something.
Now we get to Rey. First off is her parents. We spent 1.75 movies having this built up as a crucial plot point to find out it is...... nothing. You don't do this. If it isn't important, briefly deal with it and move on, you don't spend almost two movies building up to revealing- it never mattered. I see a lot of comments about how much of a Mary Sue Rey is, but let's get real- she did absolutely nothing in this movie that mattered. Every important action that had real consequences was done by a male. It's as if the director is incapable of imagining how a woman could actually matter. It seems like he is uncomfortable with this side of himself, so he makes Rey seem like she is very powerful, but at the end of the day- she isn't good enough to do anything that matters. JJ Abrams at least had Rey as a crucial plot device- this one- nothing.
Continuing with the last point in abstract- Only a force sensitive male is allowed to have any impact on the larger story arc. Ren, Snoke and Luke have every pivotal event that actually impacts the outcome revolve exclusively around them. Rey, Leia, Rose, Finn and Holdo are nothing but sidekicks waiting for the force powered men to direct the flow of the story. This is unique in Star Wars lore and a disturbing abandonment of common people making the key difference. Han saving Luke from Vader, Lando rescuing Leia, Chewie and Luke, Lando destroying the Death Star, Amidala ceasing control of Naboo back from the trade federation- it has been a constant theme in Star Wars movies- even with super powered warriors, common people and their actions can decide the outcome. This movie has absolutely none of that. Everything attempted by someone who isn't a male force wielder fails miserably.
Supreme Leader Snoke- I will say that I am a *HUGE* Star Wars fan- this one probably would bother casual fans a lot less. Snoke linking Rey and Ben was a force dominate mind ability. Powerful Sith Lords have been doing things along these lines for millennia. This meant that Snoke was inside the heads of both Rey and Ben and was manipulating what they were capable of seeing. Furthermore, all force adepts have a level of precognition- the more powerful they are, the stronger that becomes. Why this explanation- Snoke would have seen what Kylo Ren was planning on doing with the light saber *before* he even had the thought. It is hard to explain just how stupid this was. This would be akin to the Hulk getting killed by a falling marshmallow. They set the story line in a world that has rules- this was such a bad plot point it was grotesquely painful to watch- all for a laugh.
Now we get to the humor. Every Star Wars movie had humor in it, normally it was focused on the droids, used sparingly and appropriately. This movie suffered from the humor in rather profound ways. It has been implied and discussed at length that this is a dark movie- watching it felt more like a bad buddy cop/rom com hybrid- but even they will lay down their comedy at certain junctures to create a proper emotional tone to drive home a point. This movie failed profoundly and absolutely to create any sense of true tension or dread. It felt lighter in tone than any Star Wars movie, but a massive margin- Episode I seems downright depressing in tone compared to this.
Clearly the director has absolutely no sense for comedy whatsoever, not how to use it, when to use it, or why it should be used. This is a movie where almost all of the good guys die, they are beaten to the point of being non existent, and people who were OK with the movie were in high spirits walking out? I don't know if you can find a better indicator of what was wrong with this movie then that. The director failed on a catastrophic level.
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1/10
Watching this felt like Luke at the end of V; falling through a garbage shoot, screaming, in disbelief about some bad news
The film opens with late night dross TV style scripted "comedy". Might as well have included a fart joke on top of the "you're mum" joke.
Kylo and Rey then have a few teenage moody facetime calls.
Some half wit who means good meets a geek and they go on an adventure to a magical land to find someone who is in it for 2 seconds and then just leaves and then you find out that achieves nothing apart from making new space cowboy, Poe, look like a numpty.
Leia turns into Superman.
Luke's character, soul and wisdom are destroyed.
There are a few disney character animals.
The big mysterious bad guy is actually pretty useless. Amazing that he became so powerful and dies the way he does. His red army put up more of a fight.
Fuel is mentioned A LOT. Suddenly everyone is very aware of everyone's fuel consumption. You would think this is a green planet advert.
AND WORST OF ALL, ADMIRAL ACKBAR DIES WITH NO RESPECT OR SEND OFF. CRIMINAL.
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Ok, so I am not a Star Wars "nut" in terms of, it doesn't really affect my life, though I've seen all the films, and enjoyed them all - even the middle ones, ok maybe, Ep2 I didnt enjoy. Saying that, this film in truth left me a little flat. I was expecting something, so much more, and this has left me feeling flat.
From the start I found the quips and one liners actually annoying - humor is at its best when its not being forced, Rian Johnson just put too many attempted jokes in and for me it distracted from what was going on at times... It was un Star Wars like. The acting for the most part was decent, Carrie Fisher flying through space, whilst technically not acting, was odd, though I do understand from this why Mark Hamill never really got any other acting jobs.
Bad Points
Kylo Ren is a terrible "baddie" on his own.
Brienne of Tarth's shiney suit
Jokes. The gushing amount of stupid jokes - its not a comedy. I also think some attempted jokes were lost on the audience (might be a Bracknell thing)
Luke Skywalker's send off (though that might just have been Hamill's acting making him d** *n a **ck I dont know, it needed more)
Run time
Shiny Goat/Dogs (looks like something my daughter would want for Xmas.
BB8 doing his impression of "whack a gopher"
Yoda - (build me up, to let me down)
Good points
The young cast are excellent
Po
Benicio del Toro - he could be a saviour in the next installment.
Visually superb
Sounds amazing
To sum up - the film is watchable and enjoyable, for me, Force Awakens was such a great film, I expected more, and I expected more "Star Wars", though I absolutely see the need to bring the younger cast through to keep spinning the franchise - for me, the film missed something. The next installment is make or break for the franchise - we will all watch it, it will just determine whether or not we keep watching for the right reasons, or if the merchandise sales make the films lose their true essence. I'm actually quite excited (probably as I need to get over this one rather quickly
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I wanted to love TLJ so much, but really can't. There are so many flaws, re-watching this will be as painful as watching Jar Jar Binks again.
Disney just ruined one of my earliest and fondest childhood memories. At least they have not yet ruined Bambi. Disney is so powerful, there is no way movie critics can say anything bad/honest about TLJ without being out of a job.
I was going say the positive is at least this is a mindless action flick, but a mindless action flick at least needs to be consistent to its universe, but TLJ is not. Imagine going to see a new Fast and the Furious and the main characters say driving fast and furious is bad and they all show up in a Toyota Prius driving slowly. That is what TLJ is, complete inconsistency to the Star Wars universe/lore.
There is so much that is wrong about TLJ that makes it just as unwatchable as seeing Jar Jar Binks again:
-Luke: We all know he eventually needs to be killed off for dramatic effect, he is not immortal and the baton needs to be passed to the new characters. But come on, he is now a grumpy old man? This is the man that saved the galaxy several times. And to kill him off, blowing away in the wind, really?
-Jedi/Yoda: OK, so now the Jedi are bad and just burn the house down?
-Leia: Defying being blasted into space and space walking? She has now mastered the most death defying force power without any training.
-Rey: Completely throwing away all the build up of her parentage
-Snoke: Throwing away a major powerful bad guy, in a ridiculous death
-Love story: Finn/Rose falling in love/kissing, has to be the most pathetic love story build up in the galaxy.
-Rose: What did she say she was, just a tube cleaner? But yet somehow she is one of the top 3 pilots (Poe, Finn, Rose) to lead the charge against the first order
-Slow mo chase/Shields: So now shields are invincible until you run out of fuel? And you can't speed up a bit/jump to light speed to close a distance gap, so that you are in range to properly blast shields?
-Code breaker side story was ridiculous and waste of time. Like if you had a jump to light speed radar, everyone would turn theirs off so you only need to disable the one on the main ship?
-Admiral Holdo/Kinetic energy weapon: In the Star Wars universe there are all kinds of super advanced tech, and no one knows kinetic energy = 1/2 mv^2? So if you jump to beyond light speed you create essentially infinite kinetic energy? Why not just put an R2 unit/drone on a ship and make the ultimate bullet jumping to light speed? No need for kamikaze pilots.
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I can't fathom these people who cant appreciate a movie just because it didn't cater to their wishes. Leia did not fly. She used the force to briefly keep herself alive in the vacuum and used the ship like a tether to pull herself toward it; not flying. She has 30 years to master or at least learn more on how to use her powers.
As for Luke, just because we never saw a Force user use that power doesn't mean it isn't possible to project an image of yourself over several light years. Who knows what he has dealt with until the scene with Ben. He might have seen nosalvation and had a moment of weakness. He's not a God and not infallible. He still wasn't going to kill him.
The bombs dropped in the dreadnaught could-have contained incredibly destructive powers. We saw in ANH how an X-Wing can avoid the numerous turrets and laser batteries to attack a larger ship.
Yes the casino segment was stupid and boring and why didn't one of the First Order shops just jump to light speed in front of the Rebel ship? We were also cheated with Snoke's background ( for now ). The movie wasn't perfect but incredibly entertaining and certainly a Star Wars movie all the way.
Grow up people. The movie wasn't made for you specifically. As a pure SW fan for 40 years; I loved it and do did my family. I have seen each movie dozens of times and all the animated shows. I have also read over a 60 SW books. Can't wait to see it again and eagerly awaiting the next movie.
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6/10
As a movie it's OK, as a Star Wars movie it's dissapointing
I don't write many reviews but this one bothered me so deeply I felt I needed to. First the rating, yes I gave it a 6, why? Because the movie looks good and the acting is great. I don't want my disappointment to take away from the great acting which the movie had. The story was just terrible, it not only made this movie fall flat but the decisions that were made cut deep against generations of build up. The impacts and poor decisions of this movie didn't just impact this movie but so many of the story arcs that have made Star Wars great.
Let's start with just the story. We have unlimited potential story lines but the writers pick a slow speed space chase that just doesn't work. Any strategic chess game of how to escape is overshadowed by a ridiculously useless side quest. Rather than do 1 of the hundreds other ideas that have been suggested that would have quickly gotten them out of this problem the movie just plugs along to dissapointment.
Oh, there is a farmer Luke who has gone full on hipster and all but tells Rey to "Get off his lawn". What happened to Luke. This was the guy who took out a death star, saved the galaxy, and brought back Vader to the good side! Something terrible must have happened to make him this way, right? Not really, he had a moment where he thought Kylo has some evil in him, maybe I should kill this kid in his sleep. That's right, the guy who literally saw the good in the most evil guy in the galaxy thinks maybe I should kill this kid. It's not just unlike Luke, its insulting to Star Wars fans. Which leads Kylo to go dark and do all the amazing dark things that the movie then explores like who is Snoke, how he became so powerful, who the knights of Ren are, and ... Oh that's right the movie doesn't do any of this. The Force Awakens set up so many good story arcs which were not only dropped but we're deliberately written across to make sure no-one could revisit in the future.
Oh, and who are Reys parents??? Congratulations to those of you who guessed they are dead traders or something. I really hope they fix this in the future. I'll just add this to the long long list of things I hated about this story.
The one aspect of this complete mess was an interesting connection between Rey and Kylo which was heading in a great and interesting direction but like a spoiled child this gets dumped off too. This may have been the one story arc of this movie that could have saved something but rather than keeping going with light vs. Dark and the internal conflict it chooses to have a great moment just fail to deliver. I truly hope that JJ can salvage something from movie but for the first time I'm not looking forward to the next movie. I just don't care and would have been happier with a sequel to the star wars Christmas special.
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I didn't expect too much from this chapter, since Disney has acquired Star Wars franchise I wasn't happy about new direction the company has chosen. Don't get me wrong I like Disney, however Disney is good with their own products, but Lucas Arts production definitely isn't what they can neither improve, nor make at least comparable quality.
What I saw couple of days ago made my mind explode, the movie that unfolds before your eyes makes you think that it is advertising of some narcotic drug, no seriously I don't know what kind of dope smoked the script writers. First it's the plot, everyone knows that Star Wars has always been full of plotholes and inconsistences and we somewhat got used to it. Last Jedi has no plotholes, because the entire storyline there is a single big hole. The whole movie you do not understand anything, you do not understand why there are so few rebellions and so massive forces of the First Order, where is the victory of the Episode VI? You do not understand who is Snoke and where did he learn his powers; you do not understand why this protagonist girl (I don't even remember her name) has force powers.
With age comes wisdom? Well it's not about Luke Skywalker who instead became a ravaging hermit. He doesn't resemble real Skywalker whatsoever. Rather than wise Jedi knight with experience under his belt like Obi-Wan or Yoda for instance, he looks like a little coward and mad psychopath who needs immediate treatment. And this is a hero that used to be a model for many people in the past. Yoda's cameo was incredibly stupid and dull I have nothing more to add, when you see it yourself you will understand why I say that. Princess Lea now doesn't require any oxygen and can fly in space like Mary Poppins, seriously Disney? There are a lot of poor jokes which do not make you even smile; instead they make you think that it's not a Star Wars movie but some parody.
Another thing that is worth to mention here is the attempt of creators to make unordinary plot twists. They are ridiculously absurd one of the weirdest one is death of Snoke who couldn't notice how Ben Solo used the force to make a laser sword next to the throne to cut him in a half. It is noticeable that creators tried to make something unordinary at any cost entirely neglecting common sense. I have much better idea for them, in the beginning of the movie Snoke could accidently fall down in a shower banging his head and die, that would definitely be very odd but to put the directors logic it would be a great plot twist indeed!!! And the movie is full of such idiotic «twists», you do not expect them not because they are so unusual, but simply because they are incredibly dumb and you can't imagine something like that stupid happen in the next moment.
Not to mention violating even the most primitive laws of physics, like a rebellion who dropped bombs on the starfighter in space and they were falling down like there was a gravity, or how some rebellions could easily survive depressurization in space. There are also plenty of simply stupid moments for instance when the entire First Order fleet chases one rebel ship and can't get it for hours, or how a pilot who was recently demoted for insubordination demands an explanation from the admiral.
Any positive moments in the movie? Only Benicio del Toro and Mark Hamill play (he had really stupid character but he played him well). The rest actors didn't show anything impressive. Stunning visual effects. So what? Come on, how can you surprise anyone with visuals in 2017? Technologies today allow making pretty good visuals even in low budget mediocre movies, so this is no longer a distinguishing feature of any sci-fi film.
I feel sorry for the franchise, but unfortunately for me it's dead, my only hope now is for good spin-off movies since Rogue One was pretty good. Perhaps Disney producers do not intervene too much in production when it comes to spin-offs, or maybe it's easier to write a decent script for spin-off I have no idea, but whatever the reason is I will wait for a new spin-off and won't go to the cinema for Episode IX that's for sure.
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3/10
The Last Jedi - An end to the magic behind Star Wars
I vividly remember the first time my dad showed the original trilogy. I was around six, had grown up in a world of power rangers and movies where graphics were being introduced, so I was never awed by the effects of Star Wars like my dad was. However, after seeing the Return of the Jedi I was hooked. I was left with so many questions, who are the Jedi? What is the Force? Who are the Sith? What is the story behind Darth Vader? I was touched by the magic of Star Wars. Not for it's effects, but for opening my mind to a whole new world of creativity.
After reading some of the books form the extended universe, and having watched some of the cartoon growing up I learned that there was so much more to the Force, there was so much depth to all the characters, and a lot of questions I had were answered. When The Force Awakens was announced I couldn't wait to see it, I couldn't wait to see how the canon storyline would be developed, and when I finally saw it I could feel that childlike magic again.
However, when I saw the The Last Jedi I felt like that magic was snuffed out. There were a lot of issues I had with the movie from it's completely pointless plot lines to its poor and corny script. Some of the main reasons I had an issue with were (SPOILER ALERT):
Juggling too many plots at the same time
o Some of the plot lines were good and set the rest of the movie very well such as the whole struggle within Kylo, his tension with Snoke.
o Others were pointless especially the whole Casino plot
Poor plot
o Rey was supposed to go learn from Luke, when he finally agreed to teach her he really didn't teach her much, she basically taught herself how to use the force and how to use a lightsabre.
o She could fight on par with Kylo even though she had a few days of Saber training where he has trained his entire life
o THE DREADED CASINO PLOT, Finn literally had no role in this movie apart from getting half the Rebels killed, which could have been killed form the start and the extra screen time used better
o Flimsy backstory to Kylo Ren and his purpose for killing everyone at the Jedi Academy
o Luke was ready to let Vader kill him in order to turn him to the light, but Luke senses darkness in sleeping Kylo and his instincts kick in to kill him? After years of following the light his instinct is to kill an unarmed kid? Not the Jedi way, nor was it Luke's way (if you've seen the original trilogy)
o What was the point of Snoke?
Poor use of the Force; two movies in and no epic saber battles?
o Did you ever see the clone wars cartoon? Ever saw Mace Windu decimate an entire droid army? With all the CGI advances why couldn't they introduce a fraction of that level of epicness
Complete disrespect to the character of Luke Skywalker
o Luke who has been set up as a legend who saved the universe is now a hermit due to his failure of saving Kylo.
o Made him the most indecisive Jedi Master of all time, I mean force Ghost Yoda was more decisive than him. The whole movie revolved around whiney Luke who couldn't stick to his decisions. "There's nothing you can do to stop me!" Two seconds later, "Ok nevermind".
o Killed him off in the most pointless way. Fair enough, this movie is about the new generation of characters, but to treat the original cast as useless props is not only disrespectful to the characters but also to the audience. If Luke had to be killed off, which he shouldn't have been, why not actually have him on Krayt? Why not have him use all the Force he could muster to take out a battalion of Storm troopers, maybe destroy a few AT-ATs, then face off with Kylo? Why not have a Yoda v Palpatine type of saber sequence? Why not bring the new trilogy full circle with Kylo striking down Luke the same way Darth Vader strikes down Obi Wan (Luke on the verge of death sheathing his lightsabre, being at peace, and vanishing like Obi Wan)?
o His role in this movie only served the purpose of giving a little insight into Kylo's past, giving Rey some insight into the force, and stalling Kylo for long enough for the remaining rebels to escape.
Kamikaze Rebel Ship
o Ok, this scene was actually amazing. But why the heck didn't the vice admiral use that tactic when the first few transport ships were shot at?
SNOKE!
o What a waste of the big bad guy! Ok I like the plotline of where Kylo is going, but what a waste of the build up to Snoke!
o Snoke who is the big bad Sith lord who is shrouded in mystery had the most lacklustre death I have ever seen in Star Wars; I mean Boba Fett falling into the Sarlac pit was better. He can sense what you think but he couldn't see the light saber next to him turning. I mean you don't even need 20/20 vision to see some movement let alone the force.
o It feels like what JJ Abrahams had started was completely derailed
Corny dialogue
o A lot of movies now is jumping on the Marvel trend of using humour, and it was a bit overkill in this movie.
o There were some truly funny moments, and some lines were just straight up forced.
All in all, even though I enjoyed several moments and really liked some of the plot lines I was disappointed by the totally lack of linearity, the complete waste of characters and previous plot lines, and a total waste of the potential of a movie. This movie could have answered so many questions to The Force Awakens but instead Rian Johnson decided to completely sweep what was laid in the Force Awakens under the carpet and rather than laying a solid framework for episode 9. In my opinion the writing was extremely poor and lacked creativity, a lot of elements in the plot were recycled from the original trilogy, and he essentially crapped all over the audience assuming that you can feed them a sub-standard writing and they will willingly accept it. I for one do not, thank you Rian Johnson for ruining what could have been an amazing movie.
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Okay, I am fundamentally fed up with the hurt feelings of so called "fans" whose whining is even less bearable than Anakin complaining about live being unfair. Everytime a new Star Wars movie comes out, there come the complainers because first there was Jar Jar ("GL just ruined my childhood"), then there was VII which was a remake of IV and not original enough and now comes a movie that dares to be different and goes another way and again I hear/read the whining: "it is not the Star Wars of my childhood." Guess what, it is not. If you want that, stay at home and watch you old VHS tapes where Han shoots first and don't bore me with your insufferable complaining.
The Last Jedi is fun. It's daring, it's visual stunning, it's got a lot of twists. The story takes on a new direction, all characters have their own story arcs, especially Rey, Luke and Poe have great character developments.
There are certainly parts that rhyme with what happened before but everytime you think, this is familiar, the movie goes off in a different direction. It plays with the grey areas between the light and the dark.
The only complain I can utter is the set up with the notion that the Republic is destroyed because Starkiller Base basically fired once, but that problem was created in The Force Awakens. Other than that, The Last Jedi is a great addition to the Star Wars sage: epic, entertaining, fun, emotional and exciting.
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I am a Star Wars nerd. Die-hard. I have watched the original trilogy countless times and to a lesser extent, the prequels. I saw the Last Jedi last night and boy oh boy.. it was quite the ride. The last Jedi took Star Wars to places it had never been which, as a fan, was really interesting. I won't say this is a perfect movie (like some people) or that this was an awful movie (like other people) but I will say, this movie is better than all the prequels and despite it's many flaws, I sit it next to The Force Awakens.
Now if you don't want to read any spoilers, TURN BACK NOW.
Let's jump on in to this.
The whole thing with Canto Bight just felt like it didn't need to happen. It was everywhere and there were too many weird looking drunk aliens- in all honesty, it reminded me of the slapstick in the prequels. I get that it's a casino but it didn't really feel "Star Wars". I get that it was necessary for them to have found a code breaker guy but there were probably better ways to cycle him into the story.
They did accomplish a good way to help understand the force better than the Phantom Menace, but Luke felt changed. I guess I understand why they did that, putting emphasis on how he failed Ben Solo, but they barely touched that, and when they did, it was brief- I wasn't sure which side to believe.
The porgs, despite the internet's constant hate-ranting on them, didn't play as big of a part in the movie as the marketing would lead you to believe, and I think that's for the better. I enjoyed the scenes with porgs to the extent that they didn't steal scenes so much as enhancing them.
The space battle in the beginning was phenomenal. Probably one of the best in all of Star Wars. The action was intriguing and it had a cause with reactions that lasted the whole movie. It felt pretty realistic.
Yet, the main question to many fans is: Was this worth the wait?
As much as a lot of people would disagree with me, I do believe this was worth the wait. While, yes, there are a lot of open wounds in the Star Wars universe now, I believe that J.J. has a plan to sew them back up with Episode IX. This movie allowed for a new mold in the Star Wars Universe. It was unique, it was smart(ish), and it allowed fans and moviegoers to think about the movie. The whole idea of Rey's parents being "nobodies" was actually kind of pleasing for me- especially since it came from Kylo. All these elaborate fan theories that have been flooding the internet and my YouTube account since before TFA were debunked- franking relieving me from all that being stuffed down my throat, forcing me to swallow that Rey is somehow a Solo, or somehow a Skywalker. No, this just goes to show that Rey has so much sheer strength in the force to come from nobodies. And still, while that won't please a lot of fans, it's almost impossible to know if Kylo was seriously telling the truth. He was trying to make Rey join him at that time so, really, whatever he said could be a lie and her parents legitimately revealed in IX.
I enjoyed the movie, it left me shocked and mind blown with all the stunts they dared to take on a Star Wars movie. I was shocked but at the same time, I felt like I was seven again when I saw Star Wars for the first time. It was an all around enjoyable movie and as much as I liked it, it has my hyped for episode IX more than anything and I am very excited to see how Abrams will tie this trilogy up and finish what he started. I will not say this movie was perfect, but I will not say it was awful. As a die-hard Star Wars fan, I think this movie deserves an 8.1-8.3.
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I felt compelled to create an account and write a review on here following the negative backlash this film has received. To put things into context, I've been a die hard Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember. I still have Dark Forces II and Republic Commando installed on my laptop, and yes, I still watch Star Wars Rebels. That being said, I still recognize and criticize the flaws I see. The prequels are nostalgic to me and I still love parts of them, but overall they're hugely flawed, from script to acting to an abundance of poor CGI. Rogue One was great, yet lacking in any real semblance of character development or depth and TFA was just a rehash of A New Hope. I was then surprised to see the reception this film has got from other lifelong fans of the series, who like me criticized the cliched path TFA took. It surprised me, because this film did the complete opposite. Johnson has given us a film that's gone against the now predictable formula of the films before it. Spoilers follow as I feel they're necessary to convey the way I felt about this film. I've seen the Last Jedi twice now and actually liked it even more the second time round. The shocking death of Snoke was a fantastic choice, it stopped us from having another Emperor Palpatine and portrayed the opportunistic and emotionally rooted Dark Side perfectly. Rey not having any famous parents is greater still, working brillianly in conjunction with one of the films many messages of trying to live up to a legacy. (I'm confused as to why everyone wanted the same story as the originals and the prequels again.) With regards to the plot, the film is about the characters themselves growing, and even though I agree that the Finn/ Rose plotline felt out of place on first viewing, I don't think that gives anyone any real justification to rate the film 1 or 2 stars out of 10. The characters in this film were done beautifully. Mark Hamill was amazing as Luke, a deeply flawed hero of sorts who regretted this one split second decision he thought about for a 'fleeting moment'. Ridley was much better than in TFA, playing this confused learner, 'trying to find her place in all this', drawing a lot of parallels with Luke in ESB. Driver was fantastic too, along with all of the other now familiar faces. The music was stunning, far better than TFA, my hat goes off yet again to John Williams. Hearing the Tie Fighter Attack music from a New Hope as Chewie slides the Falcon through the crystal caves of Crait gave me goosebumps. Everything was filmed beautifully, even the action scenes; a rare thing nowadays. The throne room scene has the best filmed action scene of any Star Wars film in my opinion; brutal fast paced and without the stupid spinning of the prequels. All in all the Last Jedi is my favourite film of the year. It had flaws in it's humour at points and I felt the Finn subplot could have been improved on, but everything from the acting, the directing, the script and the music to the beautiful send off for Luke was fantastic. I know you guys are all going to downvote this to oblivion, feel free to if it makes you feel better about yourself. Sorry for how long this was, thanks for reading.
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Lots of nonsense reviews here (anyone rating this film as 1/10 needs to take a cold bath, I'm guessing you haven't seen any real one star films).
It's a genuinely thrilling ride this time around, Some awkwardly jarring humour which seems out of place but the franchise needs to progress. 8/10
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Before attending the midnight release for the film in the UK, I had so many questions and thoughts on my mind like; will Luke turn to the dark side? will Leia be killed off? will this be like an empire strikes back? and many more, and the biggest of all, will this movie live up to expectation. Unfortunately after the screening I was left with a sense of emptiness and mixed emotions. At first I gave this film a 5/10 as I had too many questions to ask like: Was the film too comical? Should they have killed off the supreme leader Snoke? Was it too convenient for Leia to use the force after certain death? Was Finn's part in all this really necessary? and did the cat and mouse chase of the first order and rebel fleet drag out far too long?
After digesting all these thoughts and reading review after review, it occurred to me that I was just jumping on the bandwagon of hating Disney. Watching it for the 2nd time was by far better and really fun. I understood the original star war trilogy was very comical and they brought this to light very well actually with the cheesy clichés and phrases and awkward moments. Also, I understood that Disney are smart in getting rid of the original characters episode by episode to shine more light on the new characters. Luke had to go in this episode as his work was done in teaching Rey that the Jedi or any other organisation didn't own or control the force and that it is free (Nice touch on bringing ghost Yoda back). In addition, I think Finn plays the same role as one of Han Solo and his storyline to retrieve the code breaker to help the rebel fleet was an important part of this movie. Lastly, I do think it was a mistake to kill of Snoke, he was the only villain who brought horror to the screen and a sense of unease when he was in the room. There was no back story on him either on how he and Kylo Ren came together like the one of Anakin and Palpatine.
It was not better than Force Awakens and there was a lot of potential to be great but failed to live up to expectation. My best advice is to see it a second time and you will get off that bandwagon of "hating Disney for what they've done to star wars"
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Didnt have good feeling going into it but as my son shouted me entry went to watch it. I watched the original star wars in theatre as a kid and my favourite was empire strikes back which this film was compared too.
After the film didnt say anything bad because it was free, but after seeing the responses from the audience realised a lot of guys were disappointed.
Anyway now we know to watch out for fake reviews.
I judge movies based on is it worth spendng money for or wait for it to be downloaded or netflix. Its actually worse I want my time back.
Anyway lesson learnt
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The guion on this movie was HORRIBLE, bad neccesary jokes, kylo ren is forced to be a "bad" villain, like a selfish child and even when you try to understand what they are to show you, it doesn´t make any sense.
I was so bored watching this movie that it is totally predictible even how luke was going to do at the final scene.
An advice: If you are a really fan of this saga, and you really didnt like ep 1,2,3, dont lose your money watching this on cinema. Because it doesnt worthy it.
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This is my first review on this site simply because I'm surprised about the backlash this movie gets on here.
I have to admit that when I saw the movie for the first time I didn't like it. I was disappointed like the majority on here. But I think thats simply because, like in some reviews mentioned, we had over 30 years to speculate and dream of how it would be to see Luke Skywalker at the height of his power. Getting out his green lightsaber, cutting through legions of stormtroopers an pulling stardestroyers from the sky. Well we didn't get that.
But we did get one of the most amazing force actions in the whole saga. Luke managed to save the rest of the resistence, to buy enough time for them to get off the planet and to hold of the troops of the first order. And he did that without harming anyone.
That is clearly not the dream of us nerds who wanted to see him wrecking the bad guys with a light saber, but it is completely in line with the luke skywalker from ROTJ who tossed away his lightsaber after refusing to strike down Vader.
Of course the film has flaws, some big ones even, like the slomo chase, the canto bight sub plot and Super-Leia. But it has some of the most impressive and well executed scenes of the entire saga as well.
Holdos sacrifice left the cinema speechless, the whole throneroom scene will be one of the most memorable scenes in the franchise. The reunion of the skywalker twins was on point. Yoda being OT Yoda in his teaching, his humour and appearance was just heartwarming.
So the film has its weaknesses and it surely isn't the best star wars film ever (in my opinion) but it takes all the characters to new places and it perfectly sets the stage for a grand finale of the skywalker saga.
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When I told my friends in 2012 when Disney buyed Lucasfilm, that they will destroy original franchise and the name of Star Wars no one believed me but now, as a time passed, more and more people are agreeing with me. I still don't get it how it is possible to make such a bad movie, The Last Jedi is one of the worst movies I have ever watched in my entire life and I have watched a lot of them, I say the same words in 2015 when I watched The Force Awakens but Force Awakens now looks like a solid movie compared to The Last Jedi. With The Last Jedi they has destroyed everything I loved about Star Wars, for entire movie I had a feeling that I am watching a mixture of some new bad Disney cartoon and Star Trek with elements of Spy Kids with Antonio Banderas. The movie is watchable for first half, I love some parts on island planet where Luke is in exile, and yes Mark Hamill is the only one in movie who is really acting, others are really not worth mentioning, they are looking like total clowns, but total letdown starts when John Boyega and Mongol girl are going on some planet like Las Vegas, total disaster, totally unimaginative, and everything is becoming a total mess, and yes Benicio Del Toro in Star Wars movie, it is even not ridiculous, casting crew madr total mistakes, he is very good actor don't get me wrong, but for Star Wars universe definitely not. Then we have part on the main star destroyer and killing of Snoke, Snoke is presented like the most powerful antagonist in the galaxy even more powerful than Palpatine is killed in second, total unimaginative character, we don't even have explanation how he became the leader of new Empire. And for the end we have totally not necessary battle on some salty planet, it looks like bad imitation on Battle Of Hoth, and yes it is finished in 5 seconds, like Rey is finishing her training with Luke, she just take a look on Luke's eyes and after that she can do everything she wants, total disaster. Design of ships and vehicles is also unimaginative, and the whole universe is looking somehow empty and depopulated. We don't get any information who is ruling the core worlds now. I also really miss original alien species, the new ones also look empty. This was definitely the last Star Wars movie I have watched created by Disney, I wanted to give them a chance but they don't get it that Star Wars is not ordinary action/superhero movie, it is whole world with itself with history, mythology and feelings, and they have all erased buy this one. My suggestion is even better to watch Star Wars rebels cartoon than this, it has Star Wars feeling, and Rogue One it was definietely not a good movie, but it feeled like Star Wars. And another message, the real Star Wars will forever live in our hearts and our minds, this was just one bad dream, we still have legends, we have so many great video games, comics and books, and the universe will never die.
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1/10
Star Wars turned to the Disney dark side - worst film ever
I rarely write reviews, however I feel compelled to write a review after seeing this poor attempt yesterday.
This is a mash up of Empire and Return of the Jedi, both great films, sounds great eh, however this is NOT. Importantly I want to see something new not re-working old scenes. Cant the writers think up new story lines rather than re-hashing old scenes and film sets? I found myself quoting lines before they were spoken.
You cant fault the film visually however that is the only positive. Disney have ruined the franchise and I will watch no future Star Wars films; the Star Wars franchise has turned to the dark side and is a downward spiral, very sad...
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10/10
Amazing movie. There is simply no pleasing some fans.
The Last Jedi does not fail to leave you mesmerized. The various homages to Empire and cameos that will leave you with a sense of closure and wholeness. Not to mention a smile that you won't be able to get off your face.
What blows my mind about this movie is the conflict between fans. Same as The Force Awakens, some fans are unable to see beyond the black and white to the actual plot and meanings for certain scenes. People are upset because it doesn't meet their lofty expectations for the story's direction. Some questions left unanswered, and others are answered but again, not the answers some wanted.
The scene with Snoke's death was done brilliantly. Some argue it renders the character useless to the story but I strongly disagree. I still think we will learn more about his origins but this scene was crucial to the solidification of Kylo's path to the dark. Snoke literally narrates the scene, sighting Kylo's every move and intention. There is no doubt Snoke knew Kylo was going to kill him. It was exactly what Snoke wanted to happen. It goes back into the ways of the Sith. It is what every Sith master longs for in his apprentice. That he will one day strike him down and become more powerful than ever in doing so. That was Snoke's way of creating Kylo's resolve to the dark.
Others argue Luke's character was ruined and again, I disagree. Yeah there were certain times when it felt dragged on with his reluctance to teach Rey. But that certain cameo made it all worth it, and that sendoff left everyone speechless. It was brilliant.
Overall, too much focusing on the negative instead of digesting what the movie really was. Brilliant film, absolutely comparable to Empire and highly recommended to star wars fans.
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This movie was awful and ruined any expectation of seeing the final one in the trilogy at least in the theater, for me and my family. How can you ruin they mystery of these characters that was presented to us in "The Force Awakens" so nonchalantly. I rank this one just above (barely) "The Phantom Menace". The only reason this thing is doing well in the theaters is because of the "Star Wars" name, otherwise it would have been a flop. I wonder if the writer of this trash ever even watched a Star Wars movie before coming up with this story line.
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10/10
A different Star Wars film, but a SW film nonetheless.
This analysis comes in response to the myriad of reviews here that are bashing the film. And while everyone is entitled to an opinion, I've found the majority of them unsatisfying, in that they barely provide any arguments to support their light critique. It seems that most of these reviewers are content in simply saying that the movie failed to meet their expectations and destroyed a legacy 40 years in the making.
I, myself, had great expectations when it comes to The Last Jedi, and oddly enough the film managed to not only meet them, but exceed them in some instances as well.
Ryan Johnson has created perhaps the darkest film in the saga, and character deaths have no bearing here. If the darkest film was decided by character deaths, then that laurel would easily go to Rogue One. No, The Last Jedi can be considered dark in great part due to its narrative approach. It is a thematically different film from all the rest - it does away with the duality between good and evil with which we have grown accustomed. It dares to question the legitimacy of established characters, and sets out to demystify the legends that have come to surround some of our favorite characters. This can mainly be seen in Luke, a recluse now, who has grown disillusioned with the Jedi and their dogmatic ways - grown weary by the ramifications of his actions. His struggles along the years and the restoration of the Jedi order have wrought nothing but misery on him and his students, and so he comes to question the validity of the Jedi teachings, and whether they should truly be so absolute. His adherence to the tenants of this religion, coupled with his fear of the darkness growing with Kylo, leads him to consider a drastic course of action - even if it is but a fleeting thought. He is, of course, redeemed in the end, and his character arc comes full circle in a subtle yet engrossing show of force use that saves the remnant resistance.
Kylo Ren, himself, is a much more dynamic character here when compared to how he appeared in The Force Awakens. His conflicted nature comes into play again, yet it seems to be much more subtle in The Last Jedi, and Adam Driver does a fabulous job at portraying a tortured soul driven by ambition. His burden is perhaps the heaviest of all to bear. Torn between the colossal expectations that come with being Vader's heir (as well as the legacy behind his bloodline) and the tantalizing salvation which turning to the light side promises, Kylo treads constantly between these two extremes throughout a great part of the movie, keeping the viewer guessing at how this will all play out. Ironically enough, in the end, he does what Vader, for all his might, could not - he outwits his master and slays him effortlessly. In this, he is much more representative of the Old Republic Sith than his grandfather ever was. He takes on the mantle of supreme leader on his own terms. He unshackles himself both from the manipulative Snoke, as well as freeing himself from Vader's legacy; in the end, finally coming into his own - his ambition having bore fruit. 'Let the past die' - as the character would go on to say.
Rey's character comes in complete contrast to Kylo's. While both are driven by ambition, Kylo is a fatalist that aspires to free himself all elements of authority and the strain of Vader's legacy, while Rey is an idealist, looking up to legends such as Luke - humbly dreaming of coming into her own, and discovering the catalyst for her newfound abilities. Arguably the most significant aspect of her character arc comes into play on Snoke's ship, where after his death, the two main characters are interlocked in a short but poignant conversation. Kylo's words about her parentage act as a mirror. Much of what drove Rey onward was the potential promise of her own legacy, yet when Kylo demystifies her origins, she is left momentarily broken, her ego shattered - her character shaken to the core, only to be renewed by a newfound strength. Her keenness in the force owes not to any grandiose lineage, but for her own willpower that has carried her so far. In the end, she comes from nothing, and that is what makes her mighty
Finn and Poe both have some pretty good character moments. Finn comes into his own alongside the newly established Rose. Their plot-line is arguably the weakest bit in the film, yet it ties quite well at the end of the film, especially the very last scene. Some would argue that their entire side-trip in Canto Bight could have been left out, and I'm somewhat inclined to agree - maybe not completely cut, but perhaps changed somewhat. As it stands, it is indeed on the weaker side of things.
Poe on the other hand has some brilliant moments peppered throughout the film's running time, and outside of the main characters, receives the most attention. He really comes into his own in this movie; from fly-boy, and best pilot in the resistance, all the way to assuming the mantle of leadership within the resistance. To that end, both Leia and Holdo instill in him a sense of wisdom to temper his brazen wit; in the process learning the value and cost of sacrifice, and at the same time, learning that martyrdom perhaps isn't always the best course of action. Both Finn and Poe come to understand this as their characters evolve alongside the main narrative.
There are, of course, other characters that get some pretty amazing moments - Leia has one in particular, wherein her force powers manifest in ways we haven't seen before; making us wonder if she is perhaps as equally gifted as Luke but untrained, and perhaps uninterested in the particulars of force. Acute force sensitivity is after all a known trait of the Skywalker lineage. With that in mind, the way she manifests the force gives full testament to the namesake.
A standout in this all is Andy Serkis as Snoke, who even though has limited screen time, simply dominates the three scenes he appears in. His back and forth with Rey is simply sublime, made all the while greater by a kind of inflection that the actor has mastered. And although he could have used more development (read: development, not background), he is a palpable threat to all his enemies (and his subordinates as well as it turns out). Some have argued that his death is atypical of a major villain, and yet, that is what Ryan does, he plays with viewer expectations, and turns cliches on their heads. Not everyone is bound to receive a ceremonious death, as this would only lessen the magnitude of some of the others.
When it comes to cinematography and special effects the film is beyond reproach. A visual treat, The Last Jedi showcases amazing locations, both CGI and real, that blend very well together. Even more impressive are the special effects, which are arguably the best yet seen in a Star Wars film, barring perhaps Rogue One. Here we have Poe's solo run along the fleet destroyer, showcasing maneuvers as we haven't seen since Battlestar Galactica. Of particular note is the moment when Holdo rams the resistance flagship into the First Order's armada, all while initiating Hyperspace. The scene drew gasps in the theater, and for good reason. As it stands, it is perhaps the most visually impressive scene/shot of its kind - across all sci fi films I've seen.
Music-wise, John Williams did not disappoint. While the music in TFA was a bit anemic, here the score compliments the action brilliantly, and greatly helps set the tone throughout the film. Beyond that, the sound effects supplement the visual effects harmoniously, and are on par with the best of the preceding movies.
I realize that I haven't touched on some subjects, missed some characters, and didn't approach all of the film's themes, however, I mainly wanted to cover the aspects that have been brought into question by others, and to create foundation that implies that his is a truly great film, and perhaps at the same time to champion the thought that we might very well have just witness the best Star Wars film yet. And yes - I'm including Empire Strikes Back here.
All in all, the film can be considered a deconstruction of the Star Wars mythos; from republic heroes, to jedi, to the absolutism of good and evil around which each of the previous films revolved - it's an intricate study case of what makes the films great. It does not set out to destroy the legacy, it simply questions the foundations which the narrative and the characters are built upon. Rey's realization that she comes from complete unknowns, yet is so in-tune with the force is the best example here. Wherein this newfound knowledge leads to the death of her ego, and it's beautifully juxtaposed again Kylo Ren's own legacy - which is significant. t's a pity that so many people not only don't appreciate how intricate and good this film is, but outright hate it; all because they can't see past their own expectations. They blame Force Awakens for being a copycat of A NewHope, and yet when a thematically different film comes along they bash it relentlessly. People have been asking for an Old Republic era SW film ever since the first KOTOR released back in 2003. Well this might be the closest we get to that prospect. While it does not take place in the same era, it very much deals with the thematic issues brought about within KOTOR and especially KOTOR2.
I for one can't wait to see what Ryan Johnson comes up with next in the newly announced trilogy, because as of now, he is my favorite Star Wars writer/director, and the only one seemingly bold enough to tackle the saga in a different yet poignant way.
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Enjoyed every minute of it. A great adventure. I don't understand why people have decide to troll this movie, but I guarantee this is not a bad movie. On the contrary, it's quite amazing and enjoyable.
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I found the movie to be too much 'Disney' in the form of it not embracing the darker side of the Star Wars universe. Much effort has gone into keeping the children-safe, clean and perky. The result is, that the funny one-liners are just too much, and very often with bad timing. The darker side of the movie is simply over-run by cute space-aliens. This movie does not feel like its made with love, respect and a deep understanding of the Star Wars legacy and universe, but rather as the best culturally- and political safe-mode movie a billion dollars could buy - and I frankly find that not just boring, but also sad. It's not bad - it's just not Star Wars. It's a barbie doll.
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The good: Scenery. The Battle on the Red Salt planet visually was good.
That's about it !
The Bad:
Who is Snoke ? In the first trilogy Vader was awe inspiring... and then in the Empire Strikes Back we get to know there's someone worse ? Even more badass ?
That's a build up.
Here instead Snoke throws Rey around a bit and flash .. dead.
We don't know who he is, what he did , when he did it, to whom ? .... NOTHING!
Luke doesn't even recognize him ... he doesn't even give him credit for the Lord of the Goth!
Which make me come to Kylo Ren. What the hell is wrong with this guy ? First he hesitate's to kill his father, but in the end does, then he hesitates to kill his mother .. but he doesn't. Is he good, bad, crazy ? The only thing we know is that Luke once flashed his lightsabre above him, which made him so afraid that he pulled the hut down. This was enough to make him kill Han and want to pulverize Luke to atoms ? Where does the name come from ? Did he invent it himself ? Kylo Ren ? Compare that to Darth Sidious, Vader, Maul, Tyrannus. Who are the knights of Ren ? Where are they ? It's already the second film and I still haven't seen the guys ? In TFA we see he's supposed to finish what Vader started, does that mean that Anakin was closer to the Goth lord than Han and Luke ? Did Leia speak about the great accomplishments of Gramps Vader ?
If the first order is ruled by such loser-idiot-nincompoops as Snoke, Hux and the Goth lord how the hell did they get so big ? How can such losers garner enough respect to hold such an organization together ? Where did it come from ?
Let me just paraphrase the script for you :
The first order attacks the rebellion near 1 planet with overwhelming fire power and 10x more ships so as to take about 2 days to destroy the 10x less ships which have a dwindling fuel supply, finally cornering them on said planet, while in the mean time Rey is drinking SeaCow milk on an old Island with Luke looking at a black hole and communicating with Kylo Ren through the force over light years of distance. The Rebels on the other hand being just as stupid as the first order, withhold key plans from their best warriors, causing some to fly to another planet totally pointlessly to free some goats and get betrayed while they try to hack into a first order ship, revealing said key plans to the first order. Rey in communicating with the Goth Lord, falls in love with him, and viceversa, but fails to turn him from the dark side when she conveniently goes to see him at Snokes' joint who get's the blue rod. In the end Luke has not got the balls to pull his lightsabre one on one and he achieves enlightenment.
Is this it ? Where can I apply please ? Do we get premium healthcare packages ?
I was kind of holding out hope for the ex-storm trooper to die a martyr, but NO we have to absorb a love scene that comes out of nowhere. I guess the goat race was what did it.
On top of that ...
A Casino ? Goat Races ? Slot Machines ? Wasn't this supposed to be in a galaxy far far away a long long time ago ?
The x-wing fighter ship with hand-soldered resistors ?
Who the hell is Del toro playing ? I can't even remember his name ?
Jedi fish-nuns to make You HAhahaha?
Who is the silver Storm Trooper Captain ? In both movies she plays about 20 minutes and dies like another idiot-nincompoop at the hands of a serial storm trooper, she's given a name and does absolutely NOTHING.
During the whole movie we don't see the star destroyers fire ONCE ... not even ONCE. How about they jump a fraction of warp speed around the rebels and encircle them ?
Enough ... I can't take it anymore ...
Rogue 1 remains to me the best Star Wars movie followed closely by Empire.
This vapid tripe comes waaaaay behind the prequels,which although really badly executed still had an interesting script ... this is at the levels of Travolta's Battlefield Earth.
Unsaveable, unwatchable, the Star Wars franchise has been given the death stroke.
No hours in a third movie are enough to pick this back up.
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I am ashamed of the Star Wars fandom, but am not surprised. They are some of the most butt hurt fans in the world that are never pleased. They think they own the original trilogy and had a part in making it, but they forget how revolutionary it was at the time. Movies weren't made like that, it was new, it was bold. Empire had an entirely different feel than Star Wars, and Jedi had an entirely different feel than Empire. Star Wars is allowed to be bigger than one feeling. It is ok to laugh in a SW movie, it's ok to cry, it is ok for characters to change after 30 years of development.
Anyone's complaints about this movie are petty. "Nothing happened" - Go watch Empire and tell me more happened. "It didn't feel like Star Wars" - Go watch the series over again. "They didn't address who snoke was and Rey's parents were no one!" - So what!? Snoke was powerful but dumb, and the trilogy is about Kylo anyway. And Rey's parents being Han or Luke or Obi-wan would have made sense? Her parents being no one makes the most sense. Can you tell me who Obi-wan's parents are? No? That is because the Force is bigger than just the Skywalker family.
Poe had amazing development in this movie, and will shine in 9 as leader of the Resistance. Finn honestly had some fun, but I will admit he didn't develop so much. Rey is not a Jedi, Kylo is not a Sith, they are only the Force.
The twists were fresh and unexpected. I would have never guessed in a million years that Snoke would have died, or that Luke would have done what he did to become a LEGEND!
People are upset, more people are happy. In time, those that are upset will watch this movie and think, "How did I miss this?" Because it is a masterpiece. Rian Johnson, thank you for what you made. You did what George did many years ago. You made your own way and angered people for it. Thank you
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I took my 11 year old son (who loved) it - I sat there in the theatre with a fake smile on my face; for his sake.
However, inside I wanted to cry, as this episode is a disgrace to the Star Wars legacy.
Questions:
How did this script get approved?
Who the hell is Rian Johnson?
How did the dailies get approved?
Why did no one in production say "whoa there, stop stop stop! this is terrible"?
Why didn't the actors just walk off set?
Why didn't the crew just walk off set?
Why, when in post, did no one say "we need to rewrite and reshoot this"?
Who signed this off as complete, were they drunk?
So many more questions...
It is, without doubt, the worst Star Wars film EVER! And the worse film this year.
To sum up:
Smoke dead
Han Solo dead
Luke dead
Leia dead
I'm dead...and angry.
Where do they take this?
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I had high hopes for this movie, especially after the positive reviews. I got my tickets for early morning opening day and stepped into the theatre. Things started out mostly ok, but soon took a turn for the worse. It felt like I was watching an empty shell of a movie. We learned nothing new about the new characters, no back story, no real character progression of any kind. Old characters acted completely out of character. Horrible forced jokes that made me cringe at least twice. Completely useless sub-plots and scenes scattered throughout that could have just been dropped. None of the characters seemed to grow or progress in any way at all. This movie had so much potential. Star Wars is a family saga, but instead the film-makers decided to kill that off and invest instead in cheap, hollow, disposable characters that seemed to be there for little more than selling more toys. Shame on you Disney.
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Is this even a Star Wars film???? I have to ask, very confused after watching this 2hr "trailer".
Confused directing which seemed like 2 or 3 directors tried to make the film at the same time and then randomly got stopped by someone else and forced to go in a different direction.
Misplaced humour, bad character progression, complete whitewashing of questions you had after the Force Awakens, Leia joining the DC universe, completely surplus fight-scenes and location visits seemingly just to shoe-horn "well known" actors/actresses into the film.
Luke,Leia,Snoke being turn into parody figures. Just a strange, strange "movie".
Had high hopes after Rogue One but I'm putting this film into the "prequels" box.
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This was an enjoyable Star Wars movie.The special effects are there. The music is there. The acting is fantastic, and that's a rarity in SW films: Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, and Carrie Fisher steal every scene they are on (In fact, I am more than likely to say "Daisy Ridley" when someone asks me "who's your favorite actress?").
That being said, the film spreads itself out too much in a rather trivial area, which is Finn and Rose's journey to the casino planet. In the end, this subplot serves no purpose to the main story, except it's message that rich people make their riches through the war, by selling arms and weapons to both sides. But that's rather obvious and not really relevant to the story. And Finn finds a girlfriend, which again serves no purpose to the plot. The film spends a good 20-30 mins here; it should've been cut, along with all the characters that were tied to it (Codebreaker, Cpt. Phasma). It's a distraction from the main story.
Looking back, that's my only problem with this film. Everything else is done well. We get to see Luke as a cranky middle-aged man following his master Yoda's example, rejecting Rey first, then warming up to her as he breaks out of his solitude. Luke knows the Jedi must end and it makes sense; for as long as Jedi lived, there will be force users from the order who will betray the Jedi and turn to darkside. He feels the weight of being a master and the burden of training a padawan that can potentially turn.
The act between Rey-Snoke-Kylo plays well. Turns out Snoke is a powerful force user, but not cut from the same cloth as Emperor Palpatine was. And that's about as far as he goes, as Kylo outsmarts him and ends him.
The final 20 mins of this movie is critical. We find out that for all those years, Luke hasn't been idling. He discovered a way to harness a rather incredible use of the Force, Force Projection. It's worthy of his name and legacy as a Skywalker; he is no ordinary force user, and I lauded writers for giving him the credit he deserves.
Of course, I'd have liked to see more of Luke Skywalker, but he is too big a character for the kind of threat the First Order and Kylo poses. He is the stuff of legend and he passes into a legend in the end.
Every other little annoyances are just that: little annoyances, including cheesy humor here and there; but they are kept minimal, doesn't detract from the emotional weight of the story.
Now, I don't know why people give this 1 star, maybe people focus too much on the negatives or can't accept that SW has evolved. But this is a good movie, unburdened with over-engineered CGI porn that Marvel and Michael Bay films throw out every six months. It's balanced and carries emotional weight. Sure it could've been better. But it doesn't do justice to give this 1 star with knee-jerk reactions; it's utterly disrespectful to the legacy of Lucas, of Carrie Fisher, and all the other characters we came to love. People are so goddamn hateful and snidey these days.
I am more concerned that the next movie is going back to J.J.'s hands. They should've kept Rian for the next installment, he understands star wars.
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This movie was great but of course it was not great as the original trilogy but it was a diffrent take on star wars which i really liked. you think the movie is going in one direction and it goes different way and i liked that. Also Rey, Luke, Poe and Kylo were great in this one. Dont want to spoil anything but i think if you love star wars you should go see it.
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The visuals were great but I just couldn't get over how ridiculous is the whole attitude towards time and space in this movie.
1. People just jump on an off stars and galaxies like they go for the store for a carton of milk. Everything is instantaneous. Distance is meaningless.
2. In the future we have robots doing everything but we still need a human to hold the wheel of every starship, from the smallest fighter to the largest cruiser. In one of the most ridiculous scenes in the movie the rebels are leaving their cruiser but an Admiral "has to stay and navigate the ship" because...what? It will hit a tree or a mailbox if they left the wheel?
3. Of course every battle has to be in eye range contact. Bombs are being dropped like it's WW2.
4. Also: Kylo Ren or whtever his name is is as intimidating as your annoying Emo neighbor. Good villains are either murderous death machines like Hulk (if Hulk was a villain) or cold an calculated like most good villains out there. Kylo Ren is just so angry and emotional you just want to slap him.
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Let me start by saying that The Last Jedi is not, by any means, a bad movie. It's a well-made movie with a few problems. Actually more than a few. Henceforth I've decided to split this review in two parts, the good and the bad.
The good
Directing, cinematography and visual effects: Rian Johnson, director of some of my favorite Breaking Bad episodes, did a masterful job. Some shots are truly incredible, and this is thanks to the amazing cinematography as well; also, the visual effects are stunning.
The score: it's John Williams, folks. Every time it feels like he outdoes himself but when you really think about it, he's always been this good. Incredible work by Mr. Williams, as always.
The acting: Mark Hamill may have delivered his best performance as Luke Skywalker. The way his character was handled, though... we'll talk abou that later. The rest of the cast is fine as well, good job from everyone. The actors are not the problem, their characters and how they were handled is.
To sum it up, from a technical point of view, I really have nothing to complain. Some scenes are really incredible and powerful, but what surrounds these scenes and what causes them is the problem. One way to convey what I think about this movie in a sentence is that this is a movie with a lot of cool moments and concepts but with a weak story. Ok, let's talk about that now.
The bad
The Finn/rose relationship: it's completely pointless and its only purpose is to pad the runtime. What were the results of their mission? They freed a bunch of animals 'cause caging animals is bad, buh-uh and they caused the death of Phasma, a cool character with no development. Yeah, I know there are books and comics about her in the Canon, but a least give us something in the movie! The movies are the main media of this franchise, aren't they?
Speaking of the mission, it could've been easily avoided if the Laura Dern character (don't remember her name, to be honest) had said something about her true plan from the beginning. Why lie? That's just bad screenwriting. What about Finn and Rose's kiss, preceded by the most clichéd ex-machina "save at the last minute"? I really thought they were going to kill Finn but no! We gotta have the romance! The more I think about Rose and the more I'm convinced she was introduced just to give Finn a different love interest than Rey.
The humor: the Porgs were handled well, I must admit. We all thought they were going to be overbearing but no, they were cute and they appeared for just the right amount of time. They served their purpose, which is to sell toys, without being too annoying. But too much comedy when it wasn't necessary! It was awkward at times. Like at the beginning, the whole Poe/Hux shenanigan. It was so forced and not necessary.
A missed opportunity: I enjoyed The Force Awakens. However, I have to admit it was somewhat too similar to A New Hope in a few aspects. All of this to say that I'm not automatically against the fact that a franchise wants to try something new. The whole Force conncection between Rey and Kylo was something we never saw before in a Star Wars movie and it's cool! Anyway, I see many people praising this movie for being unconventional and unpredictable, and that's fine, it's their opinion. From my perspective though, not all the new elements and characters really bring something new to this universe. I mean, at the end of the movie the situation that takes shape is basically the same of the Original Trilogy, with the Resistance (Rebels) overpowered in the fight against the First Order (the Empire). Where have I seen that already? All of this supposed innovation isn't there, in my opinion. We definetely saw something new; something different but the situation that was caused by these new elements is something we have already seen countless times.
Almost nothing that was set up in the previous movie was addressed ot it was given an unsatisfactory revelation (in my opinion), and that really bothered me. Rey's parentage... why? I get what they're trying to say, that everyone and anyone could become something great. I don't agree with this. Her parents are literal no ones and yet she's all mighty and powerful in the ways of the Force. How? Why? There must be something more to it. I don't get why they wanted to shatter everything that was established in the previous movies. This is not called being bold, it's called being disrespectful to the source material. I'd prefer if her parents were somehow connected to Luke , to Obi-Wan, to anything! No, we don't want that! Let's just be edgy. It doesn't make sense to me. Now Snoke. Who is the guy? We know nothing! One could say that we also knew nothing about the Emperor. Well, first of all the Star Wars universe wasn't a thing when Return of the Jedi came out, not as it is today. We didn't need a backstory back then, which eventually they have us with the prequels. At least some information about him, after all the speculations! Instead no, he just died. He was just the obstacle to Kylo to become the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Speaking of Kylo, yeah, sure, he is a conflicted character, which was established in Force Awakens. We still see this conflict in this movie aaaaaaaaand... nothing changes at the end of this one, he's still in the same situation as he was at the end of the last movie. He may be redeemd in Episode Nine but oh! Where have I seen that before (uhm... Vader, anyone?).
Finally, the thing that bothered me the most. Luke. Is. Dead. As I've said, I liked Hamill's performance. He was great, giving even more depth to the character. And I'm not mad he died, I'm mad he died in the penultimate episode of the saga! I would have been fine with his death at the end of the following movie, with the look to the future that would've actually made more sense. But with his death now, at this precise moment of the franchise, Star Wars, as of right now, what story does it tell? I've always seen these movies as the epopee of the Skywalkers. It's always been about them. With his death, what's there to say? The Resistance against the First Order? Boring. The other characters? As of right now, I don't really care about them. Especially if we consider that Rey has no relations with him, so yeah. Bye Skywalkers.
In the end, The Last Jedi is not a horrible movie. Some parts were good. Some were, specifically because of some serious bad decisions, which wanted at all costs to break from the past for the sake of being different and unconventional, when answering what was set up in the previous movie would've sufficed to me.
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Good Cinematography. Not a star wars movie. Force awakens poorly ties to last jedi and most of the things don't make sense.
1) Lea was thrown into space, manages to survive and starts using force? Really i don't think the concept of force was fully grasped
2) Whats the point of SNOKE if he was killed easily and how come he didn't sense both of their minds?
3) Kylo goes from a little child that got beaten by Ray to a big deal that becomes a supreme leader?
4) Luke, a master Jedi depressed? Are you kidding me? It doesn't tie to the character that we know as Luke Skywalker. Depression and misery leads to the dark side, Master Jedi hide but they never lock themselves from the force.
5) What happened to Force Ghost of Obi wan and anakin skywalker? How come they didn't reveal themselves?
6) Chewbaca and Ray? Really ? Chewbaca only works with Han Solo and not anyone else.
This is just a milking business now. Thanks Disney for running the movie
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I loved the original 3 star wars (IV, V and VI). I could not watch the prequels after I saw the first one. I just couldn't , no matter how much I tried to convince myself to.
I really liked Rogue One and I was ok-ish with TFA.
One hour ago I saw TLJ and I feel a part of my childhood died. Maybe it died a long time ago when Vader was converted back to the light and I just now acknowledged it.
For me the movie is not horrible, it's just bad. It kills the ideas created by the first three movies. (those were flawed too, but they had something that made them great, that created this cow milk that Disney is trying to milk to the bone).
I am not saving this movie in my star wars directory anytime soon.
The story felt rushed, the character development was weak at best and how fast some crucial events happen made me not care almost from beginning to end.
There were some good ides squeezed in but enough for me.
I don't think that will matter because
I think Disney executives know what they are doing.
I think they are targeting other audiences than the fans who loved the first three, and it might very well work. I have no problem with that. If in the future they will make a good star wars movie I will enjoy it and add it to my collection. If not, I will be down the price on one movie ticket.
They are trying to make a huge pile of money. They have the formula and they are going to squeeze everything they can from it.And it seems to be working. I don't blame them I will just choose how I spend my money.
They had commercials for EA , battlefront running before the film . I don't even own a PS4 and that made me want to vomit.
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I am sad to say that the experience has left both the people I went with and myself poorer. Characterisation was massacred, every single talking point of the last two years, wrapped up and thrown in the bin (not worth the effort JJ Abrams, might as well not bothered), characters utterly wasted, writing terrible as others state, constant just in time falling over plot people (jail cell) or sudden arrivals of ships. Nobody read the star wars technical manuals from other films, cloaking device surplus, get one here.
Casino planet worst side adventure ever and the most pointless, one line of dialogue would had eradicated the need for it and saved hundreds of people who were escaping. Convenient that the "chase" happened right next to the side plot planet and a rebel base (every planet must have one obviously). I even sensed a bit of panic on the opening scene as folk immediately voiced the word Hoth.....
Also can the first order not micro jump in front of the fleeing cruiser (or call in another cruiser from its fleet - or are there only four ships left now), send out its tie fighters or boarding pods (i know its outside standard operating range but your going to be catching up shortly and can pick them back up after a slight delay....common sense eludes these story writers).
Why this war isnt over I dont know, just buy junk frieghters and hyperspace them into the enemy, apparently it takes less than a second to override hyperspace engine safeties now anyway, pretty much made gravity well star destroyers pointless.
Also do Dreadnoughts not have shields? One fighter disarms a dreadnought but a fleet of ships cant hurt a rebel cruiser with its infinitely recharging shields but alas someone forget to pull into ship fuel station.
Poor Disney, just poor, please go watch Episodes 1-6 again and Old Republic trailers, and see what Star Wars is supposed to feel like. Mary Poppins Leia....thats not how the force works to quote Han.
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9/10
Great addition to the Star Wars saga and set's the stakes of what is to come.
Like most people, I was hyped for this movie and really curious where they would take the Star Wars saga after the previous installment.
I really liked 'The Force Awakens' and the new characters it introduced, thought it to be a great setup for things to come.
The movie opens with a space battle where the remaining Resistance forces, led by Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher), struggle to escape from the massive fleet of the First Order. Beside leading the resistance to safety, Leia also has to deal with hot shots like pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) who have different ideas about her strategy and belive more in fighting back then running away. At the First Order side of the battle, Supreme leader Snoke is displeased with Kylo Ren's (Adam Driver) failure to defeat Rey (Daisy Ridley) on Starkiller Base and taunts and insult him, motivating him by fear to do better. Meanwhile, Rey has found the legendary Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and want him to train and guide her using her newfound powers. But Luke is unsettled by the strength of her powers, something he has seen once before..
I really liked this new addition to the Star Wars movie. All the main actors performed really well, especially Mark Hamill who I found even better now then in the classic movies. Adam Driver continues to impress me playing the conflicted Kylo Ren and Daisy Ridley takes her character to a new level. Her scenes with Hamill are excellent and there are some humorous moments in it to. There are some surprising elements in this movie which not everyone can appreciate but I liked them. This movie also does not answer every question some people might have had after the previous movie but I was not bothered by it. The original trilogy also did not answer everything and left things to the imagination of the viewer. The only thing I didn't like was one scene regarding Leia that looked a little silly and the 'side-quest' that Finn was send to do. Everything did come together nicely in the climax but Finn's quest took away to much attention from the main story and there were not enough main characters there to make it part of the main story.
Like many Star Wars movie, it's chuck-full of special effects and fast action scenes and this movie really delivers on that front. The battle scenes are great, the duels are great and the scenery looks beautiful. The only place that felt a little to generic to me was the planet where Finn is send to. It didn't look like another world and they could have made it more interesting or left it out. I also think this movie has the best Star Wars soundtrack to date. It always had great music (even the prequel trilogy had that) but this time I had the feeling it was even better.
Overall, The Last Jedi is an awesome Star Wars movie that takes the saga to a new direction and sets the stakes for an epic final in Episode IX.
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After successfully committing patricide in the last movie, Kylo Ren a.k.a. Ben Solo in this episode manages to commit tantamount to avunculicide, and fails in committing matricide, but not for lack of trying. Boy, the Skywalker-Solo clan is one messed up family.
The Good:
Fight scenes and space battle scenes are really good, especially if you've seen them in big-screen 3D. There's plenty of strong female characters, who essentially call all the shots. The interplay between Leia and admiral Holdo is very emotional and full of subtext, if you choose to look into it.
Mark Hammill does an excellent job as a jaded and disappointed, I've-seen-it-all, too-old-for-this-BS type, and his to and fro with Rey are the highlights of the movie. The movie is about him, and he delivers, above and beyond.
Props also to Rose, an interesting character that should receive more screen time in future movies, as she completely outshone Finn. The entire Rose-Finn storyline looks like it would work just fine without him.
The Bad:
The movie is too long for what it wants to convey - the end of an era. Plot holes abound. The humor is juvenile and utterly unfunny, it seems like it tries too hard to emulate the wit of the originals, but fails miserably (see: general Huggs).
The villains are not very scary: who the hell is Snoke? Guess we'll never know, and we don't really need to, since it's just a Palpatine replacement, just like Kylo Ren is a Vader replacement - both bad. Even the good guys are unmemorable: Poe is an irritating thrill-seeker, Finn completely unnecessary, just like Threepio and yes, Artoo, too. Chewie is there just so that the Falcon could have a major role, and consequently keep on selling many, many toys.
And that's my biggest gripe with this movie: call me cynical, but Star Wars now feels entirely like a cash grab, which makes all the good about this movie (and it's not all bad) seem unnecessary and just...sad. Someone said that this should have been the last SW movie. I agree.
Oh and, in light of the rumored Poe-Finn gay relationship, is it just me or does "Get your head out of your cockpit" line have a completely different meaning when looking at it from that angle?
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I'm not a good english speaker but i want to tell this as a star wars fan. there are a lot of awful scenes,unnecessary death and only few fighting/battle scenes. these are not what im looking for the star wars movie and i feel sad about it. The saddest part is when Admiral Ackbar's death just pass away like that, he was a important character of making a phrase "It's a trap!" and many people know that. If this movie is not called star wars, i will give a positive review. Disney ruined this and i just want disney to bring back our great memories in this movie series (especially ep 4,5,6). the only good things about this movie is the new vehicles (AT-M6,new bomber,new AT-ST and snow speeder?). I hope the next Han Solo's movie and ep 9 will be fun to watch for fans.
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Now I know how heartbroken Obi Wan Kenobi felt when Anakin turned to the dark side. My heart breaks for my childhood hero Luke Skywalker, in my heart this never happened because this simply isnt a star wars film. There is nothing left to save this film franchise which has never been able to recreate the spark in the universe that Star Wars gave generations of film goers from 1977.
In the latest two films we know nothing more about the Star Wars universe. The plot has never progressed and the two movies simply have borrowed a random order of events from the original trilogy and killed off characters we have loved. There are characters we should love, hate and want to know more about and a universe to explore, but instead I'll summarise the plot as I saw it:
The rebels have been trapped in the middle of space by the first order until they run out of gas. Rey gets trained by Luke Skywalker and confronts Kylo Ren.
The art of storytelling is over. The immense star wars universe has never been so small and the plot holes have never been so big.
I am off to reread Timothy Zahns Thrawn Trilogy books again which I still have from 1991, glad Yoda didnt burn them. I think its about time we went back the texts.... time to read books again, the cinematic age is over.
If you think you are going to see Star Wars...... it's a TRAP!
RIP Admiral I wont forget what you did.
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Words cannot begin to describe how disappointed I am with this Disney cookie cutter drivel.
The user reviews will tell you what is wrong with the movie from a plot/story/script perspective but the reality is that this movie makes the prequels look good and they were garbage.
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I didn't even see the movie, and I'm giving it 0/10, just for the rudeness of making sequels on original trilogy and amazingly stupid 'The Force Awakens' after which it became clear that nothing can be salvaged in the other two movies. Disgrace!
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Mark Hamill deserved better. Why would this get through all of the checks and balances throughout the preproduction and production? I cannot say much more. If you like the film, then you must be very forgiving. I felt dazed afterward. What a waste.
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I would forgive any thing but killing skywalker ended all for me .luke is dead .han is dead and sure lia will be in the next movie. So whose is gonna fight in the war of the stars . It all over guys.
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a) The original Star Wars films were playful, bubblegum films based on classic Hollywood tropes and Saturday serials. They were both melodramatic and deliberately silly, because they were made for children of all ages. They were not masterpieces of filmmaking (with the exception of the visual/sound effects, of course). If anything, they were masterpieces of adventure and entertainment. By the time Return of Jedi was released, Lucas's vision had started to unravel and the films had become ridiculous in certain respects.
b) The prequels were uneven at their best, having none of romantic charm of the original trilogy. Mind-numbingly bad characters, dialogue, and pacing plagued every episode and made common people wince. Horrible.
The Force Awakens was a simple reboot, if not a retread. But at least it was competent entertainment in most respects, with a couple of great new actors and characters introduced.
Which brings us over the course of 40+ years to The Last Jedi.
There is nothing more sad than to hear bearded men with college degrees and real jobs pissing and moaning about canon and expectations while completely missing the point. This is excellent, exhilerating entertainment and escapism, and by the end of it I was 12 years old again. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. I wanted a real lightsaber. I wanted to branded as rebel scum.
The film has issues. The entire Finn/Rose subplot was a useless distraction, and chews up time that would have been better spent on central characters. But many of the glaring, maddening failures of Lucas as a filmmaker seem to be forgotten now. Now there is only contempt for Disney - and everything they do with the Star Wars universe.
My hope is that some aspects of the lore that seemed to be trivialized in this film will be better addressed later. And we have the new addition of the standalone films being released, to reframe and clarify.
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+ Soundtrack alone is one of the best ( Thank you john williams)
+ Special effects are amazing the best i have ever seen
+ The film sets so beatuyfull and stunning
+ Rey(Daisy Ridley) here acting is great i feel the pain in her heart
+ The figures and never seen aliens
+ The star wars feeling
+ The humor is fresh
Some story aspects
I have a problem with the charakter snoke. Whe know nothing from him. George Lucas Palpatine have a defently better backround story.
The manifestation jedi thing need defently more answers
Sometimes i wish that they integrate more new things in the universe roque one feel very fresh and new
Conclusion:
Star Wars The Last Jedi is typical star wars nothing is very new but the core is amazing.
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8/10
New ideas aren't killing the franchise, they're protecting it.
This is the first Star Wars film I've seen in a long time which genuinely feels like it can stand on it's own. It's far from perfect, with some oddly poor writing for a film with such an astronomical budget, and it does feel a bit disrespectful to it's heritage, but at this point I feel this disrespect is actually what the franchise really needs.
To the people ranting about this, I ask, which is truly more respectful to the originals:
A:
Moving on from old characters and narratives to leave the originals as they are while flipping existing tropes and questions on their heads to create new, interesting narratives? (What The Last Jedi has done)
B:
Dragging out existing characters, and beating existing dramatic questions to absolute shit in order to cash in on nostalgia? (What The Force Awakens has done)
Die hard Star Wars fans don't know what they want, they hated The Force Awakens for being too close to the originals, and they hate this film for differing too much. If you hold the original films so near and dear to your heart that you can't stand to see any new ideas, don't watch the new films!
The film stands on its own in that it finally seems as if it's not relying on intertextuality to make us care. It's characters are compelling on their own, and they feel fresh, all in a universe which FINALLY feels creative again.
Many other reviewers are having absolute meltdowns over the way Luke's character is portrayed in this film, and I agree it is a little rough to see a childhood hero in such a state. However I feel this was well executed and overall helped the franchise as a whole. If you were the legendary hero of the entire Galaxy, and you then failed horribly and ended up creating the next Vader, would you just move on and keep being the perfect hero? No, because humans are flawed. Showing Luke as such a damaged, fundamentally flawed character does NOT make him a worse character, it makes him a far stronger one, and makes the resolution of the film even more satisfying when he reclaims his place as one of the greatest heroes in the galaxy.
In conclusion, The Last Jedi is an extravagant leap into the new world of Star Wars, and has demonstrated that the new films are not afraid to flip classic Star Wars ideas, characters, dramatic questions and themes on their heads to provide something which feels genuinely new. However, this isn't for everyone, if you just want the same old star Wars films you've been watching for years, with no ambition and no radical departures, you're going to hate this film, so save the rest of us some annoyance and just don't see it.
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There is much to like in this movie; big action scenes, heroics, space battles, lightsaber fights, the return of old favorite characters and unexpected humor.
That being said for me it didn't feel like a Star Wars film but more like Guardians of the Galaxy. also there was a whole subplot about Finn and Rose on a mission that went nowhere. If this want a star wars movie I would give it an score of 8 bit to be honest I wanted more out of this.
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Too all those who say that Luke wasn't what they expected, try teaching someone who you expected to be amazing, but then turns on you and kills your dream. Tell me if you wouldn't hide your self away in shame and self pity. You would completely unrecognizable and not have hope for the future. And that is what has happened to Luke. Yes, he was amazing when he was a fresh faced kid, coming into his own as a Force user and Jedi. But after years of dealing with his failure in dealing with Ben Solo, you can't expect him to be the same, optimistic person.
And that is where Rey comes in. She is the fresh faced hope that is trying to convince him that he is needed. And he isn't apt to change right away. Living a certain way for so long becomes your lifestyle. BUT he does change in the end. He sees Rey's rays of hope for the Resistance and risks his life by sending his projection to help. He shows who he was in the original trilogies by that one final act.
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Alone the Movie is watchable and I would give it a 8.0, BUT with the Story of 7 Episodes before this movie is just one NOGO! It ruined every interesting aspect that Ep7 build. (Rey Origin, The Return of Luke, the Fight Luke vs. Snoke).
Every real Starwars fan would made a better movie out of this: Snoke being secretly a returning Imperator Palpatine would make more sence thatn the whole Plot of this garbage. 1 out of 10 as StarWars Lore fan.
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This movie is a blasphemy, filled with illogical and unbeliveable events, irritant characters, out of place humor.What they do to the original characters is unforgivable.
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I am neutral, not die hard fan of the franchise. For me, SW starts with SW: F. Awakens... which was more solid and story was holding together. Here, the story is boring, too lenghtly stretched into many lines, where you must find yourself thanks to big jumps from line to line...For example Finn´s storyline is boring, Rose is ULTRA ANNOYING.. Humour is 90% childlish but i give you that some of em were very funny. Final battle is joke, so many cliché (phasma preparing to execute hostage like 10 minutes) , Rey was put aside and despite hard training she had ONE action scene against snoke and thats it ? Only good thing for die hard fans is character development - huge step forward for Poe and Kylo Ren.. Those two are main pillars of the story.. Overal - boring, more childlish, dissapointing, but i accept that high score, cuz the movie is playing with your emotions and 95% of our planet are people with weak emotions, so score is that high...
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I will apologise up front that review writing is not my forte but I tried of people telling me why I had to like The Last Jedi and I was the one holding on to the past if I didn't agree.
Did the Empire win at the end of Episode 6? It does feel that way when it comes to TFA and TLJ.
Understandably for Star Wars it had to evolve. However instead of developing story lines with generations working together, it is out with the old and in with the new. So my question is why do beloved character have to be pushed aside and made to look bad, instead there are still- stormtroops, deathstar weapons, star destroyers and tie fighters?
This movie for me was boring as the 1st Order leaders are more of a parody of the old Empire. While the actors do their best they don't have the presences of the previous cast on screen and appear to have a delusions of grandeur (which happens when Solo is out of the picture) .
Rey still looking like a deer in the headlights, gets out of every predicament so much so that in TLJ, they didn't show how she did one escape,
Phasma is more like a classic Battlestar Cylon and just as useless.
On the subject of Battlestar, the rag tag fleet with little fuel pursued by the enemy, I remember when George Lucas sued Glen Larson over BSG being a copy of Star Wars, now SW is using BSG for story ideas. Couldn't they find a story line from their own expended universe?
The Force now offers super powers but is useless for soul searching and clarity.
There are a lot of throw back lines that feel forced. The humour was very poor with most jokes falling flat and should not be compared to the Marvel or POTC movies as isn't that funny
On the subject of Pirates did Disney throw it under a bus to get the critics to say that The Last Jedi was fresh? Pirates was far more original as The Last Jedi is a mashup of Battlestar Galactica, Empire and Jedi.
Star Wars was the Skywalker adventures seen through the eyes of two droids, who have also been replaced by a cute SUPER droid and in TFA and Episode 9 neither Anikan or Luke are or will be the lead character.
Everyone blames Disney for this mess but it is Lucas Film that is at fault as there seems to be little project management as they allow egotistical writer/director full control and they appear more interested in pushing their "their characters" and not considering the flow of the entire saga.
One last thing, Yoda who has put on weight since he died, is just as powerful in the living world. So does that open the door to the Return of the Jedi (plural) to finish the saga? If so that will be the only way to clear up this mess.
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH EPISODE 9!
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Ok, I've never written a review on IMDB before and will try to do so now without spoilers.
First of all I'm a fan, you know the "seen-the-movies-more-times-then-i-can-count-and-been-to-celebrations-own-loads-of-posters type of fan.
I did love TFA, yes it wasn't the most original plot but it felt like Star Wars again and the new characters were interesting.
Now, Last Jedi, is a different story:
New characters felt a bit one-dimensional
Subplot took 20 minutes or so in total but didn't add to the main story
The story didn't flow but was all over the place
Some of the already established characters did stuff that was totally out of character
I know it's Sci-Fi but some of the Sci made no sense at all (within the established SW universe)
Some of the humour was very forced
They created so much merchandise potential with critters and props that halfway through I was starting to wonder if I was watching an infomercial
Now, there were good bits:
Most main characters got more personality and background, those were some of the best scenes
Special effects are cool and well done
Carrie Fisher was awesome
Some of the humour was really funny
The story was very unexpected
So I give it 6 stars: I'd still want to see it again, but my message to Disney: "Oh come on! you can do better than this!"
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I was very intrigued walking in to the cinema to see this film. I had avoided spoilers like the plague. I felt that now that we removed the 'training wheels' that was The Force Awakens, we would be opened up to something new and original.
Let me put it this way, in some senses, they do something new, but on the other hand, there is a tonne of wasted potential. I really feel for Rian Johnson because he is caught in the middle between praise and hatred, aptly symbolizing the dark side and the light.
The story beats of The Empire Strikes Back are here but they really try to bring things up a notch alluding to the First Order gaining the upper hand and showing that the Jedi are now redundant. Luke Skywalker has become disillusioned by the Jedi code and we watch him and Rey argue for the first half of the film, Rey trying to empathise with Kylo Ren, Finn has his own sideplot with newcomer Rose Tico, and the Resistance trying to escape the clutches of the First Order........very............slowly.......
I will admit that a lot of the film is a bit of a slog to get through and while some of the shots are captured beautifully, there is a tonne of wasted potential.
WTF was the deal with Snoke? Why the hell would you build him up so much only to kill him, with us being none the wiser on who he is beyond leader of the First Order, where he came from, how did he influence Kylo Ren, how did Luke and Leia know him and how does he fit in to the story other than being the generic big baddie. Very weak as a villain in the long run and I felt very cheated by this.
While we're on the topic, good God, Captain Phasma. What the hell?!! Yet again, she is built up hugely only for her to be brought down by Finn at a moment's notice.
There was a moment where I was convinced Leia would be killed off to justify her absence in later films due to Carrie Fisher's passing, but she saves herself in the cheesiest way possible. I genuinely had a look of disbelief and confusion on my face during a number of scenes. Leia is incapacitated for the majority of the film, causing a new Admiral played by Laura Dern to assume command, who is really miscast here. Her incompetence causes a mutiny led by Poe, which is thrilling for a while, added to the continued chase, running from the First Order.
The whole reveal of Rey's parents may seem like a copout but I'm glad in a way that they're at least trying something new with her, rather than connecting her to the Skywalkers. The shot of her in the cave with the infinite reflections was pretty cool.
Finn and Rose's sideplot seemed like unnecessary padding but they had their moments together, kinda putting a dampener on the whole Rey/Finn romance dynamic.
Also, this whole tease they have in the trailers, teasing that Rey or Kylo will switch sides, it amounts to nothing. They ultimately return to their respective sides and carry on.
I felt that Mark Hamill did well as an older Luke and of course the shots of Skellig Michael (I refuse to call it Ahch-To) were great. I had mixed feelings about the Porgs though.
I admire the film for the visuals and some of the acting, but some of the story threads really irked me and made me almost apprehensive as to what to expect in Episode IX.
Mixed bag. All I can say.
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It's ok to make Luke look like a jerk, it's ok that Leia becomes Mary Poppins, it's ok not to give any detail on Snoke's identity, it's ok not to follow up on the story of the map to Luke's location (which was a big opening scene in The Force Awakens), it's also ok not to follow up why Luke's lightsaber was in Maz Kanata's catina, it's ok to disregard the history and set a new path, it's all ok
BUT PLEASE TREAT US WITH SOME RESPECTS and give us a proper storyline, I know it's a SF movie but it doesn't mean that you can produce a movie full of inconsiderate fantasy .......
Disney and Mr Johnson, please watch this movie again and see if this is really your objective to make a multi billion box office on a movie like this
by the way, i think Snoke's power on connecting Rey and Ben is really weird
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I don't usually write review for a movie, but things has to be said about this movie.
I've watched star wars since i was like 9 or 10 years old, and have rewatched it again countless times, and this...this doesn't even feel like star wars.
For starter, the attempt on comedy was god awful. It feels like i'm watching a marvel superhero movie, but this kind of comedy on a star wars movie feels so misplaced!
Oh, and Leia being blown away on the bridge and still remained intact (read: no damage on the outer appearance whatsoever) to 'force' herself onto the ship, and other explosion scenes like that is rightly ridiculous.
In the original trilogy Luke was this guy who still believed that Darth Vader, despite being a renowned super bad guy, still have a light side to him, tried to bring him back to the light side, and succeed. While in this movie he tried to kill the f**kin YOUNG KYLO just because he saw a vision of him being bad in the future, and this is at the point where kylo was just a padawan (?) and not yet an established bad guy, and i found this to be ridiculous. They just killed Luke character like it was nothing.
I don't even enjoy THE LIGHTSABER BATTLE ON THIS MOVIE, HOW COULD YOU MAKE A LIGHTSABER BATTLE TO BE SO BORING!!!
I could go on and on about how the continuity of stories from the force awakens was awful, how the casino part of the movies is just useless, etc. but then i realized something: they just killed Star Wars.
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9/10
Dont listen to the naysayers, they dont know what they're talking about
When the force awakens opened up in cinemas two years ago, I remembered being in awe of the amazing film which essentially carried on the star wars saga. This being said, I found it a little surprising that after a week of it opening up at the box office, star wars fans were giving it such a beating. Complaining that the film was played "too safe" and that it "wasn't original" or too reminiscent of a new hope...... which I understood to a certain degree, however I felt it was a good way to carry on the franchise nonetheless. When the Last Jedi hit theatres, it took me on a story line which isn't just unpredictable and completely thinks outside of the box in regards to both story line and how characters are introduced. You're invited to new worlds and shown chemistry with new and old characters, basically Disney listened to the fans and gave them something unexpected as well as imaginative...... and surprise surprise, as soon as the last Jedi hits the box office, you're greeted by the same whinge bags who moaned about the force awakens, the same people that said they wanted something different two years ago, are now not happy that the films have gone in a different direction. I don't want to get too much into the film as I want to keep this review spoiler free, but I just wanted to say don't listen to the naysayers, this film is exceptional and is up there with the empire strikes back.....Luke steals the show and watching Poe's character develop is something I didn't know I wanted until I watched the Last Jedi.
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Don't be dissuaded by all the negative reviews about this film; just go and see it yourself before making up your mind. The vast amount of negativity on IMDb has started to seem like a deliberate smear campaign either against Disney or the director; but none of it seems to make much sense.
For me, having grown up with Star Wars from it's beginnings with Episode IV, I've seen the evolution of the franchise from a somewhat mediocre sci-fi movie with an interesting backstory; to a phenomena with a growing philosophy regarding the Force, those that interact with it, and it's parallels in the ancient spiritual traditions of the real-world. For this reason, particularly this film's dialogue concerning the Force, I thoroughly recommend it and feel it more than adds to the evolution of the Star Wars Universe.
The locations photography, particularly the island scenes, are breath-taking and would be reason enough to see the film if this were it's only merit. Fortunately the story and the action is fast-paced and engaging to make this a success. I understand why some fans may have been disillusioned with some of the story and character decisions, particularly the deviations from expectation; but Game of Thrones has been doing this for years and has pushed it's way to the top of the ratings as a result.
Forget any prejudice you may have towards this film after reading any negative review, and remember that the success of Star Wars is far more than any single character or story-arc; it's an exploration of an energy that permeates all living things and can subsequently manifest as good or evil. Crucially, our current real-world quantum physics and Eastern philosophies are almost at a point where The Force from the Star Wars universe is more than just a fictional creation and it is this comparison that has the ability to make Star Wars real for so many.
The caliber of the acting is high with Mark Hamill giving probably his best performance in the role, and I think praise should genuinely go to the Director for daring to be different and go his own way while preserving what is REALLY important to the Star Wars universe. If you go and see this film at the cinema, that'll be £10 well spent!
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The Best Star Wars movie so far. I don't know why everyone thinks Disney is ruining the Franchise. The movie answered a lot of questions and the special affects, the action, and story is amazing.
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Feminism + Disney totally ruined Star Wars. Men are described as reckless and foolish. Women can learn Force without any effort and are wise. Sith and Jedi are nothing. THIS IS THE WORST STAR WARS MOVIE EVER.
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Coming from someone who loved Episode VII, this was not only a worse movie but it felt slow and was almost like hitting a beaten old joke. First of all,I hate how they don't fully commit to something. what were they going for with the purple-haired lady ie where is the fun if no one wins in a conflict, I might not know how to direct a better movie but this didn't feel like a satisfying turn of events. Similarly, I am also ambivalent about the Kylo Ren/Rey twist. Felt dry when the twist after the twist landed. Also, where is the respect paid to experience,hard work and culture/history. It's like none of those matter here. ie(Just a minor spoiler) Rey still is untrained(oO) and yet defeats a lot of people. WTH?. Now to the how the movie runs, the pacing was barely bearable, the graphics, fighting was spectacular and worth the money you spent.
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How did such a promising story get so lost, I love to theorise about the upcoming movie and have all my life with everything Star Wars related from episode 1-3 and all throughout the clone wars even if it wasn't the best acting the story still remained good, after 7 I was left pondering what could be next and after seeing 8 I really couldn't careless the franchise has been ruined and I don't think it can be saved without familiar faces
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Why did they remake the same story again? It is the same story just retold with different, boring characters. If they had had me write/edit the story it would have been darker, more entertaining and it would be new. Of course the reason to why is the need to make gobs of money.
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As many a Star Wars fan, I could not wait for this film to be released.
I am a stickler for spoilers and having TFA ruined in 2015 by knowing the fate of Han Solo (RIP), I was determined not to let that happen again.
I caught the midnight showing and I left the cinema with such an empty feeling.
TFA was a good movie, albeit a little corny in places, it set TLJ up for a potentially explosive movie that would of answered all the questions left by TFA.
Jesus wept, this movie had everything poised and set up ready to explore the origins of Snoke, how Ben Solo came into his care, how did the map to Luke get created etc.
They just wasted it all.
In the original trilogy, it took us THREE movies to see Luke grow into the a Jedi, we explored the story between Luke and Vader, the battles, the scenes, the dialogue, right from ANH to TROTJ it was perfect.
Then we had the prequels, okay, so they werent as great as the original three, but saying that, we again had THREE movies to explore Anakin and his turn to evil. We saw the Jedi in power and how they thought they kept balance in the galaxy.
In ROTS, we had a superb finale, right through to Anakin's transformation into vader, his relationship with Padme and it put the pieces together ready for the start of NHP.
Disney have ruined this new batch of SW.
So many unanswered questions, all of a sudden Rey can do in ONE movie what the previous managed to do in 6 BUT WITHOUT A STORY. All of a sudden, Rey hears the words "force" and can see Kylo Ren's future. It's B/S. We have no idea why she can do this, no substance to her story, no explanation of why she is so powerful. Her training with Luke was laughable yet she can manipulate the force like no one has done before.
Snoke, had the potential to be a great character but nope, one lightsaber through the gut later and bang - adios Snoke.
As a film, it is great, the SFX and Visuals are on point. The acting is great, Adam Driver is especially believable as a tormented character.
As a SW film - its awful. Rian Johnson had the potential to make the greatest SW ever, when it reality, TLJ is more like a poor secret santa gift - high expectations - awful in reality.
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Do you remember why you like it at first time ? First episode.
I remember there were laser swords and a man with different abilities :D - a jedi
I saw for the first time ( it was something 1988-91 sat1 German )- was wrong language I could not understand a single word and I still liked it.
And I liked it because I wanted to be this man myself - luke skywalker :)
All other parts after 3 first have been disappointed, and like the last one.
I do not want to be a woman :)
I do not want to see a repeat - everybody knows last is a repeat..
Yes Wonder Woman is quite ok but there was also a good fighting scenes , which unfortunately, can not be said for this movie :(
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6/10
The movie disappointed me to some extent. The hate for it around here is absolutely shocking.
I certainly agree that this movie does not deserve an 8+ rating on this platform as it fundamentally lacks in some areas. But I can't understand less how many people actually think is is a 1 out of 10 movie. If that's your opinion, why did you even bother to watch the movie completely.
There is a whole bunch of unsatisfying new characters with no real impact or purpose, others were removed from the story in an unexpected way that might not be the best choice. But movies - in my opinion - aren't supposed to go exactly the way you want or expect it.
I feel like people are expecting so much of famous movie franchise these days that there is no single iteration of the movie that could satisfy them. Even if they had done the whole storyline and directing themselves you could erase their memory and they would hate the movie. Just because.
Personally, I don't think the movie is good enough to love it, and it's too loo long and slow to really enjoy it fully. But it at least has its moment, it has good actor performances and some good lines. So this is not a 1/10 movie. Everybody who thinks so has never watched such a movie.
And people who say that The Phantom Menace is like Citizen Kane compared to The Last Jedi clearly have no ideas about what makes movie. Or have never watched Citizen Kane.
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10/10
If this movie didn't fulfill all your theories, you have only yourself to blame.
"This is not going to go the way you think." is an understatement. I rarely ever write reviews, because my opinion doesn't matter. However, I feel the need to address the vitriol against this movie.
For the last two years I've listened to countless theories; Snoke is definitely this person, Rey's parents have got to be such and such. It's been relentless. Some of the theories were decent and plausible. The majority of them were idiotic. I admit that even I got caught up in a couple of them, but I wasn't committed to any particular theory. When finally watching the film, I feel my experience was partly ruined because when certain things happened I kept thinking "Oh no, that's really going to piss people off.". Then I snapped out of it and realized that I didn't care what people think. I loved every second of this film and now that I've had time to process it, I'm glad they went in the direction they did for the majority of the big "mysteries". If you've been discussing, deconstructing and committing to certain ideas of how the movie is going to play out, you've just set yourself up for major disappointments.
This movie definitely didn't play out how I expected in almost every scene, which I was pleased to see that a Star Wars movie could still surprise me.
So maybe take some time, think about this and give it another watch. See if your opinion changes.
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2/10
Disney's Star Wars has basically vomited out a weak replica of the original trilogy
the general plot seems to again copycat the original trilogy but with a few subtle differences. At least the prequels had some originality; focusing on Anakin's conflict and Darth Sidius' manipulation to turn him to the dark side. Losing his parents, the thought of losing Padme and being manipulated to believe the Jedi were against him; a true tragedy that drove him to his demise. Episode VIII has no actual character or story development; it all seems too stagnant. Kylo Ren brings Rey to Snoke, Kylo wants Rey to join him and form a new Empire and of course Luke Skywalker's predictable fate, just like ObiWan. At least George Lucas made every one of his Star Wars film original; something Disney's Star Wars fails to do and in terrible fashion.
Unlike Episode V; this movie has no atmosphere. The villains are lame with no clearcut identity; Snoke and Kylo Ren just don't create that same fear and atmosphere compared to just the very presence of the Emperor and Darth Vader. There are no dark moments in the film that have any true real drama and emotion that keeps the audience on the edge of their seat. Its just completely unbalanced. What do we have to look forward to now in Episode IX? Kylo Ren as the evil villian?! Are you serious?
They have wasted Rey's character; for someone who's looking for her place in the world; her character hasn't changed much at all since the last film. This film tends to still raise further questions about that.
what I did like were the visual effects and witty humour; but it takes much more that that to create a Star Wars film.
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Very bad writing.
Horrendous plot holes.
Arcs insufficiently developed.
Avengers vibe all the movie.
Star Wars vibe absolutely deleted.
Luke is turned into a bad Tony Stark.
Snoke is left as a tertiary character.
Rey is the new Yoda with just a 15 minute training.
All in all, I COULDN'T BELIEVE MY EYES.
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The Last Jedi has been praised by both critics and fans alike, but there certainly a divide growing amongst Star Wars fans who see this new direction as a disaster for the series. I am personally on the side that The Last Jedi was not a good movie, but I've taken some issue for the reasons people don't like the movie and after some thinking about it I see that the issues people have with the movie are not necessarily with the specific new direction they tried taking with the plot and characters, but instead with certain fundamental issues that underly the entire movie. So in no particular order I'm going to try and deconstruct the basic fanboy arguments against the movie and explain the real issues underlying them.
Luke betraying Ben.
What happened between Luke and Ben has been one of the greatest questions posed by The Force Awakens (TFA from here on). Fan boys argue that it is completely out of character for Luke, an individual who could find goodness in his murderous cyborg father, couldn't find a way to save young Ben.
The problem with the reveal of what happened between Ben and Luke is a problem that actually underlies several plot points and characters. Lack of context. What we got from this reveal really wasn't something we didn't already suspect, but because we got such a narrow look at the events that happened, all context for the scene is lost. What we needed was an explanation for Lukes, Ben and Snokes relationship with each other. If the movie insists on using flashbacks then we really needed some that showed Snoke and Ben together, Bens frustration and anger and Lukes fear and concern for who Ben might become. If this had been presented then maybe what happened might make sense, but as it stands Luke just went kinda nuts and had a momentary laps to the dark side because he was scared of a kid.
Snokes death
Killing off one the most powerful and mysterious bad guys in Star Wars in the second movie frustrated a lot of people, because it seems we might never get a decent answer to who Snoke was. Snokes identity plays directly into the issue with Ben and Luke, but maybe the problem with Snoke getting punked by Kylo and dying so early is that he was literally the most threatening thing about The Last Order. The Last Order were laughably inept and basically played off as a joke through out TFA and TLJ (even more so in The Last Jedi). The Empire was a terrifying force and even though Storm Troopers couldn't hit shit, you knew at least that The Empire meant business when ever it showed up on screen. The Last Order is a joke: Phasma is the equivalent of Kenny from South Park and Hux easily gets punked by some guy in a X-wing. They couldn't defend their super weapon even with all of their ships and couldn't even destroy a few ships in the slowest chase scene ever.
If the Last Order displayed the same kind of strength that The Empire did then maybe Snokes death might not seem like such a loss, but with the fool that is Hux and the hotheaded teenage angst that is Kylo now fully running the show, The Last Order is now the equivalent of Wile'e Coyote forever chasing Road Runner to his idiotic doom.
The movie is too long
At 2hr 33min The Last Jedi is a long movie; the next longest Star Wars film is Episode 2: Attack of the Clones at 2hrs 22min. TLJ tends to drag, even with all of its action and pretty visuals, but the reason it drags has a lot to do with how its edited. TLJ is trying to follow three separate storylines, before trying to tie it all together in the end and it does a poor job at it. The movie jumps around constantly, either to show us the tediously boring space chase and the drama going on in the ships, Hux being stupid, Rey chasing around Luke on an island, Rey and Ben "force talking" (I don't know what to call what they are doing), or Finn and Roses adventures.
In Empire Strikes Back we have two main storylines running through the movie: Leia, Han and the others on the Falcon escape from the Empire and Lukes training on Dagobah. What makes ESB work so well is that it breaks its two separate story arcs down into separate chapters that spend an extended amount of time on characters and their individual stories. Everything is in context and time isn't so extended out of wack that we are wondering when this scene is happening. TLJ doesn't do this as well.
TLJ jumps around and with the exception of the beginning and end of the movie rarely spends more than a few minutes on a particular character and sometimes less than a minute, as if the movie is attempting to show us that yes these people are still there. TLJ could have benefited greatly from combining multiple scenes together to tell a fuller story and editing some of the more pointless scenes out.
It was tried to be too funny, corny, subversive
The fanboys have been complaints about this is a little annoying as Star Wars has always been kinda corny and had a hefty dose of humor through out. Star Wars also had played a lot with classic hero motifs and story arcs in ways that often subverted them. The reason though TLJ has such issues with this is that its not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.
There are indeed funny moments in the movie: Poe talking smack to Hux, Luke tossing away the lightsaber, weird green milk, but most of the humor centers around the movie trying to be subversive and thats where it fails. Despite what critics say about the movie, this movie is not terribly original, the movies TLJ copies from (including the other Star Wars movies) did what they did much better.
It tried to pull from Mad Max, but forgot that a chase actually needs some action to keep it interesting. Luke parallels Yodas character as the grouchy old hermit, but even a puppet like Yoda had more depth than Luke did in this movie. Both Snokes and Lukes demise seem to parallel in someway Obi-Wans death, but where as Obi-Wans death served purpose, Snope and Lukes death is meant as an end that felt as if it had come far to soon. Rey and Kylo showdown with the other Knights of Ren, is meant to invoke the duals of classic samurai films, but the choreography is terrible and the action zoomed in so close you can't get a clear sense of whats going on.
TFA might have been derivative of A New Hope, but its action, humor and story were spot on.
Reys parents
Another of the big mysteries is Reys heritage. Theories were thrown around about her since TWA, but now we find out it doesn't matter. Now Reys parents being some nobodies really shouldn't be that big of a deal, but the fact that in TWA there is a whole scene dedicated to Rey being drawn to Lukes lightsaber and a bizarre flashback because of it, the very fact that Maz has Lukes lightsaber, none of this should have been taken lightly, but it was. Rey discovering who she was should have been an important part of her story, not just a throw away bit where Kylo tells her that her parents sold her for beer, because that's obviously not what was alluded to in TFA.
And honestly it would have been stupid if she found out she was a clone, or child of some figure in Star Wars lore, like Obi Wan, but her finding out who she was deserved some dignity.
Some last points
Lukes "Force Projection" isn't nearly as bad as everyone thinks. Luke schooling Kylo like that, actually showed how much more powerful he was than him. The problem was that for many of us that didn't like the movie, we were so desperate for something exciting to happen, seeing Luke slow-mo dodge Kylos lightsaber and then force ghosting because he overexerted himself was just the final nail in the coffin.
We all knew Leia was force sensitive, Luke even said so. It makes sense that she could use it to some degree, so it really wasn't that weird she saved herself with it. She likely wasn't well trained with it, but she had some power. The reason I think they didn't use this as a way to kill her off is because it would have been far to troublesome to reshoot all those scenes with her at that point.
Holdos plan was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. They said they had fuel for one more jump, then why didn't they just jump to the planet and send down the transports? Why didn't she just tell the crew what was going on? She didn't even say anything when Poe mutinied.
Even the First Order had options. Big deal if their fighters would be to far out, they have hundreds of them to go up against just a few ships. And couldn't the First Order find a way ahead of the Resistance? They could light speed ahead and cut them off.
I wanted to see BB8 fight that First Order robot.
Unless there is a bunch more footage around someplace, much of what we were told about Reys time on Ahch-To was a lie. It was said that the Porgs had some kind of relationship to the force, but I saw no evidence of that. It was said that Rey had to fight a sea creature, but that never happened.
The Porgs were stupid cheap attempts to cash in on something cute, but like so much else in this more they had no relevance.
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*Minor spoilers*
I am not going to give a detailed analysis of the movie here. It is obvious that people have loved and hated it in equal measure. I am just here as a casual viewer, who has not read these comics and was only mildly keen on watching this movie, until I went and saw it the day it released. I couldn't resist the Force (sorry). Even now, four days later, it is all I can think about. I did not read any review before booking the tickets and thank God I didn't cause I would've missed a great movie. The movie had me glued from the theme song and I did not want it to end. Every scene was beautifully shot and performed, especially the Force Bond ones between Ben/Kylo Ren and Rey and my favourites were the team-up and Luke's "deception". The light speed explosion was visually stunning. Kudos to the visual effects team. I must congratulate Rian Johnson and all the cast and crew for taking such a huge risk and pulling it off tremendously well. Haters are going to find faults anyway and although I have read some of their views, they fail to mention why exactly they hated it, and frankly, I don't give a damn. For me, The Last Jedi is the movie of the year (sorry, Diana) and an epic sequel to the Force Awakens in terms of character and story development. I am very excited for Episode IX.
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The best star wars movie so far I don't know why people think it sucks or why Disney is ruining the franchise. This movie shows a lot of surprises and incredible action.
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But for the love of god, the new Star Wars movies are some of the worst crimes to cinema I have ever seen. What happened to good story telling and characters you care about? What happened to character development that actually made you feel like there was something to go along with? How much more are we going to take of this before we just say that enough is enough?
I genuinely hate what Disney has done with Star Wars. This was a series that throughout 4 decades became more than just 6 simple movies. They became a different world and a different set of mythology that you can actually be able to get invested in. Even episodes 1, 2, and 3 had a story to them that showed how Anakin became evil and Obi Wan when he was in his prime as well as the republic before it fell to the wayside and there was a message of political corruption that few films actually had the balls to attempt to show. These are movies that get better with age, the prequels, because the older that they get, the more that they show everything that is wrong with the modern day system of politics and while Lucas doesn't really show what is correct and true to history, he is actually smarter than people give him credit for because he actually must have been paying more attention to the current political scene as we will probably see something like those movies be attempted in the future years, if they have not been already and he was able to point out the problems with democracy and how the politicians never really cared about anything besides their pockets. He didn't predict the future, he was just there to notice it before we were. And beyond the political scene, there were characters such as Obi Wan when he was young and it was showing how he was sort of hot headed to being the wise old mentor we knew of him as back in episode 4, he actually had a character. Anakin was a young boy who was forced to be put into a world he didn't get and it was able to make him see what the problems of society were and it made him angry and eventually evil that way. There is a three movie arc with this character. The effects for these new movies are also amazing even after almost two decades of age. And as the last two years have passed, more and more people have been able to appreciate these under rated films.
Now with the older movies. They were made by a man with no money and a big imagination. He was given a couple million dollars to make a miracle happen. After spending over four years making scripts and working on them again and getting to know the actors and putting extra time and effort to the effects, he was able to make what could be looked at as one of the best science fiction movies ever made that very quickly became something more than a movie and became a true embodiment of pop culture. Seeing the story and character development of the later two films, he was able to tap into so many people and bring them a cast of characters that actually felt like the real normal day people. Luke became more than just a character. He became a icon. Vader was more than a villain. He was the showing of how one can be able to change and become a hero and even if you never redeem yourself, you can still be able to have a character that one can understand even as a villain.
Seeing the first six movies of a story of rise and fall are some of the biggest pieces of cinema ever made and even more so of the last fifty years. Even the worst of these six still had something to these to make them good movies that actually looked like there was a true meaning to them. But when episode 7 came out, it was a money grabbing piece of popcorn fun that was fun the first time you see it but the more you think of it the more you realize it was easily the worst of these first seven. But it was just one movie, maybe they were warming up. Rogue One came out the next year and was the most ballsy movie of the last decade by a long shot and did such a good job showing what real war was like and showed how there was a real grey area in real life it showed that there was actually no real good or evil. This movie gave me genuine hope that 7 took away.
Episode 8 makes number 7 look like a masterpiece. The acting just was not that good, aside from Luke. The actor for Luke, Mark Hamill warned us about how bad this movie would be for over a year and he has been very vocal of his disgust of these new movies and all I will say is that we should have listened. 40 years of Star Wars legacy was thrown away for a chance to make money and it ruins every single character from the older six movies in one easy swoop and gets rid of 40 years of lore and mythology. No character is likable, the two years of hype and expectations were all thrown to the wayside by one sentence answers or two second scenes that just would kill characters off after they brutally ruined them. Mark Hamill looks like a aged, old defeated man, and this all happened in just two years and you can see that he never wanted these movies to be made and that he felt these are some of the worst pieces of cinema ever made. Disney did something that the empire never did, and that was truly defeat him down to the ground.
Episodes 7 and 8 are two of the worst movies ever made. They ruined everything that Star Wars meant. Season 2 of digimon was better than this. At least that had a vision. Disaster Movie is less insulting than this. At least that didn't ruin 40 years of lore and mythos that really touched two generations of people.The prequels actually brought Star Wars to a new base of fans. These two movies have taken everything that Star Wars ever could mean and threw it in a blender and then threw it down the garbage disposal. These are just ruining movies I liked as a kid, these are ruining hopes and dreams and world that kids would imagine themselves being in and truly will change how cinema will work in the coming decades in the worst way possible. I could write something better and I am only 19 years old. At least I have a true goal in what I try to portray.
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Bold moves, Disney! If you're looking for reasons to love this movie, here you go
I went to see the movie, came and saw all the negative reviews, went to see the movie again and I'm still loving it. "Fans" complained about TFA because it was too similar to ANH, completely ignoring the fact that TFA was meant to reboot the saga with a hint of nostalgia for the old fans while getting new fans interested. This one gets heat for being too different.
I have enjoyed Star Wars all my life - orginals, prequels, EU, clone wars, rebels, Force Unleashed , everything that is Star Wars. As a fan, i can't get enough of it. I enjoy both the EU legends and the new cannon because one story line doesn't undermine the other, both exist in my mind. Just like in the case of Star Trek which I enjoy every bit of - original series, TNG, DS9, Kelvin timeline, even the new Discovery series.
Since there are plenty of negative reviews, I will only go over the positive things, the stuff I loved. This is just my opinion and I'm not urging anyone to think like I do, but at least reconsider your negativity (for the people who hated it), or reinforce your positivity (for the people who loved it like I did)
1. Snoke's death - good thing for a number of reasons:
-event that has almost reached Game of Thrones level of unexpected death, I for one love to be surprised;
-this shows Kylo steping out of Vader's shadow by succeeding where Vader failed - overthrowing his master and taking command in his place;
-instead of having Snoke as the final villain, we will have Kylo and I for one much rather see Adam Driver's performance than a CGI character;
2. Rey is a nobody, from nobody parents, from nowhere. Not a Skywalker/ Kenoby/ chosen one blah blah. Which is the whole point - the Force doesn't revolve around certain blood lines, it can awaken anywhere in anyone - a fact which is further underlined by the little boy force pulling the broom to him in the final scene.
3. Rey takes the Jedi books, meaning she can still train herself and others in the Jedi ways without having a bunch of masters around her to form her opinions with their "dogmatic narrow view". This is also why Yoda burns down the tree in laughter and tells Luke that she already has everything she needs.
4. Snoke's origin. Nobody explained who Palpatine was in the original trilogy. Obviously the characters already know Snoke since, to them, he's been in the picture for some time and it would make no sense to talk about who he is and where he comes from out of the blue. I'm sure it will later be explained in a novel or something but for now, we are left with a bit of mystery and can use our imagination to invent these answers for ourselves.
5. Rey and Kylo fighting together. Such a powerfull scene, showcasing what the balance between Light and Dark can achieve. Rey's presence helps Kylo achieve enough balance and poise to deceive Snoke and kill him. Then they get into an epic fight with the guards, by the end of which, Rey thinks she's managed to turn him.
6. Yoda - perfect. Love that they made him look, sound an move like the puppet from the original trilogy. That hint of mischief in his voice as he is still trolling and teaching Luke at the same time. Luke may be older and wiser now, but Yoda still has 900 years on him.
7. Benicio's character. While a short presence, he is perfect. A thief with no remorse, he helps both the good guys and the bad for profit. Love the fact that he doesn't get a cliche redemption by the end. A scoundrel all the way.
8. Hux thinking of killing Kylo, a small detail that perfectly shows how Hux feels about him going forward - wants to kill him but is afraid of him.
9. We are again introduced to new force powers, like the previous movie. The Jedi order was stuck in their development and only had small powers compared to what the force can offer. Now that they are gone and force users are no longer trained in that certain restrictive way, they can really unlock new abilities.
10. The acting - everyone does good or above but Daisy and Adam nail their performances.
Obviously I thing the effects, music, setpieces and costumes where amazing but there were also other smaller things:
-Poe trolling Hux;
-R2 showing Luke Leia's old message to Obi-Wan;
-Luke trolling Rey reaching out;
-Maz's cameo shows her dealing with the aftermath of the attack on her place;
-Holdo's hyperspeed sacrifice;
Everyone is free to think and feel how they want. To the people who claim that the writers suck, or the acting or the directing sucks, may I ask why you all aren't writers, directors or actors? Since you clearly think you can do a better job than the people involved in this. You have a right not to like it, of course, but seeing some people generate so much hate, really bothers me.
"we win not by fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love"
In the end, Disney spent 4 bil $ and THEY own Star Wars, not us. They spent money to make these movies, not us. And I want to thank them for rebooting my favorite franchise, bringing it back from the dead for years to come, and for new generations of fans.
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1/10
The most sexist, racist and terrible film I've ever seen
I know that seems dramatic and I'm not talking technically (although at times it just seemed like a high budget commercial). Rather emotionally and intellectually it was one of the worst experiences I have ever had in the cinema, It was like a SNL gag that went on for far too long. The "jokes" were low tier marvel quality, the story was completely pointless and had the resistance/rebels basically destroy themselves due to a lack of communication. It seems both this and force awakens together take place over the course of a few days and a couple of uninspired planets.
What i find completely bizzare about this film is that it is one of the most sexist and racist films to come out of Hollywood in many years. The rebellion/resistance now lead mainly by women and people of colour (yes we all see what you did there) manage to lurch incompetently form one disaster to the other due to a lack of intelligence, foresight and communication, their only hope being one (actually two of them if you count Finn) "suiciding" themselves against the evil First Order (which is clearly meant to represent the alt right) But wait it gets better, this band of incompetent women and people of colour actually have to be saved from themselves at the end by yes! a white man baby boomer!. If you are watching this film thinking that it's pro feminist and pro people of colour just because they are in the main roles, watch again and read the subtext.
Hopefully this film will be another nail in the coffin of the death of Starwars. Yes Kylo, Starwars needs to die, but not by morphing it into a marvel knock off but by letting it rest in peace. I will not be watching anymore Starwars films or Disney films in General due to their awful treatment of women and people of colour in this movie.
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I was very excited about The Last Jedi but it didn't deliver. The intention was clearly creating a popcorn movie that was tailored for mass audience without caring that much about the plot details.
0) What is up with stupid jokes? Why do you have to add "funny moments/dialogues"? We came here to watch Star Wars. Not yet another Marvel movie. Poe randomly making fun of Hux, water leaking out of Finn's costume are all moves towards making Star Wars a Popcorn Wars movie.
1) Let me create an all powerful evil character in the first movie. And then kill him off randomly with only 10 minutes of air time. Snoke will top the list of most pointless antagonists.
2) Snoke can see every thought of Kylo, can connect minds but is also mindless enough to fail for the simplest trick. Sure, that sounds very reasonable.
3) What was the point of Luke dying? Was he too cool to stay alive after his duel with Kylo or because they didn't have enough money to hire Mark Hamill for the next movie?
4) There is a huge universe and it looks like rebellion is composed of just 20 people. It looks pretty dry. In order to add some color, let us put a random space casino and a totally pointless side plot. What was the point of the space casino anyway? The coder guy ended up betraying them. The whole side plot adds nothing to the movie.
They can still save the trilogy in the final movie but they have to do much better than this. The last movie should better be a proper Star Wars rather than Marvel/Popcorn/Disney Wars. Perhaps they will bring back Snoke. Honestly, that might make it more colorful than the current state of affairs.
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It comes to something when the best thing one can say about a Star Wars director is "he 'almost' got Yoda right". The "iron joke" was laugh out loud funny though, to be fair (although there's something very telling about that). I reckon I can edit it down to (maybe) an hours worth of a good movie. Just be grateful that Kennedy had the wisdom to beg JJ to direct the final episode.
In all seriousness though, the person you should feel VERY sorry for is Daisy Ridley, who at this point is almost single-handedly carrying a four billion dollar investment. That's a lot of pressure for young shoulders. Yes, Adam Driver and (even) Mark Hamill shine, but mostly when they share a scene with Ridley, who is quite marvellous (did I mention?). John Boyega was badly let down, and I simply didn't care for anyone else: twenty minutes in I was rooting for the First Order.
Conclusion? Daisy Ridley summed it up with her final sentence.
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5/10
Serious pacing issues and multiple bad decisions lead to a disappointing Star Wars experience
Halfway through the movie a boy one row in front of me whispered to his mom "When does this movie end?". And while I chuckled a little bit I found myself asking kind of the same thing. Since at least 20 to 30 minutes the scenes jumped from one uninteresting plot point to another; neither the scenes on the island nor the "slow-motion spacecraft chase" between the First Order and the Resistance were exciting enough to keep my attention. So much could have been cut from the movie: the weird "mirror" scene with Rey on the island (which was superbly done, but ultimaltey lead to nothing), the Yoda scene, the whole DJ character and the setting in the casino should have been shorter.
Now, the second big issue I had with this movie is about the decisions the filmmakers chose to make for whatever reason: Snoke's death without any explanation of his origin, backstory etc; the opportunity to connect Rey to other parts of the original saga by revealing her parents - completely wasted (some ordinary, alcolohic scavengers...really?); Leia surviving the missile attack on the bridge by somehow using the force was just silly in my opinion and I actually liked the way how they would have given her a send-off by floating through space peacefully. The overall plot is super thin too if you think about it: an overlong spacecraft chase in slow-motion while one ship has fuel problems and the other has not. The plot is also full of plot holes (why did the First Order not just make one big leap forward to get in weapon range and erase the Rebellion?; the deus ex machina moment with the "hidden" planet that came out of nowhere and could only be seen by the Rebellion; the overall misuse of the force which, as I always understood, was supposed to be super difficult to handle and to learn, but in this movie seemed to be universally accessible for everyone...just to name a few).
But to name some positive things: the movie looked fantastic, it was funny (too funny for some parts of the viewership, but I didn't mind it too much) and I liked the development of Rey and Kylo Ren. Especially the latter got really interesting throughout the movie. There were some epic scenes and the overall acting was great too. But all of this wasn't enough to make up for the disappointing feeling I had after leaving the theatre. I'm now putting all of my hope into JJ Abrams and Episode 9.
5/10
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Guess you can say that I am a fan as I even saw "A New Hope" and its follow ups various times at the movies, whenever they originally came out. I really did not like the prequels (1-3) and I was okay with "The Force Awakens". This one, I loved again!
Unlike most of the haters here, I focus on the fact that it is the middle of a trilogy and as such it worked perfectly. I did not expect to get all the answers in "The Last Jedi" as they might keep the surprises for the final.
I have no troubles accepting Luke Skywalkers history since "The Return Of The Jedi" and his decisions. A hero is also human and we don't have to idolize characters to much, as those responsibilities certainly take their toll on something.
That said: the spiritual aspects, the characterizations, the explanation of the force and the fact that light and darkness are all part of one coin. I loved it. There is a deep aspect behind the entertainment (and yes, I was entertained) that felt fantastic, if one bothers to look and think. But in our present "black and white" development, where polarization seems trendy again, this take on seems to be unpopular and generate hate.
The message of love and peace that that also came through in "The Last Jedi" was touching.
"The Last Jedi" has everything to be expected from a "Star Wars" movie, and fantastic visuals. If they mess up the final, then I might re-think this review as a lot depends on how they will answer some questions and open storylines in the next one. But until then: 10 Stars from a through and through satisfied Star Wars fan for a great take on the mythology.
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In hindsight, this feels more like the actual reboot for the new generation in Star Wars. Where The Force Awakes is more a memory jolt and new template for how this reboot should look and feel, The Last Jedi starts building the new characters and maybe a different interpretation on what The Force really is?
The new story is surprisingly intriguing, with a few twists along the road. The timeline is maybe a bit disjointed at times, with a handful of odd mixes of slow and fast paced story progression. I have a feeling the first third of the movie was cut down a lot, amongst other things, to get it below 2½ hours. This isn't a new problem with Star Wars, though, not even a unique problem for the gengre. Sci-fi sagas tends to treat time and space like it doesn't exist, so it didn't really bother me.
With the unmasking of Kylo Ren's character early on in the movie, I think, the chemistry between the new generation of characters is evolving really well.
Also, don't believe the negative hype places like IMDB gets swarmed with these days. Personally, I think this is one of the most enjoyable films of the year.
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No Spoilers!!!!
I dont understant the hate the movie is receiving, it's good, really good. felt like a complete movie, not just like a part of a series. TLJ had it star wars moments to make fans go crazy, i have never wrote a single review before, but seeing the ratio of negative comments, i owe this movie a good review. the movie is nothing ilke the negative reviews posted here. yeah the movie doesn't have an epic typical lightsaber duel and few other typical star wars stuff. do u want epic duel in every movie or good story and screenplay. this movie is way better than the force awakwens, yet this movie has rating lower than that. so ignore the negative review and watch the movie
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I can't believe the user reviews on here. I honestly believe that there isn't anything you can do to win over the hardcore fans. They complain and complain and complain.... They either need to grow up or get a girlfriend because they whine like children.
I enjoyed the film for what it could deliver, which was a space opera spectacle. I understood the problems when the prequels came out, now I wonder what it is they are complaining about now? The story was about Luke coming to terms with his own legacy and his part in the saga. It's one of Hamills best performances as an actor and I really enjoyed it. As far as stories are concerned, I liked that it went against expectations, the best movies are always the risk takers. I liked that you thought Benicio del Toro wasn't what you thought he was. I liked that Luke pulled the rug under Kyo ren during their final confrontation, I also enjoyed the part when Luke made peace with his past and vanished.
I can't tell people to like the film but I think they can get so overdramatic about things. If it's a good film, then leave it a good film, if it's a bad film, there is no need to throw a tantrum. Star wars fans can be so nitpicky, and this is coming from an original star wars fan. You guys need to lighten up because there is no end in sight for this series and more is to come.
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Okay, first up, 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' is what a Year End Blockbuster is meant to be. Its action-packed & extremely ambitious.
Having said that, not ALL Star Wars fanatics might end up feeling the same. Reason? The narrative's familiarity as well as the humangous expectations, those looking for hardcore emotional-connect. So if 'The Force Awakens' worked for you, 'The Last Jedi' will do so too. I, myself, loved the film & was engrossed by the mayhem all around it.
'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Synopsis: Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers. Meanwhile, the Resistance prepares to do battle with the First Order.
'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' isn't perfect, but its superbly entertaining nonetheless. Having watched the film today at IMAX, the experience of the epic scale of the film, left me overwhelmed. Though overlong & also bloated at places, 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' is still a potent blockbuster, that never runs out of breath or energy. It sticks to being a magnum-opus & goes all-out as far as the action is concerned. I won't give away any spoilers, but all I can say is, get a huge tub of popcorn & ride into this galaxy far, far away!
Rian Johnson's Screenplay lags at places, but is engrossing for the most part. Johnson's Direction, too, is pretty good. Cinematography is staggering. Editing needed to be crisper, the film is overlong by at least 15-20-minutes. Graphics are outstanding, yet again. And the action set-pieces are magnificently designed & executed. Art & Costume Design are fabulous. John Williams' Score is impactful, as ever.
Performance-Wise: The Late/Great Carrie Fisher in her final turn as Leia, is the emotional core of the film. Her appearance here gives the film that extra emotional heft. Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, is a joy to watch. Daisy Ridley as Rey, looks gorgeous & delivers confidently. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, leaves a strong mark. John Boyega as Finn & Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, are wonderful. Oscar Issac as Poe Dameron, is perfect. Benicio del Toro as DJ, is a great new addition to the cast. Others lend perfect support.
On the whole, 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' may not live up-to everyone's expectations, but it certainly worked for me. I had a ball. Go, have fun!
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It's in the title and emblazoned all over the trailers; Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi master, declaring the need to end the Jedi order and bring balance to the Force. And for much of the film it looks as if it will keep this promise to explore the darker, twisted complexities of both light and dark side, and finally deliver a conflict that isn't merely the next generation of different coloured lightsabers clashing. That was one of the main criticisms of Abrams' revival, that we had seen it all before (and better). The Last Jedi barely allows any time to muse on the poignancies in the long gaze between the weathered face of Luke and his daughter (or so fans pleaded and speculated). Unceremoniously, he tosses the ancient weapon over his shoulder as if he was throwing out the trash. Immediately Rian Johnson signals a changing of the guard - there is to be no Obi Wan mentoring here, no Karate Kid style montages. Luke sees a deep pit of darkness within Rey, and for once it seems more than just vague menace and funny helmets.
Yet ultimately it is a little too much to ask of the film to be brave with Rey - this is Disney property after all. Shame too, because Ridley is good enough to go there, by the look of her impulse and ferocity; see how she snarls and spits accusations at Kylo Ren before he can even get a word in, and furiously searches for the truth once aware of the discrepancies in the Jedi myths. The script affords the pair a good deal of time to explore their not-too-subtle duality as the two sides of the same coin through a neatly visualised psychic connection (the editing, with its seamless graphic match cuts and eyeline matches makes this simple but effective), but scurries back to its traditional legacies as if frightened of being too subversive of the most iconic film franchise of all time.
Seeing the fan reaction over the opening weekend would confirm these fears. They'd rather have Rey be a next generation Skywalker than be forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of her abandonment as a child, or the failure of the original hero to wrest control of his force-sensitive underlings. There are scattered moments where you feel Rian Johnson is finally excavating the legendary mythos of the Jedi order and uncovering old lies; the force not as video game moves but as the entity that binds all of life together in a stunning and fleeting sequence reminiscent of those non-narrative mood poems such as Baraka, and a clever special effect that stretches the seconds both before and after Rey's present actions into an eternal stream. But right on the threshold of unearthing a game changer they regress back to how Star Wars has always been. If Del Toro's stuttering, double-edged space scoundrel has a point about the never-ending cycle of explosions and new model Death Stars, it falls on this chapter's deaf ears. There's little separating the two sides except the direction of the lasers - Johnson should have dug deeper or simply caved and given the fans what they wanted (a lightsaber extravaganza). It trickles down to the subplots too; Rose and Finn make a detour to cosmic Casablanca in Canto Bight, a gorgeous, otherworldly spectacle of cascading waterfalls and gold-tipped casinos (and just a hint of the Cantina theme), at least until Rose shatters the illusion with a bitter unveiling of the city's dubious origins. Most of the script's Marvel-esque quick wit lands with similar poise, an awkward bathos that elicits a few chuckles while the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance. The most jarring moment comes when Rose's grand romantic declaration of "saving those you love" is immediately followed by the cannon demolishing the rebel base gate, with the emotional whiplash so exquisitely timed it almost belongs in a comedy sketch. I laughed out loud, although I know I shouldn't have.
The film follows a long line of stylistically ugly digital filmmaking that can't always be compensated by the ability to will whatever exotic creature or fantastic biome into existence via CGI. I'm talking about those ridiculous long lenses and open apertures that force everything but the foreground into a blurry mess, squishing and distorting Hamill's face as he whispers into the ear of a meditating Rey (he's literally right beside her). Nearly every conversation needs to be boxed into a nauseating closeup, often cutting off chins or foreheads and negating much of the emotional anxiety conjured by Ridley and Driver (who does the most with the least - where exactly did this inner darkness come from, what lured him over? Will we ever find out?). Yet at the core of the film still lies that sense of wonder that captivated audiences that many decades ago. Could any other franchise elicit the audible 'woah' I heard in the theatre when the rebel ship activated hyperspace and threw a jagged arc of light across the screen? I've been pondering on what these new revival films ought to be. We're long past the grand theatrics and scope of the original space opera (ridiculous helmet is correct, Phasma can't sell it), and it can't be a galaxy far, far away with so much emotion and hope invested into the story. The final shot speaks to the child in all of us, harking back to a simpler time where a broom could be a blue lightsaber, and that meant you were the good guy. Perhaps we too should let the past die.
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How to make money from 40years old franchise? Feel the force of commercialism. For kids - small owl-like plush-toys. For girls - crescents-shape necklaces. For boys - dices on a gold chain. SW-LJ is one big commercial of gadgets selled for poor nerds.
As a movie LJ does not exists without previous and next part of this space-soap-opera. No thread is started or finished, so purposes of this movie is just to serve as life support for making money machine called 'Star Wars'. Music is the same for 40 years. Grotesque theatrical acting also.
Absurdities like sound of mighty explosions in space (many many many times), or characters breathing in space or in every planet makes this franchise very unrealistic and childish. It would be okay if it was not so violent, full of grotesque deaths, and mass killing straight from a computer games.
It is a monumental show of special effects, full of gadget ads, completely incomprehensible for people who do not know the previous part, and does not have any sense without next part. I really admire the art of making money on understatements and milking nerds.
So go, feel the force of money, and may the force of commerce be with you!
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I loved "Star Wars: The Last Jedi". "The Last Jedi" is about redemption. Also Writer and Director Rian Johnson's "Last Jedi" redeems this "Star Wars" trilogy. Unlike its predecessor "The Force Awakens", "The Last Jedi" is original narrative and tone, surprising in a great way. Daisy Ridley as Rey and Mark Hamill as her Jedi Master Luke Skywalker are awesome. Johnson eloquently deepens his characters in the story long, long ago in the galaxy far, far away. Adam Driver is welcome strength returning as the Dark Side Force's Kylo Ren.
At its very best "The Last Jedi" is about the lightness in dark, darkness in light. The compelling central triangle of the mythical Force is Rey, Luke, and Ren. Not to mention the visuals of galactic battles and red salt covered worlds astounds. Yet, the Hero story resonates. The Forces of good and evil are in the eyes of the beholder. The hero must ultimately choose.
Discovering Luke on the island of the remote world, Rey tearfully pleads with 'The Last Jedi', "I need someone to show me my place in all of this." Hamill's Luke is not the familiar hero Skywalker we have come to know. His self banishment hides the great secret. Rey wants to define herself, fill the part that is missing.
I think Luke fears that he may fail Rey, as he did with Kylo Ren. Ren is the son of Resistance General Leia, played with touching gravitas by the late Carrie Fisher. In "The Force Awakens" Ren murdered his very Father Han Solo, conflicted within the Dark Side of the Force. Ren serves the powerful Dark Side Leader Snoke, played by malevolent Andy Serkis. Are salvation and redemption possible for Luke and Ren? Does the Jedi - the Hero emerge from within Rey?
In one of my favorite scenes Luke converses with an 'old friend'. They speak of others becoming greater than. They speak poignantly of Master and Student. The Student doesn't fail his or her master. The Master can fail his or her student. That is Luke's regret for Ren, who chose the Dark path. There is no light or dark in the Force. "The Last Jedi" explores balance of lightness and darkness in the Force. This Yin and Yang of "Star Wars".
In the journey of lightness and darkness Daisy Ridley is amazing. As Rey she transcends as the hero, whose courage and compassion inspires others to be greater. Hamill gives his best performance as older tortured Luke. His Luke is wise, strength and frailty with the endearing sense of humor. Writer Johnson daringly infuses the lightness of a sense of humor in the darker narrative.
The other narrative threads are often perfunctory in the subplot with Resistance fighters Finn, played by solid John Boyega, Poe Dameron, played by intrepid Oscar Isaac, and Rose, played by stellar newcomer Kelly Marie Tran, attempting to obtain secret codes to disable the First Order's battle ship fleet. The X-wing and Tie-fighter battles are spectacular in Dolby and Digital imagery. Although in the grand scheme, this distracts away from Rey, Luke and Ren's story.
Heroes inspire others to be greater. I think that is what "The Last Jedi" does best. Also life or the galaxy is neither all light nor all dark. We must reconcile that in our own worlds as well. The Force or the truth lies in the balance of lightness and darkness. Rian Johnson wisely enrolls us to choose. Ridley's brave Rey inspires, believing that in the balance we all become greater.
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I just need to write something, as I don't understand the many 1 star ratings. I saw the film yesterday with my family and we all loved it. It made me laugh quite a few times and it was full of meaningful action. I just enjoyed myself.
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STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (2017) *** Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, (Voice of Frank Oz), Billie Lourd, Joonas Suotamo, Jimmy Vee, Justin Theroux, Warwick Davis, (Voice of Joseph Gorden-Levitt). The latest chapter in the phenomenal sci-fi fantasy adventure franchise takes up with the Rebellion alliance once again fighting the evil Empire for peace in the galaxy and having a reunion of sorts with brother and sister Luke & Leia (Hamill and Fisher, in her swan song, both the heart and soul of the film and both amazingly the best things about the film overall too). Director Rian Johnson brings out all the guns with amazing CGI fireworks (many battles and kick-ass light saber stand-offs) yet overall the screenplay he has cooked up fails with the new characters (which I will not mention since they all are rather lame and seriously Del Toro - your check is in the mail for sleepwalking thru this; shameful!) and some unusual shots of humor (taking pages out of Monty Python and Spaceballs) but continues the traditional theme of uniting via The Force to find your true inner spirit (Ridley and Driver excel as the new life force - yes, pun intended) and resolve.
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A Star Wars without the Imperial March is not a Star Wars! The super iconic soundtrack should be revamped each time! Is like a 007 movie without the James Bond theme... impossible! Very Disappointed. Moreover.. too much Disney cartoon sweetness degraded the intensity of the saga! Pity
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I remember going to see Empire Strikes Back in theaters when I was a kid and how big everything seemed. I was only about 7 so some of the details of the plot and the story were lost on me, but I still enjoyed the heck out of it. I also remember going to see Phantom Menace when I was an adult, but I think the big thing I managed to do was avoid almost all the marketing for the movie, so I actually knew very little about it going in and I enjoyed it. No, it wasn't a great movie, but it more than lived up to my expectations, which were pretty mediocre to begin with.
I guess that's the big thing, I don't know what people are expecting going into these movies. They're not going to have some fantastic life lessons and you're not going to be able to harness the force afterwards. Instead you get to spend a few hours in a galaxy far, far away.
I enjoyed the movie and my family and I had a great time. I guess my biggest advice with this and any movie, is don't go in expecting the movie to change your life or anything, just go in to have some fun.
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My wife and I just watched The Last Jedi. I read a lot of negative reviews with spoilers beforehand, but I still had to see it to judge for myself. Actually, I thought it was a pretty good movie! I enjoyed it. It had a decent story, fantastic acting, plot twists, better lightsaber battles, some tense moments, and good humor. It does have a few unrealistic "how convenient" moments, and one that especially made very little sense. However, those moments are no worse than the stupid moments of the other Star Wars movies. E.g., teddy bears akin to giant furbies (Ewoks) took down the Empire in Ep VI (it was really silly), Darth Vader actually fell down backwards off a ledge during a duel because he lost his step (it was a true facepalm moment), Yoda was this senile old man that couldn't even remember who R2-D2 was and pokes him with a stick yet he is still a master of the force (how does senile idiot go together with Jedi Master?), and the storyline of Ep VI was that they built another Death Star (unoriginal plot being recycled), etc. SO, the truth is people tend to forget the bad elements in the other Star Wars, or intentionally overlook them, to enjoy the rest of the story. So I promise you the handful of unrealistic or frustrating elements in The Last Jedi are no worse than any other Star Wars movie!
The Last Jedi also does not answer some questions people had about a particular character. Most importantly, many people did not like the character development of Luke. However, I thought Luke's character development was a) believable and understandable if you really think about the traumatizing event he went through, and b) Luke's character is no different than Yoda when Luke found him (isolated for self-survival, a little discouraged by the dark side, and unwilling to train a new Jedi at first). Why do people complain about Luke's character in The Last Jedi when he acts nearly identical to Yoda's behavior in Ep V? What's most important is Luke remained a symbol of hope, a golden good guy, and a powerful Jedi Master in this movie. Not saying I didn't have some small disappointments, but it was mostly just different than expected. Moreover, the new director had to take Star Wars a new direction which required big risks. It's because Star Wars has always been the same old thing: Empire vs Rebels, good vs dark side, more lightsaber duels (yeah yeah, we get it, nothing ever new here). The same old storyline was already stretched across the other Star Wars movies and so the storyline needed to evolve, so I think the new director did a good job with a taking some risks and going a new direction. I'm not saying there's not room for some disappointment or frustration in The Last Jedi, I'm just saying it's overall still a pretty good movie. It may be different than you expect, but that doesn't have to be bad thing I've been a strong critic of movies for a long time, so I encourage you to just watch the new episode with an open-mind. If you don't see this movie with a bias for how you think it "should be" and just enjoy it as is (pretend it was the only Star Wars movie ever made), then you'll probably really like it. I give it an 8/10.
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I really must be missing something because I came out of the theatre on premiere night of STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (2017) thinking I had just seen the best Star Wars film since 'The Empire Strikes Back'. But, hey, that's just me! LOL Believe me, I've been to movies where I've seen them in the theatre and known right away whether or not they are trash, and TLJ is not even close to that. The only part that underwhelmed me was that casino planet nonsense, but otherwise, I thought this film hit every right note start to finish. For one thing, I really liked how tight and focused the plot of this movie was. None of this jumping around from planet to planet. Just 3 or 4 major settings to centralize all the action. I also love how fluid this film was with 'The Force Awakens', picking up where it left off. You can actually watch TFA and TLJ as a 5-hour film and I'm not complaining about that!
TLJ continues the Star Wars story picking up where TFA left off with our central heroine from the first film Rey (reprised excellently by Daisy Ridley) finding the legendary Jedi Master and original trilogy hero Luke Skywalker (brilliantly played by Mark Hamill in arguably a career performance), who is living as a hermit on a distant island planet in self-imposed exile due to his failure in training his nephew Ben Solo/Kylo Ren (superbly played again by Adam Driver), many years before Emperor Snoke (acted exquisitely by chameleon Andy Serkis). Meanwhile, the Resistance led by Princess Leia Organa (wonderfully played by Carrie Fisher in her last film role) fends off the First Order dreadnoughts with lead pilot Commander Poe Dameron (energetically reprised by Oscar Isaacs) as the remaining rebel flagships make their escape from the home base. The First Order is led again by General Hux (wonderfully played by Domhnall Gleeson in a scene-stealing performance). Additionally, rebel converter Finn (once again played with confident charm by John Boyega) awakes from his coma and joins forces with rebel soldier Rose (well played by newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) on a mission to a local planet to retrieve a master codebreaker so they can infiltrate the First Order flagship to remove a tracking device they are using to locate the rebels. During Rey's training with Luke, several deep secrets are revealed that compels Rey to choose sides between Luke and Kylo.
While TLJ is a very long movie, I was never bored due to great pacing and the strong acting and characters leaping off the screen. In particular, Hamill plain stole the show with his more world-weary, wise, and cranky version of the iconic Luke Skywalker. The Luke-Rey scenes were very similar to the Yoda-Luke training scenes from ESB. The island scenes were my very favorite set pieces with beautiful visuals, scenery and those cute Porg creatures. The battle scenes were invigorating and edge-of-your-seat. Also, it was great seeing the old faithful characters like Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and the new old faithful BB-8. As well as one that caught me completely by pleasant surprise. Rian Johnson did a phenomenal job carrying on the Star Wars saga in my opinion. Not sure why there have been such negative reaction to it. I enjoy these new movies almost as much as the originals. Looking forward to Episode 9!
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9/10
Fantastic! Disregard the entitled reviews of the so called "fan boys".
This installment is fantastic. As a lifelong Star Wars fan, having seen every single episode in the theater when they each launched, and having read numerous novels from the Star Wars canon, comic books, watched TV shows, etc... I can honestly say that I'm dismayed at how many people (because I won't call them fans any more) have given bad reviews of this movie.
After seeing it for a 2nd time in two days, I have to say that The Last Jedi tells a great story. Their is of course the amazing visuals, the music, the compelling characters, and a story line that isn't exactly what you'd expect but it is a great story none the less. I won't say anything more about the film other than it is definitely worth seeing. Go. Have fun. Enjoy it. It's worth it.
I honestly feel that most of the negativity being heaped on this episode is because of the whole marketing side of movies. The "Disney" effect if you will. I'm seeing reviews from people literally going out of their minds about how Disney has killed the franchise. It's almost comical how entitled these reviewers come off. Much of the vitriol is related to the monetization of things based on the movie. The commercial sales of stuffed animals, Lego sets, pajamas, action figures, etc... but here's a news flash for everyone who has been living under a rock. Welcome to life post-1977... When a certain movie came out (A New Hope) and turned the world of monetizing movies on it's ear. For those fan-boys who weren't around... Guess what? The same thing happened then too. Star Wars stuff was everywhere. I remember collecting Star Wars drinking glasses from Burger King. Pining for more action figures at Christmas. Envious that my neighbor had a Death Star play set. My sheets on my bed were Star Wars. My pajamas were Star Wars. I owned the soundtrack on a 2 record set. Posters in my room. My lunchbox was Star Wars. I was a stormtrooper for Halloween that year. George Lucas was brilliant and I thank him for creating this new model of business. How else would I have ever had a plastic replica of Han's blaster?
Get over yourselves and enjoy a great story told in a great way. Set in the universe that we love (or at least act like we love). You don't get to say what direction your favorite franchise goes in. It's not yours. Enjoy it. You're not married to it.
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Fantastic, unexpected, and profound! This movie will take you on an emotional rollercoaster throughout the film. This was a movie that is nothing like a Star Wars film we have seen before.
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Had I not pre-ordered my tickets I might not have gone to see this movie in the theater.
I saw how low so many of the ratings were I went in expecting the worst. This movie was anything but the worst. It exceeds the writing of the last movie by a long shot. Writing and story telling are what this movie did well.
From a long time fan of space sci-fi, please ignore the reviews, avoid the spoilers, and just go see it for yourself.
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If I have to endure another cantina/nightclub scene in a Star Wars flick, I'm going to burn my eyes out with a light sabre. Sick of heaped-on new characters; not happy with lack of development in the existing characters; plot progression was clunky in several key spots. Checked my watch several times to see if the end was near. Felt like a pretty substantial step backwards towards the first three films.
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7/10
70% the movie is fantastic, 30% is prequel quality. (No spoilers)
The Last Jedi is the kind of movie that, if you are a star wars fan like me you'll leave the movie theater not being sure what you think of it.
Some parts are great, infact most of it is great but there are several story lines, not unlike empire strikes back, though in that movie all the stories were great, this one not so much.
Mark Hamill is excellent here, infact everyone who plays a jedi or sith give solid performances, but the real disappointment is the story with Finn and his arch with a new character I shall not name, but to me she felt like jar jar binks all over again, not because of the actress's performance or but what the script has her do and say.
Beyond that, the movie is pretty good, just beware that it has some plot holes and I think it puts a lot of weight on the next film to resolve a lot of things, something I fear it cannot deliver if it expects to sort everything out in 1 movie.
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I have watched every Star Wars film ever made many times, from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray. Like Gollum's love and hatred of the One Ring, I have both loved and hated every Star Wars film, and for various reasons.
I did not like Force Awakens because I thought the First Order ridiculous, and the Star Killer weapon-planet even more ridiculous. Apart from the unbelievable speed required to build such a weapon in only 30-some years following Return of the Jedi, why would anyone expend so much effort to build a weapon that could only be fired one time? I mean, if the in-film explanation of how the weapon works remains valid, only the script could have caused the Sun to regenerate itself so that the First Order could fire the weapon a second time at the Rebel base.
In The Last Jedi I assumed the bad guys were just sore losers hellbent on seeking revenge against the Rebels for having defeated them in Return of the Jedi. By the end of the film the Rebel Alliance that had destroyed the second Death Star and brought an end to Darth Sidius' Empire was reduced to a single tiny ship. And I foolishly thought the Rebel's most desperate hour was when Princess Leia sent that "your my only hope" hologram to Obi Wan Kenobi. Well guys, you've got the good guys in a real bind now. I hope you offer a damn good explanation if those few dozen survivors turn up in the next film in the midst of a powerful rebel battle group, because you've made it very clear that no one wants to help them, the kid holding the broom handle like a light saber notwithstanding.
Apart from the apparent trajectory of a never-ending Star Wars story-line, I did not like that the rebel frigate suddenly slowed down because it ran out of fuel. Fellas, in the vacuum of space, an object in motion stays in motion unless or until some other gravitational force alters its course. Thus, the rebel ships, even after running out of fuel, would have continued on at the same rate of speed, never slowing down. I realize its a movie, not a NASA documentary, but just as you talk about that balance in the force, you need to strike a balance between the demands of movie entertainment and some laws of nature that ought not be violated. I remember Lucas' comment that some things be romantically correct while remaining technically inaccurate. But in the case of those bombers, you can't just open a bomb-bay door and watch your bombs "fall" through space no matter how big the enemy ship. There would have to be some sort of ejector mechanism to force the bombs to fly toward the enemy ship, because there is no up or down in space, there is no right-side up.
When I watched that frigate slow down because it ran out of fuel I thought, this is as ridiculous as when Enterprise suddenly and impossibly spiraled down toward Earth because its main power went offline. Given Enterprise' distance from earth, and that you don't plot a course to impact a planet but to enter orbit, that crew would have had months, if not years to repair their engines before their orbit would have degraded. But then there would have been no story. Same with The Last Jedi. You can't honor the laws of physics if you need your ships to be blown up one by one because of fuel loss. It would have been better for the story if the First Order had corralled the Rebels into a path that would have led them to a black hole. Then, without fuel, they would have found themselves racing toward the event horizon with no means of escape. That would have been a better way to eliminate the rebels without breaking the rules of nature. But it wasn't in the script.
Laying aside my technical disbelief, the story was enjoyable, at times funny, and while I left the theater thinking it had failed to evoke any sense of loss or emotional connection to the characters, it did succeed, finally, and perhaps unintentionally, to evince the thought that the struggle of good over evil is never over; we will battle evil as long as we live. So too the victory celebrated on Coruscant in Return of the Jedi was short-lived, and just has history here on earth demonstrates, except by the grace of God, the downfall of one tyrant is soon replaced by another. In this sense, I suppose Star Wars is destined to become a never-ending story, both on-screen and off.
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I'm old enough to have watched the very first Star Wars in a movie theater, back when the opening crawl lacked the "Episode IV, A New Hope" crap. Indeed, when I saw it in 1977, the first text that appeared in the crawl was, "It was a period of civil war." So, yeah, I'm old.
And I was one of those guys who came out of The Phantom Menace as though I'd been punched in the gut. So yeah, I've felt the disappointment that 20 years of nostalgia brings.
The Last Jedi was completely unexpected. Daisy Ridley said it best: "It's different." It featured highs, it featured lows. There were plot twists I liked, there were moments in which I felt uncomfortable. There were scenes that were quite possibly the best moments in all of Star Wars, and there were other moments I felt shouldn't have been in the movie at all. A lot of the humor worked, some of it didn't --and there were about 10% too many jokes throughout the film.
But, I really enjoyed this Star Wars movie, as did the packed audience I sat with. It's flawed, to be sure, but it has enough moments of magic that really make it one of the top five best Star Wars films of all time.
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9/10
A Wonderfully Crafted Deconstruction of Everything we Know and Love
Director Rian Johnson knows what Star Wars is - that much is obvious. At times, it even seems as though he understands Star Wars better than its original creator George Lucas. Johnson knows what makes it special, what fans want to see, and what makes a Star Wars film - well - a Star Wars film! So Johnson does what any good director of a Star Wars film does - he gives us fans exactly what we want to see!
...
Just kidding. He doesn't.
He blows what we think we want out of a Star Wars movie to high hell and, instead, gives us the Star Wars movie we need.
Not only does Johnson deconstruct and subvert our expectations of The Last Jedi's plot, he deconstructs our very understanding of Star Wars. What sway do our heroes hold over us, and what happens when they don't live up to our expectations? What kind of power is in the myths we grew up believing in, and are they still worth believing in?
Don't be mistaken - Johnson knows what you want out of this Star Wars film, and that's exactly why he doesn't give it to you. The film is able to put you in the exact emotional state that the character's of the Star Wars universe exist in throughout the entirety of the movie, feeling disappointment and confusion just as much as joy and elation.
Our favourite green friend spelt this out for us all those years ago. You must unlearn what you have learned. The greatest teacher, failure is - and fail our heroes do. Time and time again, the audience is forced to experience failure and dismay until, when all hope is lost, Johnson shows us that failure really is the greatest teacher. Maybe there is a reason to have hope, maybe our failures and disappointments - no matter how big or small - aren't really failures or disappointments at all.
This dense and weighted theme is laid bare through the entirety of the film, which itself features beautiful cinematography, shocking moments, touching fan service, and exceptional performances from the cast. While not all subplots express the theme that Johnson spins through the film as well as others, the wonderful attention to character detail more than make up for any slow moments. This is not a movie you can watch once and hope to catch all of its nuance and subtleties. This is a film to return to and to think about.
This is not your mother's or father's Star Wars. This is a Star Wars for a new generation. Throw away your "fan theories." Rid yourself of your own "head canon." We've had two years to theorize and hypothesize about what Episode VIII will bring and I can tell you with much certainty: not only are you wrong, but you're better off for it.
Go and see this movie. Let Johnson challenge everything you think you know about Star Wars. Think about why you feel the way that you feel. Feel anger. Feel joy. Feel the balance. Feel the force.
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I loved this movie so much: the references to other 'Star Wars' movies, the performances, the plot. *SPOILER* May the force be with you Luke Skywalker.
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1/10
The Last Jedi is like a nightmare that finally come true
As a Star Wars fan, who grew up with the prequels coming out, I never tought that anything could ruin as much a movie as Jar Jar... I've never been so wrong in my life.
There are sooo many plotholes in the movie and it just destroyed any plot that Ep.7 created.
Snoke. God dammit. a super powerfull dark force user who can read minds of people but can't read his mediocre apprentice's mid using the force to move a rusted lightsaber scratching on a god damn metal table to kill him a la Darth Maul...
That Mary Poppins sequence... what a wasted potential to finish the story of Carie Fisher who sadly died last year. Because being sucked in vacuum space isn't mortal anymore, but a perfect place to make Leia floating like Mary Poppins!! This is the only joke I laughed at, and in wasn't a joke.
Speaking of the jokes, they're bad. Too many and forced. You often find yourself ''Ah that was a joke'' and realised it just doesn't have it's place in the darker scenario. Maybe the other best joke is that The Last Jedi is acclaimed by the critics? I guess Disney paid a lot of money to buy people.
Luke's reasons to hide finally was just to die ? I mean, in ep.7 he let some starmaps to be able to be found in extreme situations, the situation arrives and he just F*ck off ? And his death was wierd at best. I get it it's a new generation of characters for star wars, but for god's sake why ending the story of the legendary Luke in such a bitter way ?
Speaking of the new characters,nothing interresting was added to the story since Ep.7, so we don't really care about them anymore. How do they gonna start Ep.9 since this movie feels like star wars just died with that movie.
This is a huge slap in the face for any star wars fan and the star wars universe. Sorry Rian Johnson, but please don't ever do a star wars again.
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9/10
one of the best star wars movie of all better than the force of awakens
This movie has a genius plot to it and i dont know why people have issues to it since luke hasnt really died in the end of the movie though, he was in the spirit world with the other jedi's for something that he has to do though
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7/10
If not for the plot holes, this would have been pretty good
Since I've already warned of spoilers, let me give a summary of the pointless sub-plot involving Finn (defector Stormtrooper), Poe (hotshot Rebel pilot), Rose (new Rebel character). So the Rebels are in trouble due to the First Order having somehow figured out how to track a ship through hyperspace. No explanation for this is given, but the heroes do mysteriously know how to turn off the tracker for a short while (hand-wavy explanation, but I can suspend my disbelief). Poe is frustrated that the leadership won't tell him what's happening, so basically mutinies in order to carry out his own plan. This aspect feels realistic (in that the Rebellion tries so hard not to be a military that you can see a lack of discipline among the 'troops' could bite them in the butt), but it also feels off-putting in that Poe's arrogance is so strong (why does he feel he should get special treatment in being told what his officers are doing? Why doesn't that leadership do more to curb Poe once it's obvious he's going to use force to get his way?). So Poe sends Finn and Rose off to get a 'Master Code Breaker' (because only one person in the galaxy can break through the enemy shields - why isn't this flaw exploited in order to destroy the enemy ships?). Finn and Rose go to a Las Vegas style city (and the message about rich people being bad people is a bit heavy handed). Finn and Rose get someone to be their code breaker (because apparently there's actually more than one person who can exploit this flaw in the shields). This person is more concerned with his wallet than anything else and betrays them resulting in most of the rebels dying. And that's it. Poe's grand plan actually results in a whole bunch of people dying and doesn't result in any noticable character growth, plot development, or anything useful - it feels like busy work for a set of characters that needed something to do. If you cut this entire sub-plot out and instead simply had the escape pods making a desperate run for it (without the mysterious cloaking system that hides the Rebel ships from the enemy which we've never heard of before), it would have resulted in exactly the same thing with less inexplicable contrivances. This whole segment of the movie wasn't exactly a plot hole, but it certainly should have been completely cut out and it would have made the movie better.
Other plot holes involve the way the purple-haired Rebel commander sacrifices herself for the remainder of her companions. She simply put her ship into hyperspace while pointed at the enemy. It was a suicidal act, but it destroyed a whole fleet of Imperials. If that kind of destructive weapon was available to both sides at any time, why hasn't it been used before? Shoot, it doesn't even need suicide pilots, if you could remote drive a ship or something. Are we supposed to believe that no one had ever, in the history of Galactic warfare thought to do this before? It just feels like a convenient plot device written without much thought to the implications.
Again, not exactly a plot hole, but I kept feeling like the dog fight space battles were frankly disappointing - especially coming off of the incredible scenes from 'Rogue One'. In this movie, I kept wondering where the swarms of Tie Fighters were that each Star Destroyer ought to carry and deploy. Instead if felt like there were... a dozen? It just felt like smaller battles than seemed reasonable.
The Supreme Leader Snoke was a disappointment. A one-dimensional bad-guy who doesn't seem that scary (his body guards put up more of a fight) and doesn't demonstrate leadership or even much Force presence (except for a short 'torture' scene with Rey which you can ascribe to experience rather than power).
The Good:
The humor interjected actually worked for me. At least I laughed at the appropriate moments. It might have undermined the drama a couple of times, but I didn't find it a serious problem and rather liked the moments of light-hearted comedy in the midst of the angst.
Rey and Luke Skywalker's interactions were the best part of this movie. Granted, I don't love that Luke turns into a grumpy, bitter old man who pushed everyone away and abandoned the Force, but if I accept that ending, it's well done. The interactions between Rey and Ren were also engaging and kept you guessing on who was going to end up on what side.
Luke's climactic fight was interesting, amusing, and confusing all at once. It made me question whether he had even been alive anywhere in the movie (shades of 'Sixth Sense') or what. I mean, what exactly happened to him in the end? The ending for him was... not exactly satisfying, but I put it in the 'good' section because I thought his final battle was well done, his interaction with his sister was great, and the swelling music as he faded away practically brought tears to my eyes. It left me with questions, certainly, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that they'll be answered somehow.
And speaking of questions being answered, I've seen that some people don't care for the answer given to Rey's parentage, but I have to say that I appreciated that she was a nobody, descended from nobodies. It would have felt too contrived to have had her coincidentally related to the Skywalker/Solo family and I think that the Star Wars universe shouldn't need to feel that cramped. The galaxy is too big not to have heroes rise from nowhere. In any case, I liked that answer.
The acting was all very well done. The actor who plays Luke did a fantastic job! Leia, who I felt was pretty wooden in the "Force Awakens" did a much better job in this movie. Rey and Ren were played with fervor and conviction.
The CGI was fantastic. The 'crystal critters' were unbelievably cute. The fight scenes were intense, the futuristic vehicles were incredibly realistic. The music was phenomenal!
The Mom view:
I admit that I am a Star Wars fan, but didn't care for "The Force Awakens". I thought that that movie was a disappointment. So I entered this movie with lower expectations and perhaps that's why I liked it. Despite the flaws, I enjoyed most of it and (unlike the prequels), look forward to sharing this with my kids when they are old enough. Probably around age 11 or so. There's nothing too objectionable in this movie (intense fight scenes and implied death), so I wouldn't expect this to frighten younger children, but I don't think a younger child would enjoy it as much as an older one who 'gets' everything that is happening. Having said that, if my kids enjoy the original series, I might introduce them to things like the Clone Wars animated series, video games, and novels of the EU before we get to watching this trilogy since, while I find this continuation interesting, I don't yet love it. The tone of this movie is perhaps closer to 'Empire Strikes Back' than 'A New Hope' - a bit darker, more pessimistic, and doesn't feel hopeful. I'll still go see the next movie in theaters, and I recommend that people go watch this one, but I'll also say that people ought to have lower expectations and perhaps view this series as an alternate ending to our favorite Star Wars heroes rather than the definitive end (since I'm of the opinion that I prefer them to have lived happily ever after rather than ending in isolation, bitterness, and loss). But that's just me.
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Am a big star wars fan & to make the above header is painful. Movie starts with poe - Hux exchange, which is very comical. this are suppose to be space version of nazis, they are not suppose to be funny. its akin to orks & sauron being comical in lord of the rings. I would have loved this if it was some other movie, but not star wars. Clearly Director dont take this movie seriously, for Lucas star wars was a political commentary on corruption, death of democracy & a warning against authoritarian but charismatic individuals, banking system, military industrial complex etc.
Then Snoke is no body, Rey is nobody, there is no explanation for their crazy powers making rey a confirmed Mary sue & Snoke simply a WTF character.
Just as he came from no were, he dies also chopped in to pieces by kylo ren.
There are a lot of cringe scenes like leia surviving an explosion in space & surviving vacuum & flying like a Disney fairy godmother.Another cringe is now almost entire resistance command is female & first order male, am not against female empowerment, but this is too cringe. i could feel the entire theater cringe when the above things were happening.
last but not the least that casino planet was total waste & there is a peculiar absence of humanoid aliens, admiral akbar was killed of just like that. Does the mouse hate aliens i wonder. overall the galaxy feels very small, a few 1st order humans & a few resistance fighters, is that the entire galaxy now?.
George lucas is missed more and more with each iteration of this new movies, disney dosint wanna make galaxy huge & mysterious, its all about making money as much possible in the first weeks, its star wars so it sells.
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This movie is intense, full of action, emotions and a lot of parallels of the old movies, if you know how to appreciate a good plot, this is one, totally worth watching.
Leia and Luke have very good scenes, the relation between the light and the dark, Rey and Kylo gets conflicted and finally balances and gives a place to a new rebelion, a new war and a new Jedi order.
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8/10
"The Last Jedi" makes smart, risky choices to break old patterns and bring fresh perspective to "Star Wars"
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" reacclimatized fans to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away by serving paying homage to decades of tradition, reuniting us with old friends and building a foundation for "the next generation." This blueprint presented Lucasfilm and "Episode VIII" filmmaker Rian Johnson ("Brick," "Looper") with an opportunity in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" - continue to tread lightly and keep the biggest sci-fi/fantasy franchise of all time close to its roots, or jump to hyperspace in a bold new direction. Well, just as there must be balance to the Force, Johnson finds a balance between these options.
"The Last Jedi" sees new heroine Rey (Daisy Ridley) trying to persuade the previously missing Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to teach her the ways of the Force, while General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Commander Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) lead the Resistance in a desperate bid to evade the First Order and keep some hope alive for the galaxy. This premise definitely allows for "The Last Jedi" to re-create "The Empire Strikes Back" to a degree, but critics of the "The Force Awakens" that belittled it for its similarity to "A New Hope" will find somewhat of the opposite to be true of "The Last Jedi."
The film definitely contains "Star Wars" hallmarks and allusions to the experiences of watching films such as "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi." Even the storylines for characters such as Rey, Poe, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Finn (John Boyega) seem to echo the character arcs of old, but then suddenly they receive shades of complexity that deviate from the patterns George Lucas trained us to recognize in his movies; how we expect a situation to unfold isn't quite how it plays out.
It's difficult to elaborate without diving into spoiler territory, but Johnson, producer Kathleen Kennedy and the other voices guiding the arc of this new trilogy have done some serious meditation over the themes and ideas that have guided "Star Wars" for four decades, both from Lucas' mind and in the general cultural zeitgeist. Once identified, Johnson tweaks them in subtle ways that have big reverberations in the "Star Wars" universe. What we think we know about the light and dark sides of the Force and the choices heroes must make are either flipped on their heads or approached from a fresh perspective
Some fans may find these choices problematic and too out of character for "Star Wars," but there's a smart intention to their design. As much as "Star Wars" has been about light and dark and making choices, the presentation has to this point been black and white and clear-cut. "The Last Jedi" introduces various shades of gray in order to give this trilogy its own identity and unique set of questions never-before pondered by "Star Wars" and its fans.
This especially comes to bear in the personal journeys of Rey and Kylo, who are each reconciling their own fears and desires by pursuing power through the Force. Kylo in particular really emerges as the finest creation of this new trilogy, a complex villain most superhero movies and other blockbusters could only dream of rendering on screen.
Although fixating on the newer characters comes more naturally, the film does a heck of a job bringing Luke Skywalker back into the fold. Johnson pulls some heartstrings by having Luke reconcile quite a bit with the past and find his place in purpose in this new narrative. Hamill never got to shine or show his best talents off in the original trilogy and he's both introspective and often the most hilarious part of "The Last Jedi."
Johnson has always been loyal to his characters in his films and it makes him the right fit for "Star Wars." Although some characters (namely Finn) spend extensive parts of this movie killing time, and chunks of the film do feel unnecessary, each hero gets presented with some choices to make and learns not just the lessons of old "Star Wars" films, but new lessons that actually expose some of the naive optimism of Lucas' classic themes.
These new takes on classic values also have ramifications for viewers. We're being made to think critically about what we're supposed to take away from the movie. Those who found great comfort in Lucas' black-and-white, rosy-eyed world view might find "The Last Jedi" strangely jarring. But the case can easily be made that Johnson enriches that world view by bringing nuance to it.
At one pivotal point in the film, a character in "The Last Jedi" talks about forgetting the past. Taken too literally in a meta context, that might be a scary if not ridiculous notion for "Star Wars" fans, but if we're agreeing to interpret that in a meta context, forgetting the past isn't actually about disregarding tradition, but rather moving on from the patterns that have defined past "Star Wars." The patterns have yielded much enjoyment for many years, but if they don't change, the franchise can never innovate, surprise or blow audiences away again. With "The Last Jedi," Johnson and the creative minds at the helm of "Star Wars" have demonstrated to fans their dedication to bring that new energy and not simply settle, and "Episode IX" will be end up better for it.
~Steven C
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Having just come from the theatre, the one thing I think tarnishes this film most is the product placement. The Disney overlords deemed it necessary to feature prominently cute groundhogs (also featured prominently in Toy departments). The other thing one would have hoped that we moved on from is having the Death Star as the big objective like the last umpteen Star Wars films. Lo, something shows up in the fourth act that uses Death Star as part of it's description.
Otherwise my reaction is that this film properly succeeds in all ways to what was setup in "The Force Awakens". Having all the characters on the chess board setup and ready to play, a bit of alternative strategies come up with interesting combinations. Not that is is a complaint, but part of the kabuki in Star Wars films is the storytelling pattern: "we have get to the gizmo on the starship that needs to be shutdown in order to let the rebel alliance escape." This time, however, the pattern is broken and gives the mature members of the audience a chance to enjoy some unpredictability in the script.
Story is big with this film. I read a few reviews before screening it and heard mumbles about the middle film keeping the wheels spinning but not getting anywhere. I felt the opposite. It feels like some of the storyline you would expect to occur in the 3rd installment of the new trilogy pops up in this film to give the audience some surprises. (Another major character gets offed). A good action film keeps in motion physically. This very long film accomplishes that. Even though the stakes have not changed, a good deal of running around expands the universe with other characters and locations. I really welcomed the homage to "Empire Strikes Back", which also was the more mature of the original bunch. Even with it's long running time, actual screentime for some of the major characters can seem fleeting. For instance, Carrie Fisher's on set illness is evident as she remains seated through most of the film, her character virtually disappears for a time early in the film. Luke, as expected, actually talks in this film, and is expected to play the Yoda part from "Empire". Again, things don't got exactly as expected, and leads to Luke vanishing from the screen for a time.
That leaves our main characters, Kylo, Rey and FInn and their separate paths as they fulfill their parts in the story. Rey, the confused Jedi-to-be is amazing to watch on screen. The energy in her eyes lights up the screen. Kylo is never happy, which leads to snap decisions that are dramatic to watch. Finn happily finds strength in character. His knowledge as a former member of the Empire works well.
As I write this, I looked over some user reviews that give this a 1/10. That is ridiculous. It reminded me of the same wave of hate when "The Force Awakens" came out. There were pages of 1 or 2 starred reviews back then as well. These type of ratings mean nothing if you are truly objective and scrutinize the film on it's merits, not because the filmmakers didn't make the film YOU wanted. No film ever earns a 1 or 2 stars unless it was made by someone unknown, incompetent, and inexperienced. I liked "Force Awakens" (and those who hated it, why did you watch this one?) Compared to that one, I found "The Last Jedi" story more interesting, and the characters more engaging. I gave "Force Awakens" a 7/10. I give this an 8/10 because if this movie tried to play it safe and stick to the mold, it would've felt more obligatory than entertaining. I was thoroughly entertained through the 2+ hours, invested from the previous movie into the characters and story, and left the theatre satisfied. Not a dull moment.
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9/10
The Last Jedi is very impressive in different direction!
I encourage you all to discharge those bad review about The Last Jedi, and see for yourself. I learned to appreciate Star Wars: The Last Jedi with different aspect and perception. I have been hardcore fan of Star Wars since it first released in 1977. This movie was not what I expected to see and expected to conform to what my theories is all about. This movie proved me wrong, I was surprise to see it take different direction and approaching in what it is take in next step for 9th episode.
I got to admit I was disappointed in one scene when Supreme Leader Snoke was killed at hand of Kylo Ren. But I realized this Rian Johnson made validity point about death of Snoke as what George Lucas did to Emperor Palaptine in Return of the Jedi as there is no history or origin about Palaptine (it was long before George Lucas came back to do prequel project). I learned to appreciate what Rian is trying to make different perspective. Andy Serkis did mention Snoke's origin would be explored sometime in future. So this movie is necessary all about focusing on two main characters: Rey and Kylo Ren! So now force is connected and at same time both of them are insecure in their own identity. Kylo Ren is man of full anger and it is why he got rid of Snoke because Kylo Ren is tired of him taunting and torment upon Kylo Ren so Kylo wanted to put end to Snoke's evil ruling so Kylo can make himself head of First Order.
So for Rey, she is in serious soul searching in discovering how she is connected to force and her past remain mystery to her. At same time, she is very determined to do something different than to put up with Kylo Ren's anger and let his anger destroy everything.
This movie requires you to see two different sides of story on how it applies to sense of spiritual growth.
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At first after reviewing pages of scattered and varying reviews I was initially skeptical if Star Wars: The Last Jedi would fair my own perilous judgement. After setting aside any previous notions of bias I set forth watching the eighth installment of the franchise with an open mind. As each minute passed I was shocked, awed, dazzled, and even at times a little annoyed at some trivial matters. Yet alas, as the film ended I was left, for the most part, satisfied with my experience.
The movie started off at a slow and creeping pace, and although It's intent was to set up the events that will transpire I was left bored and agitated. It was only until about twenty minutes in did the movies force start to awaken. After that, the movie held a snowball effect of ever increasing action and interest. I found myself clutching my knees on several occasions as the scenery in several scenes took my breath away. At times I had to remember this was digitalized, and in a fictional world.
The script at times with the dialogue seemed a bit forced for a few characters, but not enough to detract from the overall movement of character development. To me, some of the lines just seemed rather off.
Despite these negative elements the plot was enthralling as even Sherlock Holmes himself couldn't deduce the outcomes. When you thought the movie was going to go left it went right, and when you thought someone was dead they weren't. I particularly enjoyed this as I often can predict with reasonable certainty a lot of movies scenes, because most movies lack originality and if you've seen it once you've seen it all. Yet, this plot allowed me to be completely taken by surprise on multiple occasions. Some reviewers would say this such and such scene is almost obsolete and unnecessary, but I would contest. The fact is not all plans pan out in perfect occurrence and predictability. I prefer the "good guys" and "bad guys" plots to go awry and the viewer watching to be taken aback without the assurance that a plan will in fact succeed-as they do so in so many movies.
Overall, this movie is not without flaws but it is still a good time to watch. The plot is more complex than it's previous predecessors and I believe the franchise has lived up to its promise to deliver another awe inspiring movie. Signing off with a solid 8/10.
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1/10
Ryan Johnson Just Ruined the whole Star Wars Franchaise
If you enjoyed the other Star Wars films and all that they brought then this is NOT the Star Wars Film for you. the continuity of all the films was so important as well as the basic established development of things. Well Ryan Johnson decides the throw out the rule book and forget about answers we were waiting from the last film that hung out there and decided to make a whole new Star Wars that doesn't resemble the Star Wars Universe we all grew up loving.
Just a few tid bits Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight is written way out of character and as much of a powerful Jedi he is he is used terribly. Not exciting or even interesting. Other story lines for instance the Knights of Ren well they are not even mentioned in the Story. Remember the map that they found to lead to Luke well apparently Ryan Johnson decided just to pretend that never happened. Oh and for Reys Origins after all the clues in TFA- well apparently they led no where and the answer to Reys parents is unsatisfying and conflicts with TFA. Poor Action story lines that get in the way and don't make any since very poor understanding of the characters and writing and worst of all doesn't leave crap for JJ Abrams to work with. do yourself a favor and pop in a DVD of a Good Star Wars Movie and pretend this one never happened. On a personal note George Lucas All is forgiven even Episode one as flawed as it was made since and drove the story forward this movie goes nowhere.
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This movie had a fresh take on the Star Wars universe. I specially liked the grey characters of the movie, and the grey themes of the movie. It was a fresh take. A fresh direction and sentiment that was getting established from the Clone Wars series onwards.
Didn't like Yoda shooting out a lightning bolt, but the humor was nice. Yoda delivered the best line of the film "passing on the failures is the most important". Luke and others fill the gap of Han not being in the movie. I liked Vice Admiral Holdo and her resolve.
A must watch. For all the haters, if you don't like this more than the return of the jedi (worse than the first trilogy imo) you have something wrong with you.
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This is not the same old Star Wars. This movie takes us down paths that other SW movies haven't. It addresses, much like Rogue One, the reality of war. It shows us what the force is in greater detail. It doesn't answer a bunch of questions, even leaves you with more. We are die hard SW fans and we couldn't be more pleased with the direction SW is going.
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9/10
Except Finn and Rose's story, this movie is excellent to me.
What a pile of trash, the only character development was Luke's change form savior to pathetic, he has become a punch line for one liners. Questions I was asking myself when I left the movie:
Who was General Snoke? Apparently the worst Dark Side leader of all time, weak and killed off with no effort, why?
Time totally wasted to get a "crytpo expert" from a far away planet, he breaks the code to get past the security with no effort, WTF?
Since when were one liners part of Star Wars?
Leia can now survive in space and has powers equal to a Jedi?
All men are foolish idiots who think only with their testosterone?
All women are brave leaders who treat men like puppies?
Character development isn't required because us idiots will keep paying to see the movies?
What was the purpose of having Yoda except to sell some figurines?
The most disappointing movie I have ever seen, one star leaning toward none,
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I went into this Star Wars film thinking it was going to be a dark and serious movie since that is what the trailer made it out to be, shoker! It is NOT.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi probably has one of the best trailers to come out in the past decade, but with that said, everything that was shown in the trailer was completely twisted to showcase a false idea of the film and did not reflect the movie accurately at all.
This might sound bias because I personally prefer movies without comedic relief, but wow, this movie had A LOT of it to the point where it almost felt forced. It made the empire look like a complete joke (General Hux in particular) and even made Luke along with the rest of the rebellion look like a joke also. I must admit there are times where it does fit, but the majority of the time it does not.
There is NO story. The whole movie felt like it was missing both an introduction and conclusion. Nothing was explained. Nothing about Rey's backstory and absolutely nothing about Snoke. There are small bits where Kylo Ren and Luke are slightly explained, but it is EXTREMELY lackluster. If you were hoping to find out personal information about Rey and her life and why she has a connection with the force, you are going to be disappointed. If you wanted to know more about Kylo, Snoke, Luke Skywalker, Fin, and Po, you will be equally disappointed. While watching the movie I had no idea where it was going.
Very slight and odd anti-capitalist undertones were present, but nothing serious, most people wouldn't notice it (If you have seen Spider-man Homecoming, it was nothing like that).
This film did not stay true to Star Wars lore and if it actually did, it was not explained. So many things were wrong in the movie I almost felt as if the director had never took the effort to do research about things in the Star Wars universe.
Really odd and forced relationships between characters. I am not going to say which two characters because I want to make this as spoiler-free as possible, but jesus, the relationship made NO sense and me along with others in the theater were equally as confused.
In conclusion, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a decent film towards those who are not a fan of Star Wars and simply are just going in to view a sci-fi film, but to those who actually enjoy the franchise, you will be disappointed.
Overall Rating: 7.0/10
Rating as a Star Wars film: 5.0/10
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It seems that most people either hate or enjoyed this movie. I feel a bit of both.
Characters: most of the good characters in the episode 7 are good here; however, Fin is a little underused. There is one new character, Rose, who I really do not like. She is fairly boring and unnecessary. Luke is done fairly well, albeit there were some dumbs scenes involving him.
Acting: it's Star Wars, all of the acting is at least good (with the exception of Del Toro). No one is superb however.
Action: Some very cool action sequences. Better the episode 7. Lots of action in this movie
Cinematography: it's a beautiful film, but that is expected of Star Wars.
Plot: This was my biggest problem with the movie. The messy story does not justify its 150 minute running time. Many of the subplots are a waste. There are a lot of twists in the movie, most of which vary from awesome to whatever to absolutely stupid.
Consensus: This movie seemed to polarize many Star Wars fans, but overall I think the average movie goer will be entertained. This could have been a good two hour movie, but overall I think it's a mix bag of great, terrible, and decent scenes.
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I actually did get "a bad feeling about this" before seeing this film....unfortunately that long standing quote did not appear for the first time in any SW film.
Escape from Starkiller Base
No mention of how Hux, Captain Phasma or Kylo Ren escape Starkiller Base....uhg...
Back story or lack thereof
Whats Luke been doing for decades? What about the Knights of Ren? Who was Lor San Tekka? Amazing how Finn's "love interest", "Rose" is given more development in #LastJedi than Snoke and Phasma in two films combined. No reaction from Luke when learning about Han's death...no Obit...nothing! Wouldn't Luke be able to 'Feel' the loss of Han in the force? Plus hardly anything with R2-D2 who's been a staple through ALL the films!!
Selective rebel ship shields
In the battle near the beginning of the movie, the rebel fleet ships have shields and deflects the first orders fleets shots when hitting them...however small fighters, Kylo Ren and his wingmen are able to penetrate and bomb his mother, Lea's ship.
No Airlock door...
When Lea force pulls herself out of space and back into the bridge she was blown out of, they simple open an airlock door to let her in, no one is sucked out...no doors shut behind her because she's in a destroyed area of the ship open to space....wtf!
Poe's prank phone call
The opening scene saw Poe Dameron prank calling General Hux from his X-Wing, was a total Guardians of the Galaxy ripoff...what movie was I in again...this is straight out of Family Guy, which I love...but this is supposed to be a Serious Star Wars movie not Family Guy.
Luke's lightsaber throw
Fans have been waiting two years to see what happened next after the final scene of The Force Awakens on Ahch-To, with Rey reaching out to Luke with lightsaber. How would the Jedi Master react to seeing his blue lightsaber, lost with his hand thanks to Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back? Surely with some suitable dramatic and emotional gesture? Nope.
In the most trolling way possible it seems. There might as well have been a record scratch noise to halt John Williams' glorious theme as Luke casually throws his father's blue laser sword over his shoulder and just walks off camera. Seriously? We waited for that!?
Running out of gas...yes, really...
The whole premise of the film is the Empire is in pursuit of the Rebel ships and apparently no matter that the Empire ships are much larger their engine just can't seem to gain on the Rebels. So they simply resign themselves to chasing them until the Rebels run out of fuel...yep...that right...they managed to master interstellar flight at light speed but are still dependent on fosil fuels..oy vey!
Even accepting that the dreadnoughts have a cruising speed equivalent to a camper van, could the First Order seriously not jump to a position just in front of it and cut it off?
The milking scene
As Rey follows Luke on his daily routine in exile, the last jedi decided to milk a large fat sea cow and slurp its milk right in front of her. Just a tad weird....
Floating Leia
Attacked by the First Order, General Leia is sucked into the vacuum of space and slowly starts to freeze over. But just when you think it's all over, she suddenly wakes up and decides to float toward the surviving airlock. Presumably she was using the Force? Even so, odd.
All of Canto Bight
Finn and Rose are sent to the galaxy's casino hotspot to find the Master Codebreaker, only to never reach him and come back with some bloke called DJ. Essentially the whole trip was a pointless venture in a dragging middle, just to show a new area of the Star Wars universe and introduce some cute animals for merchandising purposes.
This was touted as like noting ever seen before in Star Wars.True what we saw looked incredible lavish and beautiful. Unfortunately it all whizzed past so fast nothing made much of an impression except for unnecessary 'comedy' scenes with a tiny alien gambler.
What was the point? The entire plot to find Benicio del Toro's code-breaker was utterly pointless. The mission was a total failure, the falviers didn't look that great, the kids were like Oliver Twist extras and the entire drawn-out sequence introduced nothing that was relevant to the rest of the main plot. Even worse, it fatally made the entire movie sag.
Captain Phasma
Again...over promised and under delivered. Phasma sounds like a phone-sex operator but seems unable to ever give or get satisfaction. She was hopeless in The Force Awakens, giving away the codes to destroy her army's biggest weapon without a whimper. This time she swaggers around and then fall off a big ledge. A bit like this movie.
First order tracking device...piss poor explanation.
Topless Kylo Ren
During the "Force texting" scenes between Rey and Kylo Ren, one of their encounters features a topless Adam Driver. Just because? Rey even tells him to cover up.
Finn and Poe.
Both Finn and Poe were little more than whooping hotheads who kept disobeying orders and put other people's lives at risk.
Crying Rey
This girl's great acting gift must be to cry on command because they take full advantage of of it several times throughout the movie.
Multi-Rey's clicking
Investigating the Dark Side inner depths of Ahch-To's island, there's suddenly multiple Rey's clicking...no real challenges for her. Okay. But then do we find out who her parents really are? No, no we don't.
The ironing scene
Having infiltrated Snoke's Supremacy, Finn, Rose and DJ leave the ship's ironing room. Of course there would need to be these areas on such a ship, but it felt in the realms of self-parody, in the vein of Eddie Izzard's Death Star canteen.
Snoke's death
The sequel trilogy's main villain was barely introduced in The Force Awakens and as soon as we meet him properly he's killed off. We don't know who Snoke is, how he gained power and he's already dead half way through a trilogy. What on earth?
Rey's parents are nobodies
This was one of the biggest questions left by The Force Awakens and was presumed to be a shocking revelation in The Last Jedi. But no, Kylo Ren revealed her parents were just nobodies. That's it? We're hopeful he's lying though and she'll be revealed as a Skywalker in Episode IX.
Why else would she have the Luke/Leia twin-like connection with Kylo Ren and to the Skywalker lightsaber? Why did Lukes lightsaber call to her...nothing...
Walkers
Just like in ESB, the assaulting Empire forces land miles away from their target with a slow moving laser battering ram or something...then the rebel ships are pieces of junk that apparently anyone can fly with zero training and for unknown reasons drag on the ground rooster tailing red soil as they head towards the walkers painting an obvious big bullseye on each ship.
Force Ghost Yoda
So force ghost Yoda can bring lightning down in the physical world. Why can't he just appear on the New Order ship and kill everyone?
Luke's dusting off hand
After Kylo Ren orders Luke to be shot in a fury of lasers, the last jedi emerges from the red smoke on Crait, only to dust himself off with one hand.
Luke never left Ahch-To
Every Skywalker saga Star Wars film has a major lightsaber battle.
While this looked set to be fulfilled with Kylo Ren against Luke, it was only very brief. However, the "big twist" was that Luke was never really there at all. He just projected himself on Crait with the Force, by meditating on a rock. What an anti-climax. I mean if Luke was gonna end of up dying due to him doing the force projection then why not take on Kylo Ren in the flesh and die bringing total carnage to the New Order assault forces.
Social Justice Warriors
Apparently all the rich guys in the cantina are evil, Chewie is guilted into becoming a vegan, animal cruelty at the race track at Canto Bight, etc. Towards the end of the movie Rose saved Fin from flying into the battering ram cannon and says "It's not about fighting the ones we hate, but saving the ones we love." Lord....sounds the like the USA immigration policy under Obama...
-Why did Luke leave a map to lead people to him if he never planned on returning in the first place?
-If Luke sent a "force projection" of himself to confront Kylo Ren, then he could've easily came himself if the end result was the same. He dies either way, so what was the point?
-Kylo Ren should've easily seen through Luke's force trick. Him and Rey broke Luke's blue lightsaber prior to that scene. So how was Luke using that lightsaber even as a projection and how could Kylo not use this to deduce that it was a trick?
-Snoke can manipulate the force across planets to connect two people galaxies apart, move objects just by looking at them and overpower Rey and Kylo, both of whom are very naturally strong with the force. Can sense every feeling and thought of Kylo Ren, but can't sense, hear or feel the lightsaber moving right next to him on his metal chair?
Why didn't the admiral lady tell Poe her plan from the beginning? "My plan is to get everyone in the escape pods, and turn the main ship towards the First Order, jump to lightspeed, shredding the enemy ships in the process, thus giving the fleeing pods time to make it to this close planet that conveniently has an abandoned rebel base on it." There was no reason to not tell Poe the whole plan.
-Luke in ROTJ went on a suicide mission to face the two most powerful and most evil people in the galaxy, on the off-chance he could turn Vader, his father and enemy back to the light. Yet, he senses evil in Ben Solo's future, so tries to kill him on impulse? His nephew and son of his twin sister and best friend? That's out of character for Luke.
Btw, bombs don't drop in space...
I didn't think it was possible to make a Star Wars movie worst than The Phantom Menace but somehow, Disney found a way.
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I LOVE Star Wars. I adore Mark, Carrie (RIP) and the rest of the new crew. Having said all that, let me say this; It wasn't very good in the fact that it didn't answer questions about anything. Reys parentage was vaguely addressed, but in no means resolved, by Kylo (which I don't believe btw but won't say anymore because of spoilers). The action scenes were well done so and the acting was good as well, hince my four out of ten stars. As far as answering anything from anyone's past...don't hold your breath. It isn't over and we'll find out more in the next film.
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8/10
Very Very Different. But Contasts the Others Perfectly.
YES!!! Somehow this movie got away with how many explosions there were. Finally we got live action clone-wars feeling movie, that had elements of the novels in them. I've only heard people disagreeing, but that's okay.
So many people ripp on the script, but why? Why look so far into it that you're analyzing the writing deeper than you need to? I write, and work in entertainment, and I easily looked past parts of the writing that felt more new aged. But Accept the times!! This, to me is what George Lucas wanted the whole Star Wars idea to end up doing anyway.
This film steered the direction into a perfect place. It was a break from all of the very in depth star wars films, and was a freaking WAR IN THE STARS BABY! With actually really really really cool character development! Seriously!!!
Go in with an open mind!!! let go of the original trilogy's colours, and see how they all compliment each other beautifully!! I swear this corrected the issues that I think JJ Abrams' control would had brought up. The people who generally see eye to eye with in life, are the ones that are saying F-YES!! Best Star Wars since the 80s.
SPOILERS FROM HERE!!!
CENSOR CENSOR CENSOR!!!
So glad they introduced Force-Bonds. On that note- the jumpiness of this film was very comic-like, something we have never seen in Star Wars movies, but I am super okay with that, I think they pulled it off, but just barely.
THANK GOD THEY KILLED SNOKE!!! THANK GOD!!! I was hoping he wouldn't last until the end of the movie. That was so freaaakinng COOLL!!!!!
Ok I will admit though that the purple haired general lady definitely could have just explained her plan or whatever. But life happens like that, it's not bad writing, it's just unique situational conflict.
Luke was so good. Yoda was an incredibly good decision, and the whole "non-canon-added Jedi powers" complaint is nonsense. The Power of the Jedi is always evolving, just as Qui-Gon Jin discovers much about the afterlife, their powers, if they weren't there already, will always be evolving. Especially involving the Skywalker blood line, I say there is no sense in questioning what they can and cannot do.
I loved TFA, but TLJ was like a perfect bridge so that Abrams' team can't screw it all up from here.
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Though The Last Jedi was spectacular at times, with beautiful scenes, and very surprising twists and turns, it really sidelined the Star Wars franchise as a whole, and the strong reputation of it's most prized originals. It was plagued with awkward dialogue, terribly cheesy scenes, poorly written plot, and undeveloped characters. But most importantly of all, it failed to deliver what even the most nominal fans craved. After it all, The Last Jedi left me caring less of the revived franchise, as it's clear now that Disney has ended Star Wars as we knew it, and for the worse.
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8/10
Better than Ep7, not as good as Rogue One, still too much ESB in it
So, it was a fun ride. But come on, just like Ep7, they had to make it parallel Ep5 in too many ways: Hoth, Dagobah, space chase, ethnic scoundrel ... they all showed up in Ep8. On the other hand, there was enough originality here to make the film compelling, although at 2.5 hours, it's hard to not keep checking your watch after the first hour. Tips for Ep9: less Finn, less Poe, less Kylo, MORE REY. She and Rose steal this film, truly. Acting wise, maybe this is a minority opinion, but Adam Driver is just a waste of celluloid. He's cringeworthy every time he tries to act. It's a shame Carrie Fisher died, because it would have been nice to see her emerge in Ep9 with Rey and other strong female characters. Hope the Han Solo film is good next year.
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10/10
The Last Jedi is most impressive!!! Rain Johnson takes big risk and turns out it can be a wild visually exciting ride!!!
Star Wars: The Last Jedi does pack a wild science fiction punch being a strong emotional, visually exciting, and a great second film in the trilogy with the direction by Rian Johnson. Also, one of those films it is best knowing less and avoiding spoilers cause there are a couple of twist with the characters directions or reveals. I will try avoid giving away much details besides it was a spectacular film overall.
The film kicks off right after the Force Awakens as ended, Rey (Daisy Ridley) meets Luke (Mark Hamill) in an island. Where she wants answers on were she fits in all this and needs Luke's help to aid in the resistance. Meanwhile, Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Leia (Carrie Fisher) are trying to escape the first order led Kylo (Adam Driver). Then, there is Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) who are on a casino like planet looking for a decoder by the name of DJ (Benicio Del Toro).
The plot was strong and emotionally moving with characters. A little hard to discuss without giving away anything. Besides there is a lot of unexpected directions characters turn around too. You may get good guys struggling with hope, bad guys that are also emotionally conflicted, and an climatic battle with characters dueling with lightsabers. Some aerial dog fights through space ships. And also a battle on a salty planet. There are also some twists that star wars fans may love or hate. I personally was expecting the direction to go a lot different. But I have no complaints with its new direction. I am excited to see were episode 9 will go.
The set designs were cool. There is a lot of action from beginning to end. This film also feels like it's a big long chase with the rebels trying to escape from the first order through their space cruisers. There are some fun looking creatures like the porgs or the crystallized looking dogs. The aerial combats was plenty with the film and the visual effects are exciting and amazing. There was also a cool lightsaber duel which may leave the audience clapping.
The script by Rian Johnson did give a good emotional story with a lot of things going on with the characters. Poe and Finn have a lot more to do in the story. And Rose being introduced and giving a more emotional connection with Finn. As they share there perspectives of this galactic war. And how running away from it will never make it go away.
Out of all the star wars films. This is one of the better films. I still loved Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens, and Empire Strikes Back. The Last Jedi fits in right after Empire Strikes Back.
Overall, The Last Jedi is a great Star Wars addition. It packs an emotional story, characters are at stake and have a lot going on in the film, the action and visual effects are great and plenty.
I rate the film 5 out of 5 stars. I definitely recommend seeing the film in the big screen for its impressive exciting action, story, and the visuals.
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Avoided spoilers and reviews, wish I hadn't as could have saved 2 hours + of my life. Without doubt the worst film I have seen in a long time.
Terrible dialogue, terrible jokes, terrible plot. Completely nonsensical. Totally ruined my favourite film franchise. I came close to falling asleep and also walking out. I won't be watching again, and based on this will probably skip Ep 9
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The latest installment and 8th episode to one of the most celebrated and glorified movie sagas of all time, delivers a cinematic experience and momentous climactic orchestra of sci-fi exuberance it had me in applause.
Starting literally heartbeats after The Force Awakens, it's the only Star Wars movie with pretty much no gap of time between it's predecessor, leaving the almost useless opening crawl to reiterate the obvious in 3 mandatory paragraphs.
But right away, this 8th installment doesn't waste any time and jumps immediately into the wars in the stars. Now to acknowledge the visionary, writer / director Rian Johnson is one of the more unique independent filmmakers, responsible for the sci-fi masterpiece Looper and two of the greatest episodes in Breaking Bad. And what he brings to Star Wars is a level of craftsmanship and quality in suspense and emotion like we've never seen before.
Now good movies aren't made up of strictly great moments, but only great movies have them and there's nearly 8 or 9 that suck you in and plummet you out in awe. Truly cinematic, and breathtaking.
But this film definitely takes risks incautiously, especially in a universe beloved by so many people around the world, there are bound to be many who can't shake the controversial and at times polarizing ambition Rian Johnson brings to The Last Jedi. As understandable as it is, what isn't so much understandable is the cult-like hatred directed towards this film's vision. All I have to say about this is it surprised me greatly, as I had screened it in the premiere with the impression of just experiencing a true sci-fi epic.
But if if you are to look at both sides of the equation, to me it seems pretty clear which side of the spectrum is the more credible one. But people are entitled to their own opinions, but these complaints could very well be directed towards pretty much any film, given how the true moviegoers who aren't as caught up in the emotional webs are giving it critical acclaim.
I mean, simple question is was it entertaining? How was the cinematic experience? I guess it shows what is and is not appreciated in the movies by people nowadays, and it somewhat frustrates me because the vision of this movie was something truly remarkable and how I wish most movies were made.
Besides the point, personally what I saw was a brilliant Star Wars experience, one that I've always wanted to see. In terms of comparison, I feel it reaches the same emotional and intense level as Christopher Nolan's Interstellar and Frank Miller's Mad Max Fury Road. It's not perfect, but there's more heart and vision than any film of it's year, and that's how I feel about Last Jedi.
But just to dwell on those imperfections, I would have to say the first half of the picture does need some finer tuning in the cutting between scenes and establishing the tones between them. You have 3 or 4 different sequences going on at high-pace, in which we can't determine the ones which are secondary and primary to the story.
To me, the moments on the island with Rey and Luke Skywalker need to be primary and even though what was explored there was monumental and truly powerful, I wish they had spent a little more time to establish more atmosphere in an already rushing movie early on. And I do believe the concept of Finn and Rose's storyline, coalescing with the Resistance's storyline could've been more significant and clear, since there didn't feel like an understanding or purpose for what was going on, when there very much could've been.
But outside of that, once the characters sort of come together at the half way mark, the movie from their on sustains some of the most emotionally and cinematically beautiful and powerful stretches of space action and character moments in the entire saga. Punching you right in the soul.
This isn't a perfect film, I mean it's Star Wars for goodness sakes, none of them are. However, it surely surpasses the establishing complacency of The Force Awakens, which refused to get it's hands dirty. To me it easily rises above the cheesy prequels and matches the best of the trilogy in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Whatever people believed The Last Jedi was going to be and whatever people feel that it is, remember it 's only credible to judge the movie for what it is, never for what it's not.
In terms of an adventure film, a sci-fi epic, and a Star Wars movie, Rian Johnson may have nicked some foul balls here and there, but in the end he hit it a home run with the most unique and exciting episode to date.
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If you like movies with a cohesive plot that makes sense, don't bother.
If you like movies with characters who are more than cardboard cut-outs of overused tropes, don't bother.
If you like movies in which women are treated like people, don't bother.
If you like movies in which the characters learn a lesson about the mistakes they've made or grow in any way, don't bother.
If you like movies in which characters make decisions that make sense at the time (as opposed to making decisions that put them in the right place at the right time for the next plot point to happen to them, while making no sense at the time the decision is actually being made), steer clear.
If you like sequels that come close to being a worthy successors to their precursors, go see Thor: Ragnarok.
If you're looking for anything other than a 1970's Disney princess movie in space: Do. Not. Bother.
I'll try to keep this spoiler-free. I'm going to talk a lot about themes but I'll try to avoid actually telling you about the plot (other than to say that it was very, very bad).
The short version: This movie is full of bad dialogue (much of it recycled), mediocre special effects (in a Star Wars movie, with Disney money, the effects are just okay), fan service and men leading women around by the nose. The plot (what little there actually is) is boring, uninspired and full of holes.
I'll start with the Bechdel test.
Are there multiple named women? Yes.
Do they talk? Yes.
To each other? Yes.
About anything other than a man? Ye... Umm. Wait. No.
I personally don't love this test (I just like it). Failing the test is a good indicator but passing it is not. So at best, you can only ever say "this movie is SO BAD it doesn't even pass the Bechdel test" because the Bechdel test is such a LOW F&*@ING BAR! And while both The Force Awakens and Rogue One (which each had only two women who talk to each other, and then only briefly) manage to pass it, The Last Jedi (the longest of all Star Wars movies, which has four female characters who get significant screen time) doesn't. So with MUCH greater opportunity for women to have meaningful, positive interactions with each other, TLJ fails where both TFA and R1 succeed.
Plot? Sorry; were we supposed to have like a storyline or something here? Who's job was that? Because whomever it was (Rian Johnson), you're fired from Star Wars forever. In fact, Rian Johnson's career should be ended by this film. You can't fumble Star Wars this hard, then expect anybody to take a chance on you ever again (looking at you, Rick McCallum).
As much as Rey takes up a lot of screentime in this movie, she's fairly pointless. Her only real purpose is to motivate Luke. As much as Finn and Leia fill the screen, they're also pretty pointless. Finn would have been more plot-critical if he'd stayed in a coma for the whole movie or died early on. Then his utterly-pointless side-quest (which took up about half the movie) could have either been done by Poe or not happened at all.
After The Force Awakens (as fantastic as it was) was RIPPED APART for borrowing superficially from the original Star Wars, why would anyone think it would be a good idea for The Last Jedi to steal entire scenes and plot arcs from the original trilogy? And after the disjointed disaster that was the prequel trilogy, why on Earth would it be a good idea to split the sequel trilogy between three different writer/directors? Part of what made the original trilogy's story good was the fact that it was cohesive and at least somewhat planned-ahead. The prequels were terrible largely because Lucas kept adjusting the story on-the-fly, based on the outcries of the mob. Given those two very basic facts, why in God's name would you not pay JJ Abrams (or somebody with similar chops) enough money to at least write a story outline for all three sequels?
The fact that they released this film in its final state tells us that the people in charge of Star Wars are so far beyond clueless that they let Rian Johnson make a Disney princess misogyny-fest and slap the Star Wars label on it. They wouldn't let the LEGO guys get dirty with the Han Solo movie and they wouldn't let what's-his-name make Rogue One a hardcore war movie but they let RJ run with this masturbatory catastrophe. I'm all-for letting someone fail to teach him a lesson but goddammit! Would you please not let him do it on Star Wars?!
Now the good part. This movie was fun. It was entertaining. For ten minutes, it was even exciting (before I realized nothing wonderful or unexpected was going to happen until then end credits, when I was unpleasantly-surprised to see NO DEDICATION. Lucas needs to physically beat the shit out of someone fort that). For that, it gets a second star.
To get three stars, I'd have to want to ever see it again. Don't misunderstand: I WILL see it again because I need to verify that I caught all the plot-holes and atrocious dialogue (apparently I mis-heard a line I thought was awesome but was actually really terrible). But I'll marathon the prequels AND the first six Star Trek movies before I WANT to watch The Last Jedi again. I mean the prequels were bad but they never felt bland, boring or completely-predictable. Every time something interesting or wonderful seemed about to happen in TLJ, the most mundane, obvious thing happened instead.
I'll sum-up The Last Jedi in one word (you can probably guess it): pointless. If I can use a second word: cheap. This was a phoned-in, pointless movie that erased all of the wonderful The Force Awakens injected into Star Wars.
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10/10
A fantastic, masterful film, the Star Wars movie fans have deserved, not the one we've waited for
This is a different movies, by far passes everyone other Star Wars movie before except of course for Empire. Yes this is a different Star Wars movie. "Things are not going to go the way you think" Many of the reviewers on the site are salty that their theories didn't come true, and that Luke was a hermit to begin with and not a Grand Master Jedi that the Expanded Universe originally wrote him as. Although, yes he is that, but that comes before this movie. Before the sequels (Although the flashbacks do help show that) Luke is now ashamed for what happened to Kylo, he feels responsible, and hurt. He feels like he let down Leia and everyone else. He has taken full responsibility for it all, he has gone to the island of the first jedi temple to simply get out of the way and die. But that is until Rey find him, at first yes he is unwilling to teach he, but then he agrees, now I cannot wait to see him return in Episode 9 as a force ghost and see Rey take over, who is the true last jedi, and teach a new generation of Jedi. She has the books, Lukes saber, and she is ready to take the screen and fulfill her destiny. Yes at first glance Snoke is a bit of a waste. Most people salty that he wasn't Bane or the Emperor, but it doesn't really matter who he is, or if he comes back or who he was. Kylo Red has overpowered his master, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, but Snoke was arrogant, and didn't count on Kylo betraying him. Adam Driver did a fantastic job at portraying this. You think he will turn and help Rey, but he tricks her, and try to turn her. All I can say is this film was fantastic. The funniest thing about this movie is how salty people are that their fanfics didn't come true.
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Too much negativity from so called fans that never seem satisfied, yet always watch the movies. Having said that I too feel a bit disappointed with the film but not to the point that it ruins the whole franchise. The Rey back story will be answered in the next film. Kylo Ren was just trying to antagonize Rey and manipulate her/mess with her head about her parents, so people need to calm down thinking what Kylo said was fact. The film had some solid acting all around especially Hamil and Oscar Isaac. My biggest beef with the movie though is of course the sudden death and lack of history behind Snoke! So the film basically ensures we watch the third installment because of the questions we still have that are left unanswered.
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Last Jedi felt like a fantastic, amazingly delicious candy that ended up breaking your tooth and giving you a massive stomach bug.
I'm completely torn on the movie. From a technical perspective the movie was superb (except for one set of scenes in a space casino-you'll know it when you see it): acting (Adam Diver, holy cow! Amazing), CG, costumes, set design, music, cinematography (wow was that good!). I'm giving the movie an 8 for those aspects.
But story and plot-wise, they kept throwing out important stuff.
You know that main plot for the entire movie that's keeping the good guys in danger? Just kidding. Doesn't matter.
You know that one super important character that's been set up? Just kidding. Doesn't matter.
You know those super important things from Force Awakens that needed to be addressed? Just kidding. Doesn't matter.
You know how "that's not how the force works?" Just kidding. Doesn't matter.
You know that one super special secret people have been debating about? Just kidding. Doesn't matter.
You know how you care about this one person and they're about to bite it? Just kidding. Doesn't matter.
So in the moment in the theater I was hooked, but looking back on it, there was so much wrong with it.
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As someone old enough to remember the originals at the theater it felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest as to what this once great movie franchise has now become! I am not going to rant about the multitude of wrongs committed in this movie everyone has already stated them before1 Disney go force choke yourselves to death!
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10/10
Best movie Of 2017 And All Time -A Calmer Star Wars Flick But With Great Characterization/Twists
Watched my favorite Movie of All time Movie Star Wars :The Last Jedi which in The Greatest Movie of All time. The Returning Cast John Boyega(The Circle,Imperial Dreams) as Finn ,Daisy Ridley(Murder On The Orient Express) as Rey ,Oscar Issac(X-Men Apocalypse) as Poe Dameron , Domhnall Glesson(The Revenant,Brooklyn) as General Armitage Hux , Gwendoline Christie(Game Of Thrones,Mockingjay Part 2) as Captain Phasma, Lupita Nyung'o(The Jungle Book,Queen Of Katwe) as Maz Kanata, Warwick Davis(The Chronicles Of Narnia:Prince Caspian ) as Wodibin, Anthony Daniels (Bashki's Lord Of The Rings) as C-3PO, Jimmy Vee(Pan) as R2-D2, Tim Rose(Just William) as Ackbar, Adam Driver(Midnight Special ) as Ben Solo/Kylo Ren,Andy Serkis(War Of The Planet Of The Apes ) as Supreme Leader Snoke,Tom Hardy(Dunkirk) as Executioner Stormtrooper, Kelly Marie-Tran(CollegeHumor Originals) as Rose Tico ,Laura Dern(The Fault In Our Stars,The Founder) as Amilyn Holdo, Oscar Winner Benicio Del Toro(Traffic,Sicario ) as DJ also Featuring , The Late Carrie Fisher(The Blues Brothers) as General Leia Organa and Mark Hamill(Kingsmen:The Secret Service) as Luke Skywalker The Film was Brilliant from Start To Finish Love each character got fleshed out and Built on Love each of the character arc While Luke's, Kylo Ren and Reys are The Center Of It Love Subplot of Poe And Leia as well Finn And Rose also Enjoyed The expansion and Ideology of The Force but still keeping it within the Parameters of what we know of The Force also This was some of the best Production Design loved The Fight Sequences They were Amazing Evoking The Samurai Films- Like Three Outlaw Samurai and Seven Samurai they were not overally flashy and somewhat Gritty in any Star Wars Not to be a Hater but I hated The Idea of Stormpilot Not that I don't like Homosexuals but It isn't Star Wars save that for the Indie Films also really Plus I really Loved The Pairing of Finn & Rose and Rey & Poe plus The Diversity Featuring Rose and Incredible Performance from Kelly Marie Tran also Rose was Strong and Innocent also Kelly Marie Tran is The breakout actress of 2017 hands down , This Film is Not an Insult To George Lucas it Honored Him While Forging New Ground it Bravo To The Queen Kathleen Kennedy it was amazing also this better than Attack Of The Clones not that I didn't Like the Film its Star Wars but this was in vein of The Original Trilogy it was just brilliant Definitely one of the calmer star wars flicks oddly Im sorry This was The best Movie Of 2017 and one The best Star Wars Movies Ever- A Calmer Star Wars Flick But With Great Characterization/Twists .Fantastic Cinematography by Steve Yedlin(Danny Collins),Fight Choreography/ Stunts from Rob Inch(Macbeth) & Liang Yang(The Martian),Producing By Kathleen Kennedy(Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Production Design By Rick Henrichs(Planet Of The Apes 2001 ) , Costume Design By Michael Kaplan(War Dogs) , Amazing Score from John Williams(The BFG) and Writing & Direction By Rian Johnson(Looper) Best movie Of 2017 And All Time -A Calmer Star Wars Flick But With Great Characterization/Twists 10/10
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8/10
It's time for all the whining and bellyaching...to end.
For the life of me, i have never seen so much aspersion cast on a movie that didn't deserve it at all. And it's shameful, because Rian Johnson delivered a challenging, complex, original, interesting, and bold entry into the star wars franchise. But. As always, the moutbreathers who watch these movies ruin any attempt at genuine innovation because it's "too different" for the brainless rabble to handle.
Clearly, if it were up to all of you, we would be treated to yet another standard Star Wars flick we have all seen 1000 times already - follow the formula, that's all you idiots want. Despite Luke being in his 60s, and having been through immense hardship, he should still act exactly as he did when he was in his 20s. Are you serious? Oh, and i suppose he should've come back from retirement and kicked Kylo Ren's ass, just to please you imbeciles. Luke is still good, but he's flawed. Like he always was. Remember, he beat Vader by almost turning to the dark side. But I'm sure I'm getting a little too deep for you flunkies by mentioning facts that contractor your worthless opinions.
What else should've happened? Rey should have been a Kenobi or a Palpatine? Why? Who says? She can be nobody from nowhere. Does the force only respond to "important" people? Or does it flow through the entire universe? And what about Snoke? Granted, he was underutilized, but perhaps he's not all that important after all, so big deal. There is another chapter in this trilogy to comr, and we learn more about Snoke after all.
And finally, to you jackasses begging Disney to bring Lucas back, do have any idea what you're saying? You want to bring back the same George Lucas who gave us the disastrous prequels - with its terrible acting, wooden dialog, jar jar binks, boring plotlines, political bickering, overly choreographed saber duels, jar jar binks, pod racing, midichlorians, etc? Did I mention Jar Jar binks?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you'd better have a good reason for why you don't like this movie other than "Its different" or "they can't do that with the force" or "they broke George's rules" (What rules???) Or they should all be exactly like they were in the old days, etc. People change in real life, and they change in movies as well. Now, get get yourself, fill it with some formula, and go to bed.
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I was literally in shock through most of this movie as I witnessed one ridiculous scene unfold after another. The writing was so atrocious the actors themselves seemed reluctant to be a part of it. I enjoyed The Force Awakens, but everything that was established there was destroyed in The Last Jedi.
I can understand now why Mark Hamill was genuinely upset with Rian Johnson's writing in this movie. And it makes sense that Daisy Ridley was in tears when she heard that J.J. Abrams is coming back for Episode IX. Hopefully to salvage the trilogy (although I doubt that's possible now).
It's been a few days since I've seen the movie and I really keep thinking this was really just a bad dream. But unfortunately that's not the case. I'm just angry now and I can definitely say that I will not partake in Rian Johnson's new trilogy after enduring this mess. No thanks. In fact, I think I'm done with Star Wars for now. as I can only imagine how bad the Han Solo movie will be.
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This is by far the worst movie in the franchise. Why? Because this isn't star wars anymore.
I hate when they "develop" a character into something he isn't. THat's just cheap filmmaking. You can't turn Hannibal Lecter, a psycopath who eats people for fun, in an emotional insecure Justin Bieber. Why? Because that's not realistic, they are to opposites in a big spectrum. Some guys just are what they are, they aren't insecure, emotional wrecking teenagers who have to justify every single action with emotional tears. Some people are what are a**holes, heros, courageous, egocentrics,, cowards, intelligent, not so intelligent, etc. And most of them have fan doing what they do. Look at Sidious. He was just a guy who wanted to rule the galaxy, and he didn't care if he had to kill other people in order to do it, and he had fun doing it. Look at Yoda or Obi-Wan.They had beliefs and they sticked by them, and they loved their job.
Now look at this movie. They turn the most optimistic, relentless guy in the galaxy in a pre-puberty teenager who got his first date rejection. The guy who believed in the lightside no matter what, the guy who saw his uncles who rised him being killed by the Empire, saw his best friend being kidnapped, saw his father cutting his hand off and telling him he would kill him and enslave his sister. Yet he didn't care, he went all out on his beliefs. You tell me this is Luke Skywalker? It isn't. Period. So I can't like a movie that decided to do this to the main characterand almost the single reason this franchise exists.
Then let's look at the rest. Remember Snooke? Well, who cares anyway. Why did I even care in the first place. Character development? Ziro.
Let's look at the villain. Kylo Ren? Man, I actually miss Hayden Christensen. That's right!!! You see, Hayden had hideous dialogue to work with, but man, when he went evil, he sure showed he meant business. This Kylo something? Who cares about him? He kills his father, next time he doesn't want to kill somebody, next time he already wants to kill somebody. That is just ridiculous, not a single fiber of respect. Man, when Darth Vader was in the room everybody was on the line with 1 look. This guy can butcher an entire room of 1 year old infants and still looks pathetic.
This movie will do great because his target audience will love it. But make no mistake, this is very weak cinematography. And cheap, what they did with Luke is extremely cheap. This tendency of lacking any strong characters whatsoever, and just explosions everywhere is killing me. I actually fell asleep near the end for about 30 seconds, one off that scenes when a ton of CGI characters who I don't care about died.
The strange thing to know that Carrie had passed away is to know I that don't have anyone else to care for on this franchise, and I can let these actors do their weak stuff they call acting to the new generation. But my oh my, do they look so weak when you remember the acting performances of Ford, Hamil, Fisher and Jones.
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Some cool bits like the Kylo/Rey team-up, but overall an uncomfortable and awkward Star Wars effort. Most importantly the pacing and vibe just seemed a bit weird at many points in the movie. I think the writer/director messed everything up up after JJ Abrams brought back the fun of Star Wars.
Worst parts:
Leia as Mary Poppins in space.
A low-speed OJ Simpson space chase as the fleet allows their ships to gradually be picked off without doing anything.
Out of character Yoda ghost scene with him torching the last Jedi library.
The CGI of Snoke walking in throne scene seemed like a 1990's effort.
They killed off the most powerful villain half-way through the middle film in a 3-part series just after we got to know him.
Too many characters. Lots of different rebels who have a fair few lines but its not really clear why they are important.
Luke Skywalker character was ruined. I know Mark Hamill is not happy about that, and I suspect a lot of long-time fans aren't either.
Uncomfortable desperate final act of a last stand Western wasn't the right feeling for a Star Wars movie. It also didn't make sense how long the ships dragging through the ground took to reach the walkers but then they ended up being really close to the base. How was it useful to be dragging through the ground by the way?
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Obligatory never written a review before, but the negative reviews triggered me, I guess.
OK, look. The original Star Wars is an old, anachronistic take on Joseph Campbell's hero's journey that resonates so well with so many people that it spawned the biggest franchise in movie history. The next two movies complete the story, the hero having survived the ordeal, goals accomplished, everything all nice and tidy. (Then Lucas made the prequels, which I am not here to defend.)
So where does that leave us when The Force Awakens begins? It leaves us back at the beginning, and I think maybe failing to accept this is at the core of the backlash to The Last Jedi. This is a new story, which will necessarily address the old ones, but isn't, and shouldn't, be "the further adventures of Luke Skywalker and his friends".
The original trilogy ends with good having defeated evil. This is not a state of balance, so jumping into TFA feels right, in a way. It's decades later, and the dark side is gaining strength as it always will. Everyone was on board for this, despite the story feeling a bit derivative. JJ Abrams seemed to have successfully set up a new trilogy, about new characters, that would follow their own journeys in the next two movies. Then Rian Johnson delivers an exciting, unexpected, great story to follow up TFA, and it's met with a resounding guffaw from audiences, who apparently want this to play out like a cookie-cutter comic book movie. Ridiculous!
When we found out Luke was the son of a monster, did we all abandon him as tainted? When we realized his will-they-or-won't-they with Leia would never play out, did we complain? When everything set up in The Empire Strikes Back falls apart, leaving us unsure of the everything by the end of the movie, did we take our ball and go home? TLJ accomplishes just as much interesting storytelling, if not more, all under the pressure of having to avoid repeating the beats of the iconic trilogy that came before it.
So what are the core problems people have with this movie, skipping some of the weaker ones? Let's set them up and knock them down:
Luke chucked his lightsaber over his shoulder and generally doesn't seem like much of a space hero: Luke is a crazy old hermit, and a jedi nonetheless. He isn't some stuffy protector of the realm as his kind were depicted in the prequels, but rather a mysterious and strange character like Obi Wan and Yoda in the original trilogy. He's more Buddhist monk than knight of the round table, and being unpredictable and flippant is exactly what he should be doing.
The b plot seemed extraneous: b plots are extraneous! They serve world building and character development or the introduction of new characters. They're the side dishes that compliment the main course, and that's exactly what Johnson does with this story in TLJ. We explore new worlds and meet new characters with their own stories and arcs, all in the space of one movie that has a huge main story to tell! It was well done, and the idea that it could have all been avoided by Laura Dern's character is a valid one, but not necessarily the right one for storytelling.
Snoke died!?!?!?: This movie came out shortly after the Justice League movie delivered one of the most derided villains in recent history. His motives were convoluted, his back story was nonsensical, and when he was defeated virtually no one felt satisfied.
This movie turns these expectations on their head in a thrilling plot twist that no one saw coming, launching the entire story into unforeseen territory. The only people complaining about this are people that didn't want to be surprised or taken on a journey. They wanted a theme park ride as a movie. This is small-minded.
Not only did this result in one of the most visually stunning scenes in the history of the franchise, it left the audience totally unhinged from any sense of security or normality, and we came out of it having gone through an entire series of expectations and permutations trying to reason out the new paradigm. Are these two our heroes now? Will Rey join the dark side? It was both horrifying and titillating in a way I haven't experienced since first seeing TESB. This is masterful storytelling that should be lauded, not derided for not being safe enough.
People use the force in new ways: Good. Leia is the twin of the most powerful jedi we've ever heard of. She should have some tricks up her sleeve, and considering her unfortunate death this was the only time we were going to get to see it. We should feel lucky we did. Which of course leads to what seems to be the feather in the cap of the public's collective furor...
Luke died without even beating anyone up, bro: This is the best thing in this movie. This is the genius choice that carries the day. The fact that it antagonizes the viewer with this unrequited violence is all the better. You were challenged! Now can you overcome it and see what's in front of you?
Luke is old. The force has, in his mind, ruined his life, and he has rejected it. Sure, if this was the early 90s maybe this is a movie about not-that-old-yet Luke beating up baddies. But life is finite. People age and change. In his case he's a sad old hermit, but he has a trick up his sleeve, and no one saw it coming, including us.
When Luke appears with a haircut and fresh clothes this seems out of place. Obi Wan never did this. When he takes on an entire army it's all wrong. Not even he could withstand that kind of attack. Then it is all explained in the form of an incredible moment of action and drama in which this character, that represents everything about a classic hero, turns this idea on its head by not even having been there. Not only does Johnson avoid falling into a trope by having Kylo Ren strike him down, but he also reveals an incredible strength and unknown force power that costs him his life, but lights the spark can once again return the force to balance.
It was brilliant, visually beautiful, and as satisfying and emotionally charged as one could possible hope.
That's why I'm giving this movie 10 stars. Not to game the system, and not as some fanboy, but as a genuine attempt to rate this film.
It's hard to put any movie in the same category as those few in a lifetime that really affect you and stay with you. Movies that change how you think about the form, like the original Star Wars did for us with nothing but a lowly sci-fi flick, are very rare, indeed. This is absolutely the last thing I expected from this trilogy I had been set up to believe would be a fun, derivative romp. What I got was an amazing piece of art that came as close as I can hope to approximating the singular experience that is the original trilogy.
10/10, will be watching again even though Disney is evil, which is another conversation...
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I truly wanted to love this movie and left the theater decimated. I left The Force Awakens with my children and my sense of wonder renewed and two new fans in tow. The Last Jedi tried too hard to break the formula. To be a Star Wars movie without being one. There were too many divergent plot lines, unecessary action and purely nonsensical moments. Even the beginning crawl felt off.
Guaranteed ways to alienate fans:
1) Decide that plot points and areas of intrigue from previous movies don't matter.-Who is Snoke? Apparently the strongest force user ever who appeared out of nothingness and died in obscurity. You weren't waiting to hear who Rey's parents were right? Were you waiting for Luke to train Rey how to use the force? Not necessary, she's a master who can beat Luke with a stick.
2) Ask fans to suspend their disbelief too many times- Leia is so strong with the force she can fly through space and survive explosions but doesn't carry a light saber and doesn't ever seem to use the force other than passively. The Galaxy's slowest chase ever speaks for itself. Somehow there aren't more ships to cut off the Resistance? Why is the first order so incompetent? At least the Empire was a real evil force.
3) Too many characters- The Finn and Rose dynamic was weak. It just was. You can actually leave the whole thing on the cutting room floor since they don't advance the plot and get caught.
4) Bloated- One last meaningless battle on the mineral planet that has no sense of urgency? Sure why not. Meaningless potential character sacrifice stopped short by a cheesy Disney moment? Also yes. End it after the lightsaber battle and I'm good. It's weak but not phantom menace weak. The third act killed the movie.
To be clear I didn't see this movie and think that was dumb and walk out. I was saddened by these issues. I wanted to love it. I wanted to walk out and tell the world.
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2/10
If you haven't seen the movie - DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY AND TIME!
A mid-forty year old, who saw all three originals in the theatre, writes this, because I just can't get over the disappointment and utter disbelief of what I witnessed 2 hours ago. The only thing besides me and any other true Star Wars fan that is still steaming is the smelly pile Disney put on the screen.
Way to go, Disney. You have officially destroyed the franchise. I am a man of my word, and will not give you another dollar. I am done with Star Wars and everything related to it.
Storyline 0/10. Really Disney? That is the best you can come up with for a movie guaranteed to earn a BILLION+ $. Truly shameful and disgusting.
Editing 0/10. Choppy at best. Felt like I was on a ride at the amusement park. One that keeps dropping out from underneath me with every terrible cut to a new scene.
Reys Jedi Training 0/10. Are you kidding me, Disney?! That's Jedi training? You should have went back to Yoda training Luke. There was substance to it. Yes, Luke left to join the fight, but the training made sense. This was nothing short of stupid. It was crap!
Luke's Death 0/10. That is the best you could give the franchise's biggest star? A distant rear camera shot, him vanishing and the coat dropping down. I am no major movie director, but I would have front-faced this, given a closeup of Luke and added something of substance to honour Luke.
Seeing Luke on Screen 10/10. It was great to see and hear from him this time. Unfortunately, his story sucked.
Why the 2 star rating? Because I just can't bring myself to put a 1, or better ZERO if it was possible, without crying.
Oh Yeah. A parting shot to theatre companies. I put out close to $100 for the kids and myself, yet we had to sit through 12 minutes of bloody commercials and 10 minutes of trailers. The trailers I can live with. The user experience is terrible. I am sick of you people tossing commercial, after commercial, after commercial.... on us. We are sick of it.
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6/10
I know you like Star Wars but this movie may not be for you.
You can skip this entire movie and directly go into episode 9 without missing a beat, everything that was invested into making the first film (TFA) with characters that were beloved for obvious reasons is gutted like nothing at all. The last Jedi is a long filler of nothingness and to add the name Star Wars in front of it, oh my.
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So when the Force Awakens was released in 2015, many people complained that it was the same old Star Wars, nothing new, nothing different and the same rock steady template had been done to death. Fast forward 2 years and now the complaints are that they deviated from a winning formula and that it "doesn't feel like MY Star Wars anymore"
This film isn't a 10/10, but i'm giving it a 10 to counter the sheer idiocy of people giving this a 1. I emphasised 'my' because that seems to be the biggest issue with people, that it's not the Star Wars they were hoping for, so they feel the need to tell everyone to stay away.
Well i'm here to tell you to ignore those people. Not only are they incorrect, they are also missing the point of the film. TLJ is thrilling, bold and extremely brave, and I commend the direction it has taken. Ignore this film at your peril.
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I understand why hardcore fans didn't enjoy this movie. I'm myself a pretty huge fan of the series, and I didn't mind it as much. It seems like the people complaining about all the new stuff, is the same that complained about how The Force Awakens was too familiar to episode 4. The movie has it's issues, some weird scenes that didn't make that much sense, and some bad phasing with Finn's storyline. The movie is different from other Star Wars films, since the main story feels like one big scene, while the other storylines where there to fill out some gaps. Unlike episode 4 which feels like it had taken place over several weeks, if not months, this movie feels like it takes place in a couple of days. There where some great moments, the cinematography was excellent (I was scared there would be too much "symbolism" that would take over from the story from some of the trailers (I through the red smoke on the winter landscape was too visual, but it made sense in the movie), which wasn't a problem at all), and most of the characters where amazing. It doesn't feel as much as a Star Wars movie as some of the others, but it's certainly not the worst one ever, as people are saying, but it doesn't beat the originals, which is good. While the other people are saying that the entire saga now sucks, because of this one elemental that was added, is simply wrong. The Star Wars saga is still amazing, and even though this wasn't the episode everyone had hoped for, or was hyped about, it's till a good movie. The reason people dislike it so much, is because they're comparing it with the original trilogy, which is simply wrong to do.
TLDR: The movie is great, has a few flaws that can be quite annoying, but NOT as bad as everyone says. Not the best Star Wars movie, but certainly better than the prequels.
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Back in 2005 I saw episode 3 which left me dreaming about it for 3 days, which is a good thing.
It wasn't the best Star wars but It was awesome in many ways, you could see the depth of the Star Wars universe.
But this movie left me with a feeling like I just watch a bad Harry potter movie.
It is sad that Disney only want to make money and doesn't care at all about every movies, games or TV shows Pre-Disney based on Star Wars.
The plot is boring. The interesting elements (that could have add more mystery) from episode 7 were killed during the movie. Luke Skywalker is a pale and coward version of him from another dimension... Seriously some episodes in the animated tv series Clone Wars are better directed and have more depth.
I know you are in for the money Disney, but seriously Dodge Caravan sells, but they are still bad. You can't make short cuts with Star Wars like you do with Marvel movies, because fans will hate you.
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Disney is trying to say the discrepancy between critics and users is thanks to Bots and trolls. I'm not a Bot or Troll.The movie was a big letdown. I loved TFA, Rougue one and Looper. This movie was aimed at 10 year olds. My friends who have seen it agree without me saying my opinion to them first. Face it Disney.
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5/10
Entertaining and great visuals, but not sure about the story.
The movie looks great and there are a number of scenes that are just beautiful. I really liked the look of Crait with the salt and whatever the red stuff was. The sounds of the movie were as top notch as they could be and of coarse the music was great.
The problem that I have with the movie are some of the plot issues.
Rey's parents. I hated this part of the movie so much. I can usually get over some story lines that are a let down from my perspective, but if they just leave it as Rey's parents are just nobodies who sold her for water or a fix, that's really disappointing.
Leia being able to just use the force all of the sudden. What happened there? My instant reaction to this scene was WTF? She's been able to kind of sense the presence of Luke before, but never been able to wield the force and now all of a sudden she can? She just floats back to the ship and no surprise from anyone in the movie or anything. Even if she could just use the force all of a sudden her just floating back to the ship was lame.
Rey's power. It makes no sense that she should be as powerful as she is. I get that she is supposed to be the new Luke or Anakin, but at least they had to develop over time. She apparently can just do it. Also, don't get me started on the light saber fights especially from TFA. Even if Kylo is all messed up emotionally he should have killed her no issue in TFA. Also the gaurds in Snoke's room should have messed her up.
Snoke. Who is he? Please give us something as to who he is. He's just there.
Captain Phasma. See above ^ and I think a lot of people wanted to see more of her. Her presence in the movie is.... She's just there because they wanted to please fans with an appearance.
The Resistance. Why are there apparently so few? I guess after The Return of The Jedi everyone just thought it was all over and The Empire was just going to give up. There should be way more people fighting against The First Order.
The Resistance bombers. Why are they so slow and get blown up by three tie fighter blasts and then one bomber can take down a dreadnaught...?!? I'm sorry, but from any perspective this makes no sense. I get what they were going for in terms of bombers being vulnerable but it was a little too much.
Luke. I get that he has kind of given up, but I don't think Luke would ignore the call for help like he did. They also did not need to have constant change of viewpoints on how it went down when he was training Ben. Also, it didn't make sense to me that Luke would just turn on Ben like that even though he fought for his father so much. Also the milking part.... So weird and not needed.
There are number of other things and I know not everyone will agree but it is just my two cents.
All in all the movie wasn't bad from a movie stand point, as it was entertaining, but from a Star Wars perspective it wasn't that great. Even the prequals make sense from a Star Wars standpoint Just too many things that don't make any sense in this movie. Maybe they should not have tried to do so many stories lines in one movie.
5/10
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6/10
This level of scenario can't be accepted for a Star Wars Movie
It's my first movie critic ever and I strongly felt I had to write one for this movie due to all the hype that this movie gets whereas the scenario is worth nothing and it is only a visual performance.
This movie is merely the unjustified pursuit of a small resistance ship which would have been destroyed in 10 seconds in any other Star Wars movie and this with some brutal developments in the story such as Ray and Kylo falling in love which leads to the predictable death of Snoke, Luke coming back and Kylo taking the command of the First Order. It seems that all these developments in the global story are just here to justify 2 hours of uneventful and uninteresting pursuit and for most of them they just don't seem plausible given the story until now.
I could add many other comments to this review but I mostly want to emphasize that the plot of this movie is not up to the quality we had been used to when watching the Star Wars movies before the 7th. The 7th was, for me, too much of a copy of the 4th and the 6th while this one just has an empty plot with developments that find their way abruptly and unjustifiably. Please improve the plot quality for the next movie.
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I laughed, I cried, I nodded my head, I digged my fingers in the chair, I was stunned by artistic imagery and composition, I was drawn by the originality of the storyline, I finally loved these charakters and understood their journey and in addition to that my jar dropped several times - this movie brought not only star wars back to life, it enhanced it, it is a gift, it blinked with an eye to me, it played with my expectations and overwelmed them. Rian Johnson did something from his heart, this movie will always be "truly special" to me. Wait, where´s my broomstick...
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Before I lay into the fanbase of this franchise, or at least the ones who post reviews on this site, let me give my fresh-from-the-theater impression of this movie.
Genuinely, I loved this movie. It made me feel like a kid all over again. With absolute glee, I watched the events of this film unfold. The characterization and writing are strong as ever with this film, and the plot feels solid.
For my money, the characters we had were explored deeper, and the new ones we got were great additions to the saga. The cinematography and action were impeccable, harkening back to old Samurai films.
The one "glaring issue" here is the subplot involving Finn and Rose. It's drawn a lot of criticism for serving no purpose to the plot, but in my opinion, it has everything to do with THEME. The themes of this movie are, indeed, demonstrated through this subplot, and while it does not further the story, it supports it in a more subtle way. I didn't have a big problem with it.
This leads me past my review and into a rant. Dear Star Wars Fans, or perhaps you're just naysayers at this point, be grateful for what you're getting. We could be doing much worse than a film of this calibur. You people did this aggressive booing for The Force Awakens, and here you are, doing it again. Criticism loses all heft when legions of people are parroting each other in this fashion. Just enjoy the movie for God's sake! Do not sit there and tell me that George Lucas could really do any better if he had his paws on the project. He ruined the prequels with atrocious writing and horrible characterization.
I'm giving this movie a nine out of ten, and I'm giving the downright ungrateful Star Wars fan community a four out of ten.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is written & directed by Rian Johnson and stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Gwendoline Christie, Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro.
Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers. Meanwhile, the Resistance prepares to do battle with the First Order. (12A cert; 152 mins)
This is a film that will make or break Star Wars for fans across the globe. It's surprising. It's divisive. It's already proving to be a difficult one for viewers to digest. There's a lot of pieces moving in Johnson's striking instalment, and I'm going to discuss my thoughts with slightly more personality than usual - without spoilers, of course. The best way to break down this film is to split it into sections, discussing the thematic material featured in The Last Jedi. Let's begin.
The main theme here, and this is spoken verbally by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) in the film, is all about forgetting the past. As Kylo says; "Kill it, if you have to." This theme is planted right away and it reappears constantly throughout. Luke (Mark Hamill) resides on Ahch-To, and has completely shut himself off from everything. He's trying to kill the past. We focus on Rey (Daisy Ridley) as she tries to uncover the truth about her true parentage, this is her confronting and killing her past. In order to move forward, all of our characters have to learn to let go. For obvious reasons, I can't say much beyond that, but I believe this is the reason some people are confused. I'll admit, I wasn't sure how to feel walking out of the theatre, and it was an entirely different experience than with The Force Awakens back in 2015. This is a new theme; we've never really seen it in any Star Wars film before, and I really respect Rian Johnson for going in a new direction.
There are some moments I really disliked, however. Firstly; the editing starts to feel a little tedious. There are so many things happening in this film, so it tries to jump back and forth in order to create a smooth viewing experience but actually what it does is pull you out entirely. I disliked everything Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) did in Canto Bight. I wanted to see what was happening with Luke and Rey, even Kylo, but every time I started to feel comfortable it pulled back to the casino city. Secondly, the surrounding plot with the Resistance running from the First Order was lacklustre. But, I've thought about it some more and it really acts as a shell. Inside that shell is some of the best character development I've seen. The Last Jedi isn't about the spaceship chase, its about the characters. Everyone in this film evolves in some way, shape or form. By the end, they are all in a complete different position on the playing board from where they were in The Force Awakens. Take out Canto Bight and I think the film already flows a lot smoother. Beyond that, there are still some remaining issues, but those wander into spoiler territory.
In terms of characters, Kylo Ren was by far my favourite in The Last Jedi. Driver gives an incredible performance and Johnson expands on his story, detailing his upbringing and the reasons for his shattered mind. He's far more complex now and will continue to evolve heading into Episode IX. Ridley returns with another strong act and never fails to inspire. She's fun and engaging, I'm glad she's part of this trilogy. The late Carrie Fisher has some beautiful scenes and the film itself acts as a nice tribute to the character of Leia, despite one moment that was utter garbage. Boyega and Tran share some great screen time together and though I felt it was shoehorned in, I'm interested to see where their characters head next.
The second theme is love. This is harder to explain without spoilers, but Luke makes a really great statement in the film that stuck with me, and the characters. Maybe fighting isn't the solution. Saving what you love is. Mark Hamill's performance is one of the best in the film, and possibly the saga. Sometimes the writing gets a little shaky and some of the dialogue and decisions he makes are out of character. But there are two scenes that really felt like Luke was in there. I think most would know the scenes I mean.
Finally, the theme of hope returns. The finale builds up to something much larger than one more film; it feels as though there are going to be more and more. I didn't like the positioning of this, and I believe it was something that could have been left out until Episode IX, but it does make room for some interesting theories. It didn't leave me filled with the level of excitement I had with The Force Awakens, though. Truthfully, there really wasn't any.
I do think The Last Jedi is a good film, but I think it'll become greater with time. It was enjoyable, and it had some truly brilliant moments. But the pacing was clunky and some of the story threads drifted a little far from the core narrative. The special effects as usual were splendid and the sound design is insane. The original score by John Williams was fun, a little sparse and lacking new memorable themes but there are some very nice sections. Rose and Finn's theme is a highlight. His score supported the film well, and that's what he does best.
Verdict; Though Johnson's ideas are clear, the way in which they're tackled is slightly underwhelming. The Last Jedi suffers from pacing issues and poor comedic timing but beneath that is something huge. Performances all around are striking, including that of the late Carrie Fisher. This is the most divisive Star Wars film yet.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 7/10.
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6/10
An imperfect glimmer among the darkness of Disney's malice
Let's face it. The Last Jedi was decent, a tiny oasis in a wasteland-- but it was a faint heartbeat in a cadaver with maggots feasting on its eyes. Star Wars is dead. Disney Killed Star Wars. George screwed up yes, but it was ineptitude, not purposeful ill intent. Bob Iger, Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams however, are pure malice. They don't want a cultural luminous myth, they want shape-shifting political allegories. They want a venue where they can manipulate youth into their own mold of 'useful'. They don't want a singular vision leading the stories anymore, they want focus groups and popularity bastardizing everything it stands for.
But we will rise to the occasion. This ain't over Disney. Your murder of the franchise will inspire many more to create myths of their own. You will never get what you want. Ever.
Star Wars might have died in the hands of disgusting individuals with voracious appetites and Machiavellian dreams-- but we, people like me, creative people who were inspired by what Lucas, Kershner and Marquand created-- we will create new myths. We won't despair. The legacy of the classic trilogy will instead, be our muse, our lighthouse.
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Just as a future clarification, I am a long fan of the Star Wars story and I deeply loved the characters and I felt their pain, despair, betrayal, struggle and happiness throughout the story. So that is why watching the 2017 squeal was so painful.
I will not go in much details, since just mentioning a particular scene or moment should be enough.
Unanswered questions are usually good. They keep the audience thrilled and excited, but in this movie there were so many of them, all left unanswered, all left buried, all seemed ... for nothing. Here are just a few: "Who is Snoke?". "Who thought him the ways of the force?". "How did he find Ren?" . "What did he promised him, so he can turn to the dark side?" . "How is he so powerful?" . "Why is he bound to a chair?". "Is he injured, or just old?" And since he was killed, all the potential answers are useless now.
Why did Finn and Rose go on a search for the coder? After the movie was over I rewind the story in my mind and realized that their trip was completely useless. Did the makers made them go on a trip so they have something to do, while the rest of the plot was laid out? I get the idea that showing the viewers that the only beneficial side of a war are the ones selling the weapons, but couldn't they show it in a better way? After some thinking I realized that the whole flight to the casino was actually horrible and a great mistake. Because of that trip and the "hacker" they brought, the First Order found out that the Rebels are trying to outsmart them and that led to heavy casualties. So that was all for nothing.
If they could destroy Snoke's ship with the "Hyperspeed maneuver", why didnt they do it earlier? Just evacuate to the other ships or transports and make a droid push a few buttons. I know I seem heartless (for the droids), but I think actual human beings, soldiers, medics etc are more important. The maneuver did not require any setup at all. All enemy shields were up and that did not seem to matter. So... the bombing attack and all other battles that took place were all for nothing.
I think you catch my drift, if you are not, well I am sorry. There are a lot of other plot holes, questions, scenes and moments that were just ... hard to comprehend and I think that not much thought was put into making of the movie. Like the "Force Skype Call" between Ren and Ray. Sonke said that he merged their minds together. That does not seem likely or possible at all. If he could do it, why not merge his own mind with Ren's and tempt her with whatever he promised Kylo Ren.
I think the title "Star Wars - All For Nothing" is more suitable than the actual one. Of course this is my own opinion. I think that the movie overall was not what most of us expected. I still hope that everything will make sense at the end.
Thank you for reading my review. May the Force be with you. Always.
Finest Regards,
T.N.
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I guess I am on the same page as most of the The Last Jedi critiquers. Weak, weak script. With an obviously large budget to create this mess, you would have thought that someone on the staff would be in charge of pointing out the crappy parts and to write something better. Apparently, many movies don't bother to hire this person or persons. I guess their attitude is "this is Star Wars and it will make a ton of money regardless". Too bad. I went in with high expectations and was totally disappointed. They messed up Luke,Leia, Kylo Ren, Stokes, the Force, basic physics, Rey's parentage, etc... Bombers? Really? Stupid.
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9/10
"This is not going to go the way you think" -Luke Skywalker
The movie is an astonishing echo of the words spoken by the Jedi master. Over the last days I've seen something that has really bewildered me. A gap in the Star Wars community that has really left me in awe. In all my time as a Star Wars fan I've never seen such a split reaction to anything in the franchise. So just so you are aware, I adore Star Wars so take my opinions on the film with that in mind.
Star Wars the last Jedi is a grade A film, period. The reasons why the community is so split are honestly beyond me. The film is as original as can be and takes risks never before seen in the saga, some of these risks have sparked the ongoing feuds in the community. But without getting into spoilers, the film expands on the rich lore and mythology of the galaxy we were first introduced to over 40 years ago. The idea of taking risks like these is something that Rian Johnson embraced fully as we embark on a story that is unexpected but right.
It is not what you might have wanted at first but by the end the story turns into what you didn't know you needed. Developing characters like Rey and Kylo Ren even more so than in TFA. We also get major screen-time from Luke, Leia and Poe who were limited to smaller roles in the prior installment.
This brings me to my next topic and that is Carrie Fisher, wow. It was hard watching her on screen after her untimely passing, but the way she was handled in this film is truly beautiful. She was also excellent in the film, much better than in TFA where her acting was a bit on the rusty side.
Andy Serkis is memorizing, frightening and menacing as Snoke and gives an excellent performance alongside Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. Who peels back the layers of his character making him one of the most relatable and complex villains in all of the saga. Overall the acting is on point and no single performance is flat or dull.
Finally the direction by Rian Johnson is memorizing as he injects his persona into the heart and soul of this film. Flashy but full of heart and emotion and littered with moments of jaw dropping events that stack up against the best of the saga.
And if I had one complaint with the film it would be a certain story arc that really detracts from those other moments in the film. It bogs the pacing down to a halt as we take a detour from the main plot of the film and are left wondering why was the subplot added in the first place.
Having said that The Last Jedi is a great film, full of moments that hold up against the original trilogy. Everything from the action, development, cinematography and direction was immaculate and is some of the best in the saga. The film wasn't perfect though as a subplot in the film slows the pacing and takes our focus away from the overall plot, however it is still a dang great film. I would put it over TFA and RO and just over Return of the Jedi as number three in my list. I believe that the community is giving it unfair hate, but that is to be expected. However don't let them decide, go out there and see it for yourself and maybe you'll love it as much as I did.
Final Score 9/10
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So, Disney and Mr. Johnson decided to mock Star Wars fans. They created a terrible movie with a horrible script. They ridiculed and got rid of our childhood hero, Luke, in the most disgraceful way. Ok Disney, you tricked us and you will get your precious money for this, but wait for the next one. You will be surprised.
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What a bad acting! What a bad screenwriting full of holes and non sense. What a lack of creativity and pacing(the exact opposite of the very first Star War). What the heck?! It seems like a dummy algorithm wrote the plot of this movie. More than than The Force Awakens sequel, it looks like a (bad) Mel Brooks' Space Balls sequel.
Princess Leia's floating half-death in the deep space is one of the most epic fail in the entire history of cinema. Luke Skywalker's dyed hair and brand new cut just in occasion of his last lightsaber duel could be the second one. Rose is one of the most unnecessary character in entire galaxy after the creation of Jar Jar Binks (God saves his soul) . The Force is over whit The Last Jedi, I won't watch Star Wars anymore .
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7/10
A mixed blessing that this will be the final trilogy.
On the plus side, this film had the long-awaited return of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. Not to mention, the debut appearance of Supreme Leader Snoke in the flesh (so-to-speak, as it's really a CGI version voiced by Andy "Gollum" Cerkis), as well as a further development of the Force-enhanced psychic bond between Ren and Rey. And, of course, the ironic final appearance of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia.*
On the minus side, Snoke's first appearance is all too brief as he gets killed off before we finally get to know how he came to power in the first place.** While Adam Driver (as Kylo Ren) sports a hair-do that makes him look more like Severus Snape, Junior! And the cliff-hanging battle scene is a little _too_ reminiscent of the Battle of Hoth from SW: TESB.
In short? I'm glad I went to see it. But, I'm even more glad that Episode 9 will end this third and final trilogy (as George Lucas originally envisioned his "Star Wars" consisting of).
* Ironic in that we finally get to see Leia actually use the Force with as much butt-kicking expertise as her brother!
**Was he a souped-clone of Palapatine; a Ragithian Human Darksider; or a renegade elderly Mace Windu?
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7/10
Rian Johnson made the best star wars movie he could do with a gun pointing at him by Disney...
If all of you guys who gave ones and twos for this movie are for real,you should have given TFA sub zero..TFA sucked...This movie was much MUCH better than the previous one.I cant start writing why and for what reasons cause it'll take me all night.And that is because i feel i have to answer to all of you guys.No disrespect to any of you.I am a die hard Star Wars fan all my life and i am 40.I have seen all six lucas movies at least 50 times each.The last jedi has its flaws as we were expecting(since disney was the driver) but it was fuller and better than TFA and episode I and II.My verdict is the title of my review..May the force be with all of you..
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8/10
Star Wars maybe without the force that accompanies it.
Star Wars The Last Jedi is one of those movies that you wait with animosity that is epic and ends up leaving you with that emptiness that I miss something that never came, the film has a luxury casting, Daisy Ridley as King, her performance is incredible, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren at the end of the characters has a clear definition of what he wants to do with him, Oscar Isaac as Poe and John Boyega as Finn is better noted his place as characters in this film, Mark Hamill is certainly a great actor and sad that they want to pigeonhole it on just this character, as Luke presents a rather interesting side of the Jedi side and Carrie Fisher (peacefully rest) does an excellent role, all this great cast and still does not have a plot solid enough to be epic and this leads to a problem, the same problem that is noted in thor ragnarok, going from a moment that was epic, to one that they want to be fun and I do not think it's a problem of the director Rian Johnson who in looper showed that ue has talent to tell a story with incredible details and is present in every visual detail of the film you can tell that he knows this world of star wars, has sequences that keep you entertained, the soundtrack where John Williams is self-homage is incredible, but no more that, there is no that makes star wars love us so much, it is a film for fun and the option to see the weekend and the following week, it is not totally bad, but if you are a fan of star wars maybe you leave somewhat disillusioned, in conclusion the film sins of trying to be like the empire strikes back and ends up being like the return of the jedi
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5/10
A film that takes away from the SW Universe than provides
The critical positiveness for EP8 bewilders me. It is certainly a film that has divided opinion amongst my friends an I, much like Blade Runner, both the original and 2049. This review is SPOILERTASTIC, so do not read if you want to watch this film with an unbiased view!
JJ Abrams, had a major task ahead when he was asked to reboot the franchise, and, apart from the horrible repeat use of a certain plot line, he succeeded beyond many expectations. All the new characters were really liked, from BB8 to Supreme Commander Snoke who was teased fantastically in The Force Awakens. The internet went wild as to guessing his backstory. Everyone lived the new 'grittyness' of the reboot.
Rian Johnson has done a poor job overall in moving these characters forward significantly or, in absence of plot, providing action that surpassed Episode 7.
Rey is given considerable time, so she should. We know a little bit more about her past, and what she is capable of. How she unlocked these new skills is given little writing. You can't answer all the questions I know, but no explanation is provided as to how she is so strong in the force.
Ben, some would say is given the best step forward and has the most depth to his storyline. The best aspect of the plot is the 'who attacked who first' during his training. This is a very likeable plot twist and probably the best written part of the film. Adam Driver was an excellent choice of cast and continues his turmoil in Episode 8. I have sympathy for this guy!
That is where the positives run a little short for The Last Jedi. The plot has what I refer to as gaping holes and just poor decisions in what they've introduced to the franchise.
The First Order fleet chasing the Rebel fleet plot device is, in a desperate attempt to bring some originality, is so flawed. Are the rebels faster then the first order fleet? Or, in the many hours that are supposed to elapse, keeping the exact same distance from the first order? This is an empire that was able to construct technology to harness the power of a sun, but they can't catch up to a single Cruise Ship, or call in reinforcements? How can ships 'slip away' from the cruiser undetected by sensors but all you really have to do is look out the window!!? If ships can slip away, why not send fighters in?
The new and extremely underwritten part of the Vice Chancellor is another poor decision in this plot design. Why would she not tell Poe about the plan to escape and cause him to act against her? Surely he would be an asset to the plan? Probably as it would mean he couldn't help Finn go off on the side mission? Wouldn't a better choice be that Finn and Poe get separated off after the evacuation of the base and they can go off on the side mission and trying to save the fleet? You can have then spent a LOT longer developing these two likeable characters, added some humour to a side bromance? The introduction of Rose is pointless, are we led to believe she will play a significant role in Ep9? Was she really required? There are enough characters to centre on and she adds little to the story.
Two aspects of the force are added to, making major steps in damaging the continuity of the franchise. When it comes to any Sci-Fi, for me this is an absolute must if you are to tell a story within a universe and give genuine moments of jeopardy.
When is being able to survive in the depths of space, for significant time been possible? If Leia can do it, with her limited control of the Force, who else could have done it in previous episodes? And pull yourself towards a door? Sorry, absolutely ridiculous and with the very sad demise of Carrie Fisher, they should have made the tragic death of Leia a major plot point and done so without much reshooting. Indeed, she appears very little in the final 3rd. Maybe having the rebels THINK Ben shot at the Bridge? Now, JJ will have a huge problem dealing with the whereabouts of the Princess in Episode 9.
Secondly, since when can Jedi Masters project themselves across the universe and converse with anyone and everyone? As much as the writers tried to back up this major element with the lack of actually touching anything. The ability to do this, again, has been missing from the Star Wars history. And, opens up a can of worms. Maybe they could have inserted some dialogue stating it has never been tried, something Luke has been practising or simply the inevitability of the cost? This would have added more credence to Skywalker's decision/fate.
A HUGE gripe, that even the people I found who enjoyed Ep8 can't explain or understand is Supreme Commander Snoke. We find out NOTHING about him at all. Where is he from? Who is he? Why is he quoting the Emporer almost word for word? Why can he not spot a lightsaber moving two feet away from him? What a complete waste of the mystery laid out in the previous episode. I would have liked to seen him a non force user, just supremely clever, evil and capable of manipulating people, jedi or not. Tempting Rey maybe? But boy, talk about throwing away an opportunity for a good villain.
The humour, too much overall. Some is excellent but sadly lost in the sea of ones that don't land properly. BB8 failing to imitate a little empire droid is genius, but do we need to see Finn falling off a bed?
I guess you can forgive the cute rodents, you can almost forgive the introduction to kids in the story in the silly side story, hey, it's Disney but JJ didn't have to go there and still sold a lot of toys, why did you have to go there Mr Johnson? That whole side mission reminded me too much of why I hated Ep1-3, things were included just to sell merchandise with plot relevance second.
Second only to the missed opportunity of Snoke was the tragic under use of Benicio Del Toro. What a great actor and POTENTIALLY a great mischievous character. What another waste.
Basically, for me personally, despite the positive comments I have received on the final third, the film had lost me by that point. I was too annoyed at the plot by then, it couldn't bring me back.
Even with it's significant flaw, I went back and watched Episode 7 four times at the cinema, and have bought it and watched it four more times on Blu Ray. Enjoying it every time. With Episode 8 I am forcing myself to return to give it another chance and see if I can grasp more positives. Is this really the feeling I should be having?
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What a major let down. After watching The Last Jedi I really don't want to see anymore Jedi, Wokis, Droids, Dark Lords, Siths or anything of this lame universe. This movie was a hot mess. It was all over the place, without a clear objective. Everything felt lazy and cheap with no resolution and nothing was accomplished. This movie was nothing but hype.
Why kill two of the best characters ever created?? Luke and Snoke??!!! And i am sick of female characters leading most of todays movies and series!!! Rey without a training is using the lightsaber and the Force better than ...Luke??
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I came here very disappointed, and sad. I wasn't sure that people would agree with me, but it looks like the majority do. How the math works out that IMDB is able to say the user ratings are a 7.9 when all I see are 1-3 stars, I don't know? I get the idea that they are being paid by Disney to post a fake number up front. Sad, because the IMDB user reviews were becoming one of the only things I could trust in the sea of fake media out there. Disgusted with Disney, disgusted with Star Wars, and now - also - disgusted with IMDB.
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Too many SW-movies with the same dramaturgy.
Insanely similar how every trilogy is like the other.
There are some examples of lazy writing, which are ridiculous.
So almost every plot-detail has happened exactly how I excepted it.
Additionally the CGI was sometimes really bad, the effects looked more fake than in the original trilogy (Yoda was an abomination compared to the puppet of "Empire").
Either I'm becoming too old for this kind of stuff, or it repeated itself once too many.
An huge disappointment!
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Well.. An arrogant way, ( very XXI Cent indeed in my humble view), to look at everything great done freshly in a past not that far far away.. With that sense of those responsible bluffing and bragging about how much bigger better, more visually spectacular things are going to look., almost saying.. well´.. that was alright, but I think OURS is more how it should be.. only to end up being an extremely ridiculous, absurd rip off, dumb flick, just like any other with any non-sensical title of those which over populate megaplexes these days..
This saga became gloriously iconic for several reasons, but I think, audiences were the main diference. Diferent world, diferent context.. STAR WARS ended with Return of the Jedi, with Lucas turning and giving in to the dark side himself, over a decade later. This cannot be ANY serious continuation to the original Star Wars.
as time and decades went by, everyone realised what Star Wars meant..
KIds did not need back then the vast Disney array of fake little CGI pets, to force comic relief, or steal hearts for a second or two.. just to sell the silly thing to little kids, thats NOT the way it happened with Star Wars. We talk about spoilers these days a lot. Know! The biggest spoiler is for someone to ruin your imagination forever, be it prequel, sequel or remake..
Star Wars was not a formula, quite on the contrary it was the biggest risk, a tremendous visionary leap of faith, who truusted his inspiration and that world he created, to be told to younger and older people alike, and so it happened. Period
No need to cover the full spectrum, like Disney does today.. so miticulously detailed and crafted to try to please everyone yet I think ever failing to deliver anything intelligent, but rather throw brainless entertainment to exceedingly gullable audiences. The magic and spectacle, the awe at something lies in totally different places, and certailly deeper. Having said all that..
If you want to see Skywalker applying himself to a bottle of fresh out of the nipple blue milk of the dullest shapeless CGI creature ..those nuns in the island..,where he retires to.. What exactly?, listen to all those ludicrous lines of dialogue, pointless counless minutes wasted on some Casino like sequences, and pretentious pseudo morality, tale with Dickensian-like kids potentially filled with midichlorians being exploited by some baddies, and some Supergirlesque Leia flying her way into salvation, a poor R2 and C3PO given almost the last page and screen rites, while that Phasma runs around to do nothing, chrome gear and all, to be killed and reveal an eye under her mask before falling to her death..Hmm..
and some other assorted off the hook utter rubish current interpretation of brilliant old stories.. well go ahead. I wont mention SNOKE.. pseudo palpatine evil of evils.. the red ninja Kungfu fighting... please...RAY, being so proficient with the lightsaber, Why?? dUh,,, Does it matter anymore?..
I did. Benicio del Toro is the smartest and cool character..a wasted Lando..in this disposable, forgettable, enervating dramedy, its appeal mainly that its the longest of them all, which is a pleasure, would it serve a true, deep, honest purpose delivering magical moments. I love STAR WARS. I hope they finish it off, and let classics remain so, forever. To make big names for themselves out of getting the sheer priveledge of telling other how the story goes.. XX! Century hey... Worst thing is..by the time everyone's made their mind, for good or bad its all in their pockets for yet another one.. Brace yourself.
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2/10
There are no plot holes in this movie since there is no plot.
Just returned from the cinema and, oh man, that was painful to watch.
I can't even begin to explain all bad things here. Let's start with good ones,
that's easier - besides occasional good CGI shot there is nothing else that is positive in this movie.
Plot - there is no plot. It's like someone said, "hey let's try to make a 2,5h long movie by just randomizing events and characters"
Plot holes are huge and they occur on every couple minutes.
Story about Fin and that Chinese girl is probably there just so they could advertise this movie in China.
Major spoilers ahead
Some plot holes are just ridiculous - at one point all rebel forces sneak out of their cruiser to a nearby uncharted planet ( really ? Almighty First Order has light speed technology but they can't detect a planet near their fleet ? ). However stupidity doesn't end there - admiral decides to stay on the ship and maintain it's course ( because autopilot is not invented yet apparently).
Now here comes the cringe worthy part - transporter ships which their are using are detect and now fired upon - admiral watches the whole thing from her cruiser and after 80% of rebel ships are destroyed she decides to "jump" it's ship into an enemy cruiser. Really?? She couldn't have done it 5 minutes earlier ? Or at any point before that ?
Stupidity reaches it's peak in the final "battle" and you just have to see
that one since it's so stupid that I actually forgot how it went down although I watched this movie two hours ago. I do remember that First Order brought down a laser battering ram to punch through a big wall( cmon, really ? ) and at one point they took some prisoners ( completely unrelated to the story) and decided to kill them with laser axe (?!?!) instead of just shooting them.
To sum it up, plot holes are so deep that a 10 year old child sees them.
Great job Disney, you will be memorized in SW franchise, you just made worst SW movie ever .
acting - 2
editing - 1
plot - 1
potential - 1
humor - 0 ( biggest joke in this movie is it's plot.)
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is neither the best, nor the worst Star Wars movie. It has a few really good parts, mixed in with some really bad parts and a lot of mediocre.
Visuals: 8/10. The movie is visually stunning. The special effect were phenomenal, though they do rely on them for characters a bit too much. There isn't anything too interesting when it comes to camera angles and the like, but it's functional and not distracting.
Sound: Effective. 6/10. It's not terribly memorable, but it didn't distract either. It's certainly not a Baby Driver or Inception, but it's what it needs to be for the movie to work.
The plot: 5/10. The plot has both really good, and really bad parts. It's unexpected, and basically gets right most of what The Force Awakens got wrong (which is copying Episode IV). It certainly borrows some things from Episodes V and VI, but changes things enough to give you some real surprises. However, it does this almost to an excess, with so many gotcha moments that they eventually get a bit boring and somewhat predictable. Also, there is a big gap in how we got from the battle of Endor to here, which makes it feel a little forced rather than a story inside of a dynamic universe. Finally, it uses the same plot devices repeatedly, which take up a lot of time without giving you anything new or interesting, and in general, causes to the plot to feel slow.
Characters/acting: 4/10. Adam Driver pulls off an excellent performance playing Kylo Ren, and his character is interesting and dynamic. Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley give a workable performances, with tolerably interesting characters, but certainly nothing great. Marie Tran and Domhnall Gleeson both do a good job as moderately interesting minor characters. Most other characters are extremely uninteresting and forgettable. Wedge from the original trilogy is a lot more memorable than almost everyone else in this movie, and he's basically a slightly glorified extra.
Finally, and it has to be mentioned, this is perhaps the most sexist movie I've seen in a long time (or ever TBH). Every male character of any significance is either evil or seriously flawed, and every female character of any significance is perfect, or very nearly so (and no, Captain Phasma does not count as a character of any significance). Having strong female characters in a movie is fine, as is having flawed male characters. However, making every female character perfect sucks the life and humanity out of those characters, which made the performances of Carrie Fisher and Laura Dern particularly painful to watch.
Overall: 5/10. The movie has great visuals and a plot that makes you want to know what comes next, but aside from the excellent performance of Adam Driver, the acting/characters are mediocre to poor, and the pace is needlessly slow. I'm glad I saw it in the theaters, and I'll watch Episode IX to see what comes next, but I probably won't watch Episode XIII again.
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7/10
I changed my mind from 1 star rating to 7. Here's why.
I watched The last Jedi on release day and came away from it very disappointed. I even said I hated it.
As a life long Star Wars fan I felt everything I loved about Star Wars had been ruined in 2 1/2 hours.
As a fan of The force awakens I was really looking forward to this new episode. The lights in the cinema faded. The Star Wars music began the opening titles scrolled up the screen and the hairs on my arms stood on end.
Within the first 20 minutes I was thinking what have they done!
We'd had a mother joke, BB-8 head butting a control panel in an attempt to fix it. Leia making a joke saying to C3-P0 why do you look nervous. Finn wearing a suit leaking water.
All of which was a poor attempt of humour which just wasn't Star Wars to me. Then when Luke threw his lightsaber over his shoulder and walked away. Well that was the icing on the cake.
Was this Star Wars or Spaceballs?
I left disappointed hating what they had done to my beloved Star Wars.
Fast forward 48 hours and I went to watch it again. Why? Because I'd already booked the tickets.
This time round I was expecting to come away disliking it even more.
I knew when the bad jokes were coming so instead of them annoying me I just took them with a pinch of salt. After all it's only a movie. Let's not get upset about it.
I'd hated what they'd done with Luke but after the rewatch it was actually alright.
Snoke dying a bit to easy if you watch again do Ben and Rey combine forces to kill him. Possibly so.
In fact the story line of Ben and Rey is actually quite good.
Sure this latest instalment isn't perfect but given another chance you might just find its ok.
We all love Empire right? Remember how that story left us hanging in parts until Return of the Jedi.
Depending on how the next episode goes we might just find out this one is better than we think.
So to conclude. Give it another chance. I did and I changed my mind. Maybe we shouldn't judge until the latest trilogy is complete.
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1/10
Never been so sad ...truly lost on this. A movie for an ADHD society again
Ok within ten minutes I had a feeling this was Episode III all over again. Constant action. explosions and zero plot connection. After so many explosions you lose the ability to give a shit about them. Force awakens had so much potential with these characters to develop a whole new trio and have great chemistry. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED. COMPLETELY dropped the ball. The Will Ferrill Talladega Nights sarcasm humor needs to end in 2018. Its been in every commercial..every movie..everything since like 2007. Luke...BRUSHED HIS SHOULDER OFF. . Ok back to movie. so constant explosions...followed by some ridiculous subplots with a POTENTIALLY great character in Finn...with some romance?? i didnt even get that feeling once with those two. Just terribly rushed scenes. wow they could of had a pretty cool few scenes with Luke and Rey training. Even just a little. Just something interesting. Something to create some personal connection whether good or bad. ...nothing at all. he turns his back to her and walks away literally every time. WE GET IT HES DETACHED BUT MY GOD HE AGREED TO TRAIN HER. .
Episode III was a cartoon like Attack of the Clones. WHEN WILL DROIDS LIKE BB STOP DOING RIDIC THINGS. HE FUCKIN WENT INTO A AT-ST WALKER AND SAVED THE DAY. make it something unique. not realistic even. just something creative. Litterally felt like a Harry Potter Movie. I never been this sad since Episode 3. Rogue One was Trash but this is TRASH 2.0. I feel so sad and sick right now. I am without a doubt done with this franchise. if you have ADHD please go. you will likely love it. also if you like explosions. and bad plots. and no character development. and Boba Fett came back. and a little boy was shown at the end. and They found Jabas remains. his bones. and they had a Hoth battle all over again. and it sucked. and there was twenty five battle scenes. and Bilbo Baggins was in the Casino scene. and i am sad. and i suck at reviews
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Finally went to see this in theaters, and overall my gut feeling is positive. I understand how people are getting really negative vibes from this movie because of how different the style was from the original films. It had more of a rogue one feel (which I automatically like, this is star WARS) than the previous episode, an episode I didn't really much care for. Han died plus it was basically a direct remake of new hope, but Disney put the epic in star WARS with this one and did a pretty good job with passing on the Jedi torch so to speak.
Spoilers: I actually liked how the saga of Luke came to an end; the throwbacks to real life mythical legends. Yoda was also a nice touch. Ren's, and reys story arc had a good continuation, same as any true sith, the master must be killed.
There was one point I honestly thought, it is actually over for the rebels. Rey had a valid reason to turn to the other side (not necessarily the dark side either) and help her friend, Ren), and I actually thought she was going to turn.
Watching the first movies I never really thought Luke was going to turn but here I did. The relationship between Ren and Rey was done so well, amazing actually. Couple things I didn't care for. It was too long only because it felt like they tried to put too many things into this movie. There was Rey's training, which because of how compacted it was felt very rushed, plus the main rebel fleet story-line, plus another side quest, all which had to take place over the course of 2.5 hours. Also, the similarities to the empire strikes back were more than subtle. It had it's own uniqueness, imo, so it didn't take too much away though. Anyways... We also still didn't learn anything about Rey's ancestry, or maybe there is nothing to learn. I don't know. Something for other's to speculate about. 8/10 for me. Awakens had a 6/10.
On a side note:
The explanation of force was so well done by the grey jedi luke in the movie. It's what keeps everything in balance. Light and darkness. We all have both and cannot disregard either. Also darkness or light are not synonyms to evil or good. That's all folks.
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When I was five years old, my friends and me came by a garden with a big rabbit stall. What's that to do with Star Wars? Bear with me... I saw the rabbits in their little cages and was sure that they were about to be killed and eaten. So we decided to free them. We climbed the fence and opened the cage doors, then quickly flew the scene of our crime. We were caught later and informed that these animals were pets and not food and that our action had put their lifes in jeopardy. If only we had a grown up with us... but what is Poe's excuse (Spoiler warning!)?
He thinks all the rebels will be packed into little transports and killed. And thus plans to free them (by finding a way to escape the First Order). In doing so he ends up killing most of them (95% is my estimate), because his very complicated plan gets leaked to the baddies and they start shooting the transports.
If only someone had told Poe that there was indeed a plan to save everybody, that there was a base on that planet, then he might have seen the error of his ways and not let the rabbits out of the cage... erm... you know what I mean.
But unfortunately Admiral Holdo does not deem him trustworthy and even as he calls er up on her seemingly stupid plan and then commits mutiny, she still does not fill him in.
I know that is just one plot of the whole movie (the main plot nonetheless), but it shows the biggest flaw of the whole movie: it seems not fully thought through. Characters appear out of nowhere and disappear as fast. Snoke, who looks great and is played well by Mr Serkis does not have a backstory that would describe his deformed looks. He seems omnipotent until he isn't.
We are supposed to care for Rose because her sister died. But sadly we don't, because that is the only thing interesting about that character.
Admiral Holdo is sympathetic but otherwise completely bleak. She serves her function but nothing more. (And since she knew she was going to die on that ship, she could have had her kamikaze idea a little earlier and thereby saved a lot of lives - damn, she almost destroyed the whole enemy fleet...)
And what's up with Leia's godlike yedi powers? Downsizing would have been a great idea for this one. She does something we have not seen any yedi do before. Not even in the horrible prequels...
Enough ranting - here are some positive aspects.
The Rei-Ben-Plot works quite well. The connection between them is a great idea. That both of them think they can change the other one is fantastic.
Luke's holding off the troups is ingenious. Unsuspected and fun. Why does he die afterwards? We don't know... Yedis, am I right?
So concluding I would summarize that the movie is entertaining and has a lot of great moments. But it does not feel like a great movie. Too many scenes left me wondering and irritated or worse...indifferent.
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Kathleen Kennedy cooks the Golden Goose that is the Star Wars franchise, eats it, and then excretes it in the latest entry of the Social Justice Trilogy; The Last Jedi.
There are some cool things here. The crystal foxes. The Yoda puppet was mostly well done, though it seemed they had a little problem with the eyes. The Jedi Island caretakers were pretty cool. But that's really about it.
As I wrote in my review for TFA, the Micro story in Star Wars is about the characters; the Skywalker family's journey into and out of darkness. The Macro story is about the political state of the galaxy; the rise and fall of Republics and Empires. The relationship between the First Order and the Resistance in TFA is poorly defined. Who controls the galaxy? Well, here it seems to be defined that the First Order controls the galaxy. Which means that the climax in Episode VI where we see galaxy wide celebrations toppling statues of the Emperor and hoisting Stormtroopers overhead is now meaningless.
Poe's primary function in the film is to argue with bossy women, and not to do much of anything else other than whoop in a cockpit here and there.
Remember the casino planet from the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica that everyone slammed? Well, Finn and this new character Rose go on a diversion to a dimly lit murky casino planet, where we're treated to a lecture about animal abuse at the horse track. After which they free one of the horses and ride around on it in lighting too dark to really see what's going on. They're in search of...something...which Benecio Del Toro turns them in for, so that the First Order can bring Finn and Rose back with Poe and Rey near the end in as contrived a fashion as possible.
Rey and Kylo argue with each other via The Force. Rey's all tough and gritty and hard as nails having been a scrapper on Jakku. Remember? But here she somehow can't stand to see a man with his shirt off. Not kidding.
Princess Leia flies through empty airless space like Superman after being blown out of the hull of her ship without incurring a single blemish. Absolutely not kidding here.
Rey asks Luke for Jedi training, but what for? Mary Sue Rey clearly already knows it all. She lectures him about the things he's done and why he really did it and what he's really thinking. Apparently Luke is still the student. Lightsaber training? She bests Luke on the island with a lightsaber. What training is necessary? The Bechdel Galaxy won't allow for any mansplaining from a white male like Luke. Chewbacca came along for the ride here but spends most of the time taking a nap off camera with the Star Wars version of a pikachu.
How they found Luke's lightsaber was a story for another time, remember? Well, not this time. Maybe next time.
Captain Phasma pops up in time for Finn to have a climactic lightsaber-esque battle too. Equal equality equitably equalized. And then Phasma dies just as quickly, not from a winning blow by Finn, but by falling through a collapsing floor into a fireball. I guess it wouldn't be prudent to have a man assaulting a woman in the shadow of Hollywood's Pervnado.
Hux spouts over the top villainous hyperbole. That is all.
BB8 shows up to drive an AT-ST. R2D2 and C3PO make their brief appearances but have little to no function.
We then end with an AT-AT battle a la TESB. Luke makes an appearance to stand off with the AT-ATs but is utterly wasted here. Does he go to town on the AT-AT legs with his lightsaber? Does he lift the AT-ATs into the air telekinetically and bash them into one another? Maybe some other show of the power that he's developed while in exile over the decades? Nope. Instead Luke's merely a mental projection here, and it exhausts him to the point of dying back on his exile planet. He's rusty now, having closed himself off to the Force after all; a necessary contrivance that allowed Rey to best him earlier with a lightsaber I'm guessing. At least we get to see Luke milk an alien nipple; that's what you've been waiting for to see all these years, right?
The rebels - I mean resistance - attack the AT-ATs with a squadron of ground based cable cars, which drag an armature on the ground so we can see nifty red sand fly into the air. If the writers had done a brief Google search on aircraft physics they would have found the effects of jet spray from low flying craft. The armature was unnecessary, and served only to keep the craft bound to the planet's surface. Since the cable cars were restricted to the ground, all TIE fighters would have to do is circle above and fire away.
Finn drives one of these cable cars towards a kind of battering ram weapon that was firing on blast doors which protected the rebel base. He intended to take it out to protect the rebels within. In what could have been a poignant tragic hero moment with Finn dive bombing into the weapon thus saving the rebels with his sacrifice, Rose shows up out of nowhere in another cable car and deliberately crashes into Finn to "save him" from his dive bombing. So now they're both on the battlefield exposed in their wrecked cable cars, and the battering ram weapon is still operational, bringing down the resistance's protective blast doors. And it was all for Rose's selfish hours old infatuation with Finn. Gee thanks.
Then Kylo and Rey team up to fight Snoke. Hoping some mysteries about Snoke are revealed here? Or maybe a spectacular display of Snoke's power with the Force? Well, Rey deftly kills Snoke by telekinetically switching on a resting lightsaber while he's sitting in his throne pontificating. No answers for you. Kylo and Rey then proceed to fight Snoke's guards, even though they no longer have anything to guard with Snoke's death. Whatever training Daisy Ridley had for this film shows a marked improvement in regards to her stance and motion when fighting from what we saw in TFA, but it still can't erase the silliness of watching a 95 pound girl best adversaries that outweigh her by 150 pounds.
What's clear to me is that the writers here have no knowledge whatsoever of the deeper layers of the onion that have always provided the foundation for Star Wars. No knowledge of war or military history. No knowledge of mythology or mysticism. No knowledge of the history of civilization. No knowledge of dogfights or sword fighting. No knowledge of basic physics or anatomy. The only things they seem to have knowledge of is previous Star Wars films (or at least the trailers for them), social justice nonsense, and the Bechdel Test. So we're left with a shallow unnuanced exercise in social justice lecturing and feminist posturing couched in cosplay costumes and 40 year old Ralph McQuarrie designs which were rejected from The Original Trilogy production.
And all of this was dragged over 2.5 hours.
I could be wrong, but I can't imagine the bulk of the audience returning for Episode IX after being subjected to this drek.
Help us, George Lucas. You're our only hope.
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Come on! I read reviews, which I respect but fully disagree. 3, 2, even 1 score is just absurd! How can you put a 1 on a movie like this, whether you like it or not. Somebody even said he cried during the film. What! Man, I "cried" through almost the entire Episode 1, 2, 3 saga. Remember the Phantom Menace? And if you remember, the script of the previous Star Wars, The Force Awakens was almost a rip off of the Episode 4. And come on, Star Wars was never about the complicated story....but about how that story is written and told. And this episode does it very well.
This movie is fantastic. Well paced. Simple story but greatly told. I don't care about MH's opinion about Luke. I think the writing was fantastic. The story on the island took enough time to build. That was a high point on the movie. Maybe too much comedy, but I don't mind to laugh once in a while.
And the cinemathography was superb. I won't go into details about effects. That would be easy. Just talking about photography, about images, colours used, takes, stunning, really a masterpiece.
So many bargage movies, thousands, and you put a 1 to this movie? Joke.
Had a great time...go and watch it.
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1/10
This movie is not The Last Jedi, but rather is The Last Star wars
Why ? Why ? Oh why Disney ? Just why had you have to do this to me ?
As someone who Really liked TFA - even though its not a perfect movie - I can't help but being completely in disdain after this movie. I wish it had never happened, I wish G Lucas would of never sell SW to Disney right now. I want to cry...
This movie is not a bad movie, but this movie is an horrible Star wars movie for anyone who loved Star wars as much as I loved it (loved, yes, this is the past for me now, this movie destroyed everything that I once used to love).
Better critics and review of the whole film are out there, so I won't repeat on what was already said about the horrible choices made in the movie. But I will just say this :
The first 6 Star wars were movies made by the will and the hard work of a man named George Lucas, who wanted to make people dream.
This movie was made by the will and the hard work of a company named Disney, that like other company, just want to make money...
This sum up everything my fellow star wars fan.
Disney do not care of us hardcore fan, nor do they care about the star wars legacy and past.
Thats the only explanation i can find about why they would have done something like this. They are destroying every aspect of star wars we loved, and that for the only sake of what ? Starting Anew saga of movies labeled star wars, but that don't taste like it nor feel like it, but because it is named star wars people will go see it ? ... That movie has closed every door that TFA had goodly open, and that in the worst fashion ever possible.
Star wars died for me after that movie,
I wont even bother with the Solo movie, nor the ep 9,
Star wars is dead.
I'm out.
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I am DISAPPOINTED in this movie! It could have and should have been SO MUCH BETTER!!!!! I think the central plot points were sort of dumb. Running out of fuel, and that story arc with Finn and Rose wasn't very interesting.
Daisy was great as Rey. Mark was great as Luke, but they never showed Luke train her. They didn't really give a good reason for why Ben turned dark. They SHOULD HAVE done so much more with all of that!!
I didn't really like the strange talking scenes between Rey and Kylo Ren. I didn't really like the Leia floating through space scene.
The beginning wasn't very good either. It didn't start with HEART which a movie NEEDS to pull me in.
I didn't really like the Kylo Ren and Luke ending scenes either because I guess Luke wasn't really there?!?
Overall, I'm VEERRRRRRRRY disappointed!
JJ Abrams should have directed ep. 8 because he did a good job rebooting Star Wars with ep. 7. Now I have lost some love for Star Wars. :*( I'm glad JJ is coming back for ep. 9, but ep. 8 is kind of a mess in many respects.
Overall, the movie was choppy and at times confusing. It tried to cram too much into one movie. It should have focused on the things we CARE about: LUKE! Rey! Even more mentions of Han Solo would have been good! Much of the HEART I felt in The Force Awakens and Rogue One wasn't there in this movie. I'm SOOOOOOO DISAPPOINTED!
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I went into the cinema totally unspoiled. I hadn't even watched the trailer. Now, I could easily turn this into a rant, based on the rating, you have probably figured out what my opinion is. But let me start with saying, there was so much potential, and I will cover what I mean by that further on. BEWARE OF SPOILERS.
I have to start with some main problems I have, and ease my heart a little bit. First of all, the movie is stressed. You can feel it in the delivery of the lines. The audience is not allowed the time to process what is being said, and the actors are not allowed the time to portray the emotion required to give a convincing and engaging impression. The movie is jumpy, meaning that you jump between different sets of characters (often as many as 3 different locations at a time) involving characters you literally met just 15 minutes ago. It feels rushed, and so it doesn't feel as if any creator's love was put into it.
Secondly, the whole movie - quite literally - is full of comic relief. From the initial scene even, the bad guys are ridiculed and the "hero" makes a clown of himself - totally destroying whatever feeling of imminent doom and overwhelming odds that was there just moment before. While some humorous jokes are needed, what is given here is mostly cheap. It continues throughout the entire movie and I frankly don't think there's any single character that isn't made a joke of at some point. Several occasions, it felt more as if I was watching Spaceballs rather than Star Wars. I'm not afraid of the First Order. for instance, as they feel like a bunch of incompetent clowns - now compare that to the evil, overwhelming superiority of the old school Galactic Empire!
There are more things to go with here, like killing the character who was the biggest source of speculation from the first movie, in practically his second scene. He was the one with potential, and they just rid themselves of him as if he was garbage.
Now to the things that had potential;
A lot of the Jedi training scenes are extremely well made. Like Rey exploring the Force, with the cut scenes that portray life, decay, emotions and so on.. That is a great scene, and probably surpasses anything the previous movies have done in exploring the Force from a jedi student perspective. They could have moved on with this, and made her growing into a role that just seems too large to shoulder feel immersive and realistic. Instead, I felt, they blew it with comic relief and rushed scenes. But the potential was there.
The connection between Rey and Kylo are a great opportunity, to create a setting where these two characters can be the bodily portrayal of light and dark, in a sad and in a way heartbreaking struggle between those two elements of the force, and I think the movie actually captures that very well. Its only a shame its a bit of a parenthesis in the rest of it all.
What they did to Luke's character was mostly a disaster, in my opinion. But there too there was potential. For the grim, bitter teacher who failed his students there could indeed have been a feeling of hopelessness about his character. And I feel that would actually have gone really well if his appearance towards the end of the movie would have been real, and his battle with Kylo, real. Because he could have embodied the hope of the Rebellion, something that is vaguely seen as they all look to him walk out the bunker. His sacrifice could have been worth something, and been a scene to truly be remembered as a great end to a great character. Instead, that too felt rather plastic in how dismissive he appeared about it all, and the fact that he wasn't actually there - instead being projected through the force in a way that just makes me ask; Why? He died anyway, why not make it real?
I would not entrust this director with another SW movie.
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I've never ever yawned watching ANY previous Star Wars movies (not referring to episodes I, II, III which I still didn't happen to see) until now. The first half of the movie is just boring! For more than hour we are given to watch escape of evacuation ships.
The jokes... What the hell Disney thinks? Do they really think that bringing the "up to date", trendy jokes taken from today's sc-fi Marvel flicks will do Star Wars better? Example - Rey was so desperate to find Luke because the Galaxy faces such serious threat from the 1st order yet she so freely and frivolously trifles about the force saying that she thinks it is about "lifting rocks"? 'Cmon...
What they've done to Luke is beyond any reason. He doesn't remind the Luke we used to know. And it is not because of acting or the fact he is "older" or became cuckoo because of the years of solitude. It is because he was entangled is a really badly executed relationship with Rey. They dialog between those two is one of the most awful in the movie. There is absolutely no chemistry between them. The moment Luke screams "resist it Rey" sounds totally blunt and artificial.
Fin... what the hell is this pointless relationship with the midget girl about? What was that? A romance? An unexpected friendship? With who? And what's next? A wedding?
Leia - poor Carry... what have they done to you? Carry, if you hear this.. They made you blast into space like Yondu in the Guardians of The Galaxy except you managed to survive swimming back to the spaceship like a pro-swimmer. And it is all because of "the force"..
Little puffin-like creatures... 'cmon Disney - is that really the peak of what you actually can come up with?
The only character that still saves to script and movie is Poe Dameron who really brings a freshness into the whole story.
The way Disney decided to separate the current from the previous trilogy makes me worried about future of Star Wars franchise in general.
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I am a Star Wars fan. It reminded me of the original Star Wars crossed with original Jumanji and Indiana and the Temple of Doom. Too much silliness, This codebreaker guy was horrible. What was it with a coffee mug in his hand. Some parts were ok with Kylo Ren, Rey and Luke but it was sometimes too much. This new film is a combination of all that is in the others without much new. It is one battle scene after another, etc. The editing tries to tell too many stories at once and ends up killing the pace as it stops a high action scene and slows the film down with a lot of emotion and confusing talk. The plot is muddled. I still have no idea why Luke kicked the Empire's butt then headed off to live in a cave. And this movie is way, way to long at 2 hours 40 minutes. Especially when you are seeing the same battle over and over just in another place. It just goes on and on and on. They could have cut 40 minutes and made it tighter and better. Visually stunning, great John Williams work on the score. Waiting for number nine.
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5/10
A refreshing take on Star Wars, but a complete mess of a movie
I'm on the fence about The Last Jedi. One the one hand, it's a refreshing take on Star Wars with some great central themes. On the other hand, it's a mess of a plot which almost makes you feel as if your intelligence is under attack. Especially noteworthy is a long and elaborate sub plot with Finn and a new character, which turns out to be completely inconsequential for later events. It's hard to overlook the fact that the whole narrative thread that concerns Poe and Finn, wich has disastrous consequences, could have easily been avoided if another important character hadn't nedlessly kept information from Poe about her intentions. The list goes on.
No matter how you feel about it, in terms of consistency with the series as a whole, this is the instalment that just doesn't care about other Star Wars films. The conventions by which we understand how the force (and Star Wars as a whole) works are disregarded or changed as necessary. The character arcs from the previous films similarly aren't picked up where they were left off. It's like Rian Johnson didn't like what Abrams had left for him, and made sure everybody would know. Fair enough - I probably prefer Johnson's vision to Abrams, but it's pretty clear that the people involved in this trilogy haven't agreed upon which direction things were supposed to go. It's not a problem so much in the terms of "this isn't Star Wars!"; it just makes for a very disjointed series.
Now, concerning what most fans seem to have a big gripe with (including Mark Hamill himself) - Luke Skywalker. I understand why Johnson wanted to go the direction he did with Luke's character, but I have to agree with previous opinions that point out that it's not remotely believable. Luke's character seems to have regressed to an emotionally immature state - for the sake of carrying the film's central theme - but surely this could have been accomplished with more finesse and subtelty. Johnson completely disregards Luke's character development in the classic trilogy, and the lessons Luke learnt in Return of the Jedi. The idea that Luke has come to cut himself off from the force is interesting in iteslf, it's just handled very clumsily.
Critics sure seem to love this film more than it deserves. If you're not concerned about plot issues and Star Wars as a whole, The Last Jedi is an entertaining film and it has a refreshing message (as far as Star Wars films go). It's very much a movie about letting go of the past, and this works very well. But I think the critics fail to see the bigger picture. No thought is given to the overarching story and how the characters develop over the course of these instalments, and that is a problem. Johnson, and especially Abrams, seem to really love the the original trilogy as far as the technical movie-making is concerend, but the lore and bigger story that is Star Wars gets pushed to the wayside. It wouldn't have been that hard to keep the themes and originality of The Last Jedi while at the same time constructing a coherent plot and a story that carries the torch in a satisfying way. It would have given something for both critics and casual moviegoers while also also rewarded the fans for their loyalty over the last 40 years. The Last Jedi fails in this regards.
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1/10
Just watched Social Justice Wars: The Last Movie from this franchise I'll ever watch.
I don't know if you watched the new Star Wars but this is literally the Paul Feig Ghostbusters of the Star Wars franchise. Men were useless, made to look like all their decisions were bad where all the women were the heroes of the film.
The Liberal PC man hate was evident in this movie from the beginning to the end. It was tolerable in the first movie but this one jacked it up so that every heroic act went to women roles where men fumbled like idiots making bad choices, costing lives basically made to look stupid.
It was so agenda ridden that it ruined the entire movie for me. Not that I ever had a problem with Rey as the lead but they amped the fem factor up so high every female role literally did something heroic where nearly every man was made to look sad and unnecessary.
The only time a man did something heroic was Finn but hey, he's a minority so SJW to the rescue. They made Luke so completely irrelevant and pointless in his final role. Not at all the Luke any true Star Wars fan wanted to see.
There was so much wrong with this film, I don't understand how anyone could enjoy it from BAD CGI especially with all the critters and Snoke. The only character that felt like a genuine Star Wars character was Poe and he was the bumbling idiot this time around trying to be heroic but made to look stupid. He had that charm of being rebellious, almost rogue like Han Solo but the movie just made him out to be pathetic wanting us to look down at him. I loved the guy. I loved Mark Hamill but hated how they crapped all over his character in this garbage fest of a movie. The humor falls flat. I got the Hardware Wars homage and that was probably the best gag in the film. Porgs were everywhere and if it annoyed you like it annoyed me in the Trailer, brace for more Porg calls. Cringe worthy!
I almost walked out on this movie and it wasn't just the heavy in-your-face Social Justice Warrior PC Liberal fem Nazi tone of the story. The story itself was SO bad with ignorant, stupid, meta writing and plot holes it was more cringe worthy than any other Star Wars movie. This movie actually made me appreciate Jar Jar and George if you ever read this. PLEASE COME BACK!!!! The Stupid... it BURNS!
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Not only is this a good film (in fact, there is a great film buried within it) but it was a necessary film.
Rian Johnson (and Disney) could see that retreading the old material could not go on forever. 'Force Awakens' was a bridge to this new world but Johnson has strode across that bridge with all cannons blazing (and in so doing a bit of collateral damage as well)
The film is by far the most gorgeous Star Wars film ever made. There are shots after shot which could be frozen and be individual works of art. Johnson has taken the original inspiration of Akira Kurosawa and seeded his red vision throughout the film from the Throne room to the red smears on the surface of Crait.
The film is too big and unwieldy. It introduces many new characters with mixed success. Rose played by Kelly Marie Tran is charming while Benicio Del Toro is his usual self and has the most annoying affectation seen in a blockbuster for a long time. The structural issues lie at the heart of the film. It suffers from the 5 act issue seen in "Return of the King" and is easily a half hour too long. The Casino Cantino storyline reeks of the B plotline and serves no purpose. If this had been cut complately or reworked I think it could have been amazingly great...that film is in there somewhere.
A lot of people are angry that Johnson has played fast and loose with the lore of the Jedi. It is clear that Johnson has bigger fish to fry. In looking at the Jedi with adult rather then childish eyes we get the revelation that heroes wielding huge forces does not lead to the world people want. There must be a new way and that way is a philosophy that includes all peoples/species, one of inclusivity and Love. Not exclusion or hate.
I suspect that a lot of 40+ guys watching this film would be thinking in Trump era America, "Am I with the bad guys?"
There are other themes that are baked in 2017. Many of the men are making hot headed decisions. There is even a scene when Poe Dameron mansplains what the fleet should do to Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo. In the end it is the women - Leia, Holdo, Rose, Rey who know what is worth fighting for and how to get that shit done.
In terms of performances there are many charismatic ones like Oscar Isaac and Daisy Ridley but two standout. Mark Hamill has not turned into a great actor but he has the face of one. His Luke has the eyes and voice of a failed prophet and that carries past any creakiness. The best performance in this or in any Star wars film is Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. I am not joking that it is of a level normally reserved for award nights. Driver shows all the anguish, anxiety, anger and confusion in his character in one look or a line of dialogue that blows everyone else off the screen
After seeing The Last Jedi you can see why Disney has given Johnson his own trilogy based in the Star Wars universe. His skill and independence will take this series somewhere beyond the Skywalker bloodlines and perfect heroes.
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The Last Jedi is a fine example of Rian Johnson's skill for subverting expectations. For the last two years, Star Wars fans have been theorising endlessly about the possible origins of certain characters, their true allegiances and their ultimate identity. Meanwhile, Johnson has been forging an entirely different perspective of the franchise we all love - one where his methods as a filmmaker help to elaborate on the lore of Star Wars and the feelings of its characters.
I've seen The Last Jedi three times now, and each time has opened a new window into Johnson's thematically-rich instalment. Needless to say, cinematography and choice of aspect for this film are astonishing enough, but the hidden genres and themes concerning the characters and their respective beliefs and followings have their own analysis. And it's incredibly in-depth at that. This movie is less about the overall conflict and grand scheme of things and more about the individual characters and the consequences of their actions. It is not the movie we expected, but it is the one we needed. Truly, Johnson has a talent for subliminal symbolism and the connotations of certain imagery - he's chosen everything with particular care.
I want to list a few individual pointers on why The Last Jedi successfully continues the franchise on a new, exciting journey, whilst simultaneously acknowledging the distant past, either through nostalgia or less-obvious trickery.
1. Space Battles. Without space battles, Star Wars is devoid of its heart - without the notable pew-pew of the laser cannons, Star Wars loses its identity and original concept. Here, Johnson honours that legacy with quite a few space extravaganzas - most prominently, the opening scene. Reinvigorating the concept though, Johnson adds a lot of tension by constantly adding and taking from the heroes. Poe Dameron's initially successful mission is weighed down by the losses he makes regarding his fighters. Johnson has time to pick-out individual people and give their sacrifices more meaning and emotion. Seeing Paige Tico's ship go down into the flames of the bombs she's only just dropped is a fine portrayal of the sacrifice the Rebellion makes and the price they pay for liberation.
The other, perhaps more significant, example of this is Vice Admiral Holdo's sacrifice. In possibly the most powerful display of imagery from the film I can think of, Vice Admiral Holdo, whom the audience has been debating whether or not to trust or not throughout the runtime, jumps to light speed in what remains of the Rebel cruiser, vastly decimating Supreme Leader Snoke's destroyer. This damming depiction of war breaks new ground on the Star Wars spectrum.
2. The Force. The Last Jedi, quite noticeably, flirts with the idea of the Force. Repeating words from Yoda's first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke's analysis if followed quickly be a more down-to-Earth, if you'll pardon the phrase, representation of its true nature. The montage of images that cross through Rey's mind as she "reaches out" to the Force is a great way to reinforce our knowledge of the Force and hopefully describes it to newcomers.
Equally, Rey and Kylo Ren's force connection regularly throughout the film tells us that the Force can be manipulated and controlled. As much as Snoke has the power to bind two people together across the Galaxy, Luke eventually harnesses this power for his own trickery in the exciting climax. This film gives the Force more of a tangible embodiment - whereas before it has sometimes been brushed off as the natural order of things, Johnson goes one further and gives it an identity.
3. Good and Bad. One of the reasons I liked DJ (or "Don't Join" as he refers to himself) as a character, is his back-handed reference about there being no different between good and bad people. He makes a point about the owner of the stolen ship from Canto Bight who prospered into riches by selling vehicles to both the First Order and the Rebellion. There's no discrimination, simply one big business - war. This may seem like an obvious point, but Johnson takes time to embellish that concept by showing us that no one is different to anyone else. I have a feeling a lot of viewers were unhappy with the Canto Bight sequences because it distracted from the main events of the film, but in my opinion it is one of the most important parts of the film. Not only does it depict how the rich, by being separated from the qualms of war, are benefitting profitably from its continuation, but how the Rebellion has a strong influence on the concealed individuals amongst them. The children working in the fathier stables are prime examples of people who are heavily influenced and inspired by the good deeds of both Rose Tico and Finn as they rampaged through the casino town, leaving havoc in their wake.
4. Island of Ahch-To. Johnson spends a lot of time using incredible symbolism to help tell a hidden story of the island. If spliced together, there's a pattern in the lighting of the island as the camera takes a long shot. As the movie progresses, the shots slowly, but surely, block out the Sun, indirectly pre-emanating Luke's demise. After exhausting himself by using the Force to project his image across the Galaxy, the final shot of Luke's billowing cloak is followed closely by a shot of the island silhouette, now indicating its emptiness. Along with the burning of the Jedi tree, this means that the island barely holds any memory of the Jedi order. This can be attributed to the words of Yoda as he describes Rey as the new spark of hope in the prolonging of the Jedi religion. Regardless of whether they were useful or not, the Jedi texts are now in her possession.
5. Mirroring Return of the Jedi. Johnson carefully chose a shot for shot remake of the Return of the Jedi scene as Darth Vader escorts Luke to the Emperor's chamber. The words that Rey and Kylo exchange match Luke's and Darth Vader's almost perfectly. This is a sweet trick Johnson plays to help the audience anticipate what follows. Whilst a lot of people are anticipating the revelation of Snoke's identity, Johnson is only concerned with the development of Kylo and Rey, and that's done with great precision here. Johnson doesn't play it safe, he immediately subverts our expectations to bring about the development of the new balance in the Force. For some this is possibly the most disappointing moment in the film - for me it is the turning point and it shows Johnson's bold appetite for grabbing attention. It is possibly one of the cleverest scenes from the film.
6. Chain of Command. The Last Jedi makes a pretty hefty point about following orders. Poe Dameron continually disobeys his superiors throughout the film, much to the audience's happiness as we believe he is going above his station in order to protect the Rebellion. But, in truth, he is endangering it. General Leia Organa and Vice Admiral Holdo are under no obligation to reveal their plans to Dameron, mainly because they are trying to protect them from enemy eyes and ears. It may be quite a shocking moment to see Leia stunning Poe at the climax of their escape from the First Order forces, but the statement being made her is that no matter your feelings towards a decision, following orders is a number one priority. Poe should trust those who have more experience than him.
7. Color Palette. Finally, the last point I'd like to make is regarding Johnson's choice of colour palette for that last, unprecedented battle for survival on Crait. This is more than simply a demonstration of the minerals on this planet, this is an indirect statement by the director to show how the tides of the force are turning, and also a way to give away Luke's ghostly presence. The albeit brief lightsaber battle between Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker is the punchline of the entire film, and its hidden message is written in the salt, as Johnson consistently hints at Kylo Ren's true emotions as Snoke's successor and Rey's dark equal.
I want to finish by stating that my favourite scene from the movie was Luke's reunion with Yoda - not only for being terribly nostalgic, but also highlighting how much Luke has changed yet not changed at all. It is Yoda's final words of wisdom that sit with me - "The greatest teacher, failure is. The greatest burden of a Jedi Master - we are what they grow beyond."
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I can't believe what the Star Wars have become. Did social justice warriors re-wrote the script without anyone noticing?
Men:
Luke was a bitch. Poe doesn't have a brain. Toro was a greedy traitor. Kylo was child throwing a tantrum and wants to rule the galaxy. Finn was suicidal in a bad way.
Women:
Leia was the leader. Rey saves everyone. Laura Dern who played as an unnamed Resistence leader was suicidal in a good way. And Rose was the new feminist role model that saves Finn from killing himself because men needs to be saved by a women when facing the New Order.
I don't know what to say. Star Wars is dead to me.
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TLJ is a ultimate proof that disney and Rian Johnon hate SW fans. This movie was ment to be dissrespectfull and insulting. TLJ is a way of saying: "F**k you fans, and f**k everything the franchise ment to yo, we are disney, and we only care about your money." Hell has special place for likes of you.
Ps. f**k you johnson.
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10/10
If you hated it, go see it again. Best since Empire.
This is the best Star Wars movie since Empire, if not since 1977. The haters are just wrong - they got turned off by opening 90 seconds of admittedly not very good jokes, which I think jolted them out of the heart-felt brilliance of the remaining 150 minutes. I spent the second half of the movie either in a mess of tears at seeing old friends reunite and rediscover their heroic resolve or mentally punching the air with cathartic joy as Rian Johnson bought together epic visual (and vehicle) design, heroic self-sacrifice, and the most successful evocation of that 'Star Wars' vibe since the 80s (spoilers>): ramming the Snoke ship at light speed, the heroic lone bomber fighter in the opening battle, the falcon intervening in the Crait battle, those speeders, all of Mark Hamill (but in particular his emotionally devastating and surprisingly athletic final lightsabre showdown with Kylo Ren - the power of this duel is quite subtle and will take a second watch to sink in), fleets of ships desperately warping through the galaxy under imperial onslaught.
I even loved the middle section: my favourite childhood movie franchise showing some moral heart by raising a wish-fulfilling middle finger to the 1%, which is a really on-f***ing point message during a time of shameless inequality. Full marks for Johnson for writing it into the film. Full marks also for killing off Phasma ('You're Scum! Yeah, but rebel scum' - freaking epic line!) and Snoke (what is with that terrible name), who were dead weight on the series and their absence sets up episode 9 a much cleaner Good vs. Evil final confrontation.
The humour was laugh out loud: BB8's impersonation of a mouse droid, C3P0 not being allowed to finish calculating the odds of survival, Finn playing up his 'resistance hero' status, Rey 'reaching out', Yoda rediscovering his original playful teaching methods, Luke's 'not-busy schedule'.
Great performances by everyone (Boyega, Ridley, Carrie Tran, Oscar Isaacs all have difficult parts in this film) but Hamill and Fisher steal it, with Fisher seeming much more on her game than in TFA. But this is Hamill's movie - he is oscar worthy (best supporting, plz), successfully conveying a heartbroken former warrior whose heroic spirit is re-awoken in time for a final showdown, and he even resurrected some youthful attitude, spirit and cunning in his performance.
If you hated it I challenge you to go back and see it again and forget about the opening minutes - I'm confident the star wars joy will sink in over time. Empire was pretty bad in places but is overall amazing (we seem to always forget about C3PO's constant whining, the stupidly repeated 'the hyperdrive is broken again' plotting, the boring parts of Cloud city). I ****ing love this movie.
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6/10
Not sure why I keep buying tickets to formulaic Star Wars movies
Not a devoted follower, but I enjoyed the originals. Can see why the true fans would be disappointed. The plot didn't really make sense, it was overlong, and Luke Skywalker cuts a sad figure. Would give 6/10. Why do I keep buying tickets?!
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What makes this movie so bewildering is that it's driven by contempt for Star Wars. Rian Johnson and Disney go out of their way to mock, belittle, dismiss and undo the magic, the mystery, the richness and the wonder of Star Wars. And, the really weird part is that they sacrificed plot, character development, drama, intrigue, tension and basic narrative structure to do that. I just don't get it. This movie is a cynical and self-congratulatory act of sabotage.
Even if you forget about the broader Star Wars universe, this movie fails miserably as a sequel to The Force Awakens, which I thought was a strong (albeit derivative) starting off point for a new trilogy. The Last Jedi not only doesn't follow any of the cues set up in The Force Awakens, it blatantly subverts and ridicules them. The result is a jarring and deeply unsatisfying mess of a middle chapter that doesn't resonate emotionally and doesn't advance the established story.
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My view is that Star Wars, as it is known in popular culture, is over. The story that is known and loved by many has been concluded and what is now being produced may more appropriately described as "the ongoing happenings in a galaxy far, far away".
Many key elements of the script seemed recycled: Snoke is Palpatine. But nowhere near as menacing and far more cartoonish. His provenance goes unexplained. His motives are unclear.
The major initiatives of characters (we have to go on X mission to achieve some sort of MacGuffin so that Y mission can be undertaken) has been seen before in Star Wars and the Return of the Jedi.
Particularly given the hype and glowing reviews, I was expecting a lot more. I was disappointed. I was also bored, which is probably worse.
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What was wrong with the last Jedi? Well, not as much as a bunch of babies on this site think. In short, what's actually wrong with it is that they screwed up a few continuity shots that, at the time for people actually enjoying the movie, were hard to notice anyway.
If you look at the demographic of people who didn't like the movie they're mostly males over the age of 40 who still can't get over the fact that Darth Vader is dead or that they proceeded to even make Star Wars movies after Return of the Jedi.
1 star? ACTUALLY 1 star? There wasn't even enough content in the entire 2.5 hours of your pathetic wasted ticket sales ass-to-chair time for you to ENJOY the movie enough for 2 stars? Not even JUST on the acting alone? Not on the visual effects alone? Not even the music score? The story was SO bad for you, you HAD to rate it 1 star?
Let me tell you all something, if you're pathetic enough to watch Star Wars 90 episodes from now when the main characters are played by hairy warts on a guys ass but John Williams still directed the music score and can't enjoy THAT enough for 2 whole stars... kill yourself. The world is better off without you in it.
TLDR;
This is an awesome movie. Is this the direction I thought things would go? I don't think so. Am I disappointed? No, if I wanted my shitty vision of Star Wars to be on the silver screen I'd make a crappy fan-script like all of the 1/10 star ratings people for J.J. Abrams to wipe his butt with. I like the direction it took. and I look forward to the next episode.
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This film is great. Its not he best, but its great. All this hate comes from EU fanboys that wanted a more similar outcome to what they know. I CAN TELL U FOR A FACT SNOKE IS NOT COMPLETELY GONE. They are not going to kill their "emperor" just like that, believe me he will get resurrected or something like that. Remember the knights of ren are still a thing. Ik EU fans wanted to see luke as a badass(part of me too). But this is not the last we see of luke!! Like seen in the movie force ghosts have some pretty badass powers. Maybe we get to see that in ep 9.The only thing that bothered me is the death of phasma, it was such a waste of a character. Also, they kind of overused a bit of comedy. But in all, as a star wars FAN I think this movie was great. Now that a bunch of EU nerds are giving this movie a 1-5 star rating is ridicules. Now, that Rian could of done better, yeah of course. Did I want luke to die? No of course not, I wanted to see badass luke as well but things didn't go the "way you think", yet they still managed to give a beautiful film to us THE FANS.
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The titles of the original trilogy told a story: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi. I think the other trilogies show everything again and again in each episode.
In this film, only scenes like Rey's training, the fight against Snoke, Phasma and the confrontation against Luke are interesting to me. The other scenes are boring, the jokes are another character and the creatures are very bizarre. In addition to special effects, a good script.
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4/10
The Last Jedi is not going to make you feel you are watching a Star Wars continuity
I have been very disappointed with both The Force Awakens (TFA) and The Last Jedi (TLJ) because each of the movies has felt rushed and the story is not developed properly. They are merely attempts to merchandize new toys and videogames and make us buy the books to explain the missing gaps in the story.
I like mysteries and that the things are left out for speculation. But sometimes too much is too much. Both TFA and the TLJ have failed at providing almost any interesting character development since the attempt is to keep everything unexplained at all times. We are literally paying to see a movie that asks us more questions than attempts to answer them.
What's explained?
I gave The Force Awakens a chance because of the belief that the next two movies of the new trilogy would explain the missing pieces of the story. Specifically, the background of the Rey, Kylo and the Luke was of interest and I expected it to be the center of the movie. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case although we did get some more information about the past.
I was also hoping to get a wider image of the present state of the galaxy. I was interested about the strength and the role of the First Order in the galaxy. The whole thing going on between the rebels and the First Order is very vague. Also, who is Snoke? What is the relationship between Luke and Snoke? What is the purpose of the current characters in the new trilogy? Now they feel just characters in a busy story.
My picture of the new trilogy is that Rey and Kylo are the two abandoned force-sensitive teenagers in the midst of the battle between rebels and the First Order somewhere in the Galaxy without any location. TLJ doesn't provide any perspective to the story that could make us care of the direction of the new Trilogy. Where TFA paved the way for a new trilogy, The Last Jedi paves a way to yet another trilogy, and I am afraid the Episode 9 will feel congested trying to tie everything together unless it's just another gateway to a new trilogy.
The plot itself
The Last Jedi tells an unfortunately unimaginative Mad Max: A Fury Road chase-up story with quite a few recycled elements from the Empire Strikes Back. The battle between the rebels and the First order takes place somewhere not too important in the Galaxy and it feels like a mere "side-story" between a small and desperate rebel fleet and a satirical version of the Empirical troops.
The story fails at deepening the bond to any of the new or the old characters. The universe of the Star Wars doesn't feel like Star Wars because we don't really know anything about it nor do we know enough about the First Order or the Rebels to understand whether or not the battles taking place are of any significance to anyone in the story. What is even the balance we are talking about anymore?? Perhaps this is exactly what the movie tries to tell us - how nothing has no meaning to anything; how everything is connected to everything; and how everything is just part of the whole, which is complete everything and complete nothing at the same time.
I feel we are experiencing some sort of an irrational Quantum Leap in the Star Wars where everything is possible, nothing is certain and no direction is given. A bit of a same symptom we experienced in the Terminator: Genisys.
The structure of the story is a kind of a reverse-sideways-twisted plot of the Empire Strikes Back combined with a continuous "surprise" / "just kidding" / "I changed my mind" / "should I do it or not do it" -moments that make you confused whether the scenes are building any tensions or emotions or just.. scenes.
The paradox of the movie is that continuous twists and humor make it feel like a lot shorter movie it is, but also take away all the depth of the story. Where the confrontation of Luke and Darth Vader in the Empire Strikes back feels intimidating, the confrontation of Rey and Snoke feels rushed, lacks any emotional connection whatsoever and is all too soon over.
While the training of Luke in the Episode V by Yoda and Obi-Wan feels genuine and a fact that Luke actually changes during the process, the training of Rey never really happens nor does Rey change in any way during the movie. She and Kylo are mentally and physically exactly the same as they were in the episode VII. In the Episode VII, however, they felt more interesting as they still had the potential to become something different. I was hoping that Luke could have actually taught something to Rey but in the end, it seemed like Luke needed some training while Rey is simply perfect in everything already.
What comes to Luke, there is a deep feeling of desperation going on. A monk in an exile uncertain of everything and battling to find his place in the movie. No one really knows what the purpose of anything between Luke and Rey is in the end of the day. The only teachings are not to take pride of your actions and how the bloodline doesn't mean anything, and can become your downfall. Everyone says Luke is needed. But Luke is depressed and we all know why this is. Rey knows everything yet she is nothing. Luke is on the island, Rey not so long. There is never a connection between Luke and Rey, everything is comic and then it all just ends. We don't need a Lego Start Wars to make fun out of the scenes because TLJ does it already.
The positive aspects
The Last Jedi looks and sounds amazing. And that's pretty much the positive in addition to great performances.
Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver have tried their best to make the main characters believable, and they have done in their job very well. The good performances are the only reason the clumsy plot doesn't ruin everything. Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis and John Boyega all shine in their roles.
Mark Hamill is the absolute star of the movie. He tries to save the nothingness of Luke Skywalker in the movie and manages to portray the role of a desperate old legend in the most authentic way. Mark Hamill is a truly talented actor. He does what his role as a "fool" requires: a desperate need to get out of this existence while still helping the new guys before leaving.
All the ingredients there but no emotions
The general spirit of the Star Wars is gone. The balance of the light and dark and the spiritual growth are the themes in Star Wars that are combined with the imaginative characters, humor and breathtaking lightsaber and space battles. Now none of the themes, except nice space battles, are experienced.
Rey and Kylo are of central attention in this movie, which gives it some "depth". But even this connection is lost in the midst of all the other hassle and inconsistency of the story development. There is no real focus on old or new characters. No focus on the First Order. No focus on Snoke. No focus on Luke. No focus on Leia. No focus on the past. No focus on Finn's side story. No focus on the teaching of Rey. No focus on the force. No focus to the purpose of the story. There is only a focus to keep the hardcore fans looking for hidden messages and younger audience to enjoy the battles and merchandize.
A couple of times I experienced true laughter but that was all what comes to emotions. I didn't experience goose pumps like I did in the Rogue One when Vader pops in, and tears only once when I saw Princess Leia for the first time. There is no emotional connection to any of the events. In the earlier films, I could feel the emotions when Obiwan shouts "you were the chosen one!" or when Yoda joins the force in the Return of the Jedi with Luke in tears. There are countless moments in the Star Wars Saga where emotions take place at least to a certain extent. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi have not been able to make me feel anything. They have just been a series of events that happen.
Even the Prequels did it better
To me, the Prequel Trilogy is already a masterpiece compared to this. Disney has managed to create an amazing hype around the new movies by using the old characters and giving us so much to speculate about everything. It seems this is where Disney is at its best: to create a hype and explain the plot-holes in the countless of spin-offs. Rogue One was a success and an amazing movie and I loved it. It managed to explain the awkward weakness of the first Death Star in probably the best possible way I could imagine. On top of that, it also showed a beautiful and actually very emotional character development. I was able to feel the movie, not just observe it. This cannot be said from either TFA or TLJ.
George Lucas did certain things better
Whether we liked the somewhat awkward love-story between Padme and Anakin or the goofy Jar Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy or not, George Lucas at least achieved to write a solid story-line and construct a universe we could all experience. The new trilogy is like a scratch of the surface of the most charmless events in the galaxy far far away. The story could have - at its best - made a nice set of Rebels episodes but not an episode for the Star Wars movies. Yet here we are.
Rating: 4/10
I was about to give The Last Jedi a 6/10 rating because it looks stunning, sounds amazing and doesn't feel long at all. It is an enjoyable blockbuster movie with loads of hidden messages for us to reveal for the next 2 years while waiting for the Episode 9. Yet the most important part is missing: it doesn't feel like a solid Star Wars movie at all.
The Last Jedi is a brave attempt to provide us with something completely unexpected. But exactly for being always unexpected, it fails at being anything at all. Some might say that the story is only secondary in a Star Wars movie, but it is not. The story and a message - even if only very simple - is the very foundation for a good movie always. This is the area where The Last Jedi fails. And because it's already a second movie in the new trilogy and provides little if nothing to the storyline or characters, I cannot give it more than 4/10.
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3/10
I have never cared enough to review any movie on IMDB. This is important
I have a lot to say about the last Jedi, and due to my thought process i can almost guarentee i wont list in order. I just want to share my opinion, and I don't care if it's read or not. I don't think I have ever been more disappointed with a movie than I was seeing it yesterday. I almost felt compelled to write this review because i just cant bear the thought of this having higher than a 8.0 on this website, but I can see it is already dropping and for that i am glad. First impressions were okay, as always. But like I always do, I thought about what I had just watched for a full day, and i have realized several things. This was SO disappointing because I can always tell when movies are going to be good, and when they are going to be bad. I fully expected this to be a fantastic movie for a few reasons. I thought Disney couldn't mess up a franchise this large. I was wrong. I thought the studio could pick a director that knows star wars well enough to handle it well. I was wrong. I thought the 2 hour and 32 minute runtime meant it would almost have to have a reliance on plot rather than action alone. I was partially wrong. By this I mean there was a lot of new development in the plot, but not really in a good way. In fact, I would go so far as to say they could have cut an entire short sequence out of the movie without any negative effects. The best way i can describe this scene is like it's another podrace from episode 1. It really had no place in the movie, took up at least a half hour, and was included an overly elaborate solution to an otherwise simple problem that just happens to be solved in 30 seconds after the obvious visual rhetoric of a scene's plan fails. This was a waste of a solid half hour of runtime. A space battle is a pretty great introduction to a star wars film, but not when the cliche literal cliffhanger detonator, and lame "humor" are more memorable than what happens in the real introduction. My introduction to the movie was an intended suspenseful shot that fell flat, a first order general breaking character and turning into an idiot, and Leia turning into Mary Poppins. This was followed by the most disgrace possible to do to one of the most loved characters in star wars. This was Luke. Or maybe it wasn't, as he was literally nothing like the luke everyone remembers from 1977-1983. Mark Hamill explaining how much of a disservice luke was done should have been a red flag. This new Luke would rather squeeze green milk out of an alien tiddy than bring balance to the force once again. Maybe murder his own nephew in the process. Not even the plot twist of Ren killing Snoke to save Rey could save it, but maybe that's because we saw nearly exactly the same thing in Return Of The Jedi. (Think Darth Vader, Palpatine, and Luke) There were probably 2 parts of this movie I liked, Yoda coming back, (and actually talking correctly like the OT), and the 10 brief seconds of that Pink haired lady (shows how memorable of a character she is) blasting through the First Orders fleet at light speed. This silent, monochromatic clip was a thing of beauty, possibly the best part of the entire film. Another part I liked was the cinematography of Luke's death, as it was subtle enough to not be obvious, but beautiful enough to perfectly close out Luke's story in exactly the same way it began in A New Hope. Gave me chills. With that said, I still disagree with the way it happened. I don't think Luke needed to die. With only 3 main original cast members, 2 are now dead on screen, and one can't return because tragically she is dead in reality. I know I had more to say but this is already nearly a mile long and I've gotten my point mostly across, so I'll conclude with this. All things considered, the last Jedi was terrible. Perhaps more disappointing than the actual movie, is not knowing who to blame for it. Disney? Rian Johnson, Perhaps? The writers? Oh that's Rian Johnson. Probably him because Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Frank Oz, Daisy Riddley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac were great.
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8/10
Best new Star Wars since Return of the Jedi *Spoilers*
I was very pleased with how this turned out, I enjoyed the Force Awakens but have to admit it did feel like a soft reboot of sorts. I felt this really broke open my expectations and am quite baffled by all these people claiming it's the "worst Star Wars ever". Really? The Phantom Menace was a better film? REALLY?!?
The cast was really good, especially Mark Hamill as a broken Luke, and Adam Driver was still an evil bitch, but you can kind of understand where he's coming from now. The cast was uniformly good, really.
The best parts were with Luke and Rey and Rey and Kylo. Seeing Luke being a badass while spear fishing, then the revelation that Luke was going to kill Kylo when he was a kid- damn, youngling murder is in the Skywalker blood! But that was played out well. The part where Leia used the force and flew back to the ship? I loved that, I don't care what fanboys cry about. It's too bad she passed away in real life, it seems clear that the next movie would've been the Leia movie. Like, a showdown between her and Kylo. Dammit but she was good in this film, better than in TFA, she seemed more comfortable in the role.
The ending with Luke, where he passes into the force after it's revealed he projected himself across the galaxy?? That was epic.
My main complaint would be it had too many characters (Laura Dern for instance, who was still good in her role, just unneccesary) and the subplot on the casino planet was fun but felt tacked on. It just made it too stuffed, but it was still entertaining but could've used more focus. That being said, it was a fun reunion with old friends and I look forward to episode 9.
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BB-8 kills more people in the Last Jedi than Luke and Snoke combined. Now we have Super Leia, Rey behaves as a Jedi Master, Kylo still punches walls when reprimanded, Snoke and Phasma are useless, Poe is just a bret, and Finn and Rose are big failures. Last Jedi is just a huge mess.
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I am not going to bore you with details as there are many comprehensive reviews.
Just wanna highlight main problems:
1- Fundamentals of the first trilogy is forgotten.
2- No answers have been really given to the questions from the SW7.
3- Luke Skywalker is a joke. The character is ruined. The guy who could manage to reach Anakin in DW by believing him to the end, try to kill his cousin just there is a risk. Congrats!!
4- I am sick of these multi-race and woman powering cast additions just to get more money. Who is that Asian chick? I am not fond of Rey and Finn either. Abysmal performances!
5- I can understand that Disney is trying new animal toy prototypes with this movies but there should be a limit.
6- Really bad villain.
7- Every occasion, every dispute or fight have to end almost in the last second with a little miracle.
8- Poe - one of the most unnecessary heroes Rian managed to create.
After this train wreck I decided that Star Wars is finished with the Revenge of the Sith for me. And I have to say Rogue One is much much better then this crap and SW7.
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2/10
The force is dead..in these days, it's all about money.
Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon, environment and a unique perspective for the cinematography industry! Unfortunately, in The Last Jedi, Disney and Rian Johnson managed to destroy everything that Star Wars was, the story, our beloved characters...the design of this movie can't be a match for any other episode from the franchise...the approach was to force Luke to throw back his father light saber??like throwing all other movies to garbage.. ''bloody hell'', ''bloody ship'' in Star Wars???these are the quotes used in Star Wars?...the characters introduced in the force awakens are not important, they are more like expendables...the soundtrack wasn't there..nothing new..it's normal for a composer like John Williams not to create a good soundtrack since the story isn't good, man has nothing to focus on...unfortunately the last jedi is the worse movie from the franchise...in these days, it's all about money..they've put their braines in carbonite for this one
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9/10
Y'all niggas complain about everything. This movie is fantastic.
One of the hardest lessons to learn is that you must live your life away from your past.
Its a moral heavily tackled in this years most graceful, zany, and truly rebellious Star Wars entry to date. Produced by a company hellbent on profiting familiarity to the ground, STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI is an act of anti-nostalgia, unmercifully twisting its formula to the point of gleeful defiance. Whereas THE FORCE AWAKENS offered a charming but flawed display of resurrected childhood, here's a film that finally strips them down to what little it actually is. It's no wonder why so many fanboys hate this movie; it's rare to see a blockbuster that tells the audience to go fuck themselves.
To explain, the film continues the events from THE FORCE AWAKENS almost immediately. Rey tries to convince Luke to aid the Resistance in the fight against the First Order. Meanwhile Poe Dameron and John Boyega's Finn fend off the enemies led by Adam Drivers Kyle Ren and his ruler Snoke. But without spoiling, the plot isn't what you're going to expect. It's easily the most sporadic plot of the STAR WARS canon, having all these characters struggling to resolve one life-threatening ordeal and plot twists after another. Along with fandoms burning question needing to be answered, whole thing is structured like a ticking time bomb that you're just begging to see go off already. By the time it does, it proves more catastrophic than what you hope for.
One line from Mark Hamil's refreshing take as Luke assures new student Rey, along with the audience, that the past must die in order to move on. It's in these lines that highlights the thesis of THE LAST JEDI, in that prophesied and romanticized aspect of The Force proves to be the direct cause of evil in the first place. And that using The Force for, well, the everyman rather than any self-gain would lead to true balance. It's a more mature, deconstructing take on the Force as well as the strategized military methods of the rest of the characters. Answers aren't always satisfying, nothing will always go your way, no one is God, and that you do what you can to achieve true good. Formulas, actions, and ideals that were once heroic and just now seems little more than obsessive impulses more toxic than any evil. I've never seen a blockbuster that proudly assures this concept in a long while.
Don't misunderstand me; it's still a Star Wars movie, and it definitely delivers on that front. Director Rian Johnson harnesses his classic-era film affectations and narrative trickery to offer one of the biggest adrenaline rush in a Star Wars movie in decades. He constructs beautiful imagery that pays homage to early Kurosawa, Bergman, etc. in ways that contribute to George Lucas' vision. Meanwhile, his plot twists pulls the rug under us so many times it almost seems like self-indulgence. By the time you start to see enough of Johnson's tricks, he immediately slips a new one.
The acting is simply astonishing. Daisy Ridley works wonders yet again as Rey, who now wrestles with a revelation that burns even the strongest of Jedi. John Boyega finally gets more of an agency as Finn; Oscar Isaac pulls off the cocky hero now dealing with responsibility. Laura Dern shines as new-in-command who is involved in easily one of the most jaw-dropping acts of bravery ever. We also get great work from the delightful Kelly Marie Tran as well as a delightfully aloof turn from Benício Del Toro. Yes, it also goes without saying how wonderful the veteran actors of Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher were, two former icons now realizing the heavy circumstances with great finesse. However the standout has to be Adam Driver as Kyle Ren, utilizing the same whiny affect with a lot more menace and complexity.
Menace and complexity also extends to what THE LAST JEDI accomplishes among its damning mischief, but with extra assurance of optimism. There's a final shot in the movie (out of a good many, I should add) that fully bridges the gap between the childlike wonder of the old generation and the cheerfulness of the new. Fitting for this movie, which now regained my hope for the future of Star Wars.
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The franchise is officially for 10yr old kids that buy the Lego and other toys.
It has nothing to do with the old Star Wars movies...even the new Trilogy was better than this.
Its time for Star Wars to END!
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9/10
INSANE, REFRESHING, BOLD - A very different but fitting Star Wars film
This movie...
If you are a diehard fan, hear me out. I am a huge fan of Star Wars, and in my opinion this film offered all of the right twists. It was not perfect, but there were so many things that they got right with this movie.
Firstly, Luke Skywalker. A lot of people were very angry about how his character was handled. However, it makes logical sense when you follow the events of what happened before TFA. And it also made sense from a plot point of view in terms of things with Rey (if you go see the film you will understand what I mean).
Secondly, the storyline with Rose and Finn. I would agree that one or two elements of this storyline did drag, however it was in no way unnecessary, it made a really powerful statement about how these wars between the First Order and the Resistance works in terms of galactic economy which is not really mentioned a lot in Star Wars. Rose is not necessarily a character everyone will fall in love with, some of the parts between her and Finn were cringe-worthy but that was deliberate. She is nevertheless important still as a character.
Finally, the last criticism which I noticed a lot of people had was "plotholes" in the actual main storyline that connected everything together. While I agree it could have been handled better, it actually was very suspenseful and had a great build-up.
This movie has restored my faith in Star Wars, I actually am loving the new characters now, in particular Rey, Kylo Ren, Poe and Finn. The characters and stunning effects and locations for me were what made this movie possibly one of the best Star Wars films I've seen, parallel to Episode VI. I did not like TFA, so for me this film was a refreshing, new, controversial but fitting reboot. I think for the subject matter discussed in the film, J.J Abrams would not have been a fitting director. The themes in this Star Wars film were quite dark I was pleasantly surprised to find, the porgs were annoying after a while but honestly that's my only real complaint. Please go see this movie, you won't regret it !
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9/10
What the Heck? Why is everybody dissing this quality movie epic.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a quality movie masterpiece. You don't get to experience pieces of quality art anything like this movie. I rated this movie 9/10 because of one scene. I won't explain it because it would be a spoiler, but it is ridiculous. Good thing it only lasts 20 seconds. Everything else about this movie is spectacular. The stunning battles and beautiful scenery add up to a complete and utterly mind-boggling movie that will keep you thinking until hours after you see it. I totally recommend this movie for everybody.
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There's a moment in the film where Luke Skywalker winks at C3PO. I thought this was poetic since that's all this film is: a big fat fucking wink at the audience.
Instead of treating lore and mythology with any semblance of respect, this film mocked the entire idea of Star Wars. Kylo Ren isn't wearing a shirt? Watch out ladies, we better make fun of it. Rey is about to learn the FORCE from THE LAST SURVIVING JEDI MASTER??? This must be a perfect moment for some LOLZ and mockery. Rebel pilot on the phone for Imperial Command? Enter a Jerky Boys sketch. The production team couldn't be bothered to craft a great story, but they made damn sure every inch of film was filled with as diverse a cast as humanly possible, because SJW might boycott your stupid movie. Not to go off topic, but that ugly entity in modern society has made the prospect of making films and television a truly arduous one. Plot comes second to checking off the quota boxes. I've said this many times over: If your story is superb nobody would ever notice that you made the X-Wing pilots 80% female. But without a properly crafted story, the pandering in these money-grabbing films is painfully obvious.
At one point I started dreaming about Game Of Thrones and tried to remember a moment in that fantasy series where the writers openly mocked their own premise, and I came up with nothing. That's because, unlike the cabal of shit-sniffing money pimps who made The Last Jedi, the creative team for GOT treats their premise with reverence, thus the viewers BELIEVE IN DRAGONS.
1 Star for Chewbacca and the adorable penguin pals.
Dear Disney: Go Fuck Yourselves.
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2/10
A deadly insult to George Lukas, The Original Trilogy and my favorite movie character ever
Luke - attempting to kill a helpless sleeping boy? Are we speaking about the same Luke who went to his father, that terror of the whole Galaxy, not to kill him but to save him, even with the price of his own life? Luke for whom the Force and Love were the same? Luke, the most noble, selfless, sincere, honest and human character in the whole SF cinema history, - having an impulse to save a problem by killing a boy who didn't do any harm yet? Are these people absolutely sure that they've watched The Original Trilogy? And if they did, - why didn't they inderstand a word of its moral and ethical message?
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2/10
TLJ is to Star Wars what Batman V Superman is to DC
By now, I have watched the Last Jedi twice. The first showing I experienced as an experienced star wars fan, and like most of us I walked out of the theatre trying to persuade myself I had a good time.
When I walked in for a second time, it was with my girlfriend. She likes star wars, but not to the extend of being labelled a devotee like most of us. I tried to watch this movie as if this was the very first in a franchise. It worked for me - there were parts that dragged, but overall it was a good, Disney-in-space action flick.
Walking out, I realised that the problem is not with the movie on its own, but with the movie as a part of the whole. I fully agree with every Star Wars fan on how Disney is indeed ruining the franchise's story, history and lore and trying to re-write it into a version better fitting with its theme parks and profit margins. No surprise there - Disney's in it for the money, couldn't care less for the fans. What I find really interesting, however, is the difference of opinion between critics and fans. I've only seen this raw difference once before. It had me concerned there, it has me certain now to paraphrase one of TLJ's famous lines. So. Let's compare three films - Batman V Superman, The Justice League, and The Last Jedi.
Characters -
In Batman V Superman, Superman is portrayed like a God-like entity. Just like in Man of Steel, he fights city-levelling battles within civilian range. He is co-responsible for the deaths of thousands, does not inspire hope at all, and is mostly fearsome to the human populace. Batman is a murderous old man, who uses technology to end his enemies' lives and is ready to go to no ends to kill Superman. The story works on its own, but it does not really work on how the characters were originally written (both of them refusing to take a life) and as such the story had the fans frustrated, and divided. The critics rightfully mentioned all of the above, including the movie's coherence and editing issues, and hammered the film to a 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans gave it a 60%. The hardcore fans could not accept the story's travesty. The average movie goer liked the cinematography and direction.
In the Justice League, WB tried to salvage some of BvS shortcomings by being truer to the characters. Superman smiles more. He cares about civilians. So does Batman. The new characters make the film less grim, and the humour helps. As a result the audience gave the film a 72% on RT. Critics, however, insisted that the villain was one dimensional, that they hated Cavill's moustache CGI, and that the heroes were just loud, blew stuff up, and you couldn't connect to them. 40%.
Onto TLJ:
Luke Skywalker (Star Wars' version of Superman personality wise), has become a bitter cow-milking hermit. He does not care about the world he helped save by confronting the most powerful Sith ever. He is ready to kill his nephew, after risking his own life to save his father who was and remains the most well written villain in the Star Wars lore. The character is nothing like the character that drove the franchise. Leia has developed powers without any backstory as to how or why. Rey is the very definition of one-dimensional character. Perfect. Flawless. Powerful. No explanation as to how or why. The villain, Snoke, is a CGI individual who dies mid-movie in a way that even Steppenwolf would find ridiculous. The rest of the cast is divided into camps based on their gender and skin color. You have the white male-dominated retarded first order who are there to receive puns from the anything-but-white-male resistance. Those things infuriate the hard core fans, myself included. But the average movie goer enjoys the beautiful cinematography, the sort of okay writing, the explosions and the good direction. The critics praise Ryan for breathing in a fresh air to the franchise, for taking it to a new direction, for experimenting, for changing the characters to something new (mind- those same critics blamed the justice league that it essentially soft-rebooted the franchise by reverting Superman and Batman to how we knew them in the comic books). TLJ Results on Rotten Tomatoes:
critics - 93
fans - 56
In conclusion:
Batman V Superman:
critics: 25,
fans 60
TLJ:
critics: 93,
fans:56
In two movies suffering from similar flaws (lore issues, character issues, coherence(, and yet are both beautiful when it comes to colour palette, cinematography, and direction, the audience gives similar scores. Die hard fans dislike the divergence from the lore and character personalities. Average movie goer enjoys the action, the pretty colours, and the explosions on screen. Critics, however, stomp on DC and praise Disney. Interesting, is it not?
Kind of like walking into a Disney Store and finding yourself surrounded by Marvel and Star Wars toys.
With that in mind, and as a fan of Star Wars, I think I would rather go with the fans rather than the so-called online critics.
Thank you for your patience.
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1/10
I don't understand how this has 8 stars. It is trash.
Look at ALL the other reviews. The highest I seen was 6 stars with an average of 1-2 stars for this horrible movie. Disney destroyed all of the beloved original characters to bring in new talent-less talent to take over the Star Wars universe. As long as these monstrosities keep making money, Disney will keep ruining the name of Star Wars.
****Spoiler*****
In forums I always said they would either turn Luke to the dark side or kill Luke off because he was the last of the original cast and white. They did and it was despicable how they killed him off. LUKE was suppose to be the balance to the force, but for feminism's sake, they make Rey the balance which is ridiculous.
I will just stick to the original three amazing Star Wars movies and ANYTHING beyond that I will ignore. For sure ANY other Star Wars movies they bring out, no matter what kind of spin off it is, I will NOT pay to see any more of this trash.
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10/10
Ignore the "fans" who hated this film, they're blinded by the Dark Side.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars film since anything the original trilogy produced and introduces a new, innovative storyline that adds more complexity to the series. Rian Johnson breaks the traditional Star Wars formula and challenges the notions of, "What is a Star Wars film?" and answers that question by being completely unlike any other Star Wars film prior.
The change in direction is clear with the story and style of the film; while Force Awakens focused on nostalgia (as it should have), The Last Jedi ditches the nostalgia trip and focused on developing the most complex storyline in Star Wars yet. Gone are the one-dimensional characters, and in are the conflicted, emotional characters who are the source of what makes this such a compelling Star Wars film. One-dimensional characters were what made Star Wars great in the first place, but it's time to move on with more tension and dynamics with the characters using modern storytelling. Johnson's directing really shines through in portraying the more abstract ideas of the film's plot, and uses perfect pacing to evenly space out three total plots until they all converge onto the closing act.
For the action aficionados, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has the best action in a Star Wars film yet. I wanted to leap out of my seat during many moments due to the sheer emotional capacity and thrills I felt were packed into single scenes. This is definitely an important factor that contributes to my rating; the action is only good because the storyline set it up to full emotional thrill ride.
Just like the characters, the film isn't perfect. There are certain moments that can be received negatively, and I get that. The deciding factor, however, is how you want to interpret those moments. It's one thing for a scene to be questionable, but it's another thing to sit back and think about what Rian Johnson was trying to portray with those scenes. They all mean something in this film, and the degree of "weirdness" to this scene isn't even all that bad as fans may complain. They all make sense, and, if they don't now, they will; don't forget that this is only the middle film of a trilogy! We still have more to see with how this arc goes. I was able to overlook some of these flaws (which overall had to do with dialogue, bland characterization, and weird moments that initially don't seem to make sense). They make sense/will make sense in the long run!
Many of the fans who complain are the ones who hold the most expectations on how the film SHOULD go; they want answers to immediate questions and hold certain ideas on characterizations, so much that the slightest difference in expectation and lack of answers will anger them, so they're the easiest to disappoint, and the quickest to react. They are close-minded and toxic! They are blinded by nostalgia and do not like change, and don't know good stuff when they see it! This is a quality film; whether you like it or not is ultimately and only up to you. Do not let them fool you, and think for yourself on this one!
Star Wars: The Last Jedi reads like a novel; you can watch it multiple times and pick it apart layer by layer, and still find more and more prevalent themes and motifs in the film. It's beautifully written and pictured to portray a fine part of the trilogy that manages to stand on its own. Fans who hate this film will end up eating those words some day on a film that brings a new and unexpected take on the Star Wars saga. Go towards the Light side, turn off your expectations for the film, and enjoy it for what it is. And may the Force be with you, and us all.
SPOILERS BELOW:
Addressing some of the issues people have with this film:
Why is everyone mad at Luke's characterization? He literally says in the film that the Jedi shouldn't be put on a pedestal, and neither should he. He's not perfect! The whole point of the Original Trilogy was to learn of Luke's journey through finding the light; it's not gonna end and he's not gonna be pure. I'd take a multifaceted, multi-dimensional Luke any day over a boring, one-dimensional Luke.
Leia's floating: OK, this was weird when I first saw it, but the point still stands is that Leia never uses the Force, but she can when she needs it in cases of survival. This could have been portrayed better, and the scene didn't need to be as long or as hokey as it looked (straight out of a 70s superhero film). I agree this was a polarizing moment in the film, but the film's main storyline was strong enough for me to at least believe in the scene at the moment, and overlook its flaws.
Killing Snoke off was both necessary and important. It serves as a shock for most of us who expected Snoke to survive until Episode IX, and also represents the film's removal of nostalgia and focus on a fresh take for the Star Wars franchise. Having him alive and be the "main villain" of IX would have been too similar to having Palpatine as the main villain of the original trilogy. Snoke is a one-dimensional character with a backstory we couldn't care less for, and killing him off is symbolic of the film's intentions to kill off what Star Wars used to be and emphasize what it could be now. Let go of the past, kill it if you have to, as Kylo Ren says; we don't need a repeat of the Original Trilogy's formula.
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1/10
I cant believe they made me give them an entire star
Okay so who is on here reviewing this film with more than one star, are you actually mad?
Hours of pointless story twists that add nothing to the arc. Now if you can destroy an entire battle fleet by turning one of your ships to face it and jumping to light speed... do that at the start, all your other ships survive, film over run time 43 seconds. Why on gods green earth would you do this slow speed space chase, letting them pick off your ships one by one as they run out of fuel?
Scrap that why not all jump to light speed in different directions so they cant follow all of you, meet up later still lose only 1 ship (the one they follow).
So a direct letter to the creator of this nonsense, quit the film industry you have no right to work in it, especially on a title this big, episode 7 returned star wars to its roots, you buried it in the ground like a corpse.....
I don't ask for reboots or remakes very often, But JJ Abrams don't start 9 yet, remake this piece of crap first and we will forgive Disney this transgression and all agree it never happened.
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I am not a rabid Star Wars fan boy like some you will see on IMDB. I loved episodes IV-VI but I don't know all the canon behind every character, location,etc. like some do. I would say I am part of the majority of Star Wars fans; love the universe but am open-minded enough to let it evolve. That being said, I was pretty disappointed with this movie. To be fair, I thought TFA was just ok. I really didn't care for the Kylo Ren character being such a whiny brat the whole time, but Rey and Finn were decent characters. Rogue One was enjoyable and provided a neat backstory to events in episode IV. This movie had some real problems...
***SPOILERS***
the humor seemed really forced. The opening scene dialog between Hux and Poe was cringe-inducing. The other jokes were poorly timed as well.
the entire space chase plot was laughable. There are no other First Order ships that can intercept the last Rebel cruiser? It was like watching a low-speed police chase on Cops.
Leah can survive the vacuum of space and Force-pull herself to safety even after never showing any Force power before? Several people laughed during that scene.
Luke reverted back to the whiny kid from episode IV except now he is much older and crustier.
Kylo Ren was a much more developed character in this movie, which was one bright spot. We saw no other character exploration as everyone else seemed two-dimensional and there only to move the ridiculous plot along.
apparently one fighter can completely render a dreadnought defenseless
Snoke and Phasma were interesting characters and they were just killed off in the dumbest ways possible. This was probably the biggest problem. No explanation of Snoke at all. His scenes had all the makings of a big buildup and then a nice reveal, but nope Kylo tricks this supposed Jedi master and kills him.
there is really nothing left to explore. This movie closes the book on the original material and starts the universe fresh. The problem is that both TFA and TLJ are pretty much recycles of the original three movies so where do they go from here. What next? A Boba-Fett type character that is hunting down Poe or Finn?
I am not angry, just sad and disappointed. I think the reboot had some possibilities, but this recycled, annoyingly cheesy, and just poorly written script effectively kills the franchise for me. It was a good run.
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Ah, The Last Jedi. I had such a wonderful feeling when I was driving towards the cinema to see this movie, it's great to feel genuinely excited about Star Wars again. I was very intrigued to see this film after reading some mixed reviews on the subject, however I won't argue against those that specifically like/hate the movie, to each his own. I loved the way Rian Johnson wrote the Last Jedi. It's very clear that he had a very different (and more dramatic) take on Star Wars. He basically took everything J.J. had set up and decided to throw it out the window, that takes balls! It was in good intention though, juxtaposing the original good versus evil tale with one of beyond good and evil.
The first thing that springs to mind is of course the midpoint of the film, where the death of the all powerful Supreme Leader Snoke takes the story in a brand new direction. Having this pinnacle of evil fade away and thus diverging from the Sidious angle, leaves you completely stranded. Shortly after, Rey is confronted with her meaningless heritage, leaving the protagonist conflicted and in doubt. Suddenly the story stops being about heroes, and starts being about people. It's a classic theme of 'there is no good or bad', in the narrative context of the ultimate heroic tale. I understand that this change of heart might be upsetting for a lot of people who enjoyed the regular structure, though personally I felt that this writing choice made the story intriguing. Would we really be satisfied if Rey turned out to be the daughter of either a hero/villain? Would the reveal of Snoke as some previously mentioned character (Sidious, Darth Jar Jar kek) really stimulate the viewers that have such high hopes and expectations? The choice made sense, and was clearly intentional since throughout the film there were small hints that suggested evil doings on both sides.
The most obvious example of this is the fact that Finn discovers that the arms dealers are selling to both the First Order and the Rebellion, and are propagating evil with its profits (the blood money casino). But there's also Luke, who in his conviction to save lives, considers to murder his own nephew to do the 'good' thing. Johnson really delivered on the theme in the saltgrounds, when Finn decides it's best to fly himself into the cannon to save his comrades, only to be stopped in the last second. In this scene Finn basically became the incarnation of utilitarianism, to then be struck down by his friend in an act of deontology. We're even introduced to DJ, a character riding in between both good and evil, AND utilitarianism/deontology.
This take on things makes the Last Jedi the first Star Wars film to question the motives of actual war. Though this alternative take on the structure of Star Wars is not crowd pleasing, it is one that I can appreciate very much considering the quality of the narrative.
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I liked it, but I didn't love it. I feel like saying that is just asking for someone to point a sniper rifle at my head, but I won't lie that I have problems with this movie. Not sure why I'm discussing my opinion on the movie now since most of America has probably already seen this movie twice. However, I have things to say so why not?
The story picks up immediately where "The Force Awakens" leaves off; what remains of the Resistance, led by Leia Organa, is on the run from the First Order while Rey has gone off in hopes to retrieve Luke Skywalker since he may be their last hope to defeat Supreme Leader Snoke and his army. Finn wakes up as the attack is persists on the Resistance and has to come up with a plan with Poe Dameron and a new character named Rose Tico to create an escape for what remains of Organa's army.
From the start, this is a very entertaining movie for sure. The characters are all likable and interesting to watch. The action is actually some of the best the entire series has ever had to offer. The effects are spot on, along with the cinematography which is absolutely terrific. I was totally engaged in the dynamic between Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Rey (Daisy Ridley). I was hooked onto the internal struggle that continues on with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). And I was actually pleasantly surprised by the character arc that Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) goes through. Also expect a few heart string pulling scenes with Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). There is some astonishingly great moments in this film that I really did love.
So if I love so much about it then why do I only like it as a whole? Because the story, while not bad, is very familiar much like how "The Force Awakens" was very familiar. "The Force Awakens" is known to be extremely reminiscent of "A New Hope" with elements of "Empire Strikes Back". "The Last Jedi" I would say also has a very similar issue being similar to "Empire" and "Return of the Jedi". I wouldn't say that makes it a bad movie by any means, I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching it. However, I was hoping for something a little more original and for something in this movie to shock me. May I feel that way because of how much "The Last Jedi" parallels itself to "Empire Strikes Back" which is a highly original and surprising sequel for its time and even today continues to shock first time viewers of it. "The Last Jedi" follows a lot of the same beats of "Empire" and "Return" that it's hard not to compare; a somewhat naive youth travels to a remote planet in order to be trained by an old, quirky Jedi master. While that goes on the youth's friends are being chased across the galaxy by a dark shadowy figure along with his army of Storm Troopers to the point where they have to take refuge on another planet. Rey learns about the force, what makes up the light and dark side of the force, experiences surreal visions, and has a revelation about her heritage much like Luke Skywalker went through in "Empire". There is a whole third act revolving around whether Rey will join the dark side, Kylo Ren attempting to convince her to join him like Darth Vader tried with Luke in "Return". Snoke acting in place of the Emperor in "Return of the Jedi" when he brings the young Jedi to his throne room on a giant space station to enable this big confrontation as he reveals the chaos ensuing on her friends in the distance.
It is near impossible not to see the similarities and that is a huge reason why I can't say I loved this movie. I already have "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", I don't particularly need a repackaged version of those films. But there is enough differences and slightly unique turns that the story does take that I still found myself enjoying the movie. I am trying my best not to spoil as much as I can, everything I've said can be easily speculated from seeing the trailers so I don't believe I've said anything that's really all that hidden. Speaking of those unique aspects of the story, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker is one of the best qualities of the film. He is equal parts funny, intimidating, cool, and even kinda scary in parts. Hamill absolutely owns this role, hell I think he fights to own this whole movie. He is giving his "A" game to this performance here in "The Last Jedi" and is a huge factor in separating this movie from being "just a rehash". Rey is easily one of my favorite heroes of the entire franchise, largely because Daisy Ridley is so expressive in every emotion she performs that I can't help but sympathize with her character and want to know what will happen next with her. That and I just love her energy that she gives in every line she reads.
Now Kylo Ren...my god, he is so good in this. I really loved Adam Driver's performance in "The Force Awakens" and was one of my favorite parts of that installment; in "The Last Jedi" he has become one of my favorite villains of any movie in recent memory and certainly rivals being one of the great villains in all of Star Wars history. The struggle and torment of this character is so interesting to watch that I am constantly wondering what he's going to do next. His relationship between him and Rey is nail biting at times as it develops. Starting out severely rocky of course with how the events of the last movie panned out, but then slowly progresses into an oddly believable bond that they share. Both of them trying to find their place in the world, or galaxy in this case, and maybe even finding it together. Again, another element that helps differentiate itself from being "Empire Strikes Back...Again".
John Boyega's character, Finn, returns in this movie and tags along with a new character named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran). Personally, I didn't have any real problem with their subplot together as it seems like many critics and fans do. I thought that it was fine. I didn't love their story line, but I thought that it worked well enough, didn't take up that much screen time, and it concluded in a satisfying way. Could it have been cut? Sure. Could it have been better? Most certainly. But I can't see much else that Finn could have been up to in this rather simple story. I won't spoil exactly what Finn and Rose do, but they have to embark on a mission in order to help the Resistance escape certain death.
Poe Dameron is also a part of this plan that results in a lot of conflict between him and Leia as well as Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) who takes over the lead for escaping the New Order when Leia becomes preoccupied. Even though I did like Poe Dameron's arc in learning how not to always go on the offense and has to know when not to be so aggressive in his plans, I didn't much care for his dynamic with Laura Dern's character, Holdo. I found her relatively unlikable and even idiotic when it is revealed what her plan is. But it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker from my enjoyment, just a small irritance honestly.
Aside from that, I don't really have any other criticisms on the film except for one that's actually a spoiler so I won't get into it. But even with that spoiler I have a problem with, I actually do kind of like what will result from it and opens the doors wide as to where things can go in the next sequel. If you've seen the movie then you might know what I'm talking about. Overall I did really like this movie and I do recommend it as a highly entertaining space adventure epic. The characters are great, the visuals are breathtaking, and the story is still solid even if it does feel a bit derivative. It's just far from being perfect is all and I wish that it would have taken a few more risks that would shock the audience. If you liked "The Force Awakens" then you will like "The Last Jedi". If you had a problem with "Force Awakens" being so similar to "A New Hope" then "Last Jedi" won't be much of an improvement to you.
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It is hard to write a review about this film without spoiling it, but I'll make an attempt.
As a life-long Star Wars fan who goes out of his way to avoid the prequels and watch the despecialized editions, I wanted to love the new films. TFA delivered, in my opinion, in every way.
Last Jedi is a little hard to follow. It seemed like they seemed to squeeze too much in. Some of the rules of the force we knew and embraced are "bent". And there are some comically bad sequences.
With that being said, it tugs on the heartstrings and offers some reunions with old friends that will touch you and maybe even make you shed a tear.
It leaves a sense of "what the heck is next?" I don't really know. But at the end of the day it's good Star Wars.
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10/10
Fantastic on every level - this is what going to the movies is all about!
This movie is phenomenal; the bitching and whining from all the nerds on here is completely insane. Don't bother reading all nerds crying "that's not my Luke!" Set aside your fan theories and cosplay scripts and watch the movie for what it is. The characters' story arcs and motivations are all on the screen and justified. The last Jedi pays homage to the original series while at the same time burns down traditions and setting the story up for a new generation of heroes. The special effects are incredible; the movie is shot beautifully. There are twists and turns, real stakes, and truly emotional moments. The Last Jedi is so good because taps into the heart of Star Wars, astutely exploring themes of love, hate, balance, family and hope. May the force be with us always : )
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Since 1983 fans have awaited the return of Luke Skywalker, we sat through the prequels and the reboot force awakens and then finally after over 30 years this is the garbage we get. All i wanted was to see Luke as a fully realized Jedi Master ignite his green lightbaber and take on the Knights of Ren or Snoke or Ben Solo. The whole movie is a complete anticlimax with no answers to the questions from TFA. Why does Maz have luke saber, who is Rey , who is Snoke im pretty sure they dont know or care. Im not looking forward to anymore Star wars films, it ended when Leia flew through space like Marry Poppins
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1/10
A sucker punch to the gut for Star Wars fans everywhere
Abysmal failure. A sucker punch to the gut for Star Wars fans everywhere.
1. Luke. Our greatest Hollywood hero just dies (vanishes) for no reason. We'll never see the jedi master in action. No lightsaber fight either. There was a bit of hope when he showed up on the mine planet.... Finally we'll see Luke's full power as he takes on the whole army! Nope. Luke isn't even there. And milking an alien? No, just no.
2. The pointless middle of the movie. As it turns out, the entire casino planet plot + DJ were useless to the story and served only to eat time.
3. Rey's parents. It feels like Disney has been handed such a great legacy, but the decision was just to throw it in the trash. No Rey Solo. No Rey Skywalker. No Rey Kenobi. Nothing. No interesting familial connection whatsoever. This was billed as the new trilogy's super climactic moment, but, well... It ended up being the biggest let down. Just like Luke throwing his lightsaber over the cliff.
4. Force texting. Rey and Kylo's Force connection was interesting, but ended up getting massively overused and ridiculous. A shirtless Kylo? Really?
5. Leia flying with the Force after getting blown up and frozen in the cold vacuum of space.
6. Rey's non-existent jedi training. Luke's disillusionment was an interesting part of the story--for the first 30 minutes. Then it started to destroy all we knew and loved about our hero. By the time he comes around to training Rey it's too late. She gets one or two minutes of illumination from the master and then is off to face Ren.
7. Snoke. No backstory. An anti-climactic death. He could read all of Kylo's thoughts, but perhaps missed that Kylo was about to cut him in half.
8. Unlimited transport ships. At the rate the First Order was blowing them up, the Resistance should have been left with about -20 ships.
9. Constant plot holes and things that contradicted the SW universe. Using the Force halfway across the Galaxy. The tracking device that doesn't need a tracking beacon. The main First Order ship gets blown up along with its hangar bay, yet the First Order then manages to land its whole army in prep for the final battle.
We're used to bashing the prequels for their bad acting and wonky CGI, but one thing they did have going was an interesting plot (for the most part) and decent consistency.
The Last Jedi has some decent acting and good special effects. And that's it. It takes what was an incredible Star Wars legacy and like Luke's lightsaber just throws it in the trash. It was such a painfully bad movie that we're all left wondering if the trilogy can possibly be redeemed in Episode IX.
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**SPOILER ALERT**
I walked into this movie with really high expectations. Perhaps too high. This film let me down on every level, and I will now attempt to explain way -- so beware of spoilers!!
The movie opens up like you'd expect, with Rey on that island with Luke Skywalker. But then, instead of provided us the long-awaited answers to the pressing questions we've been faced with since The Force Awakens, the film avoids that altogether by having Kylo Ren show up in the first five minutes and kill Luke. Yep, that's right. This movie promised to surprise you, and it sure as hell did. Anyway, then Kylo Ren takes off his mask to reveal the familiar Adam Driver face we all know, but then, there's a twist (as there is with almost everything in this movie) -- his "human" face is just another mask, and he removes that to reveal that he's actually Yoda! We all though that Yoda died in Return of the Jedi, but nope -- he's back. And it's not just him -- you were probably wondering how the two-foot tall Yoda fit into a six-foot tall Kylo Ren costume. It's because he standing on top of an entire family of Yoda's, all inhabiting the costume. They all disperse from the costume and explain how all the bad things "Kylo" has done is just a misunderstanding -- in fact, when they kill Luke, it was just an accident because they could wield the lightsaber correctly.
After it is revealed that Mrs. Yoda has quite the attitude, she begins to insult Rey's figure, which prompts her to kick one of the baby Yoda's off a cliff, a decision she immediately regrets once Mrs. Yoda gets ahold of the lightsaber -- more on that later.
We then cut to a scene that is actually from the Force Awakens, where Han Solo is trying to make peace with Kylo Ren before he is stabbed with his lightsaber. Once he is stabbed, though, and thrown off the bridge to a seemingly endless fall, the scene is extended to reveal that "he" rips off his mask to reveal he is actually Princess Leia!! The couple decided to play a practical joke on Finn by having Princess Leia accompany him to Starkiller Base with a Han Solo mask, while Han Solo stayed behind with a Princess Leia mask! This was probably the one good surprise the movie had to offer, since Carrie Fisher actually died and Harrison Ford did not. It was clever the way they pulled it off too, and means, luckily, that Han Solo will be with us for the rest of the trilogy.
From there, the movie provides some genuinely good lightsaber duels and spaceships battles that we've come to expect from the Star Wars franchise, but then comes to a screeching halt at about the ninety minute mark, when all the characters, sitting around on the Millennium Falcon, perform an extended musical number with at least four songs. I was okay for Chewbacca's solo number, who displays a surprisingly good singing ability, but once BB-8 and R2-D2 get together for the duet, the whole thing just falls apart. I recommend that anyone who needs to use to bathroom or get a popcorn refill do so after Chewbacca is done singing, because the three songs that follow are all ham-fisted and thrown together. I feel like John Williams, the composer, put all of his energy into the Wookie number, and then only had a couple of hours to compose the next three. Even the lyrics for those ones don't make sense -- I'm sure BB-8 had something really powerful to say in his song, but among all the beeps, I couldn't even tell if he was speaking English.
Anyway, the reason they're in the Millennium Falcon at all is to come to the planet where Rey is to come rescue her, but once they show up find Luke and Rey dead (Luke was by accident, but Rey had worn Mrs. Yoda's patience thin.) The family of Yoda's is there, though, so they decide to just pick them up, and then band together to destroy what is basically Death Star #4. Yep, you thought Star Wars wouldn't do it again, after A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, and The Force Awakens (and sort of the Phantom Menace and Rogue One), but they don't disappoint -- there is yet another Death Star, this time with even more power than ever before. Surprise, surprise. In a movie full of ridiculous surprises, they decided to keep this one cliche.
Of course, they destroy it, and then all get together and celebrate, only for C-3PO to propose to R2-D2 and ask for his hand and marriage, and then reveal that they are actually Luke's uncle! Princess Leia comes back from the dead as the ghost figure with Obi Wan, and Jar Jar Binks reveals that he was actually R2-D2 the entire time! Also, Finn? Lando's father. I know, I'm just as surprised as you, especially considering that they reveal that he wasn't even black at all -- he was white the whole time. Also, the Yoda family all get together to inhabit a storm trooper uniform, and then go on to kill as many of the good guys as they can with their blaster. That's where the movie ends, although there is a post-credit sequence in which the Porg, the cute and cuddly little creature from the trailers, reveals that he's actually a carnivorous monster and eats Chewbacca alive. It's played for laughs, though, so you can probably still bring the kids, although the fifteen-minute long cocaine sniffing sequence may be too much for them.
Anyway, I've probably digressed a bit too much with this extended plot synopsis, but what I'm trying to point out is that this does not in any way feel like a Star Wars movie. I understand why this has a 56% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes -- there are just too many weird surprises that no one will expect, and between all the character deaths, the revelations that certain characters are actually completely different characters, and musical numbers, fans will most likely leave very disappointed. Critics loved it, probably because it's just so "different" and "brave," but honestly, even if I were willing to except all the ridiculous twists in this film, I don't think it does one bit of good in terms of storytelling. The visuals are great, the special effects are top-notch, and the sound design is immaculate, but these are things we've come to expect from a Star Wars movie. In terms of characters, plot, and music, this movie took some very weird and unconventional turns that were way too strange for me and other fans of this franchise. The fact that this feels less like a Star Wars movie than the prequels is really saying something, and that isn't a good thing. I walked out surprised, confused, and ultimately disappointed, and I just hope that when J.J. Abrams takes the reins again for Episode IX, he will return to the heart of the franchise, and bring back the elements that made it so great. I loved the original Star Wars trilogy and 2015's Episode VII, I hate the prequels, but this film is by far the worst of the bunch, and I hope that Episode IX is a little more akin to the originals than to this strange departure. I can only hope, though. You could even say it's... a new hope? Sorry, I needed to end with a bit of humor, because there is none in this movie, besides Mrs. Yoda's one-liners which are surprisingly risqué, but also hilarious.
Anyway, I will end my overly long review here. Skip this Star Wars movie and watch the originals -- and hope Episode IX returns to the glory of the originals in the same way Episode VII did.
My rating: 2/10 (One star for special effects and visuals, and one star for Chewbacca's solo number)
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I fully expected not to like this movie, having been entertained but disappointed by all that came after the first three. Well, I loved every bit of The Last Jedi! I appreciated the story arcs of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa, portrayed beautifully by Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher (dec). Will I go see the next one? Yes of course, but still with a healthy dose of skepticism - one can only hope that it might be as good as this one.
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So I was super excited about seeing this movie and was left confused and disappointed. So this plot makes it seem like Luke was weak and scared while Leia is stronger than Luke has ever been. I mean even in the extended universe series. As far as any answers on Rey's past I was also disappointed. Not sure if you setting up the next movie but kind of let me down with this one. I just read an article where even Mark Hamil states he didn't like the script or how he's portrayed in this movie...but he sucked it up and did it anyway.
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3/10
Disappointing movie with one or two good set pieces
I had quite high hopes for this movie as I've enjoyed some of Rian Johnson's films in the past. The Last Jedi ultimately fell flat for me however.
The main problem was Rian was extremely cautious in his main themes and tried to be ambitious in the ancillary parts, but this created a disconnect making the side quests and extra characters seem pointless and underwritten.
The whole script was quite weak, but that's never been Star Wars movies' strongest points in fairness. The whole movie did need tightening up though, the whole middle section was baggy and unmemorable.
In contrast a movie like Rogue One was safe at the edges but ambitious in it's main theme. The Force Awakens was safe in most ways but introduced several interesting characters. Both these movies were superior to TLJ in my opinion.
The humour in TLJ grated on me quite a bit. The actual gags in themselves weren't the problem but rather the context in which they were placed as every time they occurred they undercut a dramatic scene, or a plot point.
It made me think am I supposed to take this bit seriously or not, or really care.
Star Wars has always had humour but it's been character driven. A lot of the gags in this were misplaced and unnecessary.
At the end I thought what has actually happened, has this universe become more interesting, do I want to see more of these movies. The answer is I'm not sure.
I worry that we're going to seesaw between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi rehashes till everyone get sick of them.
Some things I liked were Mark Hamill who added a gravitas to older Luke. The interplay between Kylo Ren and Rey was interesting and Adam Driver has grown into the part well.
Leia was a powerful character with some interesting choices and wasn't just a damsel in distress. (although one scene jumped the shark for me)
The end battle scene was visually stunning.
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What the hell did I just watch?
This movie is an affront to the star wars name.
I paid to watch a toy commercial mixed with a videogame cutscene, mixed with scenes stolen for episode 4.
And the acting oh my god. The bad guy in the star destroyer, only thing missing the top hat, cape and a moustache, to be a complete caricature of a villain. Peter cushing must be rolling on his grave again, after the performance he gave in episode 4, and this thing.
This show us, that there is something fishy going on with the critics...
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I did not expect this film would satisfy any avid Star Wars fan, especially those whom believed that the film would be closure with grandeur.
Discloser: I am not what you would call an avid Star Wars fan, however I have followed the episodes and have always considered myself a fan. In the 70's my parents took me to the Mann's Chinese Theater to see the Episode IV (the first film) when it opened.
*Spoiler Alert*
Yes, the film is fraught with the same theme's that has come before, strange timing with jokes, new characters (with little backstory, each film has done that), and of course some of the cheesy scene's like Leia flying through space. All expected an in my opinion, congruent with the other films.
This is the conclusion of the story of Luke Skywalker. Framing the film, the back story of Luke is quite distraught. The loss of his parents when he was very young to living with his Aunt and Uncle and then losing them to the Empire when he was in his 20's, falling in love with a princess that, unbeknownst to him is his sister, to discovering his own father is alive and one of the most destructive entities in the galaxy and his father's attempt to kill him and even cut off his hand.
I thought the film portrayed his character quite realistically, spending the rest of his days as a hermit. Granted that the realism of Luke's life and the aspects of fantasy can feel disjointed.
Ultimately he discovers that his care taking of the Jedi scripts is in vain and sacrifices his own physical existence to save his sister and the rebellion.
I am not a big 3D film fan and find myself removing the glasses in several films I have seen in 3D, however this films visuals are FANTASTIC and worth the extra price for 3D viewing.
Go in with NO expectations and you will enjoy the ride!
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TO ALL MY LONG-TIME STAR WARS FANS, I AM SO SORRY :(
Here are "some" problems I thought about while watching this movie.
I am definitely not the biggest fan but I always enjoy seeing how passionate real fans are when it comes to this series. For some, this series is their life and I feel so bad to know that many of them were disappointed and probably heartbroken while watching this movie. I barely got into the series right before The Force Awakens came out and I loved it . I really didn't think that they could ruin this movie . It's to precious to be given to a weak director. *cough cough* Okay here we go.
Rose's character felt so unnecessary. I thought it would pick up for her but it didn't. Her death was awkward. She has so much energy to talk to Finn and kiss him and then she just dies.
Luke Skywalker vs Kylo Ren. Jedi Legend vs Wannabe Darth Vader. Teacher vs Student. Uncle vs Nephew. I was so excited to finally see an awesome lightsaber battle. I was thinking , "Oh man , this might just top Obi-Wan vs Anakin." I was terribly wrong. Hahaha. Turned out that Luke was a hologram or whatever. He was actually meditating on a rock and then he suddenly dies. There were no signs of him being sick or weak (none that I caught). Wow I was so hyped. And then I felt like I was slapped so hard in the face. When Luke survived the attack on him and just dusted it off I was bouncing in my seat and so excited. I wondered if Luke was going to fight at all and how he would because he was old. He teased his fighting skills a little but that battle ended way to soon . Here's the thing. IF LUKE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE, HAVE HIM DIE ATLEAST AFTER AN ACTUAL EPIC BATTLE WITH KYLO. A BATTLE THAT COULD HOPEFULLY LAST LONGER THAN 40 SECONDS. Leia was able to hug Luke but Kylo's lightsaber went straight through him. As in not affecting him at all? Ok.
"Captain Phasma will have a bigger role in this movie." Right . Maybe a tad bit bigger. The fight with her and Finn was cool for the 30 seconds it lasted. When Finn picked up the electric baton. I thought we could get a cool camera angle of it in his hand and some cool shot of him opening it up. But you barley see it. Captain Phasma dies by the ground collapsing. *Face palm.*
Total lightsaber use in the movie was probably 4 minutes. I don't feel like I'm exaggerating that at all.
THE WORD "WARS" is in the title of this series. Where was he action though ? The space battles were cool but everyone wants to see lightsaber duels.
Oh Chewbacca. It was heartbreaking to see that all he fought in the movie were the little birds with doggy eyes. Pardon my lack of knowledge of the name of those creatures. He didn't use his bow or anything . Like wow. It pissed me off.
One of the funniest parts was when Luke threw his old lightsaber behind him when Rey handed it to him . We were all wondering what he would do with it he moment he grabbed it. I thought it was funny but it felt like some SNL skit . That lightsaber has so much history and he was intending to throw it in the ocean.
R2-D2 and C3PO should have been more involved. They are a funny duo but they were barely used . Another face palm guys .
I thought Leia was going to die in the movie twice . No disrespect to Carrie Fisher at all . May she Rest In Peace. I thought she was going to die out in space, but she somehow uses the force to pull herself back to the ship. I was confused . I also thought that she would sacrifice herself and kamikaze into Snokes ship.
Speaking of Snoke. He was he puppet master. The final boss that was hiding in the shadows waiting to reveal himself. I understand that fans were so hype talking about him and making theories about him for so long. He seemed so powerful and evil. He forced pulled that general though FaceTime. But he wasn't powerful enough to sense that the lightsaber next to him was being controlled by the force. I get more and more mad as I'm writing this review.
I thought the jokes in the movie were actually funny. Tone it down just a little bit maybe? Just a little. For example, that orange character , I forgot what her name was but she was in the middle of a gunfight while FaceTiming (we'll just call it FaceTiming). Is she really that skilled to be joking around and dreaming about the master code breaker or whatever ? Not really when your life is on the line.
It was awesome to see Yoda . The initial CG looked horrible , I wanted to cry . It was a good scene. Where's Anakin's ghost ? I really felt like he would have contacted someone by now. He died happy right ? At the end of Return of the Jedi , his ghost was smiling and all. But that's all we got ? *sigh* okay .
The coolest battle was definitely the one with the guards , Kylo, and Rey. I was not disappointed about that. It was like Batman vs. Superman though. Why wait for the entire length of the movie to finally give the fans what they wanted? Why dude ? Why ? I guess I'm an action guy . I really wanted to see some lightsaber action .
Darth Vader's fight scene in Rouge One ? Epic. Obi-Wan vs Anakin ? Even more epic. The Darth Maul fight ? Geez what happened to the epic fight scenes ?!?!? :(
Turns out Rey's parents were nobodies. Sorry guys , all of your fan theory YouTube videos were failures. You guys overthought everything. Her parents are nobodies that gave her the force ..... I was thinking it'd be Qui Gon . Like someone no one expected . But whatever.
I hate to say I wish this movie was never made. It could've been so much better. This director is the James Wan of this series . James Wan ruined the Fast and The Furious Series with the seventh film . He's a horror film director for crying out loud . Why give him the keys to an action film. I'm going off topic now.
I'm sorry guys. I really am . I have sympathy for all of you . Let's hope J.J. Abraham successfully revives this series once more .
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I liked Ewoks, little Annie and I even didn't dislike Jar Jar but I sure didn't like The last Jedi.
To put this in perspective; my favorite of the original trilogy is Empire but still love the other as much. I didn't hate the prequels, I enjoyed most of it although I didn't like all the trade negotiation stuff, the writing in regards to the love story and pretty much most of Attack of the Clones. While the prequels made me feel very excited it did feel like Star wars for the most part. Then came Force Awakens. Yes, it felt like a bit of a rehash but overall I thought the movie was good. It had some very memorable scenes for sure and clever dialog. And now there is the Last Jedi, which I was looking forward too very much. I was in shock at what I saw.
Key moments sandwiched in between slapstick at a tempo that made those potentially memorable moments feel empty and unimportant. CGI Yoda that looks inferior then the already distracting CGI in the prequels. A story line about a code breaker that felt out of place. Leia in space that felt just silly in it's execution. Raising interest in Snoke as the master manipulator and killing him off in the same scene. That silly ending shot with the boy and his resistance ring. Luke in action but not really. The who-dunnit scenes repeating the same scene from multiple points of views. The ever moving camera. I could go on and on but for me it didn't feel like star wars but more like a Disney fairytale with mayor script and editing problems.
I just felt empty after watching it. No joy, no excitement, just nothing. This makes me sad as I absolutely love Star Wars. I think honestly this is the first Star Wars movie, I'm just not feeling it and have not much interest in watching it again. Which is strange as I watched Attack of the Clones (I really dislike that movie) at least 3 times.
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Wow.. dazed and confused as to how in the heck this movie even gets approved to be part of the Star Wars storyline.
It felt more like a Sandler bad joke comedy parody than an epic Star Wars movie.
Luke milked a space cow more than he did anything Jedi worthy.. unbelievable choices here... Disney is ruining it and director Rian Johnson is a goof nugget for this disasterpiece.
Snore Wars!
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The Star Wars that I've loved for over 30 years, has now ceased to be. Master Skywalker deserved so much better.
Does Rian even like Star Wars? It sure doesn't seem like it, judging by the big sloppy steamer he's done all over it. So so disappointed with what they did with this movie. There's so many plot holes, and it's such a mess.
JJ Abrams is gonna need one hell of a mop bucket to clean this crap up. I'm not gonna go over again what's wrong with it, we're all very aware by now. I'm just another shell shocked, pissed off, life long fan that wanted his say.
This movie had so much potential, if Luke had to go, at least let him go like the hero is is/was.
When he faced the walkers, the were lined up perfectly, that he could be knocked them down like dominoes.
Something, anything, would've been better than the shitshow they gave us.
I'm not even looking forward to episode nine. I never though that would ever happen, and it makes me very sad. Thanks a bunch Rian/Disney. Way to ruin a guy's Christmas.
Hey Disney, are you gonna milk the Star Wars cow like Luke milked that thing in the movie? Yeah, I bet you will...
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5/10
This is not the Star Wars you are looking for. - Mouseverse Version
Let's keep in mind is that this movie was not written and directed by George Lucas, so the movie has an entirely different look and feel. In turn, many people complained that this movie did not feel like Star Wars. Star Wars was bought by Disney, so much of the story formula fits into the Disney story telling format. Having four children I have watched a great deal of Disney movies. I mean nearly all of the animated movies. So, I recognized the format, stances, and interactions from other animated movies. Disney is great at creating enjoyable children oriented, light hearted scenes, but falls short when it comes to creating strong storyline. Instead they rely in a series of enjoyable scenes to satisfy the watcher.
I had to watch the movie a few times before writing this. My first impression was that the writers missed several opportunities to cash in on fan expectations for all the characters. Many solutions to plot situations felt as if the writer did not ask what would be cool to see, what do the fans expect to see, and fits within the legends of these characters. In many ways it was as if the writers realized canon was out the door, thanks to the Mouse, and here was their chance to change things and change they must. The sad thing was they must not have reviewed canon as well as legends. As a result we see several scenes that make no sense, or have no reason to even be in the movie. Hold that thought.
All Star Wars fans will tell you that the Star Wars universe was rich in stories that fit well together, and could have been used/included in the Mouseverse. It seems that this movie was an excellent candidate for incorporate some of the legend stories in this movie.
I have heard from many sources saying that the goal of the writers where to approach the characters from the stand point that they are just human, so there was a desire to not to show the characters in a superhuman light. Sadly, superhuman is the best descriptions of force users. In a way the writers literally cut the heart out of both the Jedi and Sith. Fans wanted to see Luke saving the day in "godmode". When the movie failed to deliver, they were understandably disappointed. Sure the mental project across the universe was cool, and how the scene played out was great, but it still feel short. You would think in a time when movie viewers are so critical of a movie the writers would have tried harder to hit viewer expectations.
One let down was the conclusion of the Snoke storyline. I literally sat there thinking to myself this can't be the real ending? I literally felt ripped off. Hopes for a awesome fight between force users, but no. Snoke was this great force user who has unbelievable powers. Fans expected to see the character provide insurmountable challenges to the heroes. There was a build up leading to a great confrontation as Snoke used his powers with just a flick of finger, but in the end nothing.
Having watched all the previous Star Wars movies, read many of the books, played several of the video games, I feet what was written for Luke was out of character. The character, once a leader, now seems to be over come by self doubt and self pity. I will say I did enjoy some of his more human responses to other characters.
Let's talk Poe. I quickly became annoyed with the characters continual and never ending Disney style pep talks, joyful shouts, and tantrums. Sure it very cool to have a pilot who can do cool things with his ship, but I just found it hard to take him serious when most of the time he was proving himself to be a tool. By then end of the movie I found myself hoping he would killed off.
The Finn character, or comic relief guy, distracts from the overall story. For the most part he is filler. Towards the end his part becomes a bit more serious, but still out of place.
As I stated earlier, there are several scenes that made no scenes or had no reason to be in the movie. One scene is Chewy's meal. It was latterly a few minutes of the wookie interacting with small critters, but it did nothing at all to move the story along. Another scene that left me scratching my head was when Leia was blown out to space, then Supermans back to the ship (Meaning flying back into the ship.), opens a door to the vacuum of space in order to enter the ship. Now in the case of Leia one could argue that there was something Star Trekish there to protect her, but the story never stated such. They never took the time to tell the viewer this is what happened and why. Another case of this can be seen when the Falcons dice are passed around.
Conclusion
SW:TLJ is a good movie to watch so long as you understand it is not Star Wars. Look, I get it, it hold the title, it has the characters, and so on, but with the changes in characters, story development and telling it just doesn't fit in to Star Wars. To be honest it fits well with Star Wars Ewok Christmas. Still, it is enjoyable to watch, and it isn't violent or feeling insensitive so most people can enjoy it.
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I personally enjoyed some of the acting of the characters. The score seemed good to me. John Williams always does an excellent job. The visuals are stunning, but I feel that is to be expected from any modern film.
The script is not great. The story is awful. There are way too many holes in the storyline, too many subplots, and the characters are underdeveloped. In fact, a lot of characters don't matter at all or don't hold any weight so I could become attached to them. The characters everyone loves, well everyone but the director and writers I guess, don't matter and are disrespected in how they are used. I like Finn but he plays no important role in this movie unlike TFA. When he is about to do something important he is stopped by Rose, a new character which I find useless. I still don't understand how Rey is so good with the force with the little training she has. I'm fine with that anyone can have the force, but come on.. Rey is acting like she is grand master Yoda or something. Check more detailed reviews and they will explain what I mean. I agree with pretty much every review I've read on here.
I liked TFA even though I did notice its similarity to ANH. It had questions to be answered and brought back Star Wars with a new hype. It had momentum. TLJ doesn't give a rat's as* about TFA, and all those questions you had about TFA are given dumb, lazy answers, OR NO ANSWERS AT ALL.
This movie saddens me as a Disney fan but more importantly a Star Wars fan.
I like Disney, but I guess it's true that they really just care about money, even when it is something as important as Star Wars. They tarnish the universe I love so much. This movie I feel is made just for a crowd that wants to go see a sci-fi action movie, NOT A STAR WARS MOVIE. Other people must be right. Critics must be paid off by Disney because this movie sucks.
I was entertained though, but actually started laughing in the movie at how dumb some of it was. I give it a 5 instead of a 3 mainly because I love Star Wars. I feel like this is the start of the end for the franchise. Side films such as Rogue One may be able to survive though, as they can still be deep in the Star Wars universe and remain interesting.
P.S. ---- Disney, please fire Rian Johnson and the whole board of writers. Give George Lucas a deal, even if he wanted to bring back Jar Jar I'd be down because there would at least still be a story. Good thing JJ is coming back to direct the third installment, but it is probably too late to repair the damage done.
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The plot is disjointed and the characters are ill-defined. Very little about the Snoke character is explained. Why does Rey have such great powers? Exactly why is Kylo Ren so mentally disturbed. Why did Luke become a hermit for forty years?
It is almost as if the writers didn't care about character motivation and assumed that the audience didn't either. It is all just an excuse for sword fights and explosions. The actors do the best they can but the material is very weak. The writers and director borrow heavily from the previous episodes. Even the music is reused. Luke's character is supposed to be similar to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Snoke is a reworking of the Emperor and of course there is a heavy reliance on nostalgia for the old characters, Luke and Leia. Besides the sci-fi stuff, what made the original episodes so successful were the characters, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Hans Solo, and Luke Skywaker. Kylo Ren could be a great character except we don't really know much about why he chose the dark side. We know almost nothing about the Snoke character. Princess Leia and Luke seem to be just going through the motions without much feeling. The new characters, Rey, Finn, Poe, etc... are not given much motivation beyond the standard good guys save the galaxy from bad guys line.
The whole movie is trite, stilted, and loaded with cliches. So why is it that so many normally intelligent critics are lavishing such praise on this turkey? Are they afraid of panning a major blockbuster or are their heads being turned by all of the attention that they are being given by Disney? What retaliation could Disney inflict if a critic panned a major production? What critic would want to be on the receiving end of that?
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Okay. People need to calm down and just breathe for a minute.
Is this the best Star Wars movie yet? No. Are all the questions answered in the ways in which we expected? No. Is this an incredibly new and needed take on the Star Wars universe that we needed? Absolutely.
I love Star Wars. Always have. When I came out of the theater I would have given this movie a 10/10. Then, after some reflection, probably a 6. Now, after thinking through it and processing it, an 8. And a solid 8 at that. In fact, the only major problem I see in this entire movie is the Rose/Finn arch/storyline that was completely unnecessary and out of place. It slowed down the film (a very long film, at that) and just felt strange and unwanted. Rose (while fine as a character) is unneeded entirely. She should have been a very small character that is likable and it one of the surviving resistance members who has a crush from afar and sacrifices herself in the next movie and dies. Or she could have sacrificed herself in the movie and I would have been fine with that too. No need at all for her to travel with Finn and do all that stuff. In fact, that trip wasnt needed at all. If they did have to go on that trip, it shoud have been Poe that joined Finn. A "Buddy Mission" would have been so much more interesting and would have given us a chance to see Finn and Poe's relationship/friendship actually grow. Then, Poe should have been the one that slammed into Finn's speeder at the end saving him from death. How much better would this have been?? Would have given so much needed gravity to their friendship. This way, when one of them inevitably dies in the next movie (probably Poe) it will be much more sad/emotional.
Okay. That was the only gaping negative. People complaining about Luke being crabby/pathetic and whatnot? so what. He is absolutely right. The Jedi should be brought into question. They haven't always done the greatest job and he sees this and have been thinking this for years. They literally couldnt see that Palpatine was the emperor and he was RIGHT UNDER THEIR NOSES. They kinda sucked sometimes. I also loved the parallel's between him and Yoda - they were both very powerful jedi who ended up getting kinda weird living in total isolation. Loved it and the fact that he was so hesitant to train Rey - loved that. Also people annoyed at Snoke dying - I get it. Unanswered questions or whatever. But can we just appreciate the originality of this, turning the whole idea of this evil hooded emperor behind the henchman (Maul, Dooku, Grievous, even vader). Who was Snoke? he was "the emperor" in a star wars film and now he is gone and thats all we need to know. He's dead now and Kylo is unhinged and unchecked and has complete power. I love it. People complaining about Rey's heritage being nothing special. Absolutely love it. Georg Lucas spent so much time in the prequels trying to tie everything up in perfect litte bows that everyone would be satisfied about (ie. "ohhhh Darth vader created 3po. Thats so cool" "hey look - there's chewy! I didnt know he had already met Yoda" ect ect) How about we just accept that not every single thing in star wars is connected and that sometimes people just arise out of nothing to greatness (like the real world). Lastly, Johnson took some generous liberties with the Force and I thought that was great. There is so much to the force - why not continue to explore it and it's limits?
Some more things I loved - I actually never knew if our heros were going to survive. I thought Finn was going to die twice. I thought Rey was possibly going to join Kylo. I thought Leia died. I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen. I was actually surprised in the 8th movie of a saga. When does that happen? Also, and maybe the best thing about the entire movie, completely original storyline. No massive super bases destroyed. No planets blown up. For once, just completely survival and I thought that was great. Sure - a 2 hour chase before your fuel runs out isn't the most genius plot line ever or anything but, again, original. Rian Johnson did an amazing job with the fight scenes. There were just some absolutely beautiful shots and scenes that i will remember for movies to come.
This was a great movie and a great star wars movie. People need to calm down and think of the positives because there are many. Daisy Ridley, Mark hamil, and Adam Driver were the highlights. Every scene they were in couldn't have been acted better.
Ultimately, this was my third or fourth favorite Star Wars movie and I think if Rose was cut, it would have been my second behind Empire. Can't wait to see if again and see the third installment.
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It was a decent Star Wars film, Great action sequences combined with a touch of humor.it expanded the mithology of the force. it wasen t perfect i admit. an un necesary casino subplot and some cartoonish visual desitions.thant can be confusing the first time you see it.
but as a fandom we have to be honest. we constantly misdirect the studio,
1 we tell them the precuels sucks, that we dont want anything similar. obviusly they turn to the originals and make -EP 7'' the force awakens''.
2 how we react? we tell them is to similar to the originals, so they bring someone with a new directing style and ideas to make it diferent from both the precuels and the originals and make -EP8 ''The last Jedi''
3 how we react ? we dont like it,we need lucas back, is too difrent from what we where expecting. you ruined the saga
it is also important to have in mind that this is a trilogy so don't judge it so quickly,
For all of you fellow fans that feel insulted in any way remember the christmas special
and also remember that this is a new era of the star wars saga that it might not be for you. it migth be for newer generation of fans that not necesiraly feels this way.
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6/10
They had the chance to make this the best Star Wars movie, but made another Marvel-like comedy.
This review contains spoilers. This was a bad movie with some interesting ideas in the middle. Small changes in the plot could have made this the best movie. Good Ideas: Luke's ability to project himself (the light side has too few abilities compared to the dark side, and a new ability, specially one that is not offensive, is great), the experience wins the boldness (Leia and Holdo had a plan that worked better than Poe's boldness, but why did they refrain from telling him the plan is a mystery), bring Yoda back to talk to Luke (but the CGI trying to mirror the original puppet was horrible. They could have used the original puppet itself, it would be a great fan service, but apparently too bold of a choice). Bad Ideas: Dropping bombs in space (there is no free fall without strong gravity and the whole scene was bad. The false sense of haste created by the need to push a button on a remote control. She could have used a voice command, droid or even a button located on the panel), Kylo Ren not killing Leia (if he turned to the light side, then I would understand this choice, but why refrain from killing and then continue in the dark side?), Kylo Ren being a good pilot (why does every Jedi also need to be a great pilot? It's the easiest way to get killed in that universe), the whole casino scene (unnecessary, time-consuming, awful soundtrack trying to mirror the cantina band in a totally different environment), every emotional scene was cut by a bad joke (Luke holding the lightsaber, Luke teaching Rey to reach out, Luke watching original Leia's hologram. Just stick with the emotional moment and let people cry!), Light speed cutting through spaceships (while this looks like a good idea, then why do you need the Death Star in the first place? They could have just used a remote controlled spaceship that goes into light speed and hit planets from the beginning), Maz Kanata (she could have been a really interesting character. Her appearance is random. It is not possible to contact any member of the Rebel Alliance, but it is possible to hologram-skype Maz in the middle of a conflict), Snoke (maybe the strongest character ever is thrown away for nothing. Someone so powerfull as to use his force remotely and convince Kylo Ren to the dark side while training with the best Jedi. We don't know where he came from, or how he got there. Plot twists are tools to tell a story. They are worth nothing by themselves) They had the chance to make this the best Star Wars movie, but made another Marvel-like comedy and left many troubles for the next director, that will have to answer for the plot mistakes made on this movie. Some small tweaks would be sufficient to make it great: Kylo Ren and Rey unite, and become Gray Jedi. Luke's projection appears to save them from Snoke and dies while Kylo and Rey escape. Kylo and Rey will train together and defeat Snoke together. Leia and Holdo tell the plan to Poe, and despite this, he goes with Finn directly to the Imperial Spaceship to try to defuse the light speed tracker, thus removing the casino scene. Remove all jokes in emotional scenes. Use the original Yoda puppet.
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I have just watched Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi and I would like to share my thoughts related to the film.
First of all, I think this is THE MOVIE of the YEAR - amazing scenes, interesting plot and well-developed main characters. Adam Driver/Kylo Ren steals the show with this great performance - his character is so unique and you can't correctly foresee his actions. I love Darth Vader, but I think Kylo can be even better than him in the next movie. The relationship between Kylo and Rey is also well-developed and their connection is something new in the whole Star Wars saga. 10/10 for Ben Solo and Rey from me!
Although there were some ridiculous scenes and characters (General Hux), I think you must watch this movie! I know that most of the fans expected more from Luke and Snoke, but their role in the movie was quite good. The soundtrack is once again out of this world!
Overall, this is the best film of 2017!
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5/10
Mixed feelings, I think these movies are written for chlidren
I'm going to start by saying that I actually enjoyed this one in comparison to The Force Awakens which just felt stupid all around. This one has its moments where it actually feels a little bit like star wars but with a lot of crap added to it that shouldn't be on there.
From the beginning you get some fifth grade humor that is not found in Lucas' Star Wars. Yeah, those had humor too which was maybe a little childish, but it was done to be cute, the humor here is just puerile. This happens on and off throughout the movie which would have been ok in a different movie, not Star Wars, it's ok for other Disney titles, not this.
The story is a little idiotic at times. The whole beginning where Poe takes out every cannon on a bigass Juggernaut was like "wait, what?". After that it gets kind of fun but this beginning part was just retarded. In every single Star Wars they have issues with the shields, this one somehow doesn't have shields... wtf? and it's supposed to be a newer, bigger, better ship, and no shields?
The other part that is idiotic is when the ship gets destroyed and Leia gets blasted into space but then comes back Superman style, give me a break, that one was just retarded, looked retarded, felt retarded, didn't anyone realize that?
Also, the whole plot is basically stupid and forced, the big empire fleet chases "a smaller, lighter vessel" that belongs to the rebels thorough space. So the premise is that the smaller ship, because it's lighter, in space, can fly quickly enough that it can stay out of the range of their cannons, however, the other, smaller vessels around it are not, and they get picked off one by one until only the main rebel shift is left, however, that one is running out of fuel. I mean, seriously... the part where the ship goes through the empire ships at light speed was actually really cool, but the whole premise was just moronic.
I actually liked the twist where Snoke gets wasted, I thought it was pretty cool and Kylo Ren felt like a real character, I actually enjoyed him in this movie. True, it didn't explain who he was, but honestly, I didn't give a flying F about him because the first movie didn't do much for him.
General Hux or w/e his name is is a complete douche and annoying as hell throughout the movie, the only good parts are where he gets kicked around.
Leia is ok, they did an ok job with her, except for the superman moment she seemed appropriate. Luke however... they ruined him like they ruined Han Solo in the force awakens. He doesn't feel like Luke, he's out of place and just nothing like you would expect him. He leaves a complicated map in order to be found (the story of the even more retarded The Force Awakens) yet now that he is found he claims he got on the island to die. He then goes on to milk this funny looking animal on the beach that gives blue milk but his tits are located between his legs... also the animal makes this face like "oh yeah" while being milked... so that's a nice image in my head. Also he is a flawed old man that basically turns out to be weak and frustrated and nothing like the wise man he became in Episode VI. So major letdown. Also, Rey goes on about how the galaxy needs the Jedi Order back and luke Skywalker and bla bla bla - I mean, how the hell does she even know about this? wasn't she on the desert planets like a few days ago? anyway, they go on with some lame training but nothing to suggest that she learned much. The end of Luke is also utterly stupid, he survives the encounter, tricks Kylo Ren and then just dies for no reason, seriously?
One more stupid thing in the story - so they get to this casino and there are these slave kids who happen to know about the rebellion somehow and also at the end they talk about Luke Skywalker Jedi Master - when the hell did anyone have time to tell them about that? it's idiotic - I won't go into it that much but if you'll watch it you'll understand what I mean. On top of the retardedness with the slave children they also get in jail because they parked in the wrong place and they happen to find the guy they are looking for in the same cell, don't get me started on the whole reason why they are looking for him...
Anwyay, there are a lot of problems with the story, so many others but I will stop at these because this review is getting too long.
The movie looked really good, the locations chosen were nice, with a different script this could have been amazing. Like Benicio del Torro who did a great job with his character, he could have had a bigger, he could have been the new Han Solo, maybe they'll bring him back in the 9th episode, who knows... they don't seem to be going anywhere with their decisions, just feels like they randomly make decisions regarding characters. There is also a new Asian girl, Rose, who seems to be there only for diversity purposes just like Fin was in the Force Awakens, but unlike Fin who is quite likable, this one is annoying... omg, could they at least get someone that is charismatic...
Anyway, enjoyable to watch, if you don't care much for Star Wars it's a fun movie to watch, spectacular visually and a story similar in complexity to all the new movies these days, Transformers, Wonder Woman and all the other garbage that is a cash cow for the corporations. If you are a Star Wars fan you are going to be disappointed, it ruins Luke in many ways and just feels like it's going nowhere, there were some fun parts and Kylo Ren was waaaay better but still not good enough to save the movie. And what is up with the matriarchy in the Rebellion? it seems like some kind of feminist organization took over... I don't know, anyway, wouldn't spend the money to watch it in the cinema... it's ok to watch at home. They are going in a really bad direction with these movies... but what is done is done...
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9/10
Impressive! One of the best of the eight Star Wars Episode films so far!
"The Last Jedi" 2017 covers a lot of ground regarding characters and story. Rei meets Luke Skywalker and continues her journey learning about the force, her background and how she fits in to the resistance against the new order. There are some unexpected plot twists and surprises in this film. Mark Hamill turns in his best acting performance in any Star Wars film. Director and writer Rian Johnson clearly knows and understands the Star Wars characters and story well and is willing to take risks with the characters and story. This is a film about the ending of the old and the beginning of the new, in regards to character stories. I've seen all eight Star Wars full episode live action films and can say with confidence, this one ranks with "A New Hope", "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Force Awakens" as one of the most emotionally engaging films, since it all began with "Star Wars: Episode 4: A New Hope" back in 1977. So far, the Star Wars postquels are surpassing the prequels in overall storytelling quality and emotional engagement. Director J. J. Abrams is scheduled to return, to direct Episode 9 due out during December 2019. Originally, it was George Lucas's plan to have nine episodes of Star Wars. This destiny of nine Star Wars episodes will become a reality during December 2019.
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I'm so disappointed in this movie. So many wasted opportunities. It's a beautifully shot film with great cinematography but a terrible story and awful script. The cast try their best, but a lot of it seems wooden because of the bad script.
The opening scene with Hux and Poe on the intercom is cringeworthy. Hux reduced to a bumbling clouseau-esque character. The Leia scene in space is just stupid. The audience in the cinema actually laughed! Snoke is an excellent powerful villain but he's killed off in the weakest of ways. Without any hint as to where he came from why he's leader of the First Order how he became so powerful, they just threw him away like it didn't matter. Same goes for Reys parents, they're nobodies so that story arc was just thrown out. The Knights Of Ren not even mentioned. What were Reys Force visions all about in the Force Awakens? Not even covered in this film. The Finn and Rose story is pointless.
If they'd carried on the story arcs from the first film this would've been a great middle film in the trilogy but Practically everything set up in Force Awakens has been tossed aside in this. Leaving JJ Abrams with a big mountain to climb in the final film. I really can't see how they can save this in episode 9. Kylo as the main villain will be very weak. He's not intimidating or powerful like snoke was.
Would've love to have seen more of Snoke Kylo and The Knights Of Ren in episode 9 maybe facing off against Luke and Rey, sadly that ain't going to happen.
But good luck JJ Abrams. You're our only hope.
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Okay I am honestly at a loss for words out how disappointing this movie was. Firstly, how this movie has got raving reviews is beyond me. Not only are there glaring plot holes you can drive a truck through a good portion of the movie is nonsensical and does not feel like Star Wars in any way. Simply put EVERYTHING in this movie except for Rey, Kylo Ren, and Luke Skywalker is just bad. Not just bad but clearly phoning it in we need to market toys/videogame characters type bad. I'll list some of the obvious plot holes here so you can understand my distaste.
1. If this movie takes place right after force awakens how come the resistance is running out of fuel if they JUST left their base? Especially only after ONE lightspeed jump?
2. If the first order knows the resistance is out of fuel why don't they like send someone ahead to cut them off? They know they can't run away?
3. On that same note is there any reason they don't just shoot them the entire movie? They have them outnumbered and outgunned?
Not only that there are laughable bad scene. MAJOR SPOILER. The scene of Leia using the force is so bad it may be this trilogies "I hate sand" So now Jedi's can just survive is space? Now everyone just has unrealistic control of the force because.... PLOT. There was a time in Star Wars even in the prequels where the force felt like it took mastery. Characters like Yoda and Obi wan felt strong because they trained for years. Modern Star Wars is just EMOTIONS EQUAL MAD FORCE POWERS.
Snoke is the new Jar Jar Binks of shitty useless characters.
The entire Finn and Rose storyline is so force and clearly was forced in just to have Finn and Phasma fight. There was a romantic relationship between finn and Rose which is IRRITATING. In the force awakens they heavily imply Finn and Rey have a romantic relationship and Rey and Kylo Ren have a "Brother Sister" vibe. They basically switch this in this movie. I guess all that great chemistry finn and Rey had in the first movie didnt matter because they literally have 1 scene together at the end of the movie. Now they are trying to force a romantic bond with 2 couples that dont work. Finn and Rose isn't believable, Kylo and Rey is awkward.
While Mark Hamill was amazing his part was badly written. I was just expecting more. Was hoping to see him in the final fight scene using his classic green lightsaber instead of his blue one. His portion of the story are usually the best parts however and i can't really complain otherwise.
Kylo and Rey are the best overall aspect of the movie and the only reason the final of the trilogy may be worth watching. I swear if they kiss in that movie i will throw my drink at the screen and walk out as i thought about doing when Rose Kissed Finn xD
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I wasn't bored watching the movie for almost 3 hours, but I wasn't happy when I exit the movie theater either. Although, it was enjoying to see that the computer graphics are amazing, I felt like they made a movie from scratch using only the characters and some parts of the old plot. If you want to see some great battle scenes go ahead and watch it. If you are expecting another star wars movie please don't.
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It was great visualy, but stroy wise, Im sorry Rian, but I wanted answers, at least give me something. Snoke was by far the most powerful force user we have seen. He could not just be disgarded like that.
Same stuff with Rey, if she is no one, why would she be so damn powerful right of the bat, even bested both Skywalkers mind you, twice, without any sort of training. It just doesnt make any sense, even in the star wars world.
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The plot was great and so were the new lovable characters. It wasn't a predictable story, like the force awakens, it was so new and intriguing. The Last Jedi really let you know the characters well and caused you to understand their inner struggles. There were some hilarious one liners that cracked everyone up in the theater. I am definitely going to watch this again.
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I hated the 7th one it was terrible and the only reason it did so good was because of the massive hype behind it. I hated Rogue one cause it was just, you know just horrible, besides Darth Vader and Cgi Princess Leia which I actually like better then the other Cgi character they show. But what have you done Rian, what have you done.
For one since I hated the last two Star Wars movies I wasn't expecting to enjoy this movie that much I although I was at the edge of my seat threw-out the movie but after I got out of the theatre and on my way home, I was like. WHY! in the back of my head. Now I did laugh but I did not enjoy this movie but I didn't hate it as much as the last two movies.
Pros:
1. The special effects were good.
That is all
Cons:
1. Luke was just weird he wasn't that interesting and was just weird, there are some times were he just sounds like the joker which is ironic because Mark Hamill player the joker in the animated Batman shows.
2. That scene were Princess Leia uses the force to bring her back to the ship was just stupid and made me roll my eyes.
3. Reys parents getting reveal was just, well what was I too expect Rey was on Jakku. You had one job Rian!
4. Right when I was about to like Ren, he just becomes that dum coward like kid at the end of the movie. I now hate him even more.
5. No "I've got a bad feeling about it" without it this is no Star wars film, you had one job Rian!
6. Hux was now some what of a comic relief character. You had one job Rian!
7. Captain Plasma was just as pointless as she was in star wars 7. Hell right when she was about to die in the end of the movie i said "now go back to being useless". And she probably has less screen time as she does in Star wars 7, but how do I now I only saw star wars 7 twice and that was two years ago.
8. And my biggest complaint. They kill of Snoke. Snoke a character that was hyped up big ever since he first appeared out of nowhere with no build up in star wars 7 gets killed of in star wars 8. He was so cool and powerful I liked what they did with him at first, there was so much to do with him in Star wars 8 and then. He dies by the force of the biggest wuss in the universe. After he dies I was like thats it he's dead. I just kept on saying it other and other again threw out the movie. There was so much they could've done with him and then Rian Johnson came along and said "this character was too interesting lets kill him off without a second beat." Thank you Rian you suck now, good luck directing the sequel trilogy.
In the end I have one thing to say "You had one job Rian"
This film sucks, and it's all thanks to you.
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4/10
Something Went Wrong Really Wrong In A Galaxy Far Far Away
Liked TFA; watched few times; felt like in old days - had fun, laughts; tears; chills; all the needed factors
Blade Runner 2049 was a blast
So
Had really high hopes for next SW;
and dont get me wrong - still trying to like this movie
since I can not change it and must live with it
but
oh why, why is Luke made as nearly some dumb Marvel character ; with bad jokes; silly decisions; etc Poor Mr Hamill had to play this - and he still saves the movie despite what is given to him - a class on his own
flying in space Leia - please, how to unseen it
where was the Jedi magic; the Dark Side mistery;
some crap CGI - and I mean really crap in places; escape on animals - please, have mercy, Jar Jar was better than that
just too much CGI in some places - I felt like watching a computer game; not a movie in the final battle, anyone else had this
Movie is saved by actors - they do their best with what is given them, they try hard, plus has some nice set pieces and shots, but that is all
will do my best to like it more in time
Final thoughts:
how can one man's poor script and low sense of humor make so much damage and not being stopped - by producers - is still beyond me
please JJ Abrams, make the third one count again
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I'm dissapointed with The Last Jedi. The film completely destroyed the moral character of Luke Skywalker in an effort to separate this new trilogy from everything that came before in the Star Wars Universe. Out with the old, in with the new... yes, it is necessary to pass the baton, but not destroying everything that came before. I speak about this in a very long review in spanish at my website, if you can read spanish i invite you to go ahead and read it... i obliterate the film, even though is very entertaining as a movie.
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How can critics give this movie good ratings? Must be foul play if you ask me. This movie is so full of plot holes and disney stereotypes it is just absolutely ridiculous. If you have any love for the Star Wars universe you will not like this movie. If you are a pirate of the caribbeans fan and have never seen a single star wars movie you might find it decent.
The plot holes start right away with the space bombers using "gravity" to drop bombs in space and pilots laying above the open gates to space without any masks. It then gets worse then you would ever imagine, with Leias space flight, the first order not being able to catch up to the resistance ships (they have light speed available), a mutiny which could have easily been avoided, oh, and a new way, easy way to destroy any death stars. Luke has so many plot holes its ridiculous, probably his death being the worst. Why.. Just why. At least let him die a martyr. This list could go on and on...
Then in addition to the horrible plot holes the movie is riddled with your classic disney humor. Horrible jokes at many tensive points. Overdone cute CGI creatures riddle the screen. Even a scared "opera singer" at one point. It is also a very PC movie, showing its stand on slavery and animal cruelty in an overdone, obvious agenda-like fashion.
I doubt the director has watched a single star wars movie, let alone the force awakens, as he chooses to abandon every single plot line the movie laid up to. Snokes death being the worst. He couldn't sense the lightsaber moving right beside him?? Wow, such a powerful creature. Great. Well done Disney. You ruined Star Wars. I hope you get some stock loss from this abysmal movie.
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People that actually defend this movie and calling people that are unsatisfied stupid and what not need to realize the shallowness of their persona. Clearly they are swayed by beautiful scenes in space with massive ships and everything that induces awe and in the proces completely lose control of their cognitive functions, unknowingly being blinded by visual grandeur and thereby manipulated into thinking/concluding that this is a great movie because it's different, memorable along with being a fresh take on the Star Wars universe.
A lot of praise but purely nonsensical arguments as to why it is a great movie. Which it is most certainly NOT!!
It's definitely different and memorable but for all the unwanted reasons and freshness hell no!!! Since when did moronical and illogical equate to being smart and creative?? Character development is an issue that sticks out badly.
How do you create suspense?? Not the way RJ does, b'coz it makes no sense whatsoever, so many pointless plot twists just for the sake of being "fresh" and unpredictable. Pushing the narrative of the (vague) story forward so haphazardly and thinking that you're gonna leave a positive lasting impression on a culture defining franchise is the height of hubris and simple retarded arrogance.
For starters the basic lack of a continued story arc from TFA is a swing and miss...would have done wonders if they followed the story in a manner where questions put in TFA were adressed in a way that would draw you the viewer closer to a sense of purpose for all characters involved, but that unfortunately is not the case here. Tell a story in a manner so that the audience cares about the people in it, basic premise of storytelling.
The build-up from the previous film is treated as an insignificant subplot and I got the sense of important story elements being cut short due to laziness disguised as "freshness", the movie is an amateurish compilation of subplots really. Big FU in my book. And the cringeworthy humour, Irvin Kershner just rolled around in his grave.
A lot of details big and small that the connoisseur in me is having a hard time digesting will require a separate review so I'll leave that for now.
This film is such a huge insult to the art of theater and common sense that people in support of RJ's directorial so-called masterpiece sadden me by their being part of what we collectively know as the human race.
This franchise deserved the best care it could possibly get and although Lucas is also to blame for not doing so Disney just proved that despite having limitless resources at hand it has no insight with regards to Star Wars and the very special place it occupies in the annals of cinema.
Bravo RJ and KK Bravo may you forever rest in peace knowing you destroyed what is basically an institution. May the universe have mercy on your souls....
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I am a huge fan of Star Wars and was looking forward to seeing this film. It was good to see AT-AT's in action and it was good to see a dreadnought and the inner workings of a rebel bomber but apart from that i was left flat throughout the film and only watched it all the way through in the hope it was going to get better. Save your time and money and don't bother going to see it.
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Bad bad bad bad
very very bad
Sorry, your review is too short.
Sorry, your review is too short.
Sorry, your review is too short.
Sorry, your review is too short.
Sorry, your reviSorry, your review is too short.
Sorry, your review is too short.
ew is too short.
Sorry, your review is too short.
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I went and saw this movie last night and I walked out learning something new about the Star Wars movies.
I learned I will never watch them again.
I was never a massive fan of the Star Wars movies, but I enjoyed watching them as they were decent entertainment.
After last night I realized one of two things, either people have always been able to breath in space in the Star Wars movies and I never noticed it, or.... Somebody didn't think it through when people kept on like nothing was going on when they were in the vacuum of space.
Also, someone want to explain to me how bombers work in outer space as well? (Bombs need gravity)
Why is the "force" given out like participation trophies?
Why the hell did Leia fly after being frosted with death from the vacuum of space?
How the hell does Rei have that much of a grasp on how to use the force after 2 minutes of meditation?
Since when did Rei master sword fighting?
Why is Kylo Rin such a whiny child?
Where the hell did Snoke come from and if he was so powerful, why did he get toppled so easily?
What was the point of Fin and Rose in the entire movie? They did absolutely nothing.
Why would nobody come to the rescue of the Resistance?
Why didn't they call for help 18 hours prior when they still had fuel?
Why did they even consider going after the First Order with as little forces as they had on hand to begin with?
How did the First Order suddenly have a device that can track through lightspeed if it wasn't possible or heard of, but Fin knew where it was and Rose knew how to handle it?
Who wrote in all the terrible jokes?
Who the hell gave this movie such good ratings?
Why the hell is Disney ripping off the original Star Wars plots? (Seriously you even used the walkers on a white planet again)
I am sure I can come up with another hundred or so questions
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1/10
An utter abomination. Watch the Clone Wars series for a good Star Wars story
I actually had to wait an entire day before posting this review so I could cleanse my system of this incredible trash pile of a movie. There is absolutely zero redeeming value to this movie whatsoever.
From the very beginning this film brings film making to a new low. One lone fighter pilot is going to destroy an entire battle cruiser? Not one of the 30 ships behind him will shoot him down or any other cruiser? Yeah ok. We finally see the fabled Luke and Rey meeting and Luke just tosses the lightsaber away like yesterday's leftovers. Yeah that whole Jedi philosophy I've spent my whole life following? Not anymore I guess. I completely lost it when Leia started moonwalking through space though. I actually laughed out loud thinking this was also another sad attempt at comedy in this movie (of which there are many cringe worthy instances).
The politics of this film was what really irritated me though. I don't mind female leads or anything like that..as long as they show some freaking acting ability. This was some of the worst acting I have ever seen. So overdone and bland. But clearly this film was meant to cater to SJW mentality and fill diversity requirements just for the sake of it.
There are so many horrendous parts of this and I could go on and on, but at the end of the day, this is just another BS Disney film with an agenda. It's actually an insult to the intelligence of the average viewer. Don't waste your money.
Want a good story with a great story, and compelling characters? Watch the Clone Wars series. One twenty minute episode creates a better story than episodes 7 and 8 combined.
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I've never said anything bad about any Star Wars movie. I've never complained about anything, not even, not the dialogue, not the plot, not George Lucas and his special editions, not even Jar Jar Binks because I understood why these things were the way they were. I expect change, and at least every movie has tied in well with 'Return of the Jedi'.
I avoided everything I could in the run up to this movie. I didn't watch one trailer, I didn't follow any news at all, bar the sad news of Carrie Fisher which was unavoidable. I had no expectations, I had no preconceived opinions or doubts or fears for the first time since I was a child. Yet, for the first time in my life, I left the theatre feeling nothing about what I just saw. I facepalmed in the cinema and I felt the discomfort of those around me. Everyone left the theatre in silence for the first time I've ever known.
It appears to have an underlying message built in with the film. Which is to end everything, everything that the fans love, the Jedi, the Sith, the Skywalkers. It takes a huge dump on everything George Lucas built. It's a message not only to the fans, but to George Lucas too. It's Disney announcing their presence, casting aside and alienating the fans from before in favour of a new generation of fans. One needs only to look at how the reboot to Star Trek was handled, to make the link to this kind of handling of a franchise is JJ Abrams, the script for this movie had to get past him, it was made with his advice and input. Just like how Vulcan went up in flames in Star Trek and he started a clean slate and alienated the original fans of Star Trek there, he has done the same with Star Wars.
These movies are meant to be about the Skywalker's, hence why they are all connected. With Rey, we get someone whose parents were nobody but she is somehow so strong in the force she can do all kinds with minimal training from Luke, and even defeats him in a duel. If Kylo Ren dies in the next movie, then the Skywalker lineage is wiped out, rather than being redeemed. Hopefully they won't make that mistake. Snoke's scenes are far too similar to the Emperor in ROTJ to take seriously, the dialogue is pretty much the same and then he is simply killed in an instance, so all the time people invested into his character and all the talk about how powerful he is, is simply nullified in one simple ignition of a lightsaber.
Uninteresting characters come out of nowhere, like Rose, a clear marketing ploy for China which I don't mind as long as the character is relevant, but her whole storyline seems thrown in and so out of place. It's like a Sitcom with a side plot that bares barely any relevance to the main plot. Nothing seems to really tie into place.
If they wanted to start fresh, why not create a whole new saga in a different time frame? Why build a new story off the backs of the movies that came before, only to make the stories irrelevant. The sacrifices characters made irrelevant. The time and energy fans invested into them are now irrelevant.
It's time to move on and leave Star Wars to the next generation.
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Hollywood has turned this once epic Sci-Fi franchise into a PC/chick-flick melodrama of the worst kind. Its gone from a swashbuckling space adventure with action heros to a "PC-Chick flick. From the "oh so strong" female leads to the "token" Black hero, this just reeks of Hollywood Elitist PC progressive crap. I'd rather watch one of the 1st three original episodes (4, 5, 6) than watch this polluted crap again. This seems to be a theme in Hollywood. Take a great franchise and then destroy it. J.J. Abrams did it with Mission Impossible and Star Trek. Now this abortion ... terribly sad. I can't see them rescuing this miasma of garbage no matter how many more "Episodes" they throw out there. This was written and designed with ONE thing in mind. Appeal to as many segments of the general population on a personal level so as to hopefully be a big box office smash. This is far FAR away from the films which George Lucas so expertly crafted.
A huge disappointment. Another franchise has died ... rest in peace, Star Wars.
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6/10
It's actually not bad, so don't listen to the IMDb reviews...
I felt terribly disappointed when I looked on IMDb and saw such bad reviews on this movie. Nonetheless I gave it a go and it became apparently clear that the reviews are just many disappointed fans who were overhyped for the movie. Ok it's not my favourite Star Wars movie, it may even be my least favourite, but that's not to say that it's bad, I mean it's not 1/10 stars bad, I'd merely rank it as my least favourite because I love the rest of the saga so much. You see the thing is I understand that there may never be a Star Wars sequel that'll be better than the classics, but there are people on the other hand who will rank it 1/10 just because it didn't blow them away... Honestly it's quite ridiculous. Sure I much more enjoyed The Force Awakens, and it is a shame that this installment wasn't as good, but there's still a lot going on in this movie to enjoy and it's definitely worth watching if you really love Star Wars.
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For those who want to watch this movie, pro-s and con-s.
Pro:
I think the actors did a great job. They show good feelings, they are not boring to watch, they do well.
The movie has a good comedy to it.
Some okay sci-fi movie to watch.
It has very good design, very good interiors, scenes, and brilliant effects.
I guess it's an okay Star Wars film for fans.
Con:
The movie is boring. Not for me, but for my family of not fans.
If you want to take the kids and the family to this.. unless they are fans, just don't.
Even as a Star Wars fan, there have been those moments of "okay".
The plot is horrible and badly written. The main line of happenings are so forcefully put together that not in a sci-fi, in Star Wars, or in a real-world logic can it stand it's way. You would not expect this low-quality from a Disney movie.
The side plots and happenings are even worse. All the great moments are ruined by a slap on the forehead. "What was the writer thinking?"
The sci-fi elements are often horrible. The ships are just bad designs.
The space battles are an "okay" at best. They are small, illogical, forced and alien to the genre.
The final acts are bad from every possible point of view. They are weak.
They are a slap on the tummy type of bad.
Fans:
If you had problems viewing the previous Star Wars movie, just download this one. It's much worse. As a fan, when I saw the Nebulon-C and that star fighters by cannon now can shoot and fly under shields... the middle part is around 3 m in diameter. A couple shots or a torpedo can destroy that and it's thinner than Nebulon-B.
Over all I recommend watching / downloading this as it is a Star Wars movie.
But I can't say it will be a good experience.
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For my first viewing I went in blind, essentially, for some reason choosing not to watch the force awakens immediately prior to it. I had already seen the awakens, but it's been a year since I last saw it.
In hindsight, upon watching the Force Awakens again, today, after The Last Jedi, I noticed that some of the questions the 1st movie left us with had already been answered, such as Rey's lineage. The last Jedi in effect quite simple reinforcing something that was actually already clear. The abandonment of Rey in flash back in EpVII was given to us to tease us I guess but now, with additional context provided by the last Jedi, that particular scene didn't really beg the question.
Watching EpVII on this occasion, I started to give certain elements more truck, such as Fin fleeing the resistance and bumping into Rose in EpVIII. I had forgot that Fin had previously fled the first order when the going got tough, that particular scene in the last Jedi appearing somewhat reminiscent of that.
I also realised, upon seeing the Last Jedi a second time, that it begins moments after the Force Awakens.
So, in the Last Jedi...
I wasn't so bothered on this occasion with Fin's casino visit, however it was too long, and in some ways belonged to another film entirely.
All in all I don't think we really got a whole lot of Luke. I loved most of his stuff in this, but I could have done with a little more. I really liked how Luke died, post projection, loved that particular part of the movie, Luke's distraction, although I must say his death was spoiled a little by two people walking past my view to use the toilet just as Luke disappeared. I did feel the Rey and Laia's "oh, Luke's gone" moment was a bit weak, a little "ah well!" as they shrugged their shoulders, without much care, or so it seemed.
Other than that, concerning Leia, I also didn't particularly like that flying moment soon after she gets blasted out of the bridge of her ship, soon after the film began. For a moment I thought, ah they've killed her off, but no - back to the ship she flew. I've heard some reviewers refer to that moment as "The Mary Poppins" moment, and it is a bit like that.
Anyway, there were some very good scenes. I liked the force link that occurred between Rey and Ben (Kylo Ren), and although he picked her up and dropped her soon after getting rid of Snoak (which surprised me), I still think there is room for a more meaningful link to occur, which I think will be better cemented in the next film. That seems a reasonable assumption at the moment, at least I think so.
So, I've upped my original score (4 stars) to 7. It was better the second time round. I'd like to give it an 8, but that extended casino bit, and the lackluster response to Luke's death have knocked it down a peg.
No real cliff hanger on this occasion. I suppose the next installment would have seen Leia come face to face with her son, in some way or other, had Carrie Fisher not passed away. In any case there's now nothing obvious about the story's direction, no more Luke, Leia or Han. However I wonder if the appearance of Yoda was to remind us that Jedi's can appear again, as ghosts, and still be powerful, as demonstrated by Yoda when he struck the tree with lightning. I suppose if we see Luke again it will be in that form, and with a lot more power than we might otherwise have assumed, as based on previous Jedi ghost appearances. An additional Jedi layer.
Quite happy to wait a couple of years for the next one, due to the end this time round not leaving us hanging. They've a few story hurdles to encounter now, in the absence of Carrie Fisher. I'm interested to see what they do, but not desperate to see what they do.
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This would have been a fine Guardians of the Galaxy movie, it was witty and showed a lot of planets and spacethings. - Which is great, if you do not care for Star Wars. But if you do, this is terrible and should be forgotten as fast as possible.
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4/10
Take Rian Johnson off of his ego trip before he destroys Star Wars...oops too late
Title says it all. Portions of a good movie are here. The parts that are actually Star Wars inspired and not an attempt to completely negate everything that came before. Oh well, 2017 really has been the year from hell
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I genuinely am trying to understand the bad reviews, but I just can't. I'm sorry.
This movie was in my opinion Outstanding in many, many ways: the story (finally!)wasn't so stereotyped, It took a whole other direction which I think was a great move to also move away from the past a little and into the next generation of Star Wars cinema! The scenery was amazing and extraordinary and with all the funny and cute animals that came along the way, it gave the Star Wars movie the true vibe it needed (but at the same time, with the humour and such, it stayed with it's originals.) Well done Rian Johnson, this was the first time since 1992 I've finally seen a Star Wars movie lived up to it's name! 10/10 Greetz M
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This is one of the worst movies, period, I have ever seen. Definitely the worst Star Wars movie. I wanted to leave the theater like 5 times, which I never, ever saw coming. It's basically a Transformers movie with Star Wars characters.
I have actually enjoyed what Disney has being doing with the franchise up to this point. The two previous movies, cartoon series, books, etc, have all been done with care and appreciation for what made the original trilogy great. That said, they were also paving new directions and I've been happy with all of the work they've done up until now.
The Last Jedi, however, was absolutely awful. The comedy was totally out of place and completely manufactured. The directing and style was painfully corny and Marvel-esque at its very worst. And watching the scene with Leia floating through space was so bad and so unbelievable, I actually thought to myself, "Wow, Star Wars is dead." The only reason I didn't leave was because I care about the canon.
I can't believe they approved this script and let the director do it like this. I guess Disney just wanted to make it as big as possible---and it was big, epic even, in scope. But it was a terrible script with terrible directing and a style that was embarrassingly out of place with what Star Wars has been building for 40 years.
Snoke's throne room was the epitome of lazy filmmaking to me. Just a single throne, a few guards, and a bland red background. No imagination. No set design. Nothing. I knew 5 minutes into the movie that something was terribly wrong. Turning General Hux, whom Disney has invested time and effort into building as a ruthless, power-hungry First Order threat, into a cheesy comedy sidekick was such a blatant punch to the gut that I actually felt sick to my stomach.
As for the biggest plot twist of all, I don't mind what they did with Luke. It's an interesting angle and, done well, it could have been fantastic. But it wasn't done well. It was totally butchered with a Transformers-thin story and directing that was literally offensive to people who love the franchise.
I just feel they pissed all over what the canon has set up for the next generation of Star Wars experiences. I've been doing exactly what Disney has asked of us, too---I've read the new books, watched the TV shows, and even dabbled in a few of the comics. All of those mediums have been telling the same story and building towards something special. It's been fun to unlock more of the canon as I go, and, like I said, I've been really happy with Disney's efforts so far. Impressed, even.
I feel betrayed after watching The Last Jedi. I'm disappointed like a lot of other people are, but I'm also sad for what this means going forward. I remember when they first hired JJ Abrams to direct The Force Awakens, he said he wanted to make the Star Wars universe "feel" real again. This movie punches that idea in the face.
This is what we all feared would happen when Disney bought the franchise. Honestly, this movie is so bad in so many ways it makes even the prequel trilogy look pretty good in hindsight. Please, please let JJ Abrams pick up the pieces and save this thing we've all cared about for so long. If not, it won't be long before Iron Man and Captain America are on screen with Star Wars characters. I'm just crushed.
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10/10
Brilliantly directed, superb addition to the trilogy, embrace 2017!
The movie was a slow burner to begin, the usual feel where you are waiting for the main characters to initiate their part in the tale. After that it was fantastic.
The film of course has a different feel to it in terms of screenplay to the throwbacks from the 70s. That doesn't devalue the film in the slightest, it simply emphasises the natural evolution in cinematography 40 years on. Nostalgia however is not lost in this film, and given all the criticism of the Luke character I have read in other posts, I'd have to question what people are expecting. A fresh faced young Mark hamill has naturally aged, and so has the character. It is the job of the director to articulate the development of the person, and in this film the emotions and mannerisms of luke and the way he slowly finds his way back to the force is not only well written but fits perfectly with the storyline. Yes he may have defeated some of the more powerful sith in his youth, but just as he was once the future from the ageing Kenobi, so too is Ray from him. Plus his final act, the touching moments with Leia, the tribute to Han before he leaves the fight with kylo with the 'See ya kid' are all classic blends of old and new.
I would have liked some more background in to the snoke character before he was killed off, but that is my only slight negative. All in all a pleasure to watch, and already I can't wait for the next instalment.
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I was very excited to see the eighth film in the Star Wars saga. After seeing The Force Awakens and Rogue One my faith in the big budget canon Star Wars movies was almost restored and I truly believed that this sequel trilogy could revive a dying franchise. I now realise how foolish I have been.
Before I bring light to the underlying issue at hand I will briefly review the content of the film. The writing is a mess, the editing is that of an amateur, the tone is cartoonish and laughable and, worst of all, the film is astoundingly predictable and at many times just plain boring.
Let us compare this movie to the second movie of the original trilogy. The Empire Strikes Back was a dark and serious addition to the franchise that epitomised what a sequel should accomplish. We were reminded why we grew to love the characters introduced in A New Hope and we saw them in situations of true danger. Here this does not happen. Since the movie has such a light tone, nothing feels real and we never get that true sense of danger. It does not help that the villain, Supreme Leader Snoke, is totally un-frightening and often cringe-worthy. In comparison to the Emperor, who was truly evil and frightening, Snoke is a laughing stock, not to mention the totally bizarre decision to kill him off in this film. I guess everything we saw of him so far was for nothing - I can't say I'm sad to see him go.
As for the rest of the movie, almost every scene was disappointing and far too many of them made me cringe. Many scenes in the movie are simply there to make the younger audience laugh, the humour is shameful and misplaced. The creative decisions for the characters we know and love such as Luke Skywalker and the portrayal of the force are strange and unexplainable. I doubted whether the writers had even seen the other movies of the saga! Not to mention countless plot-holes that make this film seem rushed and unfinished.
I do not sincerely believe that this movie is a 1/10. But I feel that it is my duty as a Star Wars fan to make it clear to Disney that what they have attempted to do with this movie is unacceptable. Disney had two goals with this film: capture the attention of children and then sell toys to those children. This film has the Star Wars name and a multitude of throw away references to the other movies, but at its core this is not a Star Wars movie - it is an advertisement for the millions of Luke Skywalker, Rey and Finn action figures that Disney will ultimately sell, not to mention countless cuddly plush toys that will make them even richer.
The Last Jedi was made by writers that know nothing about Star Wars for an audience that knows nothing about Star Wars. Disney, your greed is the most sinister villain in the entire saga, I hope to never see it rear its hideous head ever again.
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A quick further note about "professional" reviews.
The professional reviews? Either paid for or written for them by the studio. You cannot have this many terrible reviews here by people who saw the movie and believe Metacritic and RT are the real reviews. Or else they were given a different movie. Don't waste your money on this movie.
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Luke is a failure. He failed his sister, Han, his nephew, the republic, the galaxy and all of his fans who loved him. He turned into a alien milk drinking bitter old man who couldn't face his failure, and dies after keeping Kylo Ren busy so those that he failed could escape to fight another day.
Really? You've got to be kidding me.
Hey kids, Disney says parents aren't important. The boy who had a mother, father, uncle and family that loved him becomes the most evil soul in the galaxy who isn't even worth trying to save. While the girl who's parents sold her for drinking money becomes their savior.
Really? You've got to be kidding me.
Snoke? Insignificant character.
Phasma? Insignificant character. Did you read her book? It was a lie. She wasn't all that. She's killed by a janitor, who also, it just so happens, didn't have parents.
The Unknown Regions, and that incredibly dark presence? Insignificant.
This movie spits in the face of Star Wars fans. It throws it all away, just like Luke throws away Anakin's lightsaber.
The point of the movie is found in the line "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." Because that is what Disney just did to Star Wars. They killed it. So, you have to let it die.
I have to believe this is Rian Johnson's fault. I can't believe that when Lawrence Kasdan asked JJ Abrams who Luke Skywalker was, that JJ Abrams responded "he's a failure." The Last Jedi was set up to be brilliant. Rey could have been a Skywalker, a Kenobi, a Solo... Phasma was a cold blooded killer.... Kylo was worth fighting for... Snoke was the most evil thing in all of the galaxy, and Luke was going to train Rey with his fathers lightsaber to be one of the strongest Jedi's ever... but no... It's all gone.
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I genuinely can't get my head around the amount of hate on this review page.
The Last Jedi is built around it's core characters and gives each of them satisfying arcs helping them grow as people. That forms the core of the movie and everything ties into one of those arcs.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Finn goes from a selfish deserter to someone willing to give his life for the cause. He learns the wider context of what he's fighting for by seeing the inequality on Canto Bight.
Poe goes from a hotheaded 'hero' to someome who is truly starting to understand what it means to be a real leader.
Rey and Kylo go from lost children unsure of their futures to committed adults ready to give everything to what they believe. They lose there respective mentors and now have to come into their own.
Luke has a great arc from the reclusive cynic to the hero the galaxy needs after a pitch perfect lesson from a fan favourite character- 'failure is the greatest teacher of all'.
It's these arcs that hold The Last Jedi together and make it a rewarding film first and a fun Star Wars movie second.
Throw in some standout performances and spectacular action and this is definitely a solid entry in the Star Wars series.
By no means is it perfect but to say 'it's worse than the prequels' or 'Disney have ruined Star Wars' is completely unfair.
It's not going to be for everyone but as a huge Star Wars fan since the age of 6 (when I first saw ANH on its re-release) I was in no way disappointed and neither were the group of 7 fans of various ages and view points that I saw it with.
You'll have to see The Last Jedi for yourself to make up your mind but it would be a shame if this is the film that causes a real split in the Star Wars fandom, I guess time will tell.
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The whole film is about the rebellion fleeing the empire or whatever they call those space nazis. That's it. That's the core. Then we got a bunch of random characters doing random stuff. Just like that, each go about their own business, like different stories loosely connected. I even thought the Force Awakens wasn't THAT bad, but this film sets the bar lower than ever. Remember Snoke? Who is he? Nobody knows. Why are there Rebels during the Republic? What are they rebelling against? Nobody knows. If there is a Galactic Republic, where's the army? Nobody knows. No questions were answered in this film. Instead we got what seems to be a bunch of sequences some random dude thought was cool, some unfunny jokes and mashed all together in this thing they can Episode VIII.
Where was I? Alright, they are escaping. Leia almost dies, the space nazis can track the rebellion ships through hyper-space, nobody knows how, nobody ever finds out. But Finn is on it, and after a lot of pain, he's got nothing. But he kills Phasma after miraculously surviving a cliché attempt of failed execution and an explosion that kills everyone around him. Then Rey and Chewbacca meet Luke. Luke wants to die and take the jedi teachings with him. Rey has a connection with Ben Solo, she decides to save him. They kill Snoke. But Ben is bad for no reason and he decides to stay that way. Yoda makes a cameo. Luke feels guilty and dies. The rebellion is saved. The end. Ridiculous.
Mark Hamill is the only thing holding this nonsense together. Can't complain about him, he did his lines and did well. But the fact that no one questioned this script is not excusable. How many people working on this? Nobody questioned how stupid everything was? This film is pestered with children nonsense like furry animals and kids doing stupid stuff. When people are not wasting time on pointless dialogues and killing themselves off-screen for the greater good (yes, there are like... 3 characters sacrificing themselves? wtf!), they are making jokes in very inappropriate moments and vomiting clichés all over the place. Snoke dying was surprising. But I don't know enough about the character to give a flying toss. We have a couple of new characters nobody cares about, and by the end of the film almost nothing happens.
This film is boring. Even the endless nonsensical Trade Federation stupidity from the prequels was more interesting than this. George Lucas probably wasn't the most talented writer, but at least the dude tried to tell a story. He failed almost comically with the prequels, but hey, at least after Jar-Jar Binks we didn't have any furry Puss-in-Boots types of characters to entertain children.
Disney really messed up here. I give one star for Mark Hamill and I think the fact that his character and Ford's character died is foretelling of how the franchise died. Forget Star Wars. It crap is a children's show now.
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First of all, if you gave a rich movie like this 1 star, it says more about you than anything else, please go away.
Give it 6 stars, maybe even 4 or 5, but 1? come on, grow up.
Its one of the best installments I have seen. Beautiful space battles, nice "used future" gritty robots, tech and spaceships like in the original trilogy. For long parts of the movie I felt I was back in the good old gritty, dirty, quirky and funny universe, where anything could happen at anytime.
Its a solid 8 at least. Ill give it 9 to counter.
Massive fun.
SPOLER ALERT
That Carrier jump to lightspeed into the Dreadnauhgt, scene.... wow.
Sure that Leia flying thing (tribute?) And Purple haired Lady suddently in command, not caring to talk about her plans, and Lukes redemption, was somewhat of a letdown. But we are still a million parsecs away from a Jar Jar bings epic. Also compared to Lord of the Rings' EPIC FAILS like: Boromirs Horn that almost made no sound, leaving out Tom Bombadil, and that "Bye Bye Bill" scene at the gate of Moria in Lord of the Rings, still making for a good movie, i'd say The Last Jedi, is still pretty solid. Surely nothing less than 5-6 stars if you want to be silly and stupid.
Enjoy.
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5/10
For the first time EVER I'm not looking forward to the next movie...
I'm a life long Star Wars fan and was very disappointed in The Last Jedi. The comedy was forced and they made a mockery of characters like Luke and even Hux, who became Kilo's punching bag. There was such an opportunity with this movie to enrich the characters we've been discussing for 2 years and put Luke in the same league as Yoda and Obi Wan. Instead, he regressed and lost all wisdom....in fact he had to take guidance from Rey. Rian Johnson just threw it all away.
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8/10
A really solid and enjoyable movie, if you're not a hardcore Star Wars die-hard fan that wanted every bit of your imaginative fanfiction added in the movie.
I liked this movie alot. Way better than The Force Awakens definitely.
I didn't find the comedy in this movie forcefully placed as some people say with the exception of maybe one or two moments, one of those moments certainly being during the beginning with all the trash talking from Poe Dameron aimed at General Hux.
I personally didn't find the whole plot with Finn and Rose in the planet of Canto Bight (or the "casino planet") too long and stalling for the movie as some viewers say. And I personally liked it. It wasn't that long to me (it personally felt like 20 minutes long in total putting all the scenes in Canto Bight together). And those are 20 minutes split in 4 separate moments. All in all, it didn't feel like it was stalling the movie to me.
And I do personally think that they did a great job showing the scale and magnitude of Luke's power in this movie. Some die-hard fans wanted to see Luke taking on 200 AT-AT walkers and 1,000 stormtroopers by himself. Well, that is on them. And it's their fault for expecting their imaginative fanfiction to be placed in the movie. To me it did greatly show in this movie the immense power that Luke has gained along the years and how strong he has become with the force. To show that he can force project himself into another planet in a different part of the galaxy to face Kylo Ren shows an immense power with the force in him. Although I do admit I would have liked an epic Star Wars lightsaber duel between him and Kylo Ren during that moment rather than just some simple dodging by him, I still liked the scene regardless and perceived it as epic.
Perhaps the major thing that I didn't like about the movie is how they have left us clueless about Snoke's background and Rey's parenthood. I am not sure whether we're ever going to see anything about Snoke's background, at least in the movies. Maybe they'll release some info in a novel or comic but as far as in the movies, I don't think so. But Rey's parenthood though, I do have some hope that they will reveal the truth about them to us in the next movie in Episode IX. They reason I'm saying this is because I feel like when Kylo Ren faced Rey and told her how he has seen her parents and who they were, and that they basically were just a bunch of junkers who sold Rey for some money, to me it felt like Kylo Ren lying to Rey so she could join him by his side. I don't know, I personally felt like Kylo Ren was simply lying to her. But who knows. I hope they reveal the truth about them (if there is one) in the next movie.
And as far as for Snoke, I really wish he was really Darth Plagueis and that maybe Disney decided to kill him in this movie to reveal to us in the next movie that he is indeed Darth Plagueis and that he can cheat death and resurrect himself. You can not resurrect what isn't dead. I really hope this is the case and he returns in Episode IX having resurrected and revealing to us that he is indeed Darth Plagueis. But highly unlikely.
But overall, I liked this movie a lot and I personally find it a solid and enjoyable movie. And I think that die-hard hardcore Star Wars fans give it a really hard time having had high expectations about the movie and what they wanted to see. I, as a person who like Star Wars, also share their pain of Disney de-canonizing the Expanded Universe and its stories. But this is what we've got, and we gotta deal with it. If we try to see the movie as its own movie and not think of what it could have been, I think it's a great movie.
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Feel totally let down, left the cinema angry and empty. A total waste of 2.5hrs of time. I get wanting to move the SW saga away from the Skywalker/palpatine ethos and went into the film expecting this, but WTF was this all about.
Total shambles and JJ Abrams has hard work trying to rebuild something from this Rian Johnson shit pile he left on the Star Wars storyboard. And to think Disney have sanctioned him on his own trilogy !!!! Disney you might have finally ended what was. 40 year affair with the greatest film franchise of all time
The critics rating this pile of absurd story as excellant, are in the pockets of Disney
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The Last Jedi is the worst Star Wars movie in the 40-year-old franchise, and it's a rolling dumpster fire of a film to boot. Many seasoned fans like me absolutely detest this movie, but not because it "takes bold risks" and "wants to be different," as if we're too immature and selfish to accept "change." Just stop using those weak straw men arguments.
We all know there are thoughtful, clever ways to make a unique and beloved movie by building upon an established universe and its characters. While The Empire Strikes Back succeeds in this -- being a completely different movie in tone and plot than A New Hope -- The Last Jedi strives to trash opportunities, insult fans, destroy legacies, and waste screen time, especially with respect to Kylo, Rey, Snoke, Luke, and Leia. Why?
If you thought prequel elements like a 50's diner, fart jokes, midichlorians, Jar Jar, baby Boba Fett, space taxes, and "Noooo!" ruined Star Wars, then be prepared for numerous shocking and/or cringe-worthy surprises: The Last Jedi literally begins with a space-faring prank call, a bit that could have passed for a Verizon Super Bowl half-time commercial. Wow, how...creative! There is also a nauseating scene involving milking a green alien teat into a sports bottle. Again, why? Would post-divorce George Lucas even have the stones to storyboard an alien nipple?
There is much more crap to say about The Last Jedi, but it was very difficult to pay attention after I wanted to walk out of the theater with my pretzel bites within the first hour. The wagon-train plot and its "epic casino mount" side-quest are boring, illogical, and unfulfilling. Most characters don't make any sense. For example, BB8 goes full-on Titanfall to save some idiots, and he becomes an actual weaponized coin bank! (I wish he'd spit some refunds back to the audience.)
I think the worst thing about this movie is that it gleefully destroys Star Wars and its legacy -- things that make the movies amazing, memorable, and timeless. It treats viewers, young and old, like tools who need to be lectured or pitched a shady sale. Remember, kids: "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." The mild twists, forced humor, and unexpected character deviations just aren't worth the costs to the culture. It'll still sell some sympathy toys, though...maybe some green alien milk.
Compared with the Disney safety squad who produced The Force Awakens, it seems like The Last Jedi was created in a pretentious vacuum of the most eccentric yes-men (or yes-women) with TNT-fueled chainsaws. Seriously, is this The Hateful Eight or Episode VIII? Why would film makers -- in the midst of a new, successful franchise -- flee from the potential of solved mysteries and blossoming intrigue developed by its predecessor? Why excitingly tease the audience (most of which were willing to forgive The Force Awakens for its flaws) but then crush their hopes, not even acknowledging the many abandoned questions? How far does the line have to move until Star Wars is just another Marvel or DC movie and the force becomes a slapstick mutant superpower?
Yes, there are many questions and dirty deeds. I'm too shocked to list them all. I've realized this whole Disney Star Wars thing is not only baffling but it's bordering on treacherous. So, I'd like to protect my good memories and watch the old movies, which are far better than this travesty. Disney has lost a life-long fan; I will not be investing any more time, energy, or money in any new Star Wars movies. That is a promise.
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I'm not a big fan of star wars, I respect the cultural impact it has on films today but I just don't think they are fantastic, the only star wars film I would consider to be great is "the empire strikes back" even if I have problems with it. And I also want to add that I actually enjoyed star wars 7 even if it's basically a remake of the fourth one, it had good pacing and interesting characters... Star wars: the last jedi has almost none of that.
The story was really bad, even if I think that the other star wars movies don't have great stories, this is definitly the weakest one out of all of them, it had some interesting ideas but it's messy and that's because the script is all over the place. I feel like they didn't have time to make a good script because they have to release a star wars movie every one to two years so they just rushed the third act (the third act was easily the worst part of the movie) but I could be wrong, maybe they are just incompetent writers.
The character were a hit and miss, Rey and Finn are still likable, I know I'm in the minority but I do like Kylo Ren I think that he is a pretty interesting character, Poe and his little robot are also likable and that's about it...
All the other characters were either boring or unlikable, Snoke is one of the most pointless and boring vilains I've seen this year, he's not the worst star wars vilain but he's close to it. The side characters are uninteresting and forgettable so I won't bother mentionning the rest.
Technically it's a very pretty movie, the effects were good (exept for Snoke and a few other CG characters), the sets were nice and some fight scenes were entertaining. It's just a shame that it's ruined by a terrible script and a lack of likable secondary characters to make me care more about the story, it's not as bad as everyone says it is, but it's definitily the weakest star wars film (not counting the prequels because these films were awful).
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1/10
Blatant Agism and the Message it sends is sad and offensive
The message is you are "old" if you are in your sixties and it is appropriate, you have outlived your usefulness, it is appropriate to no longer contribute to your society, and not at all shocking or tragic, to disappear..
This message is wrong. This message is offensive.
Luke Skywalker is not old, he is particularly not old as a Jedi Master within the Star Wars Universe considering Yoda was 900. People in their 60s are not old. Maybe to someone in their 20s or 30s sixties seems old, but the premise of this being an appropriate age to no longer contribute is horrible.
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2/10
TLJ feels more like a parody of Star Wars then an actual Star Wars movie
The old characters were portrayed as 3rd, or 2nd grade at best. Luke was altered beyond recognition and made to look pitiful. The Force was substituted with Disney magic. Even Luke and Snoke were dressed to look more like classical wizards than anything else.
All of the hype created by the trailers and TFA was for absolutely nothing - utter disappointment.
Add to this the absurd comic elements and the blatant product placements and the whole thing becomes a parody more akin to Spaceballs. If you have never seen Spaceballs (an actual Star Wars parody), watch it - one of the main plot drivers is that the protagonists run out of fuel in space and land on a desert planet where they meet a "Jedi" master, who helps them continue their quest. Does it sound familiar? The sequel was supposed to be called Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money. Well, now it gets to be called Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Sad and disappointing.
On another note, the movie had really good graphics, but who would expect anything less given the budget.
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Rian Should be run out of town tarred and feathered.(spoliers)
When Rian said he did not give a damn what fans wanted and this was his vision, THAT should have given everyone a serious clue that this was going to be the same of the "reimagined" Fantastic Four which bombed horribly. BUT since this is Star Wars it will bring in a ton of money because fanboys and idiot viewers are just that lame. It says Star Wars...that is all they need to hear.
ANY high ratings are phony and pushed by studio shills who are seeing the writing on the wall. This may very well spell the end of the Franchise or at the least begin the fall of Star Wars due to jackass directors who feel it is time to destroy the JEDI Mythology and call it dead and start some other nonsense.
The Leia scene will start a million debates as well. Ren? Wow, kill off Jedi's but give her Mary Sue powers in jig time? Sorry but her acting is wooden as is so many of the other actors. The character of Poe is perhaps the most interesting character. Hollywood is going overboard turning over franchises to women stars.
Be careful of what you wish for...you might get it.
The director seemed more interested in getting rid of Star Wars beliefs as fast as possible. Rian completely lost what Star Wars was always supposed to be about. I walked out of TFA shaking my head,,,this time I left angry at the travesty he foisted upon us.
Sorry but this ranks as the same or worse than The Force Awakens aka A New Hope 2.0.
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1/10
Anger for the disrespectful, money hungry team that did THAT to SW
The movie is a huge commercial for the toys they want you to buy. They destroyed everything you cared for as a fan, and they are trying to sell us toys in doing so? Take your toys and... you know where to put them. Enjoy the wrath of the fans, that's what you deserve for being greedy. I hope THIS is the one that kills Disney, or at least sets an example of how you can lose your job for making a shitty movie. I hope the god damn writers and managers find themselves up shits creek after this one.
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I wish I could go back in time just one day, and not go see this movie. I would rather be left happily wondering, with the end of Force Awakens, about all the possibilities for the characters and saga than have seen this POS that treats them as nothing more than fodder for cheap laughs. Director/Writer Rian Johnson should be charged with negligent homicide for what he has done. Luke Skywalker dies without having done anything to advance the "light-side" of the Force or tie his character back to the goodness of his heart (unless you count a two minute guided meditation he angrily gives Rey). Unless J.J. Abrams can find a way to resurrect Luke, the 40-year Star Wars Saga will end with it's hero having died as a sarcastic, snide, grumpy old man who just tried to burn down the original Jedi temple (but Yoda beats him to it! Yet another play for cheap laughs).
There is so much more that I could write about Rian Johnson's contemptuous treatment of the Star Wars legacy, but I think I've said enough to give fair warning to any fans who have not yet seen this hack job. SEE THIS MOVIE AT THE RISK OF LOSING YOUR LOVE FOR STAR WARS!
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Film Review: "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is a galaxy far, far away from the one George Lucas created, but the film is good, just not great. I wrote something very similar about "The Force Awakens" when it came out. I still disagree with Disney's and J.J. Abrams' choices made in the "The Force Awakens," and I disagree more with how those choices play out in writer/director Rian Johnson's "The Last Jedi." However, I will review the film that I saw, then discuss what it isn't.
Mr. Johnson has put together a decent film. It does not match the jaw-dropping visuals of "Blade Runner 2049," released earlier this year, or for that matter any of George Lucas's prior Star Wars films, but the concept art, art direction, and production design are serviceable, if not slightly better, than the ones J.J. Abrams approved for "The Force Awakens." "The Last Jedi" does suffer from some poor editing transitions between storylines.
What elevates "The Last Jedi" is Mark Hamill's penultimate performance as Luke Skywalker and John Williams's best score in years. Mr. Hamill commits to this disheveled, disillusioned, and desiccated revised character by Mr. Johnson. And, Mr. Hamill triumphs with what he has been given. Additionally, John Williams's blend of old and new themes in a spectacular score elevate this film in a way only a John Williams score can.
**Slight Spoilers Below**Don't read the next two paragraphs, if you want to know nothing about the movie.**
However, Luke Skywalker's revised character is an example of a major flaw in the Disney-Abrams-Johnson changes to George Lucas's original vision. It is Star Wars Canon established by Yoda that Jedis are not fearful, because fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side of the Force. For most of the film, Luke Skywalker is portrayed with so much fear of his past and the power in Kylo Ren and Rey that everything feels false about this Star Wars story. His fear of Kylo Ren's darkness during his training and Rey's darkness when Luke is asked to train her is all wrong.
George Lucas's Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker would never fear the darkness within people - he would face it, like he faced Darth Vader. Even pre-Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker was never scared to take on the first Death Star, or to start Jedi training, or to go into the cave on Dagobah, and or fear to rescue his friends from Lando's cloud city on Bespin. "The Last Jedi" Luke Skywalker is not Luke Skywalker, regardless of how well Mark Hamill performs the material he was given.
**End of Slight Spoilers**
Yes, Star Wars is a daunting project. It should be. Star Wars changed 20th century filmmaking in hundreds of small and large ways that reverberate today. However, Mr. Johnson was so self-conscious about the subject matter that he wrote an extremely self-conscious script that made fun of itself and Star Wars. He went for cheap "answering machine" jokes and winks to the audience.
Star Wars is Star Wars. All Disney, Mr. Abrams, and Mr. Johnson had to do was inhabit the world that George Lucas created in Episodes IV-VI and play by the rules. Constraints can trigger innovation. Lack of creativity is a poor reason to break rules.
Building an exciting three movie story about a confident and brave Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia is not difficult. But, Disney's, Abram's, and Johnson's fear of Star Wars, led them to get angry at George Lucas's creation, ignore his ideas, and anger lead to a subconscious hate that caused them to throw away Mr. Lucas's rules, and hate lead them to the dark side of the Force.
Again, this is not a bad film. But, as I wrote about "The Force Awakens," "it's just not a sequel to George Lucas's 'Star Wars' films."
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I did enjoy "Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi "(2017) for what it was - a funny, spectacularly crafted adventure extravaganza. I do however understand why so many fans are upset with this movie (i'm not a huge fan of the series) - it lacks continuity from previous movie / movies not it really sets up next film because most of the things were kinda done in this part, episode 9 now does not look so promising.
However as a standalone movie going experience, "The Last Jedi" is a fun movie, you got to give it to it. It contains superb special effects and action sequences, and to be honest it is a bit more original then previous part - it added something new. Acting was great by Benicio Del Toro and Mark Hamill - best performances in this movie. Writing was pretty solid as well as directing - at running time 2 h 30 min this movie did drag a bit in the middle, but its a well paced movie.
Overall, as not a huge Star Wars fan i have to say i did enjoy this movie. It is a big budget extravaganza which isn't the best in the series, but far from cheezee mess that episode 1 and 2 were. Fun movie overall, definitely worth watching on the big screen.
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Going through the reviews, I see an unfair bias against the film. I understand that there is a lot of reverence for the lore that was estabilished by it's predecessors. The previous film, The Force Awakens, came out of a place of nostalgia, and appeased fanboys, but majority of filmgoers found it to be too familiar, and too similiar to previous outings. This outing does the exact opposite, it strays far from the familiar, but yet, still fails to do some fan service by including Yoda (in a cameo), clearly it also fails to do this as many fans are calling for the head of Rian Johnson. What the film does well is self-conscious humor, instead of the over-serious tones of previous films, instead, actions are done which would seem out of place in any of the other films. Another point that has fans rabid is the fact that Luke Skywalker, and Yoda, seem to have a complete disdain for the Jedi faith. To me, this was refreshing, if the prior threat had been elimanated, then there clearly would have been no need for them any longer, or so I would reason. The last thing that will not appeal to fans is the fact that the helmuts have now come off, quite literally, they are no longer worn.
I personally, would recommend this film to non-star wars fans, it has genuinely funny scenes, awe-inspiring visual effects, and great throwbacks to other genres in its cinematography, relying on scenes that would feel in place in a Sergio Leone film.
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The script was so disjointed. All the new characters were so unlikeable and came out of nowhere and then disappeared. Laura Dern was completely unconvincing as a rebel admiral. She acted and looked like an over the hill and washed up Real Housewife of Orange County. Benicio Del Toro started out good but then disappeared...and by the way he could not have betrayed the rebellion because he did not know the rebel space shuttle escape plan... which was just one of a million plot holes.
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Honestly, Disney could take a dump and slap the Star Wars brand on it and people would still praise it by association... oh wait, they just did and called it The Last Jedi. Having been an ardent Star Wars devotee virtually my entire life, I was absolutely elated at the news of additional movies to the franchise after Lucas sold his soul to Disney. To be completely truthful, I was actually relatively dissatisfied with The Force Awakens, which was supposed to be the long anticipated perfect blend of original storytelling and nostalgic evocation. And though there was a general sense of wistfulness, as a whole it just felt like an over-promoted hype fest. I'll not go into details about that here, simply because this is a Last Jedi review, but in retrospect I should've appreciated TFA more while there was still some semblance of that broader Star Wars aura comprised of gripping action and interesting adventures, a reasonably thoughtful dramatic appeal, and the occasional light-hearted humor.
I'm not sure where to even begin with this dumpster fire masquerading as a Star Wars film, so let me just start with my experience upon leaving the theater: *Credits roll as an enthusiastic audience erupts into a thunderous applause ("So this is how democracy dies?"). I'm not sure if they had just seen the same movie that I had. As I exit the theater I turn to my brother who confirms my suspicions by loudly affirming, "Damn that sucked!"
It's unfortunate that Rian Johnson has already been confirmed for his own spin-off trilogy, because with The Last Jedi he's proven that not only does he have essentially no understanding of the broader Star Wars universe, but that he just doesn't care. And I'm tired of hearing this, "Oh, you just hated it because it took risks and tried new things and was different" crap, which is perhaps the worst defense that can be surmised for a nearly indefensible pile of garbage, and which once again proves that no matter what Disney does with Star Wars they can still maintain their blind following.
Alright, this is where the spoilers commence. I don't hate it because it was original and took risks (Rogue One was completely original and it's easily a top 4 SW film of mine now), I hate TLJ because it was absolutely hollow and the "risks" were utterly ludicrous. Let's just start with the script, which was an ineffable tragedy in itself; if I had a dollar for every time I cringed at the dialogue, I'd probably have enough to buy Disney and stop Rian Johnson from creating any more Star Wars movies. Seriously though, a "yo mama" joke in Star Wars? If I were George Lucas I'd off myself just so I could roll over in my own grave. And this was just one of nearly a thousand of cheap, not-so-witty jibes throughout the film, which seemed to drastically undercut a variety of important moments, i.e. Rey asking Kylo if he can put on a towel during their telekinetic exchange. Some other honorable mention cringe-moments also include, but are not limited to: Luke teasing Rey's hand with the leaf, Snoke's entire monologue about Kylo before his death, the whole Luke meditation thing, etc. And don't even get me started about the "Super Leia" scene, because whoever genuinely thought that that was a good idea should be lobotomized immediately.
Now that I'm done ripping some of the "creative" decisions of the script, let's just take a look at the plot, or rather the lack thereof. I know episodes 1-3 received a lot of somewhat deserved flack, but at least it can be said that they have a definable plot that goes somewhere. TLJ's central storyline revolves around running out of fuel and evading The First Order. There, I just saved you the 2 and 1/2 hours torment of watching this movie. Rian Johnson basically told J.J. Abrams "F**k yo couch," and tried to completely subvert his vision, thereby refusing to expound upon any of the major issues that arose in the previous film, and instead created this aimless blunder of what used to be Star Wars. Although I wasn't a huge fan of TFA, at least J.J. gave some direction to the story, posing some interesting questions such as 'Who are Rey's parents?' or 'Who is Snoke and how did he become the Supreme Leader of The First Order?' And to these questions Rian Johnson informed J.J. as well as the entire Star Wars fan base that they could effectively perform fellatio upon his testicles. "Who are Rey's parents? Eff it, let's take the easy way out." "Supreme Leader Snoke, the most powerful Sith Lord in all of the galaxy? Hehe, wouldn't it be funny if we just killed him off for no reason and with no satisfactory answers at all?"
Honestly, I could go on all day about what a disaster this movie was and the implications it has for the Star Wars franchise as a whole, but I'd rather just pretend that it didn't happen, because it is just that terrible. And to those that are going to say, "Well it was visually stunning! And plus it had cool action sequences!" Fair enough, I've taken that into account in my 3-star rating, but that's about the only redeeming qualities about this. Seriously though, growing up as a die-hard Star Wars fan myself I know there's a predilection to want to love any and everything Star Wars, but just think to yourself, what would Disney have to do for you to not like a Star Wars movie. This would be it for me.
In the words of Padme Amidala, "I don't know you anymore! You're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I can't follow!"
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Much like the Transformers series it should be against the law for these people to keep making these movies. The special effects are fantastic!!!! the rest of this trash falls flat on its face. Luke was a chump, Rey is a jedi after 3 i repeat 3 lessons! no training that took years in the first 3, months in the Empire Strikes Back, no Rey gets 3 lessons! Leia flys like superman in space back to the transport and survives! Carrie Fisher died and she will be missed but they coulda used it as a chance to give her a heroic death but no!
Luke is a chump that dies not as a hero in a blaze of blaster fire but as a hologram that causes him too much strain!? Kilo and Rey have some weird sexual tention through the force!
I remember the awe and wonderment when I was a child and my father took me to see a new hope in 1977! This movie is as bad as episode 1, 2, 3,! Rey has no character development at all shes still a nobody and i dont feel for her or care about what happens to her at all. Kilo is a jar jar binks and wished he would just fall out an airlock! But at least we know why hes such a little punk!
Please dont watch this trash, maybe Hollywood will stop making horrible movies! I can go on for days about this trash but I will stop! I even created an account just so I could tell the truth about this movie! f-u Lucas for the special editions, Greedo shooting first, Jar Jar, and f-u Disney for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi !
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By all means, this is not a perfect movie, but it certainly NOT the train wreck that users on here would have you believe.
After the criticism that TFA followed the plot of ANH too closely, and people comparing this one to ESB based on nothing but the previews, I was quite pleased that this movie contained a lot of surprises for me.
I thought I knew how this one would play out, because after all, there have been 7 other movies. However, this one kept surprising me. Something would happen and I would think "Now what?"
There are some spots that the pacing slows. There were some plot points that had me scratching my head. But there were enough surprises, enough NEW and ORIGINAL stuff that despite the detractions, I enjoyed it.
Go in with an open mind. Forget where you think this would go. Forget all the thoughts you had about what sequels to ROTJ would consist of. Don't try to anticipate this one or go in with some idea of what it should be. Just go in, be open to everything, and you'll be amazed.
Remember the lesson of the cave in ESB? "What's in there?" "Only what you take with you."
Don't take any preconceived ideas with you. Just go and take it all in.
Listen to what the story is telling you. There are a lot of deep themes in this one - about who we are, what we can become, why we do things, and what is truly important.
Is it a perfect movie? No. But it is new and original, and despite how I didn't like what happened to some of the characters, I applaud Rian Johnson for making a bold choice, and while this may not be the Star Wars you wanted, this is still a great Star Wars movie.
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I think this director made a deliberate effort to destroy the values that are so dear to the Star Wars community. Luke throwing out the saber sword in disdain? The powerful Snoke being fooled by something that a 2 year kid would notice? Scenes so stupid that could have come from the much funnier (and better movie) Spaceballs?
A very sad day in the history of Cinema.
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So here we go, this is going to be my review of The Last Jedi.
This is a great movie with a lot of heart, I loved the way we got to see Luke and Leia together again. Luke was my favorite in this movie, the darker and more skeptical Luke was great. Mark Hamill was at his best in this movie and gave us the best Luke Skywalker ever! In this movie we see that Luke has hidden him self away to die because he blame his self for what happen to Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren.
The ting i hate the most was that we did not get any new information or the info we got was bad like Rey's parents is nobody and Snoke just died and we never got to know who he was.
The thing i hated the most was that Luke died inn the end of the movie, WHY, WHY did he had to die. i do not understand this at all. and that mad med angry and very sad!
overall i did love the movie for Luke an Leia part but the story and the how/why some character was cut off like Snoke and Luke i hated!
8/10
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I feel like everyone is disappointed with this movie because it didn't service the fan's desires and it went on a different path, one that will expand the Star Wars universe and hopefully even give us more insight to the previous movies and how everything comes together.
The acting in the movie was phenomenal, so were the effects, cinematography, and music.
My disappointment however, is the cliche jokes that ruin dramatic moments, shake my head at Disney for that.
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8/10
'The Last Jedi' notably serves its purpose as the middle child in this latest trilogy
'The Last Jedi' finds itself as perhaps the most polarizing installment of the Star Wars franchise since 'Return of the Jedi,' with die-hard fans either dwelling too much on the bad parts of the script, or obsessing too much on the good. The fact is, the film gets more right than wrong, and even features some of the best sequences of any Star Wars film, period.
It's largely the first half of the film that suffers. There are times when the comedic relief falls flat, or perhaps shouldn't have been attempted in the first place. It's also the first time that the "Disneyfication" of the franchise feels quite apparent, with softer storylines, muted violence, and cuddlier creatures. I, for one, could readily punt one of those Porgs off a cliff into the ocean and not feel guilty doing it.
However, there's good reason why Disney has decided to hand director Rian Johnson the keys to the next Star Wars trilogy. He's managed to successfully blend the commercialization of the 'The Last Jedi' with the tradition and lore of the larger franchise. Furthermore, his action sequences are quite riveting (and two in particular are insanely good), his color palettes throughout the movie are visually stunning, and the musical score is rather delightful.
As a result, 'The Last Jedi' notably serves its purpose as the middle child in this latest trilogy, tying up all of the loose ends from 'The Force Awakens' while setting up the next film for a fresh take on the Star Wars universe.
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This was a collage of shit throwbacks that never follows through on anything and leaves much dead in the water.
There is no main character in the movie. Rey's character was greatly shadowed. If anything Poe had more of a role but still not a main character.
Many things to complain about.
First battle sequence scene you have a stupid hot shot moment with let's just send Poe to take on the dreadnaught to take out all the turrets by himself. Really? Is this supposed to push a hey this character is badass kids. Like him. If anything it was a stupid and just for the kiddies.
Poe gets demoted for following through with their original stupid plan. Then when the vice admiral takes over she chooses not to share information which leads poe to venture off on a secret mission.. Which is supposed to be some kind of throwback to visiting another planet to find someone. This decision led to further development and the introduction of Benecio del Toro's character dj who is supposed to be some kind of lando/han character from which he falls short of and he ends up betraying them getting a shit load of the rebels killed. All in all if you go back. If the vice admiral shared information with Poe they would have all escaped.. Not to mention the whole idea of going to the planet was to find someone to help disable the light speed tracker. Which is the plotline they killed when del toro betrays them. It's just like ok.. This went nowhere...
Reys training.. Oh Rey... They tried to do a throwback to Luke's training and how Rey needs a master.. blah blah blah. They tried to do so many throwbacks with this.. It was rushed incomplete and they needed to move on to their shitty plotline.. Not to mention their plan for wrapping up Rey's past.. which they still left to suggestion.. Implying she has no history her parents were nobodies that sold her.. lol.. and trying to imply a cheesy oh it doesn't matter where you came from..
Oh there's hope for Kylo.. There's hope.. A throwback to luke and his father.. blah blah..
They made a cheesy twist.. Oh kylo ren turns... he kills Snoke and helps.. Oh wait he wants to take over for himself and invites Rey to join. This twist was so simple and stupid that people will accept it. Not to mention snoke died like a bitch. Come on if it was Palpatine he would have known that someone was using the force to point a saber at him.
Finn.. Oh Finn. They tossed you around a bit didn't they.. Not to mention they threw a really cheesy love interest your way with Rose. And they threw a cheesy hey Rey and Poe took some glances at eachother.. What's the matter Disney just couldn't go with a white girl and black guy? Yeah I went there...
Luke... oh Luke.... we loved seeing you again.. but they go and kill you off at the end after making a big deal of you astral projecting yourself and making a big deal out of you and made people think there may be more for you.. Then just letting you blow off like dust in the wind... lol...
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1/10
Let the people know, Disney has killed Star Wars!!
I have always loved Star Wars but after seeing this poor excuse of a film, I feel insulted. This film has no great characters, no backstory , no mystery and the universe doesn't feel like that of star wars.
The acting is poor and cringe worthy at best, its a film for critics to shower their praise on because they are not hard-core star wars fans or sci fi enthusiasts. The film didn't move me at all but broke my heart due to the clear nonsensical path it took.
The idea of the force in this is pathetic and by this film standards anyone can be as powerful as Darth Vader.
This film outright disrespects the originals, George Lucas and the themes that influenced it such as Joseph Campbell's a hero with a thousand faces etc.
Today I say a sad farewell to star wars and I don't think I will visit its gravestone.
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I don't even know where to begin. Other disappointed reviewers have covered it all. I am in utter disbelief of the total disregard for everything that has come before. I totally understand that it is 2017, and things have changed since 1977--and need to change to usher in new generations of fans. I do. I can handle change - but you just rewrote my childhood and this is not ok.
So Rey is the kid of no one? Fine. Vader wasn't really either. Leia can dead-force-float through space? Eh, well...fine, I can deal. But you are telling me that LUKE SKYWALKER can't handle Leia & Han Solo's kid, his nephew, and goes into frickin' hiding for the rest of his life? You're saying that in all these years, Luke didn't get a force-visit or two from Yoda, Obi Wan, even ANAKIN to tell him to quit whining, get off his dead @$$ and prove that he's the jedi master that they all sacrificed themselves for?? Yoda shows up in the last act, burns down a tree and....that's it? Really??
There's so much more to add. It's been just under 48 hours since I saw this travesty and I'm still just incredulous. I call do-overs. The beginning of the next movie, you show Finn waking up - in a bacta tank - and we find that "the last jedi" was just a horrible, awful, nightmare.
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Rian Johnson just killed Star Wars. When George Lucas produced the prequels, he cut off Star Wars' hand. Johnson? He ran a lightsaber through Star Wars' chest and watched as it fell off the bridge and into the abyss below.
There are far too many reasons for me to list as to why I would give this film a negative score if I could. So I'll just go with the number one reason: the character assassinations of Luke Skywalker and all Jedi who came before him. This alone makes this film the worst film in the saga, BY FAR.
Luke is EXTREMELY unlikable in this movie. He's depressed. He's pessimistic. He's sarcastic. He loses his temper frequently. He is largely reluctant to train Rey, because he has no faith in the Force. He's essentially Han Solo, except with ZERO charm or humor.
Has he turned to the Dark Side? Nope. He's just a grumpy old man, who has disappeared to a remote island not to find the First Jedi Temple, but to DIE. Why? Because apparently he flushed all of his progress in rebuilding the Jedi Order down the toilet by... get this... igniting his lightsaber with the intent to kill Ben Solo "because he had dark thoughts."
Really?
REALLY!?
Did Rian Johnson even WATCH the Original Trilogy at ALL before sitting down to write the screenplay? Or did he write whatever he wanted to write because either he wants to build his own legacy, or because he has some sort of philosophical agenda? There is NO EXCUSE for having Luke act this way. Do you REALLY expect us to believe that Luke, the guy who redeemed Darth Vader because he saw good in him, didn't believe that Ben was redeemable, even though Ben didn't turn to the Dark Side until AFTER Luke's failed attempt to kill him!? And do you REALLY expect us to believe that Luke lost faith in the Force THAT easily!? Where were Obi-Wan and Yoda to talk some sense into him!?
Throughout the entire film, Luke is basically re-learning EVERYTHING that he ALREADY KNEW in the Original Trilogy, either from Yoda (as a Force Ghost) or from Rey. Why? Give us ONE GOOD REASON why that does not make Luke look like a COMPLETE MORON.
Speaking of Yoda as a Force Ghost, during his brief cameo, he basically tells Luke, "forget everything that I ever taught you. Let Rey learn the Force on her own, because the Force is all about self-empowerment, and anyone can be a Jedi."
First off, how did it take 30 years for Yoda to come to that conclusion? He's a Force Ghost! He's one with the Force! He IS the Force! Shouldn't he have achieved that wisdom WHEN HE DIED!? He had PLENTY of opportunities to tell Luke this before this episode! And second, the idea that ANYBODY can be a Jedi is one of the most nihilistic "morals" that I have ever seen in ANY movie, PERIOD. The Jedi needs to have SOME sort of philosophy. So what is it? We don't know. It's never explained!
After the scene with Yoda, this movie - and perhaps the entire saga - is damaged, perhaps beyond repair. There are other problems in this movie, but even if the rest of the movie was completely perfect, it is still the worst in the saga, by far. And the ending doesn't make it any better. Luke manages to come to his senses, but is killed off in the most insulting way possible before we get a chance to see the old Luke again. He creates an illusion of himself to fight Kylo Ren, and then dies from exhaustion and becomes a Force Ghost. No. Just... no.
Episode IX had BETTER make up for this travesty. If it doesn't, I will refuse to consider this sequel trilogy (or anything made by Disney, for that matter) as canon. I will go back to the Expanded Universe, and pretend that everything Star Wars post-2012 never happened. Considering that Disney is in charge, I suspect that is exactly what will happen.
"The Last Jedi?" More like "The Last Time Disney Should Be Allowed Anywhere NEAR Star Wars."
It's a shame that THIS is Carrie Fisher's last Star Wars film.
RIP Carrie Fisher (1956-2016), and RIP Star Wars (1977-2017).
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Good but not great, loses the Star Wars magic along the way
The Resistance prepares to do battle with the First Order. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker is unsettled by the strength of Rey's powers and connection to Kylo Ren.
Filmmaker Rian Johnson plays against expectations and bravely tries not rehash what's has been done before. Star Wars: Episode VIII Last Jedi has heaps of dramatic moments, heightened by John Williams' score, the emotional impact most of which oozes from the late Carrie Fisher as Leia is poignant. Oscar Isaac's Poe and Mark Hamill's Luke steal the show but both Adam Driver (Kylo) and the perfectly cast Daisy Ridley (Rey) give the original trilogy actors a good run for their money. Less of a comedy side kick here John Boyega's Finn is more focused and has a new love interest in Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico.
Although Rey is present throughout she not as centre piece as she was previously, getting lost in amongst all the other story threads and characters. Both Driver and Daisy, when they are connected during new force power moments and later when they take on Snoke's guards in an interestingly choreographed fight scenes do get a chance to excel.
Director, writer Rian Johnson offers a good, but not brilliant Star Wars episode, unfortunately there's a lot of jokes thrown in which feel off with the usual galactic humour of its predecessors. Jarringly there's misplaced dialogue about God and souls. Moreover, many of the effects are arguably not as good as Episode VII or Rogue One, surprising for a Star Wars film, many CGI shots (feel less model lifelike), rendering and movements stick out for example when BB-8 steals an AT-ST (Scout Walker) with Finn and Rose.
To Johnson's credit, there's a stand out scene with Luke and R2-D2 where they view 1977's Star Wars Leia hologram message, moreover is a huge spoiler moment that includes Luke's impressive moving story closure (with a Obi-Wan, Yoda cloak twist) this is a high point not only of this episode but of all the episodes. Yoda returns (thankfully a puppet mastered by Frank OZ) appears as a force ghost. However, some of the characters feel a little fleeting and wasted including Andy Serkis Snoke's brief and anticlimactic demise and Benicio del Toro's DJ is excellent but also has limited screen time. With relief Maz shows up as a hologram in the midst of a firefight.
With already an abundance of species for Johnson's to chose from there's many new monsters/alien/animals crammed in and new space ships unnecessary added to the saga. Specifically during the messy Casio messy segment. That said, the cute puffin-like Porgs are surprisingly good addition. Also favourites return including Chewie, R2-D2, C3-PO and there's plenty newcomer BB-8 moments as the action moves from one planet, hopping from spaceship to another. With Kenny Baker's passing RD-D2 is performed now by Jimmy Vee. Joonas Suotamo reprises the Chewbacca role in which he doubled for Peter Mayhew respectively in Force Awakens but here takes over completely. Actress Billie Lourd (Fisher's realife daughter) welcomingly gets more lines and to do as Lieutenant Connix. But even with more Phasma to enjoy her moments feel rushed like some of the special effects. In addition, the reveal of Rey's parents leaves sour taste and Snoke's origins is left bitter sweet in an abrupt end not seen since Dooku was disposed of in Revenge of the Sith. Also we're still left with the unanswered question of how did Kylo get the blue lightsaber, and how did it get to Maz's castle in Force Awakens, even if it is one and the same, and where are the Knights of Ren and the handful of Jedi in training that were not killed who left with Kylo?
It has its fair share of story beats and character high points notably, Fisher and Johnson's handling of Leia as she evades the First Order in a number of set pieces which offers genuine story surprises. Memorable is Leia's resurrection 'Force' moment, Laura Dern's character sacrifice and Yoda's return to name a few. But there are niggling wasted opportunities and shoehorned on the nose social commentary.
Overall, debatably Johnson's offering doesn't feel as Star Warzy as it should, nevertheless, it's Star Wars nonetheless, but don't expect Empire Strikes Back or the Star Wars je ne sais quoi magic.
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Bad plot, snoke die without we knowing anything from him, bad jokes all over,luke dying like a fool, leia superman part. it just makes this movie a disappointment .
my first sentence after the end was it was bad and im still believe that
it might be as bad as the prequels its that bad.
dont go to see this.
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I sincerely enjoyed this movie. Music, transitions and lightsaberfights on point. The actors where all great, the chemistry between Kylo Ren and Rey and how they developed as characters stood out among all (also Hux, he was magnificent). Perhaps it didn't feel like a "true" Star Wars movie but nevertheless it got me hooked. When jedi mindtricks were happening, dang that was neat.
The few complaints I have is with the oddly placed casino planet thing, well pretty much all of Finn's part of the film since it felt so misplaced somehow. Though, I liked him on the salty planet. I would have loved if there was more focuse on Rey and Luke, more lessons or just more jedi-stuff. Also, the humour was almost always present which felt a bit too lighthearted at some points but I guess it gave me a few chuckles here and there. Fine, i'll allow it.
Okay almost done, bear with me! The thing with Luke kinda bothered me and how he was a completly diffrent character than what I remebered him being *brushes of shoulder*. You could see glimpses of his "true" self with yoda, when he snuck on the falcon and when he met Leia though but I guess him being a grumpy man after living on an island for a while is somehow interesting. That Island was gorgeously shot aswell.
Finally, the sound of the huge ships are so satisfying and the first spacebattle brought a smile to my lips by the pure amazingness.
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The story unfolded to the unexpected death of Snoke, Luke's final showdown, multiple battle scenes, animated creatures and extraordinary graphics. The new resistance is here and darkness will fear it
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Where does one begin to review Star Wars: the last Jedi? Having sat eagerly awaiting the next installment of a Franchise I'd grown up with and enjoyed, (at least the original 3 movies and most of the Force Awakens at any rate) finally seated in a gloomy cinema watching as the opening scroll so familiar traversed across the darkened screen ended my enthusiasm for a movie that was so poorly written to be almost infantile in its execution. That may seem like a harsh criticism but allow me to explain:
As we open on Domhnall Gleason's General Hux sneary scowl dolling out lines like an evil villain from a Christmas panto play I couldn't help but think there was somehow a mistake - someone in the projectionist booth had keyed up a funny behind the scenes outtake instead of the actual feature film by accident Surely this couldn't be the actually movie, could it? I sank deeper into my seat and tried my best to focus on the positives but it continued to shock with its failed attempt at 'dropped telephone connection' humour between Rebelion hotshot pilot Poe Dameron and general Hux . To say that this exchange was more akin to a part of Space Balls: the movie than Star wars would be an understatement. Having glossed over some reviews they lead you to believe that this installment was closer in tone to the Empire strikes back while in reality it was more akin to an unintentional comedy than a space opera. I sat there and wondered where they watching the same movie as me.
This weird structure was to continue with humour that failed seemingly every time it was attempted. Gone was the laconic smart ass-ness of Han Solo being replaced by a slap stick humour that just wasn't funny. We have a scene involving Princess Leia that was quite simply silly - it would have been better served for her to simply die at that point at least it would have created some gravitas as it stands she comes across as some sort of super hero who cannot be killed.
Minor plot holes I can forgive but a blatantly poorly written plot I cannot. What ensues for most of the movie is a slow motion chase across space that makes literally no sense. The rag tag rebellion fleet is quickly running out of fuel and has only enough to make one more light jump but the only snag is that the 'First Order' can track them through the 'light jump' and remain on their tails. This begs the question: why didn't the first order simply surround them and obliterate their ships into tiny particles? In the original movies the star destroyers where incredibly fast moving. In this they are a hulking beasts traveling at a snails pace while the rebellion ships have shields that can continuously repel bombardment for hours on end. The logic here is simply bad and just an excuse to create a subplot for Finn to go to attempt to rescue the ship.
The muddled plot continues when we visit Luke Skywalker and Rey. She wishes to try to bring Luke Skywalker back with her to balance the force and rebuild hope in the rebellion which is fine. I can even get on board with the fact that Luke is now a loner and doesn't want anything to do with the rebellion, having made drastic mistakes training the future Jedi knights. But the motivations of Rey and her temptation at the hands of the dark side of the force seem laboured and without character. It is just a matter of convenience to try to bring Rey and Kylo Ren back together again. Luke Skywalker as a character is now wasted and what was considered by many to be an iconic screen hero is reduced to a bumbling old man who has divorced himself from the force in favour of living a life as a hermit.
It just makes me wonder how a script like this could be read and not notice all of the plot holes in it. With so much money gambling on a movie as big as this do Disney simply just believe they will make a ton of money no matter what sort of Star Wars movie they cobble together? Ensemble movies are notoriously difficult to get right. The ability to hit the highs while maintaining the tone of the original is incredibly difficult. With the advent of more impressive special effects and the ability to blow up everything into a million impressive pieces we've forgotten the golden rule of cinema: Character. Impressive special effects will never gloss over the fact that a screenplay is poorly written. Motivation is key. Conflict is paramount and character is king.
In Star Wars we have forgotten that sense of wonder where the continuous battle of good versus evil hangs in the balance and love and faith are what holds the universe together, binds us in an ever increasing circle. Spectacle has replaced poignancy and motivation and it is a lesser movie because of it.
The force is not strong with this one.
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If you had told me that there would be a Star Wars movie that would be so offensive to my tastes that I would look back at the prequels with rose tinted eyes I would have called you crazy. But here we are, two days after seeing The Last Jedi I'm left shaking my head with how Director/Writer Rian Johnson has not only shattered the new lore and mythos JJ Abrams was setting up with 2015's The Force Awakens but proceeded to wreck the legacy of one of films most beloved heroes.
This is the longest Star Wars film, clocking in at a 150 minutes, and yet it somehow manages to cover less ground than any other Star Wars movie. It splits off into three plotlines, one involves Oscar Isaac's Poe butting heads with a new character by Laura Dern. It's played up comedically and feels like an imitation of an old War movie, there's not much weight or tension put into it. Then we have John Boyega's Finn go on this Casino planet for a Codebreaker and the whole thing felt like an incredible waste of time. Like Poe's story this is also just mainly for laughs and had this story been cut from the film entirely very little would have been lost, it's insanely forgettable. The most important part is the return of Luke Skywalker and his training of the lead Rey. And for me this was the only part of the film that somewhat worked as Hamill is a charismatic actor but for every scene that made me smile there was a moment that just bewildered me. Did we really need to see Luke drink milk from a nasty Sloth Alien? Oh and I almost forgot Adam Driver's Kylo Ren meanders around angrily.
This all culminates with a final battle on Not-Hoth. And it just feels like Rian Johnson gives the biggest FU to the audience by making things so anti-climatic. We get one really good sword fight and the rest is just pretty much forgettable. At the end nothing much really happens, frankly I feel one will be able to just go from Episode 7 to Episode 9 and not miss anything.
I'm writing this review (and created this account) because this film has received an ungodly amount of praise by critics standing at a coveted 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. And it is so very undeserved. Disney can do way better than this wretched mess, Thor 3 and the Guardians of the Galaxy movies feel like better Star Wars films. This movie just makes me sad, and it negatively impacts The Force Awakens by just brushing aside all the potentially exciting things JJ Abrams was leading up to. The audience deserved better and so did the Star Wars franchise. It feels as if Rian Johnson was so committed to subvert all the tropes in Star Wars that he forgot what made Star Wars fun.
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9/10
A great Star Wars movie (just not what everyone expected)
The movie was fantastic and fixed all the problems I had with The Force Awakens.
I'm really shocked at how blind some people can be... I was always the biggest fan of the original trilogy and also was afraid that having that nostalgia will ruin the new movies if they go too far from the source material. But I'm very glad to be wrong. In my opinion Ryan did an amazing job (much better job than Abrams) balancing out the old and the new. We got closure in places where it was needed and also got investment for what the future holds.
Some decisions were definitely strange (like killing off a certain character) but that's what I also liked about the movie - it was taking risks - unlike the New Hope v2. If all the crying fanboys would just throw away the nostalgia sunglasses they would see that this was a great Star Wars movie - it just did not tell the story you had in your head when you first heard that there will be 3 new Star Wars movies back in 2012.
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2/10
Farce of the Force: The Last Jedi is not Star Wars movie, here's why
The Last Jedi is a very controversial movie in many ways. The decisions made by the writer/director can be discussed for a long time and we could find a lot of arguments pro and contra. However, right now I want to draw everyone's attention to the undeniable fact that The Last Jedi is not a movie in the Star Wars universe, at least not in the universe that has existed for 40 years.
Over the past 40 years, we've learned a lot about the world of Star Wars, and in particular how Force works. For the most part, every time we discovered new facts about Force, they fit into a existing picture. We learned new things, but this did not invalidate what we already know. This is how science works in our world - it always expands the horizons of the known, and does not turn everything upside down. The Last Jedi broke this tradition, at once throwing into the trash bin a lot of things what we though we knew about the Force in Star Wars.
Here are specific examples.
Example 1. It is possible to turn the light sabers on and off using Force. This invention of the The Last Jedi's writer enabled two quite effective scenes - Snoke's death and following spectacular duel in the throne room. Let us, however, think about what this means for the world of Star Wars.
For instance...
... Could Obi Wan in a duel against Darth Maul just Force turn-on Qui Gon's saber and slice his foe, still hanging over the ledge?
Or even...
... in any light saber battle of the past, could fighters just simply force turn-off opponent's sabers?
Or even...
.. could you just force turn-on lightsaber of your foe before duel even starts, while saber still hangs on your opponent's belt, and cut off his legs?
Simply put, if light sabers can be operated by Force, light saber duels, as we know them, are impossible.
Example 2. The Force allows the untrained user to fly through a space. Leia, supposedly fainting from shock, uses Force (in which she never trained - we will come back to this later) and returns to Rebel ship.
But then...
... why generations of Jedi and Sith could only use Force for higher and longer jumps, but never for flying?
... why Mace Windu, thrown out the window by the emperor, did not fly back, and did not finish off his opponent?
... why Palpatine, being a much stronger adept of the Force than Leia, could not fly out of the shaft he been thrown into?
If Force makes it possible to move in space at will, albeit with some speed limitations, half of the dramatic scenes in the first six movies become meaningless.
Example 3. The power allows you to directly communicate through huge distance. The most powerful Jedi and Sith, of whom we know from other movies and books, could only feel the disturbance of power or, at the very least, a strong emotional message like cry for help. But, according to The Last Jedi, Force can be used as Skype or Facetime - to talk directly and even see what the other person is wearing. This builds the whole story arc between Ray and Kylo Ren, but what does it mean for the Star Wars universe?
... why did not anyone know about this and did not mention it before? After all, this is the ideal tool for long range communication!
Example 4. Force ghosts can directly manipulate the real world. Yoda's ghost summon the lightning and pokes Luke with a stick - very impressive scene.
But ...
... if possible, why Yoda's or Obi Wan's ghosts did nothing against Emperor Palpatine. Strangled him in a sleep, maybe?
... why Anakin's ghost did not appear and didn't kick some sense into stupid head of his grandson?
All these examples, especially the last two, practically beg to give "very logical" answers to the question "Why something was not possible before, but it is possible now?" These are the answers:
because Snoke / Kylo Ren / Rey / Leia are more powerful in Force than those that were before!
because Yoda's ghost only now learned how to summon lightnings and didn't know how to do it before!
The latter answer, in fact, does not explain anything and opens such horrendous prospects for the future of Star Wars that I don't even dare to look in this direction.
The former, however, is quite interesting and worth to look into.
Rey and Leia as Force users are, strictly speaking, do not fit into the Star Wars canon at all. Of all the previous movies, we know that spontaneous use of Force is very rare, and even very talented adepts such as Anakin Skywalker are capable of very little things without training.
Leia, as far as we know, demonstrated some ability to use Force before, but never greater than a vague feeling of Luke's emotions. How did she learned how to fly?
Rey, as far as we know, is nobody from nowhere, but from the very beginning of Disney's era (The Force Awakens) she demonstrates abilities comparable to those that trained Force user Kylo Ren has. Later (The Last Jedi), Rey repeatedly uses force at Yoda's master level without even having the training that Luke had in Empire Strikes Back. How come?
Snoke's talents are also absolutely illogical. If he is such a powerful in Force with vast experience, so powerful that he is able to use Force even as a hologram projection (another example of what was previously unthinkable in the Star Wars universe, hence Example 5), why does he die so easily? Why would he even be on board a spacecraft and expose himself to any danger if he could simple appear as a projection and strangle a negligent officer? Or even do it with the rebels, huh?
All this, in general, has only one reasonable explanation.
Star Wars in The Last Jedi (and partly in The Force Awakens) is not the universe that existed 40 years before, a world with rules, laws and limitations, even for such an unthinkable thing as the Force.
The new Star Wars is the world of a bad comic book. Every new hero must have unique super abilities (Leia flies, Rey does everything at all). Every new villain must be more powerful than all previous villains (Snoke knows everything that the Sith of the past could not do). In the world of bad comics it is necessary - if the villain who was able to cast lightning from the eyes is defeated, the next villain can not just cast lightning from the eyes. He must be able to freeze or roast all around. The hero with a super suit should get an even better super suit in the next episode (hello, Captain Phazma, with the armor that can not be penetrated by blasters... why do not we make the same armor for all the stormtroopers and armor for spaceships as well? Example 6!).
But the universe of Star Wars has never been so. The villains were never just stronger, they were better prepared and they had good plans. Palpatine was not the most powerful Sith ever, he was a cunning manipulator and intriguer. The heroes never rose and never win at the expense of new tricks and gadgets. Obi Wan battled Anakin on Mustafar and won not by using some trick, but because he was more experienced and wiser. Luke was never a super-talented Force user or lightsaber duelist. He was just... kind and pure soul?
This, by the way, is also true for good comics. In Nolan's trilogy, Joker and Bane were not just stronger rivals for Batman because they had super abilities, which no one had before. They were better prepared and they had good plans. Batman himself found the strength to win not at the expense of new gadgets. He changed as a person.
However, Disney has chosen a different path for the new Star Wars saga. So get ready that in movies to follow we will see even more villainous villains who will do things unthinkable earlier and heroes who will be even more majestic and Mary Sue-er than ever. Without any explanation why, of course.
And may the farce be with you.
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5/10
Disappointing and boring but great special effects
I really liked Rogue One but this one, The Last Jedi, was as described as above --> disappointing and boring. Normally i'm used to watch the Star Wars movies several times in cinemas but this one i really don't want to because it pains me. It was like a two and a half hour long preparation for the next movie. The story felt for me 'flat' without any positive surprises or turning of events. The Questions of the previous movies got senseless answers if any. For me it was not possible to feel any emotions for the characters even when the dramatic music/soundtrack tried it hardly. I just couldn't care less.
The maybe only good thing about this film are the special effects which are awesome.
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6/10
2:32 run time and we basically got a big SW tease.
I get the feeling as the frenzy dies down and people re-watch this multiple times their adulation will cool off.
I'll start with the big questions everybody grappled with for 2+ years...WE DIDN'T GET ANSWERS! and honestly, I don't think we will get to some answers, either. I was especially surprised at a pretty long winded side mission that led NOWHERE. It was a failure and didn't seem like it was a game changer, anyway. They used an old school movie filler trick on us. We were introduced to 100's of new action figures though!
There where some great scenes. Hitting light speed and taking out half the enemy fleet. However it raises the question, that this advanced galaxy never came up with the concept of a suicide spaceship before? Luke's projection? Neat! However, he's supposed to be really, really powerful.How this spread hope to the galaxy? Was it broadcast?
Much has been made about Kylo Rens reveal on Rey's parents. He easily could be lying. He twisted around everything else.
And let's talk about Kylo! Two movies in, all I've seen is a spoiled brat with mommy and daddy issues. Who thought it would be a good idea to train this loose cannon in the first place? Even guys with the best intentions and motives are rejected, why do I get the feeling Kylo was always a little bent in the head.
Killing off Snoke early, in a middle act. Ummm how good would Tombstone be if they killed off Curley Bill in the middle of the movie?It also raises several questions. He was jabbering on about Ren's allegiance when it happened. His senses were totally off. He was easily dispatched. How powerful was this guy?
And then Rey is now just an orphan sold off for drinking money? How did she become a raw force user capable of holding her own against a very powerful Sith? My greatest fear is after another 2 1/2 hours we wont have an answer. Like we thought we'd get in this movie.
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Let's face it. Let's be honest. It was always going to be next to impossible to live up to the hype. Star wars fans have built up star wars to such heights that it was always going to be next to impossible, that unless the director was a Christopher Nolan level genius, it was always going to fail.
I won't blame Disney, as these days, it's going to be next to impossible-unless you're Marvel, who seem to be the the only one's who can get it right-to please everyone. These movies try to please everyone and end up alienating the hardcore fans. I'm sure casual movie goers will like this movie fine, but fans with a little more invested, won't.
As others have said. The mysteries introduced in the force awakens have very poor resolutions. Luke Skywalker apparently decided to abandon the galaxy to the dark side because of his own personal failures as a teacher. Yeah, Luke. One mistake, just give up.
Apparently Snoke wanted to find Luke badly in the first movie for some reason, but there was no actual reason. As Luke was meh. They made it seem as if Luke held the key to defeating the first order. Luke didn't even win one battle in this movie, so apparently Snoke doesn't know what he's doing.
The will they won't thing between Finn and Rey (I know it's not the 1990's so this is outdated anyways), has become a potential love triangle.
Oh, the whole, I must complete the training of Kylo Ren thing was also just ignored btw, so just forget about that. And the cool mask and the new lightsaber, again, just forget about that. Doesn't matter as well.
Anyways, that's it. I won't go into the many, many flaws of the movie.
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8/10
Rain Johnson walks the SW franchise off the cliff's edge
A good step in the right direction. Not everything worked, but overall a massive improvement on TFA. The biggest difference is that it wasn't as mind numbingly predictable as the previous installment. Also, I started caring about the characters little.
P.S. The wheelbarrow crushed by a falling rock is an instant classic on the par with the most (intentionally) funny scenes in all SW movies
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I can't believe Disney still milks this cow. I gave them a pass for their first one, like ok, let's recap the story for the young audience. But now, they had very little left to recap, and what they do? Tell it again, scene by scene, line by line, only with poor characters. Like kids playing dolls after a nice movie they seen. And becsuse they only had the final scene from return of jedy to redo, they fill the rest with bullsh** and non-sense, telling nothing. And if you hope it is over, NO! They have the first episodes to redo next. Closing scene rings a bell? Anakin anyone? Prepare yourselves for more blue milk! This cow ain't over, no sir!
In my disappointment I would rate it 1/10 but gave a 4, for being an action movie that kids enjoy. And for Ray, who could be such an interesting character if only she would have a story to be part of.
Really, no hope here. Waiting for more Star Wars stories episodes which are a lot better.
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8/10
An unexpected artistic, risky but fresh twist on Star Wars.
This is almost the opposite in everyway to The Force Awakens. While JJ Abrams brought a very fast-paced energetic but very familiar and safe feel to The Force Awakens, Rian Johnson brings to The Last Jedi something that is slower, patient and refreshing new and unexpected. Johnson isn't too concerned with trying to satisfy every Star Wars fan but is very invested in swinging big in every direction that is risky but for most of it really pays off.
Using a very meta-type of narrative to go against tropes one would expect in Star Wars, Johnson makes the audience question the identity of this space opera franchise that has been going on since the 70's. The film delves on the flaws of the past, religion, teachers, authority and idolized heroes and asks what is worth sacrificing during times of war. And just when you think the movie is ending the way you would expect; it takes a hard left turn to deliver a great third act.
The new characters that were introduced in Force Awakens are expanded with more depth thanks to Johnson's writing and the performance from Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver. The dynamic between Rey (Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Driver) is greatly fleshed out to beyond just a hero vs villain relationship. As Rey seeks to know who she was and her significance in the force while Kylo wishes to grow out of the shadow of his grandfather Darth Vader and his old life as Ben Solo, they both bond through their sense of confused identity. While Oscar Isaac only had so little screen time in Force Awakens to leave a large impression, here he is given the reins to show how Poe's brash attitude and rebelious nature towards authority can have consequences. While Boyega's return has less of an impact from the last movie, he once again delivers as Finn goes on a mission to save the Resistance that makes him question whether they are any better then the First Order. Unfortunately Gwendoline Chrstine's Captain Phasma is once again snubbed from leaving any kind of memorable imprint as a character. She has some cool action moments but is still so forgettable. But easily the most memorable character and performance in this is Mark Hamil as Luke Skywalker. While Hamil has been great in voice acting this is his best performance as Luke in all Star Wars movies. Hamil shows a different side of Luke that is no longer hopefully optimistic but alone and anti-social. He has grown to hate the title of hero that the galaxy bestowed on him and the fallen Jedi order. With pride blinding him that put Ben Solo on his path to become Kylo Ren he now sees the Jedi Order as a flawed system that also allowed the Emperor to come into power and should be forgotten. You are reminded in scenes that there are still some elements of the old Luke particular an encounter with R2-D2. Also I would feel ashamed to not give credit to Carrie Fisher as Leia whom passed away last year. We now fully see her as a strong and wise military leader who has a lot of advice needed in dark times. Other great performances are Laura Dern as Admiral Hoddo, Kelly Marie Tran as Rose and Andy Serkis returning as Supreme Leader Snoke who this time feels a lot more threatening then he did as a giant hologram in Force Awakens.
This probably has the most visually stunning and awe-inspiring moments in any Star Wars movie. The nods feel a lot subtler then in Force Awakens but with clever visual twists. Johnson's use of vibrant red colour tones helps to evoke this sense of conflict that is building throughout the movie from Snokes's throne room to the red salt dust on the planet Krait. Both the beginning and ending battle sequences evoke a very WW2 vibe from the new vehicles to the way the scenes are filmed and the way the tension builds.
While I think Rose and Finn are good characters, their storyline I felt is what weakened the film from being completely perfect. The screen time of them being in the Las Vegas-style planet called Canto Bight felt it was just filler and only existed to offer some social commentary on the upper class economy in the Star Wars universe. And it makes it even worse by the fact their actions have the barest impact of the plot with large amount of runtime taken up and feels tonally inconsistent to the rest of the movie. The humour I also felt like it wasn't as strong in Force Awakens when it came out in unexpected moments that didn't fit with the serious tone of the movie.
Hardcore Star Wars will no get doubt get upset at how Johnson follows up or even disregards some of the things Force Awakens setup. In fact it becomes very clear he prefers deflating those big epic mysterious in service for letting the characters evolve and mature at the expense of fan's expectations. To me I enjoy these creative risks that Johnson had the confidence to follow through but I feel it has now the set the bar a little too high for JJ Abrams to follow in Episode 9.
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1/10
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Beginning of Bad Films
Suck it Disney. You ruined the franchise with this trash.
This movie was the chosen one. This movie had potential to be amazing after the previous story told by Abrams and gang. You just took a dump and threw it against a movie screen and made all of us pay to watch it slide down the screen for a few hours.
Massively disappointed.
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Long, dull, lifeless remake of the great Empire Strikes Back. Interspaced with moronic humour that has nothing to do with the Star Wars universe.
There hasn't been a single good Star Wars film since the aforementioned 1980 chapter. I know they keep making money so they'll keep making these worthless, by-the-numbers product one after another for years to come, but it is very sad that the real magic that once was Star Wars has now been totally drowned by its sequels/prequels.
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6/10
Ever heard for Tie Bombers - their role is to attack and destroy capital ships?
I am a huge Star Wars Fan and I love the Universe created by Lucas. I like the prequels, I liked TFA and I loved Rogue One. I saw the TLJ at the midnight premiere in London. I had a ticket for the screening in 3.30 in the morning. After seeing TLJ I was so frustrated that I did not attend the second screening.
There were so many problems with this movie and I felt so disappointed. I will try to summarise some of the problems:
1. The whole space chase. Apparently the director is not quite familiar with the Star Wars universe even though that he guessed correctly the need for bombers in the first space battle. There are capital ships like the star destroyers but there are smaller ship like the Tie fighters/bombers. So far the First order is not shown to have tie bombers but it is logical that they should have a ship playing this role in a battle. If there isn't than we assume that the Tie fighters have the same role. Why do you have to chase the ship in stead of attacking it with the Tie Fighters/Bombers. Or make a small jump and surround the ship? I will buy the director and the whole story group a drink if they can explain this nonsense.
2. Luke could not attack his father but would kill Kylo Ren in his sleep - I don't believe it. I think Mark Hamill was so pissed off by the script that he did not agree to take part in Episode 9 and that is why they had to kill him.
3. This movie felt like it was made for children. It was like a Star Wars parody, so many unnecessary jokes. Like I was watching Thor Ragnarok or Pirates of the Caribbean. I am sorry Disney but Star Wars was never meant for children. That is why I do not like SW Rebels as much as I did the Clone Wars.
4. TFA did not sell well in China. Problem solved! We need to add some Chinese actors. Finn was better with Poe as boyfriend than this. You fall in love for what - 1 day??? This Rose was so annoying.
5. Supreme leader Joke and Phasma were so underdeveloped as characters. If the leader was so powerful why not sense Kylo's intentions. It felt like the director did not like JJ''s character and decided to dump him.
6. Yoda was terrible and he looked like he was on crack.
7. Rey did not have any sword training but she defeats three of Snokes bodyguards who were supposed to be the best of the best in sword fight as they did not have force powers?
8. The whole Canto Blight scene was so unnecessary and dull. The whole political correctness of the movie was so obvious and appalling.
9. The admiral did not tell the plan to her subordinates? WTF? The whole Resistance looked awkward as a bunch of idiots who don't know what to do.
10. John Williams was completely wasted. I did not remember a single scene where the music was inspiring.
11. This movie felt incomplete. Like all the games lately where you need to buy a bunch of DLCs to get the whole story. I am pretty sure that the same is happening here just to squeeze more and more money from the trademark. Probably we will have a book where Snoke story will be told.
12. Weak dialogues - you've seen them all...
There are so many more examples but the most annoying thing is that I believe TLJ is destroying some of the fundamentals of the Star Wars Universe which I cannot accept and will never accept. I am actually really glad that JJ Abrams will direct Episode 9 and I hope he will be able to repair some of the damage done to the Universe that I love so much. He might even resurrect Snoke like they did with Darth Maul.
May the force be with us all!
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I'll preface by stating I went to watch "The Last Jedi" with the same mindset as I would any movie...no expectations no matter the hype surrounding it and more of a "let's see how this fits into the saga" and prepared to be entertained in some way. Everything started out beautifully until five minutes into the movie when Poe Dameron hit General Hux with a prank call that ended up with a "yo mama" punch-line that was out of place, a bunch of us cringed and looked at each other like, wtf? The next few minutes literally looked and sounded like a parody. It went downhill from there. I won't list every positive and negative because honestly, the negatives so outweigh the positives by, to quote Threepio in ESB, "three thousand seven hundred and twenty to one." That's a bit of an exaggeration though the movie itself is an exaggeration, a spoof, a non-inspirational, unmotivated attempt at entertainment, not to mention lame all wrapped up and thrown at the viewers' senses in the form of a very large pile of garbage. F for Fail.
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This will be spoiler heavy and there is no easing into it so I will just go ahead.
Luke leaves a map because he wants to be found in case something happens. Rey comes to him and we find out he really doesn't want anyone to find him. Why leave a map then Luke?
Luke gets all pissed off because Rey went to the dark side cave in her meditation. There is nothing there but a mirror. Where is the darkness in it.
Luke went on the death star because he believed he can save his father. Why would he try to kill Ben in a moment of weakness?
Finn and Rose goes on an adventure to find the code breaker. They find him. Get caught in the last moment. He betrays them. So it goes nowhere.
This waste of an hour could be avoided if the Vice Admiral said "I have a plan. Sit tight.". Why was she acting so suspicious?
We see Kylo is not that dark. We see Rey is not that light. So where is the conflict? They just act like normal people. They are not Jedi, nor a Sith. There is no Dark or Light sides.
Finn tries to sacrifice himself to save what's left of the rebellion. Rose interrupts him. This also goes nowhere.
Finn will die. Nope. Leia is dead? Nope. Luke is dead? Nope. Oh, Luke is alive! Nope. WTF writers? Just pick something and go with it.
Snoke is gone. We don't know anything about him. Not even a hint. He just dies.
We find Rey is nobody.
We find that nothing matters. Snoke is nobody, Rey is Nobody, Luke doesn't act like Luke. Leia doesn't act like Leia. (She is insanely powerful with the force for some reason).
I don't even think people involved in making this movie even watched the original trilogy. There is so many pilot holes in this movie that the exhaust tube in the original Death Star seems like a nitpick.
Is it entertaining? Yes. Absolutely. I even gave 8 stars right after coming home from seeing it. After seeing it again I just got upset about everything.
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Ok, so I went to watch this movie hoping that Disney would redeem themselves from the fiasco of The Force Awakens (TFA) and they have managed to SOMEWHAT do that.
CONS:
The movie was too long for the content that was revealed/displayed.
Leah should've been killed off the moment she got shot out to space. The move she pulled to save herself ruined it for me. There should've been some sort of communication between her and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren before she was killed.
Luke Skywalker's character in this movie is for most parts bad...bad in the sense that you want someone to kill him. He is supposed to be this champion Jedi but instead, he comes across as a weakling who has given up hope a long time ago and is begging people to kiss his *** to do the right thing. #epicfail
Acting wasn't too great...the only improvement from TFA I saw was Adam Driver. Oh yes, John Boyega performed well once again...the rest of the 'actors' wasn't up the scratch. Rey's acting ability is very questionable Disney,.......
The Jedi saber fighting is lame, really lame...try to take out a page from the Episodes 1, 2 or 3. It needs to be fast & complicated.
Why create the build-up for Snoke in TFA and then kill him off in this episode, especially showing his potency with the use/knowledge of the Force? Anti-climax of note this is. #epicfail
A slow space chase?....is that really the best you could've come up with Disney? #epicfail
Not revealing Rey's lineage in this movie was a major fail.
Not training Rey properly = FAIL.
Keep Phasma in G.o.T please, or give her a proper script to bring her character out properly.
Hux was just plain annoying....he tried too hard to come across this bad-ass character but was nowhere near pulling it off. Get someone else to fulfill this role please.
PROS
The graphics are great for most parts, however,...the last battle on the abandoned Rebels station showed the red debris on the cameras, unprofessional to say the least.
Adam Driver really made Kylo Ren his own in this movie. It's not to say there weren't any flaws in the character, but he has really gotten the max out of the script given to him and I don't think I'll bash him in this movie, he's done really well.
The movie only really 'heated up' when Rey confronted Luke Skywalker about what Kylo Ren told her about what truly happened. From that point, I was pretty hooked.
Snoke's display of his Force knowledge & power was great. I would have liked to see more though....perhaps a lightsaber battle with Luke Skywalker with or without Rey and Kylo.
Great job bringing Yoda back in this movie.
For all the Cons listed above, this movie isn't really that bad...it really grabs your interest the moment Rey challenges/confronts Luke Skywalker. Might not be totally worth watching in the cinema, but definitely worth the watch, so wait for the release on Blue Ray.
In conclusion, I think that TFA already showed us old-school Star Wars fans which direction this new franchise was heading, despite our ignorance in the hope that it'll improve. To Disney's credit (yeah, I can't believe I'm saying this), they didn't mess this movie up COMPLETELY. My advice to them will be to rather look at all the previous movies and try the continuity as well as expand your new ideas into that.....do that, and this franchise will explode and you'll win back all the old-school fans properly.
This movie is worth the watch, so don't listen to all the overly-negative critics...spend the bucks and watch it, you won't regret it.
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Went into this film hoping for the creators to correct some of the mistakes from TFA but this was a bigger pile of shit than that. They completely changed the essence of this great saga. If they wanted this they should have just made a new film with their poorly written, casted and even worse acted new characters and toyshelf creatures.
There is no story in this movie, it just chugs along like a never ending nightmare. Luke Skywalker is unrecognizable as were Leia and Han Solo in TFA. Supreme Leader Snoke is a joke of a villain and even Adam Driver delivered a bad performance in this one. Even if you are willing to give the thin af new characters a chance, they are completely unrelateable and boring. Rey is like the mother of the force, Finn the Janitor first beat Kylo Ren and now Captain Phasma with ease. Po is killing everyone at will as his every plan comes off and he doesn't even get a scratch. There is no vulnerability on display.
As they said in the movie numerous times, Star Wars is dead. LET IT ALL DIE DISNEY!
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It seems like a lot of have big problems with the movie.
Don't get me wrong the movie isn't perfect, but no movie is. The movie is DAMN good though, and according to me, one of the best star wars movies, including the original. That takes a lot for me to say.
I think what people are upset about are that their theories went nowhere, and where disappointed. But going in to the movie having purposefully kept away from theories, I got to tell you, it's real good. There were moments where you really couldn't tell what was going to happen next, when was the last time that has been true for any movie? (I'm sure there are quite a few, but mainstream movies?)
For me, what it comes down to is this: If you just want to see Star Wars, what's going to happen next, what will happen to my favourite characters, that kind of thing, it's genuinely impressive how good the movie is.
If you want specific things to happen, and have expectations of what YOU want to happen in this universe then, yeah you'll probably be disappointed.
Thank you, and may the force be with you.
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I don't know where all the negative reviews are coming from and I have no idea what these people are talking about. It was an excellent movie and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Don't believe the naysayers, go see the movie in the theaters and make your own judgement . And Don't believe all of the spoilers either ... They are not telling you everything. There were several big surprises that none of the negative reviews at bothered to mention, and the movie ended in a way that I wouldn't have expected. I can only concede the following to those that didn't care for the movie: there were a couple of times when the humor slightly annoyed me. However, there were two times that I teared up, and one time that I almost completely lost it.
There will always be those that examine every single detail in the movie, every quirky plot twist, every word that comes out of every characters mouth, every second on film... There are people that wouldn't have liked the movie regardless of how it turned out. This movie is not going to change the course of human events and it DOES NOT take anything away from the Star Wars universe. It is NOT the movie to end the series, it is not the end ofife as we know it. It is a Star Wars movie that adds to and advances / enhances the storyline... Nothing more, nothing less. Great movie. Period.
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This is so bad completely copying the original saga , all of the previous star wars movies are better than this dribble ,
SPOILER ALERT !!!
How can Luke(the best Jedi ever next to Yoda ) die in such a bitch ass pussy way? Disney and Rian Johnson you suck!, never have i ever been disappointed by a star wars movie before and this one left me with no hope for the final installment.
and what about snoke ? we knew nothing about this guy , or where he came from
i was expecting a fight with him and Luke ( didn't get it )
and Rey sounds more like a Disney princess i mean, i don't like her or connect with her at all and she is the only Jedi left now Garbage.
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Daisy Ridley (Ray) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) turned an otherwise failed Star Wars movie into a better than average film. Daisy's acting in particular was top notch and her scenes were the only ones with true suspense and intrigue. All of the other side plots were directionless and unnecessarily time consuming. It seems the director and writers tried their best to make this film a disaster with Fin and Rose's story line, the pungently bad purple haired captain and an unbelievabley incompetent First Order fleet.
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Some poeple don't like how their favorite characters have developed. This is not a good reason to dislike the movie. No SW film will ever be as good as the original trilogy. Things change, grow up. There are important lessons to be learned from Episode 8.
The Last Jedi is a bold movie. It does away with all the stupid things from The Force Awakens and delivers a rich story with a lot of plot twists and surprises. It feels a lot like an Expanded Universe work which is fine by me. I preffer such an approach far more than having to watch some uninspired remake. That's the right way to go.
The only thing I dislike about the Last Jedi are the jokes. I don't think they're good and are often out of place.
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You came in here either after watching the movie or before to see what people has to say about it. The current score is 8/10, which is pretty good, right? Then you turn at the reviews and you see enraged people (?) commenting on how awful it was.
But, listen.
It was not awful.
It was great.
It was the first time that the characters felt shaped out, the movie actually gave a damn about the background and what led teh characters act the way the do, be it the good guys (Ray, Luke) or the bad guys (Kylo Ren). It was not a cheesy black and white movie where bad is bad and good is good. It showed the flaws that people can have and with this, I, personally could relate and I am sure many others did as well.
Being fooled by people? We all have.
Believed we had a destiny? We all have.
Found out the world isn't a fairytale? Yes.
Believed we could save someone? Check.
Lost hope in ourselves/the world? Check, check, check.
And many more.
Then, I saw people being angry because there were many females in positions of power and that the choices of men were always wrong. There were females in positions of power that is true but why is that a bad thing? Not every choice made by a man was wrong in the movie, for example Luke was the ultimate MVP at the end of the movie. The thing that worries me is that it seems men felt threatened by a movie who had females portrayed in a different light rather than the "romantic influence" that we see in 90% of the movies ever made, yet this one time were girls can have a different role and be portrayed as real humans with real problems, feelings, thoughts...it suddenly is insulting to men? I do not see it that way, I'm afraid.
Women rarely complained when all of the protagonists were male in every movie, sereis out there and they were reduced to mere love interests or the damsel in distress. I feel like it was a good change for the movie industry to show that both male and female human beings have the same capabilities as leaders and that in the end our paths and our thoughts do not differ as much and we should both be more understanding. I am for equality and equity is what I am getting through here and I feel the makers of this movie wanted to show the same thing by putting women in the frontline because it just hadn't happened in the movie industry ever before (or rarely).
I also liked that they showed the importance of animal welfare through the movie and generally liked that they didnt stick to a simple plotline with no substance. They touched many subjects without actually shoving it in our faces (they didn't comment, they just showed and it was up to the audience to pick up the little things and form an opinion).
Back to the story, I was glad that finally we escaped the trope of "family buisness" in the Star Wars industry. There is no need for Ray to be related to any of the Skywalkers, besides it all started with Anakin who was also nobody special at first. Also, it was great that Kylo Ren was almost savable but alas he was way too far down the dark path to go back.
Ray appeared to be a young woman who is just getting out to the world and believes she can change people for the better (the naivete of her young age) and we follow her to her path of learning how the real world works as she gets a few disappointments and realizes things for herself. I loved this part because it's relatable to all of us.
Also, Poe (as princess Leiah says) is a very promising soon-to-be leader in my opinion but he is just a little bit too eager. He wants to do good without actually having thought of the best plan. I believe what he witnessed with the new commander in place of Leiah is going to make him into a more mature and greater leader who actually thinks before he acts, all in all he got a very good lesson out of this.
The whole movie had great scenes from the director, it had great performances from the actors and actresses, great fight scenes and depth in the script.
This is obviously a subjective opinion and so I know not everyone is going to agree but I was really pleased by this movie, it was entertaining, thought provoking and it stirred emotions.
As a Star Wars movie it deserves a high score, now I personally will give it a 10/10 because I am just a simple person who walked into the theater, saw the movie and it stayed with me leaving me with a great feeling.
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While this bizarre film was titled star wars to me it didn't feel like star wars. Disney's direction they are taking these films isn't star wars at all it is almost like they are making the past die and they are absolutely killing it. Rian Johnson has killed star wars for me but if you liked rogue one you will probably enjoy the last jedi. I would hope JJ Abrams has a plan to fix this travesty in episode 9 which I am not sure if I will even watch. Disney should have waited so Abrams could have made this film as well.
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I have created an IMDB account just to write my frustration down here.
Be warned, MAJOR SPOILERS are up ahead, not that there's too much to spoil.
Another warning: the next 4 paragraphs will be about memories and such, if you don't care about my obviously very interesting thoughts, move to the 5th one ASAP. It's also gonna be really long, so if you don't like to read, don't even start.
Good, You are still here, so here we go. I have been a Star Wars fan since I was 4. I didn't understand much back then, but got to rewatch it when I was 7. Vader being Luke's father blew my mind, I was running around the house like some mad lunatic, my mother had to stop me after the seventh round when I was seriously endangering much of the furniture and myself. I rewatched The Empire Strikes Back 3 times that Saturday and only then moved on to The Return of the Jedi.
Then came the prequels, and while I was not satisfied with many things, I could stomach it because of the well placed epic stuff. The Phantom Menace was cheesy, almost soap opera style, but the fight with Maul was really good. The Attack of the Clones strenghtened the soap opera feeling, but then you get an epic battle and finally Yoda fighting Dooku. The Revenge of the Sith was pretty good, with the exception of Padmé dying like a chump and Yoda acting like a complete moron when Anakin seeks him out because of his fears and doubts.
Enter The Force Awakens two years ago. I cringed at the sight of the new big baddie holding Vader's mask, asking him to strenghten his resolve with the Dark Side 'cause the Light was calling to him. But cool, you killed your own dad, I forgive that shit, you are bad and are supposed to stay bad, that's much is clear.
I hated the idea of the new superweapon. It was like some Death Star - Star Forge hybrid and when it shot down Coruscant and multiple other planets from god knows how far away, the only mental words that appeared in my brain (like literally, you know that little voice and writing in your head) were "OP much?" Moved past that and enjoyed the rest of the movie for what it was - a 21st century remake of A New Hope.
The Last Jedi, to put it simply, is a bulldozer, one that tramples over hopes and dreams. I went into the cinema thinking "okay TFA was ANH, this is gonna be TESB." And that would have been better. There are so many things wrong with this movie that could have been so much better if someone used their brains among the scriptwriters and the directing team. Let's go over it in order.
1. Hux fixating over Poe. Obviously, when you are the commanding General of an entire fleet THAT IS MADE UP OF LIKE FIVE SHIPS (did I mention these guys supposedly rule the galaxy now and got casinos and every arms dealer working for them?) and you want to destroy people who are running scared and ARE IN A VERY VULNERABLE POSITION you will waste 2 minutes on one fighter pilot WHILE NONE OF YOUR SUBORDINATES ON THE OTHER SHIPS DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE REBELS BECAUSE THEY CAN ONLY ACT IF YOU SAY SO. That makes perfect sense.
2. One fighter pilot goes and obliterates every cannon on your warship. Makes perfect sense. Poe is just that good. I was half hoping he is gonna be the new Jedi guy when Rey turns to the Dark Side, I mean not even Luke could pull this shit off in ANH.
3. Chaos. I tried to start out with the next problem, but I realized I couldn't pick just one. Okay, Poe's distraction worked, although they sacrificed every bomber to kinda pull that off, great. They get away. The Order tracks them. Now why, in the infinite THREE DIMENSION of space, do the Order Destroyers have to appear in one line BEHIND them. Why can't they make a little bit bigger jump and surround them? Apparently they can pinpoint locations in hyperspace, why is that so hard to do? Why does it take a criminal at the last third of the movie to tell them that they are heading to that one freaking planet in sight?
4. Kylo is still a whimp. I hoped killing Han will give him some guts, but oh boy was I wrong. Alright, he hesitates to kill his mother, big deal, who wouldn't. But then again who would go and join some evil Order just 'cause their uncle wanted to kill them? How many abused children in real life go and say "well my uncle is horrible, I'll just go and join the North Korean military?" Then he has a good moment when he kills Snoke. I thought "cool, maybe he will be better now." Then he goes and still acts like a whimp when facing Luke's astral projection.
5. Snoke. In TFA we get a new big baddie. Kylo is the new Vader, this guy is the new Emperor, all checks out. Now I AM HAPPY it wasn't that simple. BUT couldn't they tell us a bit about this enigmatic figure before killing him off? No, he comes and goes. He proves he has an immense control over the Force ... then he can't even feel Kylo turn that lightsaber. Okay, you can say he was focusing on Kylo and Rey. Still a disappointing ending to the person I hoped would be Mace Windu.
6. Luke. I can't even ... I seriously can't. Now many people are raging over the little things, like him throwing his lightsaber off the cliff. I personally liked the Yoda style. Mad Jedi Master tries to teach important life lessons by pretending to be a complete idiot. BUT then it turns out he is actually a complete idiot. The great ancient Jedi Temple is some tree with 5 books, FIVE BOOKS. And some cave with an infinite mirror effect, that doesn't tempt Rey to anything. DA HELL IS THIS.
Before the 7th point, I'm gonna stop for a sec and say, that I was willing to overlook all of these mistakes. The movie was an enjoyable as a family flick up to this point. It had good points as well that I'm incapable to list right now, in my anger. When Luke Skywalker stepped out in front of 7 AT-STs and Kylo Ren, my inner geek experienced an endless stream of nerdgasms. THIS IS IT. THIS is the moment this whole movie was about. AOTC was bad, but when Yoda started jumping around, I was fulfilled.
7. Not this time. Don't even know where to start. This is an obvious distraction. Kylo and GENERAL Hux should know this. So send out some TIE-fighters to scour the place for survivors. Nope, only concentrate on Luke. Okay, fine, those handful of guys gotta be protected by plot armor or the whole thing goes to shit. Fine. Then they start firing at Luke, and even the casual observer can note how no laser bolt gets reflected. Okay he might be jumping around (but at the back of my head I knew even before this that was too much to hope for). When he emerges unscathed from the point of impact, I once again hope he was dodging them. Kylo descends. YES. Luke dodges twice, but the entire action takes too long. I know that this is not a real fight but I still hold onto hope. When Luke lowers his lightsaber I know it's all gone. I'm terrified. I'm depressed.
This is it. They had the greatest possible movie fight in their hands since Anakin vs. Obi-wan. They screwed it up. Didn't take the chance. Noone could go to Disney and say "hey look, you guys are swimming in money, we need two more scenes - one where Luke leaves that desolate planet and one where he epicly fights Kylo Ren." Disney would have thrown a couple million at their faces. But no. It's an astral projection.
Okay, my positive inner self emerges once again, faintly, but emerges. THEN LUKE DIES FOR NO FUCKING REASON: NONE AT ALL.
And despite that, everyone is happy. A second movie in a trilogy ends with a positive tone, the bad guys as incompetent as every, the "Supreme Leader" being a whiny, traitorous whench, his main GENERAL being a complete tactical disaster, children showing the sign of the Resistance. This is it? This is the dark ending of the most anticipated movie of all times?
Didn't think I'd every write this down in my life. The prequels were better. End of rant.
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1/10
Events that would invalidate all previous episodes...
This movie is simply ridi put things 8 of a cult series like Star Wars that would invalidate all previous episodes... when the Calamari Cruiser goes into Hyperspace and obliterates The First Order Fleet then my immediate thoughts were 'why didn't the Rebels do this with Death Star 1, 2 and the (physically impossible anyway) Starkiller Base?' All that would be needed. is a tiny rebel craft, piloted by a droid at Lightspeed and all the Empire/First Order Mega Weapons would be useless...
Next... if Force Ghosts can wield power in the physical world then they would be invincible opponents that could have simply killed Sidious, Vader, Palpatine, Snoke, REN... whoever... no need for any of the storylines of Episode 1-6 to even take place...
This is lazy story writing without any attention to detail, the Star Wars Universe is as BIG as your imagination but these filmmakers simply haven't used any... there is sooooooo much more wrong with this movie, covered through these IMDB reviews so I won't repeat other complaints...
My canon is Episodes 1-6 and the EU...
As far as i'm concerned Disney has a shot at Star Wars but completely missed the mark...
The Disney Star Wars Universe is simply a plot-hole filled disaster of epic proportions.
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If you are a devoted Star Wars fan, then you know about the story of George Lucas and how he fought against the entire studio system of his era, in order to realize his vision and create this cinematic phenomenon called Star Wars. Now after two movies without him at the helm, you can't help but appreciate once more his great intellect, his ingenuity and most of all his originality.
I truly love Star Wars, I grew up with it and it's the main reason that I love going to the movies so much. But last Thursday after having watched "The Last Jedi" I got that same feeling walking out of the cinema like when I watched "The Force Awakens".
And that feeling is this: This is not Star Wars!
It sure looks like it, the music is the same, the characters and spaceships are the same, there is the Force and the light sabers, but somehow there is something missing. You can't actually pinpoint it, but it's there missing. It's like when you are eating your favorite food (let's say a burger) but made from another restaurant. Before you eat it, it looks great, but as you taste it, it's not exactly the same. I mean sure you will eat it because you are hungry, but you will not savor it! Same thing goes here with TLJ. It's an ok movie, there is action, great effects, good humor and you get to see some of your most beloved characters on the screen, but it's not the same as you expected it to be.
I firstly thought that was because I am much older now than 1977, but it's not just that. What these movies luck (and I refer to both TFA and TLJ) is the heart and the spirit of their creator, the genius that transformed modern cinema called George Lucas. And this is how I return to the beginning of my text. If you are not willing to take risks, just like he was, stand up to what looks like it goes against popular opinion, you will end up making a more "flat" movie, that it sure is exciting to watch, but more thanks to its great production value and not so much to its originality or cinematic magic. For example killing off characters was something that was done brilliantly to "Game of Thrones", you can borrow it once when you killed Han Solo, don't overdo it! Also characters that withstood the test of time for decades (like Luke Skywalker) are to be treated with respect don't reduce them to caricatures of themselves like it happened in many cases in TLJ.
Come on let's face it, we cannot be naive: Disney spent a fortune to buy the rights to Star Wars, they are simply not allowed to risk losing it all, by taking a chance with leaving a director free to make his own choices. And that is why they didn't want George Lucas, not even as an advisor.
So, if you are going at the cinema to watch TLJ expecting to feel that same magic that you felt when watching Star Wars for the first time, then same like TFA you will be disappointed. But if you are going just to pass a good time watching a genre that you enjoy, then you will end up watching a fun movie with good special effects and some plot twists. It's more than ok for entertainment just not up to Star Wars tradition!
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After two years of waiting, finally I got the chance to see it, every theories and fan fictions was worth a wait.
There was some part of the movie as a fan I didn't like because we expected something more, but there was some part which was absolutely epic and I loved it.
Overall this is not the best star wars movie but also not the worst. They could have done it better but it delivers the epicness of the skywalker saga brilliantly.The Director really made some bold decisions about certain characters which i didn't like but i think there is some reason behind it and i hope everything will be explained in episode 9.
9/10 for me.
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Where to begin with this pile!?
Luke: Love MH but this Luke Skywalker was a Jr. high school kid.whinny,childish and immature. This was no Jedi! Not to mention he looked like a homeless man in the US not a Jedi who was remorseful and struggling internally.
Casino scene: stupid,something you'd expect from a child's movie.Mixing Sci-fi with real world reality doesn't work. These guy are supposed to be in a different Galaxy- noting life Earth or us Humans.
Fuel: Advanced race of beings in a different galaxy with Laser guns,lightsabers, spaceships.....use fuel? They still use fuel? They run of of gas? STUPID!! More Earth like references that ruined the believability.
The force: was more like magic in this movie. In the galaxy of Star Wars the Force is different than magic- but those who wrote this didn't understand that.
Rey's parents: Dumb! Why create a story only to go right against it in the next film,which then makes the first film's story a non story line in the film now.
It's so sad that this has the name Star Wars and that people actually wrote this and filmed this without seeing how stupid it is.
Rian Johnson: You ruined the movie. You simply suck as a story teller,film maker and your inability to see bad writing,acting and production should go down in the record books.
Thank God for Rogue One!
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi takes place immediately after the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens(2015). Rey(Daisy Ridley) begins her Jedi training, under the mentoring & guidance of Luke Skywalker(Mark Hamill). In the meantime, the Resistance & the First Order come up with plans to get rid of each other, for good.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a mind-blowing film. Director Rian Johnson has effortlessly taken over directorial duties from Star Wars: The Force Awakens(2015) director, J.J. Abrams. Johnson has made sure that his vision remains intact, within the Star Wars universe. The action set pieces are the highlight of the movie. The visual effects are flawless. The 3D puts you right in the middle of the proceedings onscreen(watch it in IMAX 3D if you get the chance). The performances are another strong-point of the film. Mark Hamill is spectacular as Luke Skywalker. Carrie Fisher is excellent as Leia Organa. Adam Driver is outstanding as Kylo Ren. Daisy Ridley is brilliant as Rey. John Boyega is fantastic as Finn. Oscar Isaac is superb as Poe Dameron. Andy Serkis is amazing as Snoke. Domhnall Gleeson is awesome as General Hux. Anthony Daniels is impressive as C-3PO. Gwendoline Christie is good as Captain Phasma. Kelly Marie Tran is great as Rose Tico. Laura Dern is perfect as Vice Admiral Holdo. Benicio Del Toro is effective as DJ. Lupita Nyong'o & Frank Oz are unforgettable in their cameos as Maz Kanata & Yoda, respectively. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a must watch for Star Wars fans. The Force is strong with this one!
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Im somebody who grown up on Star Wars. Original trilogy, I saw this movie twice. When i came out from the first viewing i was very conflicted. I didnt know what to feel. There were parts what i liked and i didnt liked. After the second screening i started to fall in love with TLJ.
Its not a perfect movie, but i gave this 10 because everything i wanted was in this part. This saga is about rey and kylo. How they pulling towards each other. Adam Driver is one of the best actor in this saga. Mark hamill kills it as Luke, absolutely legend. I have to disagree with those who says Disney ruined Luke . No. They gave us the luke from ROTJ but this character is aged. Went trought hard things, 30 years man. Do you think you will be the same after 30 years? No. Luke was never ONE SIDED. In the return of the jedi he allmost kills his father in sudden anger. Here the same happens. Thinking about killing his nephew in a brief moment. This movie is about Light and Dark. Its in all of us. no matter who you are.
And what Luke did, thats what ROTJ Luke would do. Sacrificing himself for the greater good. Althought Luke never really died. Amazing movie. Suprised by the negativity it gets.
The cinematorgaphy is the best ive seen in years.
The things i didnt like: The whole Casino part.
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A vicious, cruel deconstruction of the very core of the Star Wars Mythos. Rian Johnson seems to have been hell-bent on destroying everything that I love about Star Wars. This movie is tragically flawed on many counts, an empty copy of Empire Strikes Back, absolutely lazy plot construction, bending the rules of the Star Wars universe to fit his desired narrative rather than crafting a narrative that conforms to 40 years of Star Wars history, and the most gawd-awfully contrived and forced plot twists that they become so repetative that when really good twists show up..my only reaction was.. okay... another twist..
But the true crime of this film is its near sadistic treatment of Luke Skywalker, and the Original Trilogy. for 34 years I've waited to see the answer to the question of what happened to Luke after the Battle of Endor. I'd read several EU books which certainly got Luke's character pitch-perfect even if I wasn't always fully enamored with a particular plot.. at least it was Luke.. but with Disney wiping away the EU I was looking forward to seeing my childhood hero facing new challenges.. creating a new and improved Jedi Order, facing down new threats, internal or external.. instead Rian Johnson felt it more appropriate to break Luke. Literally break him. Turns out that after saving his father, bringing balance to the Force and restoring Hope to the Galaxy, Luke's life then became a veritable hell.. leaving him so crushed, disillusioned, consumed by guilt and self-loathing that he exiles himself, cut off from the Force, spending the rest of his life waiting to die while consumed with unimaginable guilt and bitterness.
Then, if that's not enough, by the time credits roll, RJ has literally wiped away the entire Original Trilogy. Not an exaggeration. Virtually everything that our heroes fought, struggled, sacrificed and persevered for is destroyed.. completely.. and totally..
Rian Johnson's vision of Luke Skywalker is cruel. It is mean. He takes the central tenant of Star Wars, where idealism, perseverance, sacrifice and heroism can win the day against tyranny, that basic idea of staying positive and fighting evil even when the cards are against you, can eventually win the day.. and replaces it with a nihilistic shrug that the struggle against tyranny is destined to fail.. that the good and the moral are destined to be defeated
Lost in all of this are some truly great ideas.. new story fragments which flutter in the shadows are actually quite interesting and compelling.. the confrontation between Rey and Ben are executed in a shockingly clumbsy way, but at their core are actually interesting and engaging.. yet completely lost in the sloppy mess that is the attack on everything I grew up admiring and loving.
Disney, Kathleen Kennedy, and Rian Johnson have succeded in doing what I once thought impossible.. making me not care about the next chapter.. there is literally nothing left for me to care about, or root for.
I left the theater as broken and forlorn as Luke waiting out his days to die..
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I really was excited for this installment of Star Wars. I went to the opening showing with my kids and found myself alternaing between boredom and laughing at the ridiculousness of this movie. I want to say, I'm not normally a cynic of a purist...but c'mon. The story was a mess , Snoke proved to be nothing, Rey, Finn, and Poe fumble through making stupid mistakes, and a lot of it plays like the story sequences shown on screen before a ride at Disney or Orlando. This movie will make money and Disney won't care. It will just keep churning this crap out.
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The Last Jedi is a bold exercise on character-driven storytelling and subverting audience expectations. It's not a perfect movie, but it quite literally subverts the 'mystery box' set-up in The Force Awakens, which is both refreshing and shocking.
Set right after TFA, TLJ illustrates a disheveled resistance trying to find a strong foundation, a unique perspective on the Jedi and the Force, and a growing connection between two unlikely characters. It has some of the most beautiful moments in the entire saga, and some of the most cringeworthy.
The most interesting arc is that of the force. The way TLJ utilizes a fresh perspective on the force to develop some of the characters is quite captivating. It leaves you wanting more, and almost regretting that there isn't more to show in the movie. The other story arcs aren't as compelling, they are slow and boring at times. They are filled with exposition through dialogue instead of visual storytelling, which stalls the story a bit. The problem with the resistance arc is that the character foundation never gives me a reason to particularly care for those characters, so the excruciatingly slow arc is uninspiring.
One major issue with this movie is that the force story is so very compelling and powerful that the other stories simply pale in comparison. This difference is jarring most of the time and tends to take you out of the movie, anticipating the next scene of the force arc. I highly recommend Disney and Lucasfilm focus on the force story for episode 9. Most people seem to find it absolutely intriguing and are craving for more of that dynamic.
On the whole, this movie definitely grows on you after a few viewings. I'll admit that I wasn't particularly impressed after the first viewing, but I found myself deeply intrigued and pleasantly surprised during the next two viewings. I would highly recommend people see this movie more than once. It's a different experience the second time.
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My one star is only there to acknowledge the power of John Williams' music and the few good action scenes. This movie tried to destroy the Skywalker mythos, but I will not let it, because I am going to consider the new Star Wars movies fan films. Every story decision in these new Disney movies seems to be a strawman argument against the original movies' stories. Lucas was right. Disney thinks they can continue this series by making the force a bunch of gobbledygook, making it more about spaceship designs, and removing the importance of the family storyline. The only new Skywalker in these movies is a "bad seed," and Luke's legacy has been turned into a horrible teacher who never saved the galaxy and never saw the good in anyone. Erasing this from my mind.
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>Luke Dies after he gets tired
>Snoke dies
>Ackbar dies
>Phasma steps on screen, then dies
>Leia lives (dies in RL)
>Finn does nothing
>Rose does nothing
>Poe does nothing
>Rey is a literal who?
>Hux is a retard
>Chewie was in the film, I think?
>BB8 was annoying
>Yoda trolls Luke, destroys jedi tree
>Stormtroopers were in the film, I think?
>Porgs
>Leia superman flying in space (I'm Mary Poppins y'all)
>Luke goes from ROTJ zen master to scared baby
>Luke is really the only one concered about Han
>Luke drinks green alien tit milk to the horror of the audience
>It was as if they were purposefully trying to ruin Luke to distance the franchise away from OT
>You MUST shit on it, you can't let it gracefully go into the night. Drink yo bitch titty milk ay lmao
>R2 was in the film, I think?
>Rey is good with the force for no reason
>Rey beats Luke in a duel straight out
>Rey has no flaws and is perfect in every way
>Rey is a Mary Sue
>"Scum!" "You mean rebel scum, haha" Phasma dies
>Kylo is the only likeable character with depth
>Knights of Ren retconned out.
>Force vision was ultimately pointless
>Snokes Ship does nothing
>Snoke was never explored
>BB8 drives an ATST and it is terrible
>Luke projects an illusion image to fight an entire army, stalling the rebel retreat. A matrix fight ensues with Kylo
>Luke gets tired after the ghost image wears off and decides to die
>No character was really explored, while other non characters like PHI (Purple haired idiot) were given screen time that could have gone to MCs
>All battle tactics are to run right at them in a straight line
>Space is really confined. you cannot spread out
>WWII vertical drop bombs in space. The bombs drop down... We need to fly over a star destroy, then drop bombs... instead of missiles...
>Retarded space tactics; lets cluster together like the keystone cops, PHI gets more rebels killed; lets keep our obvious plan a secret for no reason
>Hyperspace kamikaze by PHI
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6/10
Star Wars : The Last Jedi was more of a visual spectacle then narrative storyline.
Although The Last Jedi meets a relatively high standard for franchise filmmaking, Johnson's effort is ultimately a minor disappointment. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining. Rather, despite the success of "The Last Jedi" at supplying jaw-dropping visuals and a hall-of-fame-worthy lightsaber battle, audiences could presumably skip this film and with a low Rotten Tomatoes audience score, maybe something went wrong with the film. Never the less, The Last Jedi keeps on the saga of Star Wars Series and I can say, I am waiting for Episode IX
My Rating : 3/5
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A longtime female SW fan I enjoyed the space scenes and the comic moments at first but began to realize I wasn't watching Star Wars but Spaceballs.
The movie throws away SW history and becomes more of feminist liberal arts comedy!?! Non meaningful sub-plots, and plot holes galore. Content of long established story lines are just forgotten or done away with. It cant just get be space, great audio, and special effects! The movie has to have common SW sense.
Jedi and Padawan relations are trashed and no one needs Jedi training anymore. Its sad what Disney has done. You don't have to make men look weak, stupid, and incompetent to make women look strong, women can be strong on their own.
If your not knowledgeable of SW history are younger than 25 or a man without a backbone or a ultra liberal snowflake your going to love this!
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Overall I am giving Star Wars: The Last Jedi 5/10 because I found it to be very disappointing as a sequel to The Force Awakens and it did not feel like a Star Wars film at all. However there were some very good action sequences, especially the one and only lightsaber battle, and the visual effects were stunning.
First things first, I am a huge Star Wars fan and I love the vast depth of the Star Wars universe. To sum up my opinions of the previous Star Wars films, I loved the originals, I liked the prequels, I really liked The Force Awakens and I loved Rogue One. I don't often review film and TV but I am very passionate about the film and TV I love.
**Spoilers from now on**
The Good:
As I have already mentioned, the action sequences were very good the entire film had amazing visual effects. I especially liked the Rey and Kylo vs Snoke's guards sequence. I also loved the scene where Vice Admiral Holdo (the woman with purple hair) piloted her ship into Snoke's battleship at lightspeed, the visual effects and sound effects were stunning. The acting was of course great by all the cast, of course. I thought Kylo Ren's plot arc and character was really interesting, as well as his relationship with Rey, and he is my favourite character of those surviving at the end of the film.
The Bad:
My biggest disappointment was TLJ as a sequel to TFA. JJ Abrams made a good film, TFA, with several mysteries and questions that viewers wanted to know the answers to at the end. One of these mysteries is Snoke's identity. Who is he? Where did he come from? Where was he during the previous films? These mysteries engaged the audience in TFA. But Rian Johnson decided to kill Snoke before these mysteries were answered, and even if we do find out these answers, who cares? He's dead now. I also felt like his death was a bit silly, since he is such a powerful force user, yet he didn't sense Kylo's deception, however this isn't a huge concern of mine. Another of the mysteries JJ Abrams left us with after TFA was Rey's heritage. In this film, Kylo Ren revealed that she is nobody, and that her parents were just some junk traders (or something). She is such a powerful force user that she must have some Jedi (or Sith) heritage. However some may argue that Kylo Ren is lying, but what would be the point in that, from a writer's perspective? This has left me feeling unsatisfied and a viewer shouldn't feel that after watching a film.
The humour. I am not an unfunny twat, I enjoy comedies, but Star Wars isn't a comedy. Every other scene had a joke. Some of them were funny, but with all these jokes, as opposed to the occasional jokes in the other films, I just can't take the story in this film seriously. It's a complete joke. The film didn't feel like a Star Wars film at all. What's ironic is that the two directors for the Han Solo spinoff coming out next year were fired by LucasFilm for making it too comedic. What the hell is going on??
The plot was a bit sh*t really. Luke learned nothing interesting on the island where the Jedi Order was founded. There was so much potential for some interesting plot developments to do with the force and Rey. Luke also was going to kill Kylo Ren in cold blood which is something the Luke from the originals 100% wouldn't do. The general plot for Leia and company was simply them being chased by the First Order through space and them escaping. The entire plot with Finn and Rose was unnecessary and lead to nothing at all. And then at the end Luke went into god mode and managed to achieve nothing from it except dying. Luke's death should have been more meaningful. Rose saved Finn for love, which was actually really stupid considering Finn was giving up his life to save everyone else.
The vast majority of critics and media seem to be giving this film really good reviews, which I cannot comprehend. Yes, you are entitled to an opinion, but these people critique films for a living and yet cannot see the obvious flaws with this film.
There are a few more things I could comment on, such as the capabilities of the force ie Luke being able to be a force hologram of himself (but who am I to say what the force can and can't do) and the casino sequence, but I have expressed my key points of disappointment. I hope Rian Johnson acknowledges the film's criticism and learns from it when he creates his upcoming Star Wars trilogy.
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As a whole The Last Jedi is a mildly entertaining space movie but as a Star Wars movie...it's just terrible.
For a start there is very little emotional attachment to many of the characters especially Rose, she is a very 2D character and her acting is very below par. In fact ALL of the acting was less than acceptable!
Near the start of the movie the entire bridge is destroyed and it appears as if Leia is dead. What happens next is, in my opinion, the most ridiculous, infuriating, blood boiling, stupid thing to ever happen in the saga. Leia turns in to Superman from BvS coming back to life because of the sun and flying back to the ship. This destroyed my love for this film, so far away from what Star Wars is about and completely pulled me out of the experience. It would have been a lot better had they cut the rest of the scenes for Leia as when the bridge was destroyed there was a great emotional impact.
TLJ was incredibly slow, probably the slowest of the entire saga. If it were done properly and all of the boring parts been cut, we would have easily cut half an hour from the run time. It was so slow and at times infuriating I very almost walked out, I'm a life time Star Wars fan having seen all of the movies multiple times, all of the shows multiple times, read the comics, books...you name it and I've probably seen/read it and this film is just...so far away from Star Wars
Episode 9 better be up to expectations as this was the biggest let down I've EVER had in a cinema, in terms of entertainment and story telling it is right down there with the prequels...
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6/10
Crystal Skull "nuked the fridge", Last Jedi "flew the Leia"
I just can't get past the word "odd" it fits it so well. It was like Rian Johnson was just thumbing his nose at Episode VII and saying, all that stuff that Abrams made you care about and wait for answers for two years for...I'm just going to go ahead and just get rid of that, no explanations needed and then I'm going to turn Luke from grumpy into a comedian for the rest of the movie. I can see why Mark Hamill said he fundamentally disagreed with basically everything Rian Johnson did to Luke. What a mess. Some really odd head scratching decisions. I enjoyed it cause it was a Star Wars movie in name, but that said I'm thankful that someone else is doing episode IX. We need someone to restore some balance to the force. Help us JJ Abrams you're our only hope.
First Happy Days "jumped the shark", then Indiana Jones "nuked the fridge". Now it seems that the new Star Wars trilogy has gone and "flew the Leia". If you don't understand the meaning of that, after you see the movie you most certainly will. #flewtheLeia
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5/10
I was ashamed taking my non star wars fans to see this
I was absolutely convinced that this title would hold on its on without you knowing too much about star wars universe. Boy was I wrong. I got so much dirt on me after we sit trough this.
Stuff that non star wars fans asks
First question from my friend was WTF was that green stuff Luke drank? WTH was that? And wasn't there any easier way to go fishing? Why didn't that admiral tell anything about her plan? Better have useless mutiny? Why didn't Luke tell them to run and that he was just a ghost or something? Why didin't they just kill that black dude and asian girl? And how did Phasma got so far from them after that light speed collision? Why are they shooting those escaping pods with only one slow gun? Was there too much running time for the movie left? Didn't they have enough weapons to take over the hole galaxy? How did BB-8 climb in tho that AT-ST? What excactly are they using for fuel? Why did she had to stay on the ship? The whole Las Vegas story? How did Finn got back to the base when he was speeding for like 5 min full speed and now he had no vehicle and all the first order aiming at him? At this point I was thinking that the prequels where pretty good. And so many coincidences that it all felt forced in the end because movie had to happen. So many inconsistencies with this kind of budget is unforgivable.
Other stuff that star wars fan is thinking
I'm trying to point out some things that I haven't seen others talk about. Yoda felt like a comical relief wit that stupid blueish rim around him. Why wasn't he portrayed as more mysterious creature from the shadows or something. No he just pops up from nowhere. Even though they knew each other from the past.
I wanted to see Lukes full potential in a real fight. Now he is just stuck on the island for the rest of time. Goddammit. Well I already let out some steam and feel a bit better.... Read the other reviews to see how many other things they failed with this movie.
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This movie is 2+ hours long. There is no reason why it cannot be edited shorter. There are a lot of stuff that are just not necessary. I would prefer they give more time to the new stars, and delete the new characters in this movie. It is OK to give cameos to Luke, Leia etc but their time have come and passed. The story is not focused and some scenes are just not believable. For SW fans, this is heresy! Others like myself, we just want an entertaining picture. Personally, I prefer the Disney animated movie as the story is more believable and coherent. Wait for the dvd to come out or watch it at the discount cinema. No one is going to talk about this as a classic, must see movie.
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3/10
Really fear Star Wars will be dead after this movie
I really don't understand what people liked about this movie. I liked Poe's ark about responsibility and Laura Dern's character was not bad but apart from those the entire movie was a disaster. Can anyone honestly tell me what was Finn - supposedly a main character in the new trilogy- doing in the entire film? What about Phasma whose role was once again a sad joke. And lets not forget about the all powerful and mighty Supreme Leader Snoke , the villain who would overshadow Emperor Palpatine with his villainy and mastery of the force dying like an idiot in the middle of the movie so that we can all "enjoy" the true villain of the trilogy the "all powerful" Kylo Ren who almost got killed by Snoke's bodyguards. Can anyone honestly argue that Kylo Ren is a better villain for the trilogy than Snoke could have been( i don't even dare to compare Ren with Palpatine)?
As for Rey's parentage i REALLY want to hope that Ren was either lying or didn't know because if he was telling the truth and her parents are just random scavenger scum who sold her off then the whole thing becomes a sad and stupid joke. Even Rey's supposed flirting with the Dark side ( one of the highlights of the movie for me) went nowhere since Rey suddenly forgot about her anger and resentment and became a paragon of light.
I've been a huge fan of Star Wars for decades but now i cannot really say if i will even go to the cinema to watch the new Solo movie and Episode 9 due to the massive disappointment i got from watching Episode 8.
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1/10
TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE - Way to destroy everything built up by Force Awakens.
ALL THESE THINGS SUCK!
1. The Death of Luke
2. Luke's Legacy & Behavior
3. The Death of Snoke
4. Finn & Rose's Subplot
5. Rey's Parents are Nobody
6. Death & Return of Leia
7. Death of Phasma
8. Humor & Tone Issues
9. Dropped Force Awakens Subplots
10. Plot Holes
11. First Order Fleet Chases instead of Destroys
12. Vice Admiral Holdo Sucks
13. A Single X-Wing can Destroy a Dreadnought
14. Why didnt Kylo notice Luke Projection
15. Knights of Ren Dropped
16. Kylo Ren & Vader Relationship Dropped
17. Rey Perfect Saber Techniques with No Training
18. Snoke doesnt know his ship can track the enemy?
19. Yoda looks weird! (and can control lighting?)
20. Rey happens to be at correct spot to save everyone and lifts all rocks with no training.
21. Why was Finn hurt if it has no ramifications?
22. Rose Falling in Love with Finn was Stupid!
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This film definitely took a step back after a very well put together film two years ago.
-Way too much comic relief
-Overdone CGI
-Corny and cliche scenes with dialogue
-Childish movie overall
Where to start? The first dialogue between General Hux and Poe is horrendous and childish. The first order and Hux looked laughable as villains and couldn't take them seriously anymore. Terrible choice and dialogue to put in. This movie had some eye-rolling laughable scenes. The force is powerful but christ Leia defied amazing odds to be blasted out of a cruiser into subzero temperatures with no oxygen. She simply floated back to the ship unharmed. Rose coming in at the last minute to save Finn. This does not make sense as Finn was storming ahead at top speed while Rose peeled off and then was able to catch up to rescue Finn. Lets also add that save was again corny and cliche. The casino scene did not seem to fit in the movie at all. CGI in some parts where horribly done and looked cartoonish.
The positives is there were some really dark scenes with Snoke that you come to expect from the dark side and Snoke. Some scenes where visually gorgeous and sound effects fantastic. Cool to see some old characters. Fight scene with Praetorian Guards and Snoke's death was well done and fun.
If they removed Leia's revival scene, have Finn never commit a possible meaningless suicide so Rose didn't have to make a corny rescue, eliminate General Hux and Poe's first dialogue, remove the casino scene, pull back CGI a little bit, and lastly remove some of the comic relief the movie would have definitely been an 8 or 9 out of 10.
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Ugh, the SJW's are ruining the Star Wars franchise by forcing their extreme liberal political views and virtue signalling on the audience. The liberal brainwashing was heavy in this film and sadly completely unnecessary.
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I grew up in the original Star Wars trilogy era, so needless to say I was disappointed in episodes I to III. But then came The Force Awakens to bring back the familiar look & feel of the universe I loved so much! Rogue One was a breath of fresh air as well and so there was new hope!
Fulfilled with great expectations, we went to Jedi Night: the screening of The Force Awakens followed by the premiére of The Last Jedi. About five hours of Star Wars fun...
But now I cannot even begin to describe my disappointment.
If it wasn't for the two young boys we took to see it and whom could still be mesmerized by the cgi-fest, I would have walked out on this after the Leia-in-space sequence. That would have spared me from the ridiculousness of the plot, the overload om annoying characters (Laura Dern! Benicio Del Toro!) and the overall destruction of the Star Wars galaxy.
Believe me: if you're still going to see this movie, then stop watching immediately after the last yellow line disappears.
In loving memory of Our Princess? She turns in her grave!
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I've never written a review on here before.... but as a lifelong Star Wars fan, I felt compelled to do something when I saw that this movie was sitting at 8.0.
It doesn't deserve it. Believe me, I'm not just mad that they're making new Star Wars movies. I loved Rogue One and did appreciate/enjoy Force Awakens. This was NOTHING like those two. The visuals, acting ect. are all top-notch. The writing was a hot mess, I've seen high school students write more coherent and engaging narratives.
Worst Star Wars movie ever made, avoid at all costs. If you MUST see it, prepare for heartbreak.
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4/10
A very strange movie with more negatives than positives
This might be the single strangest movie I saw in a long, long while. Perhaps even the strangest I've ever seen, but I'm not competely sure about that so I will avoid making the statement.
The reason why it produced such an effect on me is because it's a mix of really good and really bad things.
I liked the whole morally grey atmosphere that the movie has. Unlike some - I've no problem with Luke being a hermit on an island after becoming a failure as a teacher. The explanation for that is horribly primitive and probably the worst they could've come up with though.
Ooooh let me just stand with a lightsaber over my sleeping apprentice! Yeah, sure. Very intelligent thing to do. This is what is called "lazy writing". It could've been done so much subtler. It could've been so much more like Luke to slowly fall apart with his pupil unable to reach him with insufficient teaching skills and own stubbornness instead of just wanting to kill him "on instinct".
I liked Snoke getting killed twist, I think it was actually done very, very well and really unexpected. However it is so strange and unsatisfactory because we still don't know anything about Snoke. He's immensely powerful, then he dies because of his hubris, blinded by his own power - that is a very Star Wars thing. Darth Sidious died in the same way, after all. But we knew who the Emperor was. His character was much more developed (even though the backstory appeared only with prequels). Who is Snoke, how did he come to be what he is? Will he come back? Too many questions, really. At least some answers should've been provided, because without that it's two movies with 0 character development of the main villain. (or is he?!)
I liked the tactical thing with rebels being chased through hyperspace and unable to leave because of that. Ships slowly running out of shield power and being destroyed one by one. That was good. Then an important leader just... offers to stay behind by herself? Really? Rebels can throw away charismatic leaders just like that? For what? Oh, and then it appears that you can hyperspace through another ship. So, basically, they could've jumped ship at the very beginning then 1 kamikaze could've ended Snoke and Kylo Ren in a second. Conveniently, this of course happens only at the "right time". This is just lazy writing, again.
The ending where two biggest leaders of First Order are at the head of... what, exactly? Why did they need a ground operation instead of just bombarding the shit out of the planet? No, it's apparently better to take half a dozen walkers, 1 cannon and a wing of TIEs. To kill a dozen or so rebels. Does this make any sense to you? It sure didn't to me.
I liked the plot twists throughout the movie, it was a nice touch. But I think the jokes need another, special notice. Star Wars always had jokes, sure. Not the ones that would really crack you open, but they were used to lighten people up.
Do you remember a single joke when Darth Vader or Sidious were around (except for Sidious's evil cackling, of course)? The whole point was of them being menacing, dark, brooding. This movie has turned the main villains into a comedy relief. And it really doesn't work at all for Star Wars.
You know what? After writing all of this down I decided to rate the movie a star lower than I previously did. There really were more bad things than good ones - and I haven't even mentioned all of the bad ones.
The franchise is in dire, dire peril. It's clear by now that the third trilogy is indeed worse even than the prequels - no matter how the 9th turns out to be.
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The best way I can describe this is to put Star Wars into the form of a relationship.
Star Wars and you were born around the same time and fell in love instantly. Everything was so exciting and new. You looked forward to every time you would be together with anticipation of learning new things about her and all the characteristics that made her so great. You couldn't wait to learn everything about her.
Then one day in 1983, after a very satisfying and exciting 3 chapters and 6 years, her parents took her and moved away. She was gone and all you had were the great memories. When you look back she may have had some minor flaws, but you were young, in love and looked past all of that. After all, she was your soulmate and would be what you'd compare all future relationships to.
You really missed her, but time heals all wounds. You start meeting a lot of new people. You have a few great one night stands (12 Monkeys, Contact, Stargate). Some tapped into your excitement, just to let you down on the second date (Predator, Jurassic Park). A couple you really liked and enjoyed multiple dates with (Alien, Terminator, Tim Burton's Batman series), but it still did not have the same impact.
Now it is 1999, you are entering college and start hearing rumors that your first true love is coming back! The butterflies form in your stomach. Your emotions are on high. The memories flood over you like you are standing under Niagara Falls. Of course, this is happening right after you met someone with great potential (The Matrix). It doesn't matter though, because your soulmate would be back soon and all could be right with the world again. As it turned out, that potential new love ended up devolving into a train wreck anyway (Matrix Sequels), so no big loss.
Finally your perfect match is back. Your excitement is at a fever pitch. You see her for the first time in 16 years and wow does she look great! She is visually stunning and at first you are mesmerized by her beauty.
Then you notice something. Something is different. Something just isn't quite right. But you ignore those feelings because you are just so excited to have her back in your life. And then she takes off again.
You spent the last 3 chapters and 6 years of your life in a strange mix of anticipation, excitement, confusion, frustration, satisfaction and disappointment. That is when it hits you. She wasn't really back for you. Sure, she wanted to see you, spend time with you and have you come see her multiple times over this period. But what she really wanted was for you to introduce her to new younger people she could charm and make them fall in love with her.
So now she is gone again. You begin to move on and meet new people, again. You have some great one night stands (Inception, District 9, and Cloud Atlas. Possibly my favorite one night stand over this time was Looper, which makes this all the more frustrating!) You get into some long term relationships that you truly enjoy (Marvel Universe, new Star Trek series, new Planet of the Apes series). You even meet someone who may just rival the same level of love and affection you once had with your soulmate when you were young (The Dark Knight Trilogy). You think, "there are a lot of great people to meet and I am ready to move on", so of course she decides it is time to come back into your life.
Now it is 2015, 10 years had passed since she was last around and you are willing to give it another go. Besides, she is working for a new company now, with new management involved who had done other things you like. You are hopeful this would only have a positive impact on the person she has become.
And it does. She is definitely a better person than when you reconnected in college in 1999. She is somehow even more visually stunning. She introduces new characteristics that grab your attention and drops some bombshells that pull you in. It hurts that some of her old characteristics are no longer with her, but you understand people need to grow and develop.
However, she is also infinitely more cunning. She plays to your nostalgia to get you to fall back in love. She pulls at your heart strings reminding you of the days you first met when everything was great and new. She makes you feel comfortable and familiar while sharing just enough details to keep you interested new traits. It is right in front of your face, but you are blinded because you want to believe the love is back. You are all in!
You have been back together for a couple of years now and have known each other for 40 years. Over this time you have grown fonder of the new characteristics she introduced to you. You want to learn more. Where did these new characteristics come from? What motivated them? How will they develop? How in the world did one characteristic get so strong so fast? You have all of these outstanding questions, but you have convinced yourself that your true soulmate is back. So the day has arrived that you are going to propose! You are back together and you have a great outlook for the future so that is the next logical step, right?
Now December 15, 2017 is here. It is time for the next chapter. You are excited and nervous, but you know this is the right decision. Sure you have questions, but you trust this person to be open and honest and not leave you hanging in the wind. You pop the question! And then the unthinkable happens.
You propose and she doesn't answer. She doesn't even give you answers to little questions, let alone big ones. You start thinking "did I make a mistake?" You have loved her for 40 years and invested a lot into her. Instead she makes you sit there for two and a half hours of needless distractions, minimal development and few answers. She is doing all she can to make you dislike the characteristics you loved about her in the first place. You are seeing things that are ridiculous to you. How in this universe could this be happening? It is like you died, were blown into space, somehow made yourself come back to life and fly back to safety just to get no answers in the end anyway. She couldn't be doing this to you.
And then it hits you again. You fell for the exact same thing. She was never really back for you. She wanted you to introduce her to new, even younger people to charm again. Except this time she decided there was no longer room for all the things you loved about her in the first place. She has now eliminated them so she could move forward with younger crowd without a care about how you feel. She doesn't care that she didn't satisfactorily answer any questions you have. All she really wants is a younger soulmate that will spend time with her and buy all of her things.
Were you blind to this before? When you reflect you realize most of her intentions were for you to buy her things. Except for the best date you ever went on in May 1980. That truly felt like it was for you!
So now it is time to move on until the next chapter. A chapter you will definitely go see because you have been invested for 40 years and it is hard to leave something behind that has been a part of your entire life. And also, I am a sucker.
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This is my first ever review, having voted on at least 1000 movies.
I just can't imagine what sort of people can produce this kind of tripe with a nearly unlimited budget.
50% of the movie is pointless. It does nothing to advance the plot or to build the characters.
The other 50% is low-brow entertainment with lame jokes, fancy special effects and pointless action.
Please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, vote with your wallet and do not see this lazy cash grab in cinemas.
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This is handsdown the worst Star Wars movie ever!!! They forget that we the fans are the ones who make movies great!!! We are the ones who go out there in droves and watch these movies again and again and to see them take something that not only me but many people loved and just trash it like that is insulting!!! I waited so long too see Luke back in action and instead of have him, the last Jedi Master, at least go out with a bang in some some awsome ligtsaber duel or something they turn him into this old weak pathetic whiny little bitch and have my childhood hero go out in the worst and most worthless way. I guess these guys just want to cut ties with all the old heroes as fast as they can and really dont care how they do it. Just like Reys parentage instead of being a descendant of some powerful jedi because she is obviously quite powerful, no she just came grom a pair of nobodies who sold or off for crap. I waited so long to find out her lineage just to have her come from nobody. Well all in all these guys just ended Star Wars for me!!!
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Was really looking forward to this new installment and after only five minutes I was getting worried as the old "rules" of Star Wars, never mind physics, started to be rewritten. I am afraid it only got worse as the movie went on - the story line is pathetic, you are constantly distracted, it is full of cheap tricks, there is no character development, I could go on. On top of all that it is too long - I found myself looking at my watch several times during the movie. It is simply cheesy and almost a parody of the Star Wars series. What a missed opportunity!
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1/10
(SPOILERS!!!!) Snoke - The greatest dud in cinematic history.
I was initially about to do a full review but I changed my mind. Instead I will just say a few words on Snoke. Because from Snoke's death onwards The Last Jedi turned sower and sower.
So, Snoke, a character that has triggered the imagination of fans. A character so full of mistery and potential that fans spent two years creating the best and worst theories of who he is. THIS SHOULD HAVE GIVEN RIAN JOHNSON A CLUE AS TO WHY HE SHOULD REALLY DEVELOP THIS CHARACTER.
But no, no, what does this idiotic director do? He looks at all the theories and with an evil laughter to rival Palpatine just pisses all over the fans and subsequently the character.
Some people will defend this move by saying that Johnson symbolically told us the fans to "let the past die, kill it" and focus on the future, a move he did with Luke as well but this falls flat on its ass because Snoke's death, with Snoke being undeveloped, feels like a plot device. In fact, Snoke, as he is now, IS A PLOT DEVICE.
Why? Because he is just a rehash of Palpatine, a generic dark side user, arrogant and stupid, taken by Johnson and turned into a plot device to hammer down his point. If Snoke mattered, if his backstory connected all 3 trilogies, like the Skywalkers, if Snoke's death happened in ep. IX, then this move would have been a masterpiece. Instead we got a dud!
Other people will also say: well, Palpatine never had a backstory, so it didn't really matter in Return of the Jedi.
To this I will say, Palpatine was pivotal to Vader and Luke, Palptine was the make or break of both Vader and Luke, Snoke isn't pivotal to anything. He was just the way to bringing Ben and Rey together and that is it. Again, Snoke - plot device.
So, by the fact that Snoke isn't developed at all; who he is and how powerful he is? How is he connected to the Force? How come he was alive to witness the rise and fall of the Empire? How come Palpatine never felt him and so on? - this just makes Snoke feel like a plot device and not a character to be invested in.
And again, YOU DON'T KILL A CHARACTER THAT FANS ARE IN LOVE WITH, 5 MINUTES INTO HIS SCREENTIME. It's just a bad move!
Because of this, Snoke will remain as the greatest dud in cinema's history!
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1/10
The end is near For the star wars franchise . Death of the Star wars saga :
Star wars - The last jedi - The end approaches. The end of the hit franchisee that created a fan following all over the world. A story that stood strong for many decades. All good things must come to an end. So does the star wars saga .
Now in the clutches of walt disney it approaches a slow death. what was once a epitome of great characters and Inner conflict is now nothing but a movie full of gags , story line for a 4 year old to like and clap to.
Getting into the crux of the above review - NO spoilers
Here are a few points for the fans out there , Nothing specific scene to scene criticism,
The movie tries to establish a feel good atmosphere , Where every event is a coincidence , there are no struggles and inner conflicts. This is a rehash script of many Soap operas that run for several seasons.
Screenplay - there exists none. This is a very low point in the star wars saga.
Characters - There are no lovable characters to root for on the dark side or the light side. The characters are one dimensional playing along with the script . This would have been a good game to play at dinner table. The character seem to reading out their script .
Movie - It is weakest of the saga. Time to end this with complete forethought, Lets not assassinate the glory of the Empire strike back , new hope and return of the jedi,
What to expect
Slapstick comedy , Lack of conflict about any characters , uneven story flow , New characters introduced without any background or depth. un-embellished Screenplay to fit the character scenarios. A score that is uninspiring and forgettable.
Laugh gags in unexpected moments . Sloppy direction and script.
Fiction is meant to exaggerate many new concepts but just to presume bluntly to challenge the common
sense and intelligence of the viewer is atrocious.
what not to expect
Good story , screenplay , character conflict , Good score, not even a good explanation to bridge the gap between return of jedi / The force awakens.
just breathe reach out with your feelings and stop the support to such movies . Let the viewer decide that such incompetence will not be tolerated no matter how well the movie is marketed. In the words of luke "Time to end this"...Any critci c with some decent common sense with integrity will never support such abomination. the user critic / reviews are absolutely correct.
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Before i start to review this film, I wanna tell everyone that I' m a star wars fan since I was 15 years old, I just saw The last jedi about 5 hours ago. However, I have many point to review after I saw this film.I will separate are both of disappointment and impression. Let me talk about my disappointment to this film before impression.
For my disappointment, firstly,after saw this film, I still not clearly know that who is ray's parents , there are many questions about ray's parents after The force awaken was released , and I expect that this film will give a good answer to me. Unfortunately, look like this issue is not important for this film, I believes that many people disappoint about this .
Secondly, Supreme reader Snoke in The force awaken look seriously mysterious and so powerful character , It hard to believe that he quickly to die. In my opinion, writer should tell about the origin of Supreme reader Snoke more than this and audience should have opportunity to see his power of dark side and fighting more than this .
Thirdly, the scene that encounter between Luke and Kyro len, before I saw this film, I considerably expect that I have to see dual-lightsaber seriously scene between both of them like The phantom mance (obi wan vs. darth maul scene). Unfortunately, disappoint again for this scene.
Fourthly, the humour in this film is not funny enough to audience.I notice from interact of many people who watched the last jedi at the same time with me in theater , when some humour scene arrived, the audience have completely quiet.
Fifth,I think Sound directors,they reduce bass sound of lightsaber, especially lightsaber sound while Rey have swing her lightsaber in training scene, that made me not impressive
For my impression in this film, firstly,I really appreciate that they bring Yoda, jedi master come back to this movie. It very surprising for me, Furthermore,I will very surprise more if they bring Obi-wan kennobi come back to joint with them.
Secondly, I think the location where they chose for this film is amazing place also including amazing animals in this film such as crystal fox, porg and other, I like so much.
Thirdly, Fighting scene both of Kylo ren and ley to encounter with the group of red guard knights.It is a novelty of fighting scene in Star Wars movie that I like also.
All of my reviews above, maybe someone disagrees with me, sometimes I think i expect too much about this film. However, I really expect that Abrams will create Episode 9 as I expect. And Finally, I still love Star wars movie and I will continuously watch about Star wars universe.
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3/10
3 stars for the action sequences, of which there are far too few.
Nearly the entire rebel fleet is destroyed in the first five minutes, and the next hour of the film is characters talking about how they're going to get the last handful of ships out. Meanwhile, off in la-la land, Luke and Rey are having meaningless conversations for the other part of that hour.
They do far too little with Snoke. They do far too little with Luke Skywalker. Instead, whining, pathetic Kylo Ren gets yet another hour of screen time.
This film had great CGI and some wonderful action sequences, but overall, it's senseless crap.
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3/10
More interested in making political statements than having a reasonable plot
From the beginning the film grates with my new Jar Jar binks, Domhall Gleeson completely miscast as General Hux present to supremely ham it up with his drama student's imitation of Peter Cushing. If they wanted someone to play an imposing menacing baddie with some gravitas why not cast someone that actually resonates that such as Charles Dance, Mark Strong or countless other actors with a more mature menacing presence. He then goes on to engage in a competely inappropriate and ridiculous moment of "humour" with Poe which further undermines the sense of darkness that should be emanating from the first order.
The main plot is a dull drawn out escape which many people have pointed out the flaws with previously. Luke SkyWalker is completely underused, Jedi training now seems to have become completely superfluous as Rey gains amazing powers after one brief training session with Luke and Leia has suddenly gained the powers of superwoman. There is a sidequest to stop the tracking of the rebel fleet which could have been an interesting and dark exploration of an immoral materialistic arms producing culture but consists mainly of a dull brief trip round a casino. The whole idea of how the tracking has happened on the rebel fleet ships and who has done it ignored. Snook is dispatched with before we get any idea of who he is , where he came from and how he turned Kylo Ren to the dark side. It seems like whoever wrote the plot was more concerned about making student a level political platitiudes that money is bad, women are good, and men irresponsible, cowardly, or incompetent than coming up with a cogent strong plot that fitted in with the rest of the star wars lore. I am all for progressive politics in films but not when it is done in such a ham fisted way as this at the expense of plot.
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6/10
More than holes in the plot, holes in the director
The problem of TLJ with respect to the original saga, is that G. Lucas very cleverly thought the characters from a philosophical standpoint, and with a KEY purpose within the whole history that includes its origins and importance of each character in the puzzle. R. Johnson and Disney not nearly doing anything like that, all they did was use the faces and names of the main characters, nothing else.
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Terrible movie. The first two hours were boring - waiting for something to happen. The last 45 minutes - nothing happens. The characters were flat and one-dimensional. Luke Skywalker was sad, tired, and undeveloped. Yoda's appearance was weak. You learn nothing new about Rey or Finn. No major new characters or insights. A lot of weak subplots and even weaker fight scenes. In the end, I did not care which is bad for the franchise. You can see the critics like it more than the fans.
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I'd rather sit and watch three hours of David Attenborough narrate about the love life of the Desert Bantha than to take more hits to my suspension of disbelief. This... story, if you even wanna call it that, it's just the worst piece of writing ever conceived. Will I watch Star Wars 9? Go to hell Disney - you just killed my most cherished childhood hero in the most unbelievable and humiliating way conceivable. This IP is as dead as him.
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Sad to see that they pay most of they official reviews to get a good score non of people who wached rated more than 6 avarege rating is 2
i must say its good move but this is not a star wars movie at all
its some galaxy war
what makes star wars is jedi (sith), the mystery of force, the character and they stories
the movie starts in meaningles space battle and they run from order and they are chasing them but cant catch them
then they came whit some plan including some guy in space casino (las vagas)
that casino was so out of star wars character, star wars is not about money and rich people, and to make mothers worst that whole scene ad no point to story at end at all
luke was so off character, non of his actions of words resemble the teachings of obi wan and yoda (jedi) living on some rock to die
luke and snoke die so meaningless deaths, at least they should let luke and snoke fight in some epic fight, and if one of them die i can live whit that but this
kylo is just so bad character like my friend say "i could come and slap him" he have no charisma or aura of fear or respect around him, when you see vader and palpatin you could feel the dark side
and Rey why was she in this movie she feels more like filler character
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After watching this atrocity, I owed it to the world to reveal Disney's plot to destroy Jedi.
As if the movie wants to maintain a balance in the force, whatever plot advancement would raise more questions than it answers; whatever intended climax ends up being anti-climax. At the end of movie, you get a feeling that no one does anything, the story goes nowhere, and you lose interests in all this.
Characters are either not developed, not explained, out of character, wasted, overpowered, or plain dumb. The movie also made up new rules whenever the plot needed. Take a look at some of the major characters:
1. Kylo Ren. The movie has the audacity to want us to feel for him for his so called "struggle" when it didn't set up anything with him and his parents. This movie simply showed his face struggling with firing on a ship that Leia is on. Am I supposed to feel sympathy for a guy considering killing his mother??? Oh poor Ren, killing your mother for whatever bullshit motivation that is not established even after the second installment of trilogy must be so difficult. I for one only feel disgust for a guy murdering his own parents. Yet this ridiculous arc is what they are establishing.
2. Rey. Nothing. Is. Ever. Explained. The plot twist here is that she is not on the island to be trained by Luke. She is there to train Luke, to talk him out of the trauma; meanwhile she learns how to use lightsaber by herself like what Trinity learns to fly helicopter in Matrix, and later applies it to defeat Snoke's guards.
Her parents are nobody, so she can pull all these including defeating Luke in a confrontation and lifting many rocks later, WITHOUT ANY TRAINING, just because she can.
3. Luke is so out of the character that it can only be explained by lazy writing for forced drama. Seriously, of all the stories you can write, Rian Johnson has to go with this arc. He got PAID for doing this and THIS is the best he can come up with? This is consistent with the arrogance/laziness they showed when shoving a parent-murderer as main protagonist to audience. They had the AUDACITY to write Luke this way and claim they are "taking risks" and should be applauded?
What does he even do in this movie? He didn't train Rey in any meaningful way, hell, he didn't even leave the island. He didn't burn the Jedi text, Yoda did it. He showed up as force-projection in the end, so he didn't even face Ren in person.
The movie wanted you to believe that he saved the rebels by distracting Ren long enough; but if you think about it more closely, the base is made to have only one exit, which is very contrived, and the movie built up a certain-doom atmosphere so bleak that the few rebels survived would not have made any difference because they are out of ships, men, leadership, allies. There are no stakes! The last act of Luke Skywalker is of little consequence. Then he dies, not in the fight, but on some rock and the cause of death is suspected to be that he just lost the will to live.
My jaw dropped not because I'm stunned by the so called sacrifice, but because they DARED to charge me for this CRIME they committed and would most likely be rewarded for it.
Story-wise, it is boring and confusing.
1. Rebels' victory in TFA means nothing. They got wiped out in this movie. So wiped they have to put in rebel kids to show there is still hope... in the next generation!
2. A cat and mouse chase for one and half hour between First Order and rebels.
Really? It is so contrived the movie introduces the concept of "FUEL" into Star Wars universe. Ships can run out of the juice now just so that this chase is possible. For about 20 hours in movie time the brilliant solution for rebels is to wait it out while First Order just lets them!? First Order ship always conveniently has no shield, no long-range weapon, no way to close distance, and always gets destroyed in a way that would kill everyone but plot characters on board.
3. Finn's brilliant plan is to find some code breaker in some casino planet to penetrate the shield of a dreadnought which only now presents as a problem, then he would infiltrate it with some non-combatant girl, on a ship full of armed and trained hostiles, to deactivate some tracker that is likely to be heavily-guarded, and expect they could pull such operations without any preparations under strict time requirement. They even take their time saving some horses, touring casino, running from local police, spending time in jail, making friends, and continue their mission basing on the words of a stranger picked up in jail that he can break the code. There is no sense of any URGENCY. This arc does NOTHING to the plot and can be removed from story without affecting rest of story.
4. Force Skype. For some reason, force is awakening to be a telecom provider.
And Rey spent half of her "training" time skyping with Ren. And for some reason, she totally just forgave him for killing Han Solo, even though she was there witnessing it all; and they are BFF now. So BFF now she suddenly saw light side in his future, while him being a parent-murderer that deserves to die. Again Disney is hinting us that killing parents is OK as long as you did it with some struggle. They went too far with Ren because they don't have time to build him up; killing parents who are two of the OT trinity for easy drama is the laziest story-building. Now it takes off all tension when Rey tries to get him to light side. It is not believable at all for me, especially when I love Han and Leia way better than this Ren. Getting him to light side is forced drama at best because Ren's done nothing to deserve it.
5. Snoke, Phasma, Holdo, Rose's sister, random rebel ships, who are they and why do I care? Poor rebels? From what I see the galaxy might be better off without them, no one came to their rescue! Recall that first order just destroyed some of the Republic's planet by ambush in TFA, if the resistance still can't get any help after that, the message I'm getting is that they probably deserve it.
For two movies, this trilogy so far still has not established a backstory for me to care either resistance or First Order! They could've cut 15 mins of horse saving in this movie and give us some substance! None of these sacrifices means anything when I don't care any of these people!
I could go on and on and I'm just getting started. But I'll wrap up here because I got to work tomorrow.
The movie sucks. Rian Johnson should be fired.
1/10 because I can't give 0.
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Intentions and inspiration aside, "Last Jedi" doesn't add up to an "Empire Strikes Back" for this trilogy. There's no romance, little pathos and no real punch-in-the-gut moment. Its emotionally sterile tone was set with "The Force Awakens," and that's proven hard to shake, new innovations and plot twists aside.
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3/5 as a film, 2/5 as an original SW film. Forgettable except some character moments. Who was the "mysterious" (Emperor knockoff) Smoke? Who cares. What was the point having him in? None but to wrong foot the audience into thinking he would matter. A plot device. Similarly the "mystery" over Super Rey's parentage dissolved into an "anyone can be special" didacticism. I don't really care which (force) orientation Ren plumbs for in the finale. Either way it won't be a surprise. And he doesn't instlil any fear. No Darth Vader. Two films in, what has the point been of making his entire character, what in the OT was one small part of Vaders- his conflict from ROTJ? I'd rather he were just plain evil. Maz thingy, Phasma and the Leia temporary replacement, all forgettable. What was the point bypassing Leia for half the film? A plot device to delay the reveal of her escape plan. Too much painting by SW numbers. And that casino planet stuff was straight out of the PT. The Bond films all have certain key elements, which even when repeated, rarely feels quite so blatant. I did though laugh at the jokes, albeit it came close to parody. But then this wasn't something you could take seriously. Another missed opportunity.
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2/10
Disney please quit this franchise... it's a real shame.
Unless you are a 10 year old child ( or younger ) there is no way this movie can really move you or touch you in any way. The plot holes and poor writing are on such a scale, that when you watch this you feel simply empty and ashamed for the creators. I will point out some of my observations here.
THE FIRST ORDER: Who are they ? What do they want ? What is the purpose of such an overpowered military force, that has such a vast fleet of space ships and what not, that is simply always destroyed and prevented from their goal. They do nothing, we care about nothing !! Not a single character is made to feel menacing or threatening. They are so pointless and just created as an army of bots that wants to destroy something from some unknown reasons, just to serve to the plot, to be there as an action object. General Hux who is supposed to be a strong villain, leading the army, is made as a comedy character bullied in childish and stupid ways, that can never be taken as a serious character, always failing at his task. What a fail.
SNOKE / KYLO: Seriously ? Their relationship is like an old guy from the street or society that mocks a young edgy teenager about how he wants to be Darth Vader, how he is ridiculous. Are we aiming for the series where our bad guys are whiny teenagers ? They reference Darth Vader making it look like that is a story from the hood, like two guys chatting on the street. That's what you want to translate on us ? Empty. Ridiculous. Disgusting. I couldn't believe that failure while i watched the movie.
SNOKE: I still can't believe that a guy, that has been in the shadows for the whole 1st movie, and obviously saw everything in the galaxy considering our saga, an evil master that somehow is involved in all this, a character that had so much potential to make these series much better, is nothing more but a plot device. He was simply inserted there to serve as a fix to a terribly written story. Like let's put some evil guy that can do lighting like the Emperor and be ultra powerful, yep, that's all we need. No one cares. WOW. Now such a fail, i really didn't expect to see from this movie. That is like number 1 fail ever and ultimate downer. Again, no emotions at all.
-REY: Wow. She is just indestructible, isn't she. Her training story with Luke is a really, really badly written and said JOKE. JOKE. I simply cannot understand how would someone fall for that ? Seriously ? That hurts any reasonable and healthy mind. Absolute disaster.
FIN / ROSE: Another sub plot, just to make something happen other than fail space battle with enormous ships. Again, we CARE ABOUT NOTHING. We feel no tension, no real emotions for them. We do not feel that if they fail, resistance is dead, we again, do not feel anything. Simply empty. The whole thing with Benicio Del Toro, so cheesy, so badly and amateur written. Awful. Absolute waste. We learned nothing, they added no value to the story.
LUKE: You take one of the most iconic characters in the movie history and make him look like a mocking dummy. Now that was extremely brave. Congratulations. You killed Luke as a character worse than any fan could ever imagine. Those cheesy, forced, empty dialogues and words, you can see it on the Marks face, it's so fake that it makes me laugh. What a stupidity, simply beyond words. It is all so wrong, that i cannot find the words or place to begin from. Just wow. I will not talk about the rest of him. It's all perfectly clear.
The only thing i kinda liked, or found amusing, was the potential that those force bond dialogues had, they were a nice idea, but badly put together. The kamikaze scene in hyperspace speed was visually beautiful, and nothing more than that. I did like porgs as beings, i will admit that. That's about it.
The light saber fight in the throne room ? Just a well executed choreography. Visually satisfying, nothing more. We again have no emotion, no fight with feelings and tension, like Luke vs Vader in ESB. Something that goes beyond just plain physical action. Empty.
There is no art in this movie. There is no real talent in inventing and telling the story of certain characters and their developments throughout certain actions and emotions. Nothing. Pure amateur writing. No build up of the tension and empathy with the characters. No emotions conveyed. Just a visually buffed block buster for people with no brains that want their eyes to experience some action and eat popcorn. An empty shell. And it all ends and serves one purpose: When you enter the shop, you see Star Wars on everything, from soup to clothes. Capitalism wins.
Bye.
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The Last Jedi certainly had a big hype on it and was certainly one of the big movies for this year. But i think he didn't fulfill what he promised.
The film has good points, as a great action scenes (what we do expect in every movie of Star Wars). Also, for the first time, it was trying to show the world of Star Wars much more efficiently through the photography, which i found very good.
But the movie is problematic in many ways. The main one and what annoyed me the most is the fact that film is a big beat around the bush. I even thought it would not be, mainly because the drama about Kylo Ren e Rey, but all this evolution of the character of Kylo Ren, who occupied too many minutes (even a little dragged) of the film is thrown away, which bothered me too much. Besides that, the others character and the story of the trilogy are practically do not change in anything that make deserve their two and a half hours. The only exception to what i considered a filler is Rey and the changes in Luke's character (but this changes don't happen in the movie, but we only had notion of this in the movie).
In addition, the development is complex and confusing, even creating very unnecessary scenes for the plot top ut more action in the film and a possible heroic scene to please the public. The many jokes in the movie bother too, beeing very unnecessary in the most tThat one from Kylo Ren shirtless was ridiculous). Not that I do not think this fun at certain times to relax, but it seemed to me quite exaggerated in most, remembering even some Marvel movies, that also have this problem.
As a conclusion, the film delights, even because i know some friends who liked it a lot (as well the opposite). I liked too, but not so much, appealing as action, good entertainmen and very well produced, but close to what I expect for Star Wars, especially in relation to the story of the movie, it was kind of disappointing.
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Starwars saga is done. I cannot believe Rian Johnson put all the clues of Force Awaken by JJ. These twisted plots are disgusting exactly like the Pirates of Caribbean by Disney.
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6/10
Was very disappointed with how they handled everything in this movie.. I hope episode 9 starts with Luke waking up from a bad dream... I had a bad feeling from the moment Luke
There was so much that I felt was wrong with this movie:
01. Luke - He wouldn't act that way, his character was poorly written. When he died, we all wanted to see him go out fighting, showing how powerful he was, not meditating on a rock and making silly jokes.
02. Snoke - He would have heard that saber moving, he was defeated way to easy. His character needed more explanation, needed to be used more.
03. Finn and Rose fall in love WTF?
04. Unnecessary comedy (Like Finn waking up and walking around with water pouring out of his suit).
05. Luke (Yeah, I'm going to say it twice, he would have helped in a different way.)
06. Rey's parents - they make suspense about her parents, about her lineage and then don't follow through.
07. Knights of Ren - Where did they go? Why were they discarded???
08. Slow chase scene - It was waaaay to long and drawn out, very tedious, many things that don't make sense.
09. Super Leia - Yes she has force power, but that scene didn't seem to fit in, it was weird.
10. Rey's Lightsaber ability: Yes, she is powerful with the force, but Luke didn't teach her how to use it yet.
11. Finn and Rose side quest, how? Why?? WTF??
12. Not letting Poe in on the mission, makes no sense, forced to make above WTF side quest possible.
13. Captain Phasma - Continued useless, becomes Bond enemy not killing Finn.
14. Finn Not blowing up the cannon. Too many fakeouts, we're going to kill him.. no we're not. Leia dead, no she isn't.
15. Yoda tells Luke to help Rey, but he doesn't.
There are more, I'm sure of it but I'm not going to watch this again in the cinema to give Disney more money for this one. So disappointing :(.
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After disney had regained my trust with an amazing movie that is Rogue One, this year they let me down again. Disney is being disrespectful throughout Lucasfilm, it was like the director had never seen a Star Wars movie. I left feeling like I saw a lot of cool things but didn't witness a story, because once again they are remaking the original trilogy.
The entire Finn and Rose part is unnecessary to the movie, Leia floating through space... Phasma is like Boba Fett is just there to sell toys, the amount of funny moments makes this feel like it isn't truly STAR WARS. They disrespected the character of Luke so much, and after not using him in the force awakens, they killed him off to soon in the most stupid way possible.
Overall it's a trainwreck, the prequels are still way better.
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3/10
Critics love it??? Are they scared of losing their Disney invites?
A movie with tons of set-up and misdirection which ultimately leaves you empty. A poor story overall and decisions which will leave star wars fans fuming.
+ Throne room scene - One of the best in the whole SAGA
+ Holden Hyperspace scene self sacrifice.
+ Some great jokes and nods to previous canon.
+ Rey and Kylo's interactions via force.
+ Seeing Yoda again
+ Caretakers
Whole Kanto Bite sequence.
Space Leia
Killing off snoke too soon and in that way.
Too much misdirection pretending to kill off other characters (Finn, Rose, Leia)
Phasma ruined again (shes the baddest ass in the galaxy - read the novel).
Luke giving him up to the force.
So much misplaced humor (Put a shirt on, holding for hux)
General Holden subplot. Why keep the plan a secret?
The whole thing about ships running out of fuel.
Maz cameo
DJ being underused.
BB8 being a convenient plot device over and over. BB8-ex machina
No knights of Ren.
Why did Maz have Luke's Lightsaber?
Rey's parents being nobodys and Snoke having no backstory.
Disney need to rethink. Wonder how Lucas feels.
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My pismire opinion clearly does not matter in this world, given these "capeshit" et al. turds rake in Shoah numbers at the box office, for each and every cookie cutter copy-pasta entrant. As such, I'll simply run through a synopsis of Shekel Whores: The Loser Jedi; for those who want a run-down before they wast-- INVEST 2.5 hours of their lives (+ change) in this latest flagellation by, what Jabba the Lucas called (IIRC), its "kike slavers" (affectionately, "Disney").
We pick up during a space chase scene, where the Faecal Odour is perusing the Resistance to Logic--who are themselves fast running out of some undefined "fuel"; whereafter they will be captured and / or destroyed. Here we're treated to some protracted tit-for-tat laser cannon exchanges, ship incursions, Poo Digimon's 9-11 level piloting prowess, impossibly unlikely Sino-assissted 'David' victory of 'Goliath' (U.S.?) scenes... explosion-proof space Leia conducting EVA's (extra-vehicular activities).
From the mayhem of space, we're whisked off to Vagrant Isle, where our muc-- ONCE-loved Star Wars protagonist, Luke Slumlurcher now resides as a defeated hobo who, every day, holds his breath and prays for death... after indulging his bestial lactation fetishism, that is! Here, the film's "training sequence" takes place, wherein Mary Sue is "trained" in the arcane Jed-- SHEDI arts; and although her "training" consists of little more than a single, comedic 'Daniel-san' skit involving a rock and some fortuitous indigenous Amish creatures, the audience by now fully understands the goddess mode that Mary Sue is erupting from every cleansed pour with -- thus, rendering any actual training utterly pointless (indeed, potentially insulting / man-splaningly misogynistic). Suffice it to say, the trolly ghost, Yoda now appears and summons the god of lightening (i.e., electrical voltage / current -- compare: thunder / sound) to destroy the Jedi wishing tree. For Shedi care not for whimpy man-canon or lore... or their cooties!
Once the now Master Shedi, Mary Sue (pbuh) beats the hermit vagrant, Slumlurcher down to the ground with a stick (as all men deserve to be treated... unless they're of discernible African or Arabic descent... in which case, they should be mated with immediately), we move from Degobah 2.0 back to the theater of space. Cue: our resident Gomer Pyle, Mopboy, who has since awoken after convalescence from spinal cauterisation (courtesy of a near-victory against cheating bad boy gone emo, Gaylord Rim -- Schlock Worse: The Faeces Evacuates); and after meeting the mail order love of his life (Mai Mong Fat), they embark on a carefully-constructed expedition to recover Benicio Del Toro with his Rubik's cube solving skills--required in order to decrypt some highly esoteric, fangled Faecal Odour whatsit thingie. ...Oh! And did I mention Mopboy was--himself--privy to the inner workings of the mechanised monolith menacing our triple-zero heroes...? Who's a clever Mopboy, then? Bumbling Jar Jar: eat your ass out! =D Thus, our newly-formed dynamic duo (+soccerbot) then embark on their adjunct adventure...
Meanwhile, Mary Sue - after having ESP-dated Gaylord back on Indigents' Isle, using the Farce, across the fabric of space-time (...only to be rudely interrupted by that loathsome lecher, Slumlurcher; just as Gaylord was getting naked and a cherry-popping looked in order) - has now decided she can turn her sulking suitor away from his masculine path, back towards the light of tomboy-ish femininity (...after all, we all start life as XX chromosomes!). In turn, together they confront Supreme Sméagol Joke -- vanquishing this forever-anonymous foe back to Middle-earth; thereafter disposing of his electric boogaloo baton wielding, somewhat cross-eyed, dancing dervishes of devilry. Now, Mary Sue must decide whether to accompany Gaylord towards raging petulance, or to go at it alone...
By this time, not only have Mopboy and Mai Mong Fat returned to the Resistance of Logic's main fleet - having completed their largely CGI-based McGuff-- MEANINGFUL MISSION in Macau - but the crescendo of this grand Johnson throbbing opus, is fast-approaching its regrettable conclusion (...two-and-a-half hours sure do fly when one's in the throes of nauseous delirium!). Hence, the Faecal Odour have all but ensnared their prey and everything looks lost... BUT for the Admiral Ackbar stand-in she-general, who - after having an Digimon ad hoc coup (grrr... men!) foiled by a comatose space Leia's "Wrath of God" magic attack (*req. 40 FAITH) - off-the-cuff MacGyvers a light speed missile from her mother ship, destroying the entire Faecal armada, with one, righteous display of martyrdom! (EAT THAT!! SHARI-- GURL POWER, FTW!).
Now we can get down to the nub of the film: the Luke-Gaylord showdown on Hoth 2.0.... and what a showdown it is! However, I will not spoil it here for readers, as this is surely one of the most viscerally heart-wrenching destructions in the history of cinematic defilement of seminal, much-loved characters. And if that reads overly bombastic, I will simply point the good reader to the post-premier video interview with Rian Johnson and Mark Hamill, and entreat them to keep their eyes affixed on the latter actor of the franchise's stalwart protagonist. What is witnessed here, cannot be unseen and will elucidate all that is nebulous in the minds of those who are ambivalent regarding where this franchise is headed / been flushed.
Summation:
Somehow more tolerable than The Faeces Evacuates... Albeit, I'm still unsure as to why... An increasing tolerance for schlock?... Diminishing self-respect?... Onset of dementia? (4/10 -- It rhymes!)
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If The Force Awakens was a bit too adherent to the classic Star Wars formula, Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi is its equal and opposite reaction. JJ Abrams' effort often felt like a young boy putting on his Dad's coat, splashing on his cologne and trying in vain to mimic the old man's booming baritone voice. Rian Johnson's entry is the same kid a few years later, willfully eschewing everything that is his Father. The Last Jedi doesn't look like a Star Wars film. Hell, it rarely feels like a Star Wars film. Sure it's got familiar faces, space battles and Force mumbo jumbo, but this ain't your Father's Star Wars, and I think that's the point. The look and feel of this film is synergistic with its message. This is no longer Han, Luke and Leia's show. Perhaps more importantly, it's no longer George Lucas'. This is Star Wars: The Next Generation, and I don't like. Not at all.
There are some truly great moments in the morass that is the painfully overlong The Last Jedi. Moments worthy of the saga that has been my constant companion since I first saw the original film as a wide eyed 3 year old in the late Summer of 1977. But these are few and fleeting, and no salve for the gapping wound it left in me. I realize now that for me, the Star Wars saga consists of three films. Star Wars (because for me it will always be Star Wars), The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. And I can even still enjoy the prequel trilogy despite glaring flaws, because at its core are the same basic fundamentals and the DNA of the same architect. What Disney and its minions have done is take someone else's toys and played the game their way. That's fine. But I don't have to watch.
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Disappointed to the maximum.. Breaks my heart to rate a star wars movie with 2 stars.. It was like whatever the first movie had built up and made us excited for the things to come and count the days until next episode , all of it was a big lie.. I didn't like any continuation of any arc .. really sad.. it was like you put 2 completely different teams in a school to write the episodes and the second group ( the last jedi ) seemed to hate the first team that wrote a good script and wanted to ruin their work to get a bad score. Idk...
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I'm not a Star Wars "fan", but I sort of enjoyed the 7th film for the basic enjoyment it provided (despite how rehashed it all felt), so going into this film I had an expectation of it at least keeping my attention for 2 1/2 hours...
But I genuinely hate this film.
The 2 stars I give this mess is only because of some visual choices my eyes could enjoy while my ears fried under the constant barrage of crappy dialogue. When every scene in your film is either unnecessarily "epic" or an atrocious attempt at humour, the pace chugs along at a funeral march.
I don't know if I should blame the script or the acting, because the chemistry between characters didn't click for me. The only character development in this film was small and unimaginative, and the emotional conflict was boring and told in a boring way with boring characters.
I've almost said enough, but the worst part of this film for me was when Yoda appeared. Now, I may be in the minority here, but Yoda has got to be up there with some of the most annoying characters of all time. How am I supposed to take a little talking rubber green thing with serious speech problems seriously? Luke Skywalker might as well be talking to the ghost of an Ewok, as that would of carried about as much emotional investment with me.
Anyway, worst film I've seen this year.
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So sad. I don't tell you to stay away from this movie. You have to see it to believe it. Even The Force Awakens could not convince me that Star Wars is dead. The Last Jedi did.
The plot is rubbish, acts are poor. Cheap jokes discredit supposed to be badass characters. Scenes would be low even for a parody. This movie (and the as the matter of fact The Force Awakens two) does nothing just spend all the characters that had been built for 40 years and trade them for nothing.
Gravity bombs fall in space. Imperial Dreadnaughts fly without fighter cover, watching Poe playing target practice with their turrets. Kylo and Rey fight bodyguards without using the Force even crossing their minds. And now who the hell was Snoke? Can't remember name First Order admiral has a role of exactly what? Does he supposed to scare anybody? BB8 is more dangerous than him as it rides an AT-ST (a paper one as its top gets easily torn off). BTW I can't remember any other Republic droid killing people ever...
Everybody mattered in the saga now is dead (except the one I expected would leave the story: Leia Organa whom now is becoming CGI I guess). The son of Han Solo rules the Galaxy. When he is not crying. The Republic is reduced to about 8 souls on board of Millenium Falcon (not counting the penguins that nest there).
Never thought this carefully built saga can be sent down the sewage just like this.
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Ooh, if I only knew where to begin...
Ah, good things... great effects! Hmm. I'm sure I'll figure out something else and fill it in later... Ha, just kidding!
I don't think I've ever been so frustrated with a movie. I wanted to find out more about how they try to resolve their problems, about the force, Sith lords, etc. Every single one of my questions was answered with a gun/lightsaber fight. Hey, tell me more about the Sith lords! PEW-PEW! Aaah, I understand. Thank you.
I have no new knowledge about their world, except that the space cows have green milk. WELL, THANK YOU! HOW COULD I HAVE LIVED WITHOUT THIS INFORMATION! STAR WARS IS NOW OVER! I HAVE LEARNED EVERYTHING I WANTED TO KNOW!
And killing off all the characters just so you could continue making 500 new movies with new jedi. Cha-ching! Right? You've destroyed so many superheros and movies. YOU COULD HAVE LET THIS ONE SLIDE AND MAKE US A GREAT MOVIE! Evil creatures!
And come on! Luke wanting to destroyed jedi because he thinks they shouldn't exist anymore? Suddenly, after existing for thousands of years, Luke gets to decide the fate of the jedi. SO, being the last jedi suddenly grants you the wisdom that none had had before. Pff. Producers and writers, HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED STAR WARS?! Luke would never do that! Never!
And Luke's hologram? I don't even want to get into that... I will carefully step over that and move on...
And great job on the Ray's training! She had climbed so many hills! She is definitely ready to use the force! And her trainer - the rock. Best jedi ever!
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snokes death scene was so bullshit my jaw dropped
now kylo is supreme leader ? what?
snoke ,reys parents had amazing potential but they throwed it to the trash as this movie is
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The trouble with reviewing the latest episode of a galatic franchise like "Star Wars" is that expectations are so hign. Ever since I saw the first movie almost four decades ago as a 30 year old who had fairly recently become a father, I have approached each new chapter - usually with my son - with immense exitement and not a little trepidation. If there was no "Star wars" canon, this film would be judged a great success with lots of enjoyment and entertainment. Assessed as the eighth segment of a saga, however, the sum of the parts (too many parts) - often exhilerating - is less than the rather incoherent whole.
As with the previous episode, the same person writes and directs, but this time Rian Johnson has taken over the baton (or light sabre) from J J Abrams and, all things considered, has done a fine job, presenting a series of exciting action sequences in a rich palette of colours with some splendid cinematography to add to the dramatic scenery and clever CGI.
The best performances come from Mark Hamill as the eponymous final jedi and Adam Driver as Keylo Ren of the First Order, both of whom offer conflicted and emotional states of mind. Other convincing performances comem from two new heroines: Laura Dern as a Vice Admiral commanding a Resistance space cruiser and diminutive Kelly Marie Tran as a Resistance soldier who brings more ethnic diversity to the cast. However, Daisy Ridley struggles a bit to bring the necessary gravitas to Ren's more central role, while it is sad to see the late Carrie Fisher barely coping as Leia Organa (although she does have one of the best one-liners).
The real problem with "The Last Jedi" is that there are too many characters and too many strands to the plot with too many 'endings' and an excessive running time (at two and a half hours, the longest in the franchise). Also, like the previous film, it is often derivative, so we have another cantina sequence like "A New Hope" and another snow planet like "The Empire Strikes Back" (Episode IX needs a new world). But, for all my quibbles, I savoured the movie and can't wait for the final segment of the third triptych in the franchise.
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4/10
Never in my life have I been so disappointed in a movie.
They completely wasted phasma, even after kathleen kennedy said she would have a much bigger role. Canto Bight was such a massive waste of time. It felt like i was watching an episode of doctor who. The humor felt so out of place for a star wars movie, it's like the higher-ups at disney told them to add some of that marvel-tier slapstick into it because it worked for those movies. It doesn't work in star wars. It felt like Rian took everything JJ was building up in TFA and just tossed all of it out a window just so they could subvert people's expectations for shits and giggles. And while subverting our expectations they forgot to write a cohesive story. So many twists and shock factor just for the sake of it, without it adding any real depth. I could keep going but there's no point.
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3/10
Dull action movie - completely misses what makes Star Wars great
I don't often write reviews here, but now that force has been awakened, and not by a good indicator.
I've loved Star Wars since kid years, 7 years old when the first Star Wars came out, and continued loving them even though Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones weren't that good, and once, while working a mindless job for a whole summer, listened to approximately 100 SW audiobooks.
I loved The Forced Awakens, that rekindled the spirit of the originals, asking questions and wondering about the world, developing new characters, giving them surprising dimensions, and it was fun, so much fun. Rogue One was also a great success, even though it was much darker than other entries.
The Last Jedi reminds me on The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, in that it's a technical marvel, with great music, but the rest is just poor.
Back is the silly creature humour comparable to dozens of Jar Jar Binks, lost is any sense of character development, lost is any sense of mystery.
All questions the fans asked after The Force Awakens get an answer, and it's pretty much always the same answer: "Who cares?"
There was a moment I enjoyed, which promised something new and fresh, but it fell quickly back into safe territory, and the promise of great potential just limped away.
The plot is surprisingly bad. The rebels are escaping the First Order, and since they can be tracked through light speed, they have six hours to get away to somewhere before running out of gas and being utterly destroyed. Subplots do nothing to further the plot, or deepen characters.
So, character development doesn't happen, the lively cast from The Force Awakens are turned into two dimensional cartoon characters. The plot is thin, and not worthy of the saga. There are layers upon layers of cool special effects and explosions, but that just doesn't work that well if the story hasn't been developed well enough.
I'm afraid that The Last Jedi has left me with the feeling of "Who cares?" and "So what?" - something that hasn't happened before, maybe it's just a sign of my own age, but maybe, and I suspect that's the case here, is that Disney and Lucasarts have made a huge miscalculation.
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For over 20 years I've been a Star Wars fan. (movies, music and games)
I fear The Last Jedi will be my last Star Wars movie.
It's totally clear now - Disney will destroy the franchise with its leftist SJW agenda.
My view on the characters:
Snoke the Joke: Nuff said
Poe: Oh oh... toxic masculinity, micro aggression, mansplaining!
Kylo: Still a whiny emo brat
Leia: Dies and then Marry Poppins her way back to the ship? Seems legit.
Rey: meh
Luke: Jerking off a sea cow. So sad.
Chewie: Turns vegan
Token Asian Girl: check!
Finn: Was he in this movie? He certainly didn't do anything.
R2D2 / C3P0: useless
Chrome Brienne of Tarth: useless
Plot / story:
Casino scene:
This is where the movie killed me. I completely zoned out during this scene. What-the-hell-am-I-watching?
Rich white people are bad because they beat their kids, are cruel to animals and make money on arms dealing.
Fuck you, Disney.
Kamikaze hyperjump:
Cool idea. Should have been done by Admiral Ackbar, not Purple Hair Lady no one cares about.
Battle on Not-Hoth planet:
I was getting excited seeing the setup, I thought this battle was going to resemble the famous Hoth battle.
A rebel soldier in the trenches takes a lick of the white substance covering the ground.
"Salt". Wut. A lackluster battle followed.
Even if I leave out Disney's SJW bs I'm still left with a very weak movie.
Plot holes, cringe scenes, flat characters, dull story writing, badly placed "humor".
Dear Disney, please choke on your leftist SJW non-binary PC vegan soy lattes.
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I didn't expect much from this movie, and I was still disapointed.A single X-wing piloted by Poe assisted by a few more ships take down an Imperial Dreadnought in the 10 first minutes of the movie, a massive space warship which apparently can be destroyed by a dozen small fighter and bomber ships?
Why weren't there hundreds of T-fighters dispatched to stop them ? I saw five of them or something.
If the First Order is so inept at designing and using their massive fleets, how were they able to take over in the first place? This problem comes up in most Star wars movies, but here they really went too far.
Then there is a kind of space chase where the First Order fleet ,bolstered by its flagship, almost but cannot quite get to the weakened resistance fleet to obliterate it for some unfathomable reasons.
The most unforgiving, was how boring and sluggish the first part of this massive two and a half hour movie went. Rey is in planet "North Scotland" trying to convince Luke to teach her to be a Jedi, the conversations are contrived and do nothing to advance the plot for a solid hour. While this happens Finn and the chubby girl written in the story to please the Chinese market leave the space chase (yup no problem...) to some Casino
planet to find some hacker (drunk Del Torro) who will disable some tracker device on the main First order ship which.
The people running the casino are of course bad guys, and the children labor used on the casino planet for taking care of the horse creatures (why don't they use droids???) for no reason decide to help our heroes who will later let them stranded there, probably to get punished by their evil masters. What is it with the Star Wars franchise and their "live and let live" philosophy when it comes to slavery?
This subplot is both contrived and dull , most importantly it doesn't lead anywhere and the remnants of the purchased resistance fleet escape at the last moment of course to some planet convienantly in the area with an even more conveniant old deserted resistance base located there.
Who wrote this???? I've seen Saturday afternoon Hanna Barbera cartoons with better plot!
I don't mind that they're recycling the main plotlines from The Empire Strikes Back, but couldn't they have done it a bit better?
Anyway after about one hour and a half of this slug, you'll finally get to the better part of the movie where Rey and Kylo Ren confront ... Gollu... I mean Snoke ,Supreme Leader of the First Order. The confrontation actually
managed to keep my interest, not much surprises there, but the fight between Rey and Kylo and Snokes's guard was actually enjoyable to watch.
Then there is the last showdown between the forces of the First order and the resistance on the planet, which actually was pretty well done, again, no real surprise here , and like most of the movie, you never feel like the main heroes
are in real danger , of course some Deus Ex Machina device show up to save them from hopeless situations and they finally escape. It's not unusual for an action movie, I just wish it wasn't so obvious.
Oh and Luke dies back on his planet after fooling the First order, because... he was tired I guess, thanks for all the money Walt Disney! At this point I didn't really care anymore, I was just happy the movie to finally end, it lasted two and a half an hour but felt like five...
The visuals of the movie were really well done, and I especially liked the planet at the end, with the red and white sand (or salt or whatever). The music score was really good and much more true to the classical Star Wars than the last movie. The plot however was for a great length boring and tired-some, the characters played by good actors did the most they could with what they had, but unlike Force Awakens, didn't feel so fresh or invigorating anymore, there were times when they looked positively bored.The New characters ,like the Asian American girl who play Rose and Del Toro weren't bad, they were just victims of a lazy script and felt rather unnecessary in the whole.
I think the director tried to appeal to children with some funny and cute animals on the "Scottish Island" planet and children(labor...) on the "Casino" planet, but I honestly think they'll mostly feel disoriented by the disjointed plot and bored just like many grown ups were.
In short: Apart from some good parts and an "ok" ending, and despite amazing visuals and music score, the "plot" and underused characters let the movie down. I honestly cannot recommend this movie even to casuals, only to Star Wars Die Hard who will watch it no matter what... oh well, at least it wasn't as bad as Star Wars episode one.
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Some good parts and I really wanted it to work but the director messed this up. Far too many plot holes, dropped points from Force Awakens i'm really sad.
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I am not going to write a long review, but the story was completely and utterly butchered, which made me, for the first time ever in a Star Wars movie - bored.
But that isn't my biggest gripe with the movie, the worst part is that they have clearly aimed the new films towards children. WAY too much humor (and I mean WAY, WAY too much) and scenes that feel like they are from a kids movie. But that isn't so strange considering it's Disney after all.
I just wish we could get another mature and dark Star Wars movie, in the veins of Episode III. Critics must be braindead to praise this so highly. This movie is not only a travesty to the Star Wars franchise but to filmmaking itself.
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You can say what you want for Episode VII. It indeed played it too safe, it was so close to Episode IV that it was borderline insulting. Still it was a pleasant watch, it introduced the characters wonderfully and set up several plot lines for the future sequels that were discussed by all of Star Wars fans even the day before the premiere of the Last Jedi.
Let's summarize for a moment what those plot lines were shall we? Kylo has finally embraced the Dark Side and was ready to be trained by Snoke, a mysterious figure who we knew nothing about at that moment. Rei was awoken in the ways of the Force and finally got the map to find Luke so she can be trained as a Jedi by him. Finn was gravely injured and a future rivalry with Phasma was ignited. After the destruction of their ultimate weapon the Rebellion finally seem to level the table against the First Order. And of course there's the biggest mystery of all. Who were Rei's parents and why did they leave her on that planet in the first place? What was her connection with Kylo? Siblings? Cousins? Students under Luke? Everything seem to be going quite good for the heroes and the trilogy despite the complaints about the first part of the trilogy.
So what plot lines did the Last Jedi took advantage of? Well to be honest basically none of them. The first slap comes from before the movie even begins. According to the rolling text, First Order conquered the galaxy. Why? How? No explanation was given. Even though in the first movie they seem to be only a sect, a relic of the Empire, who have just lost their ultimate weapon and most of their forces, they still conquered the galaxy and the Rebellion instead of growing stronger they are now but a few hundred people on the run. Em.... what? But let's let that slide shall we? After all maybe they did have huge armies across the galaxy but wasn't mentioned that much in the first movie.
Ok what happened to Finn? How is he coping with his serious injuries from his fight with Kylo Ren? What he is totally ok? Em... ok. Moving forward.
Let's go to the people we care about. Luke is finally ready to train Rei and make her a badass Jedi right? Nope. Apparently the person who risked the outcome of the battle against the Empire in VI because he believed Darth Vader can return to the light is now a miserable old man that gave up his ways and just waits to die, refusing to train Rei because he was afraid of Kylo Ren's powers. But she makes him change and he decides to train her right? Nope. She swings a lightsaber a couple of times, meditates and then leaves him behind.
But at least Snoke trains Ren to be a badass Sith Lord right? Nope. After he makes fun of him a couple of times, Kylo finds a chance and just kills him. No epic battle, no team up with Rei, nothing. He just uses the Force to move a lightsaber next to Snoke to cut him in half. You know, the strongest Force user in the Galaxy. The mysterious villain we all wanted to know more about is just fodder of Ren in his way to become the ruler of the First Order. Lame.
What about the greatest mystery of the first movie, Rei's backstory and parents. Nope, screw you guys, they were nameless nobodies and Rei has no connection to Kylo other than to be the Yin to his Yang.
What about Finn's epic confrontation with Phasma? Which by the way didn't face any consequences after she blatantly betrayed her faction to save her life and left to die in a trash compactor. She is still a commanding officer, she still wears her cool chrome armor. But at least she and Finn have an amazing fight right? Nope, she hits her once with a button and then falls to her death in a fiery pit.
And we pretty much ended with all the plot lines from the Force Awakens. Not a single satisfying conclusion to any of them. But we still have ways to go. After all the plot lines not going anywhere is only one of the issues with the movie. I'm going to try to speed things up to avoid this review/analysis becoming a book.
First we have the humor. Badly timed, in poor taste, childish and not fitting with the rest of the movie's tone. Luke jerking of a creature to drink it's milk... enough said.
Then we have the film having the audacity to expect the audience to feel sad for events involving characters we only knew for a few minutes. Oh my god the female general Leia left in charge while she recovers from an injury sacrifices herself to rescue the others. Who cares? We only knew her name! Oh my god, Benicio Del Toro's character betrays the heroes. Who cares? We knew him for 5 minutes. Rose injures herself in an attempt to prevent Finn from sacrificing himself. Well that was stupid, she almost killed them both. And of course even though she was prevalent in the movie it's still a new character to us, her sacrifice won't affect any of the audience at this point.
Then there's the biggest plot hole of the movie that so bad it really made my angry. The general Leia leaves in her place never tells the others her plan making Poe to start a mutiny against her believing she just waits for them to die. Not only that the whole middle act of the movie with Finn and Rose only exist because of her refusal to tell her plans to the rest of the crew. Them landing on a planet, getting caught, finding a hacker, boarding Snoke's ship, getting caught again, getting betrayed by Del Toro's character, the whole act was pointless. In fact not only it was pointless it ruined their escape plan.
And then we have the final act. A battle on a deserted planet (but this time it's a desert not a frozen wasteland) but not really. They got cornered, the great base defenses (their words not mine) mean nothing since they made a battering ram just for that (emm... what?), they launch a counter attack with some crappy crafts, don't shoot even once, just die one after another until they retreat. And then Luke comes to the rescue. Everything promises an amazing duel against Kylo in an attempt to give time to the Rebels to escape (again). Nope... Luke dodges Ren twice and it's revealed that he is just an astro-projection. Cool, that means that he played Ren like a fool and he and the rest of the cast escapes to fight another day right? Nope, after he returns to his body... he dies. Simple as that. In a scene out of nowhere he decides he did his part (even though he didn't train Rei in the slightest) and becomes one with the Force.
Sorry if it became more of an analysis instead of a review but I wished to share my thoughts with you. The movie is watchable and it has it's moments but it's so badly written that it boggle my mind. If you just a casual viewer seeking a sci-fi movie to pass the time, it's fine, forgettable but fine. If you are a Star Wars fan that is happy just seeing a new part of his favorite franchise you will find stuff to enjoy as well. But if you are a more hardcore Star Wars fan then I don't see how you can really enjoy this movie.
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From a studio that had it's last good movie in 1989.
From a dicrector that never made a good movie in his life.
From a writer that is also the director.
From the actors who can barely act.
A complete crap which makes ZERO sense.
A total waste of time.
You'd wish this movie never came here and stayed in a galaxy far far away.
If you still haven't seen it.... run.
Run from any theater near you and avoid this pile of trash.
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5/10
Forget everything you knew about the Jedi, the Force, the far, far away galaxy for that matter
I've seen Rian Johnson praising himself that he had this 'vision' about Luke's character, that he pushed all the characters to their limits. I think this is the most outrageous statement one can deliver, when that one is honored the making of another movie about the Star Wars universe. For it's not about YOUR personal vision, it's about respect for the values the Star Wars stand for. No one should be allowed to strip the Star Wars Universe of its epicness and greatness in order to introduce his 'personal vision' in the far, far away galaxy. For the stake it's not the amount of money Disney invested into the movie, but at least, again, the respect the producers, the director and the studio owe to the fans that are supposed to buy the tickets to the movie. And it's not any sci-fi Justice League movie (forgive me, Justice League fans). It is Star Wars, and Star Wars belong to their fans, for Star Wars is a legend and our live-history already. It's OUR Star Wars, not theirs. OUR Star Wars cannot be bought and trashed like in an ordinary-whatever-let's do a sequel-movie.
My point here is that the Star Wars Universe stands for loyalty, greatness, epic. That is what the Force, the Jedi represent. Even the anti-heroes like Darth Vader are a match for the Epic we so much love about. So that's what I'm waiting to see in a Star Wars movie. I want to witness Epicness, not petty wrongdoers.
I'm still waiting for the next Star Wars. One in which the legends, the values, the Jedi are respected.
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There does not seem to be a single competent storyteller left in Hollywood. Rian Johnson certainly isn't one. What we are served here is fan-fiction at best, but certainly not a genuine Star Wars episode. The plot makes little sense and relies on miracle after miracle, the dialogues felt clumsy, the characters are cliched and lack motivation for their actions.
Amazing how little regard the writer had for the characters and themes of the original series. At times it felt rather like a parody than a genuine Star Wars episode.
Visually it was impressive, but what does that help if the story itself is such a disappointment?
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1/10
Kill the past. Star Was has gone once and for all.
So I've seen The Last Jedi and I must say apart from some great Star Wars action the storyline and character development is basically non-existent.
I am game with the ever-repeating "we need to get inside the DeathStar/ShieldOnEndor/PlanetCannon/SpaceShip but while the good episodes made that story work through tempo and substantial acting, this here is a sugar-coated ride through Disneyland. Lots of dramatic announcement, a few highlights packed in average coating and once the ride is over, nothing remains.
The biggest failure in this movie named The Last Jedi is the utter non-development and complete lack of training/insight of the main character Rey. Is she a Jedi? No. Will she ever become one? Well, no. Two movies in, she can all of a sudden let some stones fly, anyone remember how hard this was on Luke when he was trained? Other than that she still has no clue about basically anything, especially handling a lightsaber. In light of this, the Jedi are truly dead. And that is not even the beginning of the Jedi controversy in a film that utterly destroys the entire idea as well as the character that is Luke Skywalker.
Difficult as well to go into all the abysmal plot-holes, i.e. how a single X-Wing and a few bomblets take out an entire destroyer, the few intriguing characters built up in TFA killed in a whiff, pointless and shallow side-stories and the only mystery of the main character deconstructed within a second. If we had delivered such a joke of a script at the School Of Arts we would have been thrown out the very next day.
Add to that some Star-Wars untypical but Disney-Hollywoodish point- and endless suspension dragging, lack of tempo, entirely unrelated location-fillers and moments of sheer boredom. This is ramshackle film-making by an entirely un-inspired and un-talented merchandise-executor instead of a proper director like Empire's Kershner or the StarTrek/StarWars rejuvenating J.J. This film left me confused, angry and uncaring which is an immense effect seeing what Star Wars should do to me as a viewer and fan. But then, the entire air of this movie adheres precisely to the main line and what all young millennial viewers continuously drone on: Kill the past.
Exactly, kill it once and for all: Kill craftsmanship, kill logical reality, hard work, dirt and dust as well as any tangible experience and sacrifice them all on the altar of superficial CGI and app-like fastfood solutions to thrive merchandise instead of delivering a lasting saturation. And that is the entire problem of this movie and of today: Substance has gone, quick and superficial frisson has replaced the real experience. The makers of this film have succeeded, they have effectively killed the past to excuse their abysmal lack of depth. Just like their smartphone-educated audience does every day and is even grateful for that.
And so Star Wars dies...with thunderous applause.
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Visually the movie looks good and it seems thats all the creators care about now making movies look good to make money, The plot and direction is totally weak i felt so deflated by the end of the movie, all the excitement i had before i went in was gone by the end of the movie. Seems they think giving us some pretty powerful new force powers is enough to keep us interested but its not for me. Star wars rebels has a way more interesting story line than the new movies seems to.
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So why do I write the 1600th review for this movie? Well, because after seeing this film, I read through probably one hundred reviews, good and bad and I think barely any of them actually talked about why this film is not good.
First off: In a lot of ways, this is an excellent film, maybe the best in the whole saga. The performances are great, the action scenes are awe-inspiring, the effects are gorgeous, the music is amazing and the sets are beautiful.
So why don't I like it? Let me get one thing straight. This movie isn't bad because it took too many risks or because it wasn't STAR WARSy enough. The problem wasn't that the force could do 101 things it couldn't before and it wasn't how they handled Luke. All of these things are things you can talk about, but they don't break this film.
This is a bad movie because the screenplay is terrible. I have read positive reviews of this film saying "people complained about TFA being too similar to old star wars films and now they complain about it being too different". And for some people that might be true, but I think that that isn't the issue. It's the writing.
About two thirds in, the film just throws away everything that they'd built. Kylo's and Rey's character development is done away with, Poe's and Finn's storyline are revealed to be completely pointless and for the last third of the film, it feels like the beginning of a new film, a new story. In the end we end up roughly in the same place that we started out in. Sure, a few things happened, but overall, nothing really changed, there wasn't any progress.
Overall, this felt like Rian Johnson had his own ideas for the way Star Wars was supposed to go from RotJ and now he was being tasked with continuing TFA, so he decided to quickly resolve all the plotlines that were left hanging after episode VII and then go into his own direction, leaving the whole movie feel kind of messy.
Now, I have no problem with characters making mistakes, being wrong or with plottwists, but in TLJ, these things seem to just happen so that the concepts of TFA can be done away with and we can start anew.
Again, in a lot of ways this is a great star wars film, but because of its awful screenplay it might be my least favourite one.
Quickly compare it to the phantom menace. Apart from the god awful cgi, all of TPMs problems were within the story (jar jar, midichlorians, annoying anakin, trade negotiations). The form of TPM wasn't actually too dissimilar from the OT.
This film, on the other hand does something worse, in my opinion. It isn't just a bad star wars film, it is a bad movie. It is messy and all over the place, it drops any hints of character development half way through and lets concepts and plotlines that TFA and this very movie spent a lot of time working towards just run out with no real solution.
So when somebody says that fanboys just can't be pleased and that they are just pissed because they didn't get what they wanted, I can only answer: Making this film different, taking risks and trying out new things wasn't the problem. I am all for star wars going into new directions. But taking risks is no excuse for a shitty movie.
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I have no ideal what happened in this movie, the story was really boring and pool, I think the director viewed the audience as fool, as a star war fan, I almost fell asleep in the cinema.
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Been growing with Star Wars (3rd movie I saw in theaters was the Phantom Manace a long time ago...). Now for this movie, It is just wrong, I won't go on to the details, please check some comments where people had the patience to list what is wrong and trust me they are very thorough and hit the spot. Overall, weak plot, boring, slow paced, no questions answered or answers ruined the plot, characters are destroyed (old ones or not present at all), too much comedy, ALMOST NO Lightsaber fights, or the fights are short and not significant, no emotion generated for the characters (I have absolutelly no attachment to any character from the new saga) and the list can go on. I will see the next one when it appears on torrents, waste of time and money. I was understanding with TFA since it is hard to continue such an epic saga, but this thing buried my hopes for this Star Wars.... For me Star Wars ended with episode 6
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Well this is my first review of a movie here on IMDB, I felt obliged to write it due to the high rating of the movie who might induce false hope to people.
1- TLJ has an insanely confusing plot, not in the good way, characters are killed without any build up or explanation.
2- All the story of the movie involves a low chase through space, wow really? And I read some reviews even from "movie critics" daring to state that this movie goes shoulder to shoulder with the greatest of the saga, Empire Strikes Back!!!! Are you teens from generation MTV?
3- New characters are quite weak, no likeable and no charisma. The poor dialogues do not help on this.
4- Force Awakens was bad on a way that was just a refurbish of New Hope but at least I still wanted to watch a second time. TLJ I just want to forget and move along.
5- It is a kind of Transformers of the Star wars world, really bad and confusing, just relying on CGI effects.
6- It was so bad, that I do not know if star wars movies can do a come back from this, my only hope is the movies beside original trilogy timeline.
7- Finally I gave it a 5/10 because is shitty but is still star wars, out of respect for Lucas work.
8- Really it blows my mind how this movie reaches high rating here and in other sites, maybe Russian hackers are involved. I just hope that normal people with a bit of cinematic taste, do like me and come forward and rate and review this movie. Big corporations like Disney have to recognize when they mess up.
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As a big fan of the original trilogy and Jedi lore I am really disappointed! There is no deep characters, no backgrounds of the characters. They even tell us the main charater Rey is nobody! And also she has literally no training but still so strong! What happens here? Is it Star Wars? No! It is a rip-off! Ep 7 started pretty well that movie had so many potentials. What happens suddenly in Ep 8? Disney almost ruins everyhing what could have been great in this movie. Also they change or kill old characters and the new ones have no deep characterbuild... they are just there to talk and do something but they have no serious effect on the movie. And also Luke and Yoda was not the similar we knew before! I didn't feel it as Star Wars movie or what I felt when I was watching Ep 7. Even Ep 7 had the SW feeling but not this Ep 8. No thanks! If they don't correct this in Ep 9 this trilogy will be a bad joke (prequels are even better because there is serious Jedi lore). They do the same shit in Ep 8 what they did with the Jar Jar jokes and they failed so hard then too.
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I have never been a big fan of Star Wars because I found the movies to be mediocre in most of the relevant aspects.
They had mediocre stories placed in a galaxy of mediocre creativity with cheap aesthetics and a questionable concept of man.
So watching a Star Wars movie has been a mostly boring experience for me in the past.
Now guess what: This one was a positive suprise. Probably because I didn't have high expections.
Of course the story isn't really good. It's in a lot of parts ridiculous and it's 100% predictable. Of course the movie irritates an intelligent human being from the first scenes on:
Why do we have bombers that have to fly "above" the target in space? Why are their bombs falling "downwards" as there were gravity? Why do laser shots have a ballistic path to their target? If you can destroy a whole fleet with a light jump why didn't they "weaponize" this long ago?
But to hell with such questions. Star Wars always has been fantasy and never Science Fiction. They nerver understood space. They never had an inspired access to technological fiction.
So why did I enjoy wtching this piece then?
Because I start to like the aesthetics and the well made action scenes.
And this is said by someone who normally hates the overuse of boring action sequences in movies. But somehow the overuse of action sequences didn't seem boring to me. Dont' know why. Maybe because there were those super-cool red guys? Who knows.
So overall I can say that I found the new Star Wars entertaining. But I feel a bit sad for the real fans of the franchise. I guess they had some expectations about character development and continuation of story that weren't met. Because this must be said: The charecters are mostly colourless and dull. The movie tells us almost nothing about their history, their psychology, their goals. What's about this Snoke guy? Oh never mind, he's dead before you learn anything about him anyway...
... but hey - who did expect a decent story from Star Wars anyway?
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1/10
Complete, utter disappointment. Try and disagree with my remarks.
It's such a disappointment for me to write a bad review to a movie I was desperate to love. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so much so, in fact, that I even found episodes II & III (especially III) perfectly enjoyable.
The Force Awakens was full of promise. I was unimpressed with the action scenes in Rogue One, but at least the final show down of sir Darth Vader gave us goosebumps, and that movie, in retrospect, had some grit and tension.
No goosebumps in the Last Jedi, no tension, either. No epic flow. They make sure of it with the very first scene and prank call from Poe to the First Order... There are many, many things I HATED about this movie, but to make things shorter I will list only 3 of my grudges. I picked them cause I felt other reviews didn't really expanded on them.
1) They ruined the First Order's credibility as a genuine, menacing evil entity. How can a movie be any good if the evil protagonists are a laughing stock?
In the early trilogy, the Empire was such a mean, impressive, cold hearted machine. Even the poorly trained Storm Troopers (did they all skip shooting training?) couldn't take anything away from the fear the Empire instilled. They had Vader and the Emperor, of course, but it wasn't just about that...
Here, First Order is a joke. I mean who is scared of them after this? They can't take down a single X-Wing fighter with their most advanced war cruiser because he's "too close to its guns"? Who can believe that? No, Rian Johnson wanted to make sure Poe's the hero once again. I did buy in when Poe took down 5-6 Tie fighters over the village in the last episode (he's an ace fighter after all), and it was a sight of beauty! But here, making a joke of a super destroyer like that takes all the fun away. I mean would you believe it if a Japanese WWII fighter pilot single handedly destroyed all the guns of a huge US battleship cruising in battle formation with destroyers, aircraft carriers, etc.. I mean COME ON, don't feed us child's play, we want some epic!
Other examples:
-they take forever to destroy a severely diminished resistance fleet,
-they don't see it at first when such fleet sends its escape pods towards a nearby planet
-When they capture Rose & Finn, they go full "James Bond bad guy" and take forever to dispose of them. In fact, guess what. They take juuuust enough time for them to be saved in the end.
-Rey is able to escape safely after pretty much being in the heart of the main battleship, right next to Snoke. Her escape is so easy in fact, that it's not even worth any screen time to explain it (note to self: when you're captured by the First Order, you'll be fine).
-Their general (Hux) behaves like an angry teenager who makes hasty decisions.. Correction: I meant their Great Leader (Ren).. wait, they both sound and behave the same.. Ok, so both of their top guys are angry teenagers. Don't look for evil masterminds or deadly composure in their leadership.
-The evilest of the evilest, the great and mysterious Snoke, is met with a swift and
Need I even continue the list?????
2) The very, very poor light saber fights.
I mean there are none. There's a fight when they use light sabers against other (coolish, granted) melee weapons, wielded by Snoke's elite body guards. But it's not Star Wars worthy. Save a few sparks (Rey's hand switch, Ren's light saber headshot), it's simply a melee brawl like you've seen countless times in other medieval era amovies. They need to hire back the fight choreographers of episode III ASAP. Kylo Ren's light saber is the coolest looking thing ever, like a medieval sword... except it seems to have THE WEIGHT of a medieval sword. He looks so slow when he wields it!! It could be good, it could give him this unique style if was assured and composed as a fighter, but he seems unsure, plus he has low agility, low creativity in this fighting. He seems quickly on the edge, with no control (that was true also in Force Awakens). I mean you remember Sidious vs Yoda? Or Anakin vs Kenobi? Or, in a different style, the composure of a Darth Vador ? We want more of this!!!!! This is the standard on which you build on!!
3) Rey's "training" with Luke.
I'm all for pushing what we know of the Force to the edge. That was great. But damn it, what was this "training"? Recap: Lesson 1, some life philosophy.. "The force is everywhere my dear". Lesson 2: "a jedi can be bad also, you know". Lesson 3... I don't even think there was a 3rd. Thank goodness. Ok, now, with that, go be a great Jedi Rey!!!! pffff
I'm all for avoiding Rocky style training edit with music and multiple drills, but what they chose to go with instead was weak and underwhelming.
With these 3 issues I'm just brushing over the problems (humor, casino scene, Rose's character, timing, etc). To conclude, this Star Wars movie felt like a bad Star Trek TV episode. Or, I'm afraid, rather like a wordwide blockbuster from the Disney Studio.. they could do so much better. And I'm sure they would still make just as much money (Christopher Nolan, please????).
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No amount of wishful thinking can make up for how much of a mess this film was. That being said, if Star Wars survived the prequels it can survive this.
TLJ suffered from poor scripting, odd acting, and terrible pacing. There was absolutely no heart in this film.
TFA reintroduced us to SW, and JJ Abrams & co did a stellar job at creating a base film from which the series could progress in any direction. Unfortunately TLJ goes no where, and quite literally throws away all important plot points set up in TFA.
I honestly believe my 13 year old sister could have created a more cohesive and thought provoking Star Wars film.
I sincerely hope SW 9 is the holy grail of film making. Otherwise the legacy of Star Wars will be one of "a reboot too far".
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This movie distills Star Wars into a series of action set pieces loosely connected by jokey one liners and fake out twists. It is overly long, disjointed and poorly paced, like they tried to cram everything in but the essence of telling a good story got lost in the mix.
Nearing the end I realised I'd been groaning at how ludicrous it all was, instead of getting lost in the moment and cheering along. It looks like Star Wars...but it's not.
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It's funny. As I sat through the movie, I was entertained. I laughed at the silly MCU-style jokes and reacted where I was supposed to react. But then at the end, I realized just how bad this movie is. It is empty. It is devoid of anything that made Star Wars, well, Star Wars. SPOILERS AHEAD
When you reach the end of the end of the movie and realize that half the movie was wasted on a useless, irrelevant subplot starring Finn and new character Rose, who accomplish absolutely nothing and do not advance the plot at all, or even their own characters for that matter, you begin to understand just how almost everything in this movie is terrible.
Luke's character and fate is the worst offender of the entire movie though, to utterly and completely bastardize an iconic character... This movie gets Luke wrong, it misses the mark worse than Batman v Superman did when interpreting Superman. Luke deserved better than the measly, irrelevant ending he got. Mark Hamill deserved better.
When IX rolls around, I won't go see it. Not this time.
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.... kill it if you have to. This movie may actually have done just that for me and the Star Wars franchise.
A bland rehash of Empire and Return polished with special effects, The more you think about the film, the more plot holes you spot. Old characters behave differently to the original trilogy and new characters fail to develop. Laura Dern in the one actress that somehow manages to hold her dignity in all this mess.
The writer may have attempted a twist ending with the final showdown but anyone who didn't see it coming must have given up on the movie and zoned out for a while beforehand.
Nice to see the Disney Mary Poppins crossover though. Good bit of marketing for the forthcoming remake.
Don't believe those saying this is the best Star Wars ever. It's not even in the top 5.
I'm now going to watch two tortoises race after giving one a 5 yard head start in order to recreate the movie ahead of the Blu-ray release.
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Two days ago I went to see The Last Jedi, or so I thought... it turned out to be Fast & Furious The Political Correct Star Wars Marvel Franchise Block Buster Tropes Movie Series Entry 1..
After 10 mins I was puzzled by the setup and lack of competent opposition for our heroes..
After 20 mins I was weirded out by slapstick and out of character moments..
After 60 mins I was in denial... so many awful choices made for this movie.
After 90 mins I was angry and wanted to walk out - a feeling I've never ever felt for SW or any other film before.
After 120 mins I was insulted by so many strange plot holes and lost opportunities.
After 152 mins I was confused... why would anyone do this to a beloved story?
After two days I'm just heartbroken :(
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The Last Jedi is the movie that should have been made if plot didn't matter and The Force Awakens didn't exist.
Out of TFA we want to know: Who is Rey. Who is Snoke. What will Luke do with his light sabre.
The answers are dreadful. *spoilers*
1: A nobody child of drunks, who we don't meet.
2: We never really find out because he's killed halfway through the film in a very lame way.
3: He throws it away. Immediately.
***more spoilers***
Luke spends much of the start of the movie whining about not wanting to be involved. We spend the entire TFA finding Luke, only to have him barely appear in TLJ. He's the titular character for godness sake! He shows up at the end to be nothing more than a hologram and dies, seemingly, because he's tired.
TFA leads us to consider that Rey, Po, and Finn will be the new hero trio. Po doesn't meet Rey until almost the last scene. All three are under-utilised and one almost wonders why they're in it at all.
One of the worst parts is the 'chase' scene. For some inexplicable reason the First Order chase the rebels in slow-mo. Rather than attacking (because the rebels are slightly out of range) they simply sit back, waiting until the rebels run out of fuel.
This movie is anti-climax, after anti-climax. Confusing decision after confusing decision.
There are so good moments, but they'e way too few and far between. It also lacks the nostalgia of TFA. This is not a first Star Wars movie in a long time so audiences aren't excited just to be there.
I love TFA and it made me SO excited for The Last Jedi. I wanted to find out so much more about the TFA characters. But what we found out was boring and lame and pointless.
TLJ is a pointless waste of time. It doesn't progress the story and what we learn is boring.
If Star Wars Episode IX is great, or even good, I'm thinking a long of Star Wars marathon are going to skip TLJ, and no one will notice.
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I hoped after the Rogue One there is hope that this movie will be good after the disaster part 7 (why disaster: because instead to get fresh new part we got almost reboot it was almost identical completely with part 4), but no...
Only one thing what I can say if you wanna watch an amazingly boring movie this will be yours best choice :( .....
And I can say about myself a liked all first 6 part (big fan about Star Wars) and Rogue One as well BUT part 7 and 8 just baaaaad!!! and part 8 is the worst!!!
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As a fan who went to see A New Hope at age 8, this movie completely ruined the legacy of the past. Such a disrespectful ending for a once great Jedi in Luke Skywalker. A weak and bumbling story line with silly scenes and characters reminiscent of Phantom Menace. JJ Abrams breathed life back into the franchise with The Force Awakens. The Last Jedi is a huge disappointment.
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I watched the movie yesterday and I agree that I don't necessarily like some of the choices that were made.
Now why do I give it an 8/10? Well I really liked the new aspects of the force - the connection between two characters. I also enjoyed the whole subplot of Ben Solo and Luke at the Jedi temple, because you get different aspects of the same story and in the end they are both true. The CG was beautiful. The fighting.. amazing! More "violent" - not afraid to kill off characters in a little more violent manner than we are used to, and I think that is great.
One of the biggest problems in the movie, is that one of the subplots are somewhat "irrevelant", is what some are saying. I don't agree completely. The movie has a strong theme of failure (ironic with people giving it one star) and I think it's fine that one of the subplots end up failing. Sometimes, even though we try our best, we fail. And I feel like that is what the movie was trying to say. And the subplot shows that. The subplot also creates a relationship between two characters that will continue to develop in ep 9. The relationship is also very important because *spoiler* Finn doesn't have any connection to the resistance. In episode 7 he was only at the resistance because he wanted to save Rey, but because of the whole subplot (and Rose), he is now a member of the resistance.
Many of the problems I feel there are now, I think will be resolved once episode 9 hits the screen. Like fx, *spoiler* Luke chooses to become one of with the force (in a very poetic manner. He "dies" looking at the two suns - his story ends as it started, looking at twin suns. But just because he becomes one with the force, but it doesn't mean he is gone for good. Yoda is one with the force and he had a presence in the movie, even being able to touch the physical plane. Considering that, I am sure we will see Yoda, Luke, maybe even Obi-Wan in ep 9.
The problem with Rey's parents. Rey's parents are revealed to be... nobodies.. And I sort of have a problem with that. From the universes perspective it's fine, but from a fan's perspective.. it's sort of dissapointing. It makes sense, but as a fan it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted her to be a Skywalker, Kenobi maybe even a descendent of the emperor.
That said, I really loved the movie, but I can definitely see why some people would find problems with it, but to give it one star is just unreasonable to me. When I look at the movie for what it is, and not from a fan's perspective, I would probably give it 7-8 stars. I wanted to give it 8-9 stars, but choose to give it 8, because the movie has some problems, problems that honestly do not bother me, but i can see why would bother some. If I really had a problem with those things, then I would give it around 6-7 stars, because the rest of the movie is just great.
I have written way too much, but I felt that I had to write a review and give it a score, which I normally don't, because the movie was great and I loved every second of it. I think it would be a shame to scare off people that would enjoy the movie, for I don't believe the movie is as bad as people make it out to be, so go out and see it and make an opinion of your own. I loved it, and I look forward to episode 9 and also Rian Johnson's new trilogy.. well I hope he gets to make one.. who knows with all these negative reviews.
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1/10
Attack of the Clones may no longer be the worst Star Wars movie.
Extremely disappointing. This may beat Attack of the Clones as my least favorite Star Wars film. First, the dialogue and the story are both incredibly flat and boring. The film tried to be funny much too often, which often came across awkward. And after sitting through what felt like an eternity, nothing really seemed to be said. Like a dream where you run and run only to exhaustedly turn and find you've only traveled a few feet. Sure, things happened, but nothing was interesting or compelling. Everything was just flat. It is hard to go into the many, many flaws of the movie without spoilers, but this movie was a complete disaster. While each scene viewed in isolation may seem like a genuine part of an epic Star Wars film, when splattered together across a two and a half hour nightmare the film sputters and dies, never really grabbing its audience. I felt nothing for the characters. I had no interest in the story. The only upside to the film is that the actors did an amazing job with what was written for them. The shame of it all is there are bits and pieces that would be amazing concepts in the Star Wars universe if they weren't suffocated by an uninspired script.
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Still struggling to recall many moment from the film as the whole thing kind of washed over me with very little impact.
Luke Skywalker becomes a hermit but there's very little logic behind why he'd do that. Mark Hamill seemed pretty disninterested the entire film, delivering his dialogue with minimal enthusiasm.
The rather enigmatic Supreme Leader Snoke is introduced in his (completely unconvincing CGI) glory.....and then killed in an EXTREMELY anti-climatic manner. And we never got to know any of his motivations or backstory. So yeah, that was a complete waste. And they should've got a real actor in prosthetics instead of CGI. Snoke, Steppenwolf, Thanos...STOP IT! IT JUST LOOKS PHONY!!
Carrie Fisher continues to phone it in. And what's with her voice and face? And there's one scene that really stook out for me is when she's stranded in space after an explosion...and then starts hovering back to the ship?? 1. It didn't make sense. 2. It looked unintentionally funny!
Kylo Ren still remains a dull villain. Cool saber design aside, he's just a one-dimensional, preening adolescent.
Overall, just a rather forgettable story that a few good action scenes but no emotion and nothing to care about.
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For a movie more than 2 hours in length, you would think they would move along the story more. Without adding spoilers... not a lot really happens in this movie. Oh, there are lots of fights and stuff blowing up, but to what end, I'm not sure. Plus, didn't it feel like it took Luke a lot of mentoring and training to hone even the basic Jedi skills? So how it that Rey has leap frogged so far into her skills and knowledge, with virtually no training?
Also, Star Wars movies have always been ripe and fertile ground for merchandising. That's why the forced insertion of various characters (usually of the muppet like variety) seems like more of a money grab than adding to the story telling arch of the movie.
Finally, what the Star Wars universe really seems to miss (besides actors over 5ft 5" in height), is a bad guy with the gravitas of Darth Vader. The crew they have now wouldn't scare my bulldog, and he hides in the closet when the doorbell rings.
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Since J.J. Abrams' THE FORCE AWAKENS (albeit criticized for being too unoriginal) introduced a band of endearing, worthwhile characters, Rian Johnson obviously knew he had to make the second new STAR WARS get right down to business and, although the first fifteen minutes halts more than flows, there's a point where things open up nicely...
Like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (and obvious in the commercials), the grounded training of a new hopeful Jedi combines with space-set action and adventure, only here the proverbial asteroid belt is... well: Since this writeup is spoiler-free, details are left for the viewer and the viewer alone...
Let's just say the problem with THE LAST JEDI, other than trying too hard for quick-wit humor (another film suffering from Tony Starkasm), is also what makes you exit the theater with a smile. The third act is such a fulfilling visual treat, combining yesteryear's daring-do heroics with pre MATRIX era slow-mo-included combative fights, you'll soon forget (or not want to think about) the many scenes that wind up unrealized...
So much happens at once, batted about from a handful of characters, that writer/director Rian Johnson never stays in one place/perspective long enough for it to really matter: What's made to work for the audience often robs from the characters. Like running towards an obstacle and then, the next moment, winding up on the other side - it's the middle-ground that keeps being denied: Though neatly replaced by enough cool twists and turns to make THE LAST JEDI walk... no, run... a fine line between pretty good and really good. (cultfilmfreaks.com)
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Full disclosure: I wasn't going to see this movie. I didn't want these hacks to make anymore money after 'Force Awakens'. Then, MoviePass happened. In a world where one can see unlimited movies, individual titles are essentially free. I failed. Coincidentally, I believe MoviePass will eventually go bankrupt; thus, I have a solemn duty to take them for all they're worth... First things first. THANK YOU Disney for throwing out the *mostly* serious tone of this franchise and blending it with the common trash you usually peddle to elicit cheap laughs and sell toys.
The entire plot consists of idiots chasing the rebels. Actual idiots. A single X-wing (Poe Dameron) approaches a 'First Order' dreadnought. Cue cheap laugh #1: 'Sorry man, can't hear you; is it your cell reception?'. Dameron initiates a full scale assault.. by himself. After he successfully takes out literally 2/3 of their defense batteries, the gigantic craft (accompanied by an entire fleet) finally realizes it should dispatch fighters. Nah, good guys always win, Dameron blows up dreadnought and the first few thousand idiots. The fleet moves in. There's only one large rebel cruiser and it basically contains everyone the bad guys want to kill. So full assault right? RIGHT? Nah, we've got this guys. Turn on cruise control; let's watch the rebels run out of gas. Alright, alright, I exaggerate. Kylo and pals have some fun and blow up the bridge. Amid the explosion, Leia clearly gets sucked out into space and I begin to chuckle in my seat. Really? Won't Kylo's fighter ram into her? Come on, just incinerate her like everyone else. The camera pans to Leia's body in space. Forget the scientific inconsistencies we forgive (noises in space, lightsabers). No way can you fool me into seeing a perfectly preserved body in space; ridiculous. Then, to MY ABSOLUTE HORROR she starts to move. Jedi are now so powerful, they can survive incineration and the vacuum/temperatures of space. Leia floats to the door like Superman. I actually consider just walking out right then. She collapses and they take her in for care. Oh ok, this is where they phase out Carrie Fisher, like a tribute; I get it. Except they don't...????
Whatever, let's just fast forward to my favorite part of the movie. Luke appears at the rebel base they've all fled to. He walks up to face the entire invasion force alone.
Kylo Ren: "BLOW THE BEJESUS OUT OF HIM. NOW NOW NOW."
Luke: "Tee-hee, I'm actually a super hologram. Hasta La Vista baby." (dies from exhaustion on a rock). Literally like 30 rebels are left from the mega-cruiser and small fleet we first saw in the beginning. No one came to help them or even responded to their pleas. Rebels celebrate that they're going to get really strong now and make a comeback. Uh... lol ok.
Disney really scrapes the bin for names that haven't been trademarked yet: Snoke, Rey, Admiral Hold-o (because she holds, get it?), crystal CRITTERS... why? Just why?
-----Character Guide-----
+Rey: she's just so good at everything.. a true natural. She defeats Luke in a fight after what, a day? There's literally no obstacle she needs to overcome in training. To imply otherwise would be sexist. Women. Are. Powerful. Full stop. Period...
+Luke Skywalker: practically breastfeeds from a brontosaurus. OH WOW GREEN MILK. They changed it from blue! Loses fight to inexperienced child; basically just has Loki powers now (thanks Marvel).
+Admiral Holdo: of course she has purple hair and wants to passively surrender. A simple end for a simple chara...ALLAHU AKBAR! Can we talk about how many suicide attacks are in this movie Disney?
+That ****ing ginger. Basically a Hydra stooge that Disney/Marvel can add in at half price.
+Rose Tico: Just an absurdly peppy character. Poor acting. Feels like a plucky sidekick that belongs in another movie.
+Snoke: Alas, we hardly knew ye. Wait, what was your background story again?
+Kylo Ren: "Let's end it all Rey. You and me. No more Jedi, no more Sith. Put an end to this pointless cycle". Well OK! Please say yes. Please say yes. Apparently I'm on Team Whiny Goth now.
TLDR: Don't see this movie. Instead, go wash your eyes with bleach and rent Pirates of the Caribbean 5.
P.S. Disney wants you to now that they support diversity... In case you didn't notice.
P.S.S. Make sure to buy a stuffed alien penguin/guinea-pig toy for Christmas. Or twenty.
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I had high hopes this would be better than episode VII but unfortunately it was worse. From the lack luster acting to the non existent story this was a disappointment from about 10 min in. Snoke was they only thing in this movie that I thought was well done UNTILL.... you'll see.
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5/10
The result of trying to be different from the previous movies is a big failure
I didn't enjoy in watching The Last Jedi. Movie left me feeling a huge let down. Snoke's character clearly displays all this power throughout the early parts of the movie even having the ability to throw Hux to the floor from across the galaxy but all we get out of him is a few cheap force abilities and no story at all. He died way too easily and I kept looking for him to put himself back together and fight Rey/Ren.
Luke's character is everything opposite from previous movies - he is acting like an insane old hermit and not like a jedi master. His training with Rey consists of 3 lessons which last a about 10 seconds each. Her scene in the cave was kind of a throwback to Luke on Degobah (sp?) in the tree where he see's himself as Darth Vader but it didn't really add value beyond that call back.
The entire plot line with Finn and Rose could have been left out of the movie and I wouldn't have cared. Hell I would have probably been happier had they left that part out. It was cool to see some new creatures in the casino but it was a throw away sequence where they call Maz Katana for no other reason than she was in the TFA. Their romance is forcefully made without connection between them two.
There were several moments during the movie where I turned to my dad and just said "WTF". Leia superman flying through space after being blown up, suffocated, and frozen just made me mad. Why didn't they use the other ships running out of fuel as projectiles too? Do ships not have auto pilots? Can droids not pilot capital ships? We saw BB-8 take a walker but C3P0 couldn't have stayed behind so the 2nd in command of your small group that needs every single member they can get doesn't have to die?
The First Order is meant to be this all powerful military force in the galaxy and they clearly have a lot of big toys but they for some reason don't have ships that are fast enough to catch up with the Resistance? In the rest of the movie they're introducing incredibly advanced technology and weapons (hyperspace tracking, dreadnaughts, snoke ship, new ATAT/ATST, etc.).
I rated it 5 because of respect for Star Wars saga ; Rian Johnson with his twists ruined The Last Jedi and we can only hope that J.J. Abrams will somehow make Episode IX good.
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1/10
If this was a homework for screenwriting class that would be a F
Seeing positive reviews from critics makes me scratch my head. Is it possible so many of them are paid bots? Otherwise how could they rate a movie full of MacGuffins, gaping plot holes and logical inconsequences rated as high?
Hundreds of user reviews already stated what's wrong with this move in regards of storytelling, screenwriting art and simple logic. It has absolutely nothing to do with being "not Star Wars enough" or "taking bold decisions". So I am not going to repeat it here, stating simply it is just a bad movie.
I've seen one fan joking after seeing this: "Come back George Lucas, everything is forgiven!", and if before seeing "Last Jedi" I would swear I will never say prequel trilogy was actually good. Now I must admit - prequel trilogy has at least two movies better than Last Jedi, I know it is hard to believe! So either watch it or see it for yourself or just skip this Star Wars and possibly everything that comes after it.
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The worst Star Wars movie of the lot. So disappointed with the entire story, script and many of the characters. But the most disappointing aspect of the movie was Luke Skywalker's character. He is so far from the Luke Skywalker in the originals that it is just too hard to believe. The attempts at showing why he has become the way he is just seem too far-fetched. It would be more believable if he turned to the dark side and became a sith lord!
I really don't know how the script was given the OK. There are a number of elements that are ridiculous and do not fit nicely in the Star Wars universe. The comedic moments, although funny, were not suitable for the characters or Star Wars in general.
The movie only gets points for the spaceship battles and the porgs, otherwise a complete and total disaster.
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Have you ever wondered why one of the most revered family film companies changed into a giant corporate monster? Since this company was taken over the strangest and most nonsensical imagery has been attached to advertise one of the most life changing film franchises of all time. Why use single eye imagery and triangular imagery in near all character posters for The Force Awakens? What possibly could this have to do with any kind of Star Wars story or theme? Why use pyramid imagery in the main poster designs? Is it just children at play who think running s business is all about how you confuse the public or are we actually meant to believe that this corporate giant is taking over the world? One thing for sure that is certain aside of the imagery is that films with life long emotional resonance and meaning are not made by corporate money giants having a laugh at the expense of others. "I used to think that monsters didn't exist but the do don't they" "Yes Nute..they do"
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1/10
This has made me not want to watch another Star Wars movie!
How could they got this SO wrong? I have been watching these from the very first day of release back in the 70's! I've spent months excited giddy with anticipation for the next Star Wars movie. I've been excited about every little thing about Star Wars.
And yet the Last Jedi has changed all of that! It has turned into an SJW snoozefest about how powerful women are and how men are incompetent, cowardly or just plain evil. Does ANYONE think had Luke not been the core character of the first trilogy he would even be in this garbage?
I'm all for strong female roles, but seriously {SPOILER} Leia does her superman impression - but looked like an action figure being thrown across the room! And what about Admiral Akhbar? What's with MILITARY leaders wearing ball gowns and purple hair? What's with second in commands going on suicide missions? What's with those suicide missions!!!
I'm so disappointed - this was WORSE than the prequels. TWICE they had potentially powerful and interesting baddies - Snoke and Phasma - and they are just tossed aside.
And then there are the porgs..... WOW at least the ewoks had a role, all the porgs were there for ,was to sell merchandise.
The more I think about it, the more it's apparent that Star Wars is being turned into a soap opera - a BAD soap opera.
No doubt it will make it's money back many times over, but it SHOULDN'T. GARBAGE like this has spat on the legacy that came before it. I appreciate things move on and attitudes change, but there is a REASON Star Wars is the largest franchise in cinematic history.
Can ANYONE claim they would have become life long fans after watching this?
And what's worse, is they have given an entire trilogy over to the culprit of this crime against cinema - Kennedy should be FIRED for this.
Still what does my opinion matter? After all I've only been a fan for 40 years, bought the merchandise, the books the toys etc.
BUT NO MORE. Kathleen Kennedy you've FINALLY managed to do something I never thought possible. You've made me not care about a star wars movie!
SHAME ON YOU
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This should not have been rated this high. This contains about 30 minutes and out-of-place jokes that are borderline parody. I would rate this above Episode I and II but below III and VII.. and honestly on par or just below Rogue One. I would have been so much happier to wait for the library release.
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4/10
Even if not a Star Wars fan, there are glaring plot and story issues.
I'm not sure how this movie got as far as it did, it felt like the writing was only half thought out but Disney was so hard pressed to get a Star Wars movie out every year that they didn't care enough for quality. -I guess they figured people are going to see this movie no matter what and that many will love it regardless of quality simply because of the name- that since people forgave the prequels they would forgive this. I don't think I can though.
What issues are there? Well, where do I start? The story is bad, the writing is bad, some parts were cringey, hmmm... what else is there? It looked nice and the acting was good but that's not enough for me. I need substance and at least an attempt for them to make a cohesive story that's worth following. Stop jerking me around and toying with me simply to make it seem like your story is more complex than it actually is. Having plot twists simply for the sake of making a movie "unpredictable" is not enough to make a movie good and in the hands of a moron that abuses it, it makes the movie bad. There needs to be a point. Why deceive the audience only to have an outcome that's even more retarded than what we thought happened?
I won't go into the character issues with how Luke doesn't act like Luke (ahem, Darth Vader was dark sided yet Luke wanted to SAVE him) or how they threw admiral Ackbar literally out the window. I won't go into how Po and Finn + Rose get into all sorts of hijinks throughout the movie and actually end up HURTING the rebels while also wasting our time. I won't go into how the whole 2 hour space chase scene makes no sense. I won't go into how stupid it is that Po can pretty much single handedly screw up one of the First Order's biggest ships. I won't go into how stupid it is that admiral Jurassic Park lady wouldn't tell Po her plans- even after he mutinied. I won't go into how Benicio Del Toro shouldn't have even known about the escape ships or how captain Phasma magically knew Finn was on the ship- care to let the audience in on how they were found out? I won't go into how they gave us so many mysteries to solve with Force Awakens only to leave us with a pie in the face. And then there's Luke pretending to die but then dying anyways... and that the scale of the First Order is never properly established... and nobody answers the distress despite many people probably being pissed off from having 5 planets exploded in Force Awakens.
Why won't I go into these things further? Because apparently looking into glaring issues with a movie makes me a fanboy or neckbeard that's incapable of being satisfied. An argument that people love to throw around rather than providing legitimate defense against many problems people have with the movie. Guess what? Many "fanboys" thought Force Awakens and Rogue One were decent. I for one thought they were okay, not my favorites, but not pieces of shit like this movie. Why? Because they at least had some good things going for them. What do I have to say for TLJ though... it's just not good in any sense of being good, especially for a Star Wars movie. I suppose if you're just into movies like Transformers with all spectacle and no substance then you'll certainly find this movie entertaining. That just doesn't cut it for me though.
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Carrie Fisher pulls a Superman. This is honestly one of the worst flicks I have ever see. Ther amount of plot holes was unreal and the bizarre pacing of the movie leaves you confused. Please don't support the mouse. They have honestly taken Star Wars and made the new films worse than the prequels.
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6/10
The Last Jedi wastes good characters and adds useless plot points to make an overall disappointing movie
Going into the last Jedi it was difficult not to have high hopes, however this movie disappoints with underdeveloped plot points and an entirely useless 45-60 minutes involving FInn and Rose .
SPOILERS AHEAD!
-Luke throughout the original 3 movies is the symbol of hope that brings down an entire empire. And this movie would have you believe that the very same character would look into the mind of his nephew and decide to give up on him, and not help him come back into the light but rather (even though it was momentary) kill his nephew in his sleep? That is not Luke Skywalker . Luke Skywalker would not stay away from a battle and would come to his aid his friends no matter what the circumstances (Empire strikes back), but in this movie Luke finds out Han died just so that the resistance could find Luke and Leia is almost dead but still refuses to help? This is no symbol for hope, this was no Luke .
-The entire 'First order chasing the resistance for 2 hours' thing was completely boring and whenever it would cut from Rey to the resistance i would let out an audible sigh because of how not gripping this entire portion was . However when Poe makes the plan to jump to lightspeed while FInn and Rose find a codebreaker and go undercover inside the first order i thought, finally, an interesting subplot . Turns out no, i was wrong because the entire Finn and Rose storyline turns out to be useless as the Resistance was always going to go to that VERY CONVINIENTLY placed planet that is also untraceable which for some odd reason no one in the resistance was told about . So if Holdo was transparent about the plan FInn and Rose wouldn't have had to risk their lives for nothing because that entire plot was complete filler between the Rey scenes . (Although Rose was developed as a character, the same effect could've been achieved in a 5 minute conversation scene with Finn)
-Snoke, a character who is so powerful he can manipulate 2 strong young jedi and literally throw people around while lounging in a chair misses the lightsaber rotating next to him and could not even detect this motive in Kylo Rens mind which he could apparently read before? Wasted a great character and a great actor .
-Kylo Rens character should have been trained by Snoke in this movie and gone full evil as indicated in TFA however he still gets half seduced to the Light side but by the end he's back on the dark side? But that too only as a ruse? It was all very clustered as far as his character went however Adam Driver keeps him interesting through a fantastic performance and he remains the most interesting character .
-Poe dameron was well developed in this and seemed like the only hopeful person in the resistance, plus Oscar Isaac is great so thats a positive .
-Hux was used too much as comic relief and did not have the same level of swagger and authority as he did in TFA which is a shame because a Tarkin-esque character is always a great idea .
-The only reason this isn't at a lower score is because the music, some of the direction and fun character moments made this movie feel fun enough but not enough to ignore the Bad writing, bad editing and very blunt and unnatural dialogue, and very very questionable character choices . Expected much better .
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1/10
Saying this was terrible would be an understatement.
Let me start off by saying I'm a huge Star Wars fan. Loved all the original movies, even the prequels. Read a lot of the expanded universe books as well. This movie was terrible. This was not Star Wars. One of the only movies I've ever considered walking out of. As much as it hurts to say it, Star Wars is dead. I would say stop while they're ahead, but this movie has already kind of ruined that. They just keep getting worse and worse. Horrible plot, no lightsaber battles, pathetic attempts at comedy, and another reuse of previous plot elements and scenes. Save your time and money. DO NOT SEE.
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I liked original Star Wars trilogy when I was a "kid" in the 80s. The year is now 2017, I'm an adult now and I expect more. More depth, more story, more thrills, more action. The Force Awakens was nostalgic, okay. I had hopes that the Last Jedi would really awaken the saga into the 21st century. Overall, I personally feel nothing spectacular. Special effects were okay. Action was weak. Fight scenes were not memorable. Plot is dull. Bad guys hunts good guys. Good guys run. Bad guys catches good guys again, good guys run. They fight and escape. 5 stars is left for the actors and actresses who did a great job playing their roles in a unoriginal film. Kill the past.
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Apparently Rian Johnson had seen a great evil in Star Wars and in Luke Skywalker in particular that needed to be righted. It is the only way I can explain Johnson taking a big crap on the character. I don't know his motive but Johnson's message seems to be if you thought Luke Skywalker was the great savior of the resistance he's not. He's a piece of crap. If you thought Luke Skywalker was special he's not. Rey doesn't come from his privileged family and yet she's more powerful in the force than he is. If you thought Luke Skywalker was the most powerful Skywalker he's not. His sister could have been more powerful than him if she wanted to. And if you thought Luke Skywalker would be redeemed in the end he wont. The best he'll do is use all his might to pull off a David Copperfield magic trick and then fade away. Good riddance. Did Mark Hamill refuse your request for an autograph when you were a child Rian Johnson? Still looking for that motive.
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I grew up with Star Wars and have been a life long fan of the series. When Disney first purchased the franchise I was skeptical, but the company did outstanding work on their first two movies. I was anxiously awaiting Episode VIII. After viewing the film on opening day, I can only describe it as disappointing and upsetting. I have trouble understanding how anyone familiar with Star Wars universe would turn the the franchise hero into what we see in Episode VIII. It is a complete reversal of Skywalker's every character trait and those of the Jedi. In the end it felt like a half thought out way to remove him from the series and shift the focus to the new characters. It was a slap to the face for life long fans like myself. I am not longer excited for Disney's Star Wars Universe.
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What separated the Star Wars movies from the rest of the Sci fi movies and action films was the depth it brought to the story. No other movie franchise touched so many fans the way Star wars did. The characters were well developed, there was the philosophy about the force, the Jedi were certain types of people that many of us admired. We loved all characters, even the villains.
I had enjoyed The force awakens and Rogue one. I had even enjoyed the three prequels. So I went in to see The last Jedi with great expectations. I could not believe how bad this movie was. It was not Star wars at all. The Story was poorly told. It was being jerked around. Really bad use of humor. So many whys and hows that were never explained. So many disconnected and 'makes no sense' type scenes! Awful screenplay. The Snoke character is so badly portrayed!. Kylo Ren keeps getting on the screen and disappearing. Luke Skywalker is to be accepted only because he bears the name, and we know Mark Hamill is playing it. We never find out much about Rey or anyone else. Rey miraculously becomes a great fighter without any visible training, except in one scene. The new character Rose, the maintenance worker, added nothing. The group of goats, foxes, color, fire, just created more distraction. The fight scenes were unbearably long. Chewbacca was (mis)used just to create humor. The persistent theme for me throughout was- confusion.
There was a constant onslaught of special effects, as if they would make up for what was lacking in the story, dialogue and characters. I kept hoping that somehow the story would get on track. It never did. Rian Johnson did a terrible job as Director and writer.
There were a few positives. Daisy Ridley was very good again as Rey. Some of the scenes were spectacular. It was good to see Carrie Fisher one last time in a movie.
I couldn't wait for the movie to be over. It was boring, disappointing, and it made me angry to see what they did to my favorite movie series. I read a couple of reviews by critics and they were praising the movie! I couldn't believe it! I can't believe how bad this movie is. It's not like a Star wars movie at all. Its soul is missing, and what we got is a ton of special effects that obliterate an already flawed story. The only touching moment was at the end of the credits- "In loving memory of our princess Carrie Fisher". It brought tears to my eyes.
Will there be an Episode 9? I have no desire to see it. George Lucas should never have sold the rights to his beloved Star wars franchise. This is the worst Star wars movie, and really the only Bad Star wars movie.
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5/10
A Mishmash of Empire Strikes Back with Return of the Jedi
I didn't like this movie. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it.
This was, in many ways, like two of the previous (good) movies: The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi. ESB in the sense that the resistance is nearly destroyed but still manages to survive somehow. ROTJ in the sense that Kylo Ren ends up killing Snoke. But, ultimately, this really isn't either one of those movies.
What this part of the story ends up being is Rey spending close to 80 percent of her scenes trying to convince Luke Skywalker to either join the resistance, or train her, or both, but he's become a self-loathing caretaker of some ancient Jedi texts even though, for him, the way of the Jedi is dead.
This movie also gets bogged down in what turns out to be a completely pointless subplot in which Finn and another character, Rose Tico, figure out how the First Order is able to track them through hyperspace, and they hatch a plan (without consulting any superior) to disable that ability. Why it becomes pointless is because the superior officers of the rebels have already figured it out and were undertaking their own plan. But because of Finn, Poe, and Rose and them getting mixed up with a smuggler named DJ (who ends up selling them out), hundreds of rebel fighters were lost.
And to top it all off, Rey's origin is as much a mystery as it was before. Except, by the end, Skywalker is dead.
This movie could have been so much more.
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I do like the new characters introduced in tfa and tlj but I do not like the direction that Disney has decided to take. I can't see how one can separate the main entry into the Star Wars saga and the Skywalker family, which is ultimately what Johnson is trying to do. Yes, there are stories of other characters in this universe, but the one family we care most about is now nothing more than a ghost.
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I have been an avid Star Wars fan since I was a kid. These films started my love for movies, with a sci/fy version of The Odyssey, a Hero's Journey, full of action, fun and humor. As a movie lover, I understand that there are two kinds of movies, entertainment and philosophy. For example, Avengers is not considered a deep or sentimental film, that probably wont win any Oscars for the production, the acting, etc. But a movies such as Inception, Interstellar or Birdman would follow under the not so entertaining but mentally interesting. Star Wars (the originals) had a great balance between these two kinds of movies. They were entertaining but at the end of them, you feel like you have been challenged mentally and existentially. This is what made them so good. I went into this film with extremely high hopes and standards, and I was unfortunately disappointed. The things I liked about this movie. I LOVED but the things I didn't like I HATED. There was no in between.
First off, the movie was visually stunning (no surprise there). The action sequences and the different species, all just wonderful effects. The acting again was superb, especially from Mark Hamill and Adam Driver. In the Force Awakens, Adams acting skills were questionable, but his skill has increased tenfold in this film. When they brought Yoda back from the netherworld of the force, I jumped out of my seat. I was extremely content that they brought back such an iconic character, even for just a short period of time. Another aspect of the film that I loved, was the plot between Luke, Rey and Kylo. This sub plot was the rock of this film. The connection between Kylo and Rey was so beautifully done by Daisy and Adam. They have wonderful chemistry. Not sure how JJ will go along with those two, maybe they will fall in love or maybe they end up related, whatever it is, Johnson wanted the audience to feel their connection and we did. Also, the humor in this film is a hit or miss with some of the viewers. I loved the humor myself, I thought each line or poke at someone was justified to the character. Especially someone like Poe. A lot of viewers also had a problem with Luke's grumpy character, and to me this was the only confusing thing that I could not decide if I liked or not, I liked his asshole humor, but is it true to his character? I can see why Johnson wanted Luke this way, but the tipping point for me, was when they revealed that Luke tried to kill Kylo when he was training him? Luke is not that guy, he couldn't even kill Darth Vader, the most dangerous Sith in the galaxy, but he tried to kill his own nephew? No. did not like that aspect, not because its dark, (I like dark plots) but because I dont see Luke in that light. No matter what happens. Everything else about Luke's character, I feel stayed true to his original character.
Now the things I didn't like, first off there were so many redundant characters in this film, I dont even remember some of their names. Rose 's character couldve been a huge success and part of the story if they gave her a story to begin with. Her performance with the crappy lines they gave her was great, but she could do so much more. But, I really did not see a place in this film for the character, it seems as if Johnson just pulled this character and many other ones out of his ass. Her subplot with Finn was just not very good, they spent most of their time wasting on a casino planet looking for someone, then rescuing some space horse (which is great) but it served no purpose. I will say in this movie, there was multiple political statements which pertain to today's politics which was cool, but that was literally the only good thing about this entire subplot. Also, can we talk about Phasma? A big character in the last episode, played by such an amazing actress was on screen for maybe a full minute, had a pathetic stand off with Finn then was killed. What was the point of her character? Another character made pointless, was Snoke. This extremely. seemingly important character in the last episode, was just randomly killed off by Kylo to save Rey. Really? In this movie, Johnson made Snoke, the baddest sith lord in the galaxy, who took control of Luke Skywalkers nephew, and take down the republic once again, was just randomly killed off in a piss poor way. Again, what was the point? Dont even get my started on Leia practically dying this using the force to fly her way back from the middle of space to her ship...just too much.
I could go on and on, there is an entire list of things I hated and loved. Overall, I loved the acting, the visuals and the humor but overall hated the writing and the plot, Rian Johnson who is a wonderful writer in some of his other works, just was not fit to write this episode. I enjoyed the movie, but if it was any other franchise , I probably would not see it again, but since it is Star Wars, I do give it some credit. Overall, the film did not meet my standards, but I don't feel as if I completely wasted my time. Go and see it for yourself!
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To the lucky ones who haven't seen this movie yet - don't! Just watch Rogue One again. On the bright side, it's a politically correct experience, not-too-heavy on the dialogue, with teenage romance throughout - a multicultural love triangle even. I imagine the recipe for such "brilliance" was to pack a room with progressive liberals and focus-group them until death do us part. This resulted in a final product empowering all the right groups (think Hillary and Angela Merkel as rebel commanders) and dishing out justice to dumb-ass, testosterone-filled dirt bags (Luke Skywalker included). Me? I should've watched Thor Ragnarok for the fifth time instead.
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I've never felt so disappointed in a movie in my entire life. I want my money back. I know it's not the movie theater's fault, they're being forced to show this ridiculous movie. The truly sad part is that we won't get back the time and money as Disney walks away laughing. They should be ashamed of themselves. From the vegan Chewbacca to the obvious social injustice propaganda, this movie just slaps you in the face again and again. Just forget about the Star Wars you know and love, accept that the new way of things is a millennial focused, everybody gets a trophy mentality without continuity or plot. Rian Johnson should be ashamed for putting this junk together. I bet Mark Hamill was so glad to be done with this garbage.
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Uh...Oh man. I don't really know where to even begin with this.
I'm not a Star Wars fan. I like the Star Wars movies but I don't really consider myself a fan. I haven't read the books, the comics, watched the cartoons, played the video games or seen the movies a bunch of times. So after seeing this, I can only imagine how a die hard Star Wars fan must feel.
To express my thoughts on this movie correctly I have to add spoilers so...SPOILER ALERT!!!
Ok. this movie is not good. It's actually really boring. Which is what I never thought I would say when talking about a Star Wars movie (unless it's Rogue One).
A few years ago "The Amazing Spider-Man" was released and I remember the tagline for that movie was "The untold story" which was set to reveal the background on Peter Parker's parents. Just by watching the first film I could tell that the writers had no ideal where they were going with that and there was no untold story. Just a bunch of bull to try to sell movie tickets to a failing franchise.
The same thing has been done here with Star Wars: The Last Jedi (though it's not a failing franchise...yet). The Force Awakens set up some interesting questions like who are Rey's parents? Why has Luke Skywalker vanished? Who is Snoke? Why is Rey so special? Well...like The Amazing Spider-Man the writers here had no ideal where they were going with any of that.
Who are Rey's parents? NOBODY IT DOESN'T MATTER! Why has Luke Skywalker vanished? HE READ KYLO REN'S DESTINY WRONG! Who is Snoke? WHO CARES! HE'LL BE DEAD BEFORE EPISODE 9! Why is Rey so special? BECAUSE SHE JUST IS! Where are these movies going? When Disney decided to start a new Star Wars trilogy they should have had an outline of all three movies and what they wanted to do with them. This movie is overly long and boring and like Rogue One it didn't even feel like I was watching a Star Wars movie with dumb moments like the casino scene.
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6/10
Takes RIsks With Some Successes, But a Lot of Failures
Let's start with the good. For one, no one can say that The Last Jedi is a mere rehash of a previous Star Wars story, which was a (pretty fair) criticism leveled at The Force Awakens. I respect Johnson for trying to keep the franchise fresh, and I think that made for a better movie going experience. If TLJ simply retread Empire, then we would hear a lot of complaining about that, too.
Of course, the fans had their own ideas about how the story would go, and the fact that certain theories were very far off the mark clearly disappointed some. Snoke's abrupt death and Rey's (apparently) anonymous origin seem underwhelming, but I can understand why the writers made these decisions. As with the Emperor in the original trilogy, Snoke is peripheral to the main story. We didn't need to know his background, just as no one knew how Palpatine rose to power before the prequels were made.
Like many fans, I also subscribed to the Rey Skywalker theory. I would argue that TLJ doesn't definitively rule out that possibility, but again, Rey's origin story isn't particularly relevant. The main conflict of this trilogy is Rey's search for belonging and Kylo's internal conflict. TLJ really sharpened the core themes, and we got to know see different sides from Rey, Kylo, and Luke. These characters and the dynamic between them really carried the movie.
Now to the bad. TLJ's two major failures are 1) too many characters, and 2) a lack of understanding about how a Star Wars film should feel.
The first misstep isn't entirely Johnson's fault. In the original trilogy, we only had Han, Luke, and Leia as the principal characters. Now the screen time is spread thin between Rey, Finn, Poe, Luke, Rose, and Kylo. Rey, Luke, and Kylo are well-developed in TLJ, but that comes at the expense of Poe and Finn, who both fall into the "needed to give them something to do" trap.
Finn and Poe really should have been merged into one character from the start. Alternatively, relegate Poe to a cameo in this film and delve more into Finn. The Finn/Poe storyline feels pointless because there isn't any meaningful character development. Without character development, it is hard to get involved in the movie. I think that is why you have many critics saying that the middle of the movie was slow. When you don't feel emotionally invested in the story, it is difficult to feel tension or get excited.
While TLJ can be forgiven for having to deal with questionable choices from TFA, the second category of mistakes was entirely self-inflicted. As others have already pointed out, a lot of the dialogue was extremely awkward and inappropriate. A few examples:
-the phrase "Godspeed" appears once or twice. As a general rule, there should be NO references to God in Star Wars - after all, people believe in "the Force."
-colloquialisms, such as Snoke's use of "spunk" and Finn's reference to "cops". This totally yanked me out of the movie.
-poorly timed/forced humor
For all of TFA's flaws, it at least felt like a Star Wars film because the writers understood what made it work. I am not entirely sure that Johnson "gets" Star Wars on a personal level, because some of this scripting is truly baffling to me.
There are a few more moments that stick out for their silliness, such as *that* Leia scene and the pointless Yoda cameo. Like Jar Jar, many fans will probably point the finger at these obvious (but relatively minor) flaws as the reason why the film didn't work. In reality, the problems are a bit broader. As a conventional standalone film, TLJ is pretty good, which I think is why you see so many great reviews. As a STAR WARS movie, TLJ is largely a miss. The risks that Johnson took would have paid off had it not been for the litany of glaring errors that drag the experience down.
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I was a big fan of Force Awakens, and although I didn't like Rogue One as a Star Wars film, I thought it was a decent movie. This film feels kind of like a weird blend of those two, and that doesn't always work out.
The action scenes are pretty good, as were the effects, but don't we all take that for granted now? :-P.
The plot is surprisingly thin, and the pacing is cluttered with subplots that are very inconsistent in timing and scope.
The script is noticeably different from any other Star Wars movie, and for me this was a bad thing. Some pretty lazy scenes in this movie. Some humor too, which I actually enjoyed (except for those stupid little CGI-bird creatures that belong in Episode I). The writing showed a lack of awareness for the history of the star wars universe, despite lip-service to older films.
The tone of the film is a bit mixed too. Sometimes it's light and funny, and suddenly it's dark and somber. The tone jumps around about as much as it did in the prequels. (not a good thing). Overall, like Rogue One, this film feels more like a real "war" film.
My biggest problem with the film is the pacing. Scenes that should've been built up to over the entire movie happen suddenly, and other scenes feel so pointless it's a mystery why they're in the movie at all. We meet new characters here, which bogs down the film because they take away screen time from characters we already like.
There was a lot I liked about the movie too. Unfortunately, most of that would include spoilers, so I'll just say a few scenes felt "right," and inspired the good kind of star wars nostalgia. I also liked most of the new characters, despite my complaint that they diffused the focus of the film.
Ultimately, this feels like the first draft of a potentially great movie. If they trimmed out the unnecessary sub plots (and characters) and focused more on the main characters, this film would've been as good as the critics (inexplicably) say it is.
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For every good scene three bad for every interesting idea 10 that make your head hurt. A wreck of a film all the more frustrating for the brief flashes of a far more interesting one buried below crude social commentary and once great characters reduced to parody.
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I have never written a review but this movie has left me feeling so angry that I felt compelled to write something. I have no idea how as of now, this movie is currently holding an 8/10 here on imdb. It honestly deserves a place in the bottom 100 list.
Like many other reviewers here, I share the same dissatisfaction. There is NO and I repeat, absolutely NO lightsaber battles in the movie. Then the stupid godawful writing about the space chase as the main part of the storyline, overshadowing Luke and Rey's story when this movie is freaking called "THE LAST JEDI". I mean...what was the whole point of that casino world and the master cracker or whatever he's called...there's absolutely nothing it contributed to the movie. I as an audience absolutely didn't care or feel invested in anyone...not even Luke or Leah...
And like everyone says...that superman part of Leah in space...that was just totally outrageous. You might as well have put Neo from the Matrix in it and he would fit right in. What else? Luke Skywalker was absolutely anti-climactic in this movie. To be honest, he didn't even need to be in the movie with the role he was given here. You don't see him use any of his powers except this ridiculous and farfetched "astral projection" thing which everyone's calling it.
And SNOKE...don't read the rest of this paragraph if you haven't already watched the movie...but really?!? You build him up from episode VII and this is how you have him end up? That's just like having Vader in Empire get killed off halfway without even having him say "I am your father".
If you ask me...Star Wars ends with episode VI. Anything created by Disney just leaves you feeling like you swallowed a piece of c&@p. The Force Awakens created many questions, and where The Last Jedi should've shed some light on some of these, you now have triple the amount of questions than before.
I have no idea how they can salvage this one with Episode IX...
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This movie was very interesting, but a lot of things happened that made this movie hit it's own breaking point. I would say the series should stop being continued and hopefully its left alone. I know a lot of people enjoyed this movie, but a lot of unrealistic impossible things have happened in this movie and should probably start getting fixed.
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Wow... Star Wars.. where to begin ?
I've been a fan of the series for the last 25 years. Saw all of the movies, played most of the PC video games of the 90's (X wing, Tie fighter etc). Needless to say - I'm a SW fan. I have a complete and utter respect to George Lucas and the cast of the series. Having said that - it is with a heavy heart to come back from SWTLJ and give it a one star review. It's not that it's that bad, but it's simply not a 8.2 or even 8.0 movie. Probably 7.2 or less. It is hard to say it but it must be said: "Greed had poisoned too much of the galaxy in the star wars universe". Let's start with the pro's and cons:
Pro's:
Pretty good cinematography - Some shots are spectacular and do evoke feelings. When Kylo reaches his hand to ray (I won't say much...) and there's a close up, you can see and experience the emotions. Also when When Kylo ren makes his attack in the beginning - It is well shot and conveyed his inner conflict in this situation. The people behind the camera did a good job.
Special effects : Nothing short of amazing. The Ships, the Cruisers, ATAT/ STAT / STST walkers and the planets are just eye candy. This movie has a lot of action scenes in it (Space battles mostly) which looks and sounds what we might expect from a star wars film - a spectacle to behold.
The cast - Very good performances across the board. All looks believable. I have so much respect for Mark Hamil, that not only played in the movies' industry , but also gave his voice to the Joker character in the animated series, the video games that followed (ahh... Arkham asylum.. such good memory) and also acting as Col. Blair In the Wing Commander series - he is amazing. I really liked him in that movie as well - though I would expect a larger part of him even as just a mentor. I wish I could have seen more of him in this movie. They had barely scraped the surface of his talent. The rest of the crew does a pretty good job as well. I liked Adam driver as well, you can sense that his character are in turmoils deep inside. Good performance by the late Carry Fisher - though I do wish they showed her character more as well. Also liked Oscar Isaac (Poh Demron). He plays the character so believably... Poh is the renegade I would like to have on my side when things get rough. Daisy Ridley is pretty good too, but the character of Rey feels a bit shallow to me. I want to root for her, but she seems almost too perfect. No known flaws, which makes her inhuman and hard to relate.
Some underlying messages were good and inspiring: It is not a secret that the Star Wars universe supports some positive themes. Women are courageous leaders, people of all shapes sizes and colors are mixed together and treated with respect as they work together to battle tyranny and evil. I really liked it. It's really a feminist movie - which is good. Keep on the legacy.
And now to the Cons:
The plot and the writing: The plot is an insult to intelligence. I feel duped (as the title might suggest). There is no sense of Catharsis at the end, It feels like you wen't on a roller coaster only to end at an anti Climax. In episode V (The empire strikes back) - it was obvious what needs to be done (rescue Han) and you felt shattered by the relations of Luke and Darth Vader. I can still see in my mind Luke screaming in the City of the clouds Scene - "That's Impossible !" when Darth tells him the truth. That movie had a sense of order in it and inner logic. This movie leads you to a sh*t hole with a vague premise under its feet in the end. You expect more of the heroes in this flick but it just not what you hoped for. We are left of no real hero to root for. Thus, we must rely on characters that we don't know yet. It just feels illogical. I really really didn't like this direction. I really can't understand the need to kill the people that made this series a legend yet applying similar plot lines to a different cast. (ok, I'm gonna raise the tone here) - WHAT THE F*ck are you doing DISNEY / LUCASFILM ??? Where is the hero in this series ? It feels messy. You would think the director and writers would leave us with an ending that will entice us to look forward to the next episode, but instead we are left with very vague answers as to what is going to happen. It feels like this whole movie is leading us to ... Nothing. There are no heroes in this flick, only cowards.
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While I must give credit to Rian Johnson for this high-octane film which was enjoyable throughout, the film as a Star Wars film leaves more questions unanswered. Character development is extremely poor with the newer actors not developed in their significanct respective roles and pretty much the same since Force Awakens. Rey and Kylo Ren, despite their telepathic connections have been disappointing. Rey is somehow the galaxys last Jedi hope yet she was not even trained by a true Jedi (something which should've happening in lat Jedi!) and Kylo is not the sinister villain for the final film but still a temperamental teenager. Characters who were set to have a prominent role and develop in the film such as Snoke and Phasma were killed off without explanation of their previous roles which should've been important to the film. Overall, too many plot holes and the original characters such as Luke, were destroyed (this was a guy who would not turn on his evil father yet would kill his nephew because he 'hinted' at the dark side and had not turned yet).
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This is the first time I have ever logged in to leave a review. This is how disappointed I was with this film.
Now I don't have too many problems with it as a standalone film, aside from the pacing and just general boredom that it provokes. I'm rating this as a Star Wars film, and more importantly, as episode VIII, the sequel to episode VII.
It feels like this movie took a dreadnought sized dump on almost every single character arc that JJ Abrams set up for us in VII.
WASTED CHARACTERS
2 years of questions about Snoke's real identity, purpose, backstory, etc. He gets a few villain-esque lines in before dying halfway through the movie. Luke Skywalker's is also a wasted character, but every other review probably has a detailed explanation of that already. It was painful to endure.
I won't go into detail about supporting characters, but I will say that Captain Phasma (a younger audience favourite) and Admiral Ackbar (an older audience favourite) were also completely discarded, with no advancement of the plot whatsoever. Which brings me to my next point.
STORY
Where did we begin the movie? Where did we end up? Is there any difference? What changed? The correct answer is pretty much nothing. Rey is just a better Rey. Kylo Ren is just a more confident Kylo Ren. Leia hasn't changed and probably won't in IV either. Finn's character hasn't changed. The situation between the Resistance and the First Order hasn't changed. Why is this movie here?
NO ELEMENT OR FEAR
So the imposing, 8 foot tall darkside mastermind who we caught glimpses of in episode VII turns out to be no more than fodder. Okay... So who is going to be the main cause of fear now that he dies? Who is going to be the next Vader, or dare I say, Palpatine? Kylo Ren certainly isn't going to trouble me any time soon. I was not scared, frightened, nervous, worried, concerned at any point in the entire movie.
HUMOUR
So I do understand that this movie is made by Disney to sell toys to younger audiences, but that doesn't imply the need to fill the film with childish and unfunny jokes. Did we learn nothing from Episode 1? The first scene where Poe was trolling General Hux made me think had accidentally walked into Guardians of the Galaxy 3. This was not Star Wars humour at all, and neither was the rest of the movie.
THE GOOD
The acting was a great step up from VII. Poe delivers a great performance, as well as Adam and Daisy. Mark Hamill did surprisingly well with the garbage script he was handed.
The light-speed suicide scene was a work of art. Well done. I could watch it 10 times.
The palace battle was entertaining and gave me flashbacks of the prequel fight scenes.
SUMMARY
If you are a fan of the franchise or the genre, you need to watch it, just because it is a Star Wars movie. Just don't go in with high expectations.
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After waiting 2 years for this film I couldn't believe how they destroyed it. They took an iconic character like Luke Skywalker and turned hinto a miserable ridiculous man who milks 4 breasted space animals. The whole film felt like I was watching a Saturday night live spoof.
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I am so sorry to say this but please don't make any Star Wars movies anymore.
Please! l Am begging you!... It is not going to make it better putting some bitter family issue sauces on to it, or putting visually outstanding new characters without depth killed in every movie, or putting some jar jar binks kind of minimalist creatures behind Chewy on to cockpit or anywhere you like to... And l should confess that seeing Kylo Ren as a villain is really boring, l dont know if it is because of the actor or script or directing whatever but it is not working... Everything that l saw in these past 2 movies was just an attempt to reconstruct the legendary trilogy. Stop it please just stop it.
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A mess would be the best way to describe this thing and the more I think of it the closer it gets to prequels in terms of quality. The writing was woeful, there were a lot of unnecessary jokes throughout, there was way too much CGI, the characters are boring, the big villain, Snoke, is essentially a mincing halfwit and then there were the endless dumb touches - I guess we know where the name Skywalker comes from with Leia's ridiculous space expedition.
Worse, I had a sense of déjà vu while watching, despite the barrage of fools claiming critics "just don't like a new take on things", there's nothing new here. If you're paying attention, a lot of the film is lazy pulls from A New Hope, Empire and ROTJ, but there's something else, the plot skeleton, aside from the idiotic casino subplot, is a theft of 33, the pilot episode from the new Battlestar Galactica, only without any of the deft execution and attention to detail or reality. If you wanted to re-imagine 33 in the dumbest possible way, without any of the urgency, this would be it
The number of ships in the rebel fleet seems to change on a regular basis and given the fuel burn and the firing from the First Order most of them should have been done away with very quickly, but no even with shots of 10-15 ships or later escape pods, and then 10-15 ships being destroyed by the First Order, there's always a few more ships that somehow escaped destruction (did any CGI supervisor ever bother to keep an account of ship numbers). Sure this is picky, but it's a general example of the sloppiness throughout the whole film.
I enjoyed The Force Awakens, to me it was the platform and it made me enthusiastic for The Last Jedi, but if this thing was akin to a high dive, the diver has tripped, hit their head, plummeted in the most ungraceful fashion and belly flopped into the water unconscious.
They're going to need a great rescue crew to rescue and resuscitate the trilogy.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the 3rd SW movie I've seen in theaters, and definitely the most polarizing of them. It has a few big highs, but many, many lows that weigh down the overall quality and timelessness that is expected of a SW film. I'm gonna divide my review of this film into 3 simple categories listed below. SPOILERS INCLUDED.
THE GOOD
Decided to start with what I liked in the film, because there is a decent amount. First, the acting. For the most part, it's outstanding. Performances from Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and of course Mark Hamill are nailed. What the rather corny writing subtracts, these 3 really add back. I like Kylo's emotions tearing him between 2 sides and being forced to pick because of Rey's refusal to join him. At this point, I hope they keep him with the First Order and don't try to pull a transition to the light like with Vader. Without Snoke in the picture, Kylo is the only one who can stand a chance against the Resistance, so I hope he gets further developed as a bad guy rather than good. Another thing I rather enjoyed was the choreography of the few lightsaber encounters there was in this movie. They definitely aren't too numbered within the film, but seeing Rey and Kylo get into the intense battle with Snoke's highly trained guards was adrenaline pumping to say the least. Lastly, the appearance of Yoda within this film was awesome. If you asked me what I thought about Yoda appearing within ANOTHER SW film a few weeks ago, I would've told you it sounded awful. But the way he was portrayed by the legendary Frank Oz was absolutely wonderful within this movie. By the time the scene was over, I had a giant smile across my face. Sadly, that's about where the good things end.
VERDICT
Star Wars: The Last Jedi had some really cool moments, all of which I couldn't even mention in this review. Ultimately, though, these moments are more than overshadowed by the movies undeniable downsides that really ruined the film for me. That being said, I'll be going back to this film in the future, but definitely making sure I skip the entire casino sequence.
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It felt more like an end to the Saga than a middle movie in a trilogy. Luke dies from telepathic exhaustion? Really? And don't get me started on Carrie Poppins flying thru space. I hated the Phantom Menace, but at least in 1999 I left the theatre excited for Episode II. Not this time. There's not even really an evil villian anymore for IX. This movie seemed to dragon on forever (looking at you casino). This movie SUCKED!
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2/10
Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Is it a parody or an advertisement...why not both
Let's start with the good parts, since we will spend less time with that (sadly).
Compared to Episode VII Rey and Kylo Ren did really improve regarding character depth, as well as development. For me they are the "highlight" of a mediocre to bad written movie, making most of their story path and surroundings enjoyable and adding a well thought-out twist gave it a nice touch, until it was thrown out of the window in the end anyway.
Some scenes in between were breathtaking and were giving me goosebumps.
Now to the rest. The side story and the second main story were unnecessary and boring to watch. Especially the middle part felt like an eternity, as soon as Finn made his appearance. Could have been left out and it would not have made any difference. The other main story path, with Leia and Poe Dameron in the leading roles, was mind blowing in a sense where i had a hard time holding in my laughter, about how implausible and ridiculous a few scenes were. Some of the plot made no sense and was just stretching the movie to give time for other story lines in the most lazy way possible. The same counts for the Finn part.
I dislike how our "heroes" got into 100% death situations, but got rescued by ex machina again and again, surviving unrealistic assaults and circumstances. I am sorry, but after the 27th time i really don't care anymore, about them getting into trouble...they must be made out of Adamantium, otherwise i cant explain it. It would have given the movie some nice and emotional moments, if they'd let someone go, but i guess they needed to sell more action figures, so we got at least that going for us...
I don't understand how Rian Johnson could just throw away Episode 7, ignoring or simply destroying most of the build up, leaving us with this mess of a story. Instead of thinking about possible solutions, he took the laziest and easiest route to just abandon everything the prequel gave us. I am really disappointed in the decision making...this goes for Snoke, as well as Captain Phasma and many more (this makes the prequel even worse than it was before).
What really cracked me up was how Luke Skywalker was displayed and depicted. They tried to explain his change, but in the end it was not believable to this extend and just didn't add up.
The cherry on top of that was the use of so many unfunny and unsuitable slapstick jokes, which ruined some intense and dramatic moments, without any good reason. The fact, that they repeated themselves at some point wasn't helping either.
Conclusion:
After finishing the movie i left the cinema speechless and i felt something i didn't feel in a very long time: I felt bad spending money on something like this. The movie had potential, but instead built in weak and unfitting jokes, ridiculous and unbelievable scenes, as well as falling back into the same concept of good versus evil. It could have been so much better...the ideas were there, but some decisions destroyed the movie and i assume Disney is partly to blame.
If nothing changes i don't see a bright future for the franchise and i will think again, if i will spend any more money on Star wars movies, especially if Rian Johnson is involved.
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Having read some of the 1, 2, & 3 star reviews on here... I'll not disagree with you on many of your points. I will say...
It's solidly in the middle of the Star Wars pack with 6, 3, & Rogue (behind 4, 5, & 7). I've seen it twice, one more tonight. Then I'll give it a rest, let it stew.
It does not live up to the hype, but it's not the worst ever. I hope the RJ trilogy is better than this. I can see RJ writing this and saying to someone in the room, "Watch this... Hold my beer".
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So many people have adopted this as a religion, as if the "FORCE" was real... and at the same time you blow WADS of cash on Chinese-made, lead-based crap for the kiddies... he can barely read for God's sake! Why not teach 'em about something that actually DID happen about 2k years ago? What, you can believe in this but not that... yet this entire trilogy is based on a VIRGIN BIRTH?
Ford wanted to be cut out of the franchise, took him 38 years.
Hamill, tossed the "laser sword" over his shoulder after 40 years. I laughed and knew it was over then. Ditto "Midichlorians", which is actually Jedi heroin. It was pretty good until he showed up.
But then...
Yoda... that book-burning Hitler-esque cackling demon shows up! He and Luke sit down to watch it burn... where's the marshmallows? Screw that little troll.. that was SATAN fooling kids into not reading a BIBLE.
Fisher... I enjoyed that foul-mouthed loose cannon but I hope her death bites Disney in the ass! Space is a vacuum, no sound! Yet Carrie didn't burst like a balloon. Instead, she used the FORCE and floats back into the ship. Oh of course! They extended the atmosphere outside the ship like Dr. Who does from his stolen Tardis! "BULLOCKS"
Speaking of car-jacking ships...
Finn used American vernacular related to cell phones! How LAME. "That's like"... the girl in Starbucks saying "that's like". You can't use local vernacular in sci-fi, much less English accents. But as in real life, our boy is much preoccupied with a white girl, nothing shall stand in his way to nail Rey. Hey, that rhymes!
Rey cried too much, apparently cause she's in love with a bad boy. Well, DUH!
Ren is on a power trip and he's already got her by the short hairs.
Snoke was a joke, that's why they named it "Snoke".
BB-8 is an old SLOT, spewing out bitcoins to Jewish aliens.
Star Wars was fun. James Bond was fun. They're following the cultural trends and "end times" we're living in. The older generation is being thrown under the bus. Case in point, Lucas walked on the set of both 7 and 8, then expressed his DISGUST for being jilted by millennials. "Why are you building 165 sets when it can all be done quicker and cheaper with computers"? Millennials are sick of tech! Which is why Yoda wasn't CGI and they filmed Carrie in advance, knowing she's a chain smoker with a death wish.
This is made for them, they can't communicate (nor want to) with our generation and look us in the eye.... can't check the oil in a car or use a screwdriver and most young females want a sugar daddy... sound like a good thing? It mirrors the decline of our society as Yoda pointed out in II: "The dark times have fallen". Sure, we've got suicide bombers in NYC and church shooters in Texas!
Young fans posted their incessant theories on Youtube: who this one was, who is related to that one, where did that monster come from, the Star Wars canon, etc. etc. etc. MENTAL MASTURBATION... which I might have been happier doing! I grew up when this came out and "this changed everything" as Laura Dern said. Yeah.... I missed my senior prom! I couldn't get a date nor laid to save my soul! DITTO.... every complaining fan who's either gonna get loaded, beat their wife or yell at their kids, kick the dog, smoke or suck a Big Mac and fries.
The entire film is an attack on itself. (the fans and it's creator) Next one will obviously be "The Disney Menace".
Wanna refund?
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A myth is spreading that attempts to explain the vast disparity between the fans' opinion of The Last Jedi (TLJ) and the critics': TLJ is bold, risky, and cerebral, and it has alienated fans who desire familiarity and comfort from Star Wars. This myth is absolutely ludicrous. Look, I am an elitist. I like slow independent films. I like foreign films. I wish TLJ were a daring and intelligent film. Alas, it is not. It is just a potpourri of hackneyed Star Wars' scenes and themes done better in earlier films. Worse, at the end of the film, absolutely nothing changes. At the beginning, Rey is good, Kylo is bad, the rebellion have a "spark of hope," and the First Order dominates the galaxy. At the end, Rey is good, Kylo is bad, the rebellion have a spark of hope, and the First Order dominates the galaxy. It takes a painful two and a half hours to get to this changeless end, however.
I want to note, before lacerating this film with criticism, that there are a few good things about it. The production values, as one might imagine, are excellent. The sound is excellent. The acting is rather good; even Mark Hamill turns in a very good performance (although this film's Luke Skywalker bears little resemblance to the Skywalker of 4,5, and 6). And the Kylo Ren storyline is moderately compelling. (Tragically, this storyline is tossed, like a rose, into a heap of garbage and ruined.) Kylo is a great character because he is conflicted. Rey just radiates "goodness," so one is never worried that she might turn. Kylo, on the other hand, is neither pure evil, nor good. He is, instead, a young man with a serious existential crisis. Who is he? Is he a Skywalker? A Solo? The next Vader? Or is he the creative source of his own existence, a person who has "killed the past"?
Now the bad.
EDITING. This film is perhaps the most poorly edited high quality film I have ever watched. Two problems. One, the film is entirely too long. It feels all of its two and a half hours. A lot happens on screen. But nothing REALLY happens. And there is an absolutely irrelevant side plot about a trip to a casino that is worthless and would have been cut by a competent editor. Two, the cross cutting is paced poorly. As I noted, the Kylo/Rey plot thread is the most interesting in the film. However, it is woven with two dull threads. And the film constantly cuts from one to the other at an apparently arbitrary rate. At times, we get one minute of Kylo and then cut to Finn. It's jarring. And it never allows for emotional momentum.
PLOT HOLES. The script to TLJ is remarkably bad. The ideas are stale and nothing ever seems at stake. Thousands of people die, but nobody actually appears to care (despite Leia remarking time and time again that she "has experienced too much loss.") One particularly bad plot hole: At one point Poe is skipped over for promotion in favor of Admiral Holdo (played by a miscast but usually excellent Laura Dern). Poe had been demoted by Leia for insubordination. (He literally turned off the radio and ignored a direct order from a general! Later, Leia and Holdo comment about how much they like him because he is a "trouble maker" who got people unnecessarily killed. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.) Poe asks Holdo what her plan is (because the Rebellion is being stalked by TFO and is running out of fuel). Admiral Holdo refuses to tell him. She just tells him to obey her orders. Later, he discovers part of her plan and yells that it will lead to ineluctable failure. She again ignores him. Of course, this leads him to another act of insubordination and a literal mutiny. Finally, the FULL plan is revealed and Poe thinks it will work. Hole. Why not just tell him in the first place? Leia says that Holdo didn't need to draw attention to her own heroism, which makes no sense and doesn't explain why she would not have just told Poe, "Hey, here is the basic plan. We are going to fuel these ships and then aim for this planet....."
LUKE SKYCRYER: As I noted before, Mark Hamill delivers the best performance of his career in this film. His Skywalker is damaged with a grizzled beard. However, this Skywalker is so different from the Skywalker of the first films that it is hard to believe that he is the same character. In here, he is old and bitter and sarcastic. Remember the Skywalker from 4,5, and 6? He was energetic, optimistic, and earnest to a fault.
LET'S GO DARK....JUST KIDDING. One of the obnoxious things about the "new, bold, cerebral" Star Wars myth is how radically untrue it is. In fact, Johnson immediately takes back anything in this film that might have been interesting in a kind of "nah just messing with you" way. For example, at one point, Kylo tells Rey that Luke was going to slay him in the Jedi temple. Now, this would have been interesting. Maybe Luke sensed the darkness in Kylo and decided it would be better to kill him than to leave him alive and take a risk. Moral ambiguity. Debate. Luke going a bit dark (even though I don't think this is consistent with his character). But, then Luke says this was "just a temporary impulse that immediately passed" (or something of the sort), robbing this plot line of all real danger and substance.
Absolutely nothing is solved in this film. Nobody goes dark. Nobody goes light. Nothing changes, except that Luke dies a pathetic death after using the force in an absolutely new and ludicrous way. (He generates a mental projection of himself across the galaxy that has conversations with his sister and tricks Kylo into a fight.)
CONCLUSION. At one time I abhorred the prequels. I was very excited about Abrams; and when I heard Johnson was directing the second, I was giddy. However, TFA was a fluffy and inconsequential retreat of New Hope; and this film is even worse that TFA. Both feel superfluous. At least the prequels were trying to tell a compelling and tragic story: The fall of the Republic and the downfall of Anakin. I give Lucas credit. He had a vision. Of course, he utterly failed. But these new films don't have even have a vision. I don't know how to measure their success. TFA is entertaining. It is a decent diversion from life. TLJ isn't even entertaining. It is just a crowded and inconsequential film that suffers from limited imagination, poor editing, and craven story telling. Johnson didn't change Disney. Disney changed Johnson. It snuffed out his creativity and fearlessness. It turned him into a studio hack. But, unlike Abrams, he is not even a talented hack. I hope Johnson will leave Star Wars and go back to making interesting films like Looper. And I hope that Star Wars will remain peacefully interred or produce a new idea.
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The main problem I had with TLJ was the reuse of old scenes and concepts from previous titles. When the battle at Crait started it just felt like a reenactment of the battle of Hoth. And as the case is with reenactments, they always lack that one thing which separates all really great movies from average ones - originality.
Personally, I don't like all of the references to the older films that this movie (and TFA) contains. An example is when the Millenium Falcon swoops down on the First Order ships during the battle of Crait. Rey even makes a sound very much resembling that of Han Solo from the Death Star battle. Even though I understand that a lot of fans probably like the "Star Wars-y" feel that the movie may get from the addition of references to older titles, I'd like for the writers to think more creatively and not be afraid of adding stuff not everybody recognises. DJ was a pretty good character in this respect. Sadly, he was fairly two-dimensional and I tired of his nihilist "social agenda" pretty quickly. Why did they add a weird stutter? It wasn't even a real stutter but a random stutter on another syllable not included in the word he was about to say.
The creators of this trilogy has such an amazing opportunity to expand on the incredible universe that is Star Wars. If there is one big reason overshadowing the rest explaining why they do not choose to be more creative it's most likely spelled money. YODA was NOT necessary in this film. Luke was going to burn down the tree either way and the insight about needing to "save Rey" could nevertheless have gotten to him. After all, he's supposed to be THE CHOSEN ONE. After he's done his deed of getting rid of Palpatine and Vader, is he just going to be a stubborn dumbass and sit on an island for the rest of his life? Even though he should know what to do (the audience does)?
Note: The battles judged on their own merits were splendid. Both the space battles and the lightsaber ones. Acting good. Effects good. Music awesome. The music is actually the only thing I believe they did right reusing on certain occasions as they did.
Take home message: KEEP UP GOOD ACTORS AND CGI. STOP REHASHING SHIT.
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So, I got myself hyped for this movie after seeing the trailer (which was brilliant, in my opinion). I started expecting this movie to finally answer most of the questions from TFA, to have great scenes packed with good action, meaningful and good character development and writing. Turned out I shouldn't have set such high expectations...
The good:
CGI and camera works are really great, magnificent at moments even. Props to the guys who were working on this aspect of the movie;
Kylo has finally matured into a young Sith Lord who knows what he wants and is not afraid to stretch out his hand and grab his destiny by the throat. There is much difference between this Kylo and the TFA Kylo, who was nothing but an emo teenager with serious anger issues;
Luke is back! Mark Hamill does a wonderful job yet again. But, that's really all there is to say about Luke (I never thought I'd say such a thing about Luke freakin' Skywalker!);
Poe was amazing in this movie, loved Oscar Isaac's performance so much
John Boyega once again did a great job on portraying Finn, as did Daisy Ridley on portraying Rey.
The bad:
the overall story is... mediocre. Writing was underwhelming particularly in Luke's case, where he was unnecessarily reduced to a mere "has-been Jedi" who for some reason believes that the Jedi must come to an end. Really?! Did you see/hear Yoda say that after Galactic Empire destroyed the Republic? No. Because true Jedi never lose hope, especially not legendary and most wise ones;
Snoke - such a wasted potential. So many great options for this guy and Disney chose... nothing? Killed in such an appalling fashion by his student who was beaten by an untrained Rey in TFA. All knowing, all powerful, cannot be betrayed!... Gets betrayed a second later and doesn't see it coming. Everything that was intimidating and great about a good character was spilled down the drain;
Leia's death in space should have been just that - death. I get the feeling that the basic laws of physics are changing just to make one character seem badass. Such an unnecessary and nonsensical scene all in all;
Captain Phasma is one more potentially good character who should have gotten more screen time;
Yoda's appearance. As soon as I saw Yoda, I nearly screamed out of happiness, but then... Disney turned him into a Force-ghost troll who nonchalantly destroyed precious and ancient Jedi books just to... prove a point to Luke? Really?! And Luke, being one of the best and wisest Jedi ever, needs Force-ghost Yoda to tell him to learn from his failures. Freakin' really?!
Porgs are as useless as people predicted, serving only to attract younger population to watch the movie and to sell Disney merchandise;
entire character of Rose. Basically, Disney came up with Rose character like this: "We have several strong female characters, including the main protagonist Rey. How about we add one more just for laughs and giggles?" Goes from just an ordinary mechanic to a super-skilled pilot who then proceeds to take a dump all over Finn's noble intentions at the end of the movie. Because her crush on Finn is more important than Rebellion not getting wiped out by the First Order, amirite?
overall humor falls flat most of the time, with only 2-3 scenes worth a chuckle.
I could go on and on about the negatives, but I won't since I think those above prove my point. The worst part is that I wanted to give TLJ a grade of at least 7/10. But, after first impressions settled down I just kept remembering all the flaws, so now it's officially a 5/10 from me. And that's me being generous because Star Wars is love, Star Wars is love.
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With Leia and Luke gone this movie sees the end of the original Star War characters we cared deeply about.
They have been replaced by a bunch of characters that "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
Rey is no Leia and I don't care what happens to her. (seems to have poor choice in men) Frankly I don't care if she turns out to be an off spring of Han, Luke , Leia or even Chewbacca she is NOT spunky - just a girl with a big stick.
Kylo Ren is no Darth Vader. Snoke is right when he describes him as a child in a mask. Does anybody care what he does next?
Finn. I wish he would find an escape pod and just go!!! Rose Tico had him pegged. The character is a buffoon.
Poe. The best fighter pilot in the Resistance!!!??? The Resistance is in deep trouble!! Certainly no Han Solo. Arnie would describe him as a girly man.
I would go an see another Star War movie where Finn and Poe die - permanently.
Rey stops whining about being left behind on Tatooine and becomes a leader of the Resistance or at least an asset to the Resistance. At this stage the Resistance means as much to her as an ingrown toenail. Perhaps Yoda can come back and teach her???
Kylo Ren needs to get really bad. A bad man not a bad boy!!!
They need to find a new Luke/Solo character. Poe and Finn have to go. They remind me of Ewoks without hair and are annoying.
What happened to the old royal family?? Surely Leia and Luke were not the only royals??
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There is a Jedi story line, ok? Ok. We need some add-ons to it, so we might take some sort of casino line with funny music, you know, they like it. Then some minions or critters or that Jar jar stuff, that sounds like fun, no? Ok. Then what about some serious fuck logic moments, like you know, remember Legolas fighting gravity? That sort of stuff. What else we have, hm, it must be long like crazy, cause fanboys dig that. Aaand thats it. Luckily we have some good actors and stunning visuals as always.
Tadaah, here we go, yours Rian Johnson.
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I am convinced Rian Johnson has never watched a Star Wars film in his life, because if he did, The Last Jedi wouldn't have turned out to be the absolute nonsensical mess that it ended up being.
Remember when Star Wars was about the ultimate battle between Good and Evil? The mystical wonders of the Force, Jedi and Sith? The heroes journey? Well, you can forget about all of that, because this movie trades all those wonderful things for Disney sitcom-tier humour and quips, boring meaningless space battles, no heart and soul, total disrespect of the lore and characters that George Lucas had created, uninteresting villains, plot holes galore, and a chase plot reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica.
In short, this movie was a MESS. I can't believe I'm typing this, but it's worse than Force Awakens. At least JJ stayed true to the tone of Star Wars. I don't know what Rian Johnson and Disney were trying to accomplish with this absolute train wreck of a movie.
It's time to accept Star Wars died when George Lucas sold the franchise to Disney.
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1/10
It's so bad it actually motivated me to make an account on IMDB and do a review
This movie, I'm really having trouble where to start from.For the first hour it feels like you're watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory, lame jokes all the way, all that's missing is the recorded laughter playing after each one.
And then we have the plot.Oh boy.Literally not a single action by any character in this movie makes sense and nothing is explained/revealed.
You probably thought you'd get to know more about The First Order? - Nope
You probably thought you'd know who Rey's parents are and where she came from? - Nope
Wanna know who's Snoke and his story? - Won't find it in this movie my friend
What really baffles me though is Luke.The character that redeemed Vader, his father, a dark lord, that killed a shitton of people, is suddenly scared and wants to kill his own nephew because dark side?Are you kidding me Disney?
It feels like the whole movie is unnecessarily long, the whole plotline with Finn is so damn boring, I personally don't feel any empathy for 90% of the characters and it's been 2 movies already, is it just me?Who cares about Poe,Finn and Rose?They're all 1 dimensional flat characters, you can also add Rey to this category who continues to be a Marry Sue 11/10, no training, no explanation whatsoever, she's just wrecking everyone and the only character that seemed to overpower her ( Snoke ), guess what, he's gone.So what you have in the end is a really boring subplot with the minor characters and a main plot that provides no info on much expected/discussed topics and instead gives you the finger on all of them, because I guess it's trying to be edgy and change status quo on how the movies are made and what follows what.Well there's a reason for it, it's called pacing and it doesn't exist here, one moment Rey's on an island with Luke and 5 min later Snoke is dead, woah.
I dare you to try and watch this movie without questioning if it's Star Wars.Good luck!
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This film destroyed the characters of the original trilogy, I don't want to spoil it so I won't say how. This is no longer Star Wars. There is too much to complain about; the plot was pointless yet aggravating, the side plots were boring. Disney and Rian Johnson have found a way to cripple the saga and leave it completely irrecoverable.
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You have an unlimited budget and what do you do Disney, what do you do?
You take 2 years and release a turd of a movie. The story doesn't make sense -- because it's a bad story. In exchange for tense action where it's possible the bad guys or good guys could win, plot development, character development and a good script -- you get ok battles/action that don't make much sense, cheesy jokes and sub-plots that literally didn't need to happen; ironically, the movie makes is perfectly clear those characters involved in those sub-plots were indeed wasting their time -- and unfortunately yours.
There is no plot development. Arguably, you can watch the force awakens, skip this movie, as there is zero resolve to the plot and character development, then watch the next one and you'll be up to date on what you know about the characters from this movie.
What does that mean exactly? Every character in The Force Awakens that appears in this movie doesn't get any back story and their current story doesn't really change.
I never thought I'd say this but I'm not going to see the next one -- that's how bad this movie was.
Is it worse than the prequals? Yes. It's hard to believe but they made a worse film some how.
I'm not a cynic and was super excited to see this movie. What a disappointment.
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5/10
Slow motion car crash... Worst movie since episodes I, II, and III.
I feel totally misled by initial critic reviews. This had an awesome trailer, a good foundation in the Force Awakens, and ridiculously strong follow up with Rogue One. What happened here I don't know. But at least half and hour could have been left on the cutting floor. Laura Dirn was like some one out of Hunger Games and was a wooden and boring actor. Snoke was underdevleoped and his last few lines were straight out of the hobbit style of 3rd party Gollum... And nowhere near as scary as the emperor on Return of the Jedi. The interplay between Rey and Ben was awesome, and Adam Driver was this films saving Grace. The little characters that filled space around various scenes were silly. General Hux was a joke. Vadar would have axed him. The First Order can't be portrayed as bumbling goof balls. They need to have menace and some success (perfectly achieved in Empire strikes back) otherwise they lose credibility. The whole casino side story was absolute crap. This one lacked imagination and story development. They are going to have to dig deep to salvage this for the next installment. And no one will believe the critics next time - they must have been on the payroll.
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This movie completely chucked all the things we were waiting for out the window. WTF??
Climactic scene where Rey hands the lightsaber to Luck at the end of Episode VII?? Meh, he just chucks it over his shoulder. WTF???
This movie tried to be funny when no one came to see a space comedy! Cheap attempts at slapstick comedy. WTF??
Finn degraded to walking down the hallway with a water leaking...medical...suit? WTF??
Rey's parents are....no one special?? WTF??
Unlikable Asian girl who just suddenly appears and drops our hero Finn with a stun gun??? WTF??
Did whoever wrote this stupid script and directed this stupid movie even WATCH The Force Awakens??
Why are the characters we already know written like people we don't even recognize?? WTF??
I'm gonna put this out there. This movie served as a total SJW propaganda piece, Ala Battleship Potemkin. Most battle scenes are pretty much ALL women in the background. Luke is pretty much neutered. So is Finn, actually.
Can we hear the word "Resistance" another 300 times? Yeah, we get it. Reistance. President Trump. Evil. Yeah yeah...
They obviously went out of their way to fill a color/gender/ethnicity quota. The only thing missing was a "Resistance" male who suddenly realizes he's a woman in the middle of all the fighting. Guh.
I'm actually seriously thinking of just selling off all my Star Wars stuff now.
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1/10
Dont watch this, its a "cash-grap" and delivers nothing...
Honestly, buy a big frenchise, do something "new" with it and kaching! Thats all what this movie is about. i dont even bother to go into any detail because there isnt any anyways...
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3/10
Subtle racism; unnecessary themes/subplots, a discredit to longtime fans and past Star Wars movies
Many reviewers who praise The Last Jedi, tend to criticize "fanboys" for having high expectations. It's not unreasonable for fans to have certain expectations. By nature, sequential movies based on an extensive canon compels one to do so. The core fans who have invested in and sustained the franchise over the years, are the reason why Star Wars is a multi-billion-dollar business. It's reasonable for these same fans to desire to have some of their expectations met. It seems like Disney opted for cheap thrills and twists, instead of a cohesive storyline.
Disney/Lucasfilm could easily have created a movie that pleased most fan types, while still having a few plot twists. Instead, they chose the latter ONLY. Any Gungan can create plot twists or unexpected character portrayals for the sake of getting cheap thrills. IMO, critics are overrating Rian Johnson as if he is another Christopher Nolan. I couldn't help but feel that Rian Johnson wanted to intentionally nullify everything that J.J. Abrams setup (almost like an ego battle between directors).
I'm not going to repeat all the obvious pros and cons from other reviews, but just summarize a few:
Cons:
Subtle racism. The minorities (Black, Asian, Latino) have the most meaningless roles via a boring subplot that had no purpose other than to apparently show that another white female character had a "better" plan that a white male. White females are mostly elevated in this film. This continues in the tradition of TFA where Finn was teased as a Jedi to sell tickets to millions of black Americans, only to later be revealed as a "sanitation" worker; the white female ended up being the Jedi. Finn is still portrayed as a "coward" in this film. Totally disagree with white "critics" who say this movie is "inclusive". Their idea of inclusivity is merely tossing in minorities just to "appear" tolerant and progressive (to me, another form of racism).
The movie largely discredits many key themes & characters from previous Star Wars movies (including Episode VII). The result is that Star Wars can now be anything it wants to be, i.e. your average sci-fi movie, of which there are plenty. Instead of referring to this entry as "Episode VIII" it could have been called "Star Wars 2017".
Unnecessary politically-motivated themes. These did not ruin the movie, but hints that developing a proper story was not the number one priority.
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This film sadly has evey cliche possible. From plots gone wrong to trying to do too much. It uses a typical Disney/Hollywood formula. As the film kicks off we are subjected to tired old dialogue, characters that are only half real and a story that beggars belief. A Jedi was trained in a single day, ready to face the task of beating Snoke. We then have all the fuss and bother of going to get a hacker only to have him turn on the team. The jokes were few and far between and the furry creatures just ridiculous. And then when Finn is about to save the whole of the rebellion the woman that loves him decides that he should live and the rest die. And at the very end the rebellion consists of 20 people scurrying to safety. Nor do we see how Rae escapes Snokes ship. She just gets away. Upon sending out a distress call, no one comes to the aid of the rebellion and why would they? Once again we had Yoda wrecking things just like in episode 3 when he should have let Anakin die along with Obi Wan and save the Republic. But no we have to have stupid irrational stores along with bad acting. The only redeeming part and it was very small was Lukes story of a tortured teacher. The rest just rubbish.
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I can no longer see how to sort reviews by specific criteria (e.g. date)
I wanted to write a detailed review of TLJ, but to be honest everything has already been written by other reviewers. Just in short titles again:
pointless story
painful logical stupidity
a complete mess
zero dramaturgy
poor humor
kills the SW feeling
etc. etc.
I honestly believe that this movie is not a parody nor a satire, but a desecration of the entire saga. I seriously begin to think that this step was planned well in advance. It seems like Disney is testing the stupidity of the crowd. Or worse: they would like to destroy the SW universe. I don't see why, all universes they manage (eg. Marvel and SW) has it's own space, they do not interfere with each other. But simply I can't find any other logical explanation of this disaster. So, if you don't want to be disappointed because of how your dreams gonna fall apart, just go home, watch the original trilogy and forget future SW episodes for good.
I gave 2 stars only for two reasons:
no lame CGI characters (eg. Tarkin and Leia)
really exceptional and perfect technical implementation and visuals.
*** FICTION ***
Somebody mentioned that Leia could be the one who sacrifies herself for the rebellion, and that would be a respectful tribute for Carrie Fisher. I absolutely agree. On top of that, if Luke was the other one who dies because feeling his sister's death and of tiredness of the battle, then they could reunite in the force and show up in the final scene for Rey and Finn.... (and end titles....)
This way, 'The last Jedi' could be Leia and Luke, and Rey and Finn at once, leaving soooo much possibility and the force and the magic of SW for the next episodes....
How is this possible that even I can write a better story than the eggheads at Disney?!?
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6/10
Its very clear to me now that Star Wars is no longer a series for all ages. Its for kids now and it hurts.
Is this movie total crap? No.
Is this film garbage? No.
There were scenes here that I very much enjoyed. I enjoyed when Rey and Kylo connected. I enjoyed when the atmosphere turned dark and serious. When we got something very reminiscent of characters from past films, talking about the force, about light and dark, hope and faith, evil and death.
I loved the scene where Kylo showed rey that Luke considered killing him but ultimately felt ashamed but it was too late.
I loved seeing rey and Kylo during the scene with Snoke. It was serious, it was dark, it was really tense.
Scenes like this is what I expect in a Star Wars movie. Serious, adult, respectful and immersive.
But unfortunately what I got instead was CONSTANT bathos.
In other Words, the movie... refused to take itself seriously in between these shots.
Example nr 1: Rey gives Luke the lightsaber. Theres a serious tone, then luke tosses the lightsaber, not to the side, but directly up in the air, backwards and walks off... in extremely comedic fashion. Really? ... really?
Nr 2: the constant wise cracks in between rather serious dialog. Surprisingly, Luke himself constantly is the one to start it. Its immersion breaking. And not funny unless you just laugh at anything.
thats the thing about this humor. Its not good humor. Its just... comedy. The kinda thing you'd expect your average joe to grin at and not think about it.
Is this what Star Wars has turned into? I guess so.
Nr 3: The dwarf people on Lukes Island. Cute, little weird things wearing clothes that yap in a ewok like voice. Did you not learn from return of the Jedi? Harrison Ford himself said it made the film seem too childish. so much for learning from the past.
Nr 4: The mother f#cking puppy dog eyed owl creatures that you see in the trailers with wide eyes and open mouths that make everyone go " Awwwwwwwwww"
This part makes me extremely angry. I can handle the bears, I can handle jokes, although out of place and totally NOT Star Wars like.
But must you f"cking shove these cute creatures down our throat OVER...AND OVER...and OVER...and OVER. There is like 6 SCENES!! Dedicated solely to Chewbacca shoving them away because not even Chewie likes them. They are annoying to sh#t. They look like something you'd put in Guardians of the Galaxy. Hello, Rian Johnson. THIS IS NOT GUARDIANS! THIS IS STAR WARS!
I repeat once Again why this is a large issue. Because when you sit down, you care about the lore, the franchise and expect to get a cool movie with a meaningful story and such... when you see Kylo ren ( he did really well in this movie. Constantly serious, angry, upset, feeling betrayed and I honestly love Adam Drivers performance entirely. I didn't in TFA but here... 10 stars for Adam. No doubt) only to get interrupted..... by this cute childish crap. This filth... this out of place garbage to make the kids in the Theater go " Awwwwww, so cuutie!!!!" let alone having to sit there and listen to it happen like 15 f#cking times... its enough to drive you completely insane to the brink of screaming out loud " SHUT...UP"
many criticise that Snoke dying was rushed and bad. yeah sure, but honestly I dont care.
Luke dying was rushed and weird feeling. I dont like that one bit.
Nevertheless... it pales in comparison to the fact that this comedy crap... wasn't just in between scenes and such. No.
An ENTIRE act. The entire story arrc with Fin and Rose ( the asian girl whos sole purpose in the movie is to cater to Asian people) and provide a weak romance... is PACKED with cheap, pointless, annoying comedy, cute creatures, children that are enslaved and more. All in the hope to get this " Keymaker" Way to rip off Matrix, Rian.... pathetic. Only to realize that HE BETRAYED THEM, they get captured by the 1st order, about to be executed too and then they get saved by Miss Kamikaze Laura Dern whos been yapping negatively to Poe throughout 80 % of her entire performence in the film. Such a lovely character that one. Annoying as hell but whatever.
Ultimately this film comes out better than TFA. It offers something original, however slightly, it gives us more depth to Rey and Kylo which I appreciate.
Luke finally talks...... Thanks, Disney.
No saber duels because reasons.
Its an above average movie. Now this is where it gets important.
This is your typical action, adventure, Marvel Flick. And many will love it for that.
But this is an extremely bad Star Wars movie. And thats because Disney, JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson... dont remotely understand, even if they life depended on it, what makes a good Star Wars movie.
And after seeing this film... I have lost hope that we'll get some that does unless Lucas returns.
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After the dark and serious "Rogue One" movie we get an average sci-fi comedy with light swords and apparently some Luke Skywalker.
It had some of the best fighting scenes. Overall visuals were stunning. But the plot choices (accidental romance, highly questionable key moments...) and gags/"oh cutie creatures" just killed the vibe.
Still there are some of the best scenes I've seen in Star Wars. I personally hope there is a director's cut version without this corporate "movie-selling recipe" stuff.
Is it worth watching? Yes. Will you swear after? Very well may be.
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3/10
Spoiler: All men are stupid and enough cringe to last a lifetime in this movie
I'm not a die hard fan of the movies or an anti feminism neckbeard, yet this movie has made me feel disgusted for how it crushes everything the trilogy created and actually offends me for how sexist this movie is towards men.
I wont nitpick too much because I would need to write a thesis to cover everything, but lets look at how this movie dismantled the trilogy, Luke is no longer the hero that saved the galaxy, he's a clueless horrible old man that tried to kill his student, a boy in his sleep, but it's ok as he changes his mind after he lights up his saber, simple mistake really. The force is not only not subtle, it's now very direct and cartoony, I honestly can't tell you why they decided to remove all of the mystery and magic behind the force, that's something you'd be okay with in an anime, not a movie. I can't really describe the Leia scene, it's too stupid for words to match the cringe it inflicted.
Onto my next point, all men are stupid and women are great, Poe is unbelievably reckless and irresponsible, so I'm glad Leia showed him his place Twice, first when he destroys the big bad ship casually at a "great cost", then when he decides to stage a coup against the smart and intelligent purple hair woman, I'm not even sure if she has a name but whatever, her plan to flee in defenseless ships to the Only Nearby Planet was actually really intelligent, remember when they took out the last Big Bad Ship with like, 10 ships? Yea they just can't do that this time for some reason, better just "flee" to that planet and do nothing else. After noticing how badly she screws up she goes for a light speed kamikaze into the enemy ship....which somehow works? Finn tries to flee but luckily there's a woman to keep him in place, later in the movie she denies him a heroic kamikaze because it wouldn't have worked because he's too stupid and arrogant to know when to stop and decides it's a better idea to risk everyone dying including those two, rather than risking Finn dying to Save Everyone.
Onto the last male character, Kylo Ren, he's actually just an angsty emo kid, that literally just hits walls and rages like a child. Compare these men to the female characters, Rey Sue- I mean..Rey, defeats Luke, the master jedi after a short amount of training and then goes on to save Kylo and try to kill Snoke, which should have happened because Rey is perfect, but I guess we need another movie so let's limit her perfection just a tad. And our next female character, Leia, who does that scene I mentioned earlier which needs no explanation. It's a little strange and I can deal with pandering, but I can't deal with this obvious message that's in the writing.
Well that's all I have to say and now I'm going to report myself to the authorities for spreading hateful propaganda.
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Like so many other reviews I've read I'm wondering how they got it so wrong. It had a glimmer of Star Wars greatness at points but it ultimately wasn't enough for me. Why dispose of Snoke without ever revealing his story, no idea who he was or why he had powers and who trained him etc. This seemed like a wasted opportunity and a bit of a kick in the teeth. One of the other questions we had from TFA was who were Rey's parents, nobody apparently(this could be deliberate misdirection) again another missed opportunity to tell a story! Finn's mission to find the master code breaker was ultimately pointless as was the slow speed chase. I was willing to forgive it all but what they did to Luke's character was too much, I've never left the cinema so disappointed I was pretty speechless. His death felt very weak to me and just left me confused and angry. I was obviously sad when Han died in TFA but that felt like it fitted and served a purpose. Luke's death felt like a slap in the face to the fans. On the plus side the visuals were pretty great and I enjoyed Rey and Kylo's interactions. Hamill is a great actor but the voices made for his character were all wrong, where was the Luke from my Childhood?
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The only decent aspect of this film was the cinematography. The writing was absolute garbage. Save your money. I won't be watching the next installment with the direction they've taken this.
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I don't think I have ever been excited for star wars as much as I was for the last Jedi. The trailer made the movie look like the greatest star wars film ever. Yet I left the theatre expecting more and wishing that Disney would have taken it's characters in different directions.
Pros-
The movie is visually stunning. One of the greatest graphical movies of all time. The hyperspace scene with the first order and resistance ships was epic.
I love loved Carrie Fisher in this movie. She was bad*** from start to finish.
Rose was a good edition to the series.
I liked the internal conflicts between Rey and Kylo. Their dynamic bond and polar opposite attitudes were great for the series.
Bad-
-Luke Skywalkers roll was pathetic. Disney turned him into a wounded duck when they should have used him as a bad*** hero. He dies without even getting touched by a lightsaber. They ruined his character!
Why the F*** did they kill off snoke? He is portrayed as being super powerful and strong in the ways of the force and then he dies the same way as Palpatine. His arrogance blinds him and clouds his mind which allows Kylo to cut him in half. Andy Serkis said Snoke was more powerful than Sideous. Nope don't by it! They had a great mysterious character with snoke and they cast him aside literally mid movie!
-The ending is basically like Empire Strikes Back
Captain Phasma dies without any character development.
-Finn is a worthless character in my opinion. I like how John Boyega portrays Finn but I just don't think this character is necessary.
Overall it's good enough to see and experience but the gaping plot holes, piss poor character decisions, and bad pacing leave me feeling conflicted about the future.
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The film in itself never raised high expectations after Episode VII, which was still a mess of different loose strings of narrative, which everyone expected to be tied up in the forthcoming episodes. Asking for a film with more depth was long gone after the direction that Episode I,II and III took. But those films where entretaining and had a concise narrative where they wanted to head on.
Shure, it is more difficult to create something new in the depths of space if you dont know how ist going to end. Something "Rogue One" gave proof on how effective a merely entretaining with some serious political subtext film can be tied in between already worked out narratives.
That said, this is not underhelming, this is shattering. Not only from the point of narrative, which still is the same mess like in Episode VII, but worst: it seems to be a film in a film, which might be the only depth you will find here, always pushing the "rewind" button to start over. That is pretty unpleasing and seems to evoke the fear that the very dark side of our suspicions: this is not only shallow, it is simply not working at all.
Narrative is only the first in a long line of problems. The bad overacting with some of the worst perfomances of all actors makes everything go down in a landslide. And that has necessarely nothing to do with the actors, more with a clueless director. One of the other problems is the cut. Maybe it was good and product was worse before (someone has to ask himself how), but it is inconsistent, confusing and completely lost in the mess. Other bad aspects are the sound, the animations and the makeup. The only merit this film has, is the use of less Locations and concentration on a few spots. It was a surely a good idea, but what a way to go.
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Abrams serves Johnson lobster tail on a silver platter, and Johnson chucks it out for the spam in the pantry. Rian Johnson managed to derail the second installment of this trilogy and run it to the ground, forcing Star Wars fans to identify which movies they are "truly" a fan of. Here are a few points:
1. Luke Skywalker is understandably 30 years older in the Last Jedi from the Return of the Jedi which permits character development. However, the character exhibited through older Luke lacks any traits to those in the original trilogy.
2. The simple chucking of Luke's Lightsaber completely squanders the momentous build-up attributable to Abram's The Force Awakens. This disappointing scene occurs for the sake of a couple chuckles from the audience. Luke's reaction to the lightsaber was foreshadowing the star war's fan's reaction to the film.
3. There was no galactic exploration characteristic of ALL OTHER Star Wars films. Sure, Canto Bight and Crait got a few minutes of screen time - and Crait was admittedly awesome, while Canto Bight remains a poor presentation of a potentially incredible part of the galaxy. Canto Bight appeared too earth-like (aside from the melting pot of aliens). Tuxedos in a galaxy far, far away? Cops with dumb helmets and capes?
4. The terribly constructed plot consisted of the Resistance running out of gas and being pursued at a glacial speed by the First Order.
5. Snoke's death was agonizingly anticlimactic. Add Phasma to that list as well.
Disney seems to be awfully good at making money, and progressively worse at making movies.
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Well its one of them movies that had way too much hype and 2 years of talk and speculation and when it came out what did we get.......oh boy where do i start???
well for startres it was more star wars then force awakens. but i just cant get over how much they made luke a coward honestly a bitter coward is all i can say
also why kill off snook and so cheesey as well WTF were they thinking ????
I dono weather i liked it or hated it i seen it twice and both times i was like wow really its good when it comes to things that makes a good scifi but bad as well cuz alot of things just dont make sence i can understand how mark hammil was pissed when he saw how luke was going to be in the movie and i was in shock when he dies....YES THEY KILLED OFF LUKE!!!!!!!!! but in short its long and ok it feels more like a star wars movie but still its bad at the same time
in short if u go see it just egnore the bad jokes and porgs they suck
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Dull, if you are going to make a film like that would rather have Ewoks Movie 3 - Wicket's Revenge....
There are too many characters and the key ones never get developed properly. Poor plotting and in dire need of editing.
Mediocre 'strike a pose' scenes that provide nothing more than filler time.
Below bog-standard villains.
If bored and forced to watch it again...play drink when you spot the following disney references:
When you see the Disney Princess
Mary Poppins Scene
Sorcerers Apprentice
Alternatively, just get blind drunk and hope you pass out before the film starts
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This movie was a disappointment. It basically is a bad copy of every great Star Wars movie ever made. An unoriginal collage of great scenes & moments from Episode IV, V and VI. With a hint of Spaceballs humor.
I was hoping for something a little more like last year's excellent "Rogue One" movie.
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I could rant for hours to justify my comments, however life is far to short to waist on this is inconsistent piece of s**t.
Rian go crawl by into the box you were thinking outside of & go make Brink 2.
Or maybe go count your money along side Kathleen Kenedy!
Leave Siar Wars alone.
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Powerful force abilities and kicking ass with a light saber is awesome for on screen imagery and marketing. It's not what truly defines a Jedi to me, or makes their characters and stories so intriguing, magical, and awesome. Their unfailing characteristic is a certain noble way of being about them. They are calm, courageous, and clear-minded. Self-sacrificing. Committed to making the galaxy safe and peaceful. This movie has characters using the Force and light sabers to great visual effect, but (despite the title) there are NO JEDI.
The character Luke Skywalker was clearly developed prior to this film. He shows up to help his friends and family when in need at any cost. He repeatedly makes selfless, morally sound decisions. He sees goodness in people when nobody else does, even in Darth Vader. Be warned: The character Mark Hamill plays in this movie embodies none of this, and for this viewer, the explanation given was unclear and unsatisfying.
As for the villains, we have incompetent and bickering rage-a-holics who consistently fail despite unlimited and awesome resources. They are sure good at screaming, though. Like most characters in this movie, they have no real confidence, clarity, or purpose, let alone the sheer presence of a Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, or Count Dooku for that matter.
I enjoyed and was surprised and entertained by many parts of the movie, for sure. The effects and some of the themes and plot twists were great. I liked the diversity in the actors and the development of new characters, especially Rey and Poe. I liked some of the new things done with the Force. There was some less than ideal storytelling and pacing, but that's forgivable. A lot of it was really funny, although often at the cost of the tone and feel, and some of the humor felt like mockery of the Star Wars universe, even testing the 4th wall, a-la a Marvel movie.
In the end, I walked out of the theater feeling... tired. Hollow and sad at the turn they've taken. Without the heart and soul of powerful, riveting characters and adherence to the basics of the universe George Lucas created, I'm far less emotionally invested in the future of this movie franchise. This movie "lets the past die, kills it if it must" and takes us down a new path I'm not really interested in.
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It's not that it "took risks," it's not that it was "different," it's that the different risks it took resulted in a bad, non-sensical, low quality movie.
It feels to me like the whole movie was focus-grouped by people who didn't love Star Wars, brainstormed in a big committee, and then each scene was owned by a different 10 person committee, who then cut together their parts and combined the "good ideas" they voted on, filmed it, sent it to ILM and put as much lipstick on it as possible.
It's chaotic, all over the place, disconnected from everything that came before it, leaves you thinking, "huh" at the end, and wondering which part was important or meaningful at all.
There was one decent, wise part. I'll leave it to you to figure out which, because you'll probably see it anyway, as you should. It's just sad, because there was so much opportunity to do something fantastic and wonderful, and instead it went the opposite direction. Such is the paradox of power and popularity.
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Fighting to like the film ..so many inconsistent lazy scenes that ruined it for me...
1) Poe during the downturn in the space battle "we will never make it through the night!"
You are in space....what fucking night its space??
2) the resistance heavy bomber ....designed so the bombs empty straight into space, so how does the Asian chick not get sucked out or die instantly?
3) snokes death didn't make any sense...we never learned who,how,why he was so strong and nobody ever mentioned himin the saga before TFA....total lazy ass way out for the director.
4) Why has nobody ever developed light speed bombs??...easy to obliterate anything now!..ships,bases,planets....Sky's the limit!...that bit of fuckery by a director thinking he's being clever... just killed the whole saga, its now possible to blow anything up from any other point in the universe....and its never been thought of before.
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Rian Johnson has disrespected the legacy characters and the name of George Lucas. A disappointment and a bag of lost opportunities that has defiled the Star Wars saga.
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3/10
I understand why people were reported to have cried after seeing this movie
Watching The Last Jedi was like witnessing a close childhood friend being murdered in front of you. I was in shock after watching this movie and it took me a whole day to sort through my emotions. I was just so disappointed and bewildered at how something as awful as this can be made from the materials you have available. How is it possible to go from the master piece that was and still is the original Star Wars A New Hope, the original trilogy, the whole expanded universe, decades of lore and then come up with this atrocity and think that what you have made stands up to 30+ year old movies.
Is this perhaps the end result of being so secretive of the script that nobody can read the whole thing and actually say.. "hey, you know .. maybe doing this like that isn't actually a good idea" or was this the consequence of nobody having the balls to stand up to the director or screen writer.
In a world where Marcia Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma saved the original Star Wars in the 70's there was nobody to save The Last Jedi.
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When I left the theatre after watching THE LAST JEDI, I left with disappointment and a bad taste in my mouth. I was a little confused on weather I liked the film or not, now iv'e had time to think it all through, i've decided I did NOT like this film. I dislike this movie so much that i signed up to IMDB and this is actually my first ever review! Let's start with the good points..... The movie was beautifully shot, it had EPIC space battles, it was an action packed thrill ride, also Mark Hamill and Adam Driver's performances were excellent... but that's about it.. Now here are the reasons I did not like this movie...My BIG problem with this movie was the story and the direction the new director (Rian Johnson) has taken the franchise in. The movie answered no questions that we had from THE FORCE AWAKENS, at least not in the way true star wars fans wanted, the movie just raised more questions and alot of WTF moments. Leia did not die, they had the perfect scene for her to die and then decided to save her! Now how are they going to explain her absence in the next movie? Luke was wasted, he didnt really do anything, no training for Rey exept teaching her to lift some rocks? WOW what about training her how to use a Lightsaber properly? Then Luke Dies at the end of basically old age...they should of let Kylo Ren kill him then at least Luke has a convincing death and Kylo will gain more HEAT from the fans and look more badass....Snoke was wasted, The movie was too long but being the longest ever star wars movie you would expect there to be at least one LIGHTSABER BATTLE! But no they couldn't even give us that.....There are so many CONS that outweigh the PROS by ALOT...I really wanted to like this movie but it's so unsatisfying and my least favourite star wars film but this is not a 1/10 movie because the action scenes are really good and entertaining. The comedy in the movie was not very funny and a little insulting...RIAN JOHNSON you should be ashamed of yourself, you have completely F***ED UP Star wars, Mark Hamill even disagreed with everything Rian Johnson wanted to do with Luke's character, why couldn't Luke have one more lightsaber battle? How can RIAN JOHNSON be a fan of star wars after this awful story? I really liked THE FORCE AWAKENS....Rian Johnson took what JJ Abrams did so well in the first part and then just completely F***ED it up. Anyone who gives this move 9/10 or 10/10 you are not a star wars fan and you need serious help......6/10
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I love the Star Wars franchise. I was so anxious to watch The Last Jedi especially how The Force Awakens ended and how good The Force Awakens was. I bought my tickets a month and a half in advance in anticipation of episode eight.
As the movie started I was dialed in for the first 15 minutes then I noticed this subtle uneasiness in me like a disturbance in the force. It began with the interaction between Poe and Princess Leia. She made a comment and made a decision regarding Poe that I found a little unsettling. "OK." I thought. I didn't like that exchange but it's not a show stopper. The subtlety was that Leia was making it seem like the Rebels were in no need of heroes. They didn't need fighters anymore, they needed thinkers (or something akin to that). I took that little shift in philosophy in stride and kept eagerly watching. A couple of other small iniquities occurred but I soldiered forth watching with an open mind because it's "Star Wars".
Then, there came the interaction between Rey and Luke Skywalker.
Luke is part of movie folklore to me. Like many people have the one celebrity they'd like to meet: the one fictional character for me has always been Luke Skywalker. Luke was the first hero I'd seen wear black. He had piloting skills, light saber skills and could do Jedi mind tricks. He was the coolest.
Fast forward nearly 40 years and now Luke is an old man. So what I'm expecting is an older, WISER Luke. If Luke is on a deserted planet then it must be for a very good reason. And if Rey found him, much like Luke found Yoda, then Luke will have so much to impart upon Rey. That's not quite what went down. They made Luke a sullen pessimistic old man that was ignorant of simple truths. He offered so little; to the movie and to Rey. He was a shell of his former self, he was only good at being the ex machina. The Luke Skywalker in this movie was NOT the Luke Skywalker I knew. The Luke Skywalker I know was killed in this movie.
After seeing my fictional hero relegated to something unrecognizable I actually became bitter while watching the movie. There was almost nothing they could do to save the movie. And they didn't . In fact, it got worse. By the end the movie was more of what I should have saw coming: rebels running from the Republic and figuring out some remote yet heroic way to ward them off. And what added to the annoyingness of this movie is that they didn't know when or how to end it. What should have been the end was followed up by another half an hour mini movie with its own beginning, middle and end.
But unlike The Last Jedi I know how to end this post. Don't waste your time.
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The Force Awakens did one thing very well. It set up a great setting and potential for The Last Jedi. All of the major themes and questions that were interesting from Force Awakens were either dropped or poorly established in the film.
This film may be popular now, but it will not hold cultural significance a decade from now. It does not meet the expectations set by the original trilogy. Disney officially messed it up. I did not enjoy the movie, the mythos was not just underutilized but broken. Negative impact on the Star Wars franchise. Really sad I loved Rogue One but this one was just bad. 3/10
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1/10
awful, insulting peace of trash, ruining most beloved space saga and characters
Never forget Rian Johnson and Disney for what they do with Luke Skywalker, hero that rises more than one generation of young people, more than just a character, legend was ruined by this awfull movie. Will see next episode, but next trilogy directed by this porgman i will totaly ignore
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3/10
Star Wars - try to find something original,I dare you!
Just like with movie VII, I struggle to find anything new in The Last Jedi, that isn't copied (not inspired - COPIED) from the earlier movies IV, V, VI. If you want to see a mix of movie 4-5-6 spiced with marvel-humor, then this might be the movie for you.
But not for me.
This only gets a 3/10 instead of a zero because the acting and special effects save the day.
I have been a fan of star wars since the special editions came out when I was 10. The prequel, although boo'ed at by many fans, was not that bad in my eyes. Then I found out there were many, many books following the movies..and they were great! Then movies 7-8-9 were announced, promising a 'new storyline', ditching the awesome books under the name of 'legends' and making this crappy remix-storyline? Should've stayed with the original storyline
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1/10
Two words, pacing and evocation. This film had neither. What universe are we in?
Been to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi and it is just not good, not good at all.
If that is unpopular, so what?
Two words, pacing and evocation. This film had neither. What universe are we in?
The storytelling is a mess. The pacing so poor within the scene and in the film overall I found that no anticipation was built up within me whatsoever. Finn was good, Oscar Isaacs did his best with an overdone character. Rey and Kylo Ren failed on every level to provide the emotional core that the film was to build upon. Princess Liea was misused but not as badly as a craggy Mark Hamill, he was right to disagree with every facet of his characters arc and should have stuck to his guns.
I cannot fathom how this film made it through the creative process to end up like this. Rian Johnson doesn't 'get' it in any shape or form. What the hell is he taking the helm on another trilogy for? That decision shouldn't have been made yet.
Rogue One captured something, especially in tying together Episodes 3 & 4. Their was a moment in the build up to the release of Attack of the Clones where Alec Guinness lines from A New Hope were played over the preparations for war and it EVOKED something in nostalgia, in referring to a shared history, in bringing up moments that we care about, involving characters we loved. This film does nothing for the overall canon. It's like Disney are deliberately killing the franchise. Everything that has gone before is a pastiche here, done so badly that feelings they need to tap into are left untouched.
Finally an average of 8 on IMDB is not going to last. That is a manipulated score and the critics have again shown themselves to be completely out of touch and worse held in thrall by a paymaster.
We are being tricked. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
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I am mourning the end of Star Wars as we knew and loved them. this movie is a disasterpiece, a devastating disservice to the true fans of the saga and basically anyone who can deduce a narrative, recognize build-up, understand character consistency and/or development, and respect the rules by which that constructed world exists in the films. it seethes with outright racist treatment of poc characters, lenience to physical and emotional abuse and murderous psychopats, no purpose to the story whatsoever, plothole on plothole, 90% of the characters having personality makeovers, previously established plots or questions being abandoned w/o explanation, etc, etc.
verdict: terribly written, awkwardly paced, cumbersome and exhausting, at times idiotic and self-deprecating (a SW movie? really???), completely ignores TFA as canon.TPM made more sense that this deranged marvel-like crapfest. forgetting it exists is self-care. help us, JJ Abrams, you're our only hope.
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Lets just say, if given the choice between watching ANY prequal movie which we know as seriously flawed movies, operating on myself, or watching this again and actually paying for it.
I would choose a prequal.
Its not as bad as picking operating on myself, which Matt Damon did in the brilliant The Martian movie (hello screen writer team on Star Wars Disney you utter morons), I am now lowering myself to the prequals.
Sigh...
Do not watch this movie, unless you want to feel pain in your chest, laugh at stupid jokes, laugh at stupid relationships, laugh at the absolute absurdity this director (DISNEY) is bringing to the table even though Mark Hamill objected we get this schlock.
Pathetic.
One of the worst movies ever made, and years later when the younger crowd grows up (that is the focus here the quick money) they will realize how they were duped.
There is quality here, for sure, but its all smoke n' ..fluff. And walking 'nerf herders' which are all the Disney suits making these absolutely retarded decisions, not only that EVERY SINGLE SJW SLOB whether male or female is blamed for this fiasco.
Avoid this movie, do not pay at the theatre to see it.
I saw many Marvel movies twice, Saving Private Ryan I saw 4 times. Return of the Jedi as a boy, 26 times. This movie, I wouldn't force my grandmother to watch.
It is just...painful. And people with a brain, will realize in time; utter schlock.
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First of all, since I had such a low expectation going into the movie, I was not as disappointed as I'd expected. I thought the previous installment (Episode VII, not the Rogue One) was bad, and that this would be even worse. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but it just didn't feel so. Not that it was awesome or anything, it was just OK to watch. At least I did not roll my eyes so very much like I did two years ago.
Having said that, as The Force Awakens was a collage of all the previous movies, this was mainly a collage of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Nothing original was in there. Just some old gimmicks, familiar cliches, and all-around action. Despite all these, there were some spectacular scenes in there, mostly thanks to the CGI team and in some instances to the cinematographer(s). Otherwise, it was Episode V + Episode VI + CGI = Episode VIII - Originality + Plot Holes. And if you can get past all those magnificent CGI scenes, you could also see the shallow points in the plot. By that, I do not mean the use of excessive humor and many jokes in such an epic sci-fi drama. Contrary to many reviewers here, I was not that much offended by the humor since it was not delivered by the main characters (as was the case, for instance, in Thor: Ragnarok) but rather, by some of the side characters and accessories*.
Last but not least, if Disney thinks that to create dramatic effect, you have to sacrifice a character or two, then I can most confidently say that is certainly not the way to go about it. The original trilogy achieved what it achieved not only through loss and the triumph of fighting back, but through coherent story telling (something which the newest generation of Star Wars episodes lack).
I guess when Disney bought Lucas Arts and all the Star Wars licensing rights, we should have seen that coming. But from now on, it is only going to be a confusing mambo jumbo, sometimes more so, sometimes less.
Well, if they had done the reasonable thing and kept the extended universe instead of completely deleting it, you movie goers would have been much more delighted and pleased from the resulting source material that accumulated over the decades. That much, I am pretty sure of.
P.S. The chase scene was probably inspired by the similar chases in WW1 and WW2, specifically when the biggest assets of the German and Japanese Navy were chased and cornered and subsequently sunk. That part of the movie (in my opinion) borrows from that part of history and neglecting the fact it is space, is more or less plausible (again, in my humble opinion).
*EDIT #1: Well, having re-watched the movie in my mind's eye, I now remember: Actually, there are at least a couple (of misplaced and unnecessary jokes). Meaningless ones, as well. Pfffttt. Shame.
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5/10
At Least It Didn't Revolve Around Yet Another Death Star. Sorta
Hey. Just two episodes ago was the return and now this is the last? Well, that was short lived.
Thank the Maker for the last third of this movie because without it, this would've been the worst of all Star Wars films. Literally 30-40 minutes could've been easily cut to make the pacing, adventure, story and entertainment flow better. And the editing shouldn't have been reserved for just the first two thirds - there are more than several endings that they just couldn't let go.
Despite having a tremendous death count (how many died? 100,000? 150,000?) I will say the movie was enormously hilarious. Not something you'd expect from a Star Wars film, even when there has been comedy bits throughout. Like Spider-Man Homecoming and Iron Man Three, this actually was a helluva lot more comedy than the movie I actually paid a ticket to see.
Not really complaining, because I sure did laugh a lot, but when I go see a Spider-Man, Iron Man or Star Wars movie, I expect to see those movies and not a laugh-out-loud riot.
I digress. Even at 152 incredibly long minutes, very little happens here. The movie is basically broken into two main events: a slow-ass escape scene and a dick teacher being chased after by an angry wannabe student. Sure, there are other subplots that mostly dissolve and really have no reason to be here other than to pad the already enormous runtime.
It's the climax, or last third of this movie that truly saves this episode. Admittedly, the opening battle is cool, though, Episode III's is much better. But, the ending: WOW. Worth the price and almost a recommendation to show up an hour and 45 or so minutes late.
I'm not unhappy I saw it, and it definitely begs rewatching as so many questionable scenes/actions needs more explaining. And again, that finale saved this and added a few extra stars for a recommendation.
***
Final thoughts: Here's the newest order of best to worst Star Wars films:
1. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars: Rogue One
3. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
4. Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi
5. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
6. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
7. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
8. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
9. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Dishonorable Mention: The Holiday Special
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1/10
I hate Snoke more than Jar Jar, Whats wrong with disney???????
I blocked the whole screen to watch this movie with my friends on the first day to avoid any spoliers I was really excited and was looking forward to the return of one of the greatest heros of all time back on screen, a potential new villian in snoke whom i expected would be an ultimate villian and atleast 3-4 light saber fights
What i watched was disney destroying star wars in such a way that they had forgotten about the legacy these movies had made since 1977
I recently watched Logan a beautifully made movie which ended an iconic character WOLVERINE in such a beautiful way but when we see Luke skywalker sacrifice himself only to save a few people like finn( worst thing in the movie), rose(i dont kno why this charecter was even written), leia, poe(one of the few good parts of the movie) and for rey to come and save them from the warring losers kylo ren and hux
I mean you need a real villian an evil villian before anyone watched this I can swear that we knew snoke would have been an ultimate villian but I think this charecter will be hated more than jar jar
Luke skywalker is reduced to milking and catching fish while hes trying to die on that island I mean how can disney reduce an iconic hero into a wastrel getting beaten by rey wtf is up I wanted to walk out of the screen by the time the third act began I regret not doing so watching Luke die felt worse than watching henry cavill in justice league
The 2:30min duration makes for worse i mean some scenes were not at all needed i feel finn should have died there was no use of finn,rose and benecio del toro at all
I can understand the ending with the kid I get what it means but the movie just insults or rubbishes the previous 7 parts which is really offensive to some fans
Fans were seen crying after shows because the whole franchise is ruined thanks to what disney has produced
MR.LUCAS PLEASE BUY YOUR CREATION BACK AND FIX THIS SHIT (I DONT WANT TO WATCH EPISODE 9 REY,FINN AND CO SUCK)
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6/10
Disappointing if you're a hardcore fan, not if you're a general fan.
I genuinely enjoyed The Force Awakens. I know it had some problems, but it gets a pass due to nostalgia, and J.J. Abrams capitalizing on making it a "throwback" film(even though it was a bit of a rehash). But those nostalgia glasses are off now.
You know, I'm not the biggest Star Wars junkie, that would be my brother, he's a walking encyclopedia when it comes to Star Wars, but I have read the expanded universe comics/stories and played the games, Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy, etc. and they captivated me with their rich story-telling, complex characters, and I do miss it.
As a minor Star Wars fan who has some knowledge of the cancelled EU, I'm not sure if I'm completely satisfied with what Kathleen Kennedy and Disney are doing to this franchise. If anything it shows what Kennedy a successful business woman and the corporate heads at Disney are capable of doing to their directors (with the exception of J. J. Abrams), a process that chewed up other directors like Phil Lord and Chris Miller in the upcoming Han Solo film, Colin Trevorrow for Star Wars 9, and to an extent Gareth Edwards of Rogue One.
I got to start with Luke Skywalker. After seeing this movie twice to let it all sink in, I finally understood what Mark Hamill meant when he said in an interview that he fundamentally disagreed with what everything Rian Johnson was doing. I have to agree with him. This is not the Luke Skywalker I grew up with. Having said that, looking at it from another perspective it's a very unique take on his character, but I just cannot get on board with a Luke Skywalker who gave up so easily, hid like a coward, and had the thought of striking down his own nephew in fear of what he might become. Luke of all people, saved a mass murdering, genocidal Sith lord from the dark side, convert him back to the light against all odds, who just happened to be his father, and all of a sudden because he felt the darkness within his nephew he thought about killing him to prevent it from happening? Again with that being said, Hamill does a great job. My attention was toward him the entire film and it was all I really cared about.
Also a fan-boy nitpick here, but the absence of Luke's green lightsaber bothered me a lot. We only see it in flashbacks when he considers killing Kylo Ren, but in the "final showdown" near the end with him and Kylo, I disliked that fact that it was his father's blue lightsaber. Not only because the saber was shown to be damaged by the end of it, but it should have been a dead giveaway to Kylo Ren being that he and Rey fought for it. That green lightsaber to me signifies Luke's growth as a character in the original trilogy. Also that showdown with him and Kylo Ren, the fact that it was just a projection of himself instead of a real duel was such a wasted opportunity. The lack of decent lightsaber fights are quite annoying as well. Don't get me started on his "death" where he just fades away at the end. Luke's look, his appearance, and his change in personality by the end of it, during his showdown with Kylo is what we could have had in Star Wars 9. I guess their plan was to kill each and every single original cast member a film at a time? I know they can't do this forever I get all that, but there could have been better ways for their exit.
The other cast members are fine. Carrie Fisher saves her best for last, rest in peace and may the force be with her, I only wish she shared more screen time with her brother. I did enjoy Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship in the film. Driver and Ridley bring their A-game and their performances are spot on. I'm intrigued with what they do next with Rey and Kylo. Driver in particular was able to make his character despicable, but yet at the same time I found to be rooting for him every now and then. Ridley carries this franchise now and she's more than capable of doing so.
I found this time Finn's arc of the film to be weak. Nor did I really enjoy his relationship with Kelly Marie Tran's Rose. I felt that they were really unnecessary in the overall story. Oscar Isaac does a little more here in this film, but he barely files at all. He spends his time being a hot head more than he does on his X-Wing. At times I also felt that the resistance was a bit incompetent. Wasn't particularly fond of Benicio del Toro's DJ as well, and Captain Phasma is officially the Boba Fett of this new trilogy, another wasted potential. For those who were anticipating Snoke, well prepared to be shocked, but also kinda letdown.
The special effects are great, cinematography and production design was a treat to look at. I don't really need to elaborate on that. Johnson also captures the aesthetic look and feel of the original Star Wars trilogy. I get what Johnson was trying to do, but for me I'm just not on board, not entirely.
There are plenty of decent moments throughout, and it's competently made, but at the same time there were a lot of great opportunities to take inspiration from the cancelled EU, but they just don't seize it, I don't understand why.
I think if you're someone who likes the Star Wars films, and knows only about the films you'll probably enjoy this film, but if you're that hardcore fan who knows the ins and outs of this universe even before this new trilogy started I think you'll be disappointed with what they're doing.
6/10
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3/10
This will definitely not go how you thought it would or should
I have never been so disappointed in a movie. The trailer looked truly epic and if your like me the wrong side of 40 then you probably grew up on star wars. What the hell is this film?????. The opening scene alone set the whole tone for me. Abe edmondson who I have nothing against in a scene that could have been lifted from the young ones does Star Wars! What's with the cheesy childish gags continually showing their ugly face? When did Luke become a bad stand up comedian? This is not Star Wars. I would have scored the film 0 but I took my 7 year old nephew with me and he loved it. Laughed the whole way through! Says it all, short of Mickey Mouse making a cameo as snokes replacement it couldn't be more disneyfied if they,d tried. Devastated truly devastated!
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May the force be with us if this is the future of Star Wars. The movie had no soul and a very bad story line. In my opinion the magic and legacy of Stars Wars and the legend of Luke Skywalker was destroyed. Which makes me very sad.
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First of all I want to mention that this movie is a final proof IMDB ratings are a lie. Just scroll through reviews and tell me how can something rated by every reviewer between 1 and 5 have an average rating of 8.0? Impossible.
The movie is an absolute garbage. I saw a 12yo kid walking out of the cinema... so shitty. The most offending problems are:
stupid humor (it feels like a parody jokes)
plotholes size of the imperial destroyer
bullshit rule changes of the universe
The only good thing here is the Kylo Ren arc. Rest was just dumb and uniteresting.
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I have never written any review in my life, but I feel compelled to do so for this movie.
I am a big fan of Star Wars saga. I watches every movie more then dozen times (except Episode I :) ), played games, read additional books...
I have just finished with cinema and I feel sick for what I have seen. Before the move I have read some good and bad spoiler free reviews, so I kept my mind open and without any expectation.
In short I was utterly disappointed. Plot is nonsense, characters lack dimensions, choices every character makes is absurd, etc
Disney, J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson made big injustice to Star Wars saga. I cannot believe hove much few people can in two years destroy decades of hard work. I thought that Episode VIII was bad, but this is completely new level of how much one can destroy one good saga.
This is not Star Wars, they just use the name to make money.
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Star Wars used to be an epic saga built up from an almost Jungian archetypical level. After all, Lucas was heavily influenced by ancient mythology, by Joseph Campbell's classic on mythological archetypes and other spiritual influences. A lot can be said about the second trilogy, but even those still retained some of that magic, albeit hidden behind all the CGI and the end-of-the-republic politics.
Not anymore with the new films, or almost not anymore. Since Lucas sold SW to -I thought- Disney, it's become a franchise. Other people -no doubt not as heavily immersed in ancient mythology as was Lucas- now write and direct the saga.
This becomes very apparent with the latest films, Rogue One, The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi.
It's not that it's bad, it's just not how Star Wars used to be. There is almost no spiritual and archetypical element anymore, or what is left has been reduced to -admittedly often great- grandstanding about the 'power' of the Force and of lightsabers. But beneath that, it's now become a series endlessly rehearsing staple SW ingredients but then without the deeper spirituality as its genuine base.
Without this, SW is little more than action packed (American) Science Fiction: it's a profane money-maker using all the old elements without truly feeling through the, so of course the old sacred vibe is gone.
A great pity.
No complaints about Adam Driver's performance though. What a great pleasure to see him embodying Darth Vader's grandson.
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I went into this movie with high hopes and no real expectations aside from a fun and interesting story. Unfortunately, I was let down tremendously.
Reinventing Star Wars for a new generation is fine. Even revolutionizing Star Wars is fine. It just needs to be done well. This Star Wars was indeed different but not in a good way. In an attempt to look original it basically became too much like most of the other cutter-cookie blockbusters of today.
The humor itself was forced and often times mocked the Star Wars franchise in a Spaceballs sort of way.
Character development was lacking and when it did occur it simply didn't connect well with the prior episodes. With such a rich story-line, established by the other 8 movies, you'd think more effort would have been made to connect with them.
The battle scenes and duels were, for the most part, quite bland and brief with no real emotional build-up or intensity.
Most of the emotional depth, which fuels the heart of every Star Wars film, was absent. Consequently, at around 3/4 of the way through the movie I basically stopped caring for these characters. Sadly, by the end of the movie I simply had no interest in seeing them in the next one.
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1/10
I may watch the next instalment of Star Wars if Disney pays me to, but probably not even then
I believe the one star rating is too generous on my side. I wish there were negative points that I would gladly give to this so called movie.
Disney decided to make a lot of money by copying the original trilogy into worse versions that have no thrills, no chills, no plot, no characters, no nothing. Well music and effects were decent. Honestly I will not see another star wars movie unless another studio with serious people decide to remake the saga into the masterpiece it deserves to be.
I lament the actors who had their name and career connected to this abomination
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4/10
There's an incredible film within this overlong, yet occasionally thrilling, space opera
I watched The Last Jedi a second time today and it does improve as you it again because there is so much going on, you lose elements of it.
My original complaint stays: there are far too many characters, too many different focuses. Rian Johnson stays true to the ensemble nature of the series when it became less about Luke and more about Luke, Han and Leia but The Last Jedi features 7 main leads and the constant shifting prevents the film from being as linear as The Force Awakens.
When the film is focused on Rey (the magnetic Daisy Ridley, a worthy new lead to the trilogy) and her journey, it is absolutely riveting. Her relationship with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver gives a chilling performance of utter electricity as the self-.loathing villain) is a mix of tension, bonding, sexual tension and fear. And Rey's bonding session with Luke (Mark Hamill, who gives the best performance he's ever given as Luke Skywalker) is truly engaging to watch. Sadly her story is stuck to two less interesting subplots: Finn and Rose's slapstick adventures are unfunny, dull and unexciting. John Boyega's Finn is barely given anything to do with his character development while Kelly Marie Tran's Rose feels contrived, a way to give Finn a female lead to contend with while Rey is gone. Whereas Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron, such a adventurous character in the previous film, and here he's given more to do and yet lacks the charisma he had. The more I saw of Poe, the less I found him interesting. Carrie Fisher is thankfully given a bigger part as Princess Leia and in every scene, you can't help but feel emotional by her warm and tender presence though Leia still possesses the fiery spirit she had in the original trilogy.
With this said, Rian Johnson does deliver some breathtaking sequences: the light-saber duet in Snoke's red chamber might be the highlight of The Last Jedi. Imagine if Dario Argento had been asked to direct a sci-fi Samurai film and you can already picture how the scene is. The battle of Crait is also a wonder to watch from the Resistance defense to the chase sequence in the mines. As well as the silent Kamizake attack which was a surprisingly daring moment.
Don't expect The Last Jedi to be the roller-coaster ride The Force Awakens was. Rian Johnson's take is jam-packed with action scenes but he also went for character development. When Luke is teaching Rey or Rey questions who her parents are, these are moments which enriches the saga and allows us to care for these heroes. To see Luke and Rey together is like seeing the past and the future find a connection within their stories.
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This film is just so wrong on so many levels. Luke was GROSSLY misrepresented. The plot is full of holes. What did I watch? I am genuinely angry. As a long time Star Wars fan, I cannot get over how much of a steaming pile of horse shit this film was. It had no soul and no substance. The story feels as if the script was broken into fragments, re-drafted in isolation, then pieced together in a rush. There is no cohesiveness to the story. It is ALL OVER the place. Awful, dire and absolute garbage. I am fuming.
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The obnly thing I can say this is the worst star wars movie I have ever watched. This movie was only made for money, they dont even care about fans anymore. They dont understand that the fans wait so long for the star wars movies and that what they come up with, really disappointing.
There are many things that ruined this movie :
1- Luke did not get the ending he deserved
2- They destroyed snokes character
3- They did not tell us anything about snoke or reys past
4- Rey did not get any answers
5- Kylo ren is unattractive as a villain
6- The light saber duels are below average, nothing special
7- They dragged the movie
The only good things about this movie is the background score, it was good, but could have been better if they had use battle of heroes or dual of fates.
And luke and rey acted really well.
But the direction is below average.
And one more thing, I am 100 percent sure disney paid the reviewers so they could give this movie good reviews to attract more people. Money can do everything nowadays.
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Rey is no one
Her parents are no one
Lukes a drunk waiting to die on a rock
Snoke is stronger than fuck in the force and gets punked in 2 seconds(hope you didnt want to know more about him)
A giant star destroyer cant blow up a bus at close range so it follows it for 2 hours.
SOOOOOO MUCHHHHH CHEEESSEEEEE
A total of maybe 5 minutes of lightsaber battles (that are not really that great)
Fin is completely wasted in the worst story line ever that didn't need to happen at all.
There is force sexting
Leah can fly threw space ... yeah i said that
Ben is just a complete bitch like i really lost all interest in him at this point
I can probably think of more things that are pissing me off but this is just off the top of my head
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If you looked past some of the pacing issues and occasional lack of focus, there's a ton of interesting themes this focuses on. I love the movie. Can I give it anything over a 7? No. But can I recommend it? If you're not willing to watch a DIFFERENT Star Wars movie (that's still a Star Wars movie) then you are guaranteed to not like this. But if you're going into it without expectations from all the marketing, and you're willing to think about what you're watching beyond the superficial blemishes, then you very well may find a movie you really enjoy.
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1/10
Worst Star Wars Movie of all time. Yes, it's worse than The Phantom Menace.
I have never left a theater feeling this upset. Rian Johnson along with his puppeteers at Disney have successfully sold out the most beloved film franchise of all time for some cheap laughs and shallow, meaningless characters. From yet another painfully blatant mimicry of the cantina sequence from the original trilogy, to ridiculous and unsatisfying answers to mysterious plot points generated from The Force Awakens, this movie is nothing short of infuriating. Not only does The Last Jedi give us a collection of annoying and unnecessary characters, but it also manages to effectively ruin characters from the original trilogy we already know and love. Perhaps the most frustrating part of all is the movie's inability to have even a moment of seriousness without being broken up by a "witty" one-liner that ruins the entire scene. This might as well have been an avengers movie. From start to finish, this movie is overly ambitious, nonsensical, and irritating. I have no idea how we could have gone from the masterpiece that was Rogue One to this steaming hunk of cinematic garbage. I'm scared for what is to come after this sad attempt.
Congratulations Disney, you ruined Star Wars.
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The purple haired woman be the last in the rebellion ship staring into the space is a meaningless way of expressing "heroic."
Rebellion 20 V.S 1st order 200,000? Yeah of course we have hope.
Snoke, Now I believe he is a real snooker player in a gaudy, stupid wardrobe and quit at the middle of the movie because he felt the plot is going nowhere.
What if actors ask for higher price to act in a film? Kill them or almost kill them in the movie.
Even a Gundam pilot knows that they needs to wear space suits during combat so they do not get INSTANTLY KILLED when exposed to vacuum. Oh, of course our Princess was not INSTANTLY KILLED cuz she was a Skywalker so she survived.
One star for effects, one for lightsabre fights. The rest 80% is garbage.
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3/10
Such a disappointment...trailer was way better than the movie
I won't even discuss on the fact tht is is not a sw movie, that it do break all the previous films and lore.
I will just speak to anyone who will watch this film as a film and not as star wars movie. This film is very beautiful. Thta's it. The story suck there are so many plot holes that I stopped counting, every single scene brings some inconsistancies that could potentially kill the film.
The acting is good I guess, but the characters have 0 charisma, most of the mare useless anyway.
The pace is terrible, there is no link between scenes, everything is either too long or too short : the beginning take 1.5 hours is so boring and the end is a 1 hour long endless fight with no passion. Yes your read it well there is no "middle" between beginning and end in this film.
And the jokes....my god, the jokes... what is this ? Disney really ? This is pathetic.
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1/10
GARBAGE MOVIE WORST STAR WARS MOVIE EVER BRING LUKE BACK
Most disappointing movie ever, no story line first of all, no character back stories it didnt even add up to TFA. Rey was garbage only parts were good with her and Kylo. The biggest let down was her on the island with Luke no training what so ever use made Luke look like garbage and luke wouldnt even act or talk the way he did in the movie use are meant to be professional at least get the characters right. You cant just put in crazy fights and think the movies good but has no story line the whole thing was about rebels and them getting petrol, the rebel story line is over used im sick and tired of seeing rebels i want to see JEDIS AND SITH. THERE WAS NO LIGHT SABER BATTLE JUST LUKE DODGING THE SABER ARE YOU SERIOUS ? You didnt even explain what Luke was doing on that island or what he was doing all those year, you didnt explain why Kylo really turned to the dark side i wanted to see those flash backs so badly and you gave us nothing some little tiny scene of him sleeping rubbish! Where are the knights of ren that you hyped up so much ? NO WHERE. Snoke dies and we didnt even get a back story ? he was so hyped up to be powerful and apparently darker than palpatine ?! Where were the scenes with Luke we saw nothing of him in the movie only some rubbish scenes of him Mark Hamil is an excellent actor this is not his fault its Disneys and Ryan Johnson and Kathleen Kenedy they have no idea what star wars is really about. You kill off the one character that everyone was waiting to see for sooooo sooo long you ruined star wars for all of us fans we are heart broken and upset star wars is finished and done you guys have destroyed classics and the magic of it. Many scenes felt like it was from Harry potter like Rey standing in front of that stupid mirror and clicking her fingers what kind of rubbish is that ? And when she is sitting on the rock and feeling the force the grass growing and all that was so stupid and felt like an earth movie. The only character that was excellent was Kylo Ren played by Adam Driver he was amazing and the only scenes that were good were with him and rey i wanted to see more of them and them actually ending up together in a relationship. Where was Anakin and obi wan as the force ghosts ? how can you just put yoda and not them? Anakin is his father hayden christensen should have been a force ghost, Disney you have made a mess im so dissapointed the only person who is good at this is George Lucas the father of Star wars you will never make movies like him. It was not a dark movie at all too much humour in it. BRING LUKE BACK AND PUT ANAKIN SKYWALKER (HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN) OBI WAN KENOBI (ALEC GUINNESS) as force ghosts and maybe you will gain some more money because thats all use are after.
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Yes, this review contains spoilers, because this movie must be spoiled. No, you should not waste two hours of your life on this slap in the face of a movie. Save your hard earned money and buy/rent the original trilogy on Blu Ray instead.
My expectations admittedly going into this film were not high, thanks to the awful garbage we got in 2015 that was The Force Awakens... or as I like to call it, "Star Wars: A Newer Hope" for being a total ripoff of the classic A New Hope. If you hated that film as I did, or if you're just an actual fan of what classic Star Wars accomplished, then you will be reviled by this movie. This movie makes TFA actually look good and even to a degree makes the prequels look good, that is how terrible this film is. Jar Jar is no longer the most embarrassing thing about the Star Wars universe, it is this movie, which is something I never thought I could ever utter in my life.
If you like flat and tone deaf, terrible off-putting humor worse than what we saw in TFA that mentally takes you out of the drama of a scene every time, or watching studio hacks butcher your childhood hero's character by having him be a spiteful jaded, murderous, get-off-my-lawn anti-Luke who drinks green gross alien cow milk almost straight from the teet after casually chucking Anakin's legendary blue lightsaber over his shoulder off a cliff without a second thought, love watching princess Leia survive being sucked into the vacuum of space after an explosion by using the force to superman her way through empty space without life support back to an exploded starship, enjoy seeing backstoryless but important characters introduced in the last film be casually killed off making their existence mostly useless and pointless, and want to find out that despite Jar Jar Abrams building up Rey as a Mary Sue SuperSaiyan jedi in TFA Rey's big buildup of her parents just is a giant Rickroll circlejerk, and like seeing Yoda's force ghost gleefully and inexplicably light trees on fire by summoning lightning from the sky, then you will love this movie.
Empire Strikes Back scenes and elements are ripped off and the colossal iconic AT-AT's from Empire are minimized for big Gorilla (wtf?) walkers for some reason, Return of the Jedi's throne room scene is heavily ripped off, the story has about 10 different plot points that are poorly developed and a romance more poorly developed than Episode II, a main plot line about an ongoing chase of the Resistance by the First Order that has no suspense and will bore the hell out of you, and an obvious betrayal plotline a four year old could have seen coming. Oh and somehow now people can suddenly force-project their bodies and even other people's bodies to other parts of the galaxy, because lazy script requires it. We never get an explanation of how Maz got Luke's/Anakin's blue lightsaber, we never see the Knights of Ren again or who the hell they are or how that all came to be, there are no epic Luke Skywalker lightsaber fight scenes with his green lightsaber, and what we do get in the story is poor development and lazy screenwriting. Rian Johnson cannot be a fan of the original films to have approved even half the garbage slap in the face nonsense of this movie we are subjected to in good faith. Wow. Disney never had any real direction or interest in doing this saga any justice. These movies are a wanton and shameless cash grab by Disney who knows dumb, fanbot sheeples with no critical thinking will keep giving Disney billions of dollars to produce more of this fraud.
The Last Jedi? More like The Last Disney Star Wars Movie I Will Ever Subject Myself To Again.
I will absolutely not be seeing Episode 9 or any Disney Star Wars film ever again. This is seriously probably the worst film I have ever seen in my life. For the love of jove do not give those greedy scum at Disney more money so they can produce more of this offputting trash.
If you loved the prequels and Episode 7 you will adore this movie. If you are a true fan who actually gives a damn about the masterpieces that are the original trilogy then you will absolutely abhor this movie.
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If you are expecting revolutionary fresh take on Star Wars, you will be disappointed. If you are expecting more of that "good old Star Wars", you will be disappointed. If you expected this to carry the good set up that episode 7 delivered, you will be disappointed. If you were expecting Star Wars version of Transformers movie, you will get your moneys worth.
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"This is not going to go the way you think" - Luke Skywalker
"Let the past die" - Kylo Ren
Oh I get it, The Last Jedi certainly shocked us but it's not a good thing in this case.
Porgs are actually cool but The Last Jedi is not particularly good. The best movie since Empire Strikes Back some critics are claiming. So better than A New Hope? Not even close. It might be better than say Attack of the Clones because it doesn't look like a bad video game, the dialogue, acting and special effects are much better as they should be but I don't get the reviews citing this as an intelligent Star Wars movie because it manages to avoid any answers to any meaningful questions and when it does -- the answers are just so disappointing. I feel like J.J Abrams set it all up and Rian Johnson came in and completely messed it up.
If his mandate was to turn the series upside down in response to the criticism of The Force Awakens being too much like the original Star Wars Rian Johnson has succeeded but at what cost?
The Last Jedi is a really disappointing movie for somebody looking any connection or backstory anything Star Wars lore. It has some good action moments but after The Force Awakens left viewers such a high-note with the return of Luke Skywalker - I left feeling so empty and wondering if they just should have left it all alone.
The legend of the rebellion and childhood hero for so many Luke Skywalker is a broken man who unfortunately has not learned too much in his time in exile despite tracking down the original Jedi temple, texts and scrolls he apparently hasn't read them or learned too much after all these years which I find completely puzzling and frustrating. He has no new revelations, we learn nothing new about the force. Rey barely learns anything from Master Skywalker who doesn't seem to be all that wise at all. I wanted something new, some new revelations about the nature of the force, the Jedi and how it began. Unfortunately we learn nothing here from the ultimate Jedi and its so frustrating -- it pisses me off and it's tough to digest.
Don't get me wrong, we're treated to a great performance by Mark Hamill but Luke Skywalker is wasted. He should be great and wise and in the Last Jedi he just isn't. I mean at all. I'm all for the broken, lone samurai type loner who is shamed but this is the hero of the original trilogy which is by far the moat revered and while Luke gets his redemptive moment, it merely serves to 'pass the torch' to the younger cast which is so contrived and obvious.
I must admit like many I had really high hopes for this film, the trailers got me. For nostalgic reasons and as much as I really liked the characters in The Force Awakens it's the original characters who we all fell in love with and seeing them treated like this is, is just sad in the end. A means to simply pass the torch to younger actors is really disappointing. The Force Awakens did it right with Han Solo, no qualms, because it elevated Kylo Ren's villain status enormously while this seemed like it was just a generational hand-off for the sake of it.
This is all made worse by the real-life and very tragic passing of Carrie Fisher who is back in her final performance, and a good one at that. Just knowing she won't be there for the next episode stings even more so now after this one.
But the problem with this story is Rey and Luke are at it's center and the dynamic needed to be fleshed out way more to make her a worthy successor to Luke Skywalker and the question of her parentage, one of the biggest hooks in Force Awakens is one of the most disappointing parts of this whole entire story. It is just such an unsatisfying answer and a massive wasted opportunity. Basically Rey gets a light sabre and she is the most powerful Jedi, no backstory, no anything she just is. She did not earn anything, she has not learned anything. She just is...
More wasted opportunities lie with some of the characters. Supreme Leader Snoke's character 'moment' was a shocking but ultimately empty. We got no backstory and nothing clever to bind the saga together at all. He is literally just a pop-up 'bad guy' that just appears out of nowhere and corrupts young Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren.
Captain Phasma is another throwaway character with nothing to do at all as is General Hux, who just provides comic relief which is overdone here anyway.
The other twists and turns lie in the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey which does manage to keep you guessing for a time as to where their allegiences will end up. Again both are really good in their roles but its not enough to save a lackluster story which is overlong.
Oscar Isaac's ace pilot Poe Dameron is back and joined by Laura Dern playing newcomer Admiral Holdo. Their story and their interaction is one of the best subplots or side stories that completely pays off . I loved Poe Dameron's energy and enthusiasm in The Last Jedi just like I loved Finn's in The Force Awakens.
Unfortunately Finn's journey is far less compelling now. He is joined by actress Kelly Marie Tran who plays Rose Tico and a friendship/ possible romance ensues but it's all very cliche and nothing to write home about nor is the much-hyped Canto Bight scenes which resemble something more out of a Harry Potter movie than Star Wars, though Benecio Del Toro's good in his limited role.
There is a commentary on war and politics that seems like an afterthought here just like a lot of the characters. Ultimately The Last Jedi is a completely lost opportunity to tie in the Skywalker story (aka the Star Wars story we all fell in love with) together in a satisfying package. It's all very disjointed and it's the first time I have left Star Wars movie this flat.
Disney have tried to throw one too many curve balls this time around for curve ball sake and they're way off. Shocking twists are one thing but I remember leaving The Force Awakens with so much optimism and hope for the future. I wish this were different but I feel as though there is no steam left in this story and nowhere else to go that is really enjoyable.
This is definitely a new feeling after watching a Star Wars film.
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Just bad.
No storytelling. Major continuing mistakes. Boring plot.
Too many unanswered questions.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Why the hell did Rey stay for 2 nights or so at Lukes temple thing with his housemaids and the other characters on the ships only fly in one direction for the whole time.
How can it be an awesome plot that two people need to find a master codebreaker to get into a room on the enemy ship to destroy some tracking device. It is just boring. The prequels are amazing movies compared to that movie.
Getting specific, how can Luke touch Leia as a Ghost? Like this is just so stupid from every person who was part of that production.
Why do they add stupid jokes which destroys every kind of tention. Not that there is any, but with a few tweaks the movie could be good. Just cut out some mirrorcrap - scenes and add some good character development.
And why do you make people anxiuos about Rey's parents and then just tell the audience they are not relevant. Like WTF
I was a diehard fan. But of Star Wars, not this shit
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Did imdb give a 8 stars by default to this movie or what happened here?
I must assume there was never an idea what to do with the saga. Disney just took the easy path to get some cash in.
Bring the old heroes back, bring the old epic scenarios back, add loads of CGI, explosions and laser beams...and just see it rolling down the cliff.
And only the audience can stop this. Don't purchase a ticket and do not buy the merchandise for you nor for your kids.
About the movie itself, there's nothing much to say. It's like watching a CSI episode, you know how it's gonna end, the question is if the story will keep you hooked.
I understand the intention to change, but the comedy moments are just out of place. This is not a marvel movie
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. i did not watch any trailer ,to give this movie a chance.. that it could be watched without any hyped expectations.. didn't even try to build up some theories about snoke or rey's parents. I just wanted solid information about those characters that work in the complete Star Wars Universe. I am also not an hardcore fan who disrespects every new idea that Disney brings up with their storys.. but as i sat in that cinema i was just confronted with : leia flying in space, ugly horses running around like in a "frozen" - movie and a casinoplanet scene which was just embarrassing to watch, several jokes to distract the audience of the bad story, senseless characters and dialogs who didn't even had the chance to develop themselves.. the list goes on and on like: Character Luke was established for over 40 Years with such enthusiasm and now he gets washed out from the saga in such a disrespectful way? but the most important.. when i sat there in the cinema.. i looked down from the screen in my hands and i knew that Star Wars somehow died in that night for me. I'm not angry or sad because the old Saga (Prequels included + Rogue One cause this one was Star Wars from the heart) will be always in my mind as the real Star Wars. I thought that Disney would change after The Force Awakens.. but i do not think ... man what do they want to show us in Episode 9 with the same Director ? something completely different ? The two stars are just for the scenes with kylo ren and rey... they were intense despite the jokes..
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Where to start??? Absolutely horrendous writing, terrible acting, disgusting social justice warrior agenda narrative - 100% nauseating! Terribly cringy jokes a minute that make NO SENSE!
WHY DO THE CORPORATE ELITE INSIST ON SHOVING THEIR POINTLESS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS DOWN THE MASSES THROATS.. WE'RE SICK OF IT!!! You are NOT going to win.
It's time for us peasants to become the real Rebellion - and destroy the elite Empire once and for all!!! This JUNK GARBAGE BRAINWASHING MUST BE REJECTED - AT ALL COSTS! I am physically I'll after having, unfortunately, watching this..
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Disney could care less about good story telling. It's only a matter of time before they figure out a way to merge the star wars universe with the marvel universe. Is there some type of rule now that every movie has to have humor? There were silly points to the original trilogy, but it feels like they are blatantly hiring comedy writers to think up jokes for the characters
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There should be a zero star option because that is what this movie deserves. There is nothing decent about it. The many flaws of the movie have been brought out in the many reviews so far, so I will try to mention some that aren't so prominently discussed.
But just a preface. I am not ridiculing this movie because it destroyed the Star Wars of my youth. I am ridiculing this movie because it is awful, pure and simple. Even if this movie did not have the Star Wars name to it, it would be bad.
I can deal with major characters dying off, with Force projections and surviving in space (both ideas from the EU). But the execution in this movie was terrible. So were all the unsurvivable scenes in which characters selectively survived. Too many big explosions and impossibilities. Of course, there are these type of moments in most movies and you have to just let it slide, but this movie made it a continuous conveyor belt of absurdity. TLJ is just a regular "blockbuster" %$%# of a movie. The saga has died, the story is over.
No one even tried. disney has shown its true colors after giving us hope with its first two releases that it wouldn't destroy Star Wars. Now its done it in one fell sweep. To put it in Star Wars terms, we've just experienced Episode III, there is a dark pall over the universe. Help us George Lucas, you're our only hope.
There are just three planets that we see in this movie, I believe. Two are entirely earth-like and don't fit into the Star Wars universe. The third is some weird salt planet which is not an entirely bad idea, but needing to have that cringe-worthy explanation of what it was by having a resistance soldier taste is was absurd.
Similarly, the dialogue. With the disney movies, american language has been creeping in. In TLJ, its completely out of control. We aren't in the Star Wars universe anymore.
Force mopping child? Playing with Luke Skywalker dolls? Get lost disney! Last movie, Rey and Finn weren't even sure if Luke Skywalker was real. How do children who are slaves and cut off from reality know the whole story? Its only a few days after the events of the first movie. And now this kid can control the Force without any knowledge of it or training? Darth Vader was supposed to be the baddest guy. In the end Palpatine was the real man with the plan. Anakin, still though, was supposed to be the Chosen One. Turned out the Chosen One was really his son Luke. We don't need bigger and badder baddies each movie. We don't need Rey's that can do anything with no training or even knowledge that she has the Force. Or kids that can already control it. We just need the goddamn story.
Star Wars was never a science fiction film. It was a sage set in space. No character ever cared about the technology or mentioned it. It was just a given, normal life. disney has turned it into a run of the mill zombie fest. A "bigger car crash" movie.
There are hundreds of other flaws with the movie. Many of them are listed in these reviews and other audience reviews on other sites.
The scene where Snoke died had potential to be good, but in the end was a let down because the tension between Rey and Ren just faded away unsatisfyingly.
The only bit I liked was when Chewie dropped Rey off at Snoke's ship then jumped away. So there was about 5 seconds of good in this movie.
Another fault of this movie was that Rey and Chewie had zero chemistry. She spent was little time he was in the movie just ordered him around like a butler.
I could go on, but I don't have all night.
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4/10
mid movie I wanted to stand up and yell "what is this *hit" !
There were times I wanted to cry, curse and scream... I couldn't believe how everything wrong, unfunny, so badly done.
No one in the theater enjoyed this movie... NO ONE! you could see it on their faces, you could hear it when the scenes were quiet, discomfort of fans that waited for long and got hyped by the well oiled and well funded Disney faux machine.
when the movie was over people stood up in quiet and walked quietly out like in a funeral!.
Nothing was right, nothing... I boycott Disney from this day forward, everything Disney related, I wish somehow more people could join me but I can not in honest heart give them my money.
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I'm a big fan of star wars. I have been following the franchise since 1977 and it has always brought me a lot of happiness, even in JarJarBinks times. When I heard about The Force Awakens announcement I was very happy. The film has brought me great expectations of what every fan wants to see: our heroes doing what we expect them to do. The Force Awakens brought me this great expectation. But unfortunately, what I least expected happened and I was very sad and disappointed. I wonder what logic goes on in the mind of a director like that. Why do that? Disappoint people and make them sad.
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My Current Ranking of The Star Wars Movies:
I. Star Wars (Original Cut),
II. The Force Awakens,
III. The Empire Strikes Back (Original Cut),
IV. Rogue One,
V. Season One of Battlestar Galactica,
VI. Revenge of the Sith,
VII. Return of the Jedi (Original Cut),
VIII. The Empire Strikes Back (Georgie Super Special Edition),
IX. Attack of the Clones,
X. Star Wars (Georgie Extra Special Additions),
XI. Return of the Jedi (Super Feely Georgie Revision),
XII. The Last Jedi,
XIII. Star Wars Christmas Special,
It is rare I would say this, but let us hope there is an Extra Special Georgie Cut of the Last Jedi. That said, I could see myself enjoying whatever union problems were going on at great length in The Last Jedi in another film, directed by anyone else.
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Filled with hopes and on the edge of my seat, like 40 years ago at the age of 12 and so many times after that, I was again completely overwhelmed, but this time by taking one blow after the other seeing everything I treasured so much being thrown in the garbage. Not 1 memorable scene but a series of ridiculous ones between some (OK, nicely created) space-battles - this compares to Indiana Jones being broken to pieces in consecutive movies; only here it takes 1 movie to kill 7 for even part I, II and III are better than this affront (never thought I'd gone say that). The people who created this and the professional critics rating it with a 100%, haven't got the slightest idea what Star Wars has been about and what it did to people so long ago; indeed, has been about, for what remains now is only a memory of "A long time ago, in a cinema far, far away". A movie apparently celebrated for fitting these times where respect and values are scattered to pieces whenever people see a change.
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I saw SW: The last jedi on the cinema the first day and i had very high expectations about that film. It was the franchise return or the unanswered facts from the ST the force awakens? I dont know but i did expected too much more in these 2.33 hours.
On the one hand the good things about The last Jedi were definatelly the effects and the air combats. The best thing was that it stopped recycling the SW story where the goods try to find a flaw in the DeathStar, ..., etc. and bring it down and went to a completely different view of trying to escape or sacrifice, or direct combat etc. Also the fact that Yoda's return was recreated like the 4,5,6 like a puppet and funny like then it was applauded on the cinema and it was one of the best things. Also Kylo's Ren actions where yes like darth vaders, palpatines etc, etc but it was for something completely different and it was good to see how he wants to overcome all of his teachers to form something different. Lastly the hummor was good yeah but i guess a little overstreached. Although there were some unexpected things like leia using force and living actually ( RIP carrie ), and the death of both luke and snoke means that the old is dead the future is on kylo and rey. Lastly the scene in the casino saw us for the first time the existence of the rich people and we got to know that the war is between only the good and the bad and the rich supply both parts and they are left unharmed and dont care for what happens to the left universe.
On the other hand, the story doesnt lead to much, at the beginning they were trying to escape so as in the end. For the first 1 and half hour we were seeing things and our reaction was ''yeah so?where will it lead?'' and the answer was not specific. We say an initial ''jedi training'' with no much training in it just ray doing with first try, and you will say yeah cause she was trained before like force awakens lead us to think, but no ray is nobody like her parents just saw it in a dream or what. Luke was here and there just running away from the past and after the yoda's meeting he tries his jedi stuff. Finn and Rose lovestory was something that we can live without it, Snoke was the most dissapointed villain ever, there where you think he is plagaius or something and had figured it all about kylo ren he died like nothing so as Captain phasma ( very very fail ). Yeah pretty much everything from the Force awakens got ruined and i hope SW: 9 will have a good explanation for what really happened in last jedi.
Yeah there are so much more to say about good and bad stuff but it is something that is completely confusing, the movie was good and not boring but this is the view of someone who isnt SW fan. As a SW fan the movie didnt meet my expectations
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I disliked The Force Awakens, mostly for the fact that it didn't bring anything new to the table.
I hated The Last Jedi and still do. This film is awful. Not only is it 'all over the place' and does it contain scenes which make absolutely no sense.
Everything regresses. From characters to the plot, to the way the story is told.
The humor used in the film is awful. It's offpoint and it's used all throughout the film. Every time a possible dramatic entrance could be made, there's an awful joke waiting at the the end of the scene. It weakens the movie.
I will not spoil anything about the contents of the movie for those who would like to watch it still, but I suggest you spend your money on a movie worth watching.
I on the other hand will pretend this new trilogy has never been created. I will go through life as if this latest trilogy never happened.
Sincerely.
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With such a rich and deep canon, Star Wars fans have come to expect excellent writing and story telling within any production that takes place in a galaxy far, far away. Whether it's the movies, books, video games etc, Star Wars always comes with an engaging set of characters and plot that the consumer can totally immerse themselves in. For some reason (we all know it's the money), Disney decided to abandon this approach and instead shifted to cheap laughs and and attempt to use intense action sequences (I'll admit they were pretty cool at times) to disguise sub-par plot and character development. Star Wars fans deserve better...
I'll begin with the under-utilization of the classics. Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO were absolutely brushed aside in the Last Jedi. These already well-established favorites did not add anything to the story. Any attempt to give them a say was just a recycling and repackaging of memorable one-liners from the original trilogy in an attempt to gain cheap laughs. These characters should've played a much more integral role in the story and been provided an opportunity to expand on their individual stories. Additionally, the CGI recreation of Yoda looked extremely weird and turned me off of anything he had to say.
Moving to the new characters, I'll start with Rose. She is the one who comes up with the idea to turn off the tracking device that's allowing the First Order to pursue the Resistance fleet. This plan, however, never comes to fruition and turns out to be completely unnecessary. So that means we are stuck with this boring, regular human character (Episode VII was missing any attempt to bring in new alien characters) that provides nothing to the story. Even worse, she then goes on to prevent Finn from saving the day. I was getting goosebumps watching Finn make his Medal of Honor run to destroy the First Order's battering ram cannon. Rose decides, however, that Finn shouldn't give his life for the greater good and interdicts Finn's Resistance-saving moment of self-sacrifice. All so that we can get a cheesy line about fighting for what we love and a forgettable kiss between Finn and a character no one cares about.
Now, Vice Admiral Holdo. Apparently, she's a a great leader and a war hero but you'd never know it since she's wearing a designer dress with stylish purple hair while commanding a fleet. She also likes to lie to her subordinates about her true intentions and hold off on revealing her plans until the last second. Reminds me more of what you'd expect in a real housewives show, not Star Wars. I will admit, her act to destroy the dreadnought was legit but since I have no connection to the authenticity of the character, the value of the moment was greatly diminished. Why not just have Leia do it and go out with a bang since she's going to have to be CGI'd in the next movie anyway?
Snoke. Good ol' Snoke. He has decided to break with the Sith Lord tradition of wearing all black and instead chose to wear a shiny gold robe. So intimidating. Where is his story? Snoke has a huge role to play in supposedly being the one to turn Kylo Ren to the dark side but we have no idea who he is or where his power came from. So, similar to Holdo not representing a rebel hero, Snoke does not represent a Sith Lord, or even a credible villain. So once again the movie loses value. Despite his involvement in a pretty awesome execution, the gravity of the moment was lost due to there being no reason to care for Snoke's death.
A few other quick shoutouts: General Hux, completely lame and irrelevant. With no back story to explain why a 30 year old is leading the First Order and a lack of actual importance in the plot, he doesn't hold a candle compared to Grand Moff Tarkin and the likes. DJ (Benicio Del Toro's underwhelming character) and Captain Phasma...who, what, where, when and why is all I have to say.
Additional plot holes: How does Leia survive being blasted in space? How are Rose and Finn suddenly capable pilots when they attack the battering ram? Since when do ships in Star Wars rely on a depleting fuel source (not saying it's impossible, it's just weird that's it's never mentioned in any movie before but it becomes a key plot concept in the Last Jedi)? Why is their such importance placed on the skills of the "master hacker" when you can just find a bum in a prison cell who's capable of cracking the First Order's security system ? Why was DJ sulking in the cell to begin with when he could apparently escape at any moment? How is DJ aware of Holdo's scheme to abandon ship when he betrays the plan to Hux? Why does Hux decide to simply follow the fleeing Resistance ships and take pot-shots at it instead of sending the hundreds, if not thousands, of TIE Fighters within the dreadnought and supporting star destroyers to finish off the Resistance fleet? Or, why not send a few star destroyers ahead of the Resistance ships using hyperspeed and then turn around and come back at the Resistance head on? Courses of action that any competent commander would come up with but we are lead to believe that Hux just wants to slowly pursue and play hanky-panky. All of these moments discredited the plot and weakened the development of the story.
The Last Jedi was a tough pill to swallow. A few cool moments and crappy jokes do not come remotely close to making up for such a blatant lack of the quality characters and story-telling that have made Star Wars so enjoyable in the past. And this review did not even discuss the controversial handling of Luke's story (many feel his character was ruined by the cowardly way he was portrayed and his seemingly inexplicable death). Maybe in Episode IX we learn Snoke's story or they bring back DJ/Captain Phasma, but it's already too little too late. The movie should be able to stand on its own and it outright fails to do so making it not only a bad movie to watch but disheartening and disenfranchising to the lovers of the Star Wars universe.
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1/10
It's a Disney movie first, not telling a Star Wars story
Left the movie quite shocked at how anyone could call this movie good and comparable to any of the previous Star Wars movie. The movies filled with scenes that tries too hard to balance screen time between all their favorite actors making the story suffer in the process.
Take the last scene for example. The scene is disjoint from the overall story and only serves to provide a "Disney moment". Working your way backwards on scenes necessary to build to that moment can be cut to serve a more consistent mood.
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The multiple catastrophic failures of this film have been adequately summarised several times over in other reviews on IMDB. After this there is no reason to even think of watching another Disney-produced SW film.
The only question that remains: how did they accidentally produce a decent film in Rogue One?
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I came out of a midnight screening really deflated.
There are some great bits in this, such as Mark Hamil's performance, but between the good bits the connective tissue was for the most part thin.
I must be honest, I didn't like Carrie Fisher in this, not one bit. She reminded me of someone I didn't expect to pop into my head, in response to some of her facial expressions, and I found myself suddenly reminded of that terrible TV show Mrs Browns' Boys - Mrs Brown in particular - and found myself unable to get that out of my head. Now, it's probably quite unfortunate that that occurred, because it went on to distract me every time she popped up, causing me to dislike her performance. Perhaps without that thought pop up I'd have been happy to see her. In any case I won't be disappointed not to her in Episode 9, in light of that peculiar thing.
Anyway, that detracts from a meaningful review, but the film did that in it's own regard, taking us on a huge detour from a potentially meaningful movie, a prolonged side mission to another planet with Fin, where we got to see what to me seemed like quite shoddy, practical creature effects. I like the use of practical effects in the Force Awakens, but those were really quite good. These were a bit like some of the creatures in films like Labyrinth. I guess it pays homage to past star wars movies, in some way, but I don't see why they needed to be quite so rubbery. That particular bit ate into about 30 minutes worth of movie.
That issue, in addition to a few others bits here and there, gave the movie something of a 'made for TV' feel about it.
Anyway, in summary there are a few sketchy revelations, some new force behaviors, and a single event running throughout the movie, spread out across a few separate attacks, in effect a prolonged encounter and a few related scenes. There's no real story. Not really.
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I really don't know why this movie got hyped that much. Sure it's not a bad movie on its own but it still deserves comparison against other Star Wars movies and compared to them this movie is just bad.
I liked "The Force Awakens" a lot because it started something new mixed up with nostalgic elements. When I walked out of the cinema back in 2015 I was like "wow interesting times to come and the old characters are back and as good as before."
Now after "The Last Jedi" I ask myself how Disney wants to make a non-catastrophic episode 9. They're now empty-handed. Neither they have good nostalgic characters to work with nor new ones which actually could fill an episode 9 on it's own. The new characters didn't evolve at least a bit during episode 8 and all the old characters got whiped out. The new characters got kind of teasered in TFA and I expected some major development but instead all the new characters are still very sketchy.
Rian was more focused on whiping out all the legacy in that movie instead of bringing the new characters in position for a great showdown in episode 9.
There were a lot of jokes in TLJ and most of them were funny but the timing was horrible. Everytime the movie started to become at least a bit emotional a joke destroyed the whole atmosphere.
With the "Mary oppins" scene the movie hit bottom and never fully recovered. (I'm talking about the scene where Leia gets sucked out into space, survives and flies back to the ship. Yes - the umbrella is missing, I know.)
But not everything was bad. Actually the scene with Luke and Yoda was great and at least in that scene I realized I'm sitting in a Star Wars movie. Good dialogue with the right amount of humour and charme. The opening scene was also fun to watch and Star Wars worthy.
To sum it up: now that I've seen TLJ I would really appreciate if the new trilogy would not be that strongly connected to the original trilogy. All the two movies do are to shadow the original trilogy instead of continuing it.
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Well, like all fans of Star Wars, I have been anticipating this moment for some time now. I expected some good writing and character development. I was expecting something EPIC. Thankfully, the director must've read my mind! Oh how epic it is! I would have given it 10 stars, but I think they may have made this movie just a little too deep. Some people might get confused by how complex the plot is and how amazingly thought provoking the reveals were.
Other than that, it was a heartwarming addition to the Star Wars tale. I mean, how emotionally involved did we get with these characters? Wow! This, of course, is mainly due from the great pacing throughout. They really understood when to slow things down so that we can emotionally appreciate the experience.
Without giving anything away, the plot was pure genius! I was simply elated to also see they worked hard to fit in such a rich backstory on some of the new and old characters alike. This film never felt rushed like they had to cram too much into it. They certainly made a great use of the 2 1/2 hours they had! Everything was essential and moving. (They even had enough time to add a complete little side- story right at the most critical point of the movie) Amazing! Last but not least, the humour! When there was a joke in there, it never felt forced or out of place. Well done.
All in all, definitely worthy of the Star Wars legacy and the 2 1/2 hours of my time. Thanks Rian and Disney! If the next one is this good, please make it longer!
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5/10
Another Disney Star Wars Film superficially loaded with effects and action without any deepness
I'm with my age a Star Wars fan from the beginning. I love the "Original Trilogy" and the improved digital version, I appreciate the broad-spreaded informations of the "prequel trilogy", I cheered "Rogue One", I have an ambiguous status to the films of the new trilogy.
As I mentioned the films are loaded with action and attractive sets fishing for the applause of the audience and the fans by leaning on the plot and phrases of the "Original Trilogy".
George Lucas used "archetypes" as a fan from the "one and only" mythologist and scientist in religions Joseph Campbell. He invented worlds and characters who could have been possible in reality, he invented a believable system with his "galaxy far far away".
"The Last Jedi" is only a fast-told story without any profundity. The time you hope to get an answer for the most interesting parts (Snoke, Kylo, Rey, the Knights of Ren, the Force actually) the plot switches to another part and leaves you flat. It's only half-truth.
In detail the humour and the new-founded irony is okay. The "porgs" are very "disney-like" but you would love them.
The lack of deepness in the character of Kylo Ren is unbearable! You won't get the answer what turned him that bad to kill his father, to hate Luke, to bow to Snoke, to his relationship to Rey. He has a conflict within. Snoke was responsible for that. Snoke could "reed him like a book" but missed it to pay attention that Kylo will kill him?
Snoke reigns the galaxy on a giant Star Destroyer. He has his own pretorian guards. He founded the First Order. He is the "puppet master". We don't get any answer to him till he was too easily through Kylo.
Leia's rebel flagship was bombed by the First Order. She was pushed into space- helplessly? No she used the Force to glide back into the flagship to be safe. Looked like some "witch thing". Ridiculous.
The rebel flagship navigates in front of the persecuting Star Destroyer in that distance that the guns couldn't reach it. In the meantime they send another ship th a "casino planet" to go for a "decoder" who may switch of the tracking signal on the Stardestroyer. They have the time to come back and board on the Star Destroyer in secret. That sounds "surrealistically". The Star Destroyer does nothing but shooting behind the rebel flagship till their fuel is empty, the rebel flagship does nothing but waiting for any help?!
The character of Finn found no "work-out". Plasma is senseless furthermore. Hux is ridiculous.
Luke is heavily depressed and disillusioned. He hides on a planet in nowhere. The only answer given to the audience is that he recognised the deep badness in Kylo.- That's why he gave up everything? That's why the only wanted to die in his "nowhereland"? Thats why he wont help his friends his sister in a heavy crisis?- That's much too less for me!
He doesn't give Rey lessons in the Force he just talks big about the Force. In the end Yoda- a highlight in the film- persuades him to act with responsibility. Luke confronts Kylo as an "illusion" from his planet and helps his comrades to escape. Then he becomes "one with the Force" totally exhausted and fades away.
Leia- please forgive me I loved her RIP- survives as the only human hero/heroine of the "old human actorship", the one who passed away last december. This is sarcastic, isn't it?
Poor Star Wars...
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I left the theater so disappointed that I actually felt kind of hollow afterwards. If I were to rank all of the Star Wars movies this would be in dead last. I found it incomprehensible that this story could have possibly been greenlit. There were several moments in the movie that me and my wife just looked at each other and cringed. I was so excited to see this and left not even caring about any future movies.
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If TFA left me with even the slightest hint of hope that the new trilogy would be entertaining and pay homage to the original, it has now all gone to the gutter.
Where to begin? To dismantle the whole mess of everything that went wrong in this unnecessary pile of dicks -of a movie would require a university degree thesis the length of the bible.
I think this movie portrayed every cardinal mistake you can make in storytelling from immortal characters like Leia flying in the vacuum of space without a spacesuit, to illogical plot holes like Finn and Rose escaping the pursuit unnoticed and everybody else trapped in the pursuit fearing for their lives. Infact, the story was so badly written I cannot fathom how it ever got approved in the first place. The story was also spoiled by too much unnecessary action without any stakes. No suspence and no real threat to any of the main characters made the action sequences pointless. Also every problem the characters faced were solved without effort in a fairytale-like happenstance -way, with no real danger to anyone ever. When Finn and Rose rode through stonewalls on a spacehorse to be rescued by a character who could omnipotently hack his way into any device ever I thought this garbage cannot sink any lower, yet I was proven wrong many times after.
The characters were all badly written, unrealistic and childish, so there was little left to make the movie interesting. Only character I got emotionally involved was Lukes, and mostly what I felt was the shame and pain of Mark Hamill as he had to disappoint all of his fans by sodomizing the one hero everybody waited to see in this movie.
Star Wars is now beyond repair as the only charismatic characters have been killed off to make room for the new ones. Unfortunately Ridley, Boyega, Driver and Isaac cannot even compete at the same level with Ford and Hamill. As Disney has no goddamn idea what they are doing with this new trilogy and what age their target audience should be, you can be sure the upcoming movies are just as bad or even worse.
This movie is excrement and not made for Star Wars fans.
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1/10
How do I get my childhood back? Totally Fucked up this Episode
Spoiler-ish! I never write reviews but from start to finish I was pretty disgusted with the movie. A lot of cheap comedy one liners came from almost every character. Zero character development and it came across like a cheap cop movie. I can't believe they are giving the Director more Star Wars films. The characters were NOT true to themselves and it was not entertaining. If this was the only Star Wars movie you ever saw, you'd never watch another. Each film should stand on it's own. This one stands in shit. Killing off major characters with no lead up, they just pop up, say a line and bam, dead. Making a hero do a suicide run when we do not have any concern for that character because of a lack of character development just makes you wonder who the 12 yr old who wrote this is. The audience wants so much to care, but they gave us no reason too. Took a lot of lines out of the old movies and dropped them in to give it nostalgia but they even did that poorly. Nostalgia is romantic, not whatever the fuck they were trying to do. Even the crawl lacked the same poise of the earlier films. Disney should have enough respect to cut the cord and find a new directer. There is too much talent out there to give this series to this shitfuck. By the way, Die Hard Star Wars fan. DIE HARD! and I wanted to walk out of the theatre several times. I bought my ticket weeks in advance and I wanted to walk out. Save your money and watch Rogue One again.
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Here we go. Another year, another release of a highly anticipated Star Wars film. After last years solid, yet unspectacular "Rogue One", which was more of a spinoff prequel than anything else, many fans were anxiously awaiting the next main installment of the new trilogy. This second installment of the new trilogy, titled "The Last Jedi", directed by series newcomer Rian Johnson, comes with a ton of hype. As usual with highly anticipated releases, all the hype comes with the potential of disappointment, and unfortunately, The Last Jedi is a bit of a disappointment.
The Last Jedi's story takes place right after the events of 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". At the end of that movie, we see Rey (Daisy Ridley) finding legendary Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who is in exile on the planet of Ahch-To, and The Last Jedi picks up right from there. Rey's hope is to be trained in the ways of a jedi, but Luke is initially hesitant because of his previous experience of training a young Ben Solo, who became corrupted by the dark side and is now the evil Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). So, predictably, Luke is reluctant at the idea of training Rey, because of his distrust of her and people in general. Eventually, however, Luke decides to train Rey, knowing that Rey is perhaps the only hope the jedi have left in restoring peace to the galaxy. Meanwhile, the Resistance is in trouble. A First Order fleet led by General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) has prompted the evacuation of their main base and Resistance fighters, led by pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and commanded by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) fight back to keep the Resistance alive. There is a lot going on in the movie, and it often switches back and forth between these two settings with other minor sub-plots getting some screen time as well. However, because there is so much going on, certain characters that we have come to care about are put on the back burner. For example, Finn was a major character in the first movie that had a good amount of character development, but here he's more of a secondary character mixed in a sub-plot with other minor, underdeveloped characters. That's one of the frustrations of The Last Jedi. Certain characters you feel like should have played a bigger part don't, and characters you don't really care about or that should have been side characters are now integral and main parts of the story. On top of that, certain characters that had the potential to be much more are either killed off or misused. There's one glaring example of this that I can't quite say as it would be a major spoiler. I can't help but think that Johnson decided to make these bold decisions just for the sake of doing something bold with Star Wars in an attempt to keep the series fresh. While it may have sounded like a good idea, all it really did was create loose ends that have no opportunity to be knotted up or answered in Episode 9.
The Last Jedi establishes its overall pace right from the start. The opening space battle between the Resistance and the First Order is fast paced and action-packed, giving the audience a taste of what's to come in the rest of the movie. The action scenes are impressive and the visuals are beautiful, which makes this arguably the best looking Star Wars movie to date. While the action is impressive and for the most part engaging, there's almost too much of it and not enough of a break from it to give some time for character interaction and development. Aside from the parts with Luke and Rey, the movie is almost non-stop action and at 2 hours and 30 minutes, it gets a bit exhausting after a while. That's not to say that the film is too long, because it does justify its runtime, but the constant action for the most part gets tiring, especially during the last act. And although the film does chug along, there are certain points where it drags, especially during the casino scene in the middle act. Quite frankly, the pacing is a bit uneven.
The Last Jedi does succeed in that it gives useful backstory and insight into certain events and ideas. One example is that it expands on our knowledge of the force and what exactly it is, which is was definitely a welcome addition. It also gives us some backstory of Ben Solo and how he eventually became corrupted by the dark side and became Kylo Ren. And throughout The Last Jedi, you get the sense that things aren't always what they seem to be, and this is only heightened by the several surprising twists and turns in the movie. No other Star Wars movie since "The Empire Strikes Back" has been able to pull that off, and The Last Jedi deserves credit for that.
As expected, the acting in the movie is superb. Mark Hamill really stands out as an old and haunted Luke Skywalker, and he gives the performance of his career. Carrie Fisher is as good as ever as Leia Organa in her last role before her unfortunate passing. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are solid in their roles as Rey and Finn, respectively. Adam Driver returns as the evil Kylo Ren, reminding everyone why he can hold his own as the main bad guy. And of course there's the ever so great score by the legendary John Williams, who mixes in some of the classic score with some new material.
All in all, what we have here is a decent, but underwhelming Star Wars film. It has its moments and it's obviously a must see if you're a Star Wars fan, but don't be surprised if you walk out of the theater feeling a bit disappointed, especially when it comes to the narrative department. Johnson obviously tried to do something bold with the Star Wars franchise, and I commend him for that, but the result is a movie that will probably divide the fan base even more over the direction of the series. Here's hoping JJ Abrams can help turn the tide around for the better in the next film.
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1/10
I created an IMDB account to write just how bad this movie is!!! It's a Train Wreck!!
First off at one point in the movie there is a scene and I thought it was just my imagination so I asked my girlfriend if she had seen the same thing and she said she saw it. The scene is literally of what you think an First Order ship landing as in the background there is First Order music, but no it zoom's out and it is a cloth iron, unreal. Yes a droid is ironing clothes in this movie. Now I have seen everything.
Why I went to see it?
I grew up with an older brother that passed his fandom for these movies to me therefore I enjoy watching the saga. Also, my girlfriend who isn't a huge Star Wars fan but enjoyed Force Awakens wanted to go to this movie, so did I. I mean it has a great Metric and Rotten Tomatoes rating. Who didn't want to see it? Honestly, It is truly a train wreck.
The Plot:
The whole movie plot is a filler at best, doesn't build, develop or add any value to these new characters we were introduced to the Force Awakens. Honestly they could of spent half the movie explaining how Kyro became dark, instead we are force to believe that Luke watched his dreams and knew he was destined to become dark, but he really wasn't? But since Kyro wakes up to Luke hovering over him he swings his saber and brings the whole building down and escapes. Okay, how did he find Snoke? Who is Snoke? Nope it doesn't give you any backstory. SPOILER:..... Instead they kill Snoke and that's, that (for Snoke).
Also we are forced to watch a "high speed chase" in the galaxy of the First Order chasing down the Rebels who (the rebels) are running out of fuel and can't hyper space because the Empire can track them now. So now Fin and his lame friend Rose (who we were introduced to her sister sacrificed to bomb a meaningless battle cruiser because as mention above the First Order is still on their tail.) Now plan to disable the First Orders tracker device and force to find a codebreaker, yada yada, and it really doesn't not matter, an utterly botched character development. Who is Fin, what is his past? Doesn't he wonder where he came from? Nope. He doesn't care about any of that.... He just wants to be a good old boy and help Rose stand up for what is right!!
Somehow Rey and Kylo have a telepathic connection and feel that they can bring each other to the otherside, so Rey tell Luke Skywalker to fuck-off and fly's herself in the hands of First Order and this leads up to Snoke's death and then they both turn to each other and ask them if they are ready to turn good or bad and they both can't agree. Therefore Kylo is even more mad and wants to destroy the rebels even worst. I'm honestly going to leave it here because this is where the movie should of ended instead it carries on for an ungodly amount of time. I will say though did the First Order have that cannon set up on that planet or did they fly it down there or what?
General Thoughts:
This movie kills off a legendary character which in-turns ruins the Star Wars saga ( ep. 4-6). It just throws away valuable characters that are the life blood of this movie, You know you can retire these characters, right? They are to old to keep fighting so they must pass down to the younger generation to keep fighting right? No I'm gonna give you one quick lesson and that's it. Wasn't that part of what made Luke's original journey so complete, is you see what seems to be an average peasant become a epic Knight. In TLJ they just jump cut that and Rey is just knows how to develop and control her jedi power, no talk of responsibility that comes with such power. I can seriously go on and on about the Rey and Luke development but it honestly it just depresses me. On that note, if you love this saga you unfortunately have to go see this mess of a movie, but just be ready to be utterly let down.
How high were the critics when reviewing this movie? Should of just named Star Wars: Fast and the Furious 18. Or Named it Star Wars: Pirates of the Caribbean 10. I can only imagine George Lucas is celebrating inside saying I didn't make the worst Star Wars movie. Probably has a well aged bottle of wine from when he released the Phantom Menace that he is enjoying right now. For me I am drowning me there isn't enough alcohol to drown my sorrows for this beloved franchise.
Heads-up I'm sorry for the type-O's.
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This review contains spoilers******** You have been warned.
This movie, in my opinion, is certainly not worthy of the praise it has gotten from critics, but I do feel that some reviews that I have seen have been too harsh. Yes, there are some parts of the movie that made me want to walk out, but there are some moments in this movie that took my breath away and left me satisfied as a Star Wars fan.
THE GOOD
First off this movie looks gorgeous (as it should) and the direction is fine. Rian Johnson was creative with the story and it was much better than Abram's A New Hope Pt. 2. He did an excellent job with Luke Skywalker, and Mark Hamill arguably gave his best performance as the character. His death at the end of the movie was one of my favorite moments of the franchise, and I was almost brought to tears when he looks up at the binary sunset as John Williams' iconic score plays. While I, personally, would have went in another direction with the character and would have loved to see him face off with Snoke, Rian does the character justice. The scene with Yoda was also fantastic and was one of my favorites from the film, and I also enjoyed some of Rey's training, especially the scene with all the reflections of her in a halfway encounter with the dark side. The ending with the kid also ended the film on a nice note, and John Williams' score was great as always.
THE BAD
There were more than a few bad parts, and I will highlight three.
1. I was disgusted to see how Leia's character was handled. She most certainly deserved an honorable on-screen death, and she was robbed of it. She should have died in space with her calling out to Luke as a nice touch. Instead, we get a bs pseudo-resurrection scene where she miraculously makes it back to the ship. I was thoroughly disgusted and now she has to die off-screen.
2. Finn and Rose's sequence in the casino was completely unnecessary and served little purpose. Also, Finn should have died on Crait, sacrificing himself for the Resistance, as it would have wrapped up his fairly weak character on a strong note. Instead, Rose comes out of nowhere to save him, says a really cheesy line afterwards, and faints so poorly it was almost as bad as Talia al Ghul's death in The Dark Knight Rises. (Please look up this scene if you have not had the pleasure of watching such a poor on-screen death). The romance between the two didn't bother me, but their kiss should have been earlier before the battle, and Finn's death would set up her character nicely for the next film.
3. "How 'bout we make the most powerful sith ever shown on the big screen and have him get killed in the worst way possible!" Rian really screwed up with Snoke. I really loved seeing him use his powers in new ways, and the way he threw Rey around during their encounter really downplayed the 'Mary Sue' elements of her character that were presented in TFA. But why would you kill him half way through the second movie in the most anti-climatic way possible? I was completely baffled by this choice.
THE UGLY
Some of the humor in this movie is just plain awful. Yes, there are some funny parts and a couple good one-liners, but every character has cringey one-liners, and it's terrible. Rian had no idea what the tone of the movie should be, and it shows. The movie also contains one of the worst attempts at humor I have ever seen, which was when the bottom half of Snoke's body just drops to the floor in a completely unnecessary scene. The scene rivals some of Jar Jar Binks' worst lines and that is saying something.
CONCLUSION
All in all, this movie has some of the best and worst moments I have ever seen in the franchise. It is a step up from TFA, but it leaves a lot to be desired. The good moments, however, are completely worth the price of admission, and I would have watched Jar Jar laugh for two hours straight just to watch those incredible moments.
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This is a bad movie, don't get fooled by all the phantom mencing that's happening.
It gets an A+ on visuals, everything was beautiful and filmed in a way that got your attention.
That's all the praise I have for this. The plot and characters are so muddled that I forgot what the driving plot of it was WHILE I was watching it. They try to play a twist regarding who's good and who's bad with so many characters that it's just annoying and makes no sense in the end.
There is an attempt to add depth to Kylo Ren by the end of this but it's so muddled and contrived that it held no weight.
The movie is directionless, boring, full of weird filler and their attempt at humor failed this time with only a few hits here and there.
I know that you're going to see this movie anyways and buy the merchandise -looks at her $20 popcorn holder shaped like BB8's head- but just know this one kindda sucks.
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1/10
I Have Never Been So Disappointed in a Movie in My Life
After watching The Last Jedi, the only possible conclusion to that hot mess was that Rian Johnson had never seen any of the Star Wars movies before. Honestly, how can someone mess something so sacred up so badly? Did Disney not watch the film before it was released? There are no redeeming qualities to this movie, so I will instead list everything wrong with it so that you can understand just how bad it was.
Leia being blasted into space, freezing to death, coming back to life, then magically flying through space to land on the ship. Just no. Worst scene in all of Star Wars lore. This scene proved to me that Rian Johnson does not understand what the Force is. Leia is Force-Sensitive. She is not a Force-User. There is a difference, though Johnson apparently doesn't know that.
Luke throwing the lightsaber off the cliff. As soon as that scene happened, I knew that the movie was not taking Star Wars seriously.
Admiral Ackbar dying in such a unheroic way that I didn't even realize he was dead.
Poe suddenly becoming a jerk and telling all of the female leaders what to do. Considering our current political state, I was hoping for some strong female politicians. Instead, my childhood hero, Princess Leia, was totally okay with letting an arrogant pilot push her around.
Admiral Holdo not telling anyone her plan. Johnson clearly wanted us to think she was a bad guy, possibly trying to allow all of the rebels to be killed. Except she wasn't a bad guy, she was just stupid.
Luke milking that giant space cow. Boy, was that creepy. Could Mark Hamill not have said, "Hey, Rian? Would it be okay if I didn't turn this scene into a bestiality mess?"
Luke suddenly wanting to murder his own nephew just because he saw a vision. That's no better than when Anakin killed all of the younglings in Episode 3.
Luke just up and dying at the end for no real reason. So Luke, Han, and Leia are all dead now. No real point in watching the movies anymore.
Rose's character did not make sense at all. One moment, she's stunning Finn for abandoning ship. The next, she's "saving" his life and trying to awkwardly kiss him. If the rebels hadn't found a way out of the mine, they would have all been slaughtered, Finn and Rose included.
The random animal cruelty message. That wasn't even relevant to the plot at all. If you want to be political, do a good job with it. The movie had a fair point when they talked about people making money off wars, yet they did nothing with it. Besides, it didn't fit in with the pace of the movie.
The movie is sooooooo long. They hadn't even ot to Crait yet and Iwas already praying for the sweet release of death.
Snoke's death. Actually, just Snoke in general. Do we really need another Emperor? I at least wanted Snoke to have a cool backstory, but nothing.
Kylo Ren and Rey taking on the guards together, only for Kylo to immediately go back to the Dark Side. What I wanted more than anything in the world was for Rey and Kylo Ren to both become Dark Jedi. It would have made perfect sense. Both the Jedi and the Sith have disappointed them. Why not create a new group where they helped train each other?
That scene where Finn and Rose are about to be executed and the stormtroopers are all magically killed, but our heroes are of course saved.And look, there's a perfectly intact ship waiting to take them to safety. How convient.
The little Dickens/Oliver Twist boy at the end. Dear Lord, do I hope he's never seen again. I don't care if he can use the Force. I do not need a discount Anakin Skywalker in my life. The actualy child Anakin Skywalker was bad enough.
The beginning scene with Poe and Hux. That kind of stuff only works in Marvel movies. Star Wars is not Marel and I do not want it to be Marvel. I'm not saying that Star Wars can't have humor. I just want it to actually be funny.
If the Dreadnaught is so easy to destroy, why even feel threatened by it? Seriously, we get that Poe is a good pilot, but being able to take down huge ships with a tiny X fighter is just stupid.
BB-8 suddenly being able to take out the First Order. You know, sometimes a droid is just a droid.
While a cool visual, the lightspeed kamikaze plan doesn't make sense. Why not do that all the time now? Now that Admiral Holdo has discovered how to take out an entire fleet at once, there's no excuse for not using that trick all of the time.
And finally, Rey's parents. You know, I actually don't really care that Rey doesn't come from the Skywalker lineage. I like the idea that anybody can become a hero. But this news was delivered in such a poor way, that it caused the entire movie to feel anti-climatic. Also, I feel like J.J. Abrams is going to change that in the next movie and will just have Kylo Ren be lying about her parentage.
Overall, the movie sucked. They took a huge steaming dump on my favorite childhood movies and I'll never forgive them for that. I'm just going to pretend that this movie didn't exist. I love Star Wars with all my heart, but seriously, what were they thinking?
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If ep. 7 was "eh, I guess it wasn't a terrible reboot", then ep. 8 was worse than that.
The entire movie is extremely predictable and largely uneventful. Only the last 10 minutes or so are sort of okay for the end of the movie and making you want to see the next one. But quite boring first 95% of the movie. I had more fun at Justice League.
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DiverseDiverseWith the new addition of Star War making its appearance this weekend, everyone (Including me) have hit the theaters in hope after seeing the 93% on rotten tomatoes that this will be the Star Wars that brings back the series. After watching The Last Jedi I agree with what Luke was saying the whole movie it's time for the Jedi to end. And what I mean by the "Jedi" I mean the Star Wars series as a whole. AT THIS POINT DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT THE FILM TO BE SPOILED. The movie started like a now typical Star Wars film, with many people dying on both sides and a few "heroes" giving up their life's for the resistance (which is pretty much the knock of version on the Republic). Although the scene was captivating to watch, it skewed typical Disney/Marvel opening scene. I give the whole movie a 6/10, like bad parts there was some good parts. For example, the best part of the episode was when the five second commander of the Resistance light speeded her ship into the "Empires" main vessel destroying both ships.. ( The main ship of the Republic that was seen throughout the series, so it was "a hit at home" type of lose for all the true Star Wars fans.) Besides that sense and one other, The Last Jedi seemed like Disney was trying so hard to not to be predictable and failed. The cast, of course, contained some from pervious episodes like Rey (The most annoying character of series in my opinion), Princess Leia, Finn, Snoke, Ben Solo, and Luke Skywalker. It also introduced new characters like Rose and Codebreaker, and to be honest these characters were nothing but filler and fresh faces to make the series look my diveres
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Not gonna say much as I've read many reviews already addressing the COUNTLESS problems of this movie.
What I want to say is that I absolutely loved "The Force Awakens" and what it achieved. J.J. Abrams really revived the franchise with absolute success doing justice to the previous movies plus introducing new characters and story-lines interesting enough for us to care.
This movie completely DESTROYS all the effort done by J.J. Not only that, it also KILLS the hype for further Star Wars movies. I don't care about anything after seeing this movie, not about Luke, not about Ray, nothing. Needless to say, this is THE WORST STAR WARS MOVIE up to this day and BY FAR!
Shame on Kathleen Kennedy for caring only about cheap fan service crap and politically correct/ feminism choices. Next time, she should care about the script and about finding a competent director for starters. Although I seriously doubt if any audience members will still be interested for more Star Wars movies after this one....
My rating for this should be 1 star but I give it 2 stars just for seeing Yoda again, who by the way received the same treatment everything else on this film got: the SHITTY kind.
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It's a very poor movie in my opinion. If it wasn't Star Wars, I'd rate it 3 stars. But let's get in depth now.
Things I liked:
It looks excellent, space scenes are awesome and you really feel like you're watching Star Wars plenty of times! Really enjoyed some of the scenes, made me feel like the 7-year old watching SW for the first time.
And then the list of things I found should've been thought through before filming them:
First of all, the story is AWFUL!!! I got the feeling that they tried to copy some things from Empire Strikes Back, but they failed greatly. Last battle on the salt planet reminded me of Hoth, but there was nothing else great in it. The casino scenes and the "master codebreaker" are just a waste of time and Finns and Roses romance feels forced. I think they just needed something to do for Finn.
Second, the characters. Oh. My. Lord. Snoke dies after we have seen barely 10 minutes of him? Like WTF??? Mark Hamill's character is also totally wasted in this movie. Sure he is excellent the time he's on screen, but I would've wished he would've taken that X-Wing from water and fly to fight Kylo. Instead of some hologram tricks and then fading away like Yoda. I was sad but also mad at the same time. The shiny Stormtrooper, Plasma, is also a pathetic character. First movie, she looked badass but nothing else. Here, she gets her ass handed to her by some coward ex-stormtrooper. Pfff.
Thrid. The lightsabers. If it's Star Wars, WHY ARE THERE ONLY 2 LIGHTSABER BATTLES IN THE WHOLE MOVIE? AND THERE ISN'T EVEN ANY FIGHTING IN SECOND BATTLE, JUST LUKE'S HOLOGRAM PLAYING TRICKS. There was only one in Rogue One, but that 2-minute scene of Vader is superior compared to this whole movie!
I didn't list all the flaws like Leia's trip to space and shit like that, but like the movie, I don't have the patience for that kind of stuff.
I hope J. Abrams can save the last movie. May the Force be with us all.
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Is not an excuse for taking 40 years of Star Wars themes, characters, and canon and flushing it down the toilet. That's just bad writing. Or in this case, disastrous writing.
If Disney wants a Star Wars for a new generation, that is fine. You kill off Han Solo at the hands of his son. You have Luke Skywalker show up, realize he has aged, and you kill him off.
You don't have Princess Leia fly using the force. Through outer space. That's against 40 years of "force" teachings. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were almost killed when General Grevious sent them into space. Luckily, they had tethers to bring them back. They didn't reach out, and fly.
Imagine now, this power. Luke could have flew up the ventilation shaft and back to Vader in ESB.
You want your new Disney Princess Rey to be this amazing force user? So much so that she is described as having a power never seen before? Fine. But in order for this to make sense, she has to be related to a Skywalker, or a Kenobi. That's what the prior 7 movies have told us.
You can't just say "her parents are nobodies." That's bad writing. That's saying "who the hell cares about the last 40 years, even though this is a sequel, we will just change the rules, and FUCK YOU."
You can't have Finn and his Asian friend fly to another planet in an escape pod, get into trouble, get arrested, find a codebreaker, escape, steal a spaceship, and fly back through space in under 4 hours. Right now on the shelves in Indigo are Star Wars books explanation space ships, space travel, distances of planets, etc. You can't do the aforementioned in 4 hours.
That's the writer saying "who cares. We are killing the past!"
You can't kill of the leader of the First Order (Snoke), who has demonstrated new, and immense force powers, by having him not "feel," much less notice, a light sabre being turned in his direction. That's stupid.
You can't let some of your audience wait 30 years to see Luke Skywalker, and have him drink milk from a hippo, and of course, this after the big moment, when Rey hands him the lightsaber, and he tosses it over his shoulder.
You don't create a new Storm Trooper (Phasma), have her lead daily marches at Disney World, and then have her lose her only fight. That's stupid. Even if we overlook the fact that in Force Awakens she immediately gave up.
You don't have the villain (Kylo), show up without a shirt, showing off his muscles, and have Rey say "put a towel on" as a joke.
You can't have a force ghost interfere in a battle. Obi-Wan already told us you can't.
I'm done. I could write all day about this pile of shit.
My heart is broken.
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1/10
Stop Disney stupidity. Avoid it and FORCE them to the right path
Perhaps you are not interested in spoilers; but believe it is better to read this before spending two and half boring hours trying to understand where the movie is going and find out it is not going nowhere.
The movie can be described as many sub-plots that some barely join at the very dissatisfying end but the others go absolutely nowhere.
Rey trying to get attention from Luke
Rey trying to connect with Ken and turned it to the light.
Poe try to become a leader despite his rebellious attitude
Fin trying to avoid war and find Rey and his friendship with a new female character that (as sympathetic as she is), does not add anything to the movie.
Fin trying to get a Master Hacker to save the rebels; a plot so absurd that looks was added later to give some emotion to the movie (and failed).
While in the original saga, Darth Vader was the conducting force; here is Ren becoming the new Vader; but what is the point of the rest ? Aside from Rey and Ken story everything else seems to be just fillings. In fact Gleeson with less screen time is able to get far more personality (and laughs than Ken)
Luke is underused and his character is completely the opposite as it was in the original; however his scenes are the best part of the move.
Rey and Ken acting is so forced that is difficult to produce some kind of sympathy; it could possibly be the directors fault.
John Boyega is a great and charismatic actor; however his character has become uninteresting and sometimes boring.
Poe character does not make any sense as it happens with Laura Dern Admiral.
In brief; my theory is that the movie has been re-written while filming so in order to save money they star in some way and end it up in another without any real progression.
When the movie ends; looks like a new saga will start with complete different characters. Let's hope so but also with a new director and a new writer able to go back to the good thing the original double trilogy was
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1/10
An Insult to longtime fans and those who worked hard for the revival!!!!!! (Spoilers)
WTF just WTF i went in to see Star Wars and went out around 3 hours later from something else!
A friend said he cried, a rumor was circulating of a big surprise, well i got what my friend meant (the death of Star Wars) and the big surprise has nothing to do with the plot but the fact just how much Disney is crapping over the previous two Star Wars movies they just made!
My friend that went with me to the movie just sent me a essay of just how bad they crapped of it point by point.
As how good he detailed it i will share it here with his permission. (spoilers)
Where are the Y-wings or b-Wings and the proton torpedoes! A big bomber squadron taking out a "fleet killer" that apparently one is enough to kill in a scene from a world war 2 movie in space! common! really!
And how hard is it to kill the last one after taking the rest of the squadron so fast!!!
I get that the resistance has smaller and therefore faster ships but the whole fuel crisis made no sense at all! why did Snoke´s ship not just jump out and back in on top of the resistance, why did the First order not call for re-enforcement and box them in.
And why oh why did they not just evacuate the ships to the planet (that happened to have a old state of the art rebel base, so convenient at the end there, in the first place and someone would volunteer to jump to lightspeed and destroy the super capital ship since that was possible, in the beginning. oh and why build them in the first place if they can be destroyed like that in the first place. why fight the big capital ships in the first place if you can just kamikaze them with a smaller Cruisers and droids.)
Don´t get me started on the whole Casino part. Pointless from beginning to end i mean common the resistant does not have top tier code breakers, or a droid!
(plus they ended up not picking up the "rarely good "code breaker they went to get!! What then why not use a droid!!)
Where was Luke in the movie... Who ever that was it was not Luke!
Yoda fought better in ep 1- 3. what was that? very disappointing fight between him and Kylo.
Why oh why kill Luke and not Leia!!!
Where did she learn to use the force and fly in space!!!
Why make Rose save Finn!! would have been such an awesome death scene!!
Why did they not close the blast doors as soon as they landed since they had no idea that Finn and Rose where not in the transport!!
This movie is beyond disappointing. It is an Insult!!!
What Disney should do is make a public apology and offer to re-do that chapter again in honor of Carrie Fisher and make it right this time!!!
And where was Carrie Fisher´s Tribute in the Film!!!
Well if this shall be Chapter 8 The Main Story is dead to me!!! i will give the standalones a chance but otherwise as my friend said after we saw it "Star Wars is Dead to me"....
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To start off I would like to say I have never written a review before. But I think something needs to be said from a person who has seen all movies in the theatres WHEN they were released. To be fair the bar is set terribly high right now: Game of Thrones, Westworld, Punisher, Mr Robot...things are are written with a sense of common sense, are very watchable, and generally don't cause bad reactions while watching. So if you are not making anything around a caliber of 8.0 or above right now you are going to get smashed my people who feel the need to cry about everything. Its simple if you dont like it dont watch it. But we all or most paid to see this and expect at least a 7.0 or above for frick sake. (common sense and the money invested into the production dictate this) In the past star wars never seemed the type of movie that anyone would ever consider getting up and walking out in the middle of the movie. So in my humble opinion from watching movies & tv since the early 70's here it goes:
The positives: Great special effects, acting was I think pretty good (working with what they had, the script), filming, costumes, props, the technology being part of the film awesome (but this is the status quo right now mind you), chewey, yoda great, I am sorry thats all I got I can't come up with any more.Sad nothing else worth remembering.
The negatives: Luke milking an alien?!?!?!?!?! what why ...what...wtf, what...uh what? Just left speechless moving on, all these characters built up in the story AND no explanation of where the what and the how? The comedy scenes were uh cringing thinking about it...Basics man, any first year film student could have solved this problem, Luke's character arc took the strangest turn that made no sense what so ever, snoke built up to this great thing and left us going what why how moving on, Rey the poor actor did her best with how the script was written they portrayed her as a what a space hobo?, Its very hard to bash a franchise that has brought so many great great experiences in my youth seeing Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, the crazy ness of Return of the Jedi to come to this poorly designed film. Who ever is truly in charge has miserably failed. I got exactly one good goose bump moment and it was from seeing Yoda that's it?! Disney has all the money in the world and you didn't think to consider the opinion of the millions of great writers out there to give an opinion of this terrible thing?!...before you released it?! what the hell? Hire a few legit fans to watch and review...spent 100 bucks to fix a problem that cost hundreds of millions of dollars but get a return of billions because "us" the fans assumed that it would be worth watching? You could have generated an additional few billions just by paying a few million to show the script to a person who isn't a friggen crazy person. Factor that into your money equation disney (yes lower case d, not even worth a upper case). No great fight scene zero zilch nada, the movie has laser swords man...you ever thing to actually use them instead of just wearing them and looking cool?,barely saw r2d2 just saw these knock off CGI things bb8 sounds like a replacement part to a speak and spell from the 1980's, and that furby looking thing with chewy great for the kids but yet again. I was hoping for a Space Balls part 2 " the search for more money" But I am afraid to see what happens after they touch star wars wow i'm concerned. I wont be seeing this movie again and when the next one comes out...I will wait till when its free to watch with one of my services. Good luck and May the SCHWARTZ BE WITH YOU!
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5/10
Two Options to have made this a much better movie..IMHO
OK...Hindsight is 20/20 and we all no that Carrie Fisher has passed away...Hollywood does last minute re-shoots ALL THE TIME for this circumstance but in this case the production team was just LAZY.
I get that the point of this new trilogy in essence is to kill off all the old Heroes and introduce new ones to continue the Star Wars journey for the youth of today and I am fine with that. I even agree with it to an extent as long as their deaths make sense. Han dying in the last movie was a perfect example of a "good way to go"...His death was a tragedy and furthered the plot. IN my opinion they could have handled this movie in 2 different ways from what was on screen to deal with Leia. One if they wanted her in the next movie and the other a small reshoot after her real life death to give her character an onscreen end.
1) Carrie Fisher doesn't pass away in real life: Keep the movie the way it is except instead of having the STUPID flying space scene, they should have just had her off the bridge when the attack happened. This scene makes no sense at all. If someone not trained in the force but has it in them can fly through space and live, then why can't a fully trained jedi master survive a laser blast or falling off a high structure (the way more jedi died than I can count in the Clone Wars)?
Also instead of having the new character of Laura Dern sacrifice herself they should have given that job to Admiral Ackbar (who would also have had to leave the bridge during the attack). Admiral Ackbar has been an Admiral and leading troops in all the Star Wars movies up to this point. In this film he is seen in the background in like 4 scenes and has like 4 lines of dialogue before he is sucked into space...BAD WAY TO END A LEGEND.In this scenario fans are pleased because one of the characters from the original trilogy makes a sacrifice and Laura Dern is still around as a leader for the next film so we can grow more attached to her. Also, Leia is still around for whatever way they originally had planned for her to die in the next film.
2) Carrie Fisher passes away after filming: Fix the film in one of two ways EITHER end her last scene with the closeup of her face in space and her last breath. Then have Admiral Ackbar make the sacrifice going to lightspeed and you keep Laura Dern for the next movie (since there will be a female lead missing without Carrie Fisher OR do some reshoots with a stand in and some clipped footage and have Leia be the one to sacrifice herself jumping to light speed through the other ship. Same as before Laura Dern is saved to fill the female lead spot in the next movie.
Since they didn't change the story after the news about Carrie Fisher fans are going to be left with one of two things happening in the next movie and both options are going to be a let down. EITHER she will die off screen in between the two movies somehow OR she will be on a ship that is blown up in someway and we will only hear her voice on the radio clipped from other movies or something right before it happens.
I understand what their original plan was...3 new movies and each movie has 1 of the 3 main characters from the original trilogy die. 1.Han 2. Luke, 3. Leia but they should have been willing to change this slightly with Carrie Fishers untimely passing.
There is so much more I could go into about the fact that Finn hasn't helped the story AT ALL since breaking Poe out of jail, or what they did to Luke, etc. but in the end I don't beleive the 8.1 current rating on IMDB at all. There is no way this movie is a 1, 2, or 3 but also no way it is an 8,9, or 10!!
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Im not going to be one of those spoiler guys who tell you the plot, you should really waste your hard earned money and make your mind up, but lets just start with some obvious stuff. All the bad guys are while males, all the good guys are led by white women and minorities. OK, I get it, let's show some positive figures for minority children, and I think thats great, there should be more positive minority figures in the movies, but this was so blanket, that it was obvious to everyone, and the bad guys were so cartoonishly bad that it got you nowhere. Then it was preachy, the scene with the rich people just said, oh its all the rich people who benefit from arm sales to the first order, what a bunch of pansy socialist crap, when you realize kids are watching this, it makes you very very sad.
It turned the whole Rebel thing into, we are revolutionaries and will kill everyone who disagrees with us.
The CG was beautiful, and so was the cinematography but the story was full of holes and created more questions than answers.
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5/10
Disappointed with character Development ***SPOILERS***
Like many, I went into this film full of hope with a completely open mind, and wanted to like it! It started well, a bit of forced humour in places, but still enjoyable. The middle of the film seemed quite pointless in parts like the Canto Bait scenes, but I loved Snoke's throne room scenes and he came across as a really good villain, really driving Kylo and Rey against eachother and manipulating them nicely. When Rey is brought before him I could not wait to see how everything was going to play out. But then he died very easily, and rather pathetically in the end, and then so did Phasma, and then Luke seemed to go out on an anti-climax as well after a great build up in the ending sequence.
It's quite clear that Disney/Johnson did not have a place for these characters in the future, which is completely fair, but I'm not sure they got the ending they deserved after all of the hype surrounding their inclusion in the film. I'm all for changing the franchise and giving things a new lease of life, but it wasn't the number of new twists that were disappointing, it was more the manner of them, and how little they actually contributed to the story.
It was the ONLY Star Wars film where I left feeling disappointed at the potential places they could have taken the film, even though I have come out of every other Star Wars film on a high....even after the Prequels (Yes, I did say the prequels)! This film left me scratching my head. I wanted to like it so badly, but I just wasn't sure I liked where it was going, or how everything had been handled.
They had just killed off a lot of the good characters that they had built up in TFA, and now under Johnson's direction, he deemed them surplus to requirements. It just felt like they were trying to fit too much into this film, whilst trying to make a complete fresh start in Episode 9. Let us not forget that we knew little about the Emperor or Boba Fett when they were both killed off in the original trilogy, but I thought with Rian Johnson's new take on the franchise, that he might have explored these characters a little further.
I thought that Rey had little character development too in this film, other than attempting to chase Luke around the island, then only to find out that her parents were complete nobodies. This is fine, but it felt like that was an easy way out of trying to appease fans who had compiled numerous theories about
who her parents might have been over the past 2 years.
I understand that Disney may be wanting to attract a larger audience to the franchise, but it felt like the opinions of die hard fans were casually tossed aside in this next installment, and I can understand why many of them will not be happy with the end product. On looking back, I wouldn't say the plot was unique at all, more of a mashing between the ROTJ and Empire, with fillers thrown in to buy screen time. However, saying that, on the whole it is an entertaining film.
I definitely want to see the film again when it comes out on blu ray, as you cannot always get the full impact of the film on a first watch.
It is NOT the worst film ever, but nor is it anywhere near the best, in my opinion. Some great scenes in this, but I personally had hoped for a better storyline and character development, which is why I am giving it a 5. I'm hoping that on a second viewing that my mind will have been changed and the score will be much higher, but for now I'm still pondering as to why things happened the way they did in The Last Jedi.
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There is very little in this film that is original. It is a direct parallel story to the Empire Strikes Back without the heart and character of TESB. There is virtually no story and it is pop to action scene - pop to action scene - pop to action scene with nothing written well enough to explain the film. It is a virtual eye candy movie with no story - but that is Star Wars - just a formula that has gotten worse and worse and worse.
The saving grave - there isn't a death star - again.
The bad (and there is a lot): Poe stages a mutiny and nothing happens to him or his fellow mutineers; Leia gets blown into space and somehow wakes up and flies back to the ship; an engineer suddenly becomes a pilot and saves Finn's life; the terrible subplot to find a code breaker to stop the First Order from finding the ships (which btw is so far fetched - there is no time to fly all over the galaxy while your ships are being destroyed and find rescue); the planet that conveniently pops up with a huge metal door to hide behind; the consistent desire to show alien creatures with no value to the film; and finally the badly written death of Luke.
Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are two of the worse performers that I have ever seen. To make matters worse Finn has little screen time (and he is the only interesting character) and Poe is made out to be an idiot.
A sad send off to Luke Skywalker and a terrible tribute to Carrie Fisher.
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Don't listen to the critics this time around. The movie falls short in almost every aspect, and it seems to take a giant dump on most of the SW-legacy (and yes, I am talking about legacy from the movies) and it does nothing to build up something new. I am not here to be rude or just to spit at something many people love. I am a huge, huge SW-fan myself (look at my shirt!) and even though I felt, that TFA had some major issues, I really had hopes for this new trilogy. However... Wow, just wow.
I will not spoil anything (I promise), but I will say this: the movies does nothing to answer any of the many, many questions raised by TFA, at least not in an exciting or fascinating ways. And the story takes such drastic turns, that the only real, that lingers after this one, is how the hell are they going to make a third installment of this trilogy? I simply cannot see anything remaining after this wreck of a movie, that could build to an interesting "conclusion" in Episode IV (what is there even left to conclude on?).
This was really a surprise. Wow!
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1/10
The spark that ignites the fire that will destroy the franchise.
I always try to stay positive. I get angry at the really negative people a lot. But this time it's personal...Star Wars (Episode IV, V, VI, VII) are my favorite movies in the galaxy....Now I just get angry at positive reviews. I can't believe that someone likes this abomination IF they love Star Wars for what it is. I love the actors! That's the only thing that makes it watchable. The Porgs are the best thing about this flick....And that's not a good thing....I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. So judge for yourself. I would have given it a 5 or 6 star rating. But I am so sad! That I decided to try and bring it down from an eight. There is just no way JJ can safe this Disney abomination. This is the spark that ignites the fire that will destroy the Star Wars franchise...Worse than I...
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1. They make Luke look like an absolute coward even though he seemed to master the force in RTJ. I get his apprentice turned on him and destroyed everything, but that also happened to Obi Wan and he still managed to remain a true jedi.
2. Rose/Finn romance dialogue is Anakin/Padme Attack of the Clones level cheesy.
3. Snoke is this powerful dark side user that picked up where Palpatine left off. He was so powerful he could bridge Rey's and Kylo's minds, he can read Rey's mind with absolute ease, but he can't even tell that Kylo was slowly moving that lightsaber in his direction? You could even here it shaking a bit as Kylo was moving it. This part was absolutely ridiculous.
4. Hux was an absolute bitch of a character in this movie and it's a complete waste. His badass speech in TFA now seems like a joke.
5. Way too much humor in this movie. Especially in scenes that should clearly take themselves seriously. It will piss you off.
6. Ok I get that Leia is a force user, but they should've just killed her off when she was blown into space. Her 'Mary Poppins'-ing her way back to the ship was just stupid and unnecessary.
7. BB-8 is extremely overused in this movie. This seems like the result of just flat out lazy writing. It's easy to picture Rian Johnson and crew sitting there thinking "oh how is this character going to get out of this sticky situation? BB-8!! Now let's repeat that at least 5 times throughout the film".
8. And finally... they slowly chase the rebels until they run out of fuel? Are you f****g kidding me? This made the rest of the movie so predictable. They obviously would find some way to get out at the last second and one of the characters would sacrifice themselves to save the day and buy the rebels some time.
Overall 1/10. The 1 point I give it is from Adam Driver's fantastic performance and the sweet fight scene with Kylo and Rey killing the praetorian guards. Very disappointing movie but I still have hope for Ep 9. I don't believe this movie ruined Star Wars but it still was just a laughable attempt at "changing things up".
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I'll start with the cons , because there are a lot of them.
Disney is probably the worst thing that happened to this franchise . Yes , even worse than Jar-Jar Binks . The script is bad , the "comedy" seems Forced (pun intended) and cringe inducing , the plot is highly predictable and seems like every Disney movie ever made . Full of cliches ( i.e "bad guys are about to win but the good guys escape" cliche)
Luke's death is astonishingly random and unnecessary , just for the purpose of a poorly made "passing of the torch" moment.
Rose is completely useless to this plot.
The whole casino scene made me feel like I was watching a Bond movie . Absolutely unnecessary and poorly chosen setup.
The movie felt like a filler and a setup for the final battle in the last movie.
Pros (yes, there are pros) :
It's visually stunning ( at least in the IMAX format ). The CGI crew did an amazing job.
It's well directed.
Some of the actors ( Benicio del Torro , Daisy Ridley , Mark Hamill and even Adam Driver ) are delivering good performances.
It develops the characters of Rey , Kylo Ren , Finn and Poe.
It unveils the backstory of why Luke decided to disappear ( a bit of a cliche , but I'll let it slide because I must admit it fooled me the first time ).
Overall , I'm not mad for paying to see the movie , but I expected better.
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I haven't written a movie review for more than 10 years, but I felt this was the right momentum to do so as one of my favorite sagas once again was on the big screen. While for a second time the hopes and the anticipation were colossal, equally huge was the disappointment and the frustration after leaving the theater.
To be fair, someone could say that episode 8 could be called "decent" as a standalone movie but it certainly lacks the impact and influence that the original Lucas trilogy had.
The problem with the Last Jedi is the same with the Force Awakens as both movies fail to meet the demands of the modern cinematic era.
To start with the script, the story is a complete mess. While the 20-mins mental tension between Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver is rather the only brief part of the film which is interesting, the rest of 2-and half hours film that focus on the Rebels struggle to face the mighty dark empire is a dull, already seen, uninspired and eventually boring part of the film. The presence of Poe Dameron as a failed but honest hero is inexplicable, while Snook is another caricature and certainly not scaring, evil guy who will very soon erase from our memory.
I did not mind so much Disney's obvious attempt to be "politically correct" including in the screen actors from any possible race, thus forcing the story to give an unnecessary role to everyone neither so much the fake and bad CGI in the casino, not even the turnaround of Luke's character to an old frustrated and grumpy guy but I really got upset with all that Disney's mellow cliches like "saving our loved ones is that who will make us win" or the family relic of Rose Tico who us poor audience do not want her to lose, or the fathiers who need to be desperately saved .
Did I actually go and watch Star Wars or Despicable me and Free Willy? It is obviously another movie of the Star Wars saga where a 10 year old max... can be happy and who will be satisfied with the porgs and eating Chewi's food but not the rest of us who are just a bit older..
The creators of the film industry should have taken as an example what Christopher Nolan did with Dark Knight reboot where the reality and the dark industrial environment characterizes our modern world but unfortunately not only JJ Abraams but also Rian Jonson as well preferred to stay "glued" in the past.
Overall the Last Jedi lacks inspiration, original ideas and eventually that feeling of spirituality and chemistry between the actors that Lucas introduced first and destroyed later... The force is completely lost guys...
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Okay, let's get this out of the way: I do not hate the Last Jedi. I do not hate any Star Wars film - Even Attack of the Clones, my least favorite movie in the franchise (I gave it a 3/10 on this site), I merely dislike. (There's a difference.) I also quite like The Force Awakens, even though everyone on the internet loves to crap all over it.
That being said, I was rather let down by this movie. While I applaud Rian Johnson, the director, for having the guts to take the franchise into new areas, I feel he screwed with Star Wars lore a bit too much. For instance, I'm not entirely sure if the Force works in the way it is depicted here.
I also did not like what was done with certain characters. Leia has a moment where she is in space, and she uses the Force to get somewhere. Now, I know she theoretically has the ability to use the Force, her being Anakin Skywalker's daughter after all, but she didn't learn to use it, as far as we know. Even if she DID, it came out of nowhere. This trilogy, sad to say, has no problem with overpowered characters. (Yes, Rey is still a little bit OP here, but it's handled better than Force Awakens.)
Also, Luke was quite the sourpuss in this movie. I'm sorry, but that's the best way to put it. Yes, he was probably broken by what happened with Kylo Ren, but I'm not buying it. I won't say anymore, since I don't want to give away too much, even though this is a spoiler review. I will say, though, he has a really cool sequence towards the end of the movie. But, what happens in his arc later did not sit well with me.
And yes, the Finn & Rose subplot was completely unnecessary. If a few certain characters didn't screw around did what they were supposed to do, we could have dropped this whole subplot and shaved off 45 minutes.
Lastly, this movie also did injustice to 2 characters, namely Snoke and Admiral Ackbar.
MORE SPOILERS BELOW
First off, regarding Admiral Ackbar: We all remember this dude and his "It's a trap" line from Return of the Jedi, right? He's rather well known. But he gets killed in this movie in a spaceship blast, unceremoniously. WTF?
Next, regarding Snoke: We waited, for 2 years, to know more about a character shrouded in mystery. But nope, Kylo Ren just decides to just kill him in a move that makes no sense to me.
This movie isn't all bad, though. The acting is solid, the score is brilliant as per usual, and the movie looks GORGEOUS. The story just disappointed me.
If you're a casual Star Wars fan, or if you're not even a fan, you might like this one more than I did.
Adam Driver said that this movie would be the Empire Strikes Back of the trilogy. One thing to note - that one initially perplexed people when it came out, just like this one, and is now regarded as the best Star Wars movie. I do hope the same thing happens here.
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Huge waist of time no new developments other than an emo tenanager inbracing tthe dark. No answers about backstories no character development. useless missions the entire movie with no results. i Didn't think it could be worse than phantom menace but episode 1 surprisingly blows this one out of the water hands down. As a star wars fan i want my time and money back wow what a let down.
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The second of the third trilogy and the third Star Wars movie produced by Disney. One more movie added to the collection of what seems to be an endless series (and endless conflict in space). No matter what, Disney will get their money and it'll not stop until the franchise is no longer profitable. I'll be waiting for those times, but for now, let's talk about Episode VIII, shall we?
I'll keep this review spoiler-free, since most of the IMDb reviews are not.
Now, if you didn't like The Force Awakens (like me), it's best to ignore Episode VIII. If you liked The Force Awakens, I honestly don't know whether you're going like this film or not, as feedback from fans seems to be mixed.
In short, Episode VIII - The Last Jedi feels like its made by the studio executives, rather than the movie makers. This is a very cliche thing to say, but would you be surprised if most of the decisions were made by the studio? I have nothing against people who made this. As matter of fact, I feel sorry for them as their talent were completely wasted. I think this can be applied to most Marvel (or Hollywood in general) films too.
There are a lot of problems in this film. Most of them may seem like nitpicks to some people, but for me personally, immersion is very important and some small, and not so small, details can break the film; to a point, I stop caring about what will happen. Mistakes and missteps can make the film artificial and make you think about the decisions filmmakers made.
I have no problem with unrealistic scenarios and irrational decisions made by characters in a film but then rules need to be established and some sort of line between complete fantasy and realism should be there. Let me just say that "the force" seem to be very inconsistent. Sometimes you need training, sometimes it just works without it. There was one moment that almost made laugh. It's something that just happens and we are not going to see the same thing happening again, even though it could be one of the most useful force abilities you could imagine. Speaking of inconsistencies, most characters sometimes speak of something and then proceed to do something else. "We need to stay. No, we need to escape." This leads me to another problem.
Too many plot devices and coincidences. When everything goes bad and there is no hope, something always saves the situation. Either it's a dumb decision that just works or a situation that just can't possibly happen, no questions asked. There will be no tension when things just happen due to lazy writing.
And there's more. There are too many forced (no pun intended) sequences where you are supposed to feel sad about the tragedy when you don't care about the character. Also, many of the jokes seem to be focused on these CGI creatures that reminds me of prequel trilogy, and I already forgot what the jokes were about. I think they were just weird alien creatures being weird or something.
Technically, the film is standard Hollywood flick, maybe even too standard. Action sequences were uninspired, but competent. There were no unique/creative camera angles. CGI wasn't bad, but it was very noticeable. Now, I'm not 100% sure about this next statement, but there was some unnecessary focus points. Especially the CGI creatures in the background. Again, weird alien things being weird and some hamster creatures that were suppose to look cute. They didn't add anything to the story and seem to be there to sell toys. Hey, atleast ewoks were doing something useful. There isn't any other reason for these creatures to appear.
There's definitely more to say, but due to limited space, I have to end it here. Episode VIII is yet another Disney studio Star Wars film that play it safe.
Oh, one last thing. There are reasons why Mark Hamill wasn't keen on this film and probably are the same problems that made Harrison Ford left this franchise, but who knows. Atleast we got another Star Wars film. It's all that matters, right?
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Let me qualify this review and say that I am an 'average' adult fan of Star Wars. I grew up with the movies (I was 7 when A New Hope was released) and had some of the toys back then. I haven't read any few books and haven't watched the animated series. I loved all of the first series of movies (except maybe the Ewoks) and I consider them classics. The 2nd set of movies were pretty bad, but I liked some aspects and consider Phantom Menace the best of that series. It's Star Wars, so it's still kinda cool still, right?
I thought The Force Awakens was pretty good. I was a little perturbed that it was a knock-off of A New Hope, but that's OK. Things are cyclical, they were playing it safe and, hey, it's Star Wars so it's still kinda cool, right? I like Rogue One, it was OK. I had "hope" that Disney was going to be a good steward of the franchise.
The Last Jedi unfortunately fully steers this series well into the same bucket as Episodes 1,2 & 3. It fully jumps the shark and that is a travesty. Despite having some AWESOME individual scenes and incredible graphics, great acting by Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley, this film suffered in all areas of the plot, reaching too far and just stupid decisions.
Should you go see it in theaters? Of course, you have to, it's Star Wars. Give Disney their money, but you will leave the theater shaking your fist to the sky and cursing Mickey like I did.
So much potential lost.
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This "Last Jedi" is not only with terrible storyline, it's just look extremely outdated. It might have been looked good and interesting 30 years ago, but absolutely looks stupid and childish. Heavily relied upon computer graphics but also sadly still in stereotyped CGI designs and special effect. In order to create some new figures and characters for the franchise toy market, this new sequel has predictably thrown in more weird and funny creatures. There's nothing worth watching and continuing the interest to support blindly for this franchise, let it fade away or phase out after this one, please.
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4/10
Believe me when I say the phantom menace is much much better
Had really high hopes about the movie since releasing the force awakens and then the trailer. Had to wait two years and then be devastated with this movie. Let's see: no story line, a big speed chase that leads to no where, rey mastering the ways of the force with no training required, Leia becomes all master Yoda and start flying, porgs, and honestly snoke was a total waste of time the guards where much impressive than him, Kylo Ren is just a kid that needs to blow some steam has no vision, there's no heroes and no villains. It's like someone was really wasted when approving the release of this movie.
But for a fact the music was really good and the special effects where amazing the only good part in the movie where the space battles that's it the rest was a waste of money and effort.
Thank you Disney for ruining a great franchise.
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This film was an in incredible insult to Star Wars fans. The action was great for the most part but all decisions regarding the script and characters were terribly executed. I don't know how this film can currently sit on 8/10.
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Critics and "users" obviously had different filters seeing this movie. Unfortunately, The Last Jedi was a new direction but in the wrong way. Yoda's appearance threw the movie under the bus. I really can say that if they just stuck to Rey's plot and maybe a little side action like the "The Force Awakens" they could have had a terrific film...
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1/10
The only glimmer of hope to be seen in The Last Jedi was in Carrie Fisher's facial muscles attempting to move from behind 20 layers of plastic. (No Spoilers)
It would seem Rian Johnson believes good writing is being reminded you're watching a Disney film every 5 minutes through some of the most abysmal, cringe inducing dialogue since the days of "I hate sand".
I knew many people, including myself, had higher hopes for The Last Jedi after the boring rehash that was The Force Awakens. These hopes have yet again been quickly dashed as Rian wastes no time letting us know that we're in for the longest 2h and 33m a Star Wars fan has faced yet.
There were many scenes during the film that were colossal on the scale of 'what the actual fuck' that one can only question the sanity of Mr. Johnson upon completing this utter mess of a picture.
I could only help but yawn through the never ending arcs as 5 second characters are endlessly introduced solely for the sales of their figurine counter parts. I've heard Rian Johnson has been given three more films under the Star Wars name and I can't help but feel they've been given to him purely from the projected sales of the never-ending Porg/Plushie collection.
It's hard for me to explain the complexity of Disney's latest shit stain without spoiling it, so let me regrettably tell you that Star Wars is officially dead and it's corpse will be ridden until the end of our life times. So for old times sake, let us look away now, while we still can.
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I grew up with Star Wars, liked Looper, and was really looking forward to this movie. But I was stunned by how bad it was. Johnson tried to be clever, funny, and surprising, but failed on all counts. I don't mind that Star Wars is taken into a new direction and stripped of what we think we knew about the universe Lucas created. But I do mind that the characters are - even for a Star Wars movie - cartoonish and utterly unbelievable, and that the storyline is riddled with unnecessary subplots that could and should have been cut.
Also, the movie is tonally jarring. There is a lot of slapstick esp. when it comes to Luke Skywalker, but the main plot is borrowed from the new Battlestar Galactica, which is a about a merciless foe running down an utterly defeated and increasingly desperate enemy. That would have called for tense, character-based storytelling, and not for misplaced attempts at humor, clever twists, and ridiculous villains.
This movie is a lost opportunity. Johnson could have ended the Jedi not with a childish and historically tone-deaf burning of books, but with telling us how a Luke Skywalker we could have seriously came to the conclusion that the Jedi were flawed and needed to end. But Johnson was so caught up in breaking the beloved toys of Star Wars fan boys that he forgot to tell a compelling story along the way.
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The Star Wars franchise finally has it's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
The Last Jedi (TLJ) is a deeply flawed and darkly cynical corporate product. TLJ is not a cinematic experience, it is a product meant for consumption and disposal, plain and simple. Like Thor: Ragnarok, there was a reason for the review embargo. Disney and Iger did not want word of mouth to spoil opening day ticket sales.
The last few months of Disney social promotion, press junkets, "leaked" spoilers, propaganda and dare I say, payola, were carefully crafted to blunt word of mouth. Much like the 2016 Presidential election, TLJ will be a challenge to the faith of Star Wars fans much like the current administration is to lovers of democracy.
Yes, TLJ is that bad.
The Director-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, blithely abandons the old Republic serial style of storytelling, brazenly abandons the visual style of seven previous films and two television shows, and inserts the Star Wars DNA only to plug the holes in this creaky, wooden beaver dam of a film. How bad is it?
TLJ is so bad, that anytime someone complains to you about Jar Jar Binks, you'll be able to immediately counter and say ... "I'll see your Jar Jar and raise you Episiode VIII." Where to begin? There's so much fodder that a graduate student of film could write an entire doctoral thesis titled "Poor Filmcraft in 21st Century Cinema, How Profit Trumps Process." Granted, Voldirectormort was handed a tall order to flesh out and explain what the makers of its predecessor in press interviews admittedly could not. It doesn't. Don't believe the marketing hype ... there's nothing of note to spoil. Gone is the classic Greek three act structure. Gone is the rising action. Gone is characters put in jeopardy. Gone is internal logic. Gone are many practical effects. Gone is Star Wars, it is. On its own merits, TLJ is the worst example of 21st Century, Comic Book of the Month Club Cinema. Granted, TLJ has many beautiful shots, but it doesn't have a single scene which has the gravitas of the epic of which it is a part. The plot is a melange of tenuously related scenes driving to a non-existant climax and flaccid denouement. The TLJ's dialogue isn't much better. Gone are the wooden aspects from the prequel trilogy only to be replaced by pedestrian banter. TLJ's greatest sin is that it's boring. By the end of this film, you'll be begging for Palpatine's astro-political machinations. The most fascinating phenomenon of human society is that of The Emperor's Clothes. You see it in the eyes of the actors. I saw it in the eyes of the stunned-into-silence fans leaving the theater. Election Night 2016, Part Deux. I cannot recommend paying to see this film. The success of Star Wars original trilogy is in repeat ticket sales, VHS sales, DVD sales and BluRay sales. TLJ is an expensive straight to video product. Yes, it's that bad. You'll see it in bargain bins at a WalMart near you in the not too distant future.
I recommend that you not pay to see this film. You can find original Netflix, Amazon and Hulu content that's far superior. Not that the major broadcast networks ever air films anymore, but TLJ is so bad I would say wait for it to hit ABC. It's not even Netflix worthy. These are dark, dark times for cinema.
As someone who was there in '77, it's hard for me to say this, but it's time to let Star Wars go. My hope for the Millenial Generation is that some independent radical movie maker comes along and makes for them their generation's King Kong, Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, The Godfather, Jaws or Star Wars. Just let it not be a sequel.
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This movie parallels everything wrong with modern society
I went into this movie with a cautious attitude towards it. The previous film (The Force Awakens) wasn't what I or most fans were expecting, though it did leave promise for the next film in the series to really hit the mark. The only thing this film hit, IMO, is the bottom of the barrel. Let's break out a few of the many disastrous scenes and plot elements:
The opening scene with Poe playing a joke on Hux - people around me in the theatre were asking if this was the remake to Spaceballs. Mother jokes? Really?
For the first 2/3 of the movie we have to put up with a sulky Luke who admittedly has gone to Ach-To to die. TFA teases that he went in search of the first Jedi Temple presumably in search of new knowledge about the force yet this movie pretty much tells you he already made his mind up about the Jedi after Ben betraying him and what Yoda and Obi-Wan allowed to happen to the old Jedi.
Why even go to Ach-To? - he could have just picked any remote place instead. The movie tries to alter the way the force is perceived by adding shades of grey (which would be just fine) but all it really succeeds in doing is portraying that Jedi no longer need training or experience, instead just do whatever you want and all is good. Luke is portrayed as a cowardly fool who contemplates murdering his apprentice in his sleep (totally out of character for him) Then when the apprentice realizes this, he is able take down the temple around him, surviving unscathed, killing most of the students and taking the rest with him while Luke is knocked out. What happened to the ones he took with him? Where are the Knights of Ren that were talked about?
Let's talk about Snoke. First off, the character is obviously a copy from the OT of the Emperor - no originality there. But let's roll with it - maybe's he a bigger, more evil, more bad-ass character than his predecessor (they certainly made it look that way) Nope ... he's an idiot that's dispatched unceremoniously in another Spaceballs moment.
Then there's Rey - with absolutely zero training she can fight like a ninja Jedi warrior and accomplished swordsperson. The extent of her training was her picking up the lightsaber and swinging it around like a kid would in the Walmart toy aisle. In the scene after Snoke dies she fights just as well as Kylo, if not better. Kylo actually seems to have difficult defeating the guards and seems to have lost his ability to use the force all of a sudden.
The original series moved at a pace that was much more believable and at least had some semblance of logic to it. Finally I thought the movie was about to redeem itself when Luke apparently showed up on Crait. The force illusion thing was cool - but then he dies after it? From what? a heart attack? lol. Awful. Now everyone sees why Mark Hamill was upset with the script. He seemingly retracted his comments, probably because he's too diplomatic and didn't want to ruin the movie for anyone.
Some critics talk about how the movie pays homage to the original trilogy. It does nothing of the sort - it copies elements from Empire and Return of the Jedi and uses them to kill off the most interesting characters in the movie in a way that slaps you in the face.
Disney is ruining Star Wars. It's all about making as much money as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. They're gonna keep pumping out new Star Wars movies full of action and plot twists to keep people "surprised". Whatever happened to well thought out stories that created a legacy for years to come?
The main theme I see from this film is "Let's kill off anyone that's over 35 years old (the actual interesting characters with any amount of depth) and let whiny kids take over the universe. If you read the Aftermath novel trilogy which was created to explain some of the events in between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens it explains that Luke is off in search of knowledge of the Force. What was the point when they just decided going forward that jedi don't require training - you have power in the force? Insta-Warrior - just go ahead and do some stuff and we'll idolize you!
We live in a society of instant gratification and an attitude of younger people asserting that at 20 years old they have all the knowledge and experience of someone twice their age and it's portrayed readily in this film.
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Although there were elements within the movie that I enjoyed, particularly those concerning Rey/Ren/Luke, I disliked this movie. The problems for me had nothing to do with how a beloved character was treated or how the force was presented. This movie had basic filmmaking flaws: pacing, plot, structure, character development. I was bored for most of the film, even though I was watching characters that I love. It wasn't until the final act that the pacing picked up as the plot lines merged. I'm genuinely shocked that this was the film that Lucasfilm loved so much that they didn't demand re-shoots or edits and gave the director his own trilogy.
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The visual side of things is stunning, which is the only reason why I am giving the movie two stars instead of one.
From what I read, the director has stated in an interview that he felt that it was redundant to explain too many things, citing the example of Palpatine in the OT as an example that not everyone has to get a backstory immediately.
My take on that is that there is a world of difference between the current time and the time when the OT has been named - a whole Star Wars universe has been established, we know now the way things work, only for this movie to:
1. Make several established facts regarding the way The Force works null and void.
2. Make zero effort to explain the backstories of new characters - so many questions are unanswered that these movies already need prequels of their own to tie up loose ends
3. Completely destroy the character of OT hero Luke Skywalker.
To a casual moviegoer, the movie offers a watchable thrill but lacks the depth of the OT or of Revenge of the Sith.
To a dedicated Star Wars fans, the movie not only fails to live up to the standards of its predecessors, but also ruins the experience of watching some of the older movies again, given that it nullifies some of the already established character arks.
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Once again rinse and repeat.
In this movie you don't know who is gonna receive award for
the most idiotic commander/leader/general on both sides.
Decisions making are atrocious here,first decision in move by Poe deserves at least fire squad ,but I don't want to spoil anything.
Movie pics up exactly where "Fan service awakens" ended which is first for episodes as I can recall.
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It is time. I never ever wrote a review before but for all you folks outside all you nerds who love the star wars franchise like me, i need to write this.
You would call me a nerd. I watched each star wars movie countless times, i read all the books, i love thrawn and luke and han and all the other characters.
I thougt " well the force awakens" was ok. It felt good like coming home. And than, there was the day of the midnight preview of The Last Jedi. And believe me. During the first 15 Minutes i thought "wow, this could be it!" an than there were the other 2h and 15 minutes. an those felt like an accident that happend in front of you and you weren´t able to watch in an other direction.
the whole plot and the whole storyline were absolutley redicculuous. I am one of the biggest star wars fans. Rouge one was a masterpiece for me. But what this Johnson guy and Disney did to all the fans with this movie was mayhem.
I want to tell the whole world what Disney an the other involved people did with this movie. I want Disney to call me an say "pleas stop telling everybody what we did, nobody watches our movies anymore!" but i know that won´t happen.
I cant´spoil a story, because there is none.
Dont´waste your money on this movie. Maybe watch it when ist someday runs in tv and you have to do your housework an want to listen to a movie. for now i am done with the new star wars franchise.
Today i will sit down an listen to the thrawn trilogy radiplay. The true continuation of the old star wars trilogy.
have a nice day and heads up. they can trie to destroy everything George bulit up during the last 40 Years but we won´t let them!!!
may the force...
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******SPOILERS AHEAD-WARNED YOU ARE******
Sick. I just felt sick seeing The Last Jedi.
Still feel sick. Felt so sick, got up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep. (ended up reading IMDB reviews for 3 hours)
No movie has ever done that to me before.
Why? JJ set up all of these wonderful forewards in TFA, to be left with all of our hopes dashed with no fulfillment, wasted villains, no conflict, nothing.
As Lando said, "I trusted you to fix it, Rian!"
I was led down the garden path by SWCO, praises for Rian, the media hype. It was all hype.
As DJ said, "It's all a machine."
Instead of the arms dealers getting rich, it's Disney.
Instead of Rose and Finn being double-crossed, it is the diehard Star Wars fans.
We were sold out.
The light side:
1. effects were what I expected
2. acting was decent (but not Oscar-winning performances we were promised)
3. score was decent (but definitely rehashes every theme in SW with nothing new)
4. Liked Rose a lot (she was a good foil for Finn making his character reconsider his actions)
5. liked that Finn went from running away to running toward the conflict at the end
6. loved Poe's development
7. "Flyboy" was not out of place as Leia called Han that in ANH
8. loved the ending (but some things could have been better)
9. loved the Force-bond between Kylo and Rey (and, no, I'm not a Reylo shipper)
10. loved the chemistry between Rey and Poe at the end
11. loved the last scene of Luke
The dark side:
1. The humor was over the top and entirely unnecessary in the Luke/Rey arc (even though I laughed at the "breathe," it ruined the mystique of the Jedi and the Force)
2. The dialogue was so clunky, worse than Leia's dialogue in TFA (and I didn't think any dialogue could be worse than that)
3. No actor direction. Very evident it was "visionary" direction, but not character.
4. The main plot: Luke throwing lightsaber over his shoulder?! His attitude "Get off my lawn"? That works for Hamill being fascetious. It doesn't work for this movie. Rey getting less than 18 hours of instruction? It shows her sleeping twice, but she shows up on Crait at the end. (Continuity issues-you need a calendar for the plot when you write!) The books just being for show and burn? The whole infinity mirror thing?
5. Finn/Rose subplot-it could have been removed entirely or shortened to making contact with the real MASTER CODEBREAKER and getting off planet fast. MASTER CODEBREAKER should have been Lando. DJ just shouldn't have been. Finn and Rose should have spent more time on the flag ship being chased by stormtroopers, not captured so easily. Cut the whole thing about the horse things and the stable kids (obviously a set up for Rian's upcoming trilogy-which I will not watch).
6. Poe/Leia subplot-loved Poe's humor, but the mother joke has to go. Mutiny should have been expanded and worked. Leia should have either died in space or piloted the cruiser on the suicide mission. AT-ATs and skimmers-yeah, should have been the speeders from Hoth. Should have been a fully engaged battle.
7. I knew we were getting Porgs on the island, but those nun-like creatures and the sea cows being harvested for blue milk? Really? Isn't one cute animal enough for the merchandising profits? OK, the crystal critters could stay, too. But the rest just had to go.
8. Space Leia. Enough said.
9. Admiral Holdo-artistically, she was strong and a great foil for Poe. It was evident that she and Leia could not been on screen together for a long time-too much wow there. However, even though Laura Dern was perfect in her part, why in the world did they go for another white female? (And I'm a white female, so don't say I'm being racist here.) How many of our strong female characters are white? Could she have not been black or Hispanic? Just scratching my head here.
10. BB-8 saves the day every single time? Really? tying up the guards playing Sabacc? shooting out gold coins? commandeering an AT-ST? How did he get in there? We were pandered to with all of those scenes.
11. The anti-white man slant here. It is one thing to include a variety of races and more females, but it should not have been at the expense of writing every white man as incompetent, loony, or weak. It just shouldn't have.
12. Snoke's death. What a waste of an amazing villain. Give him a backstory. Give us hints in VIII and full-on reveal in IX.
13. Hologram Luke (I knew immediately when he had the brown beard with Leia it was a projection). Why couldn't he have raised his X-Wing and joined the fight? Why couldn't he have faced down Kylo Ren for real? Even if Ren overcame him because he was old, it would have been a better way. Also, they could have left him injured (instead of Rose), so we all wonder if he will survive long in the next film. This was just the wrong way to do it. (I did like his peaceful death scene, though. Way to go on the full lotus, Hamill.)
14. The Slowest Space Chase in History. It was a waste of film. Plot holes galore. How about the First Order cripples the cruiser, they escape to Crait (which is an abandoned Imperial base), etc.? Spend time on Crait showing how they think they'll win. Give them enough technology to get an early tiny victory. Cheated on this. So cheated.
15. When the Flag Ship is hit, I really hated that black-and-white sequence. It was shoving it our faces that Rian Johnson was this visionary photographer. It jerked me out of the movie yet one more time. Stop trying to be so artsy and tell the story!
That's what made the original trilogy great-George specifically did not make Star Wars like the sci-fi of the 70s that spent long minutes photographing beautiful sets and locations and effects. He made a mistake with the prequels when he thought that we wanted those beautiful sets and locations and effects at the cost of the story. Rian, you made that fatal error, too. I was trying to identify where this film fits in my list of likes. 5, 6, 7, 4, 3, R1, 2, 1, 8
What's really sad is I thought this was going to the best Star Wars movie ever made with the mysticism back and the dark tones and tons of character development with a compelling plot. I'm crying right now as I realized how we've been cheated and lied to.
JJ, it's not too late. You can still change this around.
How to fix this:
1. Rey has to make mistakes, and those mistakes must hold dire consequences for her. Like Luke ignoring Yoda's warning and losing an arm and finding out the truth about his father when he wasn't ready for it. Like Luke ready to stand for the right at the end of ROJ, even if it meant painful death.
2. Rey has to be a person of importance. Kylo Ren's explanation does not coincide with the Force vision. Since 5 minutes earlier Snoke says he was manipulating both their minds, make it so that Snoke put this false information in both of those. Rey was waiting for her family to return in TFA. They left. We saw it. I don't care if she's Luke's kid he didn't know he had or Han's kid at this point, but Anakin's lightsaber calling to her proves she is Anakin's granddaughter.
3. You have to give motivation for Kylo Ren turning entirely evil and focused on destroying Luke Skywalker at the end. His motivation was finding Luke before, but not killing him. Killing started after he killed Snoke. Plagueis survives by the apprentice killing his host body and the spirit of Plagueis possessing the apprentice. That is the key. Don't mess this up.
4. Recast Leia for at least a few minutes in the beginning of the film. She has to tell Rey who she is or at least give her clues that lead Rey by the end of the film to find out who she is.
5. There is no way Luke decided to just kill Kylo Ren as a sleeping teenager. There had to be more of a motivation: Kylo threatening the love of Luke's life, or injuring her, or something. That would give proper motivation for Luke to exile himself.
6. No more Hasbro money pits. Just stick to the story. Leave out the furry creatures. Make Chewbacca ferocious again. A vegan he ain't.
For IX, I will be looking for spoilers, instead of avoiding them. If it doesn't have what I'm looking for (see the 5 points above), I'm not giving Disney another dime. End of story. You have one more shot in my book to get this right.
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Honest Review - Okay Movie, but ruined the Star Wars Lore Franchise!
Disney, or whoever decided to make this chaos trash, totally ruined the Star Wars lore. The character archs are not explained, incoherent or just fall off a cliff. Nevertheless, when you build massive evil character as Snoke and do not explain his origins which has been massive debate over the years, is totally trashed for what happened in the movie. Moreover, the director does not care about any of the historical characters and they are tossed away like meaningless trash. After just being aware of the force, Rey can dominate Praetorian Guards? What? Her fighting ability now unmatched without any training whatsoever? The movie makes fun of Jedi History and in essence and literally destroying all reference to Jedi anchient lore. There is literally nothing on Finn's development. Waste of all character developments in this film. This film is a mess. If you love cute penguin-like creatures and product placement, then go see the movie. IF you are a Star Wars fan, it will be an overall disappointment. Thanks Disney for destroying a franchise!
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I work at the cinema and every movie I get to screen, I check if it will play right. That includes skipping few scenes, check picture and sound and I turn it off if everything is ok. Through skipping scenes, I saw a few that looked really engaging and I've decided to make a little cinema screening for myself before the people come in to see the movie. That was the first time I have done it and won't do that again for SW movie. Not worth it.
I like the original SW movies (episodes I-III were ok, nice to look at), but I am not die hard fan of the series. TFA was ok, Rouge One not so much and this one... I really don't know anymore what this hype is all about.
BAD:
I actually didn't care for anyone in this movie, characters were just running around and everything they've done was failure. That is not a bad thing for plot if you can make me care for characters (this one here is not the case). Every character is just...meh. They made a grumpy old man out of Luke (was expecting this after TFA ending), Leia flies through the space - that really IS the worst scene in movie, no matter what the explanation is, Rey was boring as always, BB-8 goes Die Hard Bruce Willis tough, Poe is like angry rebelious teenager and Snoke...who the f*** is Snoke? There is no explanation who he is, what are his motivations and where did he came from? That guy is the mystery. And not so dangerous like he was presented to us, so that part looks like they HAD to put someone who will be killed by Kylo to take the command of the bad guys.
GOOD:
Snokes red room and guardians (that thing was so Kurosawa-like), Adam Driver was great, after movie ended all that was stick with me from all of it is his performance. Great actor. As for Benicio Del Toro's character (who was ok), did you also heard a little Franky Four-Fingers from "Snatch."? I really like that movie. Actors were great, but the story was just boring. Chewbacca was invisible here, but I love that guy no matter where you put him.
After public screening in cinema, only one guy was really satisfied with the movie. Everyone else were dissapointed and blamed Disney, 20 people got out of theatre before the movie was over. Tough audience or is it movie to blame?
For me, movie got 6 stars because it is little eye-candy - it kept me entertained, but really didn't care for the plot really. I would recommend to wait for Blu-Ray or DVD release, would never pay ticket for this mediocre movie. Will watch the extras of movie shooting (if there were one) on DVD/Blu-Ray, that is always more interesting.
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The main sticking points I had with this movie:
1. Why Didn't the First Order Fleet Destroy the Resistance Ships Immediately? The First Order Fleet clearly outnumbered the Resistance and they had a number of Dreadnoughts/Destroyers at their disposal (also the fact that one X-Wing took down a whole dreadnought was ridiculous and was done only to showcase Poe)., so why couldn't they have caught up to the Resistance much quicker? Other than that, the action was cool and the tension was high but overall it was the longest chase scene I have ever watched in the cinema.
2. When Darth Sidious said "To cheat death is the power only one has achieved, but if we work together, I know we can discover the secret." I never realised that Leia would be the one to discover the secret by miraculously flying THROUGH THE VACUUM OF SPACE and back to the Raddus like Superman using the Force- this was the most ridiculous moment of the movie.
3. Poe vs Holdo. This whole segment of the movie was a complete waste and didn't amount to anything significant. Why didn't Holdo Just Let Poe in on her plan from the beginning? I understand Leia and Holdo where maybe trying to teach Poe restraint but this was literally the Resistance on it's last legs and it didn't seem like the right time for moral lessons.
4. Phasma. What a joke. less than five minutes of screentime and Disney marketed her again as being central to the story (Phasma vs Finn, Book release, Last Jedi DLC in battlefront 2). GC is such an amazing actress however she was definitely short changed as were the fans.
5. Snoke. This was the most frustrating death purely from the fact that I feel like I wasted days reading the Aftermath Trilogy for them to suggest that he was this massive dark side presence and with RJ saying he was more powerful than Vader and Sidious yet he couldn't detect Kylo turning the lightsaber towards him?? And the fact that he's dead now means there is not much point for any further character development and he was another wasted character.
6. Rey's Parentage. While I can accept that she came from nothing significant, mirroring Anakin's lineage, why oh why did they build up on this theory since Force Awakens? In the end it meant nothing and for me it was just another example of lazy writing.
7. Finn and Rose. While their character interactions are excellent their whole plot in this story was completely insignificant (apart from Finn killing Phasma). They never recruited the Codebreaker they were meant too and they never shut down the tracker device. Also the whole sequence on Canto Bight was drawn out and felt like a promotion for highlighting rich society and animal cruelty (which are important) but how did this lend to the main plot?
8. Luke. Well where do I start? For the first hour and a half I thought his character direction and portrayal was great but then I began to realise why Mark Hamill initially said in interviews that he didn't like the script; he didn't give Rey any real training, we never got to see him physically wield a lightsaber and during his fight with Kylo he's now the worlds best limbo player??, also he was able to hologram himself? Across millions of miles of space?? and create hologram dice? This is where the nature of the Force is now just a Mcguffin which can fill in crappy plot holes. Luke's death was so stupid and ridiculous considering that in 40 years of canon and lore, Luke has always been promoted as one of the most powerful Jedi etc and his story continued well into old age. But after a hologram fight he just gets tired and gives up? What a joke.
9. Killing off 5 main characters from the old and new trilogy. This just demonstrates how the writers have disregarded fans likability for certain characters - Ackbar, Holdo, Phasma, Snoke, Luke. All deserved more time on screen. And none of these deaths had any emotional impact compared to any other SW movie or certainly Han's death in FA.
10. Yoda appearing to Luke. While I loved Yoda's cameo, why didn't they introduce a CGI Obi Wan (they done a great job of Tarkin in Rogue One) as well since he was Luke's first mentor and arguably the one he was most attached too.
11. the Hyperspace suicide... because of it the whole universe doesn't make sense... they could have used the same tactic against the Death Star.
Overall I would rate it 5/10 and by far the worst Star Wars movie. It had so much potential to be great (Luke fearing Kylo which could have led him to the Dark SIde and then lead him to fighting Rey and Kylo/ or Rey joining Kylo and ruling the Galaxy vs Luke in Ep.9./ Snoke being an Ancient Sith and killing one of the main characters or having Luke save Rey and Kylo on the Supremacy). But overall alot of the plot threads amounted to nothing significant.
The movie was shot beautifully and the action sequences were great. The actors portrayal of their characters was also great. As I say, my main issue is how the plot serviced these characters. The plot was messy and lacked real direction and I think in order to simplify things for Episode 9; that's why the writers literally destroyed everything. This is the first SW movie that I was genuinely disappointed in, and its the first SW movie I have ever complained about (I love the Originals, the Prequels and TFA/RO).
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4/10
Embarrassing, Messy, Disjointed..............disappointment of Phantom Menace proportions
I remember leaving the cinema after the Phantom Menace......In a kind of disbelieving silence, I never thought the cinematic experience could disappoint me to that degree again...............I was wrong.
The film starts of badly and never really recovers. Rian Johnson has delivered a fetid seasonal turkey of a movie that doesn't feel right on so many levels.
I would never have believed it possible that a film of this length could add so little in the way of character and plot development, it is in fact a regressional step and one which I feel has totally destroyed any chance there may have been for episode 9.
You know when you get someone exercising their critical muscles....someone inevitably shouts-"lets see you do better"?
In this case-as far as the writing goes, I'm pretty sure I could have.
Will I go and see it again?.......NO.
Will I buy it on BluRay?...........NO.
Will I stream it?......................NO.
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First of all I'm a die hard Star Wars Fan but not a blind fan. I coldn't quite feel the vibe when first I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2005) but I was hoping that the story will progress and the Episode VIII is going to be another classic afterall Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a new chapter and sort of an introduction of the new characters and what the Star Wars Univers has became. I think there were many inconsistencies in the story I was hoping to get answers of many of my questions as the episodes continue. Altough I couldn't shake the idea of Disney owning the franchise and could deliver something good out of it. I was ready to give a cahance to new episodes after all it was STAR WARS!
I had high hopes for Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi and I couldn't help myself but to go to the first show of the openning week. I felt my skin crawling when the classic introduction text and music started to appear on the big screen of course there was no way of knowing this was the only exciting moment of the whole movie that was suppose to be another Star Wars classic!!!
The story was terrible. Director and the cast were equially bad although the acting were not bad but not good either. Disney must learn just adding the millenium Falcon and all other characters of the old Star Wars movie can't make a good Star Wars movie!. With episode VII I thought Adam Driver was a joke and disgrace to all the sith Lords before him (especially Vader). With Episode VIII he even seems more of a disgrace. His character is terrible as well. Probably the worst sith Lord ever. Kylo Ren often times acts very childishly throughout the movie rather than a powerful Sith master or he is too weak of a character for even a sith apprentice. A big scratch on the villain . The other characters of the movie are just ok and even Mark Hamill is not quite enough for to save the day. Without getting into the details there were few interesting moments of the movie. As for that I gave 2 stars instead of 1.
I think Disney should quit messing up with classical story and should focus on side stories and maybe never told stories as Rogue One was much better movie than Episode VII and VIII combined.
I have seen many better B Rated Movies than this one. Disney spent millions on GCI and models but all of them are not enough to save this one. Never quite belive that I was going to say this for a Star Wars movie but this is a serious waste of time and money.
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No, I didn't misspell the title. I can't begin to describe the awful plot and writing of this film. I really hope someone from the studio reads this. Moviegoers are not complaining because the stakes were too high and there was no way to satisfy everyone. Rogue One is a far superior film and just being that it had the words "Star Wars" slapped on the title, meant that the expectations were high for that film as well. Although Rogue One was not a perfect film, it did not tamper with the storyline that everyone has been fascinated and enamored with since A New Hope. Surely this film is going to make lots of millions this weekend, I assure you that it will not make as much money as it could have if a better writer(s) had been hired to pen this story. In the end, making money is all that matters right? So as long as you can pack a few more millions in your bank accounts, then the film is a success. The intention of the filmmaker(s) and studio heads is all up on the screen. The film tried to be everything to everyone. So much going on and simple common sense being ignored. The hero we admired for decades was turned into an alcoholic without the booze mixed in with old man Withers who lives up the block and hates the laughter of children in the street. An incompetent oath filed with remorse and regret. Sadly, in real life most of our heroes today end this way. Why did we need to be reminded of this in The LEAST Jedi? This could have been an amazing opportunity to bring back actual hope to a fading franchise.
I truly felt that this film was exhausting. A two hour slow chase with inserts of Luke reminding us of why the Jedi need to end. By the end of this film I felt like things were not any different from where they started in A New Hope.
Although Mark Hamill disagreed with the direction of Luke, the director will be glad to know that many people will relate to his version of Luke in the film. Luke represents the thoughts and feelings of the audience that grew up watching these films. We are tired and weary, and have given up hope that the people dictating the direction of these characters/story actually know what they are doing. This was the least Star Wars feeling film I have ever seen. I knew things were off to a terrible start when Poe asks to speak to General Hux. Only to be followed by Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder after Rey hands it to him. That scene pretty much outlined what the creators of this film thought about anything that came before it. It was downhill from there and there was no way to recover. So many people have mentioned many of the things that this film failed at, so I won't bother to repeat them. I don't know if Mark Hamill's version of Luke would have been better, but I would think that perhaps it would have been a good idea to let him be involved in the writing process. I mean after all, he did play the character and knows him better only second to Mr. Lucas. I'm only focusing on this because the rest of the movie was filler.
I only wish that like Luke in the film... I could just stare at the sunset and have the memory of this film fade away in the same way he did.
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Nothing to add really, it's not a bad movie. Characters and their interactions are great but plotwise it's a joke, a bad joke, the kind of joke where you feel like they are making fun of you.
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Disney let a mad man make this movie and no I am not talking about george lucas. They are letting Rian Johnson write another new star wars trilogy movies why? This movie is really bad and I am a true star wars fan since I was seven. I loved the force awakens it had its problems no movie is perfect, but I thought it was good. Ok, let me begin with the review of this movie it started off great lots of action and some decent humor like the force awakens, then 20 minutes in this movie starts getting bad. Then movie slows to a crawl with Finn and a new character named rose they go to this casnio planet for some code breaking thing I am almost nodded off at that point. This movie had joke after joke after joke wedged in this movie none of the jokes worked and when it was suppose to be serious they inserted a stupid joke that fell flat! We finally get to meet luke of course he was this angry old man telling jokes never serious at all. There is a reason they didn't show much in the trailers, because you would of found out this was a comedy with bad jokes and no character development! Then old yoda makes an appearance gonna be serious right wrong old jokey yoda burns the jedi books and cave down to the ground funny right? The bad guy snoke menacing right kinda at first, then kylo turns rey's lightsaber which is sitting by snoke and ignites it and cuts the all mighty snoke in half! Are you kidding me kinda like killing darth maul in the phantom menace! Is rian really a fan of star wars or he is he pulling a andy kaufman putting a joke on us! Rian should be struck down with a lightsaber! I never thought I would say this, but this movie will make you miss the prequels!
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We are living in Orwellian times. The critics have been bought and paid for by faceless corporations to sell an agenda to a public looking for entertainment. Nostalgia weaponized to lure the masses to watch subvert anti white propaganda. Hear me out.
Spoilers to follow
Opening scene Poe declares general Hux to be "pasty" faced. A distinct reference to his identity, would this be allowed to be said to a character of color?
The Resistance the protagonists are now a diverse group compromised mainly of Poe (Hispanic) Finn (Black) Tico (Asian) and several other minority characters whom die heroically through out he movie. I am glad for that as it is important to show heroes come in all colors and sizes but........
The First Order The antagonists is compromised still as being almost exclusively an all white male regiment. Save Captain Phasma who remains completely hidden behind a mask until Finn the black protagonist cracks her helmut just enough to reveal...a single decidedly blue eye peering out that declares to Finn...You'll always be scum before falling to her death into a giant fireball. No symbolism there Disney??
Be careful what you sell people Disney. People are smart enough to understand storytelling is imagery as much as script.
On to the film.
Brilliant young actors. All of them. Boyega handles humor well. Hamill shines. Driver and Ridley are standouts. The best thing about the movie is the acting. Hands down.
The script. Bad.
The whole heavy handed message in the middle of the movie about war profiteering and abusing animals for entertainment felt out of place and forced and should of been left on the cutting room floor.
Too much forced (excuse the pun) humor. To the point it betrayed the essence of beloved characters. Star Wars was so original when it was made it's a shame Disney now feels the need to copy the current super hero trend of excessive comedy in its story. Wayyyy to much humor. Luke tossing his light saber over his shoulder. Come on. Chewbacca takes in his tiny new co pilot friend (shades of groom anyone) guess Disney has to sell those toys.
Luke dies- Really?? Is Disney that unhinged that they took the most beloved character and hero to millions and just have him die in some bizarre anti climatic way before the 3rd chapter. Especially knowing that Carrie Fischer passed away untimely and would not be in the 3rd chapter either. This is messaging overtaking good storytelling. Disney wants to distance the story from the structure that was created so successfully to stamp it with their agenda. Sleazy and disappointing to millions of fans.
In short too much cultural Marxism, but great acting and great special effects. Too many plot holes. A stylized product with subvert imagery and agenda driven. No soul. And with Luke in it - it should of been ALL SOUL.
Not nearly as good as the original trilogy but better than phantom menance. On par with Attack of the clones.
A true disservice to the fans that have been loyal since 1977. But i guess we are not the demographic target anymore and must be killed off much like Han, Luke and Leia.
Bastards
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I gave this heap of garbage one star because it's impossible to give it a zero rating.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
About halfway through this film, as Finn and some chinese girl - who didn't appear in the last film but had obviously been shoehorned in when Disney realized they'd neglected the Chinese market - were messing around on some casino planet or something, I had a horrible, horrible realization. That realization was "This is absolute, total and utter garbage."
In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I was with a group of kids I'd mistakenly bought tickets for, I would have stood up and walked out, shaking my fist at the screen as I passed it.
Make no mistake, this is a truly awful Star Wrs film. Noone involved comes off well and, when it all comes down to it, nothing actually happens, you could skip this one and go and see the final one, it changes nothing.
Characters we've been speculating about are simply killed off with no explanation as to who they were or where they came from. New characters are introduced that serve no purpose than simply to annoy you, what was purple haired Laura Dern even doing in it?
There were plot holes you could drive a Star Destroyerr through and a curious reluctance on the part of The First Order to actually use their firepower.
One bit saw some of the characters easily escape a destroyed spaceship by piloting only the legs of a Scout Walker which reminded me of the silliest parts in the droid factory of The Clone Wars.
Too many silly jokes too, be warned, this is not the Star Wars you are expecting, I for one am severely puzzled as to how critics are giving this great ratings and reviews, it was crap,
Sorry Disney, the last cent, from me you have had.
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Why was he allowed to write this? Perhaps his directing was acceptable, but the story was jumbled and wrecked.
The whole plot was driven by overcoming the lack of "fuel". Which has never been a problem in 24 hours of other star wars movies.
Leia died, nope she flew back in using the power of the sun like superman. Then she lived! Deleted scene. What did this even mean? How about just concussed in the explosion?
Leia was supposed to kamikaze the cruiser ,not some random uptight woman no one cares about or respects or even knows why she is there.
Not only secondary, but TERTIARY characters that wasted time. When the cruiser cuts the snoke ship in half, the whole flight deck of storm troopers are killed, except for the Tertiary characters that had no effect on the outcome of the plot at all, and the chrome lady (who ran behind a door at the moment of the explosion, I guess?) Perfect for the 'deleted scenes' release.
Luke unceremoniously jettisoned from the future movies. Not even a duel. Alec Guinness was far more frail than Luke, and he at least swung it around a few times before praying to the force and dying. Oh! Luke was an astral projection the whole time. What? Lame.
Omnipotent villain killed by a crying man-boy with a parlor trick.
"Who are my parents" end scene "Who are my parents" end scene "
"Who are my parents" on and on and ON. Nobody! Nobody cares at this point either!
Please tell me this guy is not on the 3rd installment.
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Fellow "Star Wars" fans, we all know the history of this series. 1977's (First) Episode IV--exciting, fast-paced, groundbreaking Western light space-opera version of the 1958 Japanese Classic, "The Hidden Fortress" ("Kakushi-toride no san-akunin"). Episode V (1980)--a truly great and (for its day) special-effects-packed sequel. Episode VI (1983)--a flawed but arguably satisfying conclusion to the original film trilogy. The next three live-action pictures, Parts I through III (1999-2005)), were an arguably disappointing balance of state-of-the-art special effects, action-packed stories, and, sadly, poor poor casting choices. Then in 2015 came Episode VII--a seeming partial remake (of Episode IV) cum series sequel that was beautifully paced and action-packed. For an aging fan who saw "A New Hope" (Episode IV) TWICE in a row on day 1 in 1977, "The Force Awakens" (Episode VII) was a popular cinematic triumph (by primary helmsman J.J. Abrams).
So it is with reluctance and sadness, tinged nonetheless with hope, that I award only 6 stars to this overly-long and poorly-plotted/edited effort.
Yes, it has everything that "Star Wars" fans, especially the young, will enjoy. Yes, it advances the story(ies). Yes, it ties up some loose ends while leaving some mysteries appropriately unanswered, But it is just too darn (a) long, (b) juvenile, and (c) boring (I KNOW! HOW COULD HE SAY THAT!?) in too many places.
Consider a few other films: 1942's "Casablanca," "Aliens" (1986), 1999's "The Matrix," and even "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (1977). I argue that in each case these were particularly terrific popular movies that stand the test of time not because they always make sense or because every line of dialogue is expressed perfectly (though often they are), but because the scripts, direction, plotting, and editing keep the stories moving along at just the right pace.
(New to the "Star Wars" universe) Director Rian Johnson unfortunately gave fans TOO much of what they wanted. Less is more, Mr. Johnson. As P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said, "Always leave them wanting more," not glancing at their watches (or cell phones) and eyeing the exits. Hopefully he will learn this lessen before tackling that trio of future SW movies.
As is often the case, my criticisms have less to do with the actors than the directors and producers. I thought that our young favorites--Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, et cetera--did the best they could with a script that did not always give all their characters as many chances to shine as in the previous flick. (There were at time some exceptions to this criticism.) Keeping "Rey" and "Fin" apart for most of the film was a (big) mistake, I think. And for me, a little "Poe Dameron" goes a long way.
Meanwhile, old timers Mark Hamill and the late Carrie Fisher fulfilled their acting obligations satisfactorily. The "Leia Organa" role was oddly abbreviated, but perhaps this was due to illness or her eventual death, I don't know. (I thought she passed AFTER filming was completed.)
All in all, I feel like the powers that be overseeing these new SW films are trying to duplicate the general FEEL of the first three films. (Hopefully there will be no equivalent "Ewoks.") That makes sense, but in this film, no way does it achieve the greatness of 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back."
So, a few questions: (A) Why did Gwendoline Christie's agent agree to a deal where she is encased in chrome CONTINUOUSLY? What a waste. (She might just as well have been a voice actor for the role. Maybe she was?) (B) Why was "Vice Admiral Holdo" (the otherwise great Laura Dern) such a weak character? I blame direction for this. (C) Was the character "General Hux" (Domhnall Gleeson) SUPPOSED to be so over-the-top, Nazi-officer, comically-evil? (D) Would it have ruined the movie for Chewbacca to have taken just one bight out of a Kentucky-fried Porg? It was already dead, after all. (That WAS a funny bit. The crystalline foxes made no sense, however, except as a likely merchandising money-maker.)
Oh well, I could be eventually proven wrong. If the box office is through the roof, again (the 2015 film made $936,662,225 domestically and another $1,131,561,399 overseas--think about THAT!!!), it won't matter what individuals like me think. But, darn it, I want every "Star Wars" picture to be great. I think I heard that Abrams is returning as director for Episode IX. Good. The force is strong with that one.
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I'll never understand how they can make such a piece of shit of movie out of such marvellous universe... As stated by others review this was really a disgrace to the franchise imo, nothing made sense. Pretty much all the movie was useless plots of action packed dumbness. I won't go into the details of all, but seriously this felt like they were trying to stitch together 16 plots/movies without regards of what made sense.
More than that the dialogue seemed to be outright fucktard, like really making close up for characters to say the things that just happen or the most cheesy lines that can be said. I could help but bust in laugh and almost to tears at some of the calls (which weren't suppose to be funny)Could've been ok if it weren't like 70% of dialogue which are just bland, dumb or crazy boring. I sincerely hope it was due to the fact that i've watched it in French (because of no representation being available in english where i am FrenchNazi Québec city). But dang was it bad like i've never seen anything. Felt like Sharknado scripter worked on this.
Almost fell asleep a some moments while waiting for the torture to finish, i mean ... can we just fucking skip to the end with all the bad lines, useless side quest thingy and bad characters that brings nothing to the plot ?
So anyway ... i give one star for the cute pokemons and the design of the last few ships... Star wars died for me last night tho, sorry disney but nope, never again.
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1. some scenes with the porgs are forced. as opposed to the ice crystal wolves that were done well
2. finn's arc was weak and was awkwardly paced. this is unfortunate since i really liked the character. and was also a bit in your face (the theme of the beautiful veneer). however this and the character of rose ties the rest nicely together (from the character of her sister in the opening bombers to how in the end there is hope though in small places and scattered across the galaxy as seen by the children they came across in their arc). this arc could have been done better to a great benefit for the movie
3. the physics with the bombers (gravity) was weird for me. its a small thing but really gets me because its such an important plot point
things i liked
1. poe's arc
2. master yoda's portrayal. i didnt like him very much in the prequel trilogy, too bureaucratic and too much like a war general. here and in empire he seems a more legitimate spiritual master. (fool/wiseman) like real zen masters.
3. how mark hamil depicted luke, a lot of his personality really shines through. i loved how he just threw that lightsaber over his shoulder. i also loved the montage of his life on the island
4. how luke was portrayed. some think that the power he displayed in the movie was too weak and not fitting for him. i disagree. the light side of the force is never about "power". the dark side is more focused on that kind of power and was shown with excellent restraint in the character of snoke. i admit that a part of me would have loved to see luke play out the ultimate power fantasy where he uses his talents and mastery of the force to yield its might and completely decimate his opponents. this would make for excellent fan service but ultimately bad for the overall themes and narrative. luke's character was never about that kind of thing, even in the original trilogy
5. themes of letting go (non-attachment) and how it is contrasted between the different sides (kylo ren's "let go of the past" vs master yoda destroying the original jedi codes)
6. the parallels:
luke and the twin sunsets, at the start of his journey, and here at the end
luke and ben <> obi wan and vader
poe learning to become less reckless <> finn learning to be more courageous. meeting in the middle to form a thesis on its theme of bravery and heroism
7. i liked how some things that you expect do happen but then on other instances, things take a sudden turn in way you totally don't expect
other things
i dont know how but the scene where leia uses her power to survive the attack on the bridge could have been done better. the way it was executed was awkward and a bit cringey
the theme of appearances can be deceiving (gambling city of wealthy folks who profit from war and lavish decadence) could have been made more subtle and stronger. too in your face from the dialogue of rose. it was also just briefly passed over. i thought that dj (del toro) was actually the master codebreaker, the other guy wearing the red flower was just a coincidence, and appearances can be deceiving (was he though? it was not so clear to me in the movie). i also thought that this character was very interesting and could have been given more emphasis
some of the humor were spot-on, some were out of place
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With all the free streaming available, I have completely stopped going to the movie theaters with their outrageous prices. But as a dedicated Star Wars fan, I made an exception for the Force Awakens, and I did not regret it. With the exception of New Hope and Empire, I thought that was the best Star Wars movie to date. And so, I made another exception for Last Jedi. I will very likely not be paying money to see Episode 9.
The movie starts out strong. I immediately was a little worried as Poe is basically prank calling Hux from his X-wing, which seemed way too unrealistic and geared for 10 year-olds. But I was relieved to see it was a distraction and there was a valid point to it. And it was a good opening battle sequence. The one issue is that there is a character who dies that no one knows or cares about, and this was built up too much. Additionally, she was exposed to the vacuum of space without ill effects or any sort of depressurization--and I wasn't aware Star Wars deflector shields allowed this type of magic, especially while dropping a payload.
Another beginning scene involves Snoke in the flesh, where he berates and bitch slaps Kylo, which is also fairly cool. But then the movie starts to go downhill and never recovers.
The first scene with Luke is him basically throwing a mini-tantrum, tossing his lightsaber and saying No, I don't wanna teach you the force. Then he goes and finds a bare-breasted animal and drinks from it's teets, which is incredibly bizarre. Then he gets himself an incredibly fake looking fish to eat. I anticipated problems on the horizon after this series of bizarre scenes.
Rey looks to have put on a little weight or maybe have lost a little muscle tone. She definitely changed her hair, which is again bizarre, because why would she change her hairstyle while handing a light-saber to Luke? There is no time lag between movies. Rey was beautiful in TFA and was definitively more plain-looking in the second movie. She begins Force-skyping with Kylo, which I have no issue with as a plot device if there's more to it--something learned, something intriguing that can't be found out another way. But the only thing it adds is teenage angst--"Oh Kylo, will you put a shirt on, I'm getting a girl hard-on." Gimme a break. Then Rey has a boring scene in a mirror world that makes no sense. All the while, Rey is (not-so) hilariously making the caretakers' lives a living hell by almost smashing them to death with falling debris. Humor is way too over the top and way too frequent. If I showed up in a native village and I repeatedly nearly killed people with my use of witchcraft, no one would laugh or ignore it. They'd burn me at the stake.
I may be going a little out of order here, but then it REALLY gets bad. Rose is introduced. I know Disney is betting big on diversity, and for the most part I couldn't care less. But when you cast an unknown and UGLY actress, that person needs to bring a special personality trait to the table. Actors and actresses are, for the most part, supposed to be good-looking. If any average looking or mediocre looking person can be in a Hollywood blockbuster because to not have one would be anti-feminist or whoever it offends, then where's my casting call? Acting by itself is NOT hard; being born lucky or rich is the hard part. So you have ugly Rose. And she's a janitor. And her mission, should she choose to accept it, is to accompany Finn to find a master code-breaker. WTF?
This is easily the dumbest subplot in all of Star Wars (excluding the pod race). The entirety of the Resistance is now 3 ships. They are low on fuel, and can't waste any more on another jump to lightspeed because the First Order can track them wherever they go. Well deciding to use that plot right there creates a huge problem. With a massive fleet behind you and nowhere to go, you're dead. Except the writers decided they could just do a slow motion chase and this would be plausible? What? The audience is expected to believe that it is impossible to surround and destroy ships that cannot escape or that 6 hours of continuous bombardment by a fleet wouldn't destroy a ship? Makes no sense. So after the audience is forced to accept this, Finn and ugly Rose are sent to a casino. At which point I decided to refill my popcorn. I knew this would be a stupid, George Lucian CGI blunder. I came back to find them in jail. Where they chanced upon a completely different "master codebreaker"? Facepalm. So they break out to find BB8 has tied up and gagged a dozen guards. Facepalm. Then they escape on the back of a giant greyhound-thing, aided by some very, very bad CGI. Facepalm.
Rey ends up getting dropped off on Snoke's ship, which was kind of a WTF is going on moment. Then Kylo brings her to Snoke's office, where Snoke thoroughly demonstrates he is way stronger than she is. Movie is getting good again, I'm back on track. Then Kylo sneak-kills Snoke. WTF? That's it. That pisses me off. No one needed to know who the Emperor was in the original trilogy because Vader was the main antagonist and was far more mysterious; no even knew there was an Emperor until the second movie. We already know most of Kylo's backstory. He's not mysterious--he's whiny. He got his ass kicked by someone with no training, then he kills the most powerful being in the galaxy? WTF. Who's going to kill Kylo in Episode 9, Rose?
Then the end where Luke fights Kylo. It was a great twist where Luke was never really there. But then Luke dies anyway? WTF! What was the point in him not being there? Why not just bring him there if he's going to die? When you kill him, the plot twist is completely ruined. It's no longer a plot twist. And what the hell was the point? You did all that so 6 people could go out through a back-door? Why can't the First Order attack them? Did they forget they have spaceships? Oh they landed, so it's too late.
And the last scene. First Star Wars movie to not have a shot of the main characters. Instead, this one focuses on some random kid looking to the stars. So Disneyesque. Disney is ruining Star Wars. I wasn't going to go down that route until I saw proof. That last scene had Disney fingerprints all over it.
There were definitely some good visuals during the battles. But the writing was terribly weak. To salvage the final episode, they basically have to have Snoke come back to life. Luke comes back as a force ghost. They have to CGI Leia in to die early in the opening scene, even though she can survive in space with her eyes open. It needs to be like 3 hours long. A disgruntled Hux has to start a civil war or several years have to pass and a separatist movement has to begin. They've painted themselves into a corner.
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Before seeing Force Awaken I did not have any expectations for the new trilogy because I knew that the production crew had discarded George Lucas's story scripts. Nevertheless, I was, excited to see my childhood heroes reprise their roles. The way I looked at it, if these movies make canonical sense and follow the rules of the universe that Lucas had created, I would enjoy them. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
The Force Awakens had many amazing scenes that paid homage to the original story (pan out of Rey in the AT-ST, the "garbage" Millenium Falcon, and both Han and Leia's introductions). These were also the only bright spots. Kylo Ren, depicted as one of the most powerful force users ever, slaughtered an academy of padawans under Luke Skywalker's watch, forced the latter into exile, was bested in a duel by someone who had just picked up a lightsaber for the first time. Additionally, Rey seemingly had no weaknesses in other domains (speaks a number of languages, can pilot the falcon, knows Jedi mind tricks) and certainly appears to not require any training from anyone. Both Luke and Anakin had to overcome their own internal trials of pain and suffering along with dedication to the Jedi way in order to achieve the height of their power. Next, Han Solo's death was forced, predictable, and unnecessary. It was an awful way to kill off a character so integral to the original trilogy. Overall, the movie was superficial, did not follow the rules of the Star Wars universe, and was clearly not the product of Lucas's vision. All of these factors were enough for me to disregard the new trilogy, though I was still hungry to see Mark Hamill onscreen in action as Luke Skywalker.
The Last Jedi was worse. The plot was hardly developed and the story moved along erratically. Character deaths were teased far too often and the humor was mistimed and ridiculous. Johnson had the opportunity to make up for Force Awakens by building upon Snoke's character (his origins, his rise to power, and his whereabouts during the events of the original saga), explaining Rey's powers, portraying the academy slaughter, and giving Luke Skywalker a meaningful role! Instead, Snoke is killed off in an even more predictable manner than Han, Rey is powerful by chance, the flashback sequence was sparse and showed little detail of the actual events, and Luke spends the majority of the movie pouting until he meditates himself to death (another forced and unnecessary death). By the end of the movie, it appeared that it served more as a launchpad for future Star Wars movies, as Luke and Han are dead Carrie is no longer with us. Are the fans expected to feel excited by the prospect of another random boy having the force? If the trilogy continues in the direction that it is going, he will also be as powerful as Rey, without any teaching. In Disney's Star Wars, one becomes a master of the Force not on merit and dedication, but by being born into it.
In sum, Star Wars will always be the original 6, movies that brought us so much joy. The new face of the saga is something completely different, one that is superficial and seeks to make money over maintaining integrity of the story. Though I was glad to see Hamill back on screen in the Last Jedi, his performance was marred by the horrible plot and unnecessary death. Needless to say, I will not be watching episode 9 nor do I accept the new trilogy as canon.
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This wasn't the worst thing to happen to Star Wars like some are saying (that would be the prequels) but it certainly wasn't great either. It felt like they simply took moments from ESB and ROTJ and copy/paste rearranged them. You had the base escape from ESB only here it was at the end, you had the confrontation with the "emperor" character from Jedi only here it was 2/3 through, you had the training from ESB only here it was the beginning, etc. Overall there were some totally terrible moments, i.e.) Leia floating through space that were laugh out loud bad, a completely pointless Finn whose entire sub plot could probably have been cut, and still no explanation as to who Snoke was, or how he came to power, or anything. Then Luke was a whiny coward and Leia had the worst smoker's voice imaginable. Overall there were some things I liked, some things I hated, and it left me not caring as much as to where it's going whereas TFA left me wanting to see what was coming next. Turning Luke into a ghost ... hey, where'd I see that before? Oh yeah, ANH ending... ugh. How about something new please?
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A great movie. Unfortunately, it is the worst Star Wars Movie of all time.
Let's start with this: what would you say if I told you that one of the main movies (not anthology) lacked a lightsaber fight? I enjoyed it until the moment that Leia was sucked into the vacuum of space, after an explosion of her ship. She then proceeded to USE THE FORCE TO FLOAT BACK TO HER SHIP!!! Come on, even for Star Wars that is outrageous. It had a boring subplot of Rose and Finn. It had a boring main plot of the resistance escaping the dreadnought. The scenes with Luke were quite good, but at the same time, they didn't feel like Star Wars, they felt like a psychedelic exploration of the soul. Snoke was a disappointment, not to mention that he looked awful. Finn vs Phasma, maybe the most anticipated part of the movie, based on the trailer, was an utter disappointment.
The movie explored interesting concepts of leadership, sacrifice, morality, and death, yet these themes were muddled by horrid plot.
If I had watched this movie, having never seen Star Wars before, I would have loved it. But as of now, I cannot imagine a Star Wars movie (including Attack of the Clones) that I would dread seeing again more.
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Great theater and audience, terrible movie!! Episode eight was supposed to be the " wow" factor. The movie that would have you waiting in anticipation for The finally to come. You know just like "The Empire Strikes Back" did many years ago but instead leaves you with a "What The f*@k just happened" No doubt too much Disney influence and direction that changed the creative juices of Director Rian Johnson vision. Shame on you!! Not even J. J. Abrams can fix this mess and will have a lot of work ahead of him for episode nine and maybe ten because this was one big mess...
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6/10
This was not the Star Wars I was looking for but it's not a 1 star movie either
After having 24 hours to process I've decided the movie is overall a good film, with second-to-none effects, great acting, nice action and funny humor. First of all, the plot does make sense. After reading hundreds of one star reviews it became apparent that many folks just don't pay attention to movies. Some reviewers didn't understand that Leia can use the force, for example. There are many more similar examples. Yes, there is some boring filler. Finn has no point other than to be a convenient source of knowledge about base and ship layouts. I am mostly disappointed in the choices made for most of the characters. It's like they followed all fan fiction and if someone suggested something, they wrote the opposite so that no one would be right. I kept waiting for a payoff that never came, at least not in a way that was satisfying. It was like doing work for a grandparent who promises you a nice treat as payment and they just give you a dime. You still got payed but it's disappointing and not what you were hoping for.
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I never got the same sense of excitement in the months leading up to the release of TLJ as I had for TFA. I don't know if it was an over saturation of Nissan commercials or what, but I just wasn't as excited as I had been in the past. Don't get me wrong I was still excited, just not as much.
I don't know if it was a lack a audience cheering or what, but TLJ didn't feel as special as TFA. Other things that brought it down was the fact this never felt like a true Star Wars movie, and no matter how bad the prequels got, they always felt like SW movies.
Some people may say the biggest problem with the movie was the side adventure Finn and Rose went on, but I my opinion, it had some of the best moments of the whole thing. I personally thought some of the weakest moments came with Po and Leia after Finn left, while Carry Fisher was great and Oscar Isaac was ok, Laura Dern felt very out of place and brought down the whole felling of the movie.
Rey and Luke's moments were for the most part good, although Chewy felt tacked on, and sometimes what they were talking about didn't feel complex at all. I wasn't spoiled the movie in advance, so when Yoda showed up half way through, I was shocked and happy, I thought his scene with Luke although short, was fantastic and very needed.
The scenes with Kylo and Hux were pretty great over all, especially when Rey and Kylo fought together. I hate how Snoke was killed but I am glad Kylo and Hux will be our bad guys going forward.
TLJ had some major ups, and some bad downs, but I don't think it is as bad as people are saying it is. If you can look past it's flaws, TLJ is not too bad.
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Star Wars Fans Beware : If you are a fan of Star Wars lore, canon, and main characters traversing a powerful story arc, be prepared to be epically disappointed.
Rebellious heroics, compelling unique battle scenes, Luke, Yoda, Chewy, R2 & C3-PO - all unneeded in this the new epoch. The basic tenants of Jedi lore: master/apprentice traditions, humility, purpose, self development - all are deemed unnecessary in this epoch where one girl possesses all of these traits while not having earned even one of them. If you have had enough of compelling real locations, riveting light saber fights, main character development, and memorable side characters, then this is your ticket - as all these are cast aside as well.
Instead we have a new SW universe where a few strong women lead faceless innocents into obliteration - devoiding the audience of any care of outcome. Having established no connection to us, who really cares if they all die?
Hours are then filled with reprimanding heroes, pointless coming of age crisis, irrelevant side stories and fizzling love sparks, along with a CGI fest of sleepy battles with predicable outcomes. With only 2 main characters remaining in the film, does anyone really believe some dronelike guards are going to take them out?
The few intriguing characters are gone just as soon as we were drawn to them. 'Snoke', powerful Supreme leader, easily taken out by an errant saber. Benecio del 'DJ ' exhibiting Han Solo like charisma - all the better to banish him in a few quick scenes. Luke went to all the trouble of safely projecting himself holographically (note: holographs can't be killed) only to die from the labor of it. Poe, the one character exhibiting clear heroic struggle was reduced to submissiveness for all his wrong moves - which turned out to be right after all (or was it wrong?). i.e. Had he gone in with fighters (which can also carry bombs as recalled from the destruction of the Death Star) to attack the main Star Destroyer, the rebel cruiser could have escaped without being tracked through hyperspace.
Instead we are dragged through the drama of large ships suddenly inching through space, the far superior enemy force unable to overtake nor flank them - for no reason given (except excruciating plot device). It was as if we were suddenly transported to the 18th century suspense of a ship of the sea taking 3 days to slowly close the gap on a slower sailboat. This epoch chase slogged over an hour of nothingness with no outcome so let's spare all the details which will be suffered by those who still choose to see this film (code: bring a pillow and eye covers).
Yet we still have to get to the burning heart of the 4 questions most people have going into this film.
1. What about Luke Skywalker? 2. Who are Rey's parents? 3. Who is Snoke? 4. Will Star Wars VIII The Last Jedi use the Force Awakens as a springboard to greater SW universe expanding cinema?
1. Luke Skywalker, the heart of the SW universe, and all that we know him to be, is suddenly expendable and debased. The new Luke no longer believes in the force. He can be easily bested by a novice. To make matters worse, it is implied that he betrayed is nephew, Ben Solo, causing the storm (of the present trilogy) to follow.
This means that all the prophecy fulfillment (SW I-VI) including that Luke would bring balance to the force, as he did, is negated. Luke's most powerful trait, his belief in Good has been lost. Fundamentally, SW VIII invalidates all of the previous Star Wars' values and achievements by debasing the fundamentals of who Luke Skywalker is. Simply put, we all wasted our time and should not have bothered to spend the previous 4 decades watching Star Wars and sharing the lore and collections we all so treasure. It all means diddly now. Luke ended up a bitter, confused, cantankerous old bloke showing early signs of dementia. - And Yoda, evidently unimpressed that his teachings led Luke to save the Galaxy years before, popped up for a few seconds to second the notion that it all meant diddly and has to burn.
Luke's three final accomplishments were to argue with a teenage girl as if he was still the same teenager we all met on long long ago on Tatooine, to lose belief in all that he earned through the Star Wars epochs we all value, and to die inexplicably as noted above.
2. Who are Rey's parents? 'These are not the parents we are looking for, move along.' . . . In a quick sentence, Kylo Ren invalidates all deeper interest when he reveals that Rey's parents were essentially no-name peasants who deserted her. So, no mystery to hold onto there.
Unless... this is a clumsily written misdirection from a truth that would be deeper, and the only logical possibility in that this epoch has no other Force lending fertile couples other than Leia & Han Solo, Rey IS Kylo Ren's sister. But for now, she is not. Her parents were nobodies.
3. We finally get to see Snoke in the flesh. He is very impressive with powers not shown before in the SW universe (the ability to mind bridge other force users to his own ends) and also great telekenisis skills. His origin, how he became so powerful, his aims and other abilities- never to be known. As noted, before we could develop a better understanding or compelling fear of him, he was too easily killed - by carelessly allowing a lightsaber to be pointed his way.
4. Everyone viewer will make their own judgment. I went in to the first showing, open to the joys of suspended disbelief, and with the force of will to like this Star Wars movie irregardless of any incongruities and the occasional Jar Jar. The only problem was, by any measure of that far far away galaxy, this was not a Star Wars movie.
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4/10
I've reimagined a lot of this in my head, because the plot is just well, pretty terrible.
Visually, a nice film. However, I'm actually really surprised they went this way with the movie. I actually liked The Force Awakens, I thought it was a good reintroduction of Star Wars to a new generation, while reminding us all why we liked it first time around.
This movie just didn't make sense. It tries to be far too clever for it's own good. It tries so hard to NOT be one of the other Star Wars films it almost misses the point of Star Wars. Most of the entire movie is spent setting up pointless events to make sure you don't guess what happens next, in what is ultimately a film about one spaceship, moving very slowly away from another spaceship that is firing guns on it, for most of the film.
Finn's whole storyline was pointless, it added nothing to the film. What was the point of the live action stream from Maz... and it was like the whole middle of the film dedicated to something that ultimately had no meaning to the plot, and afterwards we never see Del Toros character again... Phasma, what an absolute waste. Hux, how did he ever become so high up in command when he's such a bufoon in this film? He should have been more like Moff, unbreakable, unflappable.
Here's what should have happened (and how I am imagining from now on):
Finn's plotline - they could have gotten rid of that altogether. Bring the dreadnaught in a bit later in the movie, say when the resistance think they're going to escape a whole lot of regular star destroyers. Suddenly a Dreadnaught flies in and scuppers the plan. Then Poe, aided by Finn sneaking onto the ship in order to help with his storm trooper knowledge, can do his one man mission to destroy it (and sacrifice a bunch of characters we've maybe grown to care about a bit first).
Finn still has a face off with Phasma, but she is seriously epic and he narrowly escapes.
Snoke should have been revealed as Darth Plageous the wise (who could create and extend life using the force - but was murdered by his own apprentice) - we should have had his backstory, and how years later Kylo Ren found him, groping out with the force from some distant planet, using the force to still cling to life, not dead after all because of his unique force power.
Kylo finds him secretly and helps him back to full power, ultimately becoming seduced and apprenticed as a Sith. Later in the film Kylo murders him sure... (in a mirror of Plageous's original storyline), but at the end of the film we see Plageous once again, not dead, but able to use his force power to stay alive... In order to set up his revenge on Ren in the next film.
Luke Skywalker should have taken the lightsaber from Rey on the Island, and said something funny but WISE, not just toss it in bad comedy style. He should have basically be Yoda for real from the original trilogy, and train her, but without her really knowing at first like Yoda did for him.
He should NOT have tried to kill Kylo Ren for having dark thoughts. But he merely fled to the Island to protect the last remaining Jedi temple and the Jedi knowledge after Ren betrays him.
At the end of the film, he should have arrived at the resistance base for real, used his actual mastery of the force to shield from the gun fire, fought Ren for real in a way more epic duel and died properly to save everyone after knowing they're safe in Obi Wan fashion, happy that he has passed on enough knowledge to Rey.
Rey should have found out that she not only Luke's daughter but was a partially trained Padawan at Luke's Jedi temple (explaining her force dreams, awesome moves she already has and her powers) but she had her memory altered by him using the force and she was hidden on Jaku because Ren vowed to kill all remaining Jedi.
Just my opinion, but that helps me re-imagine it to something bearable.
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I call it Jamesbond movie ...nothing to do with starwars mythology....
Poor actings or at least not natural...just giving it 3 cause of visuals...
And lots of unnecessary face closeups!
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After TFA, I expected another SJW Focused movie that will include aspects that detract from the movie by enforcing and pushing SJW agendas. THIS is not the way to support your fan base.
Vice Admiral Holden? Why is she needed? I'm NOT talking about how it's another female leader. You want to make all female cast, go ahead, but DON'T make it detract from the film. General Leia could have easily done what the character Holden was doing. The relationship between Poe and Leia wasn't there in TFA, they could have shown the SAME with POE and Leia. The character was USELESS, she achieved NOTHING and contributed nothing and only increased the run time. There are ALREADY characters that could play the part. But nope, they just needed MORE female leaders, NO, just USE the characters you have and solidify and develop and engage your audience with a focused smaller number of characters.
Captain Phasma and Snoke characters were wasted. Finn and the Asian girl's Arc was too long. There were too many Arc's to begin with. Luke-Rey, Rey-Kylo, Poe-holden, Finn - Asian girl, learn to focus.... jesus ADHD retard.
Of the Main characters:
Rey's training is glossed over and NO character development is happening. She's still the same girl she was in TFA, where do I belong, who are my parents.
Kylo's the only character that has any development.
Poe has CONFLICT in the movie, but no development.
Finn who actually had character development in TFA has none here.
It's all plot driven just reactionary characters to what ever happens. You want to make a good movie? Make us RELATE to the character Make us Feel pain with the characters make us feel LOVE with the characters, the Hatred, the Intrigue let us sympathize, but if you have just character reacting all the time, we're not fully invested in the characters and feel nothing when they do make the critical decisions and actions.
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Of course TLJ was a bad movie because TFA set it up to be a bad movie. J.J. had a clean slate to work with...George Lucas had his hands tied in the prequels because certain events had to take place in a certain order. Like I said...J.J. Abrams did not have that problem. It made no sense what so ever to not have Luke play a major role in TFA...the opening scene should have had him in it for goodness sakes. Anyone who saw episodes 4,5, and 6 knows that Luke would not go off on an island all alone for God's sake. Luke was a warm hearted person who loved family...only makes sense that he would have fallen in love with someone and had a family of his own. That old law of the Jedi not being able to love died with Luke...look how powerful the offspring of a Jedi turned out to be for goodness sakes. My plot for TFA would have been the movie opens with Luke at the funeral of his wife..at his side would have been his two 8 year old twins....a girl(grows up and is played by Daisy is fine) and a boy played by whoever. His daughter would have been good of course but his son would have always been 50/50...Luke never really understanding his son. Then you could have introduced Ky Lo Ren and from birth he would have been the bad seed of Han Solo. After the death of his wife, Luke and his son grow further apart and we see Luke's son becoming closer and closer with his fun yet troubled cousin Ky Lo Ren. They could have build the story off of that and at some point Luke's son and Ky Lo Ren join the dark side and become very powerful and it's all about trying to get them back to the good side of the force. Oh well...it should have been something like that, but it wasn't...and it SUCKS!!!!
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After seeing the movie I am mad! My wife said the movie was good, but she is not a long time fan of starwars like me. Snoke was a joke that he was killed without given his origin.
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I'll preface by saying I am a huge Star Wars. With that said Rouge One and The Force Awakens were much better films and stories and I barely could rate this ahead of Episode I or Episode II, barely.
Visually it was impressive but so are much films made in the 21st century.
I left The Last Jedi struggling to find answers to almost every question I had coming in. Like WTF is up with and who is/was Snoke? You spend two years building this character up like he is Vader/Palpatine x 1000 and he ends up being done in by a mind trick? Who were Rey's parents? You spend two years stoking this mystery and they end up being junkies? Where were the Knights of Ren? Who was this DJ character?
Too much cheesy comedy, way, way, way too much. For a film touted to be so dark and gloomy, it was more like the Star Wars holiday special minus the Christmas tree or Space Balls 2. Even the Yoda scene was just cheesy.
The plot seemed like an extended high speed car chase in space, with people fighting to take control of the wheel of the car being chased. So the rebel ships were just a little faster than the First Order ships? That was what was keeping them alive? Like the First Order couldn't just jump into hyperspace a little further ahead of the rebel ships?
There were a handful of good scenes but overall the movie disappointed big time.
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Imagine if the "I am your father" scene of The Empire Strikes Back ended with Luke's smartass comeback. Imagine Obi-Wan throwing a one liner while Anakin is crawling at the edge of the lava stream on Mustafar. Imagine Yoda sharing a dick joke with Mace Windu between two wise words.
Imagine the Empire being led by idiots, spineless lackeys and undisciplined aggressors instead of masterful manipulators, threatening strongmen and dutiful officers.
Imagine the Rebel fleet at the end of "Empire" consisting a dozen individuals, and nothing else, all going nowhere.
Imagine the whole concept of learning the ways of the Force means absolutely nothing as even someone without training can move object and stuff.
That's The Last Jedi without any spoilers, through some thought experiments.
I was generous with the rating of The Force Awakens, because at that point, I saw potential, I saw ways the three movie saga can turn out well. Now it all seems finalized and not for the better.
I gave 5 stars, but 4 of them are-as the Resistance would put it- just hope, nothing more.
And whoever is trying to destroy my favorite franchise, because they have the power and education but also lack the soul, this message is for you:
Star Wars was always made great by the drama and not by cheap laughs. The universe was good because it was credible by its own logic, the villains looked like a real threat, the heroes had something personal AND something greater to fight for, not because it had something cutesy in it.
You are not making a Marvel flick for cheap laughs in the Summer season. You are ruining Star Wars with one liners, random gags and characters that just don't fit in their alleged role. You are not providing comic relief, you force jokes on a good drama. That being said, I don't mind humor if it's actually relevant, not just thrown in, as if there was an algorithm that forces characters to say or do something funny once in every two minutes of screen time.
Riddle me this one thing: Which part, which scene, which character of the new trilogy will be the one that people will speak about even decades later like it happened in the case of the last two trilogies? Just name one. If you can.
All in all, my personal Star Wars canon seems to terminate at Episode VII. I refuse to accept anything that happened to my childhood heroes and even to their initially promising follow-ups in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
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Took my wife and daughter to see this movie because rest of family,her cousins and such we're going. Already knew most plot and after watching it all I have to say is HaHaHa! I gave it a star because it worked with it's target audience my tween daughter and her tween cousins. I think they made me laugh more than the movie and their beaming faces and claps really made me happy. Reminded me when Star Wars first came out when I was a little kid( Yes I am an old fart)a lot like grumpy old Luke in this movie. Did I like it? Heck no! But if I wanted to know what Spaceballs 2 would be like on the big screen I have my answer. At the very least I know that my life turned out way better than my two childhood heroes, Han and Luke.
Maybe one day I'll decide to live on a deserted island hiding from all my responsibilities at least I'll know I wasn't as bad as Luke letting billions of people die cause He couldn't bother getting off his butt.
I still want to thank Ryan Johnson for giving my daughter a good time with her family and encouraging all four of my kids to drink their milk(My boys did not want to go).
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PROS-
1. Ship going into light speed into new star destroyer
2. Luke getting shot by a ton of new AT-ATs and surviving
3. New ways the force is portrayed. example: seeing each other face to face even across galaxies. and Luke using that trick at the end
4. Yoda force ghost
5. Some good star wars slap sticky jokes
6. Some new aliens with puppetry
7, different story. it was not a "lets build star killer base 2.0" they stuck with a somewhat different backstory which was nice.
CONS- here we go
1. CASINO SCENES. nothing appealing at all about this scene. completely pointless could have been cut down way shorter. aliens looked like something from a star wars rebels animated series
BB-8 has a feature that can shoot coins out of himself??? and the stupid alien was so dumb he didn't realize he wasn't a slot machine AFTER what it looks like is hundreds of credits worth...
the aliens where awful looking especially that troll leprechaun looking cgi character. was not a fan of looks of horse race aliens either.
2. CHARACTERS
Rose - It is nice to add in new characters but adding them in just to have both of them die means absolutely nothing to us. Rose was funny and i was on board having her but i don't caaaaaaare she was raised the way she was and i dont caaaaare she wants to punch the casino city in the face (even though i wanted to punch casino city in the face as well)
why not spend this effort to building FINs character?? or adding to Ray or Kylo!? LUKE CHEW?! ANYBODY ELSE that we've have already established. FIN feels like a complete waist of a character now. the last jedi made me watch 2 new characters have character arcs and then they killed them off.
Holdo - just tell the crew the plan you had and a lot of things could have been avoided. poe would not have gone rouge on everyone or committed mutiny!!! glad she died at the end. it was the one human thing she did
Poe - disobeyed orders with little to no repercussions really. Leia ignored her punishment for him as if it was nothing. Poe disobeys a second time AGAIN by doing what he wants to do and send FIN and Rose on a mission to casino city and failed. THEN commits mutiny. THEN after all is said and done they are trapped and wants to do his own thing AGAIN... sure he pulled away from the attack only because he knew it was a suicide mission. great Poe only some of your crew died again so... Poe is this unpunished rouge of a character with no consequences or actual arc. lets just let Poe do whatever he wants to do forever!
MAZ - do you need some time to call you back?? you seemed busy
-FIN - i wish we got to know you better.
-Mark Hamil said he dissagreed with everything Lukes character was. i agree and disagree. sad to see him as an old grumpy winey man. guess he never grew up?
-REY - remember all the theories we had of her origin and then all we got was "oh your parents were nothing"... wish they showed us and didn't tell us that
stupid kid at the end who looks to the stars and has a resistance symbol on his wrist watch.... uuuuuuUUUUUGHHHHHHHH
porgs - i liked but stop shoving them in my face. Disney you can still sell them as toys they dont have to be in the falcon when chewy even is irritated of them. pointless.
3. STORY
Bad writing all around. cant emphasize enough the casino planet. if DJ the hacker could escape anytime he wants why didn't he? Pretty convenient he was there. oh he was trying to trick them and get money off them? then why did he look like he was just trying to escape himself? he didn't even give them a "hey cmon this way" he just left them and the ONLY reason they met back up was because BB8 was like "hey see those idiots on those new alien horse cats? yeah those are my friends pick them up". there are so many different ways to write all of this out.
I've seen bad movies where there is a lot of phones being used. this seemed like one of those movies where people were just calling each other constantly. Rey and Kylo. Luke and Leia. Maz and FIN just stop calling each other and write the movie with a little more effort.
In conclusion it is sad to see so many fan theories on youtube have more thought out character build up than a professional studio. Disney obviously does not care about us as fans they just care about making more money as if they don't have enough. Disney is basically the first order in real life. I'm out
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This is my first review on IMDB, so please don't judge harshly.
Okay, where to start? TLJ is not a STAR WARS film by any right, it feels more like a Spaceballs sequel on drugs in combination with too many vodka's. No, I am not kidding, this is Star Wars: Episode 8, Six Feet Under. Everything that I loved about Star Wars, was destroyed within, what, 2 1/2 hours?
My point is, all the negative reviews out there are right. The subplot, without spoiling anything, was a horrific nightmare that led to nowhere. Character development? No, throw that out of the window, as any logic that is (just the same as a certain character throws a certain object away at the start of this mess, you know what I mean? No spoilers!). Funny thing is, I actually like the Force Awakens! It sets up some mystery to it all. TLJ destroys all Star Wars lore, including TFA. The Phantom Menace (A.K.A. Jar Jar Binks: Episode 1) is actually a masterpiece in comparison to this attempt at film making!
As for those "critics" who review this film as good, I have one question: "How is your bank account?". Yeah, that's right...
Steer clear of this festering...this abomination...this...Ah you get the point, better watch those old classics instead! I rather sit through The "Turkish" Star Wars than this!
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5/10
As a HUGE Star Wars fan, I left the theater sad and disappointed
I believe The Force Awakens was a fun, solid film with great characters that left good and exciting questions that would be answered in this film. I was very excited to see a new, fun, original Star Wars film that would be amazing to experience opening night. But this new installment left me with no answers and even more questions. In the middle of the movie I was already so disappointed that I couldn't believe what I was watching. I left the theater nearly in tears do to how much I did not enjoy this film. I have been watching Star Wars my entire life and it means so much to me. I'm disappointed to say that my generation of people will not get to experience a solid Star Wars trilogy. I disagree with everything Rian Johnson and Disney have done. I wish this film never happened because it makes me feel empty and feels like a cash-grab, set-up for the next Rian Johnson Star Wars trilogy. I do not look forwards to anything Rian Johnson will be doing with Star Wars. I'm seeing it again in a few days and my opinion might change. I think the hype of a new Star Wars film is blinding people to how this movie really is. We will know in a few weeks how people really feel about this film. I would talk more about why I dislike this film. But I do not want to get into spoilers. But this is how I feel the night after. (12/15/17)
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As a Star Wars fan, I really wanted to like this film but there are just too many problems. In the E.U., Luke is the strongest Jedi the universe has ever seen but in TLJ he is depicted as a coward and a quitter. Once he finally does something halfway cool, he dies from exhaustion. The entire plot of the movie makes no sense as all the First Order has to do is send a few ships ahead of the rebellion convoy, via light speed. to cut them off. The entire plot line with Fin and the Asian girl added nothing to the movie and basically could have been left on the editing room floor. We waited two years to find out who Snoke was and they kill him quickly, without any explanation of his backstory. This is the powerful nemesis we've been postulating about? Oh, and Rey is a nobody from nowhere. I get what the director was trying to do, the Force resides in everyone and can be expressed anywhere, not just in the Star War legacy family lines...I just felt there was so much more opportunity here that has now gone wasted. BTW, not one mention of the Knights of Ren? It's as if this director forgot there were a previous move (Force Awakens) that he was supposed to tie into.
There are some cool scenes but the movie jumps from one scene to the other so quickly that the viewer doesn't have time to absorb it fully. It's like this movie was created for an ADD kid, the Millennial generation. Also, there is a lot of misplaced humor, inserted into serious scenes inappropriately, and then just ignored for the remained of the scene. IMHO, this is sign of an inexperienced director that was not ready for such an undertaking. I grew up on the original trilogy and this is no longer the Star Wars that I recognize.
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Our beloved starwars has been highjacked by the arseholes in hollywood. the very people that george lucas fought against and beat back in the day to give us the glorious star wars trilogy. The Last Jedi along with tfa have sacraficed our heros with shoddy superficial characters and storytelling that services only to hollywood propaganda. luke is heavily underused as is leia. these disney movies have done a real diservice to the lineage of the originals and its characters. its cast and narrative is so bland in comparison its depressing to witness. the one shining light is knowing that all the talent that contributed to the originals had no involvement in the making of this movie, and so the originals need never be tainted by the charade that is Disney starwars.
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George Lucas was heavily - and rightly - criticsed for his remark about "making films for kids" when he was describing the prequels. I never expected the creators of this latest Star Wars film to emobody that wholy. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is more slap-stick TV comedy than a proper fantasy space adventure, and it's quite sad to see what it's become.
Too much is going on, too many stories with too little development and too much plasticness.The film is hardly predictable, and indeed it's final third act is brilliant, but it can't esecape how simplified and thoroughly manufactured it feels.
Poe walks around and says stuff. He describes exactly what is happening and why its significant, almost as if the audience is too dumb to infer it themselves. Luke's character progression jumps about and stutters all over the place and feels so clunky that it's hard to believe that he's actually Luke Skywalker. Rey's story could have been so much more brilliant if they'd just given it more time. Fin serves little purpose here other than to have a B-plot that feels like a filler episode of Friends and has almost no significant whatsoever to the rest of the plot. Leia flies through space in a moment that had me almost as aghast as when Vader said "Noo!" in Revenge of the Sith.
The sad bit about all of this is that underneath, there is somewhat of a good film. Snoke's death and the subsequent fight were stunning, and really added a proper twist to the film; it's a similair case with the final battle between Luke and Kylo, especially when its revealed that Luke is just a projection - it felt like a satisfying conclusion to Kylo and Luke's stories in the film. Indeed much of the Jedi storyline and the Kylo Ren narrative are good, but other bits left me unsatisfied. I kept wishing that they just spent a bit more time working on Kylo and Rey's relationship, on Luke's return to the force, on Rey's training etc. It felt almost sidelined to make way for completely unnescarry elements and way, way too many shot of the Resistance cruiser being shelled by the First Order ships.
And even there, I just wish they could have expanded on it more, made the space battles a bit more exciting. So much of this film could have been cut - the pointless gags for one, amongst other things - and replaced with more important and significant matters. I feel like that could have made a big difference. It's too underdevloped and dull to be exciting enough for me. There are too many annoyances for it to be enjoyable. I found myself complaining more than I did watching the film.
My friend said something to me after seeing it that really summed it up, frankly: "It felt like a Marvel film". And what's special about any of the Marvel films? They're repeatable, insignificant popcorn entertainment, Great way to spend the afternoon and perhaps something to fun to watch at Christmas, but for goodness sake, this is a Star Wars film.
Disney has thoroughly transformed Star Wars into a franchise, and just like its other side project with Marvel, it's gradually turning a special, unique and beloved idea into a production line that can be used once a year to make a film and sell 300,000 tons worth of toys. What a catastrophic shame.
There's good here, but its so clogged up in dull, Disney-fied guff that the result is something more reminiscient of a Star Wars themed SNL special than an actual entry into the main story. Ugh.
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Seeing almost universally extatic reviews I decided to go see this second installment in the 3rd (!) Star Wars trilogy and boy was it an experience.
This movie is a mix of all of the things that I hate about Hollywood and studio executives messing with movies nowadays. Like half of the military and resistance being women (I understand and support gender equality, but for f... sake, army and fighting in general has always been a domain of men), new cute creatures to sell more toys, half of the movie being hit or miss jokes, 'epic' CGI spaceship battles which are just boring as hell to be honest and the biggest sin of all - the story. It sucks! I was not invested in it, I didn't know what's going on and frankly, I didn't give a crap, because I was half asleep and bored to death!
I've also had high hopes for Rian Jonson. I absolutely adored Looper, but here it seems like Disney smashed his vision to fit the movie in this new refreshed Star Wars formula that they came up with. Cinematography is ok, music is present, etc. These are the things that you expect from mediocre sci-fi movie. Star Wars should be exceptional though and it's not.
4/10
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TLJ is like a particular TV show called The Walking Dead then throws surprises just to throw surprises. Unfortunately this makes the movie less compelling.
Movie tries to be political, subplots are too long and you don't care for them. Characters except for Ben are not compelling.
Rey is the most cookie cutter character out there she is invincible for some reason... Luke is just thrown twists in the story for no reason.
They killed Snoke in a pointless way. Leia is suddenly superman. Finn wastes time, Finn's companion shouldn't have been in the movie.. She wasn't funny.
Overall really disappointing JJ and Terrio can't do much now that there is only 1 film left.
TFA left some mysteries out there that we as fans speculated and care for. TLJ wastes those.
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To start I'm 40 years old. I remember my mom taking me when I was young to watch Return of the Jedi . I enjoyed it now as much as I did then . As the years gone on we got the back story of Star Wars the fall of Aniken Skywalker the rise of Darth Vader Rogue one to tie the old with the new . Now we are on a new trilogy a new story with new players . But...... something is not right with the force . Let me elaborate
The Force Awakens to me was a great starting point it introduced new players in the universe and brought back the ones we loved . It introduced a new threat in the first order a new evil force user Snoke . The down fall of Ben Solo to Kylo the master of the knights of Ren . It set up a great next film. The last Jedi.
But....in my opinion The last Jedi fell short of my expectations. The movie although visual stunning the story was lacking and just sort of seemed rushed in editing. Parts of the movie seemed to stall and once it got going the arc would change to something not so relevant in context to what was just absorbed.
Luke ( Mark Hamil )role was less than I expected. I was wanting a broken Jedi master who could find his own place back in the force to train a new promising Jedi in Rey . That did not happen. I was hoping for an epic Luke vs Snoke battle ....that didn't happen . What did happen was a broken tired Luke force projecting himself to let the resistance escape just to fade away into nothing after words. I'm sorry this is not how I expected my childhood hero to go out . It's freaking Luke Skywalker.....
Snoke.......Who is he ? Where's he from ? How'd he become the supreme leader .........no one knows his story just sorta dies like him in this movie.
And Phasma.....nothing more
Lightsaber battles we're underwhelming to say the least
Now the movie has moments of brilliance . Chewy trying to eat a Porg. Yoda's return . Rose saving Finn . But again parts just stall out.
The biggest question I have is how is this going forward to episode 9. Luke is gone , Han is gone , Lea is alive but Carrie Fisher has past on. Rey and Kylo are both conflicted . Who is left to help ? Who is left to help guide Rey ? What is the direction ........ because I'm confused as if now where the saga is going .
I score this a 7 out of 10. Not the best not epic it's just good and way better than episodes 1 ,2 and 3
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5/10
To paraphrase, this film did not go the way I thought it would.
To paraphrase Luke Skywalker from the Last Jedi, this film did not go the way I thought it would. The Last Jedi had its high moments, and boy were they great and entertaining. It had its lows, too. But it was a few of those lows that were a real deal breaker for me. I'll be honest here, I don't do movie reviews. But after watching this film, I had to get this off my chest.
I'm no hardcore Star Wars fan. I love my Star Wars, but I don't live and breathe it like many. I appreciate Rian Johnson taking a different direction with the trilogy and taking chances to make this film stand out and not a rehash; and he did a phenomenal job on numerous aspects of the film that left me intrigued and wanting to know more.
To be the 2nd installation of this series, however, The Last Jedi left several questions from The Force Awakens vaguely answered, or not answered at all, and even had storyline line decisions that left me astonished, dumbfounded, and asking myself "are you serious?" all at the same time. A few of the new characters and planets introduced were not fleshed out and felt like nothing more than a plot device to push the story along and probably should have been left on the cutting room floor as it unnecessarily prolonged the film.
Mark Hamill said early on that he had his issues with the script and Rian Johnson's treatment of his character Luke. There was so much potential after two years. This may get into minor spoiler territory for those of you that haven't seen the film yet, so I encourage you to skip this, but after Luke being a hermit for several years, I was really hoping to see Luke go beastmode as Vader did in Rogue One, but instead we get a bitter old man who wants nothing to do with thats going on with the Resistance and the First Order.
The movie satisfied my SW hunger, but I wasn't pleased with it either; rather it was lukewarm (no pun intended), so-to-speak. I will probably watch this film again if it pops up in my local hometown theater in a few weeks to see if maybe it will grow on me more, but we'll see. I can only hope that JJ Abrams can salvage whats left in Episode 9 and fix the issues that left me disappointed in The Last Jedi.
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Disney has transformed the saga into a big joke. Every five minutes there has to be some kind of joke, even serious characters become comedians.
The script does not make any sense, there are absurd scenes everywhere.
I liked all the movies until today, even episode VII ... but this movie ... it's just a giant joke. It's like Spaceballs 2... just a parody.
I hate you Disney, you just have ruined Star Wars.
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Man i love star wars so im still gonna give it 6 stars even though this doesn't deserve it. I just watched the movie so im gonna write some things that comes into my mind
I really liked the visuals, but the movement of the porgs was very unnatural.
When Leia started to fly back to the ship was a wft moment for me for sure. The whole casino thing felt like i was in harry potter. And the plot holes??
They killed of a cool villain when he started to get interesting. He deserved some background story or something. And how could he die in such a lame way. I mean he could sense Kylos thoughts but couldn't see the saber moving next to his arms??
Benicio del Toros charter is useless addition, same with Finns new girlfriend and their whole mission. The horse creatures were terrible imo.
The first order has immense firepower but they cant fight a few rebel ships? Luke does thins whole hologram thing from across the galaxy that kills him in exhaustion, why then he just went there to fight Kylo if he wanted to die.
It felt like really just some action movie. Rogue One is imo the only post Lucas movie that deserves the Star Wars name. TLJ snd TFA doesnt have that passion, that connection between movies that made SW great.
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I looked up spoilers before I saw this movie and absolutely do not regret it, especially after last time.
There were some bad humor in this movie. Right in the beginning of the movie, Poe and General Hux had a not so funny conversation. Hux is a dumb character, and I find him annoying and not intimidating. However, Poe is the best new character in this series and once again did a great job. BB8 also had a lot of good moments.
I figured they were going to make Luke into a wuss. Right when Rey gives him the light saber, he throws it down the cliff. He threw it away as he didn't care and not through frustration. I always thought Luke would be just like yoda. I agree with Mark Hamill when he said they messed up his character a lot. He just does not care about anything. He did have some good moments reuniting with Chewie, R2, C3PO, and Leia. Luke tries to train Rey but Luke never really taught her anything. Rey and Luke get into a fight and of course, Rey beats him because she is unstoppable. She can never go wrong. She doesn't need training and just beats everyone. Rey ends up leaving the island to meet with Kylo Ren.
The best part of the movie was the return of yoda. Yoda tells Luke to pass on all his teachings, even his failures. The Jedi should not end and Luke needs to stop relying on old books. The way he got lightning to strike down the tree was great.
One thing I'm shocked about is the acting actually got better. Rey's acting was horrible in episode 7, but she improved this time. She is still a terrible character, but she was less annoying this time around. I hate how she can't lose through no training whatsoever. It makes no sense. Another thing that doesn't make sense is Rey's parents, who end up being nobody.
Snoke was great in the beginning. Right away he takes a shot at episode 7. He tells Kylo Ren you are weak and you lost to a girl who has never held a light saber before. These directors love to kill off the best characters. Killing off Snoke in the middle of the movie was incredibly stupid. They made Snoke into a nobody and the hype about him was for nothing. He was the only one that actually beat Rey. Kylo Ren is now the supreme leader. Kylo Ren was better in this movie, but he is still a little bit of a crybaby and a bad villain.
The whole storyline with Finn and Rose ended up being very pointless and a waste of time. They also wasted Toro's character. I really liked the scenes when they were in the casino. I had no interest in Finn vs Phasma. Finn is a very pointless character, and they needed something for him to do. Pointless Phasma ends up dying, and they hyped her up for nothing.
There were countless of other things I didn't get. The light saber breaking, and Rey telling Kylo Ren to put a shirt on was beyond stupid. When Leia shot Poe, I was like why? Holdo also had some dumb scenes. However, Leia did have a great scene which showed the full extent of her power. Also, when Holdo went into light speed to destroy the fleet was incredible.
Luke ended up being better by the end of the movie. Luke comes to save the resistance from dying. The first order tries to shoot at Luke with a lot of firepower but Luke didn't get a scratch. This scene showed the true power of luke. Luke goes to face Kylo Ren and ends up not being a light saber fight. No light saber fights at all in the movie. Barely any choreography. Kylo tries to kill Luke but the saber just goes right through him. He was a hologram and no other Jedi was able to do that before. I hated the idea of Luke being killed off. However, the way Luke went out was a lot better than Han Solo. He died by disappearing and being one with the force. He also died with a purpose unlike Han Solo who went out for nothing. The last scene with the kid was very random.
Overall, this movie was pretty bad. My theater had no clapping and people ended up shaking their ends and left immediately when it was over. It ended up being better than force awakens but not by much. All the hype from episode 7 is gone. There is nothing to look forward to in episode 9. A lot of the characters are killed off. Luke may be in it for a few minutes as a ghost. It's just Rey vs Kylo Ren. I hate both the characters and have no interest. This Star Wars series is the most unpopular compared to the originals and prequels. I am confused why these movies get good ratings. Is Chewie going to die next?
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4/10
Feels like the movie were only made for people at the age of twelve
The movie was about the alliance being pursued by the first order for basically the hole movie, that was what it was about. It was extremely predictable and full of clichés we have seen in many mediocre, bad movies. The only unpredictable event that transpired in the movie was that Supreme leader Snoke died quietly easy which I however admire since it was unpredictable. His death was followed by an epic fight with Rey and Kylo Ren on the same side. Although that was basically the only good thing in the movie in my opinion.
Finn who was very entertaining in the first movie was dragged into a boring romance. Oh my god it was unbearable watching those two together. The people making this movie wanted me to care about them as a couple however they failed miserably. I don't see how anyone could give a shit about the girl. She came out of nowhere and all of a sudden she is supposed to be an important person.
And the thing she said to Finn after saving him in the last second before he would die almost made me leave the cinema. i have never ever experienced such a cliché scene. The words she uttered. How are the makers of the movie not emberrassed? I have not seen anything like it since Dobby's final word in Harry Potter.
There were also way to much childish humor. How I hated the people in the cinema laughing to everything BB8 managed to do on its own. It was ridicolous. To even suggest that the droid would be capable of taking out four soldiers and also controlling a FUCKING AT-ST single handely is out of this world. How could they even come up with that?? Fckheads.
That was not everything that bothered my mind by I am to tired of continuing. I guess I still am utterly sad and dissapointed that they had TWO years of doing this movie and this is the best they could do. Disgusting. Bring J.J. Abrams back as the main director of star wars. He could repare the damage
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The "I hate sand" line from Ep.II looks like a line from Casablanca if compared to the silly facfiction I saw in this movie.
Looks like women cannot be nothing but mothers, teachers, nurses or witches.
No matter if they are a general, an admiral, a jedi-to-be or a worrior.
All they have to do is to take care of poor, conflicted kids and men.
That's their role - worst their "destiny" - in that galaxy.
Shame.
Heroes? One. Overall the arc is moving. But did he really deserve to be ridiculed that way? There's a scene in particulary - that almost destroy his legacy forever... because come on: that used be the kid that thrown away his lightsaber in front of Sidius in VI - that looks like a B-Horror Movie or a Rocky Horror Picture Show parody. Space Ball never dared that much.
One may like more or less TFA, but it set up interesting new characters and some plot lines that in this sequel are totally ignored, rebooted but not better done (Finn) or turned in something far less interisting (Poe, Rey), sometimes with a touch of narrative schizophrenia (Kylo).
The SW saga (from 1 to 7) only had one twist. And it changed the saga and the movie history forever... because it was meaningfull.
This festival of the unespected that is unespected only because is illogical is a farce, for the sake of it.
Plot holes that contradtic or throw in the trash ep. 7 and the rest of the new canon. LF should explain people why they would have to buy comics and books if they are... pointless.
Snoke is Jar Jar could have made more sense in the context of this 8 movies saga.
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The "I hate sand" line from Ep.II looks like a line from Casablanca if compared to the silly facfiction I saw in this movie.
Looks like women cannot be nothing but mothers, teachers, nurses or witches.
No matter if they are a general, an admiral, a jedi-to-be or a worrior.
All they have to do is to take care of poor, conflicted kids and men.
That's their role - worst their "destiny" - in that galaxy.
What a shame, for the franchise that gave us Leia... in 70es.
Heroes? One. Overall the arc is moving. But did he really deserve to be ridiculed that way? There's a scene in particulary - that almost destroy his legacy forever... because come on: that used be the kid that thrown away his lightsaber in front of Sidius in VI - that looks like a B-Horror Movie or a Rocky Horror Picture Show parody. Space Ball never dared that much.
One may like more or less TFA, but it set up interesting new characters and some plot lines that in this sequel are totally ignored, rebooted but not better done (Finn) or turned in something far less interisting (Poe, Rey), sometimes with a touch of narrative schizophrenia (Kylo).
The SW saga (from 1 to 7) only had one twist. And it changed the saga and the movie history forever... because it was meaningfull.
This festival of the unespected that is unespected only because is illogical is a farce, for the sake of it.
Plot holes that contradtic or throw in the trash ep. 7 and the rest of the new canon. LF should explain people why they would have to buy comics and books if they are... pointless.
Snoke is Jar Jar could have made more sense in the context of this 8 movies saga.
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First of all, i am not a star wars fanatic, i was not that guy who ranted about the de-canonizing of the EU, i was not a "Legacy of the Force enthusiast and i had no beef about the purchase of Lucasfilm by the big mouse.
I was for sure a OT fan as a kid and a watcher of the prequels during college and i enjoyed them, even with the lackluster dialogue.
So i went with an open mind to watch "The Last Jedi", the Force awakens was a solid 8 to me, not the best movie around but JJ Abrams, even with his mistery boxes sure knows how to produce spectacle.
The Last Jedi was somewhat a mixed bag. First the positives:
-It has the most original camera movements in the saga, Rian Johnson is a master at knowing how to direct each shot . Getting a scene into the mood and pushing the chemistry from actors .
Carrie Fisher was more prominent here than in 7 and she did a good job, sad she wont be here for the third, we can see that her comeback could be even better in these films.
Mark Hamill, even though out of a big picture for a long time was perfect in his older "Get off my lawn" Luke,
-Snoke was believable as a cg character, sometimes i would even forget that Andy Serkis was there in a mocap suit, so Bravo!
-Adam Driver is compelling as an actor, he and Daisy Ridley were well cast and can work with the archetypes that were given to them.
-The effects were polished, sound was top notch, and even without many new compositions, John Williams gives us a great "Member berries" Best off,mixing themes from previous films, like Yoda*s theme,TIE Fighter attack and some tunes from the prequels.
Now for the bad(oh boy):
The movie had a weird tone, some scenes blended really dark themes with a Poe Dameron or BB8 gag right next to them, so i was mostly pushed back from more tense moments.
Some characters were overly two dimensional, yes its a fantasy movie in space but having characters like snoke being overly "Im the bad guy, i manipulated you!" Was too much, Palpatine was a sleazy villain, but remember, he was an idealist, a seducing idealist that kept showing both Luke and Anakin the benefits of the dark side and the failure of the Jedi.
The use of Snoke as a throwaway character, yes, as i said, Andy Serkis even with a two dimensional dialogue sold us a character that, if developed could be really something if it would somehow fit in the world of the story, he comes from nowhere( or some uncharted part of the galaxy) he is really old,tall, he seduced kilo and gets off like a wimp. Well, maybe Disney will someday pull of a Dark Maul on him in some obscure book or tv show.
The treatment of Luke Skywalker was kinda painful, even though Hamill performance is great, luke is used as a new character, like if the Skywalker we knew was a dead memory, he is now the total opposite of the "New Hope" we knew, now he hates the Jedi (but somehow decided to live on a planet filled with Jedi memorabilia), tried to kill his nephew boosting Kylo Ren in the first order (while being the only guy who had faith on his father redemption). His arc is boringly slow for a last minute turn., guess his love for milk is the only characteristic left unchanged.
-Mary Leia Poppins, this idea can sound great in paper, and you can see the love in each shot on the scene, but has a final result it feels cringy, also is really Leia acting on her force powers? Was she trained? Is there an Anakin Ghost pushing her towards the safety of the ship ("Oh Leia, im so sorry for having tortured you, here now i'll save you"), Because we see her force hands magnetizing back to the ship, yep, its the first option and Leia is an action force user, guys, if you want to give her force trained powers show us, make her say she trained with Luke or something...
Luke Skywalker. send off. Im betting this was not a Rian Johnson idea, it feels like a committee deciding to kill the trio by order, Ep7 Han,Ep8 Luke, Ep9 Leia. This only gives the trilogy a very formulaic feel, even in the prequels you felt that the formula was in the chaos of George Lucas "it rhymes" and not in a bunch of people deciding tributes and cameos to please every people imaginable. That way you please no one, and im not really interested in the discussion of a Force Projection , the projection itself worked for me, (EU Luke used it in the comics a couple of times for long calls), its the journey of luke towards his demise, you give a rotten egg to the old fans and a grumpy boring old man to newer generations.
-Rey and Kylo, the legacy of the force, i have very low interest in these characters, more with Kylo, mostly because of his tortured soul, but i cant see him as the main baddie in 9, he is designed as a emotional wreck, a brat, a vader fan boy, the toy of snoke, we know his frailties, his despair, Vader worked better in Empire (if you skipped the prequels) he had mistery and his low tolerance for failure of his staff was vaguely funny, but it wasn't a in your face joke, the broken man was inside a literal shell. Ben Solo has showed us his soul and heart, even if you would show the man killing hundreds of rabbits (or porgs) i will never see him as a menace to fear.
Rey is different, agendas apart she gives more of herself for the cause, we see her train and her will to be a Jedi and save the galaxy, those are positives i guess, but she is so overpowered, such a blank slate of a character (even though Daisy Ridley's and Johnson efforts to give her density), Rey had very few tribulations and got so far that she loses believably as a "human" being in my opinion. At least make us identify with her cause, give us her suffering, her ideals, her sorrow, make her want to get rid of this burden called the force (give her some of Lukes motivations), slice her a limb at least (not sure if joking), i've identified more with Lara Croft in the original game than with this avatar of a Goddess.
the only way they could work from now on was to switch Kilo to the light side and Rey to the Dark but Disney would never do this to their main female protagonist. Its a shame, they are great actors but due to a bunch of corporate and social factors they aren't getting pushed to the next level. Sure, Disney might get her pregnant with a skywalker seed, but having this action figure, a model for every girl out there being used to bring skywalker babies to the world would be a risk. Everything is risk it seems. Male, female, black, white, asians, treat them as characters with a good story, there is your true representation. and that takes me to :
Poe Dameron, Phasma, DJ , Chewbacca, Finn and Rose, the representation underrepresented, Poe is a perfect pilot with stupid decisions and he is the joker of this film, Phasma is an "action figure bait" and a waste just like the previous film, Finn is goofy, clumsy and brave just to face Phasma in her bobba Fettian cameo, Dj is Benicio del Toro with a speech impediment, Rose is competent and Finn's new love interest, brave and cute. But this is another irrelevant component in this movie, their participation on the overall story takes too much time and seemed like secondary quests on an RPG , yes those you leave behind because of so much filler.
Sure there are funny moments with them, they are great actors afterall, Rian knows how to make action set pieces work, but at least make them more involved in reys story and not a fetch quest: Finn and Rose are seeking a hacker and afterwards to release captive animals, Phasma is seeking Finn, Poe is seeking his leadership among a pink haired Laura Dern and Chewie is trying to surpass Han's death among a stray flock of Porgs (Im fine with them). At least in Empire, Han/Leia plot is intertwined with Luke and Vader's Journey, it doesn't feel forced, Luke abandons his training because he feels the suffering of his friends who are escaping Vader, that takes him to cloud city where he is late, Han is lost to the carbonite and he will lose the fight against his father. here Rey abandons her training because she is fixated with Kylo, the group meets at the end, in the chaos of battle they work together to fight the first order, they are all great soldiers, pilots and tactical thinkers, i felt they couldn't die, it was just an action scene where the script pay offs started to show. Rey hovers a boulder barrier while Luke Ex Machina appears to face the nephew in his ultimate form, skywalker is happy because the last Jedi is now Rey.... Sure she trained for a couple of days and now is the carrier of the last Jedi books (the ones she stole).
The film isn't mediocre, its just a lost chance to blend the cool ingredients they had in The Force Awakens, Just disappointing and bland. So i dont blame Rian Johnson, i've seen him getting threats on Twitter, he wasn't to blame but the overall committee thinking of modern film making, its just like a sawed off shotgun, if you want to hit multiple targets in the distance it will disperse your shot all over the place with little to no effectiveness ( and im not even a gun person), movies want to be progressive and regressive, for all ages, for all genders, for hardcore fans and newer audiences, for all cultures and ideologies, and so they get bland, diluted in their potential. The directors for future Star Wars movies and the story group should start to focus on telling cool stories, if they want to kill characters do it but first show us their potential and we will sob or cheer. Like George Lucas said, its "beautifully made", but i found it lacks soul and real risks.
I thank you
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"A review from a true die-hard Star Wars fan"
I am 42 years old and i'm a Star Wars fan since i was young and i own a huge collection of vintage Star Wars toys which i collect ever since (for nearly 30 years now) so for me Star Wars is more than a movie.
Besides that i'm a big movie fan and own a 4000+ dvd collection (from Bogart to Schwarzenegger , from Hitchcock to John Carpenter , from Film-Noir to Comedy , from France to Hollywood...) so it might be my first review but i know the score.
First of all i certainly don't wanna say that everything was better in the old days.
Offcourse nothing beats the originals (Episode 4-6) where i grew up with as a kid - yet they simply don't have to!
ESB is close to perfection, but ANH and ROTJ have their flaws. The prequels (Episode 1-3) have many flaws (mainly the CGI overkill) , but the storyline was good , the music was great , they have some nice characters and most important ; the movies came from the heart and had soul. Then, after 10 years of waiting , there was TFA (Episode 7) and in my opinion JJ Abrahams delivered a very good movie. Altough the story was a bit of a rehash of the original trilogy , JJ was able to capture the ''Star Wars Drive" (switching between scenes and storylines with perfect tempo and timing) that is so typical for Star Wars movies. Last year there was the spin-off movie ''Rogue One'' , which was outstanding (I personally just had some issues with the score, but other than that it was great)
And now we have 'The Last Jedi' (Epsiode 8) which i really looked forward to. Wednesday i went to the openingnight of this newest instalment and it was bad. Very bad. In fact it was such a painful experience, that i left the theater devastated after 90 minutes and returned the next day for another try (this time together with my 8 year old son who loves SW as well)
But unfortunately ; what a massive dissapointment!
Its too much of everything except too much of a good story.
The story is just awful and respectless to the Star Wars saga. It has so many (bad) jokes that it almost becomes a parody. There are multiple ridiculous scenes (the flying princess, bb8 in the scout walker..) There are unnecessary scenes - especially at the end where the movie doesn't know when to stop- which makes this movie way to long and at some points even boring. There are annoying characters (especially Rose). Again there is too many CGI. And what about the scene with the Race Horses that makes Star Wars looks like a Harry Potter movie!? From beginning to start its a chain of unbelievable choices. Almost like if this movie was controlled by people who don't know anything about the history and magic of Star Wars at all. There is such an overkill of force and tricks that it simply becomes a common thing. What happened to Subtlety? At almost every point this movie is such a big dissapointment. The critics all wrote good reviews. No wonder. Disney has become so powerfull that being banned for all other Disney projects simply means losing a job. Also don't be misled by the high rating. Wednesday thousands of mysterious voters rated this movie with a maximum score of 10. These votes most likely came straight from the darkside. Its shocking to see that Disney -with all the money in the world- did not manage to come up with a decent movie. That they hired a second rate director and used a poor script to mess up one of the biggest pieces of art of the 20th century. The Star Wars universe has lost a bit of its magic after this episode.
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1. A single fighter takes out every space gun on an imperial battle ship, that does not even bother to raise its shields? And only one of those many guns can hit the ship? Thats there only job!
2. The First Order don't even bother releasing X-wings to take out the fighter until after he has finished hurting them.
3. BB8 literally uses his head to fix a broken control panel?
4. The entire Rebel fleet is on a single ship, which has the ONLY shield in the entire galaxy. Yet there is an entire Rebel base a short distance away, deserted but fully operational?
5. The Rebel ship's shields are indestructible. An entire fleet of first order star destroyers are firing at it, yet every single shot bounces off. What point is a fleet that cant take out a single ship?
6. Leia should have died in space. When she opened her eyes and came back to life after the explosion, decompression, hypothermia, and burst lungs. She would have had a concussion from the blast, poped lungs and was blinded when she opened her eyes in a vacuum. She also cannot fly herself back to the door of a broken ship.
7. Then, the crew could not open that door without killing themselves in the process. The corridor led to the vacuum of space. There is no way she could get inside!
8. Finn wakes up, naked and sprouting water. Why was he wearing a portable jacuzzi?
9. If the rebels can turn the ship around and fly it into the enemy, why didn't they do that with the two support vessels before they were destroyed?
10. And if flying ships into the enemy does more damage than missiles, set them on autopilot and do that instead.
11. Kylo Ren has his top off. Why?
12. There is a black sinkhole in Lukes Garden, with a magic mirror in it. That literally does nothing.
13. Rey has lightsaber skills, with zero lessons. Her entire force powers are unexplained.
14. She can leave the Falcon in an escape pod, which can fly to the very hull of the star destroyer, and just walk through the shield door of the cargo bay. Both the Falcon and the pod should have been blown up before they got that close. And the rebels should just send an armed nuke across in the same manner.
15. Snoke does not detect betrayal in Kylo. So much for master Sith. His powers are a joke.
16. Yoda's ghost laughing and causing a targeted lightning strike while dead. If he has that power, why not continue doing it on Stoke and Kylo while at it?
17. The rebel base has a big metal door, which they leave wide open for the enemy. why? It should have been shut asap.
18. The rebel base apparently only has the one entrance trapping them inside. But in the very next second, we see the troops leaving through small doors and going outside to the trenches, and fighters ships leaving from above the door. Why not just escape via those routes?
19. They try closing the door, but one enemy ship gets through. And oh what a coincidence, it just happens to have Finn and Rose on board. What are the odds?
20. Luke has a ship hidden under the water. But instead of using it to be helpful, he projects a hologram of himself, but still dies anyway? What was the point of that?
21. The kid at the end uses telekenis to make the broom come to his hand. Clearly he is going to use his force powers to "clean" up the galaxy.
22. Porgs. Now they are stealing from Star Trek with Tribbles.
23. Chewie can fly the massive Falcon through a complicated cave system, without crashing. With tunnels just the right size for his large but narrow ship, and survive on his first attempt. And also find a convenient exit... with skills like that, you wonder why in the earlier films he was manning the gun and Solo was the one flying.
24. The ancient Jedi texts are not page turners, nor have they been copied or digitalised or had backups made of them. As paper, they would have rotted away naturally around all that salt water with age.
25. Finn is about to sacrifice himself to destroy the cannon, and save the rebels. Yet Rose stops him, and kisses him while in the background we watch all their friends die in a massive fire blast. Timing is everything.
26. How did the first order get a massive cannon, and all the walkers and ships down to the planet in the seconds lead they had chasing them? Do they just have all these land based vehicles on tie fighters ready for launch? Why would a star destroyer have a door blasting cannon in storage anyway?
27. The double agent hacker they just happen to bump into while in jail. Befriends BB8 and helps them, was apparently a spy for the first order. How on earth did he know they were going to be in that cell, at the end of the cliff to rescue them, that he could disable a segment of the shield and then use an unknown metal as a conductor to open a door. He was apparently paid to set these rebels up, yet Finn and Rose only came up with the plan seconds ago. Then went looking for a different hacker. How could he possibly have known anything!
28. The last Jedi? We have Leia, Ray and some random kid with force powers. And those are just the three we know about. Couldn't more be in hiding?
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At least it wasn't a TOTAL copy pasta rip off of the OT like TFA was, but TLJ' was pretty bad. It was soulless, failed to stir any emotion except cringe, and had a dialogue that was written for, and perhaps by, not so bright ten year olds. Its pace was either too fast or too slow, it was unnecessarily long, and I care even less about the characters now than I did after seeing TFA. TLJ basically took a giant dump on the Luke character, it had plot holes that were just wtf, and right out of the gates was full of cringe comedy. I cant remember how many times throughout the movie I said to myself, "show, don't tell", but it was a lot.
Visually it was great, and there were some appropriately timed and executed laughs, and again, it was better than TFA...but it was not even close to recapturing the lightning that was the OT. Rogue one remains the only new star wars film to be worthy of the title.
The Last Jedi will be the last movie of this trilogy that I pay to go see.
#buyersremorse
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1/10
Episode 8: The Star Wars movie with identity crisis
I am a big fan of star wars and I have really enjoyed original trilogy and even prequels, but Episode 7 was a disappointment and I am sad to say this , but The Last Jedi is garbage.
Lets start with the first problem: Identity crisis.
Episode 8 simply couldnt decide if it is a child friendly movie, an environmental movie, war movie or a comedy.
It simply had something from those 4 genres put in very repetetive manner with fight scenes mostly getting interrupted by things like screaming porgs, ruining the atmosphere completely. It had quite a lot of gore in some parts yet it was advertised as a child movie and used porgs for advertising.
The movie is shifting genres all the time and it is very annoying
Second problem is the story:
The story is bland and feels like you put parts from original trilogy and prequels, swapped characters, planet names and a few small details.
For example the beginning, being a combination of Hoth evacuation from Episode 5 and attack on Death Star II from Episode 6 with transports getting evacuated from the resistance base and one bootleg B-Wing destroying the entire Dreadnaught cruiser. Or the ending battle, resistance soldiers fighting bootleg AT-ATs with bootleg Snowspeeders on a salty Hoth clone. It felt very unoriginal.
The acting and characters:
The acting was horrible with Daisy Riley still staring at the camera and crying all the time, Driver acting like a complete idiot (again).
Characters were badly scripted and there were tons of character related mistakes like Leia being able to fly and breathe in vacuum, similar error with a bomber pilot, strange dialogue at times and Luke hating on Jedi order for no reason (this was even critised by Hamil himself).
And the last thing was music:
John Williams just gave up on this one. All the music were just remixes of existing tracks with one of the tracks being looped more than quarter of the movie in all Luke/Rey scenes. It was so goddamn repetetive.
This movie is a pure insult to Star Wars and it is even worse than Episode 7.
Lucas really shouldnt have sold Lucasfilm to Disney.
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It hurts to see my beloved childhood franchise sink to a level of mediocrity never seen before. After The Force Awakens, a lackluster movie which nevertheless brought back the nostalgia of the original trilogy and introduced new characters with great potential, The Last Jedi was supposed to be the cornerstone of the new Disney-led franchise, building on its predecessor's story and setting up a grand finale for Episode IX. Sadly, it is not.
Aside from the visual effects, soundtrack (thanks again to John Williams) and strong performances from Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Adam Driver, the movie fails at every other level. The main plot (the Resistance attempting to escape from the First Order) is uncompelling and filled with sub-plots (Finn and Rose, Benicio del Toro's cameo), which could (and should) have stayed in the editing room. Rey's training to become a Jedi, a central part of the movie, felt rushed and slow-paced at the same time. The third act of the movie, although slightly more exciting, failed to capture the magic of the battle of Hoth and led to a disappointing duel between Luke and Kylo Ren, which seemed straight out of a Matrix movie. The Last Jedi not only fails on answering many questions raised by The Force Awakens (e.g. how did Luke's lightsaber end up in Maz Kanata's hands? what is the origin of Snoke?), but kills off its big, bad villain halfway through the movie in a cheap and gratuitous fashion.
The screenplay was poor with cringe-worthy, forced humor in contrast to the lighthearted, witty one-liners from the old trilogy. The editing and sound effects were on point though, and the scenes on Anch-To were beautifully shot.
It is unfortunate that the new trilogy has been created to appeal to the mainstream audience, losing the elements, such as deep character development and complex themes (light vs. dark, democracy vs. dictatorship), that turned Star Wars into a science-fiction masterpiece. By over relying on its old characters, the new movies seem more like generic replicas of the original trilogy instead of expanding the Star Wars universe and creating new storylines with compelling, memorable characters.
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1/10
Star Wars Episode 8, the horrible sequel to horrible episode 7 with identity crisis.
Being a star wars fan, I really enjoyed the original trilogy and even prequels. Episode 7 was a disappointment and I am sad to say this, but episode 8 was horrible, even worse than my expectations (and I expected it to be quite bad).
Lets start with the main problem, identity crisis.
Episode 8 simply co
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1/10
Too many cooks in the franchise kitchen, supervised by a Corporation
There are numerous things to list as "wrong" or "disappointing" with this movie, but the most frustrating thing to me is the complete disregard for much of what was set in motion for this story in "The Force Awakens".
Rian Johnson has ignored or completely thrown away parts of this story he either didn't like or didn't want to tell (in the opening scene, it's symbolically done which should have served as a huge warning for this movie).
Unfortunately, it's not unlike what Disney did with the EU.
I'm not arguing that the EU should or should not have been scrapped, that's not my point - my point is that the more film makers Disney brings to this saga and continues to stand by this idea of "I don't like it, so I'm not addressing it" in future films, the more disjointed the saga will become.
George Lucas hired talented film makers to make his initial sequels but still held the reigns of the story.
He did the same with the prequels. And while I am no big fan of the prequels, the story does follow through far better in that trilogy than it has from TFA to TLJ.
The more film makers alter their installments to fit what they want to do rather than help continue the story that's been started, the worse it will get.
When JJ Abrams picks up Episode 9 and tries to turn the story back after this mess, this will feel like 3 separate movies that happen to have the same characters rather than a true, epic trilogy.
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Opening scene set the tone for the whole film. Too much awkward comedy and downright dumb dialog dropped points to almost zero. After that it got little better.
Visuals were top notch and it seems they keep getting better. I only wish the stories would too.
This movie like its predecessor has cool characters that don't really do anything or by doing make themselves much less cool.
Plot was almost carbon-copy of Empire strikes back with minor alterations. Again, just like the previous film was copy of New hope.
They also seem to come up with new Jedi powers for each movie that are never seen again. This really bothers me. And this is the 8th movie and we still don't know what the jedi or the force is and what you can do with it or what it means to be strong in the force or have a lot of midichlorians.Like if you have 100 force you cab lift 1 rock and with 1000 force it's 10 rocks.
Mostly it had no excitement of any kind. I didn't feel anything for the characters so whether they succeeded or not had no impact on me what so ever. There was also one scene that seemed oddly out of place and I think they added it in afterwards. I can't really say it was boring though. I only checked the time once during a slower scene which brings to mind the near constant action that swallows all individuals scenes so one can't really remember any particular scenes afterwards. I can say this though: this is the first Star wars movie I don't want to see again because it has nothing left for second viewing.
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Unacceptable plot, silly "funny" scenes, decent special effects, extremelly bad acting.
There are scenes that exist only for the sake of effects or to have acting time (eg. the stampede in the casino, whatever "Finn" does in the movie has no effect on the plot)
Actually I am so dissapointed to even think about the movie... 2,1/2 hours wasted
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I'm a huge Cinefile...I've loved movies before I could tie my own laces, and I'll watch anything at least once out of love and curiosity. So below is my honest opinion of Star Wars the last Jedi.
The dark side NEVER do comedy. It should have stayed that way. Disney have created a fun family feature series away from the original sci-fi, sometimes gritty underdog story. Rogue One maintained a great level of realism...this has been lost.
Pandering to all ages has removed the longevity of such a great franchise. We should let people get to an age that allows them to understand the true original nature of the Star Wars universe.
I feel let down as a fan, by the sudden change of direction. Maybe we should have seen this coming.
The movie was entertaining and visually stunning. But, for me. This is no longer Star Wars that I once loved.
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I went into this movie with no supreme expectations that Star Wars fans feel. The filmography and soundtrack were great as well was the chemistry between Daisy&Adam. It all goes downhill from there as the film doesn't give us any reasons to care about the coupling of Luke&Rey and Luke's eventual goodbye as the average amount of scenes they physically share together comes close to 15 minutes. What also went unexplained is Luke's radical increase in the Force, Leia's recovery and Snoke's far too easy death. Snoke&Luke were both equal in strength capable of using the Force by holograms but they were easily killed by a much weaker Kylo the Brat.
It was all wasted potential.
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I am a huge fan since 1977 but today I could not believe my eyes......it was the first time in my life that i wanted to leave the theatre from the first 30 minutes.This is a bad movie.. Give the story back to those who love it.
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I'm not sure how I can address this. It is the first time after all 8 episodes, that as the film comes to the end, I felt no desire, no anticipation at all, to wait for the next one.
In all honesty, this felt empty, especially at the end. Wow visual effects and in general the technical aspects of the film were super. But who cares? They killed the star wars feeling ...
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It just does not feel like a Star War movie. A lot of things does not make sense. the plots are too packed. If the director can delete 1/3 of the plots, the story problem will get better. Also, some scenes are very sexist and unnecessary.
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HUGE Misfire with Luke but the rest of the story was smart
So many conflicting thoughts when trying to fully review what hits the screen. Did expectations play too large a part or were certain events really as anti-climatic as they feel??? While heady and interesting, there was a lack of emotional connection overall. At key times, in what should have been big plot turns things felt a bit hallow. Not to say it was all unfulfilling but a lot simply didn't pay off with as much impact as the characters deserved. (Luke's fate being chief among them) Overall, Luke's arc finished with him appearing to be a whinny crybaby and his actions since Kylo's defection seemed overblown and snivel-like in nature. Taking little of what Obi-Wan and Yoda taught him and ignoring lessons learned from the original trilogy. I simply didn't like how Luke was written in this film.
What I did love was that there were many plot angles that didn't go in the direction they were appearing to go. Cliches were broken quite a bit and I found that to be refreshingly smart. Heroes weren't always heroes and were actually wrong on multiple occasions. Like established in Force Awakens, this trilogy is mostly Rey's arc and that was the primary focus. Yet, there is a credibility issue when everything she is accomplishing comes with no training or teaching. She is a "superwoman" and is nearly infallible simply because she's a self made "tough chick". Maybe too much "SJW-ism" at play? With all the big gun characters used up from the original trilogy, it'll be interesting if not a bit disconcerting where they go from here. It honestly doesn't feel like the torch as been passed properly. The new generation doesn't connect with me on a passionate level. They are "OK" and is that enough going forward?
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Considering all the hype for the movie, thanks to the excellent ending of the previous installment and the incredible marketing campaign filled with great trailers, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a disappointment. What initially seemed like it would be a masterpiece, ended up being close in some ways, yet it also was somewhat of a disaster. It's totally uneven, with a lot of great action, character development and suspense, yet with a lot of bizarre moments as well, with comedic moments happening in awkward places and terrible scenes that seem like they were taken from a superhero film. It's full of risks, for sure, but I don't really think all the risks payed off well, considering the fact that this movie is supposed to start the time when the new cast takes over the old one. Rian Johnson can't quite end the original heroes on a high note, resulting in a climax that feels like a gimmick, showing the audience what they want to see yet at the same time, tricking them into thinking it was something better. What surprised me was how non-important was Luke Skywalker in this movie, and considering Mark Hamill's performance, he deserved a much more developed character and more screen time. The problem is, the movie is just too busy to give everyone a story arc and an emotional arc, so by the end of it, you end up feeling some characters had too much development, and others had too little and maybe they shouldn't have appeared at all. This is just an opinion, but I really think The Last Jedi should have been focused on Luke's story, yet it wasn't, with characters like Poe Dameron getting more screen time than him, and possibly more development. The movie as a whole doesn't have focus, it's just a collection of amazing and not so amazing moments. It also doesn't help that the movie has like five different endings, and the one that actually ends it, it's downright terrible. The only character that was actually improved and was really great was Kylo Ren, thanks to, once again, Adam Driver, who delivers the best performance of the movie and portrays the inner conflict of the character with tremendous subtlety. I wish I could give this movie a ten out of ten, but I can't. It's just way too manic and disjointed.
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Not sure how this movie has received such strong reviews from critics. I am utterly disappointed.
As others have mentioned, the story and plot/subplots are very weak, full of holes, and around 1.5 hours of the movie seems to be extraneous, out of context, and just poorly scripted.
This movie completely lacks the 'epic' feel of the rest of the Star Wars series. The characters, universe and mythology have been mostly ignored and replaced with a Disney/Marvel feel, almost as if somebody in the production team felt that Star Wars would be better as 'Guardians of the Galaxy', complete with corny jokes and comedy creatures... I mean, why not just have the 'team' search for an Infinity stone and hook up with the rest of the crew in the next Avengers movie (I'm guessing that's probably crossed the minds of the studio execs).
There was so much potential for this movie... so much opportunity wasted.
In summary, this is VERY poor fan-faction which is an injustice to the SW universe and characters that Lucas and his team spent so many years developing and refining. It's a travesty that this movie was released and it really should not be included as Star Wars canon.
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This review contains spoilers. I wasn't expecting much from Episode VIII, but this is way more worse than i thought it could get.
Here my Pros and Cons WITH SPOILERS:
PRO - The effects are real badass some times
The Hyperspace flight throught the ship
The Technic luke brings up at the end
CONS
The Story takes a **** about what "The Force Awakens" tried to introduce. We all thought: "Hmm, who's this supreme leader snoke? where does he come from? how strong he's connected to the force?". But then he gets killed by his student who haven't even finished his "apprenticeship". Supreme leader snoke is not frightening in any scene and is now replaced with this young boy who doesent know if he should cry or kill anybody around him.
All Star wars movies nowadays need this cute little alien-animals, and then have to show them 10 times
Some jokes are ridiculous --> Like Luke throwes the light saber away, after 1000 laser shoots Luke scratches his shoulder, the joke Leia brings about her hair when he meets Luke... thats just a few of them. This only shows that Disney doesen't take the franchise serious. It must be funy in most of the scenes, even if it fits or not.
I am not looking forward for episode IX. All of you, who may like this movie that much, are in my opinion new fans who don't care about the older trilogys or blind fanboys who take everything disney will throw at us the next 10 or whatever years.
This movie says only, MONEY MONEY MONEY.
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I've seen every Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back on opening night, and I can honestly say I've never left the theatre feeling more disappointed and let down than I did after this one. This was a shockingly bad installment in the franchise, even by prequel standards. It left me wondering if Rian Johnson had ever even seen a Star Wars movie before, because this one certainly doesn't deserve to wear the name. It was more like a really bad episode of Battlestar Galactica than a Star Wars movie.
This movie was so flawed on so many different levels I'm not sure where to start. I'd say the major problem with this film was the incredibly weak story, combined with the total waste of screen time on ridiculous sub-plots instead of using that time to do some much needed character development and some backstory/explanation of the majority of the major characters. Combine this with taking almost all of them in the most wrong direction possible and you've got one giant mess.
Which is exactly what this film is....a huge, unfixable mess. *spoilers ahead* Not only did this movie fail in almost every imaginable way, but the mess it created with the story and the characters is so big it will be virtually impossible for Disney to fix it in the next movie and still make a good film out of it.
Snoke...what happened there? We got no backgroud, no development, no anything before he was effortlessly killed by Ren....why? They wasted some great potential here to create a really interesting and valuable character to the movie and it's inevitable sequal, and took the story in an absurd direction at the same time. So the character responsible for Ren turning to the dark side and the new Jedi falling was just some creep bad guy we now know nothing about? what? And no point in giving him a back story in the next movie, because, well, he's dead now and nobody will care.....absurd.
Leia...they botched this character big time too. Was it wise to make her now one of the most central characters in the story? With Carrie Fishers untimely passing, sadly, they were left with no choice but to find a way to remove her from the story at some point in this movie in order to be able to do the next one. They had plenty of opportunities to do so in a way that would have furthered the story, but they chose not to for whatever reason. When Ren changed his mind about killing her but the other fighters fired, that would have been a great time to do it because it would have added to Ren's character and given him new motivations for upcoming aspects of the story. What are they going to do now? Imply her death in some meaningless way inbetween the movies or just kill off a bad CGI version of her in the opening scene of the next one?
Luke....ok, if you're going to kill off LUKE SKYWALKER, the central character in the original trilogy, at least give it some real meaning and depth appropriate for the character. Like maybe while trying to save Ren and repair the past in order to set things on the right path. No....they chose to kill him off creating a diversion for the rebels to slip out the back door and temporarily escape the First Order. Wow.....what a waste of what needed to be a much more powerful moment in the story.
To wrap it all up, I'm shocked Disney let this one out of the gate. Didn't anybody at any point question any of this, or was Rian Johnson simply given free reign to do as he pleased with this project? However it all went down, Disney should be ashamed of themselves for ever allowing this movie to see the light of day.
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7/10
Some of these negative reviews ae as whiny as prequels Anakin
Listen, Star Wars The last Jedi is not a perfect film. It is not the best Star Wars film, but it is not the "trash" that so many on here have called it.
Yes the quest for the code breaker is a waste of time. Yes it feels like they didn't know what to do with Finn and Poe. Yes it seems like the chase was contrived, all of those are valid points. However some of the reviews on here are downright laughable in their whininess. It really sounds like a lot of people are upset that their personal view of how this story should turn out didn't happen and now they're upset.
There is also a certain subset of the fandom that doesn't seem to be happy with anything that these movies are. Rey's parents are nobodies? People are upset. Rey is a Skywalker/Solo? How predictable. Rey is a Kenobi? Way to crap on Obi-Wan's legacy as being true to the Jedi order. This is how these people sound.
These movies are not made JUST FOR YOU, that is "how they could have a grade of an 8", because these movies are made for everyone.
There is going to be a whole bunch of Star Wars movies coming up that don't have anything to do with the Skywalkers. There is going to be a post-Skywalker era and you better get over it. To set that up one of the underlining points of this movie is that anyone can be powerful with the force. That nobodies can be somebodies. That is the point of Rose. Could she be done better, yup, probably. But that doesn't dismiss the point that was being made, you don't have to have high parentage to be a Jedi.
You know what else is laughable? All the other complaints about what the force does in this movie. It seems so many have put the force in this box, the only thing the force should be able to do is what they've already seen, how dare the force evolve!
Way to kill Snoke guess will never know about his backstory person seems to be the same one complaining about how similar the storyline between Snoke and the Emperor is. Honestly the killing of Snoke and the subsequent wonder of whether or not Kylo Ren had turned was one of the most compelling parts of the movie, if you can't see that then you probably just don't want to.
Seriously just do everyone a favor and stop watching Star Wars movies if you are going to be "so devastated" by the outcome not being what you wanted it to be.
These movies are made for everyone, not just you.
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To start with the marketing departure of Disney made a great job putting the impression in our minds that this one could be close to 'the empire strikes back'. I am referring to comments of JJ Abrams on the high quality of the story, reactions to early Screenings and even reviews from normally reliable magazines. The only explanation for this misjudgement may be that Cobb from Inception now works for Disney.
The reality is that 'Last Jedi' is a disappointment. It is far worse than the two newest Star Wars movies which I voted 9/10. The main reason is the poor story. Additionally there are some really big plot holes where you think 'aha if this is possible why hasn't person y done this in situation x before (in this one or any other film)?' This is one aspect which makes me angry because most of the plotholes could have been easily fixed. Why not hire somebady to look out for those mistakes? After all Disney does not seem to dislike reshoots. When the good atmosphere created by good pictures, costumes etc. (which is similar to the old movies by the way) is not destroyed by those plotholes, the chances are good that totally misplaced humor (even though the jokes are funny if you judge them isolated) do the rest.
Nevertheless there are also good aspect in this movie justifying 6 stars (on second thought it may be just a 5/10). These are the atmosphere (before it gets destroyed several times), the acting of Mark Hamill especially and the other main characters as well, plus some overall good scenes. To sum up sadly the bad aspects of the movies outweigh its good ones. This is especially annoying because I had the feeling that the movvie could have been an 8/10 if a few decisions by the director would have been different/better.
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Spoiler Free Quick Summary: There are many Flaws in Star Wars Last Jedi. Some of it was really fun. Some of it flat out disappointed. Some of it felt like exploitation of the franchise, while other parts felt like they had a heart and paid good homage.
The fact is, "It just didn't feel like Star Wars" felt more like a Marvel movie. Which I don't see as a good thing. They need to cut about 45 minutes from the film and stop "Plot twisting" to shock the audience. Sticking to the rules of the Star War lore would also help the situation. And The CG over practical effects kinda smashes the whole idealism as to why the Force Awakens was deemed acceptable and the last Jedi as another tool to make quick cash. Too long too much and too Disney not enough Star Wars.
6 out of 10 stars.
More in-depth Review :
Glad I went. A little disappointed.... But glad I live in a world where there is a Star Wars
There were some really great moments in the film. But there were some really disappointing aspects too. It had nothing to do with the breaking of fan theories or any of the trivial chatter that makes up a review by fanboys. The film fell flat due to the STORY (or lack thereof). What was presented here did not seem on par with the lore of the other 7 films in the saga. It's downfall had a little more to do with the way The last Jedi was STRIPPED of the royal treatment the force awakens was given. Honestly, The perfect ending for the Star Wars story should have been The Force Awakens. Perhaps it should have just ended there. But that's not what happened. The Last Jedi seemed, empty of all that care. A lot of CG rather than practical effects. It reminded me more of one of the prequels in its style. It just didn't hold up. No one wanted to like this movie as much as I did. At times I felt there were so many Disney injustices that I half expected the characters to break out into song like in a bad Disney musical. It is almost like the filmmakers themselves were having the same inner demon battles as Kylo Ren. As if there were two films on display. One that paid respects to a really cool franchise (light side) and one that Exploited it for cash (dark side)
As if Director Rian Johnson was struggling with the film he wanted to make vs the film that the giant conglomerate Disney was forcing him to make. In this instance. JJ Abrams would have had the clout to say "Screw you guys I'm going home" and walk away from the project if the Disney dictation got too influential in the filmmaking project. Whereas Rain is obviously more easily persuaded by the dark side. Much like the Snoke / kylo relationship. Snoke manipulating Kylo to do the deeds of the Dark side. Rain seems manipulated by the corporate workings of the Disney Money Machine.
A possible case of Career over quality?
And to me, this marks not just a striking blow to the heart of Star Wars. But also to the heart of Hollywood and the people who love quality films, over junk food Cable tv productions, that seem more the speed of Rain.
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This is my first IMDB review ever, but since I grew up with Star Wars, this is personal, and I need to go off a little after digesting it a bit...
First off, I think after TLJ, JJ Abrams should be vindicated by the naysayers who complained about TFA, and I noticed people are even saying the same thing now about Lucas re: prequels, as those films all at least had good character development and they all felt totally like legit Star Wars films (well, you would think so considering Lucas directed them). This felt more like a blockbuster movie in the Star Wars universe, which is what I felt about Rogue One, although that seemed more excusable since it was not part of the trilogies. There were so many intriguing storylines just dropped here. I wanted to know Snoke's back story, I was hoping for something a little more intriguing concerning the reasons Rey has a connection to the force other than just...nothing. And the training was super short and unsatisfying compared with TESB, when Luke tries and fails to lift the X-Wing Fighter and you are emotionally invested. When Benicio Del Toro's character turns out to betray Finn and Rose, I'm not aghast like I was when Lando narked on Han and the rebels.
Why was Captain Phasma a character worth hyping? She did nothing but screw up. Maz Kanata seems super cool, but she's only in it for a second, and we still don't know anything about her back story either. Yoda was ridiculously CGI'ed - I was happy to see him, but it was pretty embarrassing. C3PO was just annoying, not endearing, and R2 is just tired - I shouldn't be saying that!
I just saw "Logan" recently and I'm not even into X-Men, really, but I was pumping my first when he kicked ass and I cared whether he fulfilled his mission or not (I won't say anymore more about that). There were a couple of times with that in TLJ...when Kylo killed Snoke and when hologram Luke endured the insane artillery onslaught, but not compared to TFA, where I felt the Star Wars magic and mystique the whole way through.
Where was anything resembling, "I am your father"? Or even, "You were the chosen one!" Sure there is plenty of eye candy and great stuff going on, too, because Star Wars's foundation is built on awesomeness, this is feeling Crystal Skullish to me.
This wasn't the Star Wars I was looking for :(
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I held up so much much hope for this movie and was totally let down. If I could un-watch it and keep my own fond memories of a movie series I once loved, I would.
Rian Johnson turned in a movie that is overly long, convoluted, messy and confusing and that's at its best.
He took all the plot points and questions from the previous movie and went in the least interesting direction with all of them. Providing no explanations for any of the more interesting elements of The Force Awakens, new characters were introduced which had absolutely no bearing on the story.
I cannot forgive the people who made this film for destroying the character of Luke Skywalker. Terrible terrible movie.
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The Last Jedi is not The Force Awakens. Some words I would use to describe the latter are conservative, safe, familiar; the former by contrast is complex, surprising, unnerving, and at times just plain weird. It's not the Star Wars we're used to, but I would argue, unlike most of the reviews I've seen thus far, that in most cases - but not all - Rian Johnson's new take on the Skywalker saga is effective and compelling.
The story picks up with the Resistance evacuating their base yet again - a callback to the abandonment of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back (the last scene on Crait is also very similar to Hoth in a lot of ways, with the giant door and the AT-AT walkers and what not). The ensuing space battle with Poe Dameron at the helm is exciting and checks all the boxes for Star Wars space tech nerds - the Resistance throws just about every piece of hardware they have at the First Order, who are also sporting an incredible new B2-bomber-esque star destroyer. From there we get some weird power struggles between Poe, whose verve and determination in the face of authority border on caricature, and Leia along with new addition Vice Admiral Holdo, played by a badass, purple-haired Laura Dern in one of the most enjoyable performances of the film.
Meanwhile, Rey is met by a reluctant and reclusive Luke Skywalker, who immediately ruins the dramatic tension of the final scene of The Force Awakens by tossing his lightsaber over a cliff as soon as Rey hands it to him. Mark Hamill's performance is brilliant, no doubt, and I was completely enthralled by this much older, wiser, and "you can tell I've lived by myself for thirty years" version of Luke. But the exposition of Rey's desire to be trained in the Force and Luke's behavior towards her were confusing, muddy, and inconsistent. Is Rey really being beckoned by the dark side? What is Luke's real reason for not wanting to train her? What really happened with Ben Solo and the Knights of Ren? None of these questions are answered in a good hour's worth of screen time for the two of them. Rey and Kylo's Force "conversations" were also a little weird, but I think in the end they made sense. Their dynamic in this installment is believable and much more nuanced - both are being called by the light and dark sides of the Force, and in the end we still don't know where either of them are headed going into Episode IX.
A third subplot revolves around Finn and his newfound Resistance friend Rose, played by Kelly Marie Tran in another strong performance (I was shocked by how low she was in the billing order during the end credits). This was where things got really off track. They make a random galactic Skype call to Maz Kanata - completely unneccesary - who tells them to seek out a "codebreaker" at a casino. Weird? Very. The ensuing sequence at said alien casino is almost as cringey as the diner scene with Obi Wan in Attack of the Clones - painfully derivative of something you might find on Earth, and not very timeless at all. They also weave in a weird anti-capitalist undertone as they tear up the place with alien versions of race horses. Benicio del Toro's character is honestly a waste, as he later betrays Finn and Rose to Captain Phasma and leaves without a hint of where his very gray morality actually lies. Phasma, for her own part, once again has a pitiable throwaway role, but instead of getting thrown into a trash compactor, Finn whacks her across the face and then she falls into a fiery chasm. Nice knowing you, Chrome Dome.
So yes, I do have my gripes about some parts of the story and characters. But beyond this, I'd say a good 80% of the film is downright awesome (thus my rating of 8/10). The dynamic range of emotion and action is far greater than in The Force Awakens, and I loved it. It pushes the boundaries of what we're used to in Star Wars, usually to great effect. The entire scene with Kylo and Rey facing up against Snoke was a pure adrenaline rush. The set design here was incredible - the solid red backdrop and the masterful choreography made it almost feel like a scene out of Kill Bill. Was Snoke getting sliced in half Darth Maul-style slightly cheesy? Yes, but still awesome. The shot of Rey pulling Luke's lightsaber through Snoke's torso and into her hand across the room took my breath away.
There were also so many more fun and touching scenes than in The Force Awakens. We get moments with Luke and Yoda (who was animatronic, I think? Or at least rendered in CGI to look animatronic. Kudos to ILM), Luke and Leia, hell, even Rey and Kylo - that plumbed an emotional depth unreached by Abrams, or arguably by any previous Star Wars film (maybe Rogue One but in a very different way). Rian Johnson isn't afraid to play with our expectations and oftentimes completely reverses them - whiplashing us between drama and comedy, seriousness and folly. Snoke the supreme leader? Nope, just some dude in a chair. Rey the daughter of Luke? Nice try. This is the majority of what the critics are upset about, and I think it's a nuance they'll come to appreciate with time.
The film ends on a very strong note. Vice Admiral Holdo's heroic hyperspace sacrifice was shocking and touching. The battle on Crait is breathtaking to watch - I absolutely loved the idea of the salt flats with the red sand underneath, the trench-style warfare, and the old rust bucket fighters. Not only was it really cool visually, but it played a huge part in the overall symbolism between light and dark. The lightsaber battle between Kylo and "Luke" was thrilling; the throwback to the binary sunset scene at the very end was heartwarming and very emotional. It was time for Luke to go - he knew that the Jedi texts (seen briefly nestled safely in a drawer onboard the Falcon in a later scene, which many people probably overlooked) were in Rey's possession, and in doing so he would not be "the last Jedi," as he himself reaffirmed. I think the end of this film sets up a perfect conclusion in Episode IX - we know Rey and Kylo will have to come to terms with their conflicted moral tendencies, the Resistance will either meet its demise or (more likely - come on, it's Star Wars) the allies in the outer rim will band together and come up with a way to defeat the First Order, and everybody will live happily ever after. Except Leia, I suppose. I really do hope they give Ms. Fisher a proper farewell.
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First off, giving this movie a 1, 2, or even 3 rating on this website is total bull. I'm tired of people trying to lower film ratings this way. Just give the movie what you really think it deserves. I have a hard time believing that anyone that saw this movie truly thinks it's a 1/10 or 2/10 film.
That being said, I'm pretty disappointed in the direction they took this movie. It's for the most part well written and well directed. I like the new characters, and the acting is pretty solid.The score is amazing. Did you really expect anything less from Williams? He's incredible.
Without spoiling anything, or elaborating on too much others have already covered, I don't like the direction they decided to go with the Luke Skywalker character. He's one of the most important, if not THE most important character in the whole Star Wars Saga. I fully understand what took place during the film, but I expected and wanted more out of his relationship with Rey, and I found the climatic ending of the film underwhelming and unsatisfactory. For a company (Disney) which doesn't take too many risks with their characters when it comes to their tentpole franchises, including all of the Marvel superhero films, I find it odd that they would take this iconic character in the direction they have.
The movie is good, not great. It's worth seeing on the big screen for sure. It's still Star Wars after all. But when I hear people say this is the best Star Wars film of-all-time, I guess I wonder when was the last time they saw Star Wars or the Empire Strikes Back? This film isn't even close. Too be honest, I liked Rogue One better than the Force Awakens or this film.
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Actually Enjoyed it more than The Force Awakens. Some nice set pieces in it. I cannot understand all the hate some people are giving this, what do they expect in a Star Wars Film Oscar winning performances!?! Just take it for what it is a decent sci-if movie!!!
My main positives were...
Nice surprise seeing Yoda, wouldn't be a Star Wars Film without the green spud turning up.
Good to see the Emperor's Guard actually do something than stand around looking all important.
I like the way Luke went at the ending, rather fitting for him. Don't think this will be the last time we will see him, probably turn up as a ghostly advisor to Rey.
My main gripes:
Lea's superhuman resurrection, not only would that blast killed her, but no way could she have survive the vacuum of space for that length of time.
What was the point of Snoke, if he was all that omnipresent surely he would have had a back up plan in the likelihood of his death, he is certainly no Palpatine.
That casino scene????
Kylo Ren still comes off as a stroppy spoilt brat, to me General Hux should killed the little shit off and taken over, Hux to me was what the Empire/First Order represented... pure evil. I can imagine Domnhall Gleeson having fun playing him, stole every scene he was in.
Wondered if they were going to find a way to write Carrie Fisher's death into the Film, but at least we got to see a lovely tribute to her during the credits.
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How could they let this happen to what is probably the biggest franchise in history?
Set aside the poor story where events are made up just to keep a character busy and in the movie, otherwise Finn wouldnt have been in this one..
Snoke is supposed to be this new super evil force power, but is snuffed out by someone supposedly weaker than him at the time?
And how about the millions of fans who waited over 30 years to see Luke Skywalker on the screen again..and had their hearts broken by what they saw and walked away disappointed. Where was the epic show of his powers to send shivers up my spine?
What a waste.
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10/10
lord of the rings in space ...best star wars movie yet
Okaay ...I am here as film lover and addict more than being a star wars fanboy...all I want a great film ...star wars saga has great films ....I went looking for something themetically rich ..high in drama ....action ...some comedy...darker tone ...innovative plot .....after leaving the theatre I got all of this and more than expected...so why many star wars fans didnt like it ....well to be honest the film is more of a film than a starwars film ...which in my opinion makes it even greater...I accept fans will not like because they wanted the legacy of star wars to continue which btw opposes the film idea ....the film's has so many themes about present past and future and parentage and the idea of becoming special .....this film is DEEP emotionally as it explores the idea of being special at a diferent angle ....I generally hate the idea that someone is special because he is son of "...." or he is special because he has lots of power ....the movie totaally opposes that idea ...the film in my opinion made star wars a lot better instead of relying on the originals it is a film that wants became something new ....the problem that fans hates anything new they want reboots of the originals that is the truth ....this film however is something on its own separated themetically from other starwras films and building its won stiuation and ideas on its own .....for me as scifi fan and also a lover for great star wars film ...this is an epic scale entertaining adventure with darker tone filled lighthearted moments and poster like images that sticks to your head forever with high concepts and better world building .....it is totally unforgettable ....BEST STAR WARS FILM EVER MADE because it solved in my opinion many problems in the entire saga and made it more richer and more entertaing than before a thousand times however people will hate it because it is less star wars than before ....which makes it my opinion better star wars
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I have to say, this film definitely has a lot of problems, first and foremost being the pacing. It also has a weak sub plot that is given far too much attention, some poor dialogue here and there, and a lot of amateur screenwriting. But, I have to say, this film has far too much good in it. This is probably the most "spoilery" Star Wars film ever made, so I don't want to give anything away, but a lot of the complaints I have read about this film are just stupid.
Many people complain about being disappointed about certain plot points not living up to the "hype." The best way for me to explain this is with The Force Awakens. When people found out that Mark Hamill would be in TFA, everybody freaked out, speculating about how he would be the main character and it would be so great. Well, we all know that Luke was actually only in about ten seconds of the movie. People whined and whined about this. But, why? Luke wasn't in any of the trailers. Nobody involved with the production said that Luke would have a significant role in the film. The only reason everybody was so disappointed was because they were speculating to the point that they forgot that they were making up everything they were saying.
This film is receiving similar complaints. "What?! That's all there is to that character? But I read on a random article that they were blah blah blah! This movie sucks!""
This is a majority of the complaints with this film. It has mostly good characters, mostly good performances, and fantastic visuals. The best lightsaber fights ever put to screen from a technical standpoint. Just go and see it, but put everything you think is going to happen out of your mind.
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When will the writers from Hollywood get their heads out of their arses? This Star wars movie takes the franchise to new heights of what should not be allowed in the movie making. The movie is just silly with a plot and subplots which are not going anywhere. All the questions we want answered is literally ignored - and thats the most disappointing thing. - and kinda funny, that all fans makes giant conspiracy theories, when the writers didnt even think the new Star Wars movies to be so deep.
The movie sets itself up in the very first scene - with Poe mocking an imperial general.. making this movie more of a comedy than anything else. And this goes on throughout the movie - just bad jokes on bad jokes killing every tension in the movie.
Im giving it 4 stars only because I expected no more than what I got. Watch the movie - its entertainment, but Star wars its not.
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Overall, I didn't think this movie was BAD. I didn't think it was all that great either. I felt that the plot was pretty good...the slow-mo chase throughout the majority of the movie, interspersed with other events such as Rey's training, etc., made for a story with a lot of tension and uncertainty. It was also a neat dose of reality to see that Luke is not completely infallible. I thought the Kylo/Rey connection was very well done. And it was nice that Luke and Leia were (somewhat) reunited, however briefly, which was made even more bittersweet due to Carrie Fisher's passing.
The problem comes from all the unnecessary fluff and character injustices. For instance, it would have been sooooo much better to have Captain Phasma embarking on a personal vendetta and hunting down Finn throughout the movie. But no...instead she shows up for a 30-second fight only to (almost certainly) get killed. She was such an intriguing character in Force Awakens, and deserved much more (and better) than that. Additionally, Snoke was made out to be this great big-bad in TFA, and we got no more insight into his character or backstory before Kyle (too easily) defeats him. And THEN...at the climax of the movie, they set up this huge, ESB-style ground battle with all these "gorilla walkers" which look amazing, and...do practically nothing with them. They were only there to shoot at Luke, so he could display his badassery. They were cool, but way under-utilized.
As for fluff, the Finn/Rose mission to get the code breaker was dragged out WAY too long. We got a little bit of insight into Rose's character and motives, but otherwise the whole thing was uninteresting and unimportant. On a related note, Maz's scene where she sends them to get the code breaker was also unimportant, and quite frankly, just stupid. While all this is going on, Poe stages a mutiny on the Resistance cruiser because Hondo and Leia kept him in the dark about their plan......for what reason? There was no need for that to be kept secret, especially knowing how much of a "fly-boy" he is. The only reason I can think of is that Poe's attempted mutiny was necessary to keep the story interesting; otherwise it's pointless and wouldn't have been needed if other things weren't dragged out so long.
To sum up, this could have been much better if it was stripped down to the more important scenes, and kept around the 1:45 mark instead of 2.5 hours. Personally, I'm glad JJ will be taking over again for IX, and I doubt I'll be very interested in Rian Johnson's trilogy.
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It is a rare occurrence when a movie makes you gasp almost every 10 minutes, because of what is happening on screen. Rian Johnson, took all the tropes and mechanisms of modern-day Hollywood and did what any good director shoud do for his movies: He smashed them to pulp and threw them to the recycle bin.
The performances were almost impeccable. From Rose all the way up to Luke Skywalker you could feel the sentiment and urgency of their decisions.
Luke Skywalker gives us a view on the Jedi and the Jedi Order that very few would have guessed or accepted. But it is an undeniable truth and his every word speaks of the wisdom that he has earned over the years. But in this movie, he is really the Jedi Master that we have all been waiting to see.
Leia's performance was excellent. Stricken by grief and loss she still maintains the composure of a Princess and Rebel Leader and her presence filled me with the sadness at her departure. She is now, One with The Force.
Rey and Kylo are perfect on their roles. Their eagerness to prove themselves and find their way in the Universe creates so many interesting situations between them, that it was hard not to comment Rian Johnson for his vision on the matter.
Rose and Finn work very well together. Their storyline expands on the already known universe and also gives us a glimpse of our own world, offering a reveal for those who did not already know how things work. A subtle but essential detail on how those in power, manage to stay there.
Every character, literally, had his/her moment in the movie. Poe Dameron managed to grow from a reckless, foolhardy pilot to leader material. Vice-Admiral Holdo, through her actions, marked her not only as a great leader but also a great Rebel, ready to do what is necessary for the common good. The droids are excellent in their character, as expected, and Chewbacca's presence, reminded us of Han Solo's loss in every way.
I really can't say that I had a problem, with any of the characters.
The plot was thick and layered and it had a main theme, that no other Star Wars movie tried before: Failure and what to do with it.
Honestly, from start to finish, this movie kept me on edge, because it is not a movie that follows the typical flow of every other heroic film. Literally, you have no idea of what is going to happen next and that was the beauty of it.
Rian Johnson, delivered a Star Wars movie, worthy of its title.
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Wost Star Wars ever made. The plot made no sense and was full of holes. I would talk about the charachter development, but there was none. I've never been so dissapointed in a movie before. This movie was nothing but a Disney money grab.
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6/10
This could be viewed as the turning point of the franchise
While I am not going to go so far as to say that The Last Jedi was a terrible movie, I do think it failed in basically every way to capitalize on what I thought was an extremely well done "reboot" of the series in the Force Awakens. Yes, JJ Abrams relied heavily on nostalgia and a near retelling of the original movie to bring us back to the universe far, far away, but he did it in a way that you KNEW he was honoring something that needed to be planted correctly after the near abominations that were the prequel movies.
The idea that this was being marketed as the best movie since Empire is laughable. The tension of the Force Awakens is eradicated in mere minutes. The humor is cheap, jarring and unbefitting a saga which gave us the wit of Han Solo. The fantastic characters and their storylines from TFA are cheapened in a way that there were entire subplots that could have been dropped. There were miscasts, reminiscent of Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu. The handling of Luke's Grand re-entrance, while there were some savory moments, was at least a partial dud. The biggest flaw of all was the way that they kept playing with a plot twist that never materialized.
This is obviously my own opinion. There are some redeeming qualities to the film such as the cinematography and some epic space battles (and Rey is always phenomenal). I still really appreciate the actors from TFA, even though I felt like they were done a disservice by the director. All-in-all, I am happy that JJ Abrams will be back to helm Episode 9. Star Wars needs him or it risks turning into what the Pirates of the Caribbean turned into; an epic parody of itself.
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While TLJ movie was a lot better then TFA (so far in this trilogy) I cant say the movie was great. Yes i know, cinematography was outstanding but it felt like move was full of mumble-jumble of ideas, felt like producers were forcing certain characters and certain romance. Dont get me wrong, I am a huge nerd of Star wars and I love every singe aspect of it but Disney could come up with a lot original ideas about certain villian. I cannot ignore some scenes where thing just...didnt make sense..but same goes with brave and innovative approach in certain scenes, which was very satisfying. Many fans like to be annoying but its true about Reys character-there is no development in it at all. Also i absolutely disagree and dislike everything that happened to Lukes character, feels like wasted resoure and same goes with Snoke, which we all thought would be some new big bad and tough guy...Overall movie was normal, it was not bad nor good.
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Ok, I'll start by saying that as a life long Star Wars fan - that could have been worse.
I know it's not a resounding thumbs up but these reviews are (in my opinion) overly brutal but hey, this is the internet right? ;)
So after the dark and desperate Rogue One I was expecting a similar tone to this movie, I know that Force Awakens was a bit light hearted but this is a bit like the script writers had spent a year watching nothing but comedies and took their inspiration from there - that's the only thing I can think of to explain why this is so comedic?
To be clear, I did enjoy it but only just... They just appear to have ruined (Disneyfied) the whole thing with the Evil Empire being about as intimidating as Basil Fawlty with a tree branch, the main enemy (Kylo Ren) being about as nasty as Jeremy Corbyn and the big bad boss (Snoke) being completely two dimensional.
That said, the heroic Rebels only had about 10 ships and they mostly got blown up or ran out of fuel as they ran away... And Disney - it's ok to kill a princess (in a film, not real life obvs). Oh, and what did you do to Luke Skywalker? You turned him into a lazy wuss who can somehow astral project himself making himself solid one minute and holographic the next? Huh?
I'd like to be more harsh or nice about the film but it was all a bit bland and silly.
I may watch this again, just to see if it's really as bad as I thought but I'm not sure...
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This review is for the voters and for the real critics.Not for the Disney employees and kids. If you gave a high point for TFA just because you believe TLJ ll illuminate the plot holes but it didn't according to you and you hated it , YOU SHOULD ALSO DOWNVOTE TFA! TFA just dumped its garbages to TLJ and when you look from that point it was a stupid movie too.
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I think this is an ok film but for a Star Wars movie I expected much more. It started out decent enough but after 10 minutes or so I started feeling bored and anxious for the film to actually get somewhere. By the end it barely felt like a Star Wars movie.
Pros:
-great score
-mostly beautiful cgi and visuals
-acting was great for the most part (adam driver, daisy ridley, mark hamill)
-scene in snoke's throne room with rey and kylo was incredible
Cons:
-Plot was ridiculous (two spaceships chasing each other for almost the entire movie??)
-the entire canto bight subplot was a complete waste
-slow pace and no emotional stakes for most of the film
-Quite a bit of forced humor that ruins the tone.
-some of the cgi was pretty rough
-too many new and unexplained force powers that are ridiculous
-snoke's death (if handled differently i think this could have been truly epic)
-New character Rose was lame and unnecessary, I would have much rather seen Finn and Poe do something together
Overral I'm just disappointed. I desperately wanted to love this movie but it kind of sucks. Hopefully Episode 9 can turn this mess around.
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It doesnt feel like a starwars movie at least for the first 50 minutes. Some shots, some jokes, some dialogues are recycled from other SW movies, it feels wrong instead of adding cohesion to the movies.
Bad edition and Too many humor scenes damage the dramatic effect that audience should feel about Kylo´s conflict, about the obliteration of the rebellion.
The escape scene on the casino part is horrible, it felt like jarjar all over again. Although there were a few awesome scenes, movie was dissapointing.
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So I see some people are really giving this movie a lot of trash. which I think is quite unjustified. There are some really dissapointing moments though but I'll get to that later.
First off The acting is good nothing wrong there. I like all the characters. I definetly like it better than ''The Force Awakens''. But then again. I was not too crazy about that one. I still liked it though.
Rey has been toned down a bit in terms of her force power since ''Force Awakens'' Which I was glad about.
The action in the movie was great! Especially the fight scene with Kylo Ren and Rey fighting together against those Elite Praetorian Guards. I like that lightsaber combat was a bit more raw than we have seen in other movies. Except ''Revenge of the Sith'' the combat was raw in that one as well. What I mean by raw is that we saw people getting their head cut off and getting a lightsaber through the head. That aspect of the movie was cool.
Now on to the things I didn't really like.
Snoke. If you think Maul was underused in ''The phantom menace'' Than you have yet to see Snoke in this movie. Andy Serkis (the guy playing him) has said that he was more powerful than Darth Sidious. Sidious was already one of the strongest dark side users in the galaxy to ever exist. But Apparently he can't sense that Kylo is turning Rey's lightsaber against him thus killing him. It should be mentioned in this exact scene Snoke tells Kylo to kill Rey. So then Snoke dies. This mysterious guy that we waited two years to find out who he was. We get nothing. He just dies in a stupid way.
Phasma. Well again they manage to underuse her. She just gives some orders bla bla bla. Then starts fighting Finn. In the trailer this fight was teased as something epic which it actually wasn't. The fight lasts like 3-5 min. Ending with Finn surpise attacking her with a stroke to the head. The ship they are on has been badly damaged so it's falling apart. This leads to Phasma falling to her death.
And lastly Luke. This was by far the most disapointing moment in the movie for me. The Resistance has fled back to a abandonned rebel base. Which The First order attacks. Here Luke shows up. He walks out of the base to help the others escape. Kylo orders all guns to fire on Luke. After the smoke fades from all the blaster fire we see Luke is not dead. Not even close. He just does a gesture with his hand looking like he is cleaning his shoulder. (bad explanationI know) Kylo then confronts him and they both ignite their lightsabers. You're then thinking this is gonna be a cool lightsaber fight but no. Luke dodgers all Kylo's strokes in a badass manner though. Kylo's then charges against Luke and runs right through him. Wondering how, he then turns to Luke and walks towards him. He then puts his lightsaber in Luke's chest but still nothing happens to Luke. He then realises that he never really was there. Luke used to force projection to get there. Then it skips to Luke on Ahch-To. We see that he was just using the force and it really took the breath out of Luke. He falls of the rock he was sitting on and then gets up on it again and he dies like Yoda in ''Return of the Jedi' This right there. Luke's death is to me the most disappointing thing about this movie. He was the most powerful jedi to ever live according to George Lucas. The maker of Star Wars mind you. And he is only in his 50's. Why does he die? Because of reasons? Because the plot says so? Either way it was dumb decision. Mark Hamil actually told writer and director Rian Johnson'' "I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you've made for this character (Luke Skywalker)'' and oh boy was he right.
I know I've said more negatives than positives. But I still like the movie
Right now the score for this movie is 8.1. Let's look at ''Revenge of the Sith'' That one has a 7.6. That movie is largly underrated by many people just because of the fact that it's a prequel. The majority likes it but quite a lot doesn't. I would switch the two scores for these ones Giving ''Revenge of the Sith'' a 8.1 and ''The Last Jedi'' a 7.6.
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A major plot twist is turning around and throwing the ship at light speed to the enemy, and it destroys pretty much everything. This should have not be used.
* Why not throw the first ship about to be lost instead of fleeing and getting picked one by one?
* Why not use that as a standard weapon, and use it instead of throwing bombs, or why even build a death?
This was an ill-advised plot twist device.
Oh there's much to pick at. For example, the projecting yourself is a new trick that's not consistent (pun) either.
The movie is way too long with too many plot lines. It feels like a patched up mini-series. That said it was entertaining...
This should have stayed a trilogy. There's nothing great in any of the new movies that transcends its era. It's ranged from terrible to mildly entertaining. There's no genius to handle the storytelling, and there's no technical feat in the movie making that makes me think omg how did they pull that off.
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3/10
Can we just pretend this movie didn't happen and try again
This movie solidified the Star Wars franchises position as a kids' franchise with no meaningful connection to the original movies. The movie was full of ridiculous humor and at many points it felt more like a spoof of Star Wars than the real thing. We were promised so much with Snoke and Luke, and we got nothing. The new characters are terrible, the direction they took the plot in is terrible. It seemed to me like the creators went into the movie with a checklist of "messages" they wanted to get across to the audience and then created a movie out of it, rather than carefully crafting a meaningful story. I am very disappointed as a big fan of Star Wars. Star Wars is no longer a unique, special experience, it's just another cheesy superhero movie.
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This is a decent movie. Star Wars fans freak out about everything now and are very hard to please. With this being said it does have some issues. Probably easiest to break it down in pros and cons.
Pros:
The action/battle scenes were on point. The Kylo/Rey battle when they fight guards gave me chills with excitement. All the other battle scenes were well done as well.
The creatures in this movie we're all well done. The crystal foxes, the animals they raced on the casino planet we're cool, porgs we're epic, and all the other creatures on Ahcu-To were all well done.
I like that Rey's parents are nobodies. I think fans need to let go sometimes and realize it's a fucking universe of a million planets and the force can be with anyone and not just this specific family lineage. Quit being little Slitherins about it.
They did a great job with Yoda. Like it couldn't have gone better and he looked more like he did from Return of the Jedi which made me happy.
Cons
First off I am more of a light side/Jedi fan, but what they did with Snoke was a disappointment. Like this guy lived to be old as fuck and is this powerful with the force and they just kill him off almost instantly and you get nothing about who the hell he is. After the years people have been theory crafting about who he is and you don't find out shit.
They overdid it with the hot head crap with Poe. They took a great character and just tore him down and made him look like a tool. I think a little bit of it woulda been great to show he was a hot head and they could out him in his place, but they did it like a crap ton. If you liked Poe in the first movie get over him now cause he's no longer a hero/skilled pilot, just a liability and tool.
In fact going on the whole Poe thing further. In general this movie was making a great effort to glorify women the entire time and make fools of men. If I had to think about it they make almost every male character look like a tool at one point or another. Most of this bashing was focused on Poe from a woman admiral that replaces Leia when she gets injured, but Finn had moments of being made to look foolish, and Kylo yet again gets his ass knocked out by Rey and we as fans have no excuse that he got shot with Chewies bowcaster this time.
What Disney did with Leia was pretty silly imo. So she gets blown out of the bridge and flies out into space for a good amount of time and she is supposed to be just fine because of the force I guess? They did this with plo koon in the clone wars but easily explained it by him being an alien race that could with stand space for brief moment and Jedi master. This chick gets blown up and sent to space and chills there for awhile and force pulls herself back to the ship.... There is a fine line when they go too far with stuff. They did a great job expanding on abilities with the force like going into people's minds, paralyzing people with the force, Luke's stunt at end, but they may have gone too far with this one.
This movie did well at pleasing a broad range of audiences from children to adults. Unfortunately when you spread yourself to such a broad age range die hard fans that want everything a specific way won't be happy. Many people complain about the comical feel of it. I agree there is a lot of comedy brought to this, but I don't think new generations of Star Wars fans (children) wouldn't enjoy it if it was left just dark and so much death. The comedy was well done and wasn't cheesy like it was with Jar Jar. Hopefully they can build on this and end on an epic note with the next one.
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@rianjohnson My full congratulations for making Episode I no longer being the worse Star Wars ever, by a long shot. Yes, multiple characters in your movie were worse then Jar Jar, and that says everything. You insulted Star Wars.
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3/10
If Jar-Jar Binks were an entire movie, then you'd get The Last Jedi
The Last Jedi had so much potential. Brilliant scores by the iconic John Williams, a franchise with arguably the most devoted fans in the universe, and unparalleled pockets for dishing out unparalleled SFX.
Sadly, the most substantive qualities for cinema are lackluster or absent entirely. The dialogue is forced and exists primarily as exposition. Rather than shaping a character, or giving added depth, the dialogue simply acts to push the scene along like a shopping cart with that one reluctant wheel dragging lazily behind in the form of gag worthy exposition.
There are two moments in the film that gave me a much needed sense of release and are so well placed that they feel as though they are the work of anyone but the director. One scene contains no dialogue, no sound and no actors. It's simply a moment of CGI brilliance that punctuates a scene as intended: To bring gravity to a character's decision.
The other scene is 3 seconds of an extra. He says one word, makes one action and brings the audience in deep and to ground with characters in play.
Both of these scenes are quickly abandoned to romp along in the forced drama playing as if it were a sci-fi action film. The director seemed to have an insatiable hunger to punctuate every scene with forced gags and "witty" comments in an effort to get the audience to laugh. They add no value to the story, detract from the previously established personas of the characters and feel more like a tug of war between Abrams and Johnson.
If you liked Rogue One, then be prepared for a ride where everything you embraced and loved about that film is left on the cutting floor of Disney's studio as the maniacal high-pitched laughter of a possessed mouse rings out.
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Let's just dive right in. The biggest flaw of the movie is that the long and unnecessary casino planet side plot could have been avoided had characters actually communicated. This little adventure is not only boring, it introduces Rose who is one of the most annoying characters in the entire franchise (DJ is pretty bad as well).
The problem with this side plot is that nothing is accomplished. Now, some people are saying that this breaks common movie tropes because the heroes go on a mission and don't succeed. But the mission wasn't even entertaining! Plus it was an endangerment to the rest of the crew and could've been avoided had Holdo actually communicated.
The Rey and Luke stuff was a little more interesting and Kylo Ren also shows some great character development. There's a nice payoff at the end of the movie with the battle in the throne room which is one of the better action scenes in the franchise. This felt like the climax though and it was strange when the movie continued to the base in Crait.
I think it was interesting when Kylo wanted Rey to join him and thought it would have been an incredible twist had they teamed up and Luke would have to take them on in the next movie. The film hints at things like the Resistance not being as good as they are made out to be (buying weapons from the same guy who sells them to the First Order), and even Luke making some dark decisions as well. But leave it to Disney to keep Rey a goody two shoes and follow the formulaic path...
Speaking of Luke, him sensing the evil in Kylo (Ben Solo at the time) should not have resulted in him trying to kill Kylo. Luke was the one who defeated Darth Vader and saw him become good again (Vader, the guy who murdered children). Luke sensing the darkness in Kylo should not have resulted in such a hasty action.
Also, the use of the Force in this movie is so over the top that it makes midi-chlorians look normal. It seems like the Force is often used to move the story along easier, but the worst part is when Leia flies like Superman in space back to the ship. One of the dumbest moments in any Star Wars film.
The movie had the perfect time for a lightsaber battle between Kylo and Luke, but instead it results in Luke running out of Force mana and dying? We really haven't had a great lightsaber battle yet between two experienced Force users and this was a missed opportunity. Then again Kylo can hardly hold his own with Rey and even needed to be saved by her at one point, so Luke probably would've defeated Kylo. If I was Luke I would have created the Force ghost on Crait (probably costs less mana too), bait Kylo out of the ship, then actually appear and defeat him. This logically would help the Resistance by taking out the most powerful member of the First Order.
When the movie ends it feels like we got no further than we did in The Force Awakens. Really the only interesting story being told is the conflict between Rey and Kylo but that has to be padded out by boring things like the casino planet and the First Order waiting for the Resistance to run out of fuel. For as big as the universe is in Star Wars, Disney has somehow managed to make it boring.
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Reposting this with addtional comments, after reading some of the reviews on here.
New addition: Fanboys are ruining movies. What the hell is wrong with you? The negative posts on this site about this movie are just laughable. Just because the story didn't go how you wanted it to, replayed over and over in your head before you saw it, with you as the hero, is no reason to trash this film. You have bitched about film after film in this series, yet you keep coming back. Why? Stop playing with your lightsabers and seriously, GET A LIFE.
Repost of review
I hated the Force Awakens. Really, really hated it. So, you can forgive an old cynic for reserving judgement on episode VIII. Rian Johnson is no JJ Abe that's for sure. He's much better.
This is a really good Star Wars adventure. Sure there are a few plot holes, but nothing like the travesty that was Episode VII. Last Jedi is better written, better acted, and tells an engaging story well. This is Mark Hamill's finest hour in Star Wars. His Skywalker here is shaded and layered in a way the old vacuous Luke could never be.
Really trying to avoid spoilers here. Even Kylo Ren is much improved from the emo Sith-wannabe in Force Awakens. He's shaded and layered in much the same way Luke is. Good to see Poe Dameron get much more to do here. Finn is better, too. John Boyega
is a fine actor so it's nice to see him shine. It's all down to character writing.
Never liked Snoke in ep. VII and I don't like him here. Just smoke and mirrors cooked up by JJ Abe. Nothing new here. Don't expect great revelations about him - there aren't any. Rey's parentage will disappoint many, also. The story still relies on Empire and Jedi too much.
Will miss Carrie Fisher, and it will be hard to do Episode IX without her. There are a few things I didn't care for in the movie but I can forgive them. Fanboys need to grow up. Overhyped for everything then invitably disappointed.
Added text. The lack of ways to look at reviews other than by "Helpfulness" has totally ruined the imdb. Can't search chronologically even. This is probably my last contribution to this site unless this reverts.
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Well, besides the "holy trinity" of the first three movies of ST only Rogue One was a good one. Episode I to III (only III not too bad) was a real let-down and the first of the new triology was more or less a retelling of Episode IV, but a bad one.
Anyway, this movie will make a lot of cash at the box office and of course the merchandise empire and sales will rise a lot higher.
I guess most of the "oldschool" fans of ST will go into the cinema with the hope to see something good but most will be dissapointed - again. But maybe the "youngsters" really like the new movies, maybe we are grown too old for such kinds of movies, I don't know.
Watch to complete the duty of your fandom, but do not have high hopes.
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Time for new rules of Force: Whatever the writer/director wants it to be!
Star Wars now have telepathic communication, telekinetic tangibility, telepathic projection and lots of telepathy. The movie is least a sci-fi and more a Disney fairy tale fantasy.
Princess Leia gets expelled into the Vacuum of space and freezes to like death(?) and her frozen body is floating in that vacuum of space and then suddenly her eyes opens and she stretches one of her arm, and like a superman, she dives her way back to the ship. Even worse than nuking the fridge. This by far is the most embarrassing movie moment in the history of blockbuster cinema.
A spaceship literally breaks up into two parts and there's no air escape and two characters literally jump off into vacuum of space and yet survives.
I think Star Wars franchise can now tie up with Lord of the Rings universe.
Rian Johnson wouldn't have even realized that he is making a mockery of a great franchise.
He introduces a sub-plot which solves no purpose at all and consumes almost 1/4th of the screen time.
The previous film ended with Rey finding Luke Skywalker. What happens among them in the film? Nothing. Yes, nothing. Just stupid babbling. The most mediocre and amateurishly directed drama between two characters in the history of cinema.
Still, the movie's central focus is how Rey and Kyle tele--communicates with each other while they are millions of miles away from each other. Magic!
An abomination!
Murder of a promising sequel.
Unforgivable at all costs.
I'm sure Disney didnt even recruit a script doctor.
Finally, we have Luke Skywalker projecting his image (not a Hologram) on a planet possibly light-years away and fighting the bad guys. Whoa! Disney magic!
They forgot to introduce Cinderella and Snow white!
I hope the Episode IX literally ignores these Rian Johansanese Fairy Tale Fantasy Rules and give a serious sci-fi cinema with subtle references to the power of 'force'.
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I came out of Star Wars The Last Jedi full of excitement and joy, but the more i sit and think about it the more i feel robbed. The trailers for The Last Jedi were promising a dark dramatic film where Luke Skywalker is broken and conflicted with himself and on the verge of insanity, Rey is shown asking Kylo Ren to show her her place in this world taking his hand in the First Order...NONE OF THAT HAPPENED.
Instead, the film begins like a saturday morning cartoon where General Hux(who was an intimidating and powerful character in The Force Awakens)is receiving prank calls from Poe Dameron(who also is very different in this film). The main plot pretty much consists of the slowest high speed chase in film history between The Resistance and The First Order, which is very disappointing because Rey and Luke's arc which is what the film is named after is taking a backseat to a space janitor(Finn)and maintenance worker(Rose)flying around the galaxy with some dude named "DJ" trying to destroy a tracker.REALLY???
Throughout the first and second act Rey attempting to get Luke to return and help the Resistance "Light The Spark That Will Burn The First Order Down" and trying to figure out who her parents are on the side. This arc was very important in The Force Awakens and is thrown out the window with Rey admitting that she knew who her parents where the whole time. Drunks. WHY??? If the Star Wars Saga is supposed to focus on The Skywalker Family then why is Rey so heavily focused on? She even goes so far to fall in some pointless "Darkside Pit" and have some trippy dream, all to add up to nothing.
Most of the characters in The Last Jedi are treated very poorly with a few exceptions. Snoke, who was another character who was built up so much in The Force Awakens is easily killed by Kylo Ren when he is teased to turn to the light, which was also for nothing rendering Snoke's death pointless. Poe Dameron is perceived as some dimwitted "Blow Everything Up Pilot", who disobeys even the simplest direct orders. Carrie Fisher(RIP)does a terrible job as Admiral Leia, delivering her lines like a robot. Not to mention that she's not dead? Are they just going to have a CGI Leia for the entirety of Episode Nine?
The film is also way too crowded, Maz Kanata shows up for 30 seconds and has no purpose whatsoever. Yoda shows up as a force ghost to get Lukes head back in the game, at first I was blown away with surprise and happiness to see them using the original puppet, but now i realize that there was again literally no point of his cameo because Luke doesn't listen to him anyway. Captain Phasma is heavily advertised in the trailers and merchandise and is killed off less than 5 minutes into her appearance.
The moments in this film that were full of potential and promise were quickly shot down with unneeded puns and goofs, Luke tickles Rey with a leaf telling her The Force is trying to connect with her, Kylo Ren tries to persuade Rey with his abs and everytime there is a cool moment a Porg appears out of nowhere and does something stupid usually with slapstick comedy.
Sadly, there are little to no action sequences in this film and literally not one, NOT ONE lightsaber duel. And of course the film builds one up, teases it and you guessed it; doesn't deliver. Not only does it not deliver it gives the film and excuses to needlessly kill of Luke Skywalker.
Nevertheless, The Last Jedi isn't all bad, the cinematography is amazing and Rian Johnson delivers some stunning visuals. There is a JAW-DROPPING flashback with an Evil Luke Skywalker trying to kill A Pre-Kylo Ren Ben Solo. The Set Pieces are spectacular, especially Snoke's Liar which is home to the Amazingly-Choreographed "Red Room Battle"
In the end, Star Wars The Last Jedi is not a perfect film, in fact it has a lot of problems with the script and not being as it seems. But, it still is an entertaining film that never gets boring thanks to easy flowing pacing and delivers some very cool and surprising moments.
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Just a mere two years ago, something was awoken in Star Wars fans across the globe. Snoke told us so in the opening line of the first trailer for Episode VII. Was it our hope? Was it our faith? Was it that feeling called optimism; could Star Wars once again return to the glory days of the original trilogy? As the sun sets on 2017, whatever it was, has gone. Disney, Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson unloaded a 12 gauge shotgun and dragged out the cold, lifeless carcass of everything Star Wars represented and sold it for billions of dollars to audiences worldwide.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
To be clear, I have no bias against the Disney era of Star Wars. The Force Awakens was a thoroughly watchable journey, based loosely on the plot of A New Hope, which balanced nostalgia with a healthy amount of humour. A plethora of new and energetic characters combined effortlessly with the cast of the original trilogy. Han Solo brought the quality and his eventual death gave us the drama. Only the lack of screen time given to Luke Skywalker and the lazy similarities to Episode IV held back this film.
The follow up was 2016's spin-off, Rogue One, a film I simply rank as my third favourite from a galaxy far, far away.
By Christmas 2016, Disney had miraculously pulled off the impossible and recovered Star Wars from the politically charged, CGI-mess fests which are known as the prequels.
As the credits rolled on Episode VII, JJ Abrams had successfully teased the fans and left us with a delicate cliffhanger with an intriguing finale. As Rey handed Luke his old lightsaber, JJ completed his handover to Rian Johnson.
Who is Rey and where does her connection to the force stem? Has Snoke been lurking in the background throughout the saga? Has he always been the ultimate puppet master, manipulating those from the dark side of the force? Why is Luke Skywalker in hiding and how powerful has he become? Ultimately, can good ever truly overcome evil?
Since leaving the two apprentices, Rey and Kylo, embarking on their education down the light and dark sides of the force, respectively, we the fans have debated and pondered the aforementioned questions, amongst others, for twenty-four long months. Surely with all of this new energy and the limitless possibilities, a cinematic moment of history similar to that of Darth Vader's fatherly confession to Luke in Episode V would be a certainty.
This is not going to go the way you think!
Sadly the film which was delivered by Rian Johnson is nothing more than 152 minutes of questionable cheese; a fluff piece so out of sync with the history of Star Wars, that even still after 24 hours of leaving the screening, I am left with a bitter taste in my mouth. Suddenly the problems which plagued the prequels; Jar Jar Binks and Anakin's issues with sand seem like a distant memory. Nothing more than a blip on George Lucas' now bulletproofed reputation.
Was this really a Star Wars film I endured? I remain confused how a Star Wars film could conclude without the sound of a single lightsaber clash against another? Maybe I missed this moment while my head buried in my hands, as one embarrassing joke or scene played out after another.
The awkward and often forced humour which cluttered the script was topped off by a humiliating scene of near-death experience, as a decomposing Princess Leia drifted lifeless through space.
Instead of allowing the now-deceased Carrie Fisher the opportunity to depart the saga gracefully, the director chose for her character to learn the power of flight, so she could glide through space wreckage onto the landing bay of a cruiser. Thanks to this ridiculous idea, we can all look forward to CGI Princess Leia making a return for the next instalment. This was just one catastrophic error in a movie strewn with many more.
Finn's side plot to find an infamous code-breaker on a planetary sized Monte Carlo; and then ultimately back onto the First Order's dreadnought which had all the while been engaged in the slowest and least inspiring chase of a Resistance cruiser, which was oddly under threat from an ill-conceived Poe Dameron led mutiny, wound up being entirely fruitless and an utter waste of time. Not even the acting talents of Benicio del Toro who had been picked up along the way, could salvage any reason for his character's existence. However thanks to the visit to this new gambling-mad planet, Cantonica, the audience were treated to at least one writers strangely placed and not-so-subtle opinions on wealth inequality, arms dealing and animal rights. The lessons on morality did feel a little hypocritical coming from a film being produced by one of the world's wealthiest conglomerates.
As for the journeys of our main protagonists and antagonists, their education in the force and the questions we had been left with since 2015; be prepared for disappointment.
Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be.
The only logical explanation I can summon is that Rian Johnson had never watched a single Star Wars Episode, or he simply despised the saga and has now staged a master plan for its demise. The other possibility is that JJ Abrams forgot to pass the memo which would detail his ideas to follow on from The Force Awakens.
Throughout all of the confusion and clutter which is The Last Jedi, you will not find any fluid or sensible attempt to explain the ultimate vision which had been born from Episode VII.
Snoke, the all-powerful Supreme Leader who's potential links to the Sith Lord, Darth Plagueis which had created a buzz of excitement following TFA, was the first character to fall victim of a lazy and botched screenplay, as he found himself decapitated by his own apprentice after no more than 20 minutes of screen time. Captain Phasma faired no better as she too met her demise after less than 5 minutes of screen time. Once again the valuable lessons from past mistakes had been ignored. Before the fans had enjoyed an opportunity to learn about the history and background of these latest on-screen villains, they had met their untimely deaths, mirroring the similar feat of both Darth Maul and Boba Fett.
As for the background of Rey and the question mark over her lineage, we the audience were offered the game-changing revelation that her parents were nothing more than 'filthy junk traders' who had sold her for booze. No connection to the Skywalker, Kenobi or Palpatine bloodline after all and thus another missed opportunity to create some form of depth to a story fast losing all purpose and reason to continue.
The greatest insult of all was saved for the treatment of Luke Skywalker himself. The hero of the original trilogy, the Jedi who sought after the good in his father where others saw only evil. The character who inspired moviegoers across the world was now reduced to nothing more than a coward; a hermit who briefly considered murdering his own nephew in his sleep. Mark Hamill had told director Rian Johnson, "I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you've made for this character (Luke Skywalker)."
I can understand why.
The hero who had once taken on the Emperor now chose to hide away on his private island, allowing others to fight and die on his behalf. Before the credits rolled on this shit-shower of a film, the legendary character of Luke Skywalker was killed off in the least poetic and unexplainable way possible, adding zero contribution to the future of the saga. With only the two apprentices, Rey and Kylo, remaining for the final act, still having received little training from their now deceased mentors, it is difficult to understand where the direction of Star Wars is leading. Never mind the strange decision to retain the only character left from The Return of the Jedi, Princess Leia, soon to be portrayed in CGI.
As Kylo Ren states in the film, "let the past die". Maybe Rian Johnson felt this idea was a necessity in order to create his own vision of where Star Wars should go?Maybe one day we will call these choices brave? For now, I call them an insult. Let the past die but not in this manner. Overall The Last Jedi is a poorly written and poorly planned excuse of a film which is nothing better than a disgrace to the legacy of those films which had come before. Where the saga can go now, I simply do not know, but at least we can always rely on John Williams to provide a terrific soundtrack.
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6/10
Better than Force Awakens but not as good as Rogue One.
It's a step forward from Jar Jar Abrams Force Awakens but why couldn't they have repeated the quality film Gareth Edwards created with Rogue One? I strongly suspect it's the tying in with the original films that's holding this new series back.
We still get those deja-vu moments such as flying the Falcon through obstacle laden tight areas, such as "I feel the conflict in you" and such as "always looking to the future...". Each time one comes along it only serves to pause the film. Rogue One didn't suffer from this and was vastly better for it.
We still get the pathetic cartoon-like character of General Hux. Any army worth it's salt would have kicked such an incompetent snivelling fool out at the recruitment office. The character feels like he's been penned by an 8 year old and is an insult to adults.
We see that Carrie Fisher still can't act. She brought nothing to the role at all.
Most of all though, we see a rather weak storyline. The main story is nothing more than one long escape from imperial pursuit. There are side plots that add little value to this and the whole effort to bring Luke back goes nowhere. Couldn't Leia have done what Luke did at the end?
It seems the old main characters have done nothing but hold this new series back. With the passing of two of those characters and unfortunately one of the actors maybe number 9 will finally get into gear and deliver the blockbuster that 7 and 8 haven't
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Walking into the crowded theater with others wearing festive costumes and t-shirts, I was rather excited. It had been two years since the last installment, and I was ready for a continuation of the Skywalker story line.
Unfortunately, I was disappointed as it seems that Star Wars: The Last Jedi fell into a childish trap that forced the movie to contain too many jokes. Yes, some of them were funny, but it was too much. The jokes than seeped all of the seriousness out of the situation and removed all of the suspense that this movie was supposed to contain. However, I would say the two and a half hour journey through the galaxy was entertaining, but it felt far far away from the expectations I had for the plot and for the writing. Usually, Star Wars is witty and exciting, but in The Last Jedi, the jokes are forced and the transitions are choppy. It seems that Rian Johnson just shoved the movie onto the shelves of Target and Walmart in order to sell a whole bunch of Porg plush toys. That said, the movie was aesthetically amazing, and the 3D experience was really cool.
In the end, am I glad that eye saw it? Yes, its a Star Wars film, and I will see and hopefully enjoy every Star Wars film in the future. Would I see it again or buy it on Apple TV? No, not at all.
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7/10
High School Essay of SW films: 2/3 Fluff, 1/3 Substance
Impression of Last Jedi: Good but not brilliant. The nonsensical fluff, lack of fruition and missed opportunities of the first 2 acts had me worried until the 3rd act's redemption--a very satisfying and powerful one at that. I'm afraid this second installment is just not as thrilling or re-watchable as Force Awakens. Snoke makes for a terrible villain (not in a good way), no where near as terrifying or sinister as the emperor and the character design is egh at best--the Gollum-esque Sith Lord doesn't do it for me. And those who compare Last Jedi to Empire have lost their Midichlorians. The most dissatisfying aspect to me was --SEMI SPOILER ALERT-- the Rey / Skywalker training scene or lack there of. I just wanted to love it more but there are moments of brilliance and scenes that will pull on your fandom heart strings.The comical elements are good and scattered throughout but at times at the expense of the plot.
Being non-predictable doesn't necessarily translate to good story-telling. I think it went a little overboard in that vain. I do agree that some of the surprises were refreshing and left me in those "awe" moments. Don't get me wrong, it was solid and fun movie however I don't think we'll looking back a few years from now and considering this one a classic. I just don't see it. When your enveloped in the applause of the audience, its hard to see it for it's pitfalls.
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This movie was a major let down, Snoke is just a guy with Sith powers who gets killed off quickly. Rey is not a Skywalker her parents are peasants who are buried on her home planet or so the story says for now. The CGI on Yoda was terrible, Luke Skywalker was misused again and new characters are highly unlikeable or you just do not have any interest in getting to know them. Garbage I can not believe I waited two years for this movie. It's worse than The Phantom Menace.
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As I mentions the movie took and solid direction of going it's own way but I think falls short is some areas.
The good-
Solid acting
Great effects
Kylo Ren is awesome
Rey wasn't an annoying feminist like the force awakens
The bad-
Too much comedy
Leia floating through space
Snoke dying with 0 backstory
Luke seems ruined
Still SJW Disney trying to save the world of injustices one movie at a time
Overall I enjoyed the film. I would recommend anyone to see it.
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3/10
Film snuffed out all the reasons why I should care about the new Star Wars
This slopplily written, poorly paced film doubles down on the directions of the force awakens, fully reverts the galaxy back to the state of the Original Trilogy, negates the legacy of Episode 1-6; and what's worse, completely ruins Luke Skywalker as a character.
Two films deep into the trilogy, the film is yet to establish a single new character that has any similar impact as that in the last two sagas. Those characters that were promised to play big roles in the last instalment were discarded in the most unsatisfying manner. It still relies on the OT characters for emotional impact, while at the same time stomps all over what happened in the OT.
With some spectacular set pieces and amazing cinematography in places, those who were not that invested in Star Wars previously may find it an enjoyable ride. But a portion of Star Wars fans would find themselves in the same position as Mark Hamill when he first read the script: 'fundamentally disagreeing'.
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Star Wars has never been more bizarre, and I love it
There is a lot of hate against the movie, and It is clearly a divisive film, but not a bad one. The good far outweigh the bad.
Of the luke/rey/kylo scenes, I only wish that Snoke was somewhat explained more. He really seemed like he was evil incarnate, and as awesome as it was to watch Kylo do what all Sith do and kill his master, I would have liked some sort of explanation (from luke maybe) as to where Snoke came from, how he seduced Ben, and that sort of thing.
In general, the film suffered from WAY TOO MUCH GOING ON ALL THE TIME. Almost all of it was good stuff, but it really felt like if one of us were to make a film, and pour all of the things we always wanted to see in a SW film into one. Its the most Lucas esque SW film not made by Lucas, in that it definitly needed someone to come in at the script level and say "this is great, but it needs to be scaled back".
The cat&mouse fight between the Resistance and the First Order was one of the coolest, tensest things we have seen in a Star Wars movie. For the first time in a tentpole action movie, I really felt like no one was safe. It was great. I would have removed the (admittedly cool) scenes at the casino and had Finn/rose/poe have something to do onboard, rather than that insurrection Poe led.
Star Wars took a risk, and not every bit of it paid off. It could have been streamlined, or simplified for the masses, but the ambition of this film pulls through to make a truly special Star Wars experience.
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The Last Jedi opens with Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) prank calling General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) before going on an extremely dangerous mission. This is the sort of comic relief handy to Guardians of the Galaxy, but the continued attempts to transpose it here has left The Last Jedi smugly light when it could've been better served with a tone akin to The Empire Strikes Back.
Production-wise, The Last Jedi looks and sounds fantastic. The star wars themselves are the most bombastic of the saga, yet the CGI never feels cheap or overdone. The planets all look great, with scenery varied without ever ripping off the original saga (though the final battle was lovingly reminiscent of the confrontation in Hoth of Episode V).
The problems lie not with Rian Johnson's execution of scenes but his shooting script. There are way too many characters, and new creatures that in their cheap comedy remind of Jar Jar Binks in singularity and the Ewoks in general.
There is no point too monumental to be checked by a throwaway gag with signaled music cue. The thematic confrontation between light and dark that is at the core of the saga is only delved into through Kylo Ren, and for all of the time Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on Ahch-To she is never convincingly portrayed as fighting with the darkness.
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The greatest slight is the portrayal of the characters from the original trilogy. Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), R2-D2 (Jimmy Vee) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) are chronically underused bits of fluff, and Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) spends a large portion of the film unconscious. Yoda's (Frank Oz) appearance is a jolt, but ultimately only serves as a reminder of how ridiculous the character can be if not handled properly.
Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is the only figure from the original trilogy with sizeable screentime and a character arc. Some fans not like the optimistic and headstrong figure of Episode IV becoming a miserable recluse, but decades of profound hurt can do that to a man.
Characters from Episode VII are also mishandled. Why the effort was made for Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong'o) to be established in The Force Awakens to get a ninety-second cameo here is beyond me. Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) is as underdeveloped as before. Rey is with Luke for the majority of the film, leaving her friendship with Finn (John Boyega) unexplored. Poe's subplot exists outside the company of either.
Finn is instead lumbered with Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), whose only real character features are a mawkish backstory and stubbornness. The film is overlong, and in no small part due to their subplot taking them to Canto Bight. It's a nice touch to replace Mos Eisley with a true hive of villainy, a casino for the wealthy, but it's clear from the get-go that this storyline is incidental and all action from there on in is uninvolving.
The real reason for this diversion is to introduce Benicio Del Toro's self-serving crook DJ. Del Toro is a fantastic actor who plays the part well, but like so many in this film suffers from a limited screentime in an overcrowded world.
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A highlight of the film as per The Force Awakens is Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. You can feel the conflict roiling within him, and a confrontation with Rey is the undisputed highlight of the film. This scene had echoes of both the Episode V and VI finales. That the film carried on for a half hour more after this is a shame, as emotionally and narratively there wasn't much to go on from there.
What is left is one of the most visually exciting moments of the saga, decrepit TIE fighters leaving great red trails across the salt flats in a final showdown. Yet even here the film is dogged by cheap comic moments, laboured sentimentality and unnecessary creature introductions.
Film Twitter is ablaze with people viciously defending The Last Jedi from all comers, insisting it's the most creative and engaging Star Wars yet. I'm sure people were saying the same of The Phantom Menace on its release.
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Dont know even where to begin, the whole thing is just so bad, i am speechless
I usualy just rate movie, but for this one i had to do a review
Terrible storyline, bad dialogs, terrible characters, terrible jokes... just bad bad bad bad.
Is Leia Superman? Why did she not die in space, after she got hit with TWO BIG ROCKETS???????????
WHY IS THERE CAPTAIN PHASMA IN THE MOVIE? They could use money for good writers and not for paying the actress for a useless role in iconic "star wars movie".
Kazino scenes ???? HAHAHAHA REALLY? Destroyed Finn's character. Useless scenes with no point.
Rays parents? They hyped so much this thing and left it in dissapointment
Luke's character is dead, literally the director Rian did a terrible job, terrible is even a soft word for it, he destroyed iconic star wars character.
Kylo vs Luke? So Luke has some sort of power to transfer his "not original" body 2000 light years away and fight with Kylo Ren while he cant be touched? wow didnt know that Jedi could do that, why yoda didnt do it to stop Palpatine? Why didnt Mace Windu did it??? Qui Gon? OBI WAN??? ANY OF THEM? It really just destroyed the concept of jedi and the force.
Everything is just so bad that i cant belive they could do that.
I understand that they didnt want Star Wars Non Canon version for movies, but
they could at least come up with a decent story for this trillogy.
Just terrible.
Sorry for bad English.
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Prior to it's release Rian Johnson was said to be taking Star Wars in an entirely new direction, and he did exactly that, only it was in the opposite direction we'd all hoped for.
Having fully embraced the idea of RJ's "new take" on a franchise destined for change, I, like many lifelong fans, had high hopes for the latest installment. That hope was severely shaken within the opening two minutes, whereby a gradual wave of irony overwhelmed the common 'Star Wars til I die mentality' as Adrian Edmondson (Bottom's Eddie) seemed to be the only character on screen who wasn't descending into an ingratiating host of dated comic relief which didn't relent throughout it's lengthy two hours and thirty three minutes running time.
Despite that initial Han Solo-esque "I have a bad feeling about this" realization, there were so many elements of this movie which were complimentary of the Star Wars universe as we have come to know it. If anything, it was in perfect taste, a homage to The Empire Strikes Back, as the story largely took place in the vast expanse of space, bad guy ships in pursuit of good guy ships, and an aspiring Jedi off in the wilderness training with a reluctant old cynic, only to reconvene for one last show down to close out the show. In those respects, it slipped effortlessly into the themes and formats of a galaxy, far, far away. Yet, it's the daring risks taken on Johnson's part to seemingly turn this once niche property and former cult fan favorite into an atypical popcorn pushing blockbuster for the masses that ruined it's potential and put to waste his efforts to allow certain aspects of this universe to evolve graciously, such as the concept of the force, if not only for 3D effect. I for one commend the manner in which he honors the laws of Star Wars physics, as it's been far too long since the audience were treated to deceased beings transcending matter, and force ghosts randomly popping up for a good old chinwag. That was in perfect supply here, but it wasn't enough to stop the ship from sinking, unfortunately.
It is a wonder how someone of Kathleen Kennedy's genius allowed most of these mistakes to happen during the scripting stage of pre-production, let alone making it onto the big screen at all. Not only was Johnson granted permission to punish Abrams in the same manner J.J punished Lost fans by anticlimactically failing to answer any serious questions posed during years of mysterious story telling, but every previously planted seed that was established in The Force Awakens remained unwatered by Johnson from the outset, and unforgivably so. The clandestine exchange in which Rey hands Luke his own lightsaber on Ahch-To, only to have the mystique of that moment devastated by one swift lob of the Jedi weapon over a cliff's edge, as Skywalker awkwardly and metaphorically tosses away the past over his left shoulder, establishes nothing more than a passive aggressive theme that Rian seems to reiterate until the bitter end, albeit in a confused and contradictory manner. Let the past die? How is that anything but detrimental to this trilogy as a whole, and an insult to former directors and fans around the world, also. The most brutal dose of the director's 'I did it my way' attitude came after Snoke was treated like nothing but a throne warmer and the penultimate showdown between Kylo and Rey in which the former Sith apprentice reminds the Jakku slave orphan that she plays no part in the Skywalker saga, which renders her origins story as redundant as Abrams' previous efforts in the eyes of Rian Johnson himself.
Despite partially honoring the original source material and having created what could've been a decent Star Wars movie, Johnson was seemingly allowed to run away with himself, and that alone rendered this film as one of the hardest sequels to stomach. Now that Fisher is no longer with us, fans are left with a world occupied by only one character that is familially associated to the original saga, which kills off so much enthusiasm for the future of this story, especially when considering he smashes up consoles like he lost a game of FIFA, and punches walls like an emo just because granddad had a better hat.
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Growing up with star wars as my favourite franchise and universe to explore as a child, I've been heavily invested in the new star wars sequels, yet it seems the last jedi follows the force awakens down a path of disappointment and destruction of the starwars universe i had come to love. the movie on its own was good, but as a star wars film i hated it.
aliens looked tacky and fake, and races seen throughout the previous movies bar number 7 seem to have disappeared in a human character dominated world (yoda was dreadful)
Disney's cringeworthy and forced humour and lack of seriousness in certain moments again was hard to watch, and super frustrating
force wielders seem to be overpoerwerd as, with no training, yet they also do not use the force in battle ect, like the jedi and sith would, and lightsaber fights seem clunky and unskilled
disneys plot armour is hard to bare at some points, with no main rebel charcters dying bar luke (who didnt really die)
kylo ren as a sith is a mess, who seems like hes some teen having a mental breakdown rather that the sith of the previous trilogys
storie seems to be going nowhere, except for the same old empire v rebels story repeating itself in an ever tirying cycle
plenty more thoughts, but these were my main gripes, might have forgot some. pretty dissapointed, as i feel i will have to let this franchise which has been a big part of my childhood go.
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6/10
EP 8: TLJ is an Average sit thru, Enjoyable enough to keep you engaged. Few moments are ingenious.
TFA reignited the series and gave it the zest it needed to start the series forward. It had hard hitting loss for all the series and its fans, and all the intensity it needed from villains such as Kylo and Snoke. It was a story of two young Jedi who may or may not have been related, with rough-on-the-edges/intense light saber battles due to their inexperience. But it was such an action packed and fluidly moving movie of desperate stakes against The First Order.
The Last Jedi makes itself 2 hours long, with attempts at character development that don't really hit right, subplots that are at moments boring and useless, with no funny moments as clever as in TFA, and supposed loss of characters that WILL NOT hit as hard as Han Solo's death. At the theater last night, I saw no jubilee and clapping. I saw faces of average content filing out after this movie. And I knew this was bad for the property in general.
Where I looked forward to intense training of Rey after TFA, I was given a character trying to find herself (which is totally Ok) and seeking the help of a Skywalker who seems to be severed of his manhood and forcibly distancing himself from everyone. It was beyond depressing to see Skywalker with such a negative countenance and refusing to train Rey. We saw too many shots of her looking at the back of a Jedi, and me wishing there was some spark of positivity in his character. Right at the moment he changes his tune to train her and some bombs drop as to why Kylo turned, the party was fucking over and she shoots off having to do things her own way. U see no training of the use of the light saber between her and Luke. U see a useless moment into a dark-side cave that reveals nothing grand about her self and her desires to know her parents. The only redeeming moments of this "INTENSE" training session are the brilliant telepathic force communications between Rey and Kylo attempting to convince each other to ones respective side. And that about the only respectable character development along with Poe Damaran's character of being a hot shot pilot, which works incredibly well btw with the space battle scenes. A Quick chemistry fling between Finn and some forgettable resistance flunky was the WORST plot subpoint I've ever seen and unnecessary. We finally see Snoke in all his quite realistic CG glory, but I hate to break it to you, he gets killed off with nary of a fucking backstory to this emaciated walking penis. But I will say his death was brilliantly done in a strong clever way in which I give Rian Johnson props for.
I romanticize the good times of incredible Light Saber battles we were given in Ep's 1-3 and thru the Clone Wars cartoon saga. I miss those days, and when I see TLJ's battles they are still rough on the edges, yet you see a slight improvement to their battles....i guess I must accept that they are still relatively young Jedi with no real training like the Jedi Council was able to give.
I just can't go on with explaining the movie. You get the gist that this star wars turned out to be a drawn out story with less then stellar pacing and moments that don't have you emotionally invested too deeply. It is a movie that was enough to keep you interested, impressed with the space battles, and passively accept some of its plot points without downright destroying Star Wars. But I am concerned with a lot of personal opinions that are floating along side mine that feel the movie adds nothing substantial.
Disney needs to hire JJ Abrams and shower George Lucas with shitloads of money to co-direct with him, to give the Saga the final send off it deserves on Episode 9. Disney needs to explore the Expanded Universe in great ways and delve into the wealth of it, find directors who have read some of the EU, and bring it to reality. We need backstories to Darth Maul, to Darth Vader instead of being relegated to comics. You wanna save the franchise from mediocrity then they have to get into the nitty gritty details with powerful performances from the villains.
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Just came out from the theater...got some mixed feelings. It was more of like a connecting film between TFA and the one(s) that will come next. Not so much as a standalone episode. Felt like they weren't sure enough on what to do with Kylo Ren/BenSolo. I understand his torments and past but Johnson kinda played with him, resulting some sort of inconsistency. First half was quite flat but liked the 2nd half, particularly the finale though. Overall, not a bad film at all but expected a lot more twisted & entertaining.
Among this new line of films (JJ Abrams era), here's my ranking:
1. Rogue One
2. The Force Awakens
3. The Last Jedi
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Is it a bit different sure. People would be pissed if it was more of the same. And in no way does it stretch to far from being a proper Star Wars movie. Minor issues but 100% incredibly satisfying.
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4/10
If there is a bright center to the Star Wars universe, this is the movie that it is farthest from.
The Last Jedi fails on every level imaginable. It doesn't effectively continue the Star Wars storyline. It doesn't set up future storylines. It isn't even really a fun movie.
Here are 10 things I hated the most about The Last Jedi:
10. When I think of Star Wars, I think of sllllowwwww car chases. -- The entire plot of The Last Jedi is built around what amounts to a slow speed car chase that would make OJ Simpson's white Ford Bronco seem like the Dukes' General Lee. The First Order has developed a deus ex machina ... er... technology that allows them to track ships through hyperspace. When Leia's fleet tries to escape, they are followed and what ensues is a very slow scene in which the Resistance is just fast enough to stay at arm's length from the First Order's ships. Their attempt to get away is the primary plot of the film. Let's set aside the plot hole that the First Order could seemingly do a small hyperspace jump to catch up, or send a couple ships ahead to block their path. The primary issue is that this scene ... the primary plot of the film ... is slow, lacks tension and is boring. George Lucas was famous for saying "faster". This film missed George Lucas.
9. Disney Synergy at Work: Leia's Force Power is to become Mary Poppins. -- During Leia's escape, her ship's bridge is hit, and she and her command crew are jettisoned into space. Given what we know about Carrie Fisher's death, this seems like the end for Princess Leia. But in a scene eerily similar to Guardians of the Galaxy and defying physics and biology, Leia rescues herself from the cold vacuum of space by using the Force. In and of itself, this isn't a great idea, but what makes it awful is - ironically - the special effects. Leia floats back to the ship looking like Mary Poppins. The way the shot was filmed and the FX were so bad, it took me out of the movie from an early stage.
8. The bad guys aren't that bad (in a "tough guy" sense). -- I thought the Force Awakens was derivative, but still a professionally done movie with some good scenes and great acting. There were decent bad guys -- Kylo Ren is dangerously insane, General Hux is a psychopathic Nazi, Captain Phasma was intimidating, and above all was the lurking figure of Snoke, who appeared to be much more than he was. While The Last Jedi treats Kylo okay, what it does to the other villains is painful. Hux is turned into limp comic relief. Phasma makes a brief appearance and is again ineffective. But worst is Snoke. We get no explanation for who he is, how did he become a Sith Lord, how did he amass more resources than the Galactic Republic, and is that Hugh Hefner's robe? To top it off, he is killed ironically as he brags about how well he can read Kylo's mind. I have a theory that action movies are only as good as their bad guys; and the bad guys in The Last Jedi suck.
7. Maz Kanata: Union Hunter - Oh boy. This was a painful scene. Finn skypes Maz Kanata asking for her help in picking a lock on a Star Destroyer (why Maz is the go-to person for this is not explained). Maz directs them to an expert on some casino planet. This has its own problems that I'll get to in a bit, but the worst part of this scene is that Maz has this skype conversation while in the middle of a blaster fight that she describes as "problems with the union." Sigh.
6. Was that Frank Oz' Yoda or Mel Brooks' Yogurt? - Speaking of CGI characters that we didn't need, Yoda is back! Remember when Lucas remastered Return of the Jedi for bluray, how he swapped out Old Anakin's Force ghost with Hayden Christianson? This led to complaints and discussions about, when Jedi's die, do they stay as their old self or a younger version? It turns out we were all wrong! Yoda has visibly aged! In the 30+ years since he died, his Force ghost has gotten skinner and a little senile. This was a bizarre and stupid scene. Master Yoda is now comic relief. Empire Strikes Back Yoda is one of the greatest characters in science fiction, and through the prequels and now this hot mess, Kathleen Kennedy continues to destroy him.
5. Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern, and Kelly Marie Tran get significant screen time for hollow characters, meanwhile ... Finn, Po and Chewbacca do nothing of significance - Disturbingly, blockbuster movies seem to be struggling by adding too many characters recently. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was a good example of this, and even Rogue One (which was terrific) had some of the same problems. In The Last Jedi, the problem is glaring. Laura Dern's admiral character and Benicio Del Toro's thief are redundant to the story and are overkill. We don't know enough about them to care about them, but yet they each are given pivotal roles. Couldn't Dern's part in the plot been given to Po? The headstrong, reckless individual pilot is forced to take the admiral position, growing to understand the importance of a team and ultimately sacrificing his life for others. Wouldn't that have been better and more meaningful? And couldn't Del Toro's role have been given to Finn? As an ex-Stormtrooper, Finn knows how to penetrate their shields and control room, he's confronted by Phasma, who makes a compelling case about re-joining the winning side. And as far as Tran's Rose ... aside from the "romantic" component ... couldn't her role have gone to Chewy, with Chewy and Finn breaking into the Star Destroyer with kind of a buddy cop-kind of feel?
4. Bomb. James Bomb. - Where The Last Jedi really falls off the rails is the scene on the casino planet, where Finn and Rose are imprisoned for illegal parking. Really.
3. Would it kill you to have a lightsaber fight? - Outside of a single clash in a flashback with Luke and Ben Solo, two lightsabers do not meet in this movie. While Rogue One was great despite no lightsaber fights, how and why would you do a Star Wars movie without a lightsaber duel?
2. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are really good - So the second worst thing about The Last Jedi is how good Adam Driver and (especially) Daisy Ridley are. This is bad because they are criminally underused. Ridley is captivating on screen, and Driver's Ren is a compelling villain. There's actually a good bit of sexual tension between the two, and I thought for a moment we were going down the path of a romantic relationship between them. Yet Rey's involvement in the plot is fairly minimal. She has a number of scenes, which she crushes, but she felt inconsequential.
1. Turns out Luke does have too much of Vader in him. Like Anakin, he's a whiny bitch.
But worst of all is what I'll call the Hippocratic corollary for sequels: First, do no harm to the originals. If you've made a work of art that people love, don't damage characters or plots by having those characters behave in ways that conflict with the original. For example, if you decided to make Casablanca 2, you can't have Rick kill Laszlo so he can steal back Ilsa. If you make Wizard of Oz 2, the Scarecrow can't betray Dorothy and enslave the Munchkins.
This is the most painful part of The Last Jedi. Luke Skywalker, the chosen one, galactic hero, the new hope, is a whiny old loser. I don't know what else to say here. After getting no lines in The Force Awakens, we're treated to Old Luke who has the personality of parody twitter account @verylonelyluke. He thinks the Jedi were dolts. He thinks he's a failure. He doesn't want to help - even his sister. Luke Skywalker was tested in Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back in the most intimate way possible. He longed for a family and a life that mattered, and Vader offered that to him. He rejected it. Luke Skywalker is good. And strong. And powerful. He is not a loser coward. First, do no harm. Rian Johnson, you messed up the first rule.
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7/10
From Good to Cringe (Complete Review - NO SPOILERS)
Two years have passed since the last Star Wars film. Last night I went to the cinema, not super excited about the film, but with some hope that it would be well made, well written and enjoyable.
Before talking about the film I just want to say that I've always liked evil characters more. I think they are usually more complex and are better written than the heroes. Without a good villain to hate, the victory of the "heroes" doesn't seem as successful as it should be.
The film as a whole isn't that bad. People are roasting it as if it was a terrible movie when really it's not that bad. But don't get me wrong, it's not a great movie, not even close. The main reason for this is its script.
-Script: nothing amazing to it (the typical simple, but not bad, script) but sometimes pretty bad. The main problem was the humour. Jokes and "funny scenes" that nobody laughed at made it so cringy. It's true that there are some funny parts that made me laugh, but most of the "funny scenes" weren't funny at all. Another mistake to do with the humour is that they put it in important scenes. This makes you snap out of the tension of the scene. As well, they make the evil characters say funny comments in some parts. In my opinion, if you want to have a good villain you can't make them say stupid stuff. People won't hate the villain in the way a villain should be hated. (For example: the villains of Game of Thrones make you wonder and fear what they will do next).
-Story: in general, apart from some cringy moments, the story was entertaining.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't any boring parts. In the first half of the film there are loads of parts that were boring and I really didn't care. Making these scenes shorter (instead of deleting them, in order to not change the structure of the story) would have been a lot better. Instead of 2 hours 30 minutes the film would have been about 2 hours long.
Then there are some scenes with Kylo and Rey that at the beginning are a bit weird. As the film went on I got used to these scenes and I ended up liking them quite a lot. That part of the story was the one I found most interesting. When the other part of the story was on I wasn't bored, but it was close.
The second half of the film is more interesting; well, interesting might not be the right word, I think it's better to use entertaining. The story of Kylo and Rey "joins" the story of the other characters.
-Visual-effects: it's a good-looking film (like episode VII, maybe slightly worse). In general, visually, the fights look cool. (There's a scene in space that's quite epic. If you've seen the film you know what I mean).
-Music: the soundtrack is practically the same as the other Star Wars movies. It's an important part of the film and subconsciously plays a big role.
-Actors/Acting: All the actors and actresses do a good job, but I have to say that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) has some really good scenes where he stands out.
Adam Driver (Kylo), who received loads of criticism, did a fantastic job. It's not his fault that his character was a cry-baby in the last movie, he does what the director/writers ask of him and he nails it. Daisy Ridley (Rey) also does a great job (like in The Force Awakens).
-Overall: If you are a hard-core Star Wars fan you won't love this film. You will hate some parts and like others. If you've never seen Star Wars or you're not a big fan of it, you can like it and find it entertaining, or find it quite stupid. To like this movie, you have to like the "nerdy" things about Star Wars. It's not like Batman (The Dark Night) by Cristopher Nolan, where if you don't like superheroes you can still love the film because it has much more to it.
If you want to have a good time watching epic battles, lightsabers and 'powers' of the force, I suggest you go and see it.
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The Last Jedi wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it was definitely the most disappointing. To keep this top half of the review spoiler free, I will just go over the basics. The movie had poor story development, a plot that was scattered and all over the place, tried WAY too hard on its comedic relief, and introduced boring new characters. The movie had a couple jaw-dropping scenes, but other than that, was drawn out and sporadic.
**SPOILERS BELOW**
The details and story of this movie were absolutely horrendous, in my point of view. No answers for Snoke (or his past). No clarity of Rey's heritage. No Knights of Ren (what the hell happened to this plot-line??). An utterly disappointing Luke story arc and ending. No "true" Luke fight scene. Cheesy Yoda and Yoda scene. Cheesy Leia scene (returning to the ship from space). Main antagonist (Snoke) dies before BARELY any screen-time, or fighting, or anything... The plot was all over the place. Useless, boring new characters... This movie had so much potential, but unfortunately, did not deliver.
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A lot is already being written about how much failed in terms of keeping the internal coherence of the franchise, the interest in the old characters, and what is perceived as the "depth" of the story. I'd like to comment on two things:
Every Star Wars film is one of the most important films ever. It doesn't mean it's a good or a bad film. But so many people all invest time and passion into the thing, that whatever comes out is influential. The first film (ep.IV) was completed extended backwards and beyond, the universe drilled, explored, (i)matured. It has become sort of a cycle of stories that live in the collective consciousness of the society, as reflected by its pop culture. Of the 9 films so far (counting Rogue One), I personally don't think there's more than 2 that actually matter as cinema, and probably none has the ability to change how you think visually (how you dream?), but they do reflect how society sees itself, their collective urges and voids. So this disaster of a film does it: broken pieces of narrative, of broken souls looking for hope, and never being able to find it, running away from the dark side while always being caught up with. Old idols, burnt and wasted, failing to fulfil their last step in the story.
Myth and Irony. Here are some thoughts. I believe that irony destroys myth, at least the kind of marvel hero irony that has invaded films since Iron Man. That's the cheapest kind of irony, the one used in this film. Myth is a powerful depictions of abstraction, Urges and Voids represented through Story-telling. Irony is, in myth, the ultimate boon, the mirror placed in front of our eyes. Myth, as synthesized by Campbell (using a Jungian lens), formed the basis of the whole thing, at the beginning. That force that surrounds us and penetrates us. The hero completing epic cycles. The franchise made the story more complex, and intersected several cycles, several circles. Yoda, Obi-wan, Anakin, Luke, Kilo, Rey... This new trilogy was to be the last stages of Luke's cycle, the returning of the hero, passing what he has learned. The previous film replaced the environment at the heart of that, because they used the guy who wrote the best Star Wars film. But here they gave writing and directing (!) to someone who has no clue. So the cycles are only superficially shown, mechanically, kind of "painting by numbers", and the irony is displaced to the dialogues, inner jokes, winks at the older films. So this is basically television with an infinite budget. Everybody knows it, i think. We know even Hamill is not so happy with what was done to Luke. We know this director only landed on the job because Kennedy fought with every other possibility. We know JJ Abrams will direct the next one, but apparently Kasdan won't write it. Who will take the boon now? Who will pass on knowledge? Who will teach new kids with the potencial to become Jedis? I really think they should burn this temple and see what grows under it. But this is Disney, so the dark side has already won.
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1/10
Disney just made a Marvel Film. This isn't Star Wars
I dont really know where to start with this review. I'm so disappointed. Bitterly disappointed. I feel like a child who's had his Christmas presents stolen as he was opening them.
This film is massively flawed, terribly written and utterly confusing. I'll break into 8 points;
1) Snoke.
Who is he?! We will never know! Because now he is dead! This figure of power was a massive part of the draw of this film, who was he, where was he from, what was his place in the star wars universe, where was he when the Empire was about, how did he get to Kylo etc. And there was no answer to that, none! and now he's dead! So what was the point of him originally!? no clue of his back story or why he is leader or so strong, nothing.....While we are on him the CGI around him was awful, looked straight out of the prequels.
2) Marvel humour.
The writing in this is terrible. really bad text all around. But through it all is the stupid slapstick Marvel style humour. The opening scene dialogue between Hux and Poe is up to level 1000 on the cringe-o-meter. I can forgive one or two, but the film has a stupid gag every 3 minutes. Poe is now basically a Space Tony Stark, while Finn may as well be Hawkeye for as much use as he was in the film.
3) Oh my god, oh my Luke.
Luke was another massive part of the draw of this film, the mighty Jedi master in hiding. Why? What happened? Lets find out! Well in the end it turns out he was just being a teenager and doing the equivalent of hiding in his room for a number of years but on an island because he was sulking. Drinking milk from sea cows breasts and masturbating furiously for a generation on his exiled island. And all that can be forgiven if he comes back and saves the universe. Did he? No! He just played about with a hologram and died. We were robbed of the Kylo light saber fight, robbed of Luke being Luke the Jedi and robbed of any actual need for him to be in this movie. There is literally no point in Luke existing in this new trilogy now. He may as well of died in the Return of the Jedi, because he's got no part in any of this now.
4) Old Friends, where art thou?
All the things we loved to see in the Force Awakens, the Falcon, Chewie, lightsaber duels, forget it. There is so little screen time of them they can be totally cut out of the film and you wouldn't notice. Don't expect to see the Falcon doing anything other than running away repeatably. And here is the kicker, the returning characters that we didnt see much of in Force Awakens still had no part of interest, thats right, I'm talking about R2D2 and C-3PO. Instead we are treated to reels and reels of Rey and Luke pointless dialogue. And on thism the new ones that were introduced are now dead anyways. Phasma; of no use at all in both films, and now dead. screen time of about 5 minutes total in both movies. RIP General Akbarr.....
5) Rey, I think we should split up
I'm really disappointed. Rey was shining through as the main character and is now totally useless to the story line. Yes she has the force, but she isnt connected in anyway to the main story line. She is just a Force aware kid whos parents ran away on her. Her involvement becomes null and void from her on in. Even at the end battle (i'll come on to that), she isnt even there to fight with Luke (or his hologram) against Kylo and the First Order. Instead she is magically transported from a blown up space ship t the gunning seat of the Falcon to yet again, you guessed it, run away from the fight. Or to "lure them away". Her charcter died near the end of this film. And thats a real shame.
6) Finn
Same as above really. Could of been a great character in this film, but is sent on a totally stupid and waste of (running) time to a casino to find a hacker. That who Casino world adds nothing to the film and really reminded me of the prequels. Its a total waste of time and Finn's character. Very sad. And again the character is now dead in the water, no reason he should even be there now to be honest.
7) The last battle! (or not)
So this film is basically a poor attempt of flipping Empire Strikes back. Starts with a space battle and ends in a land assault, this time on salt and not snow. but here is the kicker, there isnt even a battle! 12 rusty speeders go out againsts a fleet of walkers, inevitably get blown up apart from the 3 our main characters are in, that was lucky, and then they just, well, stop. Other than providing a nice looking background to see Kylo shout at a ghost, that it. There is no cliff hanger, no suspense, no help from friends of the alliance. Hell i even wanted to see Luke fly in on his submerged X-Wing and join in, but got none of that. Zero.
8) I Dont Care about Episode 9 - and that hurts....
There isnt much reason for there to even be an Episode 9 to be honest. Snoke is dead, Luke has transcended or what ever, the Rebels number now about 14 of them, Leah wont be in the next one for obvious reason. All we have an annoyed Kylo, Ren who can move rocks, Finn who may as well have stayed in the Casino and no suspense, there is absolutely cliff hanger moment. And because of that there is no "I cant wait to see what happens next!" feeling. Not only can I wait a very very long time to see the next one, I just don't care now. Star Wars has been such a big part of my life and is now non-identifiable as a Star Wars movie. Its a Disney movie, made for review gains and merchandise gains. Filled with family friendly gags and cuddly things to make into toys. There is no darkness, only light.
There's been an awakening, an awakening that Star Wars died with Han Solo and Carrie Fischer, have you felt it? :( :( :(
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3/10
True Star Wars Fan, they just ruined it, and I am not exaggerating
Film Starts, the text makes sense, and I am excited, the cinema give a loud roar of agreement as the title rolls, we have a good audience of true fans, all adults no kids. nice.
Now tjhere are little things that i didnt like but looked past, I was ewnjoying this film as a whole up to the end and it is a pity as the ending ruined what was a generally good film for all.
so, the first order can track through hyperspace now, so it means that you cannot hide no longer from them, so that's an issue for the resistance who half way though are now calling themselves rebels again, ok continuity guys make your mind up. Hux/Gleeson turns up looking like palpatine/evil anakin with his weird no sleep eyes and looks like he has aged 20 years since the last film and acts like a panto version of moff tarkin, i will tell you now this film does still copy the original films as if it doesn't notice it for some reason, very strange.
Good actors bad writing in this one.
a plan to take down a dreadnaught backfires, but the moment the tie fighter crashes into the first bomber, i say, sods law i bet a chain reaction makes it crash and blow up all the others all leave just one left, yep low and behold there we go, they all blow up and it leave ones bomber resting with the whole mission on it shoulders in a cliche ending. annoying but oh well nothing major, watch on.
leia is hurt, good little ren scene there, but she uses the force to save herself...so she could have saved crew members, family members, her love of her life Han, but no she uses the first the only time - to selfishly sav herself...feel really sorry that they made leia a useless and now selfish evil person after her death. very silly, but still i dont care about leias character, she turned to drugs and plastic surgery after star wars anyway so i didnt care if they even killed her off before the new ones started.
then there is the whole modern version of dagobah with rey and luke, i actually didnt mind any of it, it has an okay twist with the old and the new, and i have to think that luke has gone a little senile like yoda did when he exiled himself also, loneliness makes you weird we all know this. its not that bad, all little things that still make for a generally good movie.
then fin and rose, rose is horrible character and actor, she cries alot, does nothing really, tell finn she loves him when we all thought him and rey would get together so that gets awkward for the rest of the film too...and makes no sense, unless she and kylo will be an item....i think not....
ruined reys back story, if that is true what she is told, she does not deny it though....amazing scene with kylo and ray and lightsabers, loved it. you learn nothing aboujt snoke and then jsut like that he is gone....ruined that, but still was not too bothered in the overall story of the film so its still ok.
yoda force ghost appears in full colour cgi/puppet....when all the previous force ghosts were a blue tint....so again why ignore the contiuity like that, looked horrible, but it was an ok scene and i understand the ideas behind it.
lots more stuff that annooys you after this but they are all small in compairsson to the one thing that ruins it.
Luke kills himself and there is no reason for it and it ruins star wars, he projects himself as a entity to the battleground, fights kylo in a distraction with no real effort, and supposedly the effort to do that, means he sits on a rock and disspears like ben kenobi...i said if they copy it and do a ben kenobi i am out of here, and then they did....
he didn't need to die, there was no reason why it had to take all his effort to project himself across space using the force, and now who trains rey, probably a force ghost of luke.
I think they were more interested in trying to set up a longer range of films for after this as at the end, there is a decimated rebel alliance, a more powerful unaffected first order, all the originals are gone, nothing was explained, and they now have to start all over again. with one film to go they are going to try and tell the whole story all over again? that will not work, i think there will be an announcement now of 10, 11 and 12 episodes its so obvious.
so a flawed but generally awesome film, that explains nothing and resets everything it starts, that ruins itself at the end by making a useless unmeaningful death that actually removes all hope from the franchise.
i have noticed all the most recent reviews of people who actually watched it are all very low, and it was all the early previews/premiere day with the good reviews, that were probably paid for reviews to give it a buffer of good scores at the start, reviews are so fake/doctored these days at the release.
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I will not drag about the movie itself, plenty of reviews here. Just gona say thanks disney for ruining most hyped movie of all times for me. As Star Wars lore junkie i feel...weirdly sad. Apart from obvious story flaws (eg. who da fack is Snoke!) thx for killing Luke for me before movie ended. Thx for images of Luke on the ground being threatened by some girl who had 3 lessons from him. Close up on his hand while he was on the ground supposed to tell what? That hes holding back? Grandmaster of the Jedi order Luke Skywalker? One that wanted to kill his nephew in his sleep cos he felt some dark in him? But didn't want to kill darkest lord Vader and wanted to redeem him till the end?
I nearly lost my breath when i saw him in that cave on Crait. I was like "THIS IS IT!!" But than zoom on his face and short and coloured beard was final disappointing blow. I was actually relived when he died cos u will stop bashing him.
And i will not even mention superman Leia, battlecruiser chase, Rey still jedi without any training, pointless casino, etc...
Cant believe that i watched star wars move and that im not hyped about next one....that happened.
ffs
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At the end of the previous Star Wars film, we were given the ultimate tease and pseudo-promise: Luke Skywalker would train Rey to become a Jedi and she would eventually lead the Resistance against the First Order.
The Last Jedi does not take us down that path, at least not the way J.J Abrams set it up, and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is hard to figure out.
This film starts out within a day or so of the ending of The Force Awakens, and if you didn't watch that film within a day or so of seeing The Last Jedi, some things will seem a bit jarring and abrupt.
Nevertheless, the film perseveres with three main storylines: Rey, on the island with Luke, Leia and the Resistance in pursuit by the First Order, and Finn trying to find help for the Resistance.
These three storylines do tie into each other by film's end, but none really give any satisfaction or closure. Things just seem to happen, twists occur whenever the plot needs them to, and for a film that was supposed to be much darker than The Force Awakens, akin to The Empire Strikes Back, there is an awful lot of "comic" relief, and what dark subject matter there is isn't particularly dark.
I can't say that this film is bad, far from it. There are definitely some excellent plot twists in the film, great character development on the parts of Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, and it's a pleasure to hear Luke actually speak this time!
However, I can't say this film is the best in the Star Wars saga either. Somehow, it seems to just be harping the same notes as previous Star Wars films, not to the same degree as The Force Awakens, but enough to make you ask how much is actually original.
All in all, I would say that in the "definitive" ranking of the Star Wars films, this slots somewhere between Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith. Definitely check it out, but don't set your expectation so sky-high.
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2/10
Rian Johnson turns a story and characters that are sacred to some into a bad joke filled mess
If you are a fan of the original story,and hold the Skywalker name in a place of honor, this film will make you shake with anger. Worst written movie I have ever seen. Disney has caused the ruin of our beloved far, far away galaxy.
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I really enjoyed this movie, and I didn't care for "The Force Awakens" at all.
The stuff with Rae and Luke Skywalker was great. Mark Hamill nails it and they give Luke's character a complete arc. Here he is a Jedi who has realized that the Force isn't something anyone should have been messing with to start with.
Kylo Ren is more defined as a character. He's not the annoying "Darth Emo" was as in the last movie.
Po Dameron had more to do in this movie, and he'll probably have to step up in the next one as Carrie Fisher won't be back.
Speaking of Carrie, she was pretty good in this one. This is going to be her last showing, so the only original characters we are going to have in the next one are Chewbacca and the Droids.
Yoda's force Ghost is back, and he's back to being portrayed by a puppet, and not the awful CGI we saw in "Clones" and "Sith".
The stuff I didn't care for.
Supreme Plot Device Snoke. Were you wondering what this guy did to found the First Order? Well keep wondering, this guy is a low-rent Palpatine imitator with no purpose.
The whole Finn/Rose subplot. Not even entirely sure why it was there, it didn't go anywhere or advance the story or characters. It seemed to fall into "they needed something to do".
Definitely worth watching.
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Surprisingly unpredictable, and filled with shocking twists!
'STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI': Five Stars (Out of Five)
The ninth installment in the 'STAR WARS' film franchise (12th counting two made for television 'EWOK' movies, and an animated film). It picks up right where 2015's 'STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS' left off, and revolves around Rey teaming up with Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Finn, Poe, and others, to defend the galaxy from the First Order, and the dark side of the force. The movie was written and directed by Rian Johnson (who also helmed the critically acclaimed 2012 sci-fi hit 'LOOPER'). It stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher (in one of her final film roles), Domhnall Gleeson, Andy Serkis, Anthony Daniels and Peter Mayhew, in returning roles. While Kelly Marie Tran, Benicio del Toro and Laura Dern all join the cast. It's gotten mostly positive reviews from critics, and it's expected to be another huge blockbuster at the Box Office as well, of course. I of course loved it!
The film begins with the Rebel Alliance desperately trying to escape an attack by the First Order (in space). At the same time Rey is meeting Luke Skywalker (Hamill) for the first time, in his distant place of hiding, and he is not happy to see her (at all). Rey persistently tries to convince Luke to return with her, to aid the Resistance in their great time of need, while General Leia Organa (Fisher) is harmed in an attack, and put into a coma. Poe Dameron (Isaac) concocts his own plan to get the Alliance out of danger, against the orders of the new Admiral (Dern), and he finds help from Finn (Boyega), and a new friend named Rose (Tran). Kylo Ren (Driver) also deals with his own inner struggles, in dealing with the force (and his fate), as does Rey.
The movie is surprisingly unpredictable, and filled with shocking twists. The suspense, and action scenes, are also really well done, to the extent where I was literally on the edge of my seat, throughout a good chunk of the whole movie. The humor is a little too comedic, for a 'STAR WARS' film (in my opinion), at times, but the emotional drama, and character development, is more than most fans could even ask for. There's also really effective social commentary, on corrupt government and big business, and there's even a few scenes promoting veganism, and animal rights, which I loved. Most of all, the nostalgia of the whole thing is once again breathtaking (I cried multiple times). Being a huge fan of 'STAR WARS', I was definitely more than pleased with this installment. It might not be quite as good as 'ROGUE ONE', but it's definitely one of the best films of the year, and I can't wait to see it two or three more times, in the theater!
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I really wish i had liked this movie. I really love the star wars movies, and was so disappointed. There really was not much, if anything that i enjoyed about it. First of all its the longest Star Wars movie clocking in at 2.5 hrs, add in the 30 mins of trailers and commercials and your investment is a long three hours.
Visually it was great, storyline was imho very forced and did not feel fluid. The script was just bad.
There are some really lame segments in the movie. Finn's little adventure with new character rose was one of those segments. Just boring and unnecessary. Rose character is again a waste of time and shouldn't have even had a role. She feels forced, takes away from finn
Leia flying through the vacuum of space is one of the worst things i have ever seen in a star wars movie.
The way snoke dies was pathetic.
The way luke dies is even worse.
Humor is forced and unnecessary. Unfortunately there is a lot of bad humor in this movie.
Benicio del toro is a great actor, he did a fine job as a slicer, but was a waste of time on the big screen.
Domhall Gleeson is a good actor, but he has not performed in the role of Hux.
Rian Johnson might be able to shoot a great film visually, but writing a star wars script is not his thing. its as if he shoved too much info into this movie, and a bunch of it could have just been removed and it would have flowed much better.
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8/10
Under-appreciated by the overly-critical (Spoiler-Free)
I believe that there are bandwagons of hate. I believe that some people will choose to look at something negatively because it's the popular thing to do. I think this film is a victim of that in a way.
I thoroughly enjoyed most of this film. I was a bit surprised to see just how hated it was here on IMDb. I am a life-long Star Wars fan, and I'd be lying if I said I liked everything about this movie.
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE
It is positively worth seeing. I wouldn't expect a masterpiece here. It won't be what you may expect. It takes a lot of different turns that many people don't seem to agree with, but I do not think that they are the wrong turns. I think it is a matter of opinion.
MORE DETAILS (Still Spoiler-Free)
There are some MAJOR events that take place in the film that will leave you scratching your head. A LOT of bridges are burned. Plenty of plot points do NOT make sense. Questions are left unanswered. But in spite of all this, there are still so many good things to take away from this addition to the franchise.
NEGATIVES (Like I said... spoiler-free)
At the end, you will feel like opportunities were missed. You will wonder why they closed the book when we were so eager to read more. These missed opportunities are truly unfortunate, but not unfortunate enough to warrant saying this was a "horrible" movie because of them.
Certain plot points make ZERO sense, but the same can be said for every Star Wars movie in the franchise. (Take off your Star Wars love goggles for a sec and think about it)
A lot of the new characters are entirely forgettable. In fact, I cannot think of a single new character in The Last Jedi that left any sort of impression, unfortunately.
75% of the plot feels unimportant or redundant. Even though it's delivered in a fun and entertaining way, you won't find yourself recalling how "deep" the story was. It wasn't. The plot is fairly shallow in its first and second acts.
POSITIVES (Outweigh the negatives, in my opinion, in a spoiler-free way)
There are some truly classic Star Wars moments in The Last Jedi. There were plenty of scenes that had the entire audience laughing or cheering gleefully. This movie plays to a lot of fans well, I think. It's fun and it's mostly well-executed.
The third act is very well done, containing memorable scenes that were goosebump inducing.
Luke Skywalker (although not without faults) is very well portrayed. I do not understand how so many people can think that Rian Johnson has "ruined" him. If I were to tell you WHY Luke was well portrayed in The Last Jedi, I'd be spoiling things, and I'm against that. So go see for yourself. (If you disagree with me, that's fair)
Beautifully and authentically Star Wars in terms of its visuals and sound.
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN THIS MOVIE
I understand why you are so disappointed, in a lot of ways... I really do.
I completely agree with a lot of the points being made in the negative reviews being posted here, but I also think that you are completely focusing on the negative elements of The Last Jedi. I would dare to say that there were far more positive elements. However, bad news weighs ten times as much as good news. So I will in no way try to argue against your opinions, because they are your opinions, and a lot of your complaints are valid. I would only encourage those who have not seen TLJ yet to go in to the theater blind with no expectations.
FINAL POINTS
While watching The Last Jedi you will know that some parts of it really work and others REALLY don't. But when it works, it works wonderfully. I cannot agree with the 2s and 3s that are being given to this film. Anything below a 6 is extreme, in my opinion. This film deserves at LEAST a 6.
For me, I say The Last Jedi is a soft 8. This is primarily because EPISODE III has a high 7 here on IMDb, and I think this film was better executed than EPISODE III and far better executed than EPISODES I and II. Another reason it gets an 8 is because it was thoroughly enjoyable. It certainly isn't some example of genius story-telling, but then again... none of the Star Wars movies really are. They are stories about good and its struggle with evil. They are Space Operas with touches of religion and ethics sprinkled throughout.
The Last Jedi is a solid entry in the Star Wars franchise, and I think it'd be a mistake for anyone to automatically give in to the hatred it seems to be receiving... ESPECIALLY if you haven't seen it yet.
Anyway, that's all from me. Thank you for reading.
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How does this have such a high rating? Something isn't right. Rian totally ruined Star Wars. The movie is a mess. Every scene falls short and feels incomplete. Too much is going on and the movie is really slow and never quite has a conclusion. Everything feels unfinished. Lukes character is a parody and there is so much unnessacery and unwanted romance/comedy which is just thrown at you from FInn & Kylo/Rey. Characters which had potential are also just wasted for no reason! This is just as bad as the prequels if not even worse! In conclusion save your money. It has made me lose faith in the future of Star Wars
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1/10
Did Disney pay critics? This Trilogy is worse than the prequels
I went in to this film with no hype towards it, I have kept away from reviews and spoilers and theories. I came out and was openly saying "I did not like it." This was the first time I have seen a Star Wars film in the cinema and came out saying that. With TFA second viewing I thought it was rubbish and a CGI copy of a New Hope.
This one takes place a few hours or days after TFA. The resistance are continuing the fight against the First Order. Rey is trying to get Luke to train her. Kylo Ren is still a whiny emo kid.
2 Characters go on an "away mission" which is boring and rather forced on to give them something to do. Like I said Kylo Ren is just a whiny emo kid, but he gets that from his Grandfather. Wasn't impressed by the acting of the actress who played Rey, again. The plan the First Order has is dumb, Ade Edmondson is on the bridge of the main ship, which I can not take serious in a serious role, due to his face and facial expressions due to his comedy tv programs.
This wastes no end of talent as well like Andy Serkis,Gwendoline Christie, Benicio del Toro and Laura Dern just to name a few. Not only are the actors wasted but the characters are wasted as well in some cases.
It feels like some characters have done a full 180 in a matter of hours as well, there is a scene where a character is looking at screen with sadness because of the amount of lives have just been lost. Then in a few scenes later, that character is "communicating with a bad guy" who is targeting the area the other character and a bunch of other characters are. Now instead of that character telling them to clear the area, the character just continues to "stare." Well done for saving lives or at least trying.
There are elements of "comedy" in the film, at one point I thought Jar Jar might appear just add more "comedy." They did not go down well in the cinema I saw it in. I will say one or two did make me smile, not laugh though.
I did learn something from this film, you can become a jedi in a weekend course.
The story is dull and slow. The writing isnt much better, the acting is overall meh, the 2 new leads, good comes off as wooden, bad comes off whiny.
I did like Mark Hamil's performance, even though I did not think Luke would be like that and neither did Mark Hamill "I fundamentally disagree with every choice for Luke in the Last Jedi."
Can the director be blamed for this? yes, but, it is not 100% his fault, its J.J. Abrams fault, he created all these new characters that have some sort of mystery around them and he knew he could not come up with a satisfying reveal for them, so backed away....Where did we see that before??? Cough - Lost. So not only has he ruined 1 franchise beginning with Star he has ruined 2.
Disney should've come up with a solid story that makes sense and is fun, they have a heck of a lot of great (NOW) NON-CANON stuff ti take "inspiration" from. But no. They should've decide how to use the old and new characters better and integrate them together better instead it feels like the new characters are forced at you and going " these are good like them" instead you don't get invested in them as characters and dont care about them. The old characters you do care about because you know them from BETTER MOVIES.
So Disney have currently made 3 Star Wars films. I liked 1 which is ROGUE ONE! The other 2 SUCK!!! I am so glad I did not go to the multiplex cinema and went and supported my local indie cinema which cost over half the price less than the multiplex.
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Imagine a stereotypically ironic & self-absorbed Millennial. Give him utter disdain for the cultural heritage of the original Star Wars trilogy, no humor, a craving for filthy lucre, and complete creative control of Episode VIII. Now take that insufferable little twit and plop him in a Gen X-er's body, and you get Rian Johnson and this movie.
Johnson's script is a dog's breakfast of clumsy cliches, pointless decisions, inexplicable motivations, wooden dialogue, lame hipster quips, and one-dimensional characters. You could trundle an AT-AT through the plot holes. It's as if he took a workable sequel script, added every halfwit Disney executive's boneheaded notes, deleted the original content, tossed it in a Cuisinart, and mashed the "purée" button.
The movie is a 3-hour slow speed chase, with Leia and the Resistance in the white Ford Bronco and Hux leading the cop cars. Snoke was a joke, remaining unexplained and unintimidating. Rose was pointless, except as a blatant sop to the diversity-über-alles crowd. Purple haired feminist lady Admiral was an annoying distraction. Hux was a dweeb. Phasma was mostly absent and otherwise inept. Porgs? Make 'em into McNuggets and feed 'em to Jar Jar.
Rey is truly a Mary Sue; Yoda pops in just to belabor that point and to crap on the entire premise of Episodes I to VI. Luke is a grumpy old man with a death wish. Leia only exists to remind the audience of what studio executives can do to a truly interesting and strong yet feminine heroine. New Han and New Lando try to chew the scenery but they haven't the chops or the charm to get it done. New Vader is still a spoiled brat with no depth.
The Star Wars franchise is dead and Disney killed it. It shambles clumsily forward like a revenue-hungry zombie, but it's dead nonetheless. Somebody should just put it out of its misery.
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4/10
All of the build up from 7 is wasted & given little or no payoff. Poorly written.
All of the interesting and mysterious elements from 7 were absolutely wasted? Knight of Ren? Not included at all. Snoke? *spoiler* is killed off and given no back story. What was the point? Rey's parents? All of that was just a ruse. What's even worse is the fact that the tense ending from 7 is wasted just for a cheap laugh. Luke was wasted again, as was R2. JJ and Lawrence Kasden should have written this to ensure the arc of the new trilogy work. The ending of this film just left anti climactic and felt more like the end of the trilogy. Massively disappointed in LucasFilm and Rian Johnson.
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aA long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, the powers that be decided it would make for good times to frankenstein a bunch of ambiguous scenes and mix in audiences' pre-existing emotional attachments for the sole purpose of generating Game of Thrones-like mystery to a universe that no longer needs any introduction. Fair enough. Everything about the Last Jedi trailer was open for interpretation and, naturally, fan theories went wild. I suppose the natural outcome of this could only have been disappointment but boy was I not ready. I should have listened to Luke when he foreshadowed: 'this is not going to go the way that you think.'
To say that this is the best Star Wars movie since Empire is a gross injustice to everything one holds dear as a fan. This movie is such a mish-mash of the unnecessary that it makes The Force Awakens (which I rather enjoyed) look like Citizen Goddamn Kane. As such, my review will be equally haphazard. Do I start by pointing out the badabing-badaboom comedic relief every thirty seconds or with Rey's suddenly cardboard-like demeanor? She had about as much enthusiasm and appreciation for her situation as I did at that point. Phasma: unnecessary, Benicio del Toro's weird stuttering bastardized version of Lando: unnecessary, Supreme Leader Snoke, as it turns out, unnecessary. Haven't we learned anything about slicing and dicing the dark side from episodes 1-3? Why not flesh out Snoke's character instead of using him as some sort of demonic matchmaker and then tossing him aside a la Darth Maul? Why toy with people by sort of killing Leia then hastily backtrackking? Did we really need that after what they did to Han? Same goes for Laura Dern's character. Is she good, is she bad, do I even care anymore? The answer is a resounding NO. Nice hair, though.
The only new characters (per se) who, as far as I can tell, acted their asses off were Kylo Ren and Poe. Yes, I said Kylo Ren. Say what you will about his character but Adam Driver is busting ass to bring us a worthy portrayal of the inner conflict that was once at the core of the entire saga. The only criticism I have for him is solely based on the writing. At this point it seems as though Ren only has beef with the men in his life but maintains a soft spot when it comes to the ladies. That's all well and nice but this franchise has forever struggled with its depiction of evil and the problem shows no sign of yielding. His uncle tried to kill him and he's embittered. So far so good. But we get roughly one paragraph regarding the issue and what we're left with is a man who is still so angry about the experience, over a decade down the line, that he's practically frothing at the mouth and refuses to see any reason. That aside, it seems everyone has utterly given up on redemption. Ren isn't a teenager anymore and demonstrates on several occasions that he can discern right from wrong so his unbridled rage seems so over the top that by the end of it you're left thinking: you know what, just take a time out. Now who does that remind us of? Shoutout to grandpa!
Ren's bonding with Rey was playing out so well and they did a fine job of dangling moments of sexual tension in front of us, only to have that derailed at the end with a little moment shared by Poe and Rey. Really? Off-putting love triangle? You got us again!
Creature overload, character overload, obviously Finn finds a girlfriend more his speed since we couldn't possibly have the races mixing by putting Finn and Rey together (gasp!) because apparently no one's ready for that(?) Yoda puts in a nice little appearance as he and Luke bond over some more symbolism. A young slave boy earns a rebellion ring, assuring us that the Star Wars franchise will never end...My head hurts. In short, this movie was a mess and just makes me think that once episode 9 comes out, people will come to see 8 as a forgettable filler that poked and prodded at all our sore spots and left much to be desired. Luke, I miss you already. I should have listened.
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Directed by Rian Johnson (who directed 2012's novel and sometimes brutal Sci-Fi epic "Looper"), "The Last Jedi" picks up just before where "The Force Awakens" finishes with a dramatic and action-packed recreation of a WW2 bombing mission, featuring Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac, "Ex Machina", "Inside Llewyn Davis") in fighter-pilot mode. With perhaps the exception of "Rogue One"'s finale, never has the heroism and loss of the plucky rebel band been better portrayed.
We then flip to that rocky (definitely not Irish!) island to see what happens when Rey (Daisy Ridley) gives the light sabre to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The answer may surprise you. Rey, haunted by her quest to understand her powers and her parental lineage, is there to persuade the hermit-like Skywalker to reclaim his hero-status and return to fight for the rebellion. But that help had better come soon, since the evil supreme leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) and his henchman Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) are tracking and pursuing a rapidly dwindling number of rebel fighters, led by Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), in what could be the rebellion's last stand.
First and foremost, there's a lot of good things to like in this film. For a genre that's often eschewed strong female roles, here is a film where women use light sabres to smash through the Sci-Fi glass ceiling. Rey is an enormously strong role-model for young girls: intelligent, plucky and resourceful as well as being athletic, emotional and gorgeous. In the words of Whitney Houston, she IS every woman. But the XX chromosomes don't stop there, with a new heroine in the form of the low-tech Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) breathing some fresh air into the younger-hero dynamic with Finn (John Boyega). And notably, the key leaders of the rebel alliance - Leia and newcomer Vice Admimal Holdo (Jurassic Park's Laura Dern) are, as older women, both strong and unquestioned leaders of men.
All the acting is above par, with Hamill in particular having enormous fun with his role and Serkis as Snoke oozing evil even through his Mo-Cap CGI. There are some very funny one-liners and sight gags that enliven the action significantly without (I felt) ever going over the top into "Kingsman" territory: a brush of dirt off the shoulder by Hamill is a high-point to watch out for. Benicio del Toro ("Sicario") is also great value as a mercenary "darker Han Solo" character.
And acting is required, for there is some significant dramatic content delivered through the story. The conflict and animosity between the connected Rey and Ren - a sort of telepathic Facetime - has to be worked through and, with Carrie Fisher's untimely death, you could probably predict that there will be at least one high-profile exit from this episode.
Technically, the film excels. John Williams again delivers a rousing score, and at times has so many themes to play with from the eight main films that he hardly knows what to do with them all in the bars available! The film also delivers (from special effects coordinators Chris Corbould and Branko Repalust) some eye-widening CGI, especially for scenes set on "bloody salt flats" (there's no other way to describe them) being particularly impressive. There are moments of sheer cinematic joy, with a dramatic and devestating jump to light speed being visually and aurally one of the most gasp-inducing bits of cinema I will see this year.
Rather disappointingly though there seems to be little novelty shown in the edited department. Star Wars was always known for its clever scene transitions, but here we jump from location to location in a notably choppy and clunky manner.
Where the wheels come off though is with the story, also by Rian Johnson. More on this is in a spoiler section on my review site (since it's difficult to make spoiler-free comments), but enough to say at this point that the film is (unnecessarily) over-long, has a very inconsistent pace, and (with retrospect) some key aspects of the story just don't logically stand up to scrutiny.
So, did I enjoy this film? Yes I did. But did it fully meet my (high) expectations? No it didn't. And curiously, the more I have dwelt on the plot, the less satisfied I have become with it. Whereas I left the theatre with an 8* rating in mind, with reflection this has dropped (and might drop further)
(For the full graphical review - including a spoiler section discussion - please visit bob-the-moie-man.com)..
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New characters are wasted (and old ones for that matter) with no backstory or character development. Forced Disney-fied and MCU humour in parts. Leia poppins scene was beyond awful and a throw back to Marvel and Disney's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' movies. Visual effects were poor in parts and space battles didn't really look like something from SW visually. Looked like a MCU movie. Despite going back to practical effects in the last movie, this one goes back to over reliance on CGI despite the prequels being criticised for this reason - hypocrites much? Cringe slow mo scene at the end - again, not something you would see in a SW movie. Rian Johnson has taken no risks, there are no twists as you might expect from the marketing and any Snoke or Rey's parentage theorists will be bitterly disappointed. This film is full of cringe worthy sexual innuendos, Finn calls a character a 'bastard' in one scene (really, was this necessary) and with the new pointless character Rose, this movie is nothing more than a desperate politically correct cash grab by Disney in an attempt to appeal to the masses with lead characters from different ethnicities and backgrounds. With Rian directing yet another unnecessary SW trilogy, god help us all, SW will never be the same again...and not in a good way. It is time for SW to end.
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I had huge expectations for thus movie, and believed in the director's skills... What a disappointment, story wise I thought I was tripping during the screening. The movie is forcing comedy in anoverwhelming way. No questions from the previous movie get answered, and not for the sake of the suspense. The cast chemistry seems a bit off and some sequences are plain ridiculous.
No movie can be perfect, and visually everything looked great as expected, but wtf it's going on here?!
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The movie rather rates at a 8/10, but since so many people are giving it a 1/10, because it didn't fulfill their childish headcanon. I'll just counter this.
Anyways: my biggest issue with the movie is the overabundance of jokes in the first half. Every halfway serious scene gets interrupted by a joke. The second half is probably something of the best I've seen in Star Wars. Amazing twists, amazing visuals, amazing battles.
If you go watch this movie, without expecting your dumb fan theory to be true, you will have a lot of fun. Because this will not go the way you think.
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I'm a fan of the Star Wars movies since I was a little child. Didn't have the opportunity to watch any of them at the theatre, and now I wish I had't gone to the premier now. I just agree with everyone who is dissapointed here. At the end of the movie, I was shocked. Stayed sitting there inside the theatre, staring at the credits and trying to believe that was really happening. So sad
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After watching this abomination, i think i can say that Rian Johnson hates JJ Abrams. The hype that was built around JJ Abram's "mysteries box" and the trailer's theme "pick your side" are based on a lie because of this abomination called the last jedi. All of the hype surrounding the new characters, captain phasma, del toro's character is pointless
they said that the last jedi is very imaginative and you will see a lot of different things on this universe, but the reality is the opposite. The last jedi is the most uninspiring and unimaginative star wars i have ever seen.
without further ado these are my pros and cons
pros
new star wars
superb soundtrack
luke skywalker
Cons
Snoke's 2 years hype is emptiness
Rey's 2 years hype is emptiness
finn and co has zero character development
luke skywalker
the twist is there is no twist
the main story is about running away from the first order that makes me felt isolated
casino story arc is useless
there is no lightsaber duel
yoda is a thor
leia is a superman
the beginning scene should be the final scene
there is no space adventure
the humor are cheesy
phasma is a waste
Snoke death scene is laughable
there is no knights of ren ( i think rian johnson forgot about this fella)
it is not like watching a star wars movie
unimaginative, uninspiring, boring as hell
there is no climax on this movie
Rian Johnson is developing the new trilogy
5/10
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I went to see this yesterday, initial thoughts were I was not sure if I liked it or not. After thinking about it and sleeping on it, I have come to the conclusion that Disney has yes ruined the franchise.
I am not going to give away anything here and I would say it is worth a watch if you are "open" to the story going in a weird direction which I found ended up being completely unnecessary. Considering the actual "story line" .. well its a rehashed version of the ESB and the ROTJ in one film and its not been done well I may add, feels like the writers had Disney sat behind them telling them to rewrite anything that felt too Star Warsy....
One of the main reasons I wanted to watch this film was to see some character development and some plot definition as there were gaping holes left in the "force awakens"... there was None, Zip nothing at all to add from this film. If anything and without giving anything away it produces more questions that it answers, not only that, the questions it produces are stupid... like there are multiple times where you think "when has that ever happened ever in the star wars universe" - you will know when you see them.
You can see the direction Disney are going with the franchise and its not good... not in the slightest... in fact Disney actually goes out of its way and tries damn hard to destroy everything you have loved about the franchise, they have done a great Job doing that. I suppose they want to kill the story to allow them to do what they want with it.. If you are a 70/80's kid this film is not for you.
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I had been looking forward to this so much, and the early reviews got me thinking this as going to be the best yet...how very wrong they were. I won't go into too much detail as looks like a lot of reviews have covered off how I feel about it pretty well.
For me the story was awful, there was so much opportunity to run with some of the character arcs from TFA but the big reveals were such a let down.
Snoke? Supposedly can read Kylo Ren's mind yet couldn't see that lightsaber stabbing him in the side. What's his history? Where did he come from? How did he and KR meet? Not important apparently.
Rey? She's nothing special. There was so much potential here to have her parents be something important to the story, but apparently that wasn't worth developing either.
Leia? Sure she must have some force given she's a Skywalker, but it's not something that's ever been addressed before so surviving a blast into space, not so sure about that.
Finn? Should have stayed in a coma in this one - that would've removed a good half hour of the movie. His scenes were pointless and added nothing to the story.
Highlights for me - Chewbacca, nailed all his scenes but was heavily underused. Yoda - I enjoyed him being in it, if a little cheesy. Luke - I liked his final scenes on Crait.
I really hope the Han Solo story is more Rogue One and less TLJ, however I'm not currently looking forward to the final episode :(
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5/10
Such great potential, ultimately a bitter disappointment
This review is in two parts. A shortened version for those without time to read and a longer more in depth version afterwards.
The Good
Absolutely terrific performance by Mark Hamill
Excellent visual effects
Better performance from Daisy Ridley
Likeable new character Rose Tico
The Bad
Subplots that made no difference to direction of the film
Under-development of several characters
Overuse of Porgs
Forced Humour
The Ugly
Complete destruction of everything Luke Skywalker has done or achieved
Waste of true potential with the death of Snoke
Narrative inconsistencies from previous Star Wars Films
Now the TL:DR version
I feel really let down by this instalment. I am someone who thoroughly enjoyed TFA and enjoyed Rogue One. The choices made for certain characters in this film however made very little sense. They were diabolical. What i will explain now is the really Ugly parts of this film.
Its well established that Darth Vader was immensely powerful through previous films. Luke Skywalker however was the chosen one, The one to bring balance to the force. Not only did he beat Vader in combat, he saw the light in Vader and helped turned him back into the light. Fast forward a few decades and Luke is easily bested by a young Ben Solo. A Ben Solo that is beyond redemption, too far gone to be saved. Leading Luke to contemplate the most despicable of acts, something unimaginable, something that makes no sense. Why Ben Solo was so far gone, i guess we will have to see. What was it about the Dark side that pulled him? What was the allure? We know Anakin was pulled in through fear, fear of losing Padme. He was manipulated by Palpatine. We know very little about the Kylo Ren/Palpatine relationship even though we are two films into a trilogy.
This is a Ben Solo that others can sense conflict in. By his own admission, even Snoke can sense this conflict. Yet Luke cant. And what becomes of this man, who is beyond redemption too far gone that he killed his own father. Someone who isnt able to kill his mother (one maybe can understand this) or Rey. The latter makes very little sense at all. Narratively speaking, Kylo Ren should have no concerns about killing Rey. Yet this being a Disney film that was never going to happen. She should never have been led to this point by the writers who seem to make things up as they go along.
Speaking about making things up as they go along, how Rey ever got to be so powerful is ludicrous. Anakin was trained by a Jedi Knight for many years. Luke was the chosen one, trained by Yoda, perhaps the greatest of all Jedi. So think about this for a moment. Luke beats Vader, however cant beat Ben Solo. Kylo then cant beat Rey (on two occasions). Where is the consisntency? I was willing to forgive the first battle between Rey and Kylo in TFA, after all Kylo was injured, hadnt completed his training and Rey was competent in self defense/weapons fighting. Now we hear that years prior, it didnt matter that his training was incomplete, he was already too powerful that he could beat Luke Skywalker but now cant beat Rey, someone who has zero training in the ways of the Force?
This is what happens when different when you allow someone to completely write and direct their own script, someone who wants to bring his own ideas on board, at the expense of everything that has already been established. TFA had consistency. Even the prequel trilogies had it too, while they werent great at least they were consistent.
Then comes the waste of potential with Snoke. Here we had what could have been a true villain, extremely powerful. His use of the force was something that brought a chill to my spine. For a moment i thought this could be set up for a duel too good for words. Luke and Rey versus Snoke and Kylo. Or perhaps even with Rey turning Kylo a three on one battle? Alas it wasnt to be, they decided to go down the dull, senseless route.
Lastly, believe it or not, this is the first Star Wars film in the main series without a lightsaber on lightsaber duel. A duel between a sith and a Jedi. Make of that what you will. Personally, its a massive missed opportunity. This film as mentioned did have some good aspects. While the route they went with Luke wasnt to my liking, Hamill was still nonetheless magnificent. Daisy Ridley put in a better performance than she did in TFA and showed good range. The space battles were enjoyable and the special effects were excellent. Finally although they did overuse Porgs, there was one scene with Chewie that was hilarious.
The Last Jedi will leave you confused, with conflicting emotions. Much like Kylo Ren. Just dont expect Luke to sense this or do anything about it.
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I have to say the move was well put together. Also......there was not the typical happy ending. The movie was solid, and was a emotional roller coaster.
OK......I have two complaints about the story. #1 I waited since Return of the Jedi, to see Luke totally use his master Jedi skills to crush and kick ass! This never happened.....at least not the at you think it would. #2 I would have liked to see Fynn use some of the force in this movie. They hinted at it in episode 7, so....what happened??
We all watched episodes 4-6, and seen Luke become a Jedi, but he only fought Vader. He became a master Jedi, but we missed all his battles and training over the years. What a let down in this story.
Rey and Leia both showed a lot of promise and skills, and I liked how they were portrayed.
Over all.......it was action packed, and fun to watch. It was dark at times.....well most of the time. Seemed hopeless mostly. Also the movie gave us fans a lot to ponder, at the hints that were dropped.
The movie was not written for me or the fans, and the directors vision was realized. I hope the fans will eventually get some much needed satisfaction from this series. I look forward to the next episode.
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7/10
WHO UP VOTES THIS MISERABLE MOVIE?! DISNEY BEATERS?
For me this horrible movie was the death of my beloved Saga. Cheesy jokes, selfconciousness of movie characters, illogical storytelling, poor script, wooden dialogues, and omnipresent cringe were unbearable. I'm so, so sad...
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This is by far the best Star Wars movie since the original except for the Empire Strikes Back. It is better even than the Empire, only not by far but still better. What is more, I never thought I would actually sincerely say this ever again, but the The Last Jedi is the best movie I saw this year. Not just the best sci-fi or the best action but the best motion picture! Thank you, Rian Johnson, from the bottom of my childhood!
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I can see that there are really nice user reviews which reflects my dissapointment so I won't write a long one. Besides the mediocre acting (I truly believe that actors and actresses were also aware how big a mess this movie is and they were not motivated), very very badly written script and cheesy dialogues. I want to mention how silly some of the scenes were.. Ok I know that this is a science fiction movie and strange things can happen but I was literally unable to focus to the movie for 20 mins after I see one of the the most ridiculous scenes in movie history which is Leia's stupid survival after a huge blast and space floating. On the other hand how can a bomber DROP BOMBS IN SPACE WHERE THERE IS NO GRAVITY??????
or another question is where are the damn shields of star destroyers???? First Order looks like a bunch of idiots who does not want to destroy rebels.
I can write bunch of stuff like the silly creatures, yoda's interaction with real world but the ones I've mentioned really made me think if this was a huge joke and I hoped that in some point they'll say " ok this is a joke and here is the real movie" ..
Another point which I don't want to end the review without mentioning is how did they waste the opportunity to use Luke Skywaler after so many years. They just spent one of the biggest heroes in movie history for nothing and we won't have any other chance to see him again..
Writing this kind of Star Wars Movie script should be a crime..
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If this film wasn't a part of the Star Wars series I would have walked out after 20 minutes. I endured the rest of the running time in the hope that at least one scene or moment would occur to give me a positive thing to say. It didn't happen. Much of the plot is pointless and nonsensical, as are several characters. The (constant) humour is slapstick, cheap and often at the expense of the whole series. The acting has become a mix of disney heroine and pantomime villain. The only moments in the film which could have had any impact were swiftly ruined and turn out to be cheap plot devices. Dire film making which actually detracts from Star Wars. I Dread to think where they take it from here if this is Disney's preferred direction.
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This film works on some levels -- there are great action sequences, new worlds and ships, as well as some pretty impressive performances (especially Adam Driver as Kylo Ren). However, the script is muddled and the treatment of classic characters is somewhat poor.
Pros:
Great opening shot + action sequence
The Luke/Rey scenes were pretty interesting
The Crait battle was visually stunning
In fact, the entire movie looked great
Kylo Ren is made into a compelling character
Yoda's reintroduction was surprising and welcome, though his destruction of the tree was rather mystifying
Cons:
Overlong and bloated. The middle section of this movie is genuinely boring. You can definitely feel the 2h30m runtime
The basic story itself was riddled with plotholes, like why didn't the First Order cut off the fleeing Resistance cruiser instead of tailing it?
Also, plot points went nowhere. That entire Finn/Rose arc was frankly boring, and finished at a dead end
Plot points raised in the Force Awakens are pretty much forgotten. Phasma is introduced for two seconds, and swiftly killed off. Snoke is set up to be more powerful than Vader and Palp combined, yet somehow can't see far enough into the future to see himself being killed
That space Leia scene was cringeworthy and nonsensical
Luke's force projection crap was just stupid, and his death was anticlimactic
Admiral Ackbar, a pretty classic character, is unceremoniously killed off and literally forgotten
Han's death casts absolutely no shadow on this film and barely anybody references it
Benecio del Toro's character was sort of interesting, but his betrayal was easy to see coming
The Canto Bight scenes were actually pretty cool and had potential, but of course that was squandered in favour of some vague, shoehorned message about corporate greed (pretty rich, coming from Disney)
The humour in this movie wasn't too bad, but it was at pretty inappropriate times, and ruined potentially powerful moments by throwing in a cheap one-liner.
Those are all I can really think of. To be honest, it was pretty enjoyable, but it was such a muddled story that it kind of detracted.
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5/10
Misjudged tone, didn't build on last movie, but some brilliant Rey / Kylo scenes
The tone of this movie was completely misjudged and was really jarring. It opened with a prank phone call of all thing, constant quips from every character, even the best scenes in the film (featuring Rey and Kylo) were undermined by 'funny' lines and visual gags (rock destroys wheelbarrow, Rey asks Kylo to put on a towel, Rey hit on the head with a lightsaber). The film also failed to build on anything set up in the force awakens - who is Snoke?, character development for Finn, what happened to the New Republic, etc. The plot surrounding Kylo, Rey, their 'force link' was really clever and original, and should have been explored further. Honestly, after they killed the guards, I'd have liked them to team up for a bit longer.
Overall, probably one of the worst 3 Star Wars films, on par with episode I or II. I'm really shocked that none of the professional reviewers are saying this, and it's current IMDb score of over 8 is scandalous.
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A dated franchise which they keep on selling past expiry date.
The Star Wars franchise is getting really boring. How many times would we rehash same plots and subplots. Rebel bases on white planets attacked by walkers. two sword bearing gentlemen squaring off in a throne room. Rebel fleet escaping a cordon. Smugglers and thieves being found in a casino or a bar. A reluctant teacher and pupil. Not a single new thing emerges from this movie worth remembering.
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This is going to be short because I want to forget about this whole experience;
Movie contains unnecessary plots, underdeveloped characters, hugh hefner robe wearing bad guy that we know nothing about, a teenager with anger management issues who wants to rule the galaxy, a grumpy old jedi drinks milk from some type of animal, a non jedi who can survive in space without any life support, an admiral who says nothing about her plans that can ease the mind of her soldiers, who became a kamikaze pilot, slow destroyers that cannot catch rebel ships, ET nuns... I can go on forever but as I said I want to forget about this movie.
I really like Rian Johnson, he is a gifted director but I believe that when Mickey Mouse says something, you have to obey. And the result is this shit. What a waste of time and money.
I will never ever see another star wars movie in theaters, this is a money trap.
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I am a near 30 year old man and after leaving the TLJ yesterday I felt so robbed that I cried. Full real tears. Anything of any value from Force Awakens was totally disregarded. Snoke the most powerful Sith from an ancient and unknown place ? forget that. Rey having a force bloodline and kept away from it all to protect the galaxy? Nah. Instead they decided to fit the Hollywood liberal narrative by including a totally unnecessary female sidekick for Finn, making Rey a nobody, give the princess mind bendingly strong forces powers with no detail on how she has developed these after ROTJ and turning the only real dominant male character Luke a total shell of his old self. I watched and watched thinking something would happen to make me change my mind but it never came. I've waited nearly my whole life to watch Luke become what he was supposed to be and I was robbed by a bunch of writers who clearly have no understanding about what this means to Star Wars fans.
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Pretty sure J.J destroyer of remakes knew what he was doing in force awakens and knew of ways to make this movie so bad no matter who ever directed the next 2 movies take the fall pretty sure after star wars is finished their acting career is out the window.Sad to see Luke get striped of his pride and glory.
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Since J.J. Abrams' THE FORCE AWAKENS, albeit criticized for being too lightweight and unoriginal, did introduce some endearing, worthwhile characters, Rian Johnson obviously knew he had to make the second new STAR WARS get right down to business and, although the first fifteen minutes halts more than flows, there's a point where things open up nicely...
Like EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (and obvious in the commercials), the grounded training of a new hopeful Jedi combines with space-set action and adventure, only here the proverbial astroid belt is... well: Since this writeup is spoiler-free, details are left for the viewer and the viewer alone...
Let's just say the problem with THE LAST JEDI, other than trying too hard for quick-wit humor (another film suffering from Tony Starkasm), is also what makes you exit the theater with a smile. The third act is such a fulfilling visual treat, combining yesteryear's daring-do heroics with pre MATRIX era slow-mo-included combative fights, you'll soon forget (or not want to think about) the many scenes that wind up unrealized...
So much happens at once, batted about from a handful of characters, that writer/director Rian Johnson never stays in one place/perspective long enough for that to really matter: What works here, for an audience, often robs from the characters. Like running towards an obstacle and then, the next moment, winding up on the other side - it's the middle-ground that keeps being denied: Though neatly replaced by enough cool twists and turns to make THE LAST JEDI walk... no, run... a fine line between pretty good and really good.
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After watching the trailer for this movie about a month ago, I had an inclination this might be bad. However following the amazing reviews on 'Imdb' I thought I'd give this movie a chance. I went to the cinema skipping like a 6 year old with excitement.... walking out however, I found myself trying to make excuses as to why it could be good, and 10 mins later when I got home I couldn't sleep for how terrible this movie really is.
Its worth saying that I'm a big fan of the original original trilogy. Original original because it was unspoiled later on, by pointless CGI. That aside I was eager to have some questions answered following The Force Awakens, being that a majority of critic reviews had mentioned that most questions are answered in this movie.... No, no they're not! It was if the director couldn't be bothered to develop characters any further. Luke for instance, it really is his fault that Kylo Ren turned to the darkside because he acted completely against his character and the Jedi order. Snoke? "oh lets just quickly kill him off" he clearly cannot read Rens thoughts like he said which was why he met him demise (was his saying otherwise a joke?). Who are the Imperial Guards protecting now that Snoke is dead during a fight scene??? Rey, you are literally from no one important. Yep thats it. I actually thought that that was a joke too and had to ask the wife who Reys lineage really was in case I zone out. And I zoned out an awful lot during this movie. Not just from being confused by terrible editing points and the really really reeeealy bad humour, but because of the pace. This movie was pretty slow. Probably because of the plot, a very slow rebel transport ship moving slowly trough the galaxy, and a side mission for Finn and Rose (a new character who i wanted dead after about 2 mins of screen time) which was completely pointless. I'm wondering how they will bring the final instalment to life because of Leias character surviving this movie. I'm guessing more CGI versions of Leias are due with quick kill offs. What has happened to imaginitive story telling.
There was one saving grace however... I was hoping that they would throw in an easter egg to the originals and bring back the concept of the Jedi apparitions and they did! And kudos to them, they did it well!
To summarise. I was disappointed with this film, particularly from the point of view of an avid fan of the Originals. This might be a great film for some... for fans of Episodes 1,2 and 3 perhaps. It was slow, humorless, characterless and frankly pointless. This weekend i will be mostly drinking, crying and watching IV V VI.
PS. I thought Leia was from Alderaan? Shes clearly from Krypton!
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1/10
This movie is like going to a Metallica concert but instead you get Justin Bieber
I've never walked out of a movie theater after watching a SW film and felt as empty and depressed and sad as I do right now. I am absolutely gutted. I just cannot believe what garbage I've just watched. Two years for...this? Just be warned fellow fans, this one is going to hurt. George and his prequel trilogy are looking pretty fantastic right about now.
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It was the most shallow pathetic waste of a movie I've ever seen. It had every tool to be a good movie. Good actors and a good set up. The technology advances for star wars tech was great. Great new destroyers walkers everything. Somehow it had absolutely no story line, none, and it tried to end the series on episode 8. I cant even fully explain the gigantic heap of garbage i just witnessed. Burn in hell disney.
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The other reviews on this page really do seem dramatic, with such low ratings and claims like "Disney ruined my childhood" and whatnot. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it seems many reviewers are focusing only on the bad of the movie. So in this brief review, I will discuss in detail a few elements I liked and some that I didn't.
What I liked:
The direction in this film is wonderful. Ryan Johnson does absolutely everything that he can to make the script come to life, and I feel that he really utilizes his resources well. Every shot feels important and vibrant. While the rest of the Star Wars movies are primarily story based with generic direction, this was the first in the series that had a beautiful cinematic aspect to it. Colorful images and beautiful landscapes kept my eyes entertained and took me back to the wonder that I first experienced when watching Star Wars in my childhood.
Rey is wonderful in this film. Daisy Ridley is the most beautiful woman on the planet, I'm convinced, and MAN can she act! In this installment, we see a lot more of her struggle with the dark side of the force and her character flaw is put into full light; she is naive. Ridley pulls off this character, who is barely learning that everything she thought she knew needs to be questioned, and it's absolutely enthralling to watch. For those who felt she was a "Mary-Sue" after TFA, Disney heard your criticisms. There were points where it genuinely felt like she would give in to the temptation to join the dark side, and you could really feel the confusion along with her. The narrative of Rey is by far the best thing about this film.
Aside from that, as always, the saga continues to handle death perfectly. Each death of major characters throughout the series has been hard hitting, and the deaths of Luke Skywalker and Supreme Leader Snoke absolutely lived up to the standard. Very intense and emotional deaths, respectively.
There are some weird things in this installment, and some of those things really work. For instance, the use of flashbacks is not cheesy or gimmicky at all, which is what I expected when I heard this device would be used. Rather, they are packed with intensity, and it's actually a great storytelling device that's used properly here.
Ultimately, we see characters rise into who they really are. Luke finishes his life a good guy, like he's always been (though he lost himself). Rey ultimately chooses the light side, showing her true colors. Kylo Ren shapes into the full evil that he is, proving that he cannot be turned anymore. Finn overcomes his cowardice. And so on. There is very little wrong with the character development or their portrayals.
What I didn't like:
Like I said earlier, there was some weird crap in this movie, and while some of it really worked, most of it didn't. The scene where Leia uses the force to make her way back onto the ship, specifically, is absolutely ridiculous. Cheesy in every sense of the word.
Yoda's appearance was another weird element. Although I'd always had questions about the ghosts, I guess I wasn't prepared to have them answered and I really didn't like how they were. Especially because the actual appearance wasn't super... good. I mean, Yoda says some stuff that I really can't remember, burns down a tree, and doesn't really do much else. It felt like some fan service thrown in at the last minute.
Everything about Snoke (except his death) was weird. Man was it weird. He shows up for maybe 5 minutes of screen time, tries to convince Rey to join the dark side, then dies. It's not even like he's convincing, either. He just comes off as arrogant, and obviously Kylo is more of a factor in Rey's potential conversion. Nothing about him is explained; how did he entice Ben to join the dark side? Where is he from? How did he rise to power? It's like Disney said "Screw it, let's just kill him."
The musical direction in this installment, too, was terrible. The score itself is fine, but it's so underused! In every other chapter, the music conveys serious emotion and has always been one of my favorite elements. Here, not so much. I'm thinking specifically of the scene where Luke dies. Why was there no memorable music? It was painful to see how generic the score was, especially as it is generally one of the strongest elements in the films.
Finally, my last gripe, and the biggest one for sure. The merchandising is a disease. You have all these new "cute" creatures, which all look like dogs (or porgs), who are only there for the purpose of selling toys to kids. But Disney forgot to make these creatures enjoyable. The porgs are annoying, and all of the other animals are just cringe worthy. I didn't ever mind the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, but I felt like Disney was holding a knife to my throat and forcing me to buy all of their dumb little toys. It was painful to see the franchise sell out again, after so many years of doing well.
The verdict:
There's a lot of good in this movie. The relationships between the characters, the new uses of devices for storytelling, and the development of the overall plot. It really does inspire hope, despite all the defeat, and it makes us feel that everyone in the resistance is part of something bigger. But it's ultimately much flatter than The Force Awakens, and the lack of any sort of score makes it a rather forgettable installment. The weird and risky scenes mostly fall flat, despite the lovely visuals. Enjoyable if you don't expect perfection.
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Watching this, you'd think George Lucus had come back to haunt the series.
Too many silly jokes
Far too many alien creatures for no reason other than adding funny alien creatures (and the toy tie ins)
All too often you feel like you're going to get going, then some silly moment or pointless alien pops up.
If this was edited, then maybe it could be taken more seriously.
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It's over. After a rehash of a good movie, the next installment does what few imagined. It crippled the franchise by remaking it into something new: something filled with pokemons and red power rangers.
Long are the days of a story compelling and deep. Nobody cares anymore about reason, or character development. Today characters just exist, without a plot, an origin story or a reason WHY they do what they do.
It is a troll generation. And they expect a troll movie. Who cares if every single plot element is a red herring, there to troll the fans? Who cares who Snoke is, why the First order exists in the first place, why ANYTHING.
Instead you get a vegan Chewbaka and lot's of pokemons, and lines like "throw something on you" and "get out of your cock-pit".
We will hear Anakin say "I hate sand" and "I'll try spinning" and miss the days of George Lucas.
And that is a fact. The Star Wars saga, is over. Long live the pointless new generation of nothingness.
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This was the WORST Star Wars movie i had the misfortune of watching.
Marvel cheap humour that made me sick to my stomach CHECK
The utter destruction of Luke as a character that goes from a hopeful boy that wont stop believing in the good inside his father to a joke happy maniac that tried to murder his nephew in his sleep and gave up on everything. CHECK
Plotlines going nowhere and having no relevance what so ever. CHECK
The writing in this film what the hell. Rey who trained FOR LIKE 16 HOURS is able to best Snokes elite guards, lift LIKE 100 TONS OF ROCK a feat no Jedi or Sith has done with the power of ? being female i guess.
Leia flying through space? What the FUCK was that even? I thought someone was playing a cruel joke on me.
The Force had absolutely no laws in this film whatsoever. Its now pretty much whatever helps the writers write "cool" moment.
The world of Star Wars that Lucas so geniously built and explored is nowhere to be found. The magic of an entire galaxy that was there in the OT & PT no longer exists. Alien species seem to have vanished entirely. Its basically Rebels vs First order. Both of those sides consist of 0.0000000001% of the total population of the galaxy's inhabitants. Where is everyone else? Where are the alien races? Are humans the only humanoids left alive?
I dont know about any of you but im going to watch the OT, PT and The Clone Wars series to get that Disney dick taste out of my mouth
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1/10
Disappointed at a whole new level... (no spoilers)
I will keep it short...
The Force Awakens = Copy and past, but nice visuals
The Last Jedi = Very, very bad writing... useless script, but again, nice visuals... disappointing movie, I regret going.
-10/10 if you ask me
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Having been a hardcore Star Wars fan for over 35 years and wondering what the heck went on with TFW, l was actually thinking the 2nd in this saga would live up to the hype but boy was l wrong. WRONG
Its like Disney just doesn't give a damn. All the novels , comics and all the depth over the years. Countless back stories that are simply amazing and they come out with this, and totally ignore everything. Its just stupid.
The acting is wooden, story line sucked. I don't like any of the characters. Chewy doesn't even get a min. Daisy Ridley's acting is so bad, sooo bad. And the editing is even worse. It doesn't flow at all. At the start of the movie l thought l was watching a comedy. The New Order are supposed to be a force to be reckon with. Instead they are total goofs. Who is Snake? Who are the Knights of Ren? Countless Plot holes. And Ray Parents??? Just stupid and brainless.
I could go on forever. But yes as sad as it is, Star Wars is dead.
Goodbye and Thanks Disney :(
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I have been a Star Wars fan form day one and I can say that this was possibly one if not the worst of the franchise.
What the hell happened???? Absolutely ruined by Disney! Awful plot, forced comedy and I felt sorry for Mark Hamill and the rest of the cast.
Thank you Disney for completely destroying the Star Wars legacy and the Force is definitely NOT WITH YOU!!!!
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1/10
Thought it couldn't be worse than The Force Awakens, boy was i wrong
The release of a Star Wars film is something of a cultural event that enraptures audiences the world over. No other film series has been analyzed, praised, hated, adored, reviewed, or examined to the degree that Star Wars has seen. I am of the mindset that Star Wars deserves neither the blind praise nor bitter resentment that many harbor towards it. It is, primarily, a film series - and deserves analysis as such.
Now, we are presented with "The Last Jedi", today's subject of review. (I will assume the reader has a general understanding of the plot from previous films from here on). The film picks up immediately after the events of Episode VII: Rey has found Luke Skywalker and must recruit him to teach her in the Jedi arts. Meanwhile, the Resistance (led by Princess Leia) is on the run from the First Order after having been decimated in the previous film. Will Luke agree to teach Rey the ways of the Force? Will the First Order destroy the Resistance once and for all? The answers are not as clear as one may think.
This brings up my first major praise for the film: the dozens of well-executed ideas. "The Last Jedi" is the most conceptually experimental Star Wars film we have seen in decades. Insights are raised into the nature of the Force. Characters struggle with their pasts, while fighting towards their futures. Starfighters zip through the air in brilliant vehicle-combat sequences. I lost track of the number of times I thought to myself, "Wow, what a cool idea!" throughout the film. These ideas make a 40-year-old intellectual property feel fresh and new, while remaining reverent and grounded.
However, the film truly shines in its' writing and characters. A frequent problem throughout Star Wars (or, at least in Episodes I-III) lies in the flimsy, boring characterizations and bad dialogue. The stakes in these films are meaningless because the characters are meaningless. In "The Last Jedi", the script kept me on the edge of my seat because the characters meant something to me. I felt for every single character; I sweat when they sweat, and cried when they cried. I related to Luke's reluctance to train Rey, and Poe's coming-to-terms with failure.
Without good writing and characters, this film would've been a standard popcorn flick. However, the characters fuel the heart and soul of the film while driving forward the action at a consistent pace. When coupled with the bevy of new ideas on display, I can safely say that the "The Last Jedi" is exactly what the Star Wars franchise needed. It's safe to say the the franchise is in good hands with Disney. They've taken the most beloved sci-fi property of all time and crafted three thrilling, memorable films for moviegoers young and old. Don't miss this one - it's the most fresh and alive Star Wars has felt since 1980.
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I loved the very first Star Wars movie when it first came out but the subsequent films have never appealed to me. This latest one is just full of ham acting, too many old movie clichés and guilty of dragging out a story that could have been done and dusted years ago with more vigor. The grandma and her grandson sitting next to me loved it, so I propose that you have to be in a similar mind-set to them to enjoy this franchise. It was a bore of a film that never delivered a punch. If you're into Star Wars fine, if you want to take your full and extended family out, bearing in mind the cost of the cinema, there are better ways of spending your money - fine. For me the it was a waste of money and time.
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I was born in the 70's and grew up with the star wars folklore. even though i didnt really like force awakens as much as the other films in the franchise, i ended up watching it four times as it was star wars movie released after a long gap.
now this, the last jedi. i am so upset i want say how i feel.so many characters thrown in to earn some brownie points with the audiences.
star wars fans should watch this atleast once. you see once a fan of star wars always a fan and dud of a film wont turn us away.
i am hoping ron howard project wont disappoint as much as the last jedi did.
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As many others have pointed out before me, the movie has great visuals, sound design, soundtrack and acting. But when contrasted with the OT and PT, that is, Lucas' Star Wars, it feels like a fan-made movie paid by Disney with guest stars making an appearance from the original movies. It is only a Star Wars movie because it has Star Wars title in it. If this were a some new space opera movie without the title, it would be forgotten as quickly as it opened.
However, TLJ will never be forgotten, since they turned Luke Skywalker's character into a weak and a hopeless master Jedi, you know, that young man who never gave up on his father, and always believed that there was goodness in him until the very last minute. But here we are, witness a Luke Skywalker who is so broken that he goes as far as to entertain the idea of killing a young family member in his sleep, who seems to have been still undecided between the Dark and the Light side of the Force. So, this was what the early reviewers meant by "TLJ is a bold" movie. I am sorry, but this is not boldness, this is dismantling what the OT had established as canon. I am glad Mark Hamill thinks as I do regarding his character, as his views can be seen from his interview with the Guardian on December 14, 2017.
Do I need to talk about how horrible and frequent the jokes were throughout the movie? There were indeed some good ones, such as Chewie's reaction while eating and the scenes with BB-8 in it. I wish this was it. The look Ren gave after ordering to fire to Hux because the latter repeated the same order, Luke's throwing of his lightsaber - one scene that may lead you to think you were watching bloopers -, Poe's word play with Hux's name at the very beginning of the movie... If these jokes were put into the movie with the intention of removing gravitas from seemingly important scenes, that they absolutely worked.
I do not even need to mention Snoke. Apparently, he was just a prop like a Christmas tree, but removed from the scene before even shooting the Christmas scene.
Even a single death of an important Resistance character could have made me excited for the next movie, such as Finn's when he attacked the battering ram, but I guess saving him for another another "exciting" fetch quest for the next movie outweighed a hero's death. All we got Ackbar's death, maybe the most important admiral in the whole New Republic/Resistance, but all he got was an off-screen death and the mere mention of his name, as if he were an extra character. I am strongly of the opinion that instead of Jurassic Park lady, it should have been Ackbar who sacrificed himself for the sake of Resistance and for the sanity of the audience who were witnessing one of the most awkward and boring chases in the history of cinema. Now that scene could have used some Benny Hill music to make it more interesting.
All in all, TLJ is the most anticlimactic movie of all time. There is absolutely nothing happens except burying well established characters of previous movies to open the way for new user friendly future Disney characters. The "trilogy", it seems, could just have been wrapped up by adding 15 extra minutes with a final showdown Rey and Ren, because apparently Rey needs no training or no understanding of the force whatsoever to overcome her adversaries.
I heard the name Sequal Trilogy is used for this new trilogy, but I believe Disney Trilogy would suit perfectly as that Star Wars atmosphere we used to know is no longer there. Make no mistake, I love my lightsaber fights - which this movie lacks, by the way - the beautiful sound of Tie Fighters and the vast universe of Lucas, but I am well aware that the generation grew up with OT or even PT, are not the target audience anymore for Disney. I am totally happy and excited for the young generation who are lucky enough to see a Star Wars scrolling text at theaters, but this could very well have been achieved by Disney without executing an Order 66 on older characters. But I fear many SW movies without soul such as this one will be kept produced as long as Disney makes a profit, which I am sure they will owing to the nice packaging.
I give 5* because of my respect to the cast's performance. Disney, the writer and the director get absolutely nothing.
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I have watched all Star Wars Movies since the beginning. But this is by far the worst. It shows how much this story is over. Bad acting, boring dialogues, the most ugly female actors I have ever seen on the Screen. It was hard to keep they eyes open. Please get good script writers and new ideas before you ruin another Movie Christmas with this trash. That has nothing to do with what George Lucas once created. This is simply a C Movie.
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4/10
Better than Phantom Menace... But where does that put the bar really?
You would from my other reviews imagine me being a person that completely and totally hates Disney, but the matter of the fact is that I am just completely and utterly disappointed in them.
God damn it Disney, God damn you, you just had to have your greedy fingers in every single pie you can, didn't you?
Star wars: The last Jedi is a disgrace to everything Star Wars ever was, it is a disgrace to every fan of the series, it is a disgrace to every member of the original trilogy and it is a damn sad case of Disneyfying a movie franchise to the point of no return.
I don't know which is worse?
That they set the up the last movie perfectly to deliver everything right or the piss they took on the people by compromising every Star Wars film released before this one or after this one?
The last jedi created so many plot holes that it is just baffling, it missed so many easy hits that I would recommend a doctor time for a checkup of its eyes.
The story was played so safe it was unbelievable.
They are still churning that fan service cow and don't seem to want to leave the poor thing be, and you thought Jar Jar binks was obnoxious and annoying? Wait till you get a load of what Disney had in mind for the poor Chewie.
I honestly do not recommend you paying movie ticket money for this film or anything Disney related ever again. Wanna watch them? RENT THEM.
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As a massive Star Wars fan, I honestly went into this movie preparing to be amazed, touched and fulfilled with all the questions left dangling from Episode VII. Well, I certainly wasn't fulfilled, all that touched or amazed surprisingly. There were some moments in the film where all three aspects were nailed in with a sledge hammer, but for the most part, and I can't beleive I'm really saying this, A LOT of those same nails were left discarded. I'll dwell on all that later, but for right now, I'll focus on the positives of the film. I enjoyed the action sequences, Luke and Rey's segments were compelling and funny, the Casino on the fictional Canto Bight planet featured some impressive visuals and anamtronics, the same can be said for the majority of the movie, it looks and feels awesome! What else... scenes between old characters like Luke, R2, 3-PO and Leia were nice and the nods to the original and prequel trilogy gave me a warm feeling inside, kind of weird to put it that way but, that's what it did... The new cast did a terrific job just as they had in the Force Awakens, except General Hux and Captain Phasma. Hux is far too comedic this time 'round and Phasma is just as useless as ever. That's all I really have to commend the film on, and the inclusion of a blue and green Lightsaber clashing. Seeing it for the first time was interesting and unique. Now on to the negatives, and boy are there a lot! Lets start off with the last positive I pointed out; Lightsabers. In 'The Last Jedi' they look really strange, borderline out of place, and to be honest, don't fit in at ALL with what we're used to seeing them look like from the past movies. I don't know what it is, but you'll know when you see some of the shots with them in close-up. Now onto the Lightsaber duel of the film, which is a complete and utter joke! There IS none pretty much. It's built up as this huge confrontation between Luke and Kylo Ren but they only clash swords like three times and just stare and occasionally yell at each other for the rest of time. That's the purpose of a duel, to flesh out a greater conflict not just action, but here, it just really falls short and leaves you underwhelmed. Luke dies in the film, I won't reveal how because it doesn't matter, but for Mark Hamill's last Star Wars movie ever, they could have done a lot more to make it satisfying. Rey is revealed to be no one apparently, and her parents were just junkers on Jakku who left her which is quite possibly the stupidest, underwhelming and most annoying part of the film. She's shown to have huge Force potential in the Force Awakens, the Lightsaber of Anakin and Luke Skywalker also call to her throughout, and she has a haunting vision of terrible things which have occurred throughout the Skywalker lineage in the same 2015 movie. Not to mention she has this weird Force connection thing with Kylo Ren, which SHOULD CLEARLY mean she's related to him somehow; by cousin blood. Being the daughter of Luke was so obvious, and I still hope, pray and beleive that'll be finally revealed in Episode IX. Kylo Ren hopefully lied to her about her parents being junkers just so she could help him destroy Luke I think, and it is meant to mirror how Obi Wan lied to Luke about Vader slaying Anakin, when in fact, Vader WAS Anakin. If none of this unfolds, the sequel trilogy will have proved to me ONE of the ONLY reasons it existed was to give us new heroes, and as much as I love REY and Daisy Ridley her actress, making those new heroes women to empower a misguided sense of inequality in the industry. The continuity between The Force Awakens and this film is very weak and almost stupid in some regards. There are a lot of plot points from the predecessor seemingly forgotten about here. The Knights Of Ren are nowhere to be found, Luke throws away his fathers Lightsaber after clearly shedding a tear upon seeing it in The Force Awakens and Rey turns out to be no one apparently. Only after mirroring Luke's story so beautifully in the prior instalment. She even forces the Skywalker Lightsaber out of the snow to herself! Same as Luke did! Anyway, Yoda, my favourite character of the entire SAGA appears and this one, and when I saw his shadow I almost died of hype! Then, you see his actual puppet ghost... and he looks absolutely awful. I thought he looked bad in The Phantom Menace, but here, he honestly resembles a physical JOKE, and took me right out of the moment seeing him again after all these years. Why not get the CGI model from Revenge Of The Sith, he looked great there! It took away from the scene entirely and I felt irrit tted as hell not being able to savour the moment as I should have. Snoke is awesome, and every scene he's in is equally awesome, as he's shown to have great strength with the Force. He is killed by Kylo Ren though, fair enough and unexpectedly, but when you watch the film, you'll be asking yourself how on Earth he could not sense it was coming. What follows is an admittedly explosive Lightsaber fight between Rey, Kylo and Snoke's guardsmen. I still stress, this is not a Lightsaber duel! Carrie Fisher gives a satisfying send off performance as Princess Leia, and it's truly great to see her and Mark Hamill interact onscreen again. However, there's one really dumb scene I could not get my head around which featured Leia. No disrespect intended whatsoever, but it really bothered me. Long story short, there's a scene where the bridge she is commanding inside a Rebel Ship gets blown up in outer space, and her lifeless body floats out there. Miraculously, she reawakens there, somehow surviving the enormous blast without a scratch, and uses the Force to float back to another Rebel Cruiser. The whole sequence looks visually stupid and unrealistic, a woman floating in space amidst a literal star war. The music tries to make it an epic, sweeping scene but it just falls short and comes off as forced attempt to make her seem more powerful than ever. She survives, and you try to wrap your head around what you've just witnessed. Bizzare is the best word I can choose to describe it. The Porgs are admittedly cute and aren't annoying in the slightest. A fair amount of the overly stuffed humour falls short in a few places and the character of Rose I find to be an unneeded part of the story. Her arc with Finn is okay but doesn't really expand on anything central in the film, I found myself just wanting to return to scenes which featured Rey Luke or Kylo. She literally ruins Finn's epic sacrifice because she loves him, apparently, after no prior chemistry shown onscreen. Again, not against her inclusion but was honestly an unnecessary addition to the film, same with Benicio Del Toro's character, I love the actor but his role in the overall plot could've been scrapped! That aside, the 2 hour and 30 minute runtime didn't bother me, as a Star Wars fan I'd stick around for a further 4 hours and thirty minutes to be honest. Overall, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is a temporary, flawed, sometimes messy and albeit underwhelming middle chapter of the sequel trilogy, though still has more than enough great aspects for me to want to return to a galaxy far, far away in 2019. Again, not what I was hyping it up to be, but in check with what I thought it still could be. It's not as refined as The Force Awakens, and features numerous things I have serious problems with, yet still had the balls to go somewhere different and try something kind of new. I'll definitely have to watch it again to get a better understanding and appreciation for it. Who knows, maybe it could become better with multiple viewings. I think that it's AWESOME Disney can allow a director to have free creative control over a project, but it doesn't mean other members of cast and crew or even George Lucas himself can challenge some of Rian Johnson's questionable ideas... Because in some aspects, he really did #*&! up! Oh and by the way what on Earth was that ending?! With the kid staring up into the sky... you'll know it when you see it. Really did tick me off... as if a clock slapped me.
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The movie was good but I agree that there was some unnecessary scenes in the movie. There was some scenes in this movie that were the best I've ever seen in a Star Wars movie. The director and art directors did a superb job bringing the movie to life.
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How dare they. How f***ing dare they. To say that I am a Star Wars fan would be an understatement. To say that I wanted only too see the good in this movie is an understatement. For months I dreamt about my "Luke I am your father" moment. For the first time in my Star Wars generation, there was going to be a family reveal that fans had to wait years for. So much hype and build up to finally be satisfied by a glorious moment that would defines the series for a generation. When I first thought my moment had come, my heart was beating out my chest as I held my breath. Here it was, my mind was almost to excited to understand the moment. Nope, blue balls, another cheap escape after an insane crescendo. Alright, this reveal must be amazing for it to be built this high. So, I wait and I wait. And then it finally came. Perhaps one of the shallowest scape goat scenes in the Star Wars franchise finally ends with the reveal that could save it all. A moment to span generations. And what does the Star Wars community receive? An absolute slap in the face. An insult in its purest form. This is truly the lowest excuse for story writing that has ever cursed the big screen. There truly is no god. This world is godless and barren of justice. The writers of this movie need to be dragged out in the streets and publicly executed like the god forsaken low life's they are. Aside from the countless other holes and predictable moments in this film, all could have been forgiven if the fans had been given what they deserved. Instead, Disney has signed in blood a declaration of F*** YOU to all their fans. We can only hope that these people die slow deaths, and even then, death may be to kind a punishment.
So my generational moment was torn from me, but the massacre of the series didn't start nor end there. The humor is this movie was horribly placed and dull. The few good moments that really drew the viewer in were abruptly ended with some heinous attempt and being witty that fell flat on its face. Besides a few Prog scenes, I can honestly say that not a single joke made me laugh. Unlike Rogue One, which was the closet to reality star wars has ever gone, The Last Jedi defies any preordained laws set by the series with stunts like Leia pulling her unconscious self from outer space after being blown up, Luke creating this new force ability that allows him to hologram himself lightyears away, Poe single handedly taking out an entire star destroyers barrage of turrets, and the annihilation of an entire storm trooper army via a massive explosion that some how leave Finn and Rose untouched.
Now for the wasteful part. Finn and Rose embark on this adventure to retrieve the help of a code breaker. They don't find the correct code breaker, but conveniently run into to another random code breaker in jail that offers to help them out. This code breaker just ends up turning on them and results in absolutely nothing. This wouldn't anger me so much had this adventure not consumed a quarter of the damn movie. Also it should be mentioned that there two share the absolute worst on screen kiss off all time. Rey learns absolutely nothing on the island while training with Luke besides the reasoning behind BenSolo turning to Kylo Ren. And yet again, another instance where there could be a beautiful back story that explains the roots of evil, nope, instead it gets pawned off on a miscommunication where Luke turns on his lightsaber, Kylo thinks he wants to kill him, Luke says he wasn't going to, and teenage kylo somehow defeats luke by pulling the building down over his head. F***ing Anakin Skywalker couldn't move a rock off Obi Wan in Attack of the clones in the middle of battle, but this guy wakes up out of a dead sleep and just masters the force in seconds. No, fuck that. Instead this traumatic experience turns Luke into Master Bitch Boy, drinking milk from alien utters and stabbing fish with cliff length sticks.The second biggest reveal of the movie was going to be snokes origins and role in the galaxy. How did this no name creature become supreme leader out of thin air? Well much like Rey's family reveal, this entire question that had the Star Wars universe of the edge of their seat for the last two years gets completely blown over. No backstory on snoke is given at all and after a very lack luster attempt to turn Rey to the dark side, he is killed in the stupidest of ways. Also, a Star Wars first, turning and activating a lightsaber that is 20 feet away. So instead of giving the fans any satisfaction on the supreme leader of the first order, they simply say F*** You, and just kill him off after two scenes.
This movie needs to be protested. Disney's stock needs to burn and Rion Johnson needs to be ban from touching anything else in this series. The only way this can be fixed is by Disney pulling this movie from the big screen immediately, publicly crucifying Rion Johnson, and sending back all the fans their money while begging for forgiveness and promising a complete remake in two years. I have no idea how JJ Abrams has any hope for saving this trilogy. And to be honest, I don't think there ever will be hope again. Dear Disney, you are the Judas of our generation. May sun the never shine upon you again and food turn to ash in your mouth. May hell be your saving grace.
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1/10
Liked Force Awakens... This is Garbage...Star Wars has died for me
OMG this was soooooo bad. The overall plot idea was decent but the dialogue and execution was just utter crap. I literally started to cringe and cover my eyes with my hand from the opening scrawl and it kept getting worse and worse. I liked the Force Awakens but Disney literally turned this movie and Star Wars into a joke. And they are letting this guy write and direct more Star Wars movies? I guess they are right about one thing, I'm going to have the past be the past and let it die... They killed the Star Wars joy inside of me with this one. Lucas prequals are epic by comparison.
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As the subject line of my review indicates, the movie leaves a lot of things open, with no idea how it would get tied up.
In this sense TLJ is much like TESB. When TESB ended there were many questions, like what happens to Han? How will Luke complete his training? Is Darth Vader Luke's father?
TLJ doesn't leave you with as much of a cliff hanger at the end, but it does leave you with the "where does this go from here?" dangling over what will happen in Episode 9.
Whether you will like this movie or not is your willingness to accept the fact that Star Wars, if nothing else, is a kludge of different people throwing their ideas together,
coming up with new plot twists, and therefore retconing what must be retconned or just ignore earlier facts all together, and just go with what they made up.
I think the ultimate, "oh oh, how do we resolve this mess" was Return of the Jedi, when it is revealed that Luke and Leia are twins. I mean, they had this great love triangle going between Han, Luke and Leia. Who would Leia pick? Who would be the jilted lover? But they threw this plot twist no one saw coming, so the story could end with everyone being happy.
In Episode IV Obi Wan tells Luke his father was the best pilot in the galaxy and he was amazed how strongly the force flowed in him, leading a generation of people to think Anakin encountered Obi Wan, when Anakin was a young adult or old teenager.
In Episode I it is revealed Anakin was a kid, never piloted a star ship, and Obi Wan was skeptical about Qui Gon training Anakin.
The point I am trying to make is the Star Wars franchise will never have a tight plot. Too many people are involved with the creative process. Even, when the same person is involved the ideas can change. And as fans, we can either accept this or reject what the twists the movies throw at us.
In this way, TLJ challenges our views of our favorite character Luke Skywalker, and the assumption after ROTJ that he could just whip up a new Jedi Order, with his sister and their progeny. There were flaws with the Jedi Order of Obi Wan and Yoda, which Luke inherited, which led to his efforts failing.
It's not the way I wanted to see Luke, but I can see how the writers chose to go there.
Overall, TLJ is good, and a bit challenging of our preconceptions built from the other movies, but it doesn't leave you satisfied, when it ends. It's not quite exactly like a movie making you want more, but rather a feeling of various plot threads that didn't quite come together - yet - but hopefully will.
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In a movie, every little detail must have a role and a meaning. In the Last Jedi I felt random things were thrown into the "space" - so they can sell those freakin' merch-s. I hope the 2000's kids liked it, because if not there was no point in DisneyFYING it.
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8/10
Not a perfect film, but I think it's the best it could've been.
The Last Jedi was pretty great to be honest. The main story took place in a pretty small time frame, but it had some of the best use of flashbacks I've ever seen to expand the story. And it explored the force in some unexpected ways which turned out to be rather interesting. The film has some great twists, but what really struck me were a few scenes and especially some fantastic shots in those. You can clearly see that Rian Johnson was allowed to express his own vision, and it resulted in me being in awe for good chunks of the movie, and it really got me invested in it. I'd say it's pretty much the perfect middle chapter for this trilogy, with the important events needed to set up the finale, while still succeeding as a standalone film.
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This movie committed a huge number of cardinal sins.
Deus ex Machina - Leia literally Jesus-ing herself back to life and flying like Superman through the vacuum of space.
Nonsensical character motivations - Purple-hair lady not freaking telling her crew what their own escape plan is, letting them think she's leading them on a death march. Yeah, of course you're going to have mutinies, idiot.
Pathetic character development - After all that buildup of Snoke, all the shadows and secrets behind his identity, all the hints that went into him...it all amounted to nothing. Literally nothing.
Hackneyed moral hamfisting - "We won't win by destroying the things we hate, we win by protecting the things we love." Yeah, because you definitely didn't win against the Empire the first 2 times by destroying the freaking Death Stars.
Overuse of CGI - The entire section with Finn and Rose on the casino planet is a giant crash course in what not to do with CGI in a Star Wars movie. Seriously, the CGI in Attack of the Clones was nowhere near as egregious as this. And speaking of that casino planet...
Nonsensical story structure - The entire casino planet scene is absolutely pointless. If the characters simply sit on their hands and do nothing, it is an objectively better outcome for them than if they try to be proactive. No story writer should ever put their characters in that position.
Cluttered cast of characters - This movie introduces an entire new cast of characters that it expects us to care about & get invested in without putting in the work to make us get invested in the first place. Why should I care about purple hair lady? Or Rose? Or Benicio del Toro? I've known them for 5 minutes, and they're all mostly flat, one dimensional characters at best.
Unfocused story - This was just all over the place. The climax seemed to start halfway through the movie, then it stopped briefly, then started up again, then the movie just sort of...ended.
Implausible premise - This is probably the most egregious in my book. You're telling that the First Order, who built a galaxy-crossing-system-destroying superweapon, built the most massive fleet the Galaxy has ever seen, and has conquered multiple star systems, has to spend 18 hours giving slow, arduous chase to a group of 3 transports? Really? They should have had another Destroyer just jump into hyperspace coming the opposite way, drop out right in front of the Rebel ship, and light it up. Would've taken 45 minutes, max. This would be like the police going on a high-speed chase, and instead of calling for backup or setting up a roadblock or alerting other units, they just said "Eh, he'll probably run out of gas before we do. Let's just keep driving, see what happens. Keep flashing the sirens to let him know we're still here."
The only saving graces of this movie were:
The battle scenes, especially the hyperdrive missile
The acting chops of Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver
The star power of Mark Hamill
Other than that, it's a colossal, unfocused, cluttered mess.
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It did not feel like a star wars movie, The plot has more twist and turns then aircraft fighting. Characters presence was weak, A total mess from the Director for drooping the ball. Movie is over hyped, Disney did a great job buying out good reviews. Also A little bit of political correctness is involved.
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"Thanks" Disney for killing Star Wars. Nothing to add to most of the good and detailed reviews on this site. I just want to mention that this will be my last Start Wars Movie.
Expectations can't be low enough for even the slightest positive surprise.
After this movie the Saga is dead and it's impossible to bring it back to life. If you ever thought that E 1-3 are bad than you will see them now in a absolutely new light. Besides Jar Jar, young Anakin and the CGI Overkill it was way better than what you will get from this piece of s***.
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The movie was cool and so on but they messed up Luke really really bad.
And here´s why:
The guy who thought Darth Vader redeemable and said no to the Emperor wants to kill his young nephew because he has the potential to be bad and that guy, Luke Skywalker, instead of trying to fix the mess runs away? Hides waiting to die?
where is the guy who stared down the Emperor and Vader and had the will to overcome them? At the least, you'd think he'd want a fair fight, not murder, which seems....unjedi like....
No wonder Mark Hamill made it clear that he was against Rian's vision. He completely screwed the character of Luke up.
I feel really sorry for Mark that he was forced to basically perform character assassination on himself
That's the biggest misstake in the movie and it's such a huge one that it eradicates all other misstakes in the movie.....
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I never walked away from a Star Wars film more upset than I did for TLJ.
1. Snoke. We don't know his origins, we don't find out how he turned Kylo, he dies really cheesy. He is supposed to be this most powerful force user- but we don't see him do battle
2. Luke was reduced to some crazy hermit. Why didn't we see an epic light saber battle? He served no purpose. They did that character dirty.
3. How come directors don't give the fans what they want?? Why is it so difficult to see Dark side or Light side powers that we've read or seen in video games?
4. To jokey. Way too many misplaced quips or funny phrases.
5. Horrible light saber battles
6. No one knows who the Knightd of Ren are.
7. Rian Johnson has set back the Star Wars franchise big time.
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1/10
So much hope is mentioned in the movie, that they steal the audiences
The eighth episode in what is now being dubbed the Skywalker Saga, The Last Jedi takes the space-opera series into darker, less traditional territory. The nostalgic adventure of Force Awakens is replaced by a harsher, more ferocious tale of good and evil. Rey (Daisy Ridley) is beginning her Jedi journey with a gruff and reluctant Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill); Kylo Ren's (Adam Driver) fractured psyche is worsening as his ambitions clash with his past; General Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) struggle to keep the Rebel Alliance alive; and Finn (John Boyega) continues his self-discovery with the help of newcomer Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Obviously there's a lot going on, which causes the runtime to balloon out, but writer-director Rian Johnson balances it relatively well, fleshing out a raft of characters and plotlines whilst ensuring the overall story arc is compelling and cohesive. It's definitely the most intense (and arguably the most unpredictable) Star Wars instalment since Empire Strikes Back, the Rey-Kylo-Luke connection a harrowing deep-dive into guilt, vengeance and pride that's as intelligent and mature as it is emotionally hefty. Johnson kicks the action up a gear too. The opening space battle is suitably epic; a silent light-speed sequence is breathtaking; a heroic Luke-centric set piece is spine tingling; and the climactic melee (with vibrantly contrasting reds and whites) is a fittingly awesome finale. There are some flaws, however, that stop this movie from being brilliant. Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) is criminally underused again, whilst thief DJ (Benicio del Toro) and Leia's second-in-command Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) are odd additions whose screen time feels like it was reduced heavily in the editing room. There's also a strange subplot that delves into class divide, a very unwise decision to have Finn and Rose ride on horse-like CGI creatures (in a completely unnecessary set piece), and a ridiculously mawkish final scene that feels tacked on by the studio. He doesn't get it right all the time every time, but when he does-and that is pretty often-Johnson crafts a Star Wars outing that is exhilarating, poignant and dramatically satisfying. The Last Jedi is well worth a trip to the cinema.
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While The Force Awakens was merely a re-skin of Episode IV, it did a decent job of relaunching the franchise. However, I had high hopes for TLJ after Rogue One, which is fantastic.
Unless Disney is setting us up for a knockout punch in Episode IX, this movie is absolute drivel. My biggest issues:
Who are Rey's parents? Apparent nobodies that dumped her on crappy Jakku? That's where an almost immediate Jedi Master with zero training came from? Even Anakin, the most powerful Jedi/Sith ever, had to be trained.
Snoke, absolutely powerful and foreboding in the Episode VII - yeah, let's just kill him with a cheap gimmick using Kylo Ren right after Snoke says he can read all of Kylo's thoughts. While we're at it, let's not explain who he is, his backstory or his motives.
The entire plot revolves around a resistance fleet running out of fuel being chased by star destroyers, but they're out of range to destroy them? That's it? That's all you could come up with?
While we're discussing the resistance fleet running out of fuel, escape shuttles are blasted out of the sky as the rebels escape to a planet. However, one single ship can sneak away on a mission without getting targeted and shot down by a star destroyer?
The acting is fine, the music great, the visuals are stunning, but this is the last Star Wars film I will be watching on opening night. Disney has destroyed a franchise.
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2/10
two stars for the effects... I can't understand why professional critics love this.
The whole film has way too many convenient ocurrences to make the heros survive at the end.
Snoke makes a whole speech about how powerful he is and how he senses his students every feeling, and then gets killed by Kylo a minute later. wouldn't have happened to palpatine.
silly jokes every damn minute. it just gets annoying. The jar-jar factor in the annoying little critters everywhere....
and nobody of the main characters is mortal, apparently.
although Star wars is fantasy, and a lot of what happened in the films cannot happen in real life, it still has certain boundaries in which everything takes place. Jedi are powerful, but not immortal. They have limitations. And they just throw everything overboard....
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Great acting, great action. Slow in the middle but that happens. Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisey Ridley were great as was the whole cast. The movie ws not perfect but I thought it was better than TFA. Not sure where list this in the series but I will have to watch it again.
Right now I would say:
1. Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. --The Last Jedi--
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Return of the Jedi
6. The Force Awakens
7. Attack of the Clones
8. Phantom Menace
Ok so the last 30 minutes of this movie had me and the entire audience on the edge of their seats. There was one scene I thought was cheezy but other than that I loved this movie. I mean like JAW DROPPING fight scenes and beautiful scenery.
To the haters posting narrow minded reviews like this is the worst thing you have ever seen... you can go away now. You complained that the Force Awakens was a remake... now you say this movie is too different. I'm starting to get the feeling that you will never be happy. Please get a life. YOU are the reason George Lucas sold Star Wars. Think about it and you will know it to be true.
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Oh dear.....well at least it looks pretty...apart from one scene that looks like a home movie from a halloween party!
I wasn't sure if I was watching a Star Wars sequel or a Spaceballs sequel and yet this movie still fails to live up to either!
The baddies are bad.....as in not very good. The goodies are meh...at best. My 2 MVP's are not in the movie enough (take a bow Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro).
Oh...and it has more plot holes than the whole Fast and Furious franchise!!
But there are positives....the space battles are great....the Porgs actually work....the mineral planet and it's battle sequences are breathtakingly rendered!
In summary, it is worth a watch but is such a huge step backwards after the triumph of Rogue One...which is a disappointment!!
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...and it was disappointing. I wish i could say something else about this movie, but i can't. Don't get me wrong, for a star wars movie, it was just disappointing and sad, but as a stand alone movie it was watchable.
I did like the force awakens, alltough it had similiraties in the story line with the first movies, i liked the fact, that the new generation of viewers can hook up with the star wars universe.
I think the main problem of this new movie is, that Ryan Johnson is directing it... They never should of changed j.j. abrams. He was the one, who casted all these actors, they did get along perfectly with him.
The only 10 Stars in this movie goes to carry fisher alias princess leia...she was just outstanding in every way, respect.
Also mark hamill did he's best, and catched up where he left. You could even see the sparkle in he's eyes, as it was in the other movies. So also big respect there...
But the others were poor, but still i dont think it's there fault, it wasnt the right setting, and cleary Ryan Johnson wasnt the right guy for the job. But who is? Only J.J. could do it, becuase its he's cast and he's ideas after all.
I really hope, that they will deliever better next time, otherwise it would be a shame for the franchise.
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8/10
Truly enjoyed this movie. Where are all these bad reviews coming from?
Ok the movie wasnt perfect. It was a little slow in the middle. And there is one part with Leia I though was cheesy. But other than that, I loved this movie.
Great acting by Mark Hamil, Daisy Ridley, Adam driver and all around the cast was good. Great action. Like I said, s little slow in the middle but that was to get into the Luke on the Island thing. It was very interesting and mysterious. When the action kicks in it is unbelievable. They're are jaw dropping scenes in it and some beautiful scenery.
The last 30 minutes I was on the edge of my seat. Not sure I like it better than Empire or where I rate this movie. I have to process everything and watch it again. All I know is the theater I was at the crowd was laughing and ooohing and ahhhing. They were into it.
To all the haters on this site, it's too bad you feel the need to bash this so bad. You may not agree with every choice made in this movie but at least It had sone originality and took some risks. You all complained the last one was a remake, now you are complaining because this didn't follow the same hum drum blueprint you thought it should go. Stop complaining and get a life.
Definitely better than the Force Awakens.
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After The Force Awakens you said it was too similar to the prequels. Now The Last Jedi is not Star Wars. Make up your fucking minds! They are both good movies, enjoy them for what they are, don't hate them for what they aren't.
You can't go into the movie theater always expecting exactly how it's going to be. They simply can't make the same Star Wars movie over and over. They have to change it up, otherwise it would very soon become repetitive. Remember, change is a good thing!
They took a risk with changing it up, and it seems like everybody is hating on it just because it's different. It literally makes no sense.
If your motive for hating on the movie is "It's not Star Wars" then you need to get out of here.
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The Last Jedi was such a beautiful film on so many levels, despite its flaws, it's a movie that will make you cry, smile, laugh and inspire you. The most notable surprise was the script, in that it wasn't as dumbed down as I expected it to be. Unlike the Force Awakens, which was just one giant nostalgic introduction to the characters, The Last Jedi had lots of philosophy, and for that it will stand the test of time as a movie I'll go back to over and over for inspiration and not just for the action-adventure.
There were so many memorable lines in this film. I won't spoil anything by saying too much but that's what Star Wars is all about. I'll never forget those moments that intrigued me as a kid, when Yoda would guide Luke, and when Qui-Gonn Jinn mentored young Anakin. There were a lot of memorable philosophical quotes in this film. For example, there was a scene where one of the Rebels worried over the fact that they were lacking firepower and expressed concern that it may not be enough to topple the evil First Order. Princess Leia approached the Rebel, took a look around, and watched some of the other Rebels as they displayed acts of bonding, such as laughter, and hugging, and then Leia replied, "We have everything we need."
Unlike so many movies today, The Last Jedi was very unpredictable. Just when you think something is sure to occur, the opposite happens. I was really on the edge of my seat for this one. Nothing was as it seemed. I can't really talk about anything else before mentioning the phenomenal acting by Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill and Adam Driver. They were outstanding. They were so good that they looked like they were gonna pop or explode at times, and that also includes the wonderfully animated Supreme Leader Snoke, who was perfectly animated and in sync with the brilliant voice acting by the master of voice acting, Andy Serkis.
There is so much more I want to say but don't want to spoil too much. There are so many surprises in this film. But for all its praises, I admit, I was left wanting for more in the end, and at times, the film shifts tone from a serious one to one that borders on slapstick comedy. Star Wars always had its comedic moments, and I laughed during this film more than once, but I admit, some of the comedy did feel out of place at times. I also thought there were some major events in that film that required more explanation that was given, including the deaths of a couple of characters. Some of them died and I was left asking myself how.
All in all, I'd say this is the 4th best Star Wars movie behind episode 5, 6, and 3.
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3/10
The praise is baffling, this movie is completely inept (SPOILERS)
I love Star Wars and I went into this optimistically. Didn't take long to see this movie is a mess.
Poe's whole character is problematic. He disobeys a direct command to take out a huge First Order ship at the cost of what appears to be about half of their remaining 50 resistance fighters. They call him "hotshot" and "flyboy" like that excuses a major military failure at a critical juncture in their survival. He should have been thrown in the brig for that massive loss alone, but no, they leave him to mutiny at the slightest disagreement with a superior officer. Once again Leia and Laura Dern just laugh it off. In fact, there's a lot of laughing and joking and worrying about nonsense like necklaces by the main characters while literally dozens of their rebel friends are getting killed on screen. Like no one seems to really care that they're all being chased to extinction, they're just like "well this is inconvenient!" Even when Leia gets blown into space she just floats back inside and everything is cool (and this scene accomplishes nothing, except to give Laura Dern control and lead to the mutiny, but that didn't lead to anything either so what the hell?)
On that subject, Finn and his painfully boring sidekick accomplished absolutely nothing in their side plot (which starts with a bad CGI character giving instructions to find a "master decoder" like the start of a video game level), yet we had to suspend disbelief that they could conveniently go to a nearby casino planet while being chased by a First Order fleet, then break into a First Order ship. And of course the whole First Order army is more focused on these 2 losers than the space battle in progress. Everyone, EVERYONE in this movie is terrible at their job, except the soccer ball droid who apparently swallows 50+ gold coins and is able to fire them at guards (THIS IS A PLOT POINT, NOT A THROWAWAY GAG). It also reuses the 'blowing on the lighter' gag from the last movie.
There is 0 character development from anyone, no chemistry of any kind between any 2 characters. Characters' motivations are weak (when present) and are prone to change for no reason other than plot convenience. There's no reason to care about anyone and no villain compelling enough to pose a threat. There's not a shred of tension through the whole movie. The movie betrays any tension building by throwing out stupid comic relief elements every 10 seconds. We never get backstory on Snoke and there's never a clear reason why he had to be stupid-looking CGI. His red throne room set piece was a little cool but still looked like a movie set, and his guards moved around like fashion models. Lots of unintentional laughs from this setting. And how could Kylo Ren kill Snoke if Snoke could read his mind and all?
This movie reuses quite a bit from Empire and Return of the Jedi but doesn't know what to do with any of it, such as the cave scene where Rey sees a mirror and the scene just kinda ends. The scene blending between Rey and Kylo didn't work at all. It's like Rain Johnson wanted this as the emotional core of the film but wasn't competent enough to even convey two people communicating. Rey endangers the aliens around her and we can't tell how much to blame her for her reckless endangerment because we can't tell what she's looking at. Then it devolves into teen melodrama when Kylo conveniently takes his shirt off. I assume they'll pursue this relationship in the future, because it went nowhere here. The promotion for this movie gave the impression that there would be some moral ambiguity, maybe Rey or Luke would go to the dark side. Just when it's suggested that Luke may have made a mistake in the past by preemptively trying to kill Kylo, the film tells us that Luke wasn't actually going to kill him. So don't worry, kids, no moral grey areas here, just a needlessly convoluted plot trying to create intrigue out of nothing.
Speaking of empty subplots, are we still supposed to care about Finn and Phasma's relationship during that climactic battle? Theirs really highlights how shallow every character relationship is yet this movie seems to really hang its hat on notions of hope and love. Benicio Del Toro's great but his character didn't go anywhere, either. Laura Dern's great too but there was no reason for her character to exist. Just use Ackbar rather than killing him off-screen. Yoda shouldn't be burning Jedi texts and joking about them being boring, that is horribly out of character and it makes no sense that a Jedi master would act within the Star Wars canon.
There's some obvious green screen work in the scenes with Hamill and Rey, plus some inexcusably bad editing in their scenes together. A lot of this movie feels like it was chopped down from bloated material. This movie's only contributions as far as new ships/vehicles are that they made the Imperial AT-ATs look like they're frowning, because I guess Kylo and his overacting ginger friend think that looks scary.
The finale includes Luke appearing. I wondered how he got there, and as it turned out it was just an astral projection. So the twist was that it wasn't a plot hole after all. Great. Then after Kylo fails to kill his hologram and we the rebels get that 1 small victory, Luke dies for no reason anyway and there was no point to the hologram thing. Perhaps Luke "lost the will to live" (more likely Mark Hamill wanted out). The original Star Wars movies gave the idea of a much larger universe. Somehow this movie makes the same universe feel tiny. I can accept that this is the Disney Star Wars era and kids are the target audience, but this is uncharacteristically poor quality from Lucasfilm.
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Movie was all over the place, felt rushed, had filler, a lot of things didn't make much sense and was really poorly written and jarring; however the battle scenes, visuals and some of the characterization was done excellently.
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I enjoyed certain aspects of this film like the connection between Kylo Ren and Rey but damn, I hated that entire Finn storyline. It felt like absolute padding to make the movie longer and to add a social justice warrior vibe to the story.
I also feel no connection to new characters brought in(especially the volume of new characters we're supposedly to suddenly know and care about). They don't demand my attention unlike Lando who didn't come in until Episode V and VERY late to the movie but when he arrived I was thinking, "that's a badass."
what is the need with adding in all of these damn "cute" creatures to every location.
The little things riding with Chewbacca
The racing animals on the gambling planet
The caretakers at the Jedi temple
The Crystal things on the rebel base
I feel like this trilogy is what Battle for Endor was for the original Star Wars trilogy. They are shoe-horning these characters in so that kids will love them or something.
I like the path they're taking Kylo Ren down(and where I thought he should've been already) and am interested in seeing the next movie.
I don't think this is a "bad" movie but I'm not necessarily too eager to go back and see in the theaters again.
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Well, usually I like to give my usual speech about the film, but I don't want anyone to think I'll spoil anything, so I might as well jump into my thoughts on one of the biggest films of 2017, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
So the film takes place shorty after The Force Awakens, and Rey has found Luke Skywalker, who has abandoned himself to a remote island. Meanwhile, The First Order is closing in on the Resistance and Kylo Ren's emotional conflict grows even stronger under Snoke's command.
One thing i really enjoyed is the original cast Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher really deliver some great performances in their respective roles. You feel the sense they have both gone through some tough experiences over this time and it weighs on their roles well. I was a defender of Kylo Ren's inexperience in The Force Awakens and i feel it's paying off as his conflict makes him more interesting to watch as a villain to see where he goes. And there are some really rousing and exciting space fights and lightsaber battles throughout this movie with some great cinematography to compliment the action.
As time progresses, i did notice that the film does rely on humor that comes in at the wrong time at points in the midst of a big moment. Also, there is a subplot that involves Finn and Rose that just isn't sharply written enough to buy into, and becomes hard to be invested despite the film giving it a lot of time on screen. And there's one scene.... I don't want to go to detail, but I'll just simply say "I have so many questions!"
Star Wars: The Last Jedi shows it's not afraid to take some risks with well beloved characters. The action is still fun and more refined, and is able to keep you curious for the future. It does have some narrative flaws, but the force is still strong with this one.
PS: to anyone complaining that Disney wanted to put jokes in this film to be "kid-friendly", just remember Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace were considered kid friendly at the time also, and we've never really seen a really dark Star Wars movie and probably never will.
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I was looking forward to seeing Rey trained by Luke Skywalker- did not happen.
I was looking forward to more character development with Finn- weak side plot.
Rey's backstory was the most intriguing and theory driven part of Force Awakens- that fizzles completely.
I couldn't wait to see Luke, after barely making an appearance in Force Awakens, as the Jedi Master he had become in Return of the Jedi. That, sadly, will never happen.
What a waste. What a complete waste.
The only intriguing part of the movie was the light and dark telepathic connection between Kylo and Rey, and their battle together.
Although my feelings on Star Wars are certainly molded by my age having been born in the 70s and growing up with these characters, I'm sure plenty of fans will feel this whole movie was a missed opportunity of plot and character.
And in the end, while Yoda lived to over 700, Luke, an apparently useless character to this new franchise, should close his eyes and basically go away. at 65.
That's a fairly good metaphor for what Disney did to Star Wars.
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...don't listen to all the fanboys here whining because it doesn't fit their idea of a Star Wars movie. It's actually full of fresh ideas and has a great storyline. Is it perferct? No. But it definitely is a quality film, and there is no way that it is a 2-3 star movie like so many reviewers are saying here.
I think most of these are just fans who can't make up their minds if they want an original movie or just a retread of past ideas, or who only would accept their vision for the OT characters. I feel that many just went into the theater hoping to hate the film no matter what.
I'm still happy to be a Star Wars fan, even if other people here have forgotten what that's like.
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If this is a standalone movie it would be great action movie, however since this is part of a trilogy, there is lack of depth in the character stories. Probably due a lot of sub plot which is unnecessary which is very disturbing going to EP9.
Pros
====
Rian stick to the 80's which makes it nostalgic and relevant to the OT
Puppet Yoda and its dialogue was brilliant
World War 2 battle
Cons
=====
How did Snoke dies so easily?
How did Rey becomes so good with the lightsaber since she only train with Luke probably for a few days
Luke should have a better or deeper story
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Why? Poor dialogue.
No light saber battle.
Too many attempts at humor.
No continuity.
Director can't count - repeat of Hoth battle more rebel ships blown up than what was shown to exist.
If it was a parody, it is missing the canned laughter.
Pointless end of certain characters.
Actually reused dialogue from previous movies.
Crappy puppet version of Yoda.
No explanation of any interesting characters.
Lame explanation of main characters.
Rain Johnson and Disney have ruined Star Wars.
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Star Wars franchise has gone through different phases over the last 30 odd years. There were ups and then there were downs. But since the release of 'The Force Awakens', it has resurrected itself in a quite a grand manner. The recent addition: The Last Jedi perfectly blends the madness of Star Wars with a gritty storytelling. We all kind of had a hunch that 'The Force Awakens' was like a foundation for much bigger things to come. The Last Jedi takes the franchise forward in the right direction.
As the name suggests, the story of the movie focuses on the concept of Jedi. While Rey is looking to find the answers from Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren is fighting is own inner self. The Resistance as always is on the run from First Order. Both these plots run parallelly until they connect in the end. Like every other Star Wars film, we get to see new worlds and another set of unique characters. Although this isn't as humorous as The Force Awakens, there are some moments to tickle your funny bone. The movie is very vivid in terms of visual effects and there are some jaw dropping scenes. The action sequences at times makes one exclaim out of pure joy. Director Rian Johnson has made sure to blend the classic Star Wars drama with his style of filmmaking perfectly well.
Almost all the characters have in depth roles this time starting with Luke Skywalker. The good ol' Jedi is back but he is not his original self. Although Luke Skywalker isn't as charming as he used to be, he has his own cool moments in the movie. Daisy Ridley has a meaty role yet again and most of the film revolves around her. The character Kylo Ren is well written this time and Adam Driver pulls it off brilliantly. Though Oscar Isaac and John Boyega play second fiddle to the lead characters, their roles are thoroughly entertaining. It is very emotional to see the beloved princess Carrier Fischer as Princess Leia for the one last time. Laura Dern has a very key role as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo. Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux brings a very retro feel to the movie. And as usual there are many other small but key supporting characters as a part of the resistance.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is an intense and emotional ride. It has all the classic ingredients of a Star Wars movie, but it also shows that the franchise is surely upping its game.
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As anticlimactic as any movie could possibly be. Finn, Poe, and Rey could be completely absent from the film and it would have no impact on the outcome of the movie. Rey gets no training from Luke, Poe and Finn do nothing to help the resistance more so every move Poe and Finn make hurts the resistance even more. Oh yeah and a solid 90 mins of the movie is spent watching the spaceship version of the OJ Simpson car chase. Tons of plot holes and very little combat because you know 90 mins of ships chasing a ship.
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10/10
I really think this is the best star wars movie since TESB
When i saw this movie.I cry ,I laugh,I wonder and I really can't imagine what's gonna happend.
The drama was really fantstic.
It's true a star wars TDK.
AWSOME!
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Before I started writing this review I was reading what others had to say and there seemed to be a lot of very disappointed viewers. So I jumped to the User Ratings page to see how TLJ got an 8.2 when I'm seeing more 1 to 3 star ratings than 8 to 10 star ratings. It just happened to fall that way on my page and I just had not gotten to the reviews with the higher ratings.. At this time there are over 23,000 reviews with 8 to 10 stars and just over 2000 with 1 to 3 stars. So yes, the movie is very enjoyable and deserving of an 8+ rating.
The reason I give it an 8 is because, to me, it felt rushed in some areas and there were some things that could have been cut to make room for the rushed areas.
This could be said for almost any movie though.
The FX were astounding. The musical score as great as always. The humor, humorous for the most part. So if you are a Star Wars fan or just want to have a fun night out at the movies with your family and friends, go and see it.
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10/10
Great movie and great evolution of the series, Star Wars fans are just impossible to please
First off, the movie was fantastic. I would say it rivals Episode V for the greatest Star Wars film of all time. Everything from the story, to the characters, to the visuals, soundtrack and especially acting performances was simply...amazing. I found myself captivated and shocked, however in a manner that is unlike many reviewing the movie here that refuse to allow the franchise to grow in a new and exciting direction. It was fun, unpredictable, and genuinely left me wanting more.
This is still star wars. I'm not sure how it isn't in your minds. I guess because it wasn't built on nostalgia. I consider that a good thing. First off, George Lucas ruined his own legacy with the awful movies that were Episodes I and II, which were so bad that a pretty good movie in Episode III is enveloped in the "prequels suck" sphere. Just a few years ago the popular complaint was that Force Awakens was just a rip off of a New Hope. Now, Johnson pushes boundaries and innovates what a star wars movie can look like, and suddenly he's ruined it by trying to allow the franchise to grow and expand beyond what we already know. I see a lot of "this isn't star wars" and "disney ruined star wars" etc. Bull. Johnson delivered on the hype with a brilliant NEW take on Star Wars saga and characters, including seeing characters we know and love undergo real change and evolution, as good characters and real people do and should. The changes made to characters were logical responses to their past and present situations. The roots are still there. Try to think back long ago, to the first star wars movies. It was at its core about hope; an underdog story, that Luke Skywalker, a seeming nobody from nowhere could be something more, that this nobody could defeat the Empire. Last Jedi is exactly that. At its core, it's about finding hope where there is none, even for Luke.
I was disappointed when I logged on here after walking out of the theaters, expecting pleased viewers and praise, but instead seeing mostly bad reviews of what I and literally everyone in the audience of the theater I was in seemed to think was a fantastic movie and many, including myself, thought this was perhaps the best star wars film yet.
Let me be clear, it is not perfect. There are still unanswered questions (especially about Snoke), and some sequences last a little long (code breaker guy), and it takes a little while to get going (ships in space moving 10 mph), but still a fantastic film that is worth several viewings.
Embrace the changes.
just go see it for yourself.
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It was really frustrated and disappointed hours.
After watch EP8, I was look back EP1 to 3 and 6.
Suddenly, I realized that they were all sucks.
Only episode 4 and 5 are deserves as legend and rest of series are poor ...
This last jedi awakens the truth about star wars fantasy... it should've stopped long, long time ago ...
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2/10
Didn't feel like a Star Wars movie. Really disappointed. Wasted opportunities.
Killing off Snoke so quick, without going in backstory on who he is was awful. Luke is a completely different character, killing off phasma too quick, killing off Luke in an horrendous way, it's just all bad. No story progression.
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It was funny, action-packed, and gets you right in the feels. The visuals were stunning and frankly, the movie wasn't bogged down with some silly romance which is what kills it for me in other sci-fi movies. They keep that to a minimum and ramp up the humor a notch instead. Without giving away too much, they've toned down Kylo Ren a bit as well and actually make a tongue-in-cheek joke about that as well.
Only the fanboys who are in way too deep are giving this bad reviews. Take 100 of them and put them in the room and they will give you 100 half-baked ideas on what the franchise should do. They don't realize how hard this is with icons dying and other icons just simply wanting out and then having to introduce new characters and maintain the narrative that they've been at war for over 40 years. That's a long time.
I'm old enough to have seen episodes 5 and 6 in the theaters and I'm telling you, this movie is as good if not better than Empire. It wasn't perfect but who cares? Neither was Empire. There were some obvious scenes that borrowed from stuff you've seen before like Battlestar Galactica and previous SW movies but again, so what?
Let's face it, you're gonna see it anyway so sit back and enjoy.
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Princess leia could be a force sensitive but shes not a zacksnyders superman.......
And who the hell was snoke?? Breaking cliche is good thing but its about something else......i dont want to buy another novel or comics to understand the whole story......it was so unkind.
And how about that chubby mechanic chick.
Before saying, im asian and i am not a racist. But this bullshit is so awful. She does nothing on main plot. And also her sympathy to an racing animal was useless..... no, gotta say that finn and rose was useless in whole movie
And hyper space jump kamikaze.... Wth??? When did the mechanism of HSJ has changed?? Wasnt it jumping in to another dimension? How can it make a big giant space bullet? If it was possible, why didnt every body use HSJ bullet by using droid....... it ruined every past starwars stuffs....
Luke has been a real fool.... Now adays Jedi masters tries to murder its apprentice in the bed?? And he use Vr to make time for his friends to escape and now his gone becasue he was so tired using Vr?? Why did you have to make somany fans hero to foolish old man?? Serieously what the hell is wrong with your people.
If dead yoda could make thunder lighting, what the hell anakin and obiwan and qwaigon is doing? They could help resistance if they had power to do something in real world.
You ruined my fanboy heart.
Im a fan across the world far away from states. Somewhere in asia. And that fucking disneys pollitical correctness shit is so annoying.
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I loved Rogue One. It has a freshness about it. This new edition was not as bad as The Force Awakens, but it was along the same vein. This is like going to grandmas for dinner and instead of a new meal she has reheated the meal from last week. This is what happens when a big studio takes over from the original creators. It is your typical big budget movie, made to play to the masses. Lots of catchy stuff but the true savor of the story is lost. Yes there were some cool parts to the movie, but it was not even close to a slam dunk. I won't be going to any more Star Wars movies until they come up with some new material that isn't simply capitalizing on the popularity of the original trilogy.
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The beginning started off very slow and uncharacteristically weird; however,somewhere in the movie there was a turning point in which it started to pick up its' pace and become a memorable movie.
Up until that point 'The Last Jedi' seemed to try to be setting up the end, but just didn't know how to get there. This led to a sloppy and disjointed start.
However, the back half of the film was action packed and everything Star Wars fans were hoping for in a new episode. Just wished they had started as good as they had finished.
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I can't call this movie as a star wars movie, because you never see a lot of nonsense things in a real star wars.
1- Killing a Sith Master like this? How couldn't Snoke aware this childish move? By the way, who is Snoke? Where did he come from?
2- How can Kylo and Rey become overpowered like this? What happened to Jedi Education? If education isn't necessary, why should Kenobi and Anakin wait to become Jedi Master in years? When semi-educated Luke faced with Vader we know what happened!
3-How could Jedi Master Luke think to kill him young nephew for seconds? It's impossible and even shame for Star Wars Saga. Why didn't he think to kill Snoke?
4-How can a Xwing destroy the armored Destroyer?
5-Why did Del Toro come? and why did he go? Just a bad copy of Lando.
6- What was the Maz Kanata scene? Why was she a giber? and with who did she fight? Nonsense again.
7- What about Leia's force? It was Star wars not Superman!
8- Did Yoda use the lightning force? A sith force? Please say no.
9-Why did this movie humiliate Hux and Poe?
10- A sith or a jedi never wanted to kill enemy with machines, they always prefer to have a duel.
11- Does Luke blame Obi Wan about Anakin? What a nonsense thing again.
12- Too many absurd jokes.
13- We have wait to see original things, not a same story or planets.
14- We heard Obi Wan's voice on 7th movie and he was saying ''Rey these are your first steps''; another unsettled part of script.
Mr. Lucas please get involved to these movies.
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6/10
It's as if they purposely wanted to disappoint the fans
I can't believe what i just watched. It had potential from the start and then ruined everything it could have possibly been. Snoke's character written off poorly. Luke's character written terribly and never should of ended like that. Rey a mary sue as always. Terrible effects, editing too messy, rushed and boring in the middle. You have disrespected generations of fans Rian and Disney.
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Just got back from the theater, so this will probably more of a ramble as I process than a well written review
The number one feeling I have right now is disappointment; plan and simply. There were so many different places they could have taken the characters, but they chose the most mundane and "safe" plots.
The real problem is that there is no emotional "cost" to be paid in any of the plots in the film. Things need to go bad - even good people die (actual people we care about, not the endless "good guys" who die in the battles!) - in order to have any sort of emotional mountaintop experience. When that one character (don't want to spoil) is in a position to Independence Day himself to give his life to help the others, I was super happy that was happening just because it was going to MEAN something - it was a COST paid for the others to live; but no, he is saved at the last moment and I even so I thought for sure the person who saved him was going to end up being the one to pay the "cost" - but no, that person lives too!!!!!!
I felt the only reason they didn't kill of that character in that moment was because then they could no longer sell action figures and any other memorabilia with that characters face on it. That was the only good reason I could think of.
As everyone else has already said, the Snoke thing is a complete joke - farce.
I feel like Star Wars died today.
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Resistance fighters led by General Leia Organa evacuate their main base when a First Order fleet reaches the planet. After the fight the Resistance vessels jump into hyperspace to escape. Organa reprimands Commander Poe Dameron for a successful but costly counter-strike while Supreme Leader Snoke reprimands General Hux for his failure to block the evacuation. Hux tracks the Resistance and a long pursuit begins, with the Resistance relying on their spaceships' mobility and shields to survive while their fuel supplies dwindle. During one battle, Kylo Ren hesitates to attack the lead Resistance ship after sensing the presence of his mother Leia onboard. TIE fighters destroy the bridge of the ship killing many Resistance leaders. Leia is incapacitated leaving Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo in command. Disapproving of their leaders' passive strategy, Poe, Finn, BB-8 and mechanic Rose Tico embark on a secret plan to disable the First Order fleet's tracking device.
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3/10
Care more about merchandise sales than a good storyline
Visually the movie was great. At the beginning the 3D seemed a little fuzzy and faces in the background were blurry but it seemed to clear as the movie went on. There were a few scenes that were too dark as well. Other than that it's what we've come to expect from a Star Wars movie especially the scene when the rebel cruiser collides with Snoke's ship. The musical score was on point as well. These are the parts of the movie I can't complain about.
The story was the part lacking and I have to believe that's all on Disney. It seemed like they threw in more comedy(something I've noticed in a lot of Disney movies lately) and did things simply for merchandise sales. Those little bird things that I don't care to learn the name of? What did they do for the story exactly? After the 3rd time they were shown I was tired of them especially in the scene where one is in the cockpit with Chewbacca.
Leia can apparently survive in space through the force? That's uh, odd and seems a lot like another Disney movie...oh yeah, guardians of the galaxy.
Snoke apparently is quite the force user, being able to connect Kylo and Rey galaxies away from one another but is taken down like it's nothing. No real fight put up. Honestly one of the most anticlimactic endings to a villain I've ever seen. The ensuing battle between what I'm guessing were the handful of other Jedi Luke mentioned fleeing with Kylo was the best part of the entire scene. Especially the different weapons using the same technology as lightsabers.
Why exactly do we need a new love triangle between Finn, Rey and the new character whose name I simply cannot remember at the moment?
Last but not least Disney seemingly killed any hope that Rey was also a Skywalker in this movie, instead she's a "nobody" as Kylo put it. So, a nobody has as much power as the grandson of the "chosen one"? Did all those movies leading up to this mean absolutely nothing?
Are we going to see a time skip between this and the next movie? Was that the point of showing the child at the end? The rebellion will be getting new members but they're kids now so not like they can help much.
Ultimately the movie was decent visually but the story just left so much to be desired in my opinion. I'm wondering if I shouldn't have just saw it in 2D for cheaper like the majority of others did in my theater complex(8 people got the 8:15 3D). By the time the second hour bad rolled around i was ready to go home.
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Two years after The Force Awakens rocked the sleeping giant to life, and left audiences with so many questions and so few answers, the franchise fell into the lap of Rian Johnson. As a director known to not be afraid to take risks, this second installment in the new trilogy proves his pedigree.
This is a daring, emotional, nuanced entry in the saga that rises to the levels of its greatest forebears, bringing drama and action at high levels throughout. Surprise after surprise litters the landscape, as every time you think you can breathe, something else happens to bash you back into the thick of the story.
The new Big Three of Star Wars bring their A game from the outset, and as the film progresses, it is easy to see which one falls into the role of Luke, Han, and Leia from the original trilogy.
On the subject of Leia, watching Carrie Fisher's final performance is an emotional journey. Those of us who have been with her since A New Hope will doubtlessly feel a greater connection to her character, and an emotional tug each time she is on screen. This should not distract from how good she is even without that caveat. She is as always a pleasure to watch, and it is truly sad that there will be no further films from her. As for her on-screen brother, Mark Hamill remains terrific in anything he is in, and plays Luke in a way that he never has before, elevating the character to further legendary levels.
This film has met and surpassed any expectations, bringing the great Star Wars formula to new heights; fun, action, weird new creatures and beautiful new worlds, humor, and dramatic girth. it is eminently quotable, a visual feast, and a satisfying experience.
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The reviews so far are pretty horrible but I have to say that I enjoyed this movie very much. There are definitely things to complain about but I still liked it overall. I think I loved it but I want to see it at lease once more before I decide.
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I rarely review movies on here, but I couldn't help myself after this one. And it's very possible I expected much more based upon the rave critic reviews - but I'm not sure they watched the same film I just saw.
There were numerous issues I had with the movie itself, but it ultimately came down to two main problems:
1.) Writing (lack thereof): WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?! Granted, I've seen some movies with poor scripts before, but past Star Wars movies have shown incredible scripts. It's hard to find a point to begin with. For one thing, Finn's and (forget names) storyline is negligible. It literally adds nothing to the film. They could leave it out and only one (barely) "significant" scene would come out of it. Other reviews have pointed out writing issue as well so I won't barrage this point. But the storyline overall was poor.
2.) Character Development (also, lack thereof): Seriously, this is incredibly frustrating as a Star Wars fan. Smoke was initially pushed as a major player for the Dark Side, and his death could not have been more anticlimactic - not to mention WE NEVER ACTUALLY FIND OUT WHO HE IS. Or how he initially met Kylo. Literally nothing about him. At all. I won't even discussed the weak role Benicio played (though he acted the part well). My biggest gripe comes from Luke's role. I can understand why Mark was not a fan of the script. We know him to be this spectacular hero through the original Star Wars movies - that's all erased here. Not to mention his disappearance at the end. The guy (Luke) played the most significant role in any of the Star Wars films, and his ending is so bland. SO BLAND.
(Somewhat #3). STOP FORCING THE HUMOR. I don't mind some comedy, there are some great lines, but some are overly forced, and do not line up with prior characters personality in the original films.
I could elaborate more but I won't.
Positives:
Superb acting. Despite the non-existent script and plot, superb acting.
Excellent visuals. To say the least, this was the best part.
Giving this a 5 was a stretch to say the least, but thanks to the visuals & acting, it made it.
Go see it. But don't be hyped by the critics.
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I want to really like this film. Cinematography was great, acting was great, fight scenes were great, it was comical in the right way. Without spoilers, there were two extremely underwhelming characters that were both killed off. There was a character that I felt needed to be killed off. This film could have best been served as an ending rather than a midpoint. It does not live up to the hype however.
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From beginning to end I LOVED this movie! Great special affects, great actors, great storyline! I'm VERY excited for Episode 9! From reading these reviews all I see is a bunch of crybabies! I guess when they were little they threw a temper tantrum because they didn't get what they wanted for Christmas! I'm definetly going to see this movie several times like the others! Nobody likes a crybaby! Get over it! I LOVED Star Wars The Last Jedi!
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Utterly fantastic from start to end, the last jedi is a stunning, fresh movie that has everything you could possibly want in a Star Wars movie. This keep me guessing and surprised the entire 2 and 1/2 hours, and it never lets its pace up for a second. Ones of the best movies of the decade. Period.
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I loved it. I have no issue who didn't like it as much as my wife and I did but I found it entertaining, and overall a really good movie. Yes I have minor gripes but overall I really enjoyed it.
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As a fan of the star wars films i feel pretty dissapointed about this one. it doesn't feel like star wars universe. First:Luke drinking milk from an alien?Are you kidding me? Maybe in space there'll be no cows, but this was necessary to show? I almost puke my soda at this ! and BB8 throwing coins to guards? gee, at least R2 has some dignity at using laser rays. Rey snaping fingers? Man, I was praying she didn't start dancing like in most Disney's movies are. And in the climax scene when we were all waiting a hell of a fight, hoping Luke kicks Kylo Ren ass in a way far better than Kenobi did to Anakin simply didn't happen.. ! (what the f***.!.. that's it?)
All about the sets, the plot and the humor displayed in this film made me feel about to cry, not to mention by the two hours I was praying for it to end. Hard to believe this is a STAR WARS movie. For all this and more i think This is THE LAST JEDI (STAR WARS) MOVIE i'll ever see.
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Okay, I don't normally write reviews on IMDb, but after reading through numerous ones on here I can't help but scratch my head and wonder if the other reviewers and I saw the same movie.
One of the most baffling complaints I saw was "too much CGI" and "bad CGI". First off, like TFA, there were loads of practical effects, but when CGI was used it was done extremely well. I'd like to know what these people consider to be "good CGI."
Another complaint by someone was that this has cheesy and wooden dialog. How quickly some forget the dialog of TMP, AOTC, and even ROTS.
I think a reason why some people were disappointed by this film is because it went in a completely different direction than most of us were expecting (I know I watched my fair share of YouTuber theories). Aside from ROTS, it's definitely the most gritty film of the franchise (not inherently a bad thing).
Somebody also stated that people walked out of their theatre and I think one said that their hopes and dreams were crushed or something... All I can say is, everyone at the theatre I was at seemed to enjoy it, and nobody walked out.
The acting was on point, the space and ground battles were done in pure Star Wars fashion, and the dialog was definitely improved from TFA (which was a bit cheesy at times).
** SPOILERS BELOW **
There were only a few things I had issues with in this film, namely the death of Snoke. He was so hyped up and as we saw in this movie, he was incredibly strong in the Force. Yet, he was so easily fooled and dispatched by Kylo. I was at least hoping we'd get some backstory on him before he bit the dust, but oh well. It'll be interesting to see how JJ will handle episode IX with Snoke's absense.
I'm okay with Leia not being killed off, but I was a bit surprised that Luke was. He did give Kylo the ultimate middle finger though, which was pretty great. May I also just say that Mark Hamill has still got it? He was wonderful in this film; I could see the conflict and guilt surrounding him and preventing him from acting until the end.
I really like Rose. She and Finn make a good team, and I'm interested to see their (potential) romance grow in the next movie. I think I prefer the two of them together over him and Rey anyway.
Rey and Kylo were some of the best parts of this film for sure. The whole time I was wondering whether one of them would turn to the other side, or if they would end up teaming up.
We got way more of Poe in this one, which is good; he's very charismatically played by Oscar Isaac. In some ways, he seems to be the new Han Solo of this trilogy.
Another minor gripe is with the killing off of Phasma. She was under utilized in the last one, and possibly even more so here. She served to bring Finn's betrayal of the First Order full circle, but that's about all she accomplished.
One final thing: YODA CAMEO!!! yay!
** END OF SPOILERS **
So, hopefully I didn't fanboy this review too much (although I am a pretty major SW fanboy). It's certainly not a flawless film, and it doesn't touch Empire or the first one. However, it is a step above TFA, for bringing better dialog, more plot twists, and an overall grittier and more original story.
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Well it's finally here! The epic movie that television has bombarded us with for the last three months has finally appeared from light speed to grace us with another epic installment, or so we hope. Episode 8 has held the promise of the return of story telling, matching the epic lore of the originals told to hopefully breathe life in a series that has struggled. Rumors even say it surpasses Empire Strikes Back, the movie that holds the throne of Star Wars quality. Can this be true? Has the Force grown strong once more? Robbie K here to shed light on the rumors and hopefully provide some wisdom. Get Started, Let's!
LIKES:
The Cinematography: My wise friends stated right off that this movie may be the best filmed of the bunch. The Last Jedi is a beautiful example of camera work meeting state of the art technology, helping bring the world to life with spectacular visuals. The various angles keep you engrossed in all the details, and paints a very dynamic battleground to which our cast fights in. And unlike episode 7, the sound score is back to Williams' creative work, a blend of old and new that fits into the scene and adds the life to an already vibrant setting.
The Acting: A large cast of characters, requires acting to bring them to life, and the Last Jedi has recruited a phenomenal crew to accomplish this goal. I can't go into great details, but here we go. Mark Hamill brings the fire back into Luke Skywalker with both classic and old Luke style clashing into a complex character. Daisy Ridley takes the simplistic Rey from last time and unleashes her character in full "force" expanding her into a fantastic character that is full of spunk. Carrie Fisher another victory when on screen, that has the vim and vigor of the wizened princess we loved. Newcomers Laura Dern and Kelly Marie Tran were welcomed additions to the cast. Dern's chameleon like abilities continue to craft respectable and honorable characters that fit well in Leia's legacy, with a nice edge to keep things tense. Tran on the other hand is the hopeful character, that has nice delivery of inspirational dialogue, with a dab of rebellion on the side. Everyone worked quite well and I wish I had more time to compliment everyone, but trust me it's good.
The Comedy: A nice quality to have, the comedy in this movie is a nice relief to the darker atmosphere on this side of the galaxy. The Last Jedi's writing is a combination of good timing and wit, that beats in time with all the characters. The ever changing ploys also keeps things fun to watch and had my mentor and I guffawing through much of the movie.
The Storytelling: Perhaps the strongest aspect of the Last Jedi is the presentation in terms of plot in this movie. Director Rian Johnson dug deep into the lore and ignited it in full form in installment eight, bringing with it rich details that answered much of our questions. Much of the tale is character development, pushing them hard to expand upon their hastened roles of seven into more complete soldiers to partake this journey with. The three tales were balanced quite well, spaced out to keep things relevant and each connecting to the big plot as a whole, much like the classic tales were in. These tales are not only adventurous, but filled with strong lessons that this series is famous for preaching. And yet the biggest part of this I like are the twists integrated in this film. Many surprises lie in store for this movie, and many of them fit nicely to take the story deeper down the dark hole. These surprises are perhaps the most engaging parts of the movie, the likes of which weren't expected much like Empire.
DISLIKES:
Salvaged Plots: Despite the strengths I have mentioned in the plot, this modern trilogy still has issues with being too close to the classic series. A blend of episodes five and six, much of this film is a retelling of those classic arcs that is a little disappointing on their dependence to the old and not trying out new elements. At least it is executed, well right?
Unnecessary Tangent: One of the story points almost didn't feel needed, or at least one section of the tangent wasn't that big of a hit for me. The world of Canto Bight makes statements, has a connecting point, and a memorable scene, but this small adventure felt out of place in the grand design. It will bring merchandise opportunities, one of which is a book, but this world didn't hold much value to me outside of a few laughs and some cool beasts. Perhaps a little more struggle, or intensity could have redeemed it for me, though it still isn't too bad for me.
Suspension of reality: I get it, it's Star Wars and that is Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Still, there has to be some consistency in regards to how you are going to ignore the physics of real life and the lore that came before. There are moments you will roll your eyes at in terms of the inabilities of the technology, or how uneven the skills seem to develop. While we could ignore these if they were minor, the movie's key situation relied on this suspension and it was a little too big of a stretch for me.
The Action: Star Wars is a series that relies on action to pick things up and make add the fire that makes the story shine like the stars. With a rather intense start, Last Jedi had potential, but soon that potential was lost to the void. Much of this movie is dialogue, development, and connections, and with it one of the slower paces of the series. Yes, there were a few moments to help pick up the pace, but much of this was short lives or lacking that laser packing punch I loved in the first installments. Say what you want about the prequels, but they had some incredible fight scenes that livened things up and the Last Jedi really needed this element for me.
The VERDICT:
The Last Jedi is indeed proof that the universe still has life left in the void of the galaxy Lucas created. It's got emotion! It's got character development! It's got twists! All of this is important in developing characters and making them fly off the screen. Throw in great acting and beautiful cinematography and you have a really, well done film. Yet, this generation still is not escaping the salvaging of the classic plot points, while their unique aspects need a little tweaking in terms of relevance. However, the biggest improvement has got to be the action, working to bring the ship to ship combat back to full strength, and really getting those lightsaber battles back up to snuff. Still, it's a fantastic film to catch in theaters and definitely a worthy installment to Lucas's world.
My scores:
Action/Adventure/Fantasy: 9.0
Movie Overall: 8.0
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First, lots of negativity here guys, damn! Who hurt you?
Yes, it is long. But despite needing to pee during more than half of it, it didn't feel that way to me. The Last Jedi kept a lot of the lightheartedness from the Force Awakens but also gave it some depth.
This is really all about Rey and Kylo Ren. It's their connection and their shared struggles that ultimately make the film worth watching. I've never been an Adam Driver fan and I found Kylo Ren in the Force Awakens to be annoying and grating. That changes in the Last Jedi. He's still fundamentally the same character but he has layers. You can see the human underneath; conflicted and confused. His is the strongest performance in the movie. I also kind of loved the reveal that Rey's parents were nobody. We've all been speculating for ages about how Rey fits into this story...and the truth is that she doesn't. It's perfect really. It's a very human thing to want to feel special...to feel important. That's what Rey wants. Sometimes realizing that you're neither is a hard truth you learn as an adult. Though, in reality Rey is, in fact, special. It just has nothing to do with her parents.
A lot of people seem to be complaining about Snoke dying. I am not one of those people. I personally thought Snoke was the worst part of the Force Awakens. He was lame, lifeless and added nothing to the plot. Dr. Claw would have been a more nefarious foe. (yes I referenced Inspector Gadget...what are you going to do about it?) Some people apparently wanted to learn more about Snoke. Who was he? What was his background? How did he meet Kylo Ren? I just wanted him to die. At least one of us is happy.
Are there things I would change? Of course. As much as I lit up at the sight of Yoda I just couldn't take the scene seriously. It looked like a bad B movie. I also didn't love Kylo Ren flip flopping so quickly back to the dark side. However, I do understand that if he completely gave up villainhood we wouldn't have an antagonist for IX. I don't like Laura Dern being used as a red shirt. She's better than that. Rose kissing Finn was also a bit much. I can't tell whether they're trying to build a love triangle or just quash hopes for a Finn-Rey pairing. Finally, I wasn't a fan of the anticlimactic exit for Luke. He didn't need a violent death but just disappearing seemed like a poor finale for the heart of the series.
Overall there's way more to love about this movie than to criticize. Poe continues to be predictably awesome as does BB-8. The porgs alone should merit 5 stars (I'm only halfway joking because they're kind of amazing).
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Just as The Force Awakens was A New Hope 2, this most recent instalment in the Star Wars anthology is a mix of Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi.
The most recent trailer actually made it appear to be more exciting that it would eventually turn out to be.
It starts pretty much where the last one left off and plays out pretty much exactly as you'd expect, it's a hand holding story that lacks the excitement or surprises of Episodes IV, V & VI.
Rey's character has lost anything interestign bOUT HRight at the top of this I want to say that I believe that the actors involved in this film did a marvellous job as they did in TFA & there are no critiques of their ability to portray their character.
Just as The Force Awakens was A New Hope 2, this most recent instalment in the Star Wars anthology is a mix of Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi.
The most recent trailer actually made it appear to be more exciting that it would eventually turn out to be. Clever editing.
!!!!!That's not to say the film isn't enjoyable!!!!!
It starts pretty much where the last one left off (a couple of continuity errors aside) and plays out pretty much exactly as you'd expect, it's a hand holding story that lacks the excitement or surprises of Episodes IV, V & VI. But that maybe down to us expecting it to be vastly dissimilar to the original films much like the prequels shudder gave us new characters, surroundings and stories (albeit rather duff ones at times).
Unfortunately the interesting set ups from TFA are largely ignored and plastered over with gumpff essentially!
Rey's character has lost anything interesting about her and becomes a generic almost pattern cut version of Luke from ESB & RotJ. Hopefully her character will be fleshed out more in IX.
Finn has suddenly lost his force powers that were established in TFA also the romantic link between him & Rey has suddenly disappeared to make way for Rose a likeable character who's tough and all heart. Regrettably Finn has essentially ended up in Galactic rom com heist plot where he's demoted from front running hero to comic relief.
It seems that a lot of the characters we started to like in TFA have been given their idiosyncratic personalities from TFA. Poe is cheeky and foolhardy much like Han was, Finn seems to be teetering on a bizarre bipolar chasm where he falls over his shadow then becomes a pigeon chested hero. Rey floats along whimsically after Luke then unleashed her anger every time she fights, making it seem like she's about to turn to the dark side any minute.
****Anyone who wanted any popular fan theories to be true will be bitterly disappointed. If only the studio listened to the fans the films would be full of twists & turns. ****
Usually in the middle film in a Star Wars trilogy some great reveal and romantic entanglement occurs, AotC had Anakin & Padme's marriage as well as debuting the ships that would eventually become the iconic Star Destroyers. ESB had the now infamous "I am your Father!" the 'side swapping ' Lando and Han & Leia's romance. TLJ has two interesting moments that are largely unexpected, but the romance that should be happening between Finn & Rey has been sidestepped for a character who's literally just been introduced & the heroes of the first film downgraded to buddies.
^v^v^v^Spoiler time^v^v^v^
1. Leia using the force! Finally, I, like most fans I'd imagine have waited for this moment since RotJ. Brilliant addition to the film, it complimented the story well, built her character and set up nicely her communicating with Luke.
2. Finn's show down with Phasma. Given that so much spin was put on the Phasma character in TFA I expected something epic, what we got was a quick brawl after too many scoops post derby game! Disappointing.
3. Yoda, well it wouldn't be Star Wars without the cute Jedi Gremlin. It's a shame they didn't CGI in Alec Guniness as they did Carrie Fisher in Rogue One.
4. Snoke! I was genuinely surprised by this, It did feel like an alternative ending from RotJ but wow! It's also a very brave way to go especially showing the rivalry between the two Emo leaders of the Empire/First Order.
5. Symbolism! Anakins/Lukes blue lightsaber being pulled in half seems to show the end of the Skywalker family dramas (I hope so) but so late on in the second part of a trilogy. This only seems to open up for yet another trilogy to be announced at a later date following the exploits of these newer characters. *Also Luke's intention to join the Force is apparent when he mimics Ben Kenobi when taking his hood off to see R2. The biggest is obviously the 2 Suns setting on the Skywalkers.
6. Reys parents! Is this a ruse? There was so much stress on 'Who is this magic girl?' the obvious was completely lost. Personally I felt this was a cop out, not as much as it would've been if it'd been revealed that somehow she's a Skywalker. But Kylo Ren/Ben Solo did state her parents were just scavengers like her & nothing special at all. There were various fan theories out there and practically any would've been better than this.
7. Luke joins the Force! This should've been sad, but it was actually laid out in breadcrumbs from the beginning, this was not a surprise, it was 'nice' it wasn't emotional like Han's death was (although that was obvious too) Luke was our hero from the original films and we waited the whole of TFA to get a glimpse of him. I'm glad they did it this way he's come full circle into the new Ben Kenobi.
8. Humour, although some of it was excellent, Lukes reaction to seeing his Fathers original lightsaber. Priceless. There were other parts that were too 'Marvel humour' and although may have raised a smile felt out of place in an ultimately dark and emotional instalment to the anthology.
9. The 'easter eggs' enough now! We get that there was inspiration from ANH in TFA we get that ESB & RotJ also inspired some scenes in TLJ but enough is enough now, so much time has been wasted repeating icon scenes/plot points/storylines that the new characters haven't really had the time to take centre stage, these new films are still very much about Luke, Han & Leia, amazing as those characters are we're two movies into the trilogy and i don't feel like i know the central characters Finn & Rey anymore than i did by the end of the TFA. So ALL their characters development/motivation etc will have to come out in IX.
It feels to me like Disney are doing this purely so set the stage for another trilogy after this taking us up to XII just so we can have stories revolving around the newcomers.
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The Star Wars franchise has been a favorite of mine. Although I developed this love only after I saw Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens premier, my love for it has never been lost. I started watching all the cartoons, I watched the updated versions of the original trilogies that kept being remastered by George Lucas and I started reading the Star Wars novels (which to my surprise, were pretty entertaining). Now, it would be stupid not to be pumped for the new one. But, I did have some concerns then. I feared that the franchise that I love will lose its magic. I don't want it to be another generic sci-fi action films. The X-Men universe, Transformers, Star Trek, or even the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not to give hate, but when you watch these movies, sure it's cool, fun, and entertaining, but after you got home and you turn on your laptop or whatever, the impression you had kind of fades away. The Force Awakens was great for me. It was immensely fun, they introduced us to great new characters, while still doing justice to older ones, and most importantly, it captures the Star Wars magic that we all know and love. So, I hoped that this movie still has that same magic. Thankfully, it did.
What a blast I had with this movie. This movie had everything I wanted in a Star Wars movie. The space battles were epic and loud, the lightsaber battles were better than ever (one scene involving Kylo Ren was the best lightsaber fight I've ever seen), the characters grew even more interesting as you would expect in a sequel, and most importantly, I love what they did with the Star Wars lore. The movie actually gives a good chunk of its runtime to explain about the Jedi, the Force, and the Sith. They committed on actually telling the spirituality behind these Star Wars myths which are so iconic. Perhaps this is why, despite all the other superhero and fantasy movies nowadays, Star Wars still feel special to most people. They have a core. A deep spiritual philosophy that we can all relate to. And also, because they have bright laser swords (sorry, couldn't help it).
Another thing I found really interesting was Kylo Ren. I think he might just be my favorite Star Wars character yet. The complexity that his character has, provides an interesting conflict. And by the way, the actor (Adam Driver) was excellent as Kylo Ren. His struggle against his past and present was vividly expressed in his performance. Add to that the lightsaber stunts which he does by himself (and which I couldn't stop talking about) were excellent. What I'm also happy about is the fact that Luke Skywalker isn't merely just a typical wise master figure. He got a surprisingly hefty amount of character development in this movie.
I bet Star Wars fans will enjoy this movie. Old fans and New fans, The Originals fans and The Prequels fans. The exhilaration and the epic-scale space opera will surely please all viewers. If they could keep up with what they're doing here, I could safely say that I am confident in the future of the Star Wars saga. As a fan, that is all I could say. Disney, keep up the good work.
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I've been a Star Wars fan for my entire life. I grew up with the films, read many of the books (Thrawn is one of my idols) and played the games. I've even been to conventions and written fan fiction. My friends use me as a living encyclopedia on EU information. So yes, I LOVE Star Wars.
That being said, I'm fully aware of its flaws. I don't look at the OT with rose-tinted glasses, but rather the critical eye of a guy who's seen over a thousand films. So, when watching The Last Jedi, I was spared from comparing it to the impossibly high standards that many other fans shove through it.
I was one of the few who got to see this film before opening night, and I must say that it surprised me in many ways. Is it perfect? Far from it. The Last Jedi struggled greatly with its tone in the opening act and included needless universe expansion that did nothing for the overall film (you'll know what I mean). Beyond that, there was a little too much fan service, to the point where it took away from the story as a whole.
However, I would be remiss if I were to focus entirely on the negatives. Once the pointless world-building scenes ended, the pacing of the film improved. The tone shifted to something darker and more real. And then? The Last Jedi did something that I didn't expect any Star Wars movie to do: it subverted expectations. There were a handful of key, game-changing scenes that couldn't have gone more differently from how other SW films would have done them. A couple of times, these changes fell flat - but most of the time, they kept the audience on their toes, delivering fresh takes on otherwise tired ideas. We see characters taken in directions that we never thought we'd see them go. The Force is explored much further than I've seen in any other SW media. Again, some of it falls, but most of it works remarkably.
Overall, this film is far better than the prequels and even gives the original trilogy a run for its money, so long as one foregoes their rose-tinted glasses.
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My review does not have spoilers because is I would not ruin it for anyone. I really don't like all these people giving 1 or 2 stars and then giving spoilers in there review.
A review should be what you think about the movie and not details.
All I will say is this movie was fantastic and would watch it over and over again.
Is ti better then Empire? I would not compare them this movie could be seen by someone that has never seen the others movie and still enjoy it.
I lot of people are saying it is destroying the old movies. I disagree this is the Star Wars for this generation.
At the end of the day fan and not so fans out there.. We are watching Star Wars in the big screen again and the music is there and the excitement is there. Just enjoy the ride and laugh and cry and encourage others to share it with you.
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8/10
The Star Wars movie that is going to divide the fanbase
I am a big Star Wars fan, who watched all the movies multiple times. The expectation for this movie was set high after "The Force Awakens". That movie took the safe route and looked a lot like "A New Hope" building up the beginning for the next Star Wars trilogy on tested ground.
Instead of recycling the original trilogy again I wanted to see a new Star Wars movie, something different and innovative while still keeping the core elements the Star Wars franchise is all about. For the most part I got exactly that and I walked out of the premiere with quite positive feelings. I do mostly like this movie but it has some glaring weak points which i have to adress. I will try to be as critical and honest as possible.
"The Last Jedi" is a new, refreshing story which seems at parts a little dragged out with its rather long runtime of 2h 32min but it never gets boring, far from that. Generally speaking the movie has a solid main plot. It is a visually stunning experience with great action sequences. However on the other side it has some plot issues, unanswered questions left from The Force Awakens and weaker subplots which could easily be taken out without harming the main storyline. The movie has a lot of humour, jokes and one-liners in it. Sometimes they are great and offer a good laugh but on the other hand can also feel forced and unnecessary during serious moments of the movie.
The story you are going to see is vastly different than anything seen before in Star Wars. Rian Johnson takes us on a new adventure and redefines aspects of the franchise to a large extend but keeps the core intact. It feels like watching a Star Wars movie but it also brings big amounts of innovation which is not to everyone's liking. The problem with this lies in the fact that this Star Wars is going to divide the fanbase in halfs.
The first group of people will be mostly consisted of older fans (of the original trilogy) which will see this movie as a disgrace and blame Disney for ruining the franchise. The second group is either the younger audience or people who want to see changes, something new in this instalment. They want to leave the safe and familiar zone the originals created and established. The point is you will either adore the movie or hate it. Sadly there is no middle ground but each side is fine and reasonable so go on and see for yourself.
Positives:
+ good performances by most lead actors
+ unexpected plot twists
+ original story with core SW elements still in tact
+ visually stunning and very impressive
+ the action is epic, space fights and land battles looked never better
Negatives:
character development is lacking for some lead characters
unanswered questions left from "The Force Awakens"
subplot is unintersting and the middle part of the movie drags on
too much humour and forced jokes in serious parts of the movie
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8/10
Not for the hardcore fans, terrible subplot yet few great stuff. Could be better, but....
Everyone has to agree to disagree: this is a transition towards a new generation. So newbies will love it, hardcore fans will hate it.
I honestly expected: Rey's background to be amazing. Snoke's background. Luke to train Rey effectively and actually joining her and the rebels. Finn and Rey to have more adventures together. Poe to join them. Leia to be killed by Kylo Ren. And then the "good boys" to be miserable in the end and make everyone craving for Episode IX. Something like Empire Strikes Back (Luke with no hand, confused with his father & Han frozen...).
THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN.
DISLIKES:
* There was this weird thing going between Kylo and Rey. Why? Just because of the "hashtag Reylo" all over the internet after Episode VII? Why did they talk too much? Weird whatsapp thing between them.
* I hated that Luke died. Yoda told him to train Rey properly! How? By dying? Leia is already dead. What's this thing about killing everyone from the original 4-5-6 or sending people to suicide missions? just because Rogue One made a lot of money - I mean, success?
* too many comedy stuff
* Rose & Finn going to Monte Carlo. Too many minutes wasted on such subplot. I actually looked at my phone to check how much of the movie was elapsed during such scenes.
* hated Laura Dern. and I like her. Benicio del Toro was pointless.
* too much time wasted on the spaceship lacking fuel thingy.
* no romance. everybody needs some. Rey was left alone with Finn all involved with Rose, but it was one kiss, that's all.
* how come it was so easy to kill Snoke? after that, Rey & Poe fighting some ninjas was cool BUT there was an opportunity to make things really dark. Like Rey joining Kylo or him joing her - and later betraying everyone.
* flyboy
* Rey's background
* if you pay attention you'll get some stuff related to life nowadays: crazy leader (Trump), one of the quotes was "yes he can" (Obama?), Rey & Kylo chatting like skype / whatsapp, rich people suffering (casino), Chewie not eating Porgs (becoming vegan?)
* no amazing lightsaber battles
* the whole thing not being as expected
LIKES:
* Luke was bitter yet wiser.
* YODA
* "You're my only hope" moment. I cried.
* Luke & R2-D2
* Leia almost dying. I started to cry. It was cool that she used her jedi powers, though.
* Chewie
* Chewie becoming "vegan"
* Luke coming out of nowhere, talking to Leia. And showing off his powers.
* some memorable quotes - like "teaching failure" by Yoda
* meet cute in the very end between Poe & Rey. I always thought they belonged together, yet this meet cute is in the novelization of Episode VII
* battle in the end
* Poe along with Leia, having more screen time
* the whole thing not being as expected
* not copying episode VI.
Anyway, I left the session a bit confused, for there were indeed amazing moments but terrible ones as well. Overall, I had a lot of fun by crying, laughing, being stunned by few plot twists. It is clearly a transition between the old and new and such evolution must happen, since people get older and evolve as well. I'm sure that I'll have plenty SW episodes to watch in my life, and I'll keep doing so.
Thing is, after such episode, there is a lot of things to happen in Episode IX. Hopefully we'll have greater ups and downs, better acting, less subplots and more retro & respect towards the saga.
AT LEAST it wasn't as bad as episodes 1 & 2.
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8/10
The Star Wars movie that is going to divide the fanbase
I'm a big Star Wars fan, who watched all the movies multiple times. The expectation for this movie was set high after "The Force Awakens". That movie took the safe route and looked a lot like "A New Hope" building up the beginning for the next Star Wars trilogy on tested ground.
Instead of recycling the original trilogy again I wanted to see a new Star Wars movie, something different and innovative while still keeping the core elements the Star Wars franchise is all about. For the most part I got exactly that and walked out of the premiere with quite positive feelings. I do mostly like this movie but it has some glaring weak points which i have to address. I will try to be as critical and honest as possible.
"The Last Jedi" is a new, refreshing story which seems at parts a little dragged out with its rather long runtime of 2h 32min but it never gets boring, far from that. Generally speaking the movie has a solid main plot. It is a visually stunning experience with great action sequences. However on the other side it has some plot issues, unanswered questions left from The Force Awakens and weaker subplots which could easily be taken out without harming the main storyline. The movie has a lot of humour, jokes and one-liners in it. Sometimes they are great and offer a good laugh but on the other hand can also feel forced and unnecessary during serious moments of the movie.
The story you are going to see is vastly different than anything seen before in Star Wars. Rian Johnson takes us on a new adventure and redefines aspects of the franchise to a large extend but keeps the core intact. It feels like watching a Star Wars movie but it also brings big amounts of innovation which is not to everyone's liking. The problem with this lies in the fact that this Star Wars is going to divide the fanbase in halfs.
The first group of people will be mostly consisted of older fans (of the original trilogy) which will see this movie as a disgrace and blame Disney for ruining the franchise. The second group is either the younger audience or people who want to see changes, something new in this instalment. They want to leave the safe and familiar zone the originals created and established. The point is you will either adore the movie or hate it. Sadly there is no middle ground but each side is fine and reasonable so go on and see for yourself.
Positives:
+ good performances by most lead actors
+ unexpected plot twists
+ original story with core SW elements still in tact
+ visually stunning and very impressive
+ the action is epic, space fights and land battles looked never better
Negatives:
character development is lacking for some lead characters
unanswered questions left from "The Force Awakens"
subplot is unintersting and the middle part of the movie drags on
too much humour and forced jokes in serious parts of the movie
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Warning, although I will not spoil anything until I state in CAPITALS, the following may still be found as a potenial spoiler. I recommend you watch the movie first before reading.
So i saw the Perth opening session of The Last Jedi on December 13. First, let me say how the Star Wars fan base is very large and exciting to be a part of. People were dressed up in costumes, wielding lightsabers, and wearing their favorite Star Wars shirts. So being in a full cinema with an atmosphere close to Comic-Con is pretty cool itself.
But once the movie started, I instantly forgot anyone was there. As the ' A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY' came up, the cinema was quiet from the start to end.
As i sat there reading the crawel, I was a little surprised to find the storyline was different than expected. The First order (new empire) have somehow found the Resistance base and are getting ready to attack. So the crawel ends there and gives us a 2.5hr movie on that...at first I thought "Bollocks, this could be boring"
Well excuse me, and please take a screenshot here because it is not often I admit I am wrong.. but I was wrong.
I love Ice Tea and I dont think i drunk out of the bottle once for the whole 2.5 hrs. Oh how I was so terribly wrong.
The start of the film takes a while to get into a nail-biting storyline, but it still was a fantastic intro. The action was intense and the emotions were already being played with! Them bomber ships were mint. You'll know what I mean when you see them ;)
So the introduction sets up the story and reason as to why the new Character Rose is involved and although I found her acting very poor, her character was great! I didnt think I was going to like a childish looking girl in the Resistance, but she worked wonders!
Then there is the Star Wars & Disney Comedy Team. Well actually, dayum that was some fine comedy scenes. Not only was I laughing at Poe and BB8's goofs and gags, but the uninterested girlfriend of a stranger next to me was laughing. So the comedy was also very well done.
Now.. the First Order. Hm. I got problems with you guys. I am not too sure what it is and I cant quite put my finger on it, but there's something I just don't find frightening about you guys. In fact I kind of feel Rowan Atkinson would fit right in. Don't get me wrong, Snoke is one ugly looking bastard and Kylo Ren is pretty cool. But.. thatsreally all you guys have got. But thats a minor teeny tiny problem. I have bigger concerns ... but more on those later!
GENERAL LEIA!!!! Oh how awesome you are. Sometimes I feel like I didn't give you enough credit as a kid. Not many Princesses can have their actresses die and still be in 90% of a movie 1 year later. And you know, despite the fact you don't really shoot anyone or are running around with Ewoks, you are still an amazing character. SPPPOOOIIIILLEEERRRR AHEAD:: Not many people can be blown out into space and then use the force to pull yourself back onto the ship and into safety. Woo you go girl!
Just... maybe dont be such a bitch about it when Poe is trying his hardest to save your ship
NOW for the moment we have all been waiting for, Luke & Rey.
Okay a few minor problems first.
Luuukkeeee why man, whyyy are your first words (SPOILER ALERTTTTTT) 'go away'.
Now I'm not saying it wasnt needed nor outta place, because it suited quite good, but I feel like Luke's first words since Return of The Jedi could have been a little more thought of. But I saw past that.
So Luke trains Rey and she puts herself to the test with the force, and we then find out that she can communicate with Kylo Ren through a strong force connection. This was really well done and actually made the story that bit more spectacular. But then we find that Luke can do the same with Leia!!! Okay so that is cool, but... um if he could do that all along, why didnt he do it the past 40 years? Meh. No biggie.
So okay if Leia and Luke can connect with a strong connection, does that mean Rey and Kylo are brother and sister? Maybe. I got pretty excited to find out.
SPOOOIIIILLEEERRRR ALEERRTT:: later we find out that Luke actually tried to kill and murder Ben Solo (jedi Kylo). This was pretty shocking because like most people, I find it doesn't make sense for Luke to turn evil after all this time(?) Well that was answered in the end of course and Luke is still good. So that small twist was kind of a "Hey look im a baddie!! Oh actually nah nevermind". Like, okay? I guess this is fine. But it kind of wasn't needed as such. Don't get me wrong again, I see why Luke tried to kill Ben, but it felt like a forced twist.
So now Rey has fled Luke and meets up with Kylo. HOLYY SH!T. This next scene was one of , if not the best Star Wars scene ever.
Period.
SPOOILERR ALLERRTT:: So Kylo Ren takes Rey to Snoke and we find out that Snoke all this time has been playing with their minds and that Kylo Ren is and always will be bad. So as Snoke is torturing Rey, he asks Kylo Ren to kill her. He brings out his lightsaber and then uses the force behind his back, pushing Rey's Saber into the heart of Snoke, killing the Surpreme Leader. He then pulls the lightsaber away, cutting the sith in half. Rey grabs the saber and the two stand side by side fighting against imperial guards. It was amazing. Like. I was blown away. Wow. Just wow. Everyone i asked loved that scene too. It was just really well done.
However... Snoke is dead? What! Why? We didnt even get to see who he was? It was like JJ Abrams had big plans for this villain and then Rian Johnson decides not to and just kills him. So the big villain everyone has been talking about just.. died. Just like that. No explanation on who he is, where he came from. Nothing.
Then we discover from Kylo Ren knows the truth about Reys parents.
This is the moment we have all been waiting for. Who is she?
Well the answer is revealed and her parents areeeeeeee.... no one. A pair of junk traders.
I remember sitting there going, "are you kidding? Surely not".
This movie was basically a spit in the face to the fans. It was like saying "AHAHA you guys are so gullible. Yeah no, Rey is no one and Snoke is just an alien. Lol. Love you, from Disney".
But the movie was still amazing. The slow motion scenes, the action, the battles, the everything but twists were amazing!! This is a movie not to miss. It is such a great atmospheric film.
The end battle is brilliant too because (and) SPOILER AGAIN, Luke battles Kylo Ren. That battle was jaw dropping. I think everyone including the girl next to me, were frozen as Luke Skywalker fought the new Surpreme Leader- Kylo Ren. So yes, he is still bad.
But the battle was amazing. Finn was brilliant and Rose was okay, but she annoyed me occasionally at the end. Poe was great too, and after the final battle he finally meets Rey and let me say now, those two have a love connection coming. Easy.
The movie was great. It had some astonishing moments such as the Rey and Kylo Ren side by side battle, the space battles, the surprise (SPOILER) appearance of the original Yoda, the themes and message, the end battle.. it was such a great ride.
But like all movies, it does have its flaws and unfortunately it did spit in our face with let downs.
And the very end of the film, we see Luke Skywalker pass on to his ghost side. Luke has left us and passed away, which is sad but it was an honorable death.
But.. HE ONLY CAME BACK!? WHY DID YOU KILL HIM!? WHY WHY WHY!
Sorry, I lost my cool.
Good movie, wish JJ Abrams stuck to direct though. Aside from the hectic flaws, the movie was amazing due to everything else.
Definitely seeing it again.
7. 5/10.
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A good sequel but I must admit I preferred Episode VII, simply because it had the better and more exciting story. DOnt get me wrong this new installment of the legendary franchise is still a very good film but I thought the approach of Riann Johnson in regards of making it too comedic at time that it felt like a parody of its own was not always the right way to handle it. I know its good that it doesnt take itself too seriously but the problem is that in some parts it felt like a skit and in other parts it actually DID take itself very seriously so I did not really think the mix worked too well. But yeah that is basically the only beef I have with it. I missed more twists, a la "Empire Strikes Back" but I guess they may save those for the last part. I also wasnt sure about the fate of some characters they built up so well in the first part. But anyway, I don't want to get into too much detail as I don't want to spoil it (but to be honest there is not much too spoil).
Acting wise it was fine. Mark Hamill did well and had some really good moments throughout the film. The way he played Luke Skywalker is very different to the way he did before and that was interesting. A great development and the film left him some room to even further develope it throughout. Daisy Ridley was all right, however some scenes were a bit exaggerated. Carrie Fisher was great, and not only because of the bittersweetness of her appearance but they really gave her something to do here, unlike in Episode VII. Adam Driver was possibly the best of the cast, still at times monotone but mysterious and very twisted. I liked it. He also expressed the dilemma of his character excellently. Oscar Isaac more and more developes into Han Solo. John Boyega was tolerable. I really don't like Domhnall Gleeson in that series. Horrible performance.
Good new addition of Laura Dern who also had a great character. Benicio Del Toro was great, I just wished has role had more significant.
There is another thing that bugged me, it relates too much to the old films like the scenarios repeat themselves, there is nothing original nothing shocking. The structure is the same like an never-ending story. J.J. Abrams film could come over that, I hope he can do it again.
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8/10
Falters a little but still an enjoyable experience
Having breathed new life into the Star Wars franchise with The Force Awakens back in 2015, a film that was an adrenaline rush of nostalgia combined with fresh new characters, Star Wars was well and truly back, and bigger than ever before. Opting to close the film with such a teasing cliffhanger of a final shot left the world waiting with baited breath for the continuation of the saga and with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the wait is finally over.
As the Resistance prepares to continue the fight against the First Order, Rey (Daisy Ridley), having only just taken her first steps into the Jedi world, trains with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in the ways of the Force, leading to secrets of the past being unearthed.
As soon as the goosebump inducing moment of Star Wars filling the screen with John Williams' iconic score blaring out had passed, it was clear that this was going to be a very different Star Wars film from what had come before. The potential for this film was so high however, as it drew on, I couldn't help but feel that it's let down by an inconsistent tone that became very jarring.
Rian Johnson has very much created a Star Wars film from his own vision, writing and directing probably the most unpredictable instalment of the saga yet. I admire Johnson for taking some risks but the film feels so far away from The Force Awakens that they almost don't feel connected at all. After the way we were introduced to new characters and storylines in the previous instalment, this continuation doesn't seem to live up to that standard.
Don't get me wrong, The Last Jedi features some great Star Wars moments and Johnson has taken some of the character arcs in a very interesting direction, which makes the wait for Episode IX even more tantalising. While Star Wars films do tend to feature an element of comedy, The Last Jedi almost overuses the humour, particularly in moments it shouldn't, which leads to the aforementioned inconsistent tone that hampers the film. I didn't really think the Porgs were necessary at all but hey, whatever sells merchandise I guess right?
As I've already said, The Last Jedi has some great crowd-pleasing moments, Johnson understanding what the audience wants to see for the most part, an incredibly tense showdown between a trio of characters in the middle act being one of the film's standout moments. He does opt to include some very bizarre moments mind, one of the weirdest Star Wars moments coming in the first act and a plot device that left me feeling cheated coming in the final act.
As with the majority of the Star Wars films, there are some incredible visual effects on show in The Last Jedi, the dogfights in space being utterly exhilarating yet again while watching Rey and Kylo Ren wield their lightsabers in battle is made even better by the fight choreography that's executed to perfection. The Last Jedi also boasts yet another John Williams score that accompanies the action and characters tremendously well.
Coming to the performances, The Last Jedi features an ensemble of performers who make the characters such a major success, a common trait throughout the Star Wars saga. The trio that really stood out for me though were Daisy Ridley as Rey, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. Ridley and Driver have taken to being in such a major and important franchise like ducks to water, Ridley in particular, and the two of them share some memorable scenes together in The Last Jedi. Seeing Mark Hamill in the role of Luke Skywalker again was such a joy and he gives it his all here, the pain and anguish of his failures in the past coming to the fore through Hamill's performance. While I don't agree with everything Johnson did with these characters, I thought all three gave memorable performances.
Carrie Fisher gets a much more prominent role in The Last Jedi, the regal presence of Leia being a most welcome one. I didn't really take to Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico mainly because her character just feels too forced into the narrative. John Boyega, who was such a major player in The Force Awakens feels as if he's sidelined here, as does Oscar Isaac, again. It's disappointing to see these two play in the shadows so much.
A little muddled as an entry into the Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi is certainly an enjoyable cinematic experience, it just didn't hit the heights already reached in the saga previously. A number of questions remain unanswered so J. J. Abrams has a lot of work in tying up loose ends to close the trilogy with Episode IX. Even though I walked out of The Last Jedi a little disappointed, I cannot wait for the final instalment.
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8/10
Not the best Star Wars movie, but it´s a good one.
Star Wars: Episode VIII- The last jedi, is a good movie. Is not the best of all, but is good, and there are some things that are interesting. Even that the movie is 152 minutes long, it doesn't´t feel that long. I like Episode VII more than this, but this movie feels a little more epic. Rain Johnson is a good director, not only let us see the characters developed in the way they do, but also visually, is stunning. The performances are amazing, specially from Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill, not saying that the other actors are not good, because everyone is great, but Daisy and Mark gave the best performances of their careers in this movie.
The issues of this movie, at least to me, is that the movie takes some decisions that they were not good for the movie (like the direction of a character, and the fact that the movie could be 20 minutes short) I would love to explore Laura Dern character a little bit more. Also, the movie could use some more dark moments.
Leaving that behind, the movie was entertaining and has some epic moments, that in the future, Star Wars fans will look up to.
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The Last Jedi is already proving to be quite a controversial film. Obviously people have very strong opinions about Star Wars, and after seeing it for myself yesterday there's a lot to discuss.
The Good:
The performances in The Last Jedi are some of the best in any Star Wars film, period.
Adam Driver in particular is absolutely compelling as Kylo Ren. He is sympathetic, threatening, and highly unpredictable.
Mark Hamill is better than he's ever been as Luke Skywalker. This character is very different to the Luke that we're used to, he is much older and highly damaged by the events of the past but he isn't unrecognizable. He still feels like Luke.
Carrie Fisher of course is wonderful and has more time to shine here than she did in The Force Awakens. Rest in peace.
Daisy Ridley once again is a highlight and a wonderful protagonist.
The story makes some bold decisions. Characters go in directions you might not expect, there are twists in the story you probably won't see coming. Thank goodness! I loved The Force Awakens, and I can admit that film played it very safe. I was hoping that The Last Jedi would take a few risks and it does.
Not everyone is going to be happy with the way certain things go. You don't have to go far to find people who are already extremely disappointed with this film's choices.
Personally, I was on the edge of my seat. How refreshing is it to feel genuine surprise in a film like this.
Characters don't feel safe in the way that they so often do in big franchise films. There are many genuine moments of tension, and a character's safety is not guaranteed. This is also something I found incredibly refreshing.
Incredible actions sequences and definitely one of the best and most thrilling lightsaber fights in the entire saga.
The film is beautifully shot, which elevates the drama as well as making the locations and action sequences shine more than they normally would.
Do I even need to mention the music? It's Star Wars.
All of the special effects are obviously great, with some awesome CGI. I also need to mention the elite praetorian guards, whose costumes were particularly cool. There are some great new creatures such as the vulptex and of course, the porgs, who are extremely adorable.
The movie is fun in a way that a Star Wars film should be and maintains that same great sense of humor. Aside from a few moments that didn't land for me, there are some solid laughs to be had with The Last Jedi that aren't distracting.
The Last Jedi is different to any other Star Wars film, and I think it fits into the saga well while still maintaining a vibe of it's own. There's a lot of these movies now and they're only going to keep making more of them, so it's reassuring to see that they won't necessarily all feel the same.
The Bad:
The biggest single flaw that The Last Jedi has is a subplot involving Finn and Rose, a new character. While these characters are fun, and John Boyega is still very charismatic as Finn, their mission is easily the least interesting part of the film, and ultimately feels pretty insignificant. Unfortunately the planet they visit isn't particularly captivating, and the story doesn't progress a whole lot during their time there.
As a result, the middle of the film drags far more than it should, picking up again by it's third act.
Aside from Rey, Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren, none of the other characters really develop or go anywhere. Granted, these three characters are the most central to the film, and most of the film is devoted to them. The rest don't really have an arc, they are simply fun characters.
While I think one of the films biggest strengths is it's willingness to take risks, there's a small number of things I thought were a bit questionable in how they resolved.
I wasn't a fan of Laura Dern's character, and I also thought Benecio del Toro was fairly wasted, as well as Captain Phasma again!
There are still some questions left from The Force Awakens that The Last Jedi did not answer. Although I wouldn't count this as a major flaw yet as the trilogy still has one movie to go.
Overall:
I definitely think this is one of the better Star Wars films, and that says something given that it has some very clear flaws yet still manages to be a highly satisfying film.
I do see this one becoming one of the most divisive films in the saga, and I can definitely see a lot of people passionately hating it and the direction they chose to go with some things.
I think the biggest enemy a Star Wars fan faces when going in to see this film is their own expectations... The Force Awakens introduced a number of questions that fans have been making theories about since that film came out two years ago.
The Last Jedi is not afraid to shatter the expectations that came with those theories.
People complained that The Force Awakens played it too safe, and now those same people are probably going to complain about multiple things in The Last Jedi that challenged what they knew about Star Wars.
Whether or not you're able to get on board with this new Star Wars film is entirely up to you.
I found it to be highly entertaining and it kept me mostly on the edge of my seat throughout.
One of the things I wanted most for The Last Jedi was for it to take risks and go into directions I did not expect, and it has certainly done that. I am very excited to see where Episode IX will take us.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is nothing like you would expect, and not in a good way.
As a movie in general I think it was good, it's kind of comparable to Guardians of the Galaxy which was entertaining. However as a Star Wars movie I thought this was disappointing.
The cinematography and the effects of TLJ were outstanding, but the storytelling was extremely off! There were too many subplots that didn't add anything to the movie, subplots that in the end didn't matter because everyone who was interesting dies! And they die without getting any backstory or explanation. New characters are added while we don't get to know more about the already existing ones. There were no plot twists, new discoveries and barely no answers to the previous film (TFA). When the movie had opportunities to do something outstanding or go out of the comfort zone they didn't take the chance. There were a few moments where something unexpected happens, for example when Kylo kills Snoke and this continues with Rey and Kylo teaming up in a fight, which was the best part of the movie if you ask me. The entire movie was build up with Kylo and Rey considering turning to the other side and when they had the chance to dive deeper into this it didn't happen, instead Kylo/Rey go back to the same side as before and nothing new is added. Not to forget that the main villain, who is one of the strongest with the force, is now killed and didn't even get the chance to explain himself neither do we know who he is. Rey is during the entire movie trying to find out who her parents are, but we end up knowing that they were nobody, just nobody. Finn was on the edge of killing himself by doing something that he thinks will safe the resistance, which would have been something really unexpected, but instead they took the safe turn and the new girl Rose stops him and suddenly kisses him afterwards (without hinting that they are into each other). Leila could have died in space but she turned into Supergirl and is in a coma for 70% of the movie. Luke is so OOC that he for a split second thinks of killing his own nephew while he is asleep (seriously, the Luke Sky Walker...?) and he doesn't even uses his lightsaber in a fight and dies by using the force to make a hologram of himself.
The movie literally ends with the same situation we had at the end of TFA, only worse.
Oh and by the way, in the first act at least four scenes ended with the sentence "Where is Rey/Finn/Poe/Leia?". Very clever.
It saddens me that people nowadays accept films like these only because of the hype, the action sequences and the visuals, but they don't look at the storytelling. Don't force yourself to think a movie is good when it isn't, even when it's Star Wars and you want to love it.
People have told me that I shouldn't have had too high expectations for this film, but to me that means that I shouldn't expect SW to be a well written adventure? An adventure that is different from the other superhero/sci-fi movies we see these days? Is that what Star Wars has become and I should just accept it? No way.
Please everyone, open your eyes!
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has everything that action/sci-fi's have these days, great action and visuals but no indepth storyline. It's a 6 stars for me.
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10/10
Not a 10 but it deserves more than some people here give it...
I just watched TLJ today and I come back home to look at some discussions and that nice extra info people usually debate about, also came here to check out general opinion. Oh boy, on one side I understand some of the points people are angry about but giving this movie less than 6/10 at worst is bullshit to say the least(especially considering AAA movies in general are 6 if it's a parody, 7 if its average and 8 if its great, 9 rare exception like lotr,) I would likely give this movie 8.2, better than tfa, not quite empire strikes back/original trilogy.
Also you can find the same type of issues a lot of people have with this movie in most others in this rating range, even the original trilogy...
Oh and if I put aside the issues I have with this movie by discussing or thinking about it objectively I probably had more fun with it than most other movies. Altho some of the events/twists are ridiculous I applaud that disney allowed them in the movie and that some were truly unpredictable.
Looking forward to episode 9. One major bad feeling that I have with this "reset" is that they might stretch the major story of the trilogy onto ep 10, 11, 12(ofc unless people get so salty and the revenue puts the franchise on ice/death but i doubt that is likely)
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5/10
Style over Substance: Visual Effects and Humour cannot offset the fact that the Script is a poorly written fan-fiction
Star Wars Movies Ranked-
1. Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Rouge One
5. Revenge of the Sith
6. The Force Awakens
7. The Last Jedi
8. The Phantom Menace
9. Attack of the Clones
It's just above the two worst prequels. That should tell you something.
The Last Jedi is style over substance. Stunning settings over strong characters. Jokes instead of interesting, deep, philosophical lore. Large CGI battle sequences over compelling, logical storytelling. Entertaining but screwed up story-wise.
The Last Jedi didn't copy Empire Strikes back. Instead it was much worse. Far, far, far worse.
The actions sequences are cool. Some of the humour is good but gets a bit excessive, at times being out of character and at other times undercutting an important dramatic moment. Some of the actors did their darnedest to try and save it with some performances that clearly showed a lot of dedication.
None of this stops the fact that, from a story perspective, TLJ has screwed up the entire trilogy. And potentially parts of the OT too.
It puts too much stock on the 'twists' and 'shock value' and forgets its meant to be bridging the gap between TFA and Episode 9 by ruining some of the glory that 9 deserves. It tries to do too much, forgets its part of a trilogy and fall flat on its stupid face with wasted potential. There is a lot of wasted potential.
Also, I've decided that the character of Rey is utter trash. It's a shame because I like Daisy Ridley but the actor is not at fault when screenwriters eliminate any character growth by making her automatically so good at everything with 0 struggle, flying in the face of established Star Wars lore. Poor writing has let good potential down. In fact, this applies to virtually the entire cast.
Rey: Good Potential, Good Acting, Poor Writing- the Mary Sue label applies more than before; the Luke training scenes were nowhere near extensive or good enough to justify her abilities. She basically has one lesson that's more about the zen side of the force than actual practical application, maybe because she's been shown to be unexplainably good at that already.
Finn: Good Acting, Poor Writing, Underutilised- literally everything he does is inconsequential to the overall storyline. He's involved in a subplot that would never happen if a leader wasn't unreasonably tight-lipped about her plans.
Poe: Good Potential, Poor Writing
Kylo: Good Acting, Better Writing than most beside one scene where all realistic character motivation flies out of the window and he does something audacious and out of character
Snoke: Screwed by atrocious writing; one of the most interesting new characters messed up royally (/sarcasm/ "OMG he's actually Jar Jar!" /sarcasm/)Leia: Not bad, Carrie Fisher did well, but still some questionable parts brought on by the writers.
Rose: Meh, part of the aforementioned useless subplot for most of her screentime
Phasma: Wasted
Hux: Wasted, a bit of a joke in this movie even though Domnhall Gleeson tried really, really hard
Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro: Wasted (who even knows their characters ffs)- insultingly small parts
Luke: "I disagree with pretty much every major character decision they made for Luke"- Mark Hamill. Me too, Mark, me too.
BB-8: Cute but as much of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu (I guess he's a boy?) as Rey to the point where all logic flies out of the window and you wonder why Luke isn't training BB-8 to take on the entire First Order by himself
There was an especially poor decision which;
1. Messed up the future of the trilogy for the sake of the shock value of subverting an archetype which exists for a reason
2. Makes no sense for the characters involved in terms of motivation and previous evidence of ability
3. Eliminated the pay-off of a confrontation that fans have been looking forward to since TFA was released
4. Was a massive middle finger to the fans who were waiting for 2 years to be let down by this one scene
5. Makes it painfully obvious that TFA and TLJ have two different directors with conflicting visions and are stepping on each others toes
This scene was the worst in the movie imo, despite being "cool" for the 5 seconds after it happened. People who've seen it will probably know what I'm talking about. People who haven't; if you look into this review too closely you might actually be able to guess.
This isn't really a spoiler but sort of is; where in the name of the Force are the Knights of Ren?
tl;dr This movie is the 3rd worst in the series behind the two most reviled prequels. Massive disappointment and I'm terrified that this Writer-Director is doing another damn trilogy entirely of his own ideas.
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Movie Review: "Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi" (2017)
The hardest part to succeed the still stunning revival with "Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens" from for two year ago. In this picture legendary character Luke Skywalker, given face by role-reprising actor Mark Hamill, becomes his well-deserved stand-off with the dark side in shape of former apprentice Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo, portrayed in a deeper-beating character perfomance by Adam Driver, who gets another chance to meet actress Daisy Ridley, who gives face and shears to the character of Rey in again a physical demanding role, showing off with skills in leading the stick, a light-saber and awe-striking close-ups of heart-breaking porportions, when it comes to an already notorious starship chamber room interior scene, where Rey must confront the Supreme Leader of the First Order under watchful eyes of Kylo.
Director Rian Johnson, not being to concerned to make some decisive shifts in the "Star Wars" universe, when for the first time direct communication within the force becomes visualized, marking the best moments in this "Star Wars" installment that surely will endure the test of time due to its high-concept production design codex. The image system is able to surprise with an excessive utilization of the color red, which makes "Episode VIII" a pleasure to watch and even open for future revisits. Supporting characters as Carrie Fisher as Luke's sister Leia receives her moments in the spotlight by making use of the force herself for survival. Overall there are fair amount of humorous moments especially with actors Oscar Issac, John Boyega, getting comfortable being part of the universe, and Domhnall Gleeson as Commander Nux, taking the starship executive character to over-confident empiric notions in an classic space opera spaceship clashing action opener.
Every fan must be pleased with "Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi". Even though Director Rian Johnson fell into an entrapment by also solely writing the screenplay for the picture because despite the fact of excellent received scenes between Rey and Luke on the Jedi-motion practice island, when giant fishes get caught out of the ocean to be carried to the cave by Luke Skywalker on his shoulder, the screen-story develops some repitious cycles of another shaping rebellion fighting an empire. Nevertheless this 140 minutes editorial of an event movie delivers the goods for high-class science-fiction action entertainment with thriller elements in character confrontations, which must receive forthcoming infusions of suspense-build-ups and the final pay-off in a remaining family triangle of full frontal conclusions in "Episode IX" directed by J.J. Abrams for a 2019 release.
It's now or never. They said it more than ones, this was also on the makers there minds. If you don't love Star Wars after this entertaining episode, you never will. The balance between humor and serious Star Wars stuff was perfect. The jokes were placed at the right moments. And the most important thing they did with the jokes is they mock themselves. This worked so well through the entire movie. After 7 episodes, 1 sidequel and more coming up this was the right thing to do.
This was like a catchy pop group coming together, unfortunately Kylo Ren gone mental and went solo. But hope they will reunite in IX, he and Rey are meant to be for performing 'Paradise by the dashboard light' and shooting the videoclip in the Red Snoke room.
Get your freakin act together Ben!
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Star wars has always been kind of childish in its delivery and relatable for its characters, this time around i feel it is also childish in its reasoning and messages, there's no ultimate wisdom in this star wars, its too pushy, too narrow sighted, im shocked...
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'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' is a very difficult movie to talk about... not just because of worrying about giving away spoilers (which I will NOT DO), but mostly about what is so good about the movie, and what isn't. Having seen it twice now, and properly digesting it, it is a great movie. Personally, I feel that 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (2015) was slightly better simply because the pacing was faster, and the story was minimal, though simple and straightforward.
This movie, as you would know, takes place literally straight after where TFA left off. Rey meets Luke Skywalker and is ready to take some training into the larger world of the Jedi and how to use the Force. Gone are the days of Rey being a desert scavenger, and she is ready for whatever battle lies ahead, particularly with the menacing Kylo Ren.
The Resistance base, led by General Leia, is planning to get back to safety, but not long until the First Order plan revenge since the destruction of Starkiller Base.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Hey! I knew it! This is EXACTLY like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!!! WAAHH! NO MORE ORIGINALITY!!!", No... while everything I explained sounds like it is a repeat of TESB, it actually is not. Rian Johnson does what he can to give this movie as much originality as possible. And that's where the "dividing fans" thing comes in.
As we all know, not only is 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' guilty of "ripping off" 'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' (1977), but the franchise overall has a tendency to repeat itself, as George Lucas did - at one point - compare the franchise to a poem... and how it sometimes rhymes at the end of each sentence.
Director Rian Johnson lives up to his promise of not inserting too much familiar material, whether that's with narrative, or with aesthetics. He does take more risks with this chapter, more so than J.J. Abrams did back in 2015. This movie looks nothing like any other 'Star Wars' film... but there is one problem I had.
Without spoiling too much, let's just say there is a scene where two characters have to travel to a planet to find something, and when they get to that planet, it feels like an entirely different movie overall (maybe this was Rian Johnson's intention). Plus, this planet was too much like Earth... but what it could look like 50 years from now. I felt that this scene didn't need to be in the movie, and at times, brought the pacing to a certain slow-down.
Luckily, everything else in this movie was great. Rian Johnson throws so much at you, and there are so many plot-twists, you will find yourself exhausted, and emotionally overwhelmed. Plus, Johnson obviously has a unique vision that no other director would have. He knows how he wants to tell a story, and he knows how he sees these characters, so much to the point where Mark Hamill said he "disagrees" with Johnson's vision... take that as you will.
I loved J.J. Abrams' 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', and I really enjoyed Rian Johnson's 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'. Hopefully, we'll see where the characters' fate lies in "Episode IX". For now, watch the movie, but don't let my high score dictate your views... this is just my thoughts, and not me telling you what you should think.
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10/10
The Last Jedi is the most important chapter in the saga.
After getting home at 3:30AM, after the midnight premiere, I just couldn't get to sleep. I was left with a huge deal of stuff to think about. Not just about what I saw in the movie, but about the world, about how we behave, and about how and why we always make the same mistakes over and over again.
I'll start by saying that The Last Jedi is not a perfect movie by any means. Its rhythm drags for a while, the amount of comedy and its timing will be awkward or too much for some people, it doesn't answer questions about Snoke (directly), it doesn't feature the Knights of Ren (to the dislike of many people), and it creates strong disjointing with some scenes featured in The Force Awakens, which will be inevitably left as annoying plot holes. But that doesn't matter that much to me, because The Last Jedi delivered something that I appreciate much more deeply than the prospect of watching Rey and Luke fighting Kylo and his Knights of Ren. This film aimed to address the biggest issues of that galaxy far, far away: how the cracks in the concepts of morality, heroism, and both dated conceptions and standards inevitably and cyclically lead people into mistakes, conflict and war. And most importantly, it serves as a mirror image for our own world.
I made an effort to watch the movie having only seen the first teaser, so I had my ideas and preconceptions for what the story could've or should've bee. Even though I could glimpse that Rian Johnson was aiming at delving into the grey area of the fight between the light and the dark. Plot-wise, I expected a sort of voyage, discovery adventure with a huge focus on Rey and Luke, racing them across different worlds, while revealing to us juicy details about the origins of the Jedi Order, while also giving us much expected reveals, like Rey being Luke's daughter or Obi Wan's granddaughter, answering where Snoke came from, and last but not least, finally giving us the Knights of Ren in an epic fight where we could get to see what amazing and crazy new powers would Luke use, as the most powerful Jedi ever. I got none of that. This movie was a completely different ride, even though I expected the unexpected. Yet, I'm not a bit disappointed. Quite the contrary. Johnson made a thematically driven story that betrayed expectations, and, in my opinion, made Star Wars better for it, because instead of just making an exciting adventure that consciously avoided the questionable choices of past episodes (mostly repetition and cheap fan service), he instead took this fantasy tale and gave it a direction as to what it should mean all along, and what we should keep from it after it's done being told in episode IX.
As flawed and messy the prequels were, those three chapters tried (but didn't quite succeed, due to poor execution) to address how the tension created between extreme ideologic opposites could create destructive inner conflicts in someone, and how those inner conflicts could lead to choices with huge and harsh consequences for entire worlds. We were shown how the dogma, short sightedness, and unreal -and hypocritically bended- high moral standards of the Jedi, and the reckless, selfish, and ultimately meaningless pursuit of power of the Sith and their sympathizers, put the galaxy into a never ending state of turmoil. Almost every fan of Star Wars wants to forget that the prequels exist. But as much as so many of us don't like, to whatever extent, what George Lucas did with those movies, they're a big part of the whole story, the themes, and the lore of Star Wars. Rian Johnson acknowledged what Lucas tried to convey in the prequels, he embraced them, and he made a risky but bold statement about war with this subversive chapter of the space saga.
I think almost everybody sure wanted to know where Snoke came from and why he looked the way he did. But aside from wanting it, did we really need to know that? I mean, we've already seen three different stages of a character like that. We've seen how the greed and deception of Palpatine ended up turning him into a disfigured monster that wanted the galaxy for himself, and made it so for a while to no real use. We've already seen how fear and confusion about what the "right way" means made Anakin Skywalker get lost into the cruelty of what Darth Vader was to become. We now see Kylo, who's complete lack of anchors is setting him on a course for him to become yet another tyrannic figure. We already know where someone like Snoke comes from. We don't really need his backstory.
As Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, the core of The Last Jedi acknowledges the role of stories and entertainment in conveying messages (mostly the unintended ones) when it comes to war stories. It starts by showing us the largely overlooked effects of the galactic war when it comes to the people who lose their lives fighting, and the survivors who have to deal with the loss of their loved ones. It unexpectedly addresses how the recklessness of some cool-looking and (arguably) heroic actions of characters we cherish, always have collateral and lasting consequences (Rose: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love"). It challenges the concept of heroes and why legends can be dangerous. It addresses the messiness of war, how economic interests are behind the firepower of both sides, and even how there's hardly a "good side", because it doesn't matter whom the blasters, cannons, and fighter ships belong to, and for what purpose are they shot at other people. All they create is death, and with death there's only defeat. The Last Jedi questions Star Wars itself as a tale about morality, the good and bad, and its huge and convoluted grey area.
If Rian Johnson would've made the movie we wanted and/or expected, he would've kept Snoke alive and would've left episode IX with a starting point for it end too closely to how Return of the Jedi did, with a big epic space battle and "Rey Skywalker" killing Snoke, the rebellion winning and the fascists being defeated again, with everybody happy because "good always wins". And just as that, the Skywalker legend would be complete. But if the story would've been mapped that way, the whole saga would've really meant something? "Good always wins" would've been the right conclusion? if so, expanding the story of this saga to 9 episodes would've been kind of pointless, because if a regime like the First Order could rise to loom a shadow over the galaxy all over again, that means that the victory over the Empire at the end of the original trilogy wasn't really such. The galaxy keeps going through wars because old ideas that have been proven not to work are still deeply rooted in people from both sides, and thus the loop can't be broken. Change is the only way to break with the past and create something better. To grow and evolve. This applies both to the story depicted and the saga as a whole.
We can't forget the fact that this isn't a movie made only for us, die-hard fans who grew with the saga, and who want to enjoy a new chapter now that we're older, but its also one made for children who are just getting into a universe of stories based on the theme of war. The Last Jedi shows awareness of that, and aims to make a statement that hopefully will help children to grasp ideas about the world in a different and more sensible way than we did when we were that young, and motivate them to question important issues that we, as adults, unfortunately don't think enough about. That's why this movie is important. It presents a chance for a discussion that can and should include children.
The ending shot of The Last Jedi, for the first time in the saga, leaves the main characters out of the picture. Instead, we see a nameless boy, that, in a very brief and subtle moment, reminds us that the force can shine through anybody, that people are not born into greatness, and that the force doesn't really belong to anybody. At the end, this isn't about the Skywalker family, it's about the force. It's about that energy that can be put to any use, and only wisdom is the key to use it well.
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What is missing from the Disney 'Star Wars' films? They have the same props, sets, costumes. Even the same actors wearing the same costumes and holding the same props. So, what doesn't click?
Answer:
Because it's soulless. It lacks originality, care, true thoughts and feelings or spirituality. Because the people who have creative control over these films (Bob Iger / Kathy Kennedy) worship money, and not something greater than themselves. They make the films for their own benefit, for their own aggrandizement. Not for the benefit of others.
Is there a way forward for cinema? The answer is YES.
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I went into this with a open mind after Force Awakens and I don't know if I hated it or loved it.
First off the things I liked ;
Snoke (in person)
More Kylo Ren, Rey and Luke Skywalker !
The dialogue between these characters
The whole Rey and Luke moments
The fighting (Force users)
But there is so much I don't like with the movie. I felt like they could've and should have just focused on Rey and Luke plus Kylo Ren and Snoke through the entire movie. I was so bored when they tried rehash the whole Han Solo-thing from Empire Strikes Back. And I was just waited for them to go back to Rey and who she is and what Luke is up to and Kylo Ren and who Snoke is and what he really wants.
But I can't give this a 8/10 or anything like that when the thing that was most important and interesting was like a small thing of the story. And the Leia thing? I was just sitting there in the cinema going ''Really? Really? What the hell am I watching?'' Because at times (Many times) I forgot that it was a Star Wars movie I was watching. Just with the beginning of Force Awakens I was so disappointed. And just sad in how they just like didn't seem to care about what Star Wars is really about. Like Mark Hamill said in an interview, he was sad/confused why Disney didn't wanna use any of the man's knowledge about the character 'Luke Skywalker' at all. I mean the man wrote the story for gods sake.
And yes I am a diehard fan of the Star Wars saga !
The best thing they did with the movie was when they focused on Kylo Ren, Rey, Luke Skywalker and Snoke. Still the movie left too many questions unanswered. Which was a big letdown in one case.
But is it worth it to go and see it? Yes it is worth a watch. Some people say it's better than Empire Strikes Back. Not chance ! What they did wrong was they almost joked away the entire movie. Sure Star Wars is known for it's lame comedy which is good at times but it was just too much this time.
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As a life long Star Wars fan it was so heartening to have JJ Abrams ditch the lens flare and create a solid entry in the Star Wars universe. It has its faults, but I loved it anyway and it made up for many of the wrongs George Lucas had inflicted on us with Episodes 1-3.
And then Rogue One took a bold step in a different direction, and brought back the bleak Empire Strikes Back tone. Again, not perfect, but watchable, interesting and engaging.
And then Rian Johnson undoes almost all the good work.
Perhaps JJ introduced too many characters, or maybe Johnson just didn't know what to do with them. Or maybe he can't write a good script, or direct to save his life. There were so many moments that were not only stupid (I constantly found myself thinking 'WHY are they doing that??') but didn't make sense in the wider Star Wars universe.
I came out of the cinema feeling like this was closer to Episode 1 than 4-6. Ridiculous humour delivered on terrible beats. Poor pacing. Weak characterisation. Interesting questions and even powerful moments generated from Force Awakens were casually discarded with what seemed like contempt by the 'Director'. I won't spoil anything here, but there was one scene that really made me think WTF - it made me question Johnson's motives, and I would be interested to know if it was in earlier drafts.
It really wouldn't surprise me to find that Johnson is a bigger fan of Phantom Menace than A New Hope, or Empire, or RotJ. So if you loved Phantom and like the idea of BB-8 being the new Jar Jar Binks then you'll probably love this film as well.
Any positive notes? Well... The first space battle is good. Most of the scenes with Rey are solid. Poe is still a great Han Solo-lite. Mark Hamill did his best, but I can now understand why he said he fundamentally disagreed with Luke's story arc in this film.
I really hope JJ pulls it back with Episode IX. And I hope even more that Disney change their mind and take away the keys from Rian Johnson, and DO NOT let him direct and write three more films!
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It's hard to rate TLJ and TFA against the rest of the saga, but this movie "does it" for me. Brings out nearly every emotion, and all I can think about is heading back to see it again. TLJ I enjoyed, and I think TFA is a good follow of . R. Johnson really shines.
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8/10
A Good Blockbuster but far from a Great Star Wars film
Simply put, The Last Jedi is an above average blockbuster but not a "great" Star Wars film.
It's an odd feeling to have; walking out of a cinema after a screening of the latest Star War's film and not feeling that immediate pang of desire to return to the ticket booth and book my next ticket to an encore screening, a follow up to allow me to take in all the spectacle, beloved characters and world-renowned escapism that George Lucas's universe has been providing us since 1977.
It's the odd feeling I got however from Rian Johnson's polished and visually dazzling film, that for a variety of reasons (perhaps even petty ones, but such is the calibre of the high points of this series that all others will forever be judged against) just isn't as amazing or memorable as many of it's predecessors.
To be crystal clear, The Last Jedi is far from a bad movie, it's a good one and a Star Wars entry that the growing number of Force Awakens naysayers will particularly enjoy (even this is Empire Strikes Back just as Awakens was A New Hope) but Johnson's film harbors too many missed opportunities and so-so character advancements that end up holding it back from the greatness that feels precariously close underneath its glossy shine.
Set up so well by J.J Abrams previous series entry, The Last Jedi kicks off virtually immediately where we left off, with another stunning opening sequence and some eye-wateringly delicious visual candy but while it's hard to talk in depth about where Johnson's film takes us, there aren't a whole lot of jaw-dropping plot developments in play here (bar one stand-out and beautifully set-up sequence around the mid-point of the film) which plays into why The Last Jedi is good, not great.
The characters we all began to love in Awakens all have their moments again here, without making the same type of emotional connection or impact .
Rey, Finn, Poe and Kylo all get ample chances to spread their wings, even if Rey has a few to many teary-eyed scenes and a nagging feeling that she is becoming a more supportive character in this film while Ren's arc in particular seems destined to end up rather disappointingly, even if Drivers impressive incarnation manages to still enthrall on more than one occasion.
In regards to our old cannon staples, Mark Hamill gets a lot more to do than his Awakens cameo and delivers what could well be his best 'performance' as Luke.
The veteran actor brings a real emotionally rich depth to Johnson's epic and Luke's increased presence is a winner, even if his and Rey's meet-up feels like a missed opportunity for more 'watercooler' moments.
Things aren't as rosy for Carrie Fischer's swansong sadly, as the beloved princess plays a key part in The Last Jedi's worst singular sequence in the blackness of space and those expecting to much from Leia will be left wanting from a role here that is fairly lacklustre for such a iconic figure.
You do get the sense that Disney are trying to truly move away from paying too much more fan service to characters and stories of old and if that is the case, Awakens and Jedi feel like solid enough occasions to see increasingly less important roles for these figures in the future.
New additions to the series, Kelly Marie Tran as feisty resistance member Rose, Benicio Del Toro as the slimy DJ and Laura Dern as the purple haired Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo don't particularly stick in the memory, much like Johnson's major setpieces that fall outside of the opening 10 minutes or a lightsaber battle aboard a New Order spacecraft.
Final Say -
The force is within The Last Jedi, just not as strongly as it has been in the past, tonal issues and some questionable character movements creating an imbalance in the natural order of things.
Being a series that's judged more harshly and intently than any other, it may take some time for the hype and stirred up red salt to settle on just what type of Star Wars film The Last Jedi truly is.
At present judgement, Johnson's film seems to stand up in it's own right as a solid, sometimes fantastic and sometimes equally as disappointing experience that lacks the plethora of downright insta-clsssic Star Wars moments as other saga entries.
Sure to be enjoyed by millions of eager cinemagoers, The Last Jedi leaves plenty of work to do for J.J Abrams series return, to make sure this trilogy ends with a bang and not merely a whimper.
4 unlicensed chicken walker drivers out of 5
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10/10
Bad reviews tricked me! This was better than I thought. Totally worth it.
Stunning special effects. Loved the scene with Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo. The fight is the best I've ever seen in all Star Wars movies.
Characters are beautifully portrayed. Even the smallest part had a great purpose. Performance of Mark Hamill and Adam Driver is the best.
Can't wait for the last part of trilogy!
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Brilliant in terms of gender equality. Some great Comedy. All my long term Star Wars female friends cried. A pity it was Empire in reverse and there were a lot of wasted opportunities and cheese. Some editing choices that weren't the best but still empowering for Women. I recommend everyone see this.
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4/10
When you though that Star wars 7 was disappointing...
I never thought 8th episode to be THIS disappointing, really...
Perhaps my expectations were too big and that's why i'm this dissatisfied but... damn those trailers! they give hope and the actual movie just crushes them completely!
I've never rated a star wars movie this low, and i know there are loads of people who bash episodes 1-3, but at least they were ORIGINAL, unlike "force awakens".
Ok, let's speak about episode 8 and start with good part:
Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher - these two actors played amazingly well, though Luke was disappointing to a certain degree. These 2, and great CGI is the best there is in the movie. sadly that's all the good in it.
Now let's talk about bad part.
1) So many JOKES!!!
There were funny ones but most of them are forced and makes you cringe! Jokes start from the very beginning of the movie an leaves an impression that you're watching a fan made kids movie where war is fun and games until someone gets obliterated.
2) It's boring!
Most part of the movie you observe a gigantic spaceship chase and shoot a small spaceship once in a while, while some training and James Bond action happens in between on different planets.
3) Disappointing plot twist EVER!
Snoke looked like the ONLY character that makes you feel uneasy about him. He's immensely powerful, fearless and evil; someone you can respect, and yet he gets taken out INCREDIBLY easy (Darth Maul style), and we are given 0 backstory how this man became a leader, a sith and so powerful one! I've never felt so cheated before! Do they expect me to read some comics in the future just in order to learn more about the character who had to be the head of the evil??? What the actual f...?!
4) Disappointing "bad guys"
As always they reek of incompetence and make you wonder if they can control at least a single planet! General Hux - Annoying bunshee that is good only at screaming useless crap and failing constantly (YET Snoke and Kylo both leave him alive and keep him as a commander!!!). Captain Phasma - They should have left her dead, why bother bringing her back if you're going to end her so disgracefully! Oh yeah, fans wanted to see Finn v Phasma, and that's it????
Imperial guard failed as expected but they failed not as miserably as Snoke and phasma...god damn it!
5) Deus ex machina overload!!!
It's used so many times you lose any thrill and look at the movie like it's for kids. I mean, good guys don't die and win while bad guys suck at doing anything and fail, because, you know, they're bad and stuff. Finn is literally 1 second away from dieing TWICE yet survives!
6) Political correctness.
Call me a racist, but i'm sick of Asian and black characters being showed in every movie so it a) sells well in China b) doesn't get labeled as racist movie. From the very start we have a clear camera shot of an Asian guy on a bridge of a first order dreadnought; just a moments later there's a single surviving resistance bomber with an Asian female character that dies doing a heroic deed; later we are introduced to yet another Asian character (sister of a bomber woman mentioned just now) who now becomes a semi-MAIN character.
7) WHERE are all the alien races that we know?
You can understand first order being all humans like empire was (99% human), but resistance had like 1-2 out of every 10 soldier and through entire movie we see mostly humans everywhere elsewhere.
8) Is this even STAR and WARS?
Up to this episode we see like 7-8 first order ships and 2-4 resistance ships, mainly there are transports of fighters. Is the galaxy so small and so short on manpower? Hell, on Earth even the smallest nations have more soldiers than these losers.
9) Universe is COLD
Episode 7-8 feels so small and empty. If episode 4-6 feels like our World War 1, and episodes 1-3 like World War 2, episodes 7-8 and i have 0 hopes for any improvements in episode 9 - they feel like current Syria civil war with some fighting taking place and once in a while something big happens but no one actually give a F; It feels like Galaxy consists of 10-20 planets and nobody has a union and nobody gives a damn about First order or resistance. IT's no longer Star Wars, it's Star skirmishes.
10) please nerf x-wings.
Who needs a 100 billion $ spaceship when you can buy a 100.000$ starfighter and 1v1 a capital ship, death star, starkiller base!!! all you need is an x-wing!
11) Kylo!
Darth Vader was cruel, evil and scarry, but he was respected, not just feared. He was on the front lines and Palpatine was behind his back. What is Kylo. How can he possibly command anyone now that Snoke is gone. No one respects him, no one's loyal to him; he's just a sissy with anger issues.a small + for character development, though it was minuscule.
12)wooden spaceships
In episode 3 we see cruisers bashing each other and still moving. In ep7, 1 starfighter annihilates all turrets on a dreadnought, 1 bomber nukes it.
13) Good guys are good, bad guys are bad. None can be both. Kylo and Rey, Finn, Pod.
14) Rich people are always the ones responsible for wars; stealing from the rich is not stealing.
The list can go on forever. As the titles rolled i tried to find something i'd like in this movie, but it only lovered my initial score from 5 to 4. I guess i'll stop here. I can't even imagine what will happen in the last episode.
Kylo repairs Snoke's flaghip and probably nuke few worlds, then all of galaxy will unite and gather regular starships, swarm the flaghip and annihilate it while Rey battles Kylo and defeats him, yet Kylo kills himself or does something stupid like sacrificing himself for Rey or joining the light side again! I don't even care anymore.
Star Wars is dead. This is no canon but a fan made comedy that tries hard to be a drama.
4/10
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I have to say, that overall the movie is in my opinion not as bad as some reviews suggest here, but it also isn't really good.
I miss a clear sotryline, some scenes seem pointless. As if someone needed to be some sort of hero as well, for reasons I don't know. However as each of these storylines by themselves are not too bad, I will not say it's horrible.
***spoilers***
I have the feeling that some nice plot twists, e.g. Luke being not physically present to fight, are really made well, however they seem to somewhat drown in pointless plot twists...
I oppose some reviews I read, that they added too much cute animals for merchendise. I think they provided a good laugh at one or two places and didn't influence the storyline, that's totally fine with me.
So in a nutshell: no clear storyline, some nice jokes, nice visuals
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I'll keep this spoiler free apart from spoilers for the force awakens. I left the cinema after watching the force awakens so full of joy and happy discussing every point with my friends "wasn't that bit great", "the return of the falcon was amazing", "when he took that extra step forward i knew he was dead" so on and so on, but most importantly it filled us with questions. "Who are Rey's parents, who is Snoke, what does he want, why is Luke on this island all alone, what has he been doing" etc etc. The same question I'm sure you all have.
So I was extremely excited going into see the last jedi today hoping my questions would be answered to progress the story and give more depth to the new characters particularly Rey, Snoke and Kylo. Now fast forward 2.5 hours I'm leaving the cinema heading to my friends car and we are both deflated. We weren't moaning about how we'd have to wait till 2019 to find out how it was going to end instead we are now both worried, what is going to happen and how they are going to fit it all into another 2.5 hour movie. The pace of episode 9 will have to be a lot quicker than this, very little happens for the middle 1.5 hours of the film it starts well which will make your expectations climb even higher before you become quite frankly bored. I never thought I'd be bored watching Star Wars but I was. The new characters that are introduced could have had their roles covered by some of the existing secondary characters that we all know. The questions are sort of answered but also sort of not, its clear they wanted to hold some answers for the finale of the trilogy. The whole film feels like it needed to be put into the editing suite one more time to reduce it length and make it more dramatic.
I will say the only positive I can think of from this which is that from the trailers I thought this was going to be the Empire Strikes Back but with the new characters names inserted in place of the old, it is definitely not this but I know wish it was. There are a few good scenes I should say but they do not overcome the biggest issue by far with the film which is that I did not feel like I was watching Star Wars and it is down entirely to the writing. Yes there are Stormtroopers, Lightsabres and X-wings but these don't make Star Wars feel so special. Star Wars films make you wonder what is going to happen next and you have to listen to certain characters every word as it may be vital the audience goes along with the protagonist learning with them. It's full of shocks and twists throughout several in each film in the originals, Yoda telling Obi Wan in his force ghost form that "there is another" in the Empire Strikes Back never mind the most famous cinematic revelation of all. The Last Jedi feels much more like a mid season episode of a Sci-fi show you would see on Netflix rather than a Star Wars film. This is a problem not even the prequels had. I really struggle to believe that this is the best script they could come up with, I think more likely it was Johnson's first idea that they have tweaked slightly, signed off by Kennedy to get it into production to keep the money coming in. There are moments where you think that this is the sort of thing you would come up with as a kid and think this is brilliant but when you grow up realise how laughable those ideas were.
For the first time ever leaving a film I felt truly sorry for someone who wasn't even involved with the film,George Lucas. I presume he attended the premiere,inside he must have been wanting to walk out find a corner and have a good cry about what he was seeing happen to his galaxy far far away. This is a huge contrast to how I felt leaving the Force Awakens. I wanted to go straight back in and watch it again, part way through The Last Jedi I thought to myself "I don't think I'll ever watch this again". On leaving and after some discussion with my friend who I saw it with we both came to the same conclusion, it was disappointing but we'd both like to see it again, now several hours after it ended I realise that I only want to see it again out of some hope deep down in my heart that I have missed something but really my head knows that I haven't.
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The movie was good...for the first half part at least where we had to look at Rey's training and interaction with Luke Skywalker,the CGI effects were phenomenol as always,but the story kinda fell of after the first half from the movie,i wasnt expecting *SPOILER ALERT* luke to die and become a force ghost and he to at least have an epic battle with a lightsaber and using the force(which he didnt),Rey using the force ONCE lifting some rocks didnt make me feel any emotion...The force awakens and Rogue one were FAAAR more amazing and entertaining than the Last jedi.With that being said this movie is definetely not a BAD MOVIE,it was just a little dissapointing.But i enjoyed it anyways.Snoke sucked and the movie had some moments where u feel they were copied from episode 6 and were edited a little bit.Dont expect the movie to live on its TITLE,its definetely my biggest dissapointments of the movie
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7/10
Mainly very enjoyable , in places a little disjointed but Mark Hamill was fantastic.
To clear one thing up. This is in no way the best Star Ware movie ever- it is not as good as ANY of the original trilogy - but it is markedly better than any of the others to date.
It wins points for trying to move on from the force awakens which was very much a best of reboot movie, and to take the franchise forward with fresh faces. I actually like both Rey and Kylo far more in this movie albeit Kylo is a very weak Villian compared to Vader/The Emperor. Hux was made to be a bit of a laughing stock at times which discredited him as a character.
The Porgs were great albeit they served no purpose other than some cute comedy and to sell disney merchandising.
I liked that there were some surprises and I enjoyed every scene with Mark Hamill in ,who was just fantastic. Effects were brilliant as was the 3D.
A few key questions and details felt they were just skipped over with no real explanation or resolve which was weak. Saved for the next instalment ?
Am watching again at the weekend so will see how I feel about it all after that but overall I enjoyed the film.
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1) biggest mistake was to make fun of Luke, letting him be a joke of a Jedi - we all looked forward to him, and then we get that.. in the cinema i lost a LOT for the movie when that happend. Some gained later tho but not all.
2) second biggest mistake is that Luke is not in the last movie.
3) we didnt get the touching feelings, you didnt really get the feeling inside your skin, you didnt put yourself in one of the char, somehting was missing.
4) A lot are winning about the finn/Rose trip to the casino planet, but I think it was ok, but not great. You cannot just let the main char play off for 2,5 hours.
5) why didnt the purple haired shoot her cruiser into the star destroy at the moment she found out tit was shooting at the escaping freighters? How hard could it be to figure out?
6) Why didnt Luke tell them that there were a back intrance in the mine?
7) Rose saving Finn by flying into him just in front of enemy army ? both things should be a 1/100000 survival chance.
And many other unexplainable things.
Still a great movie.
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So I caught the midnight showing of Star Wars The Last Jedi, by complete accident mind you(it pays to check the AM and PM after the time when booking your tickets online) but hey I've been holding out for this movie for a long time and what's a few extra hours sleep between showings. Now I make it to the cinema(I'm excited at this point, more so then I would have had admitted if asked), I'm a huge fan, since the beginning and I'm old enough to admit that I mean since the beginning, the really big fans are all dressed up and the anticipation in the air is contagious.
and then.........
the first WHY? came rather early on but id heard that this was a new vision and that director Rian Johnson had thrown some spin on the ball so hey who am I to complain. Surely this was just some light hearted humour and god knows the world could use more laughs.........But.....
When one of the most beloved characters not only in this particular universe but in the entire movie universe expresses breast milk from something that has four tits and takes a big drink, just like Rey I had to look the other way, I didn't get much time to gather my thoughts on the matter before dinner was being caught with what could only be described as a massive whaling harpoon.....Why?
So much of this movies 2and a half hour running time is absolute Star Wars gold. some of the best moments that this entire saga has offered up happen in this movie, hands down, in that respect Rian congratulations, truly wonderful stuff, and you knew this was coming ..... But at a time when the devoted are scathing other films for not being long enough and feeling rushed, my feeling is that this film could have done with a closer shave(if you get that then I've found my audience) quite easily 30 to 40 mins could disappear from this and I don't think anybody would have noticed, it then truly could have been the equal of if not the best in series. Bring it home with episode 9 J.J, its yours to lose.
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Snoke was a Sith Master, right? Then be in for a big disappointment and a completely inconceivable turn of events. When I saw the movie first time, even I could sense what might happen and I'm just a man, no Force sensitive let alone a Sith Master. (1/10)
The Luke story arc was very well done. Believable. Tangible. Dramatic. Beautiful. (10/10)
The Resistance story arc was quite good. There are a few flaws which slipped through Editorial. There was at least one story driver completely implausible. And it comprised an unnecessary longueur, which made the movie overlong. (6/10)
The Rey / Kylo story arc was well done. Their encounters emitted quite a few sparks! The contacts between them are well thought through, the interweavings with the other story arcs intriguing. (8/10)
All in all I give the screenplay a 6. Since it was visually and auditory very well done, and the actors performances stunning, I give it a 7.
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10/10
Stop trashing this movie because it dared to be different from its predecessors
I gave this movie a ten to counter some of those ridiculous 1/10 ratings. Oh we didn't get the same plot from the original trilogy??? Boo fkn who!
Did you guys honestly want the same crap? Yes this spat in the face of a lot of what TFA set up, I'll give you that. BUT THAT'S THE POINT!!! It made star wars FRESH. If you didn't like this movie at least give it a fair rating.
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Took my 3 eldest kids to watch this last night and was totally blown away. I've been a mega Star Wars fan since I saw the originals as a kid and this one doesn't disappoint. Sure, you could nit pick anything to the nth degree but if you do then you're focusing on the wrong things and need to appreciate these new movies for what they are. They are never going to be as good as the originals or directed in the same way so all the haters need to get over that! There were loads of sub plots and new characters/locations to get into. The CGI was awesome and the so was the acting/sets/music. Enjoy!
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This review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi is spoiler free
**** (4/5)
Questions were asked after the 2 hour 16 minute runtime of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'. "What's happened to Luke Skywalker?" "Why did he disappear?" were just a couple of the seemingly millions of questions coming from fans as they walked out of the cinema. For a while it seemed like these questions were never going to be answered, or perhaps not receive a clear enough answer anyway. After a two year wait you can finally get those answers you were looking for. Hello writer-director Rian Johnson, a director with a clear insight, some brass balls and a camera in hand that creates one of the best 'Star Wars' films to date. Gift wrapping it with a bold, dark, often heartbreaking, moving and tense touch, it's certainly the film that fans of the saga have been waiting for and it definitely couldn't be timelier.
After 'The Force Awakens' ended with Rey (Daisy Ridley) handing an elderly Luke Skywalker (Hamill) that lightsaber (that moment here is a throwaway, literally), Johnson decides to take an entirely different approach to the traditional 'Star Wars' starter. He opens in space, obviously, with an attack on a rebel base (that's enough of that). He slowly introduces us to main characters Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac, rewarded here with a longer screen-time and a brilliant performance), General Leia (Carrie Fisher, taking command of the rebel base and getting more than just a cameo), Rey (stranded on a lonely planet), and with her of course, Luke (he just wants to be left alone). Further mention goes to a stronger Finn (John Boyega), who shares incredible chemistry with engineer Rose (a fantastic Kelly Marie Tran). On the Dark Side; there's a promising return of Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, showing to be beyond that angsty child-like behavior which dawned on his performance the first time around, and joined by his trusty right-hand man, General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson, not shouting as much). They come complete with their adviser, Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis looking much more intimidating in person). So as you can see Episode VIII is fairly packed with characters, but at a whopping 152 minutes they each get their fair share of the screen, with Johnson not leaving anything amiss.
The film's predecessor was entirely Han Solo's movie until it ended after a horrible fate, which still brings a lump to our throats. This time round the stage belongs to Luke, whom at first wants to be left in peace but is soon changed by a persistent Rey, and thankfully through every moment Hamill is on screen he delivers with his best performance in years. It truly is a gift of a role he's been given here, and it shows that even after two more years out of the Jedi limelight the role still fits him like a glove. Of course you have to credit Johnson too. After working with Bruce Willis on his previous sci-fi venture, Looper, he clearly knows how to handle older actors.
Though Johnson doesn't just deserve that credit. He makes 'The Last Jedi' a purely cinematic pleasure; his ability to bring every scene to life with colour and the angles he reaches are way further than previous entries. He's not afraid to introduce new techniques to the saga, yet as a writer he's clever at showing a clear understanding of the typical 'Star Wars' dialogue. Previously, J.J. Abrams, along with several other writers, would add a little humour on the side. Here, Johnson's techniques at writing are a little slapdash with the addition of a little more humour, though when it's serious it's bolder, darker and more heartbreaking than the previous time round. As a director he's truly daring as he explores different camera techniques. Abrams would use techniques where he made the villains look more menacing than they were, and often it would work. Johnson scraps that procedure and creates his own angles. He gets in close to the saber action...a close-up of Ren's fiery saber, and a brutal saber kill are things never seen in a 'Star Wars' film before.
The force isn't fully strong with 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'. In the middle section when the film takes a break from the action the story meanders and sadly suffers from this, but thankfully it is saved by Finn and Rose's incredible chemistry. And Johnson clearly knows what he's doing here as he makes Episode VIII a fitting addition to the nine film saga, showing daring techniques and an incredible hand in writing. It's definitely a match for the fans and one that shouldn't go amiss. And finally, it shows as a fitting memorial piece to Carrie Fisher.
VERDICT: Episode VIII is a dark, earnest, often fun and sometimes heartbreaking addition to the 'Star Wars' saga, one that measures well in the eyes of fans and certainly one that shouldn't be missed.
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The movie was good, for a SW movie but is mostly bugged down by TFA and it's decision to reboot the original story so we are back to the Rebels vs Empire storyline as if what happened in the original trilogy did not count. And this movie can't do anything about it even if toward the end I hoped it would and that as Ren proposed they would forget the past and move on. Sadly they did not.
What I liked was the subversion of usual SW tropes and using them differently. I also liked that the movie said "f... you" to the "mysteries" of TFA (who are Rey's parents and who is Snoke).
And contrary to what many people say I liked the Finn/Roz storyline because it showed us that this universe is bigger than a few guys fighting each others (they are really a few in fact that does not make nay sense) and that was the only good part of the prequels. And the fact that they achieve nothing at the end is also nice. They fail. It was all in vain, but they tried.
The movies is filled with plot holes, many from the setting of the previous movie (how the vanquished Empire could come back even more powerful so quickly, how did we never heard of a Sith as powerful as Snoke in the past, and so on). But overall it is stunning, funny, entertaining and the best SW movie since ESB, with maybe Rogue One very close.
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Dame Judi Dench asked this^ question, and the answer is...they've kinda formed a 'link/connection' between them through the Force, communicating/having conversations over vast distances, with one trying to lure the other to their side. We're treated to three different versions of how Ben Solo became Kylo Ren, though none of them excuse what he's done. Like Rey, I'm sure Kylo's fans will try to see the 'conflict/good' inside him, but he's made it pretty clear that he's virtually unsalvageable as a character (the one *good* thing he does involves Snoke, who's more interesting in the flesh than as a big hologram, which I liked...but that's about it).
Adam Driver gets to show more sides to Ben/Kylo than he did previously, and he's good at conveying different emotions, but when it comes to him being the 'main villian', his tantrums/yelling needs to be reined in if he's to be taken seriously. He's no Vader, but more a 'fanboy'. 'Reylo shippers' might think they're getting what they want, but as Luke says to Rey at one point, "This is not going to go the way you think!" (the look Rey gives Kylo as she shuts the Millennium Falcon's door in his face pretty much says it all).
Speaking of Rey/Luke, this movie has a couple of 'firsts' involving their characters. One being that we pick up exactly where we left off with them in TFA (something none of the other films have done, I believe), in quite an amusing way, and the other being that we get multiple flashbacks. Old crotchety Luke isn't the Luke we remember, but flashbacks help us see why he is the way he is now. He doesn't make things easy on Rey, refusing her multiple times, making her sleep outside his hovel, swatting her hand and just generally being about as 'fun' a mentor for her as Yoda was for him...perhaps even less so (though he's awesome when it counts).
Daisy Ridley continues to show much promise in her important role to the saga as Rey, displaying conflicting emotions convincingly and playing well off Mark Hamill's Luke. They even get a few 'funny moments' too. Regarding the movie's 'humour', there's certainly a fair share of it to ensure that proceedings never get too 'grim/dark'...though not all of it works. Some moments involving John Boyega's Finn feel like they're from the prequels (which isn't a good thing). However, when he's given more 'serious' moments, Boyega does what he can with them.
Part of what makes Finn's journey in this film less interesting for me is that he's separated from Rey, which is a shame considering the two of them had so convincingly developed a quick/believable camaraderie in TFA. Their reunion, though, shows just how much of a mistake it was to keep them apart, since they're so good together (not in a 'romantic' way, but a 'platonic friendship' way). This time Finn's paired with his very own fangirl, Rose (whose sister, Paige, is/was awesome). Kelly Marie Tran is likeable enough as Rose, and she endeared herself to me when she rescued the horse-like creatures called Fathiers, but hers and Finn's storyline feels very disconnected from the rest.
Oscar Isaac's Poe remains as smart-mouthed as ever, but when it's directed at Domhnall Gleeson's General Hux (who still hasn't improved since TFA), it's definitely warranted, since Hux remains the 'butt-monkey' of the universe. Poe's occasionally irritating (at least he finally gets to meet Rey and they have a 'moment'), but thankfully Leia's there to show him who's boss. Regarding the late Carrie Fisher, she gets some great moments as Leia, and fans should be pleased with the Leia/Luke reunion (and her hug with Chewie, making up for the lack of one in TFA). There are some really good emotional moments with her and a heartfelt message at the end of the movie.
Some new characters prove to be more than what they first appear (such as Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo), while others (like the late addition of Benicio Del Toro's character) really add nothing much to the story. Apart from the previously mentioned Fathiers, there's a bunch of other new critters. Porgs aren't Jar Jar Binks levels of annoying, but are about on par with the Ewoks. I really liked the Crystal Foxes/Vulptices (plural of Vulptex).
There are some good action scenes, memorable moments, really nice shots/visuals, and a lot of things to like about the film. However, there's also some unnecessary stuff, the film feels like it's reached its climax...but then continues on, and especially irritating for me was how it felt like we'd reached the film's natural conclusion...only for it to go on for another completely unnecessary minute. They had a good ending, but kinda messed it up. That's why, as much as I'd have *liked* to, I couldn't enjoy this film quite as much as I enjoyed TFA. Here's hoping the third film is a return to form.
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10/10
Well, certainly wasn't what I was expecting. And it payed off!
The Last Jedi is probably going to become canonised as a cinematic classic in the next couple of years; who knows? I think that although it is just under The Original Trilogy, this and The Force Awakens are pretty worthy follow-ups to George Lucas' monumental legacy.
This film starts right where The Force Awakens left off; no dilly-dallying, just straight into the action, and even some surprisingly good spur-of-the-moment comedy that is a result of the action happening on-screen.
The story; Luke Skywalker is called out of hiding to take on The First Order and his old apprentice: Kylo Ren.
There's one area I've neglected to cover, because I found it painful: Carrie Fisher's final performance as Leia Organa. It was great seeing her again, and there's a reveal in the film: she is strong with the force, and it saves her life when she's blown into the vacuum of space in the middle of battle.
Luke is called upon by Rey to help save the galaxy from The First Order destroying the remnants of The New Republic. For the most part Rey struggles to get across to him, but that all changes when Luke is confronted by the past coming back to haunt him all over again.
The Last Jedi is a 2017 milestone. It's unfortunate that this wasn't included in the AFI's Top 10 films of 2017 list. This NEEDS some critics' top-10 2017 list-love; and soon!
Rian Johnson is probably the closest person who's emulated the scale the aesthetics that George Lucas and Irvin Kershner achieved with the first two Star Wars movies. And what an achievement honestly. This is new Star Wars territory; Lucas or not, this is bold stuff and pretty memorable. It's just a damn shame we'll never see this trilogy end with Carrie.
We miss you Leia. May the Force be with you.
11 out of 45 found this helpful.
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I watched the movie on Dec 14 and had no expectations at all. I am a Star Wars fan since 1982 when I watched The empire strikes back (my first movie to watch at cinema at age 10). I loved Star Wars since but never ever did another Star Wars movie reach the quality of this one. Till Dec 14, 2017. I walked out the cinema and thought: This one was as good as The empire strikes back. Wow. And I really wanted to see all the reviews here on IMDB. And then ... what a disaster ... hey guys really - have we seen the same movie??? ... I don't get it.
So I just say to you all who have not seen it yet: Go and watch it!!! This is a really good one...
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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This movie is just amazing. Some people are just never happy. They said TFA was not original enough and now they are saying TLJ is too original. I appreciate the humour in this movie as it really complimented the overall darkness in the movie. A must watch for viewers young and old
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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I am literally and technically laughing on people's REVIEWS! I mean do you guys even have the slightest idea about a movie's Plot or Cinematography? What a good movie is!? Also is there any REAL STAR WARS FAN HERE?! "WELL YEAH IT WAS A BIT SLOW...BUT AS EPISODE VIII IT WAS REALLY GREAT."
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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I didn't like The Force Awakens very much. My critique was entitled "Majestic pastiche bordering on retrospective parody."
This movie however is an excellent addition to the Star Wars Universe. I almost never attend a theater but this was worth every penny of the overpriced ticket. This movie has wonder, excitement, action, introspective parts, and narrative thrust. The effects are extraordinary, and memorable themes from John Williams provide nostalgic high powered melodies. There is definitely some 'movie magic' in parts, especially in terms of the physics of the Star Wars universe and it THREW ME OFF EACH TIME. Other than that I was lost in the movie, and it defies the Hollywood film formula. The plot also provides an interesting social critique of how war has made people rich.
There are many outright lies about the details of this movie in many reviews that I've read on IMDB in what seems to be like an organized campaign. I could almost imagine that war industrialists, and their political hounds would have an interest in diminishing this film.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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No it is not as good as a New Hope or Empire Strikes back, but it doesn't take away from the original stories or previous lore. Rian Johnsons direction is impeccable and although his dialogue needed slight help the movie still pushes boundaries of what Star Wars could be.
It throws away any expectations and fan theories to create an emotional and deep character and action driven film like the originals did. It changes things with tone and lore like empire did, and keeps mysterious characters mysterious just like in the original trilogy. yes it lacks closure, but that has never been a bad thing in cinema. It leaves so much for us, the fans, to speculate and question.
This is more than a star wars movie. Its a great movie (not as good as Empire) that takes star wars into a new direction for the new generation.
I did need to watch it twice (i saw it 3 times on the first day!) to adapt and accept some things but once i did i fell in love.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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10/10
Rian Johnson dares to be different to great success and allows the audience feel the force like never before
Rian Johnson with a triumphant entry into the STAR WARS saga.
Has the nerve to dare to be different from any STAR WARS film before it, making it fresh but managing to keep it familiar.
This has resulted in a wonderful piece of cinema, not just visually but emotionally as well.
How Rian Johnson has subtly created plot twists throughout the film by harnessing the audiences emotional anticipation is simply genius and extremely rewarding.
A truly enjoyable film, that lets you feel the the force like never before.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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As a long time Star Wars fan (old skool!), I can understand some of the frustrations that people have. However, I think this film was a brave step by Rian Johnson. It is very funny in places, and there are some extremely moving scenes, not to mention several unexpected twists. It is far from perfect, (there aren't many perfect movies) yes it is quite long and the Canto Bight part was a bit meh but people, you need to accept it as it is, as opposed to how you imagined it in your heads :)
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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9/10
Haters just have more time on their hands to write reviews ...
This must be the case if score doesn't match the written reviews.
I don't understand. I was glowing as I left the theatre only to hear the perfunctory complaint hours later: Episode VIII was too different from established canon? This only two years after the opposite grievance. Directing and writing a Star Wars movie most be the most untenable job in the galaxy.
My only reasonable explanation is a likely high correlation between free time to write reviews and general misery. Otherwise I'm at a loss.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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A lot of Star Wars fans appear to be very upset about this film, mainly because they do not like how this is different from previous films in the franchise. In the words of Darth Sidious, "Ironic". After The Force Awakens angered some fans for not being original enough, The Last Jedi angers even more because of the bold choices made by writer/director Rian Johnson.
But whether or not you like the way he examines characters differently, or challenges what we think about the force, this film is very solid from a filmaking standpoint. The acting, direction , cinematography and writing (mostly) is all very good. Of course this is not a perfect movie - it suffers from inconsistent pacing and about 20 minutes that feel too stretched out, and admittedly there may be too much humour. But overall, this is a very good movie that does not deserve the unnecessary amount of hate that some give it just for being unique.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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I don't know what is wrong with people and all this hate.
It is a great movie with very star warsy end.
I don't understand how somebody can complain about things in this movie that have an equal in original trilogy and at the same time glorify original movies.
It is very hard to explain his without spoilers.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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9/10
Episode 7 was a travesty for children! This one is close to being an all time masterpiece!
And it comes sooo close. I am going to be honest. This movie is a gem in the Star Wars Universe. And I am going to tell you why. Let us start with the few negative sides of it.
The scene with Pricess Lea was.... unnecessary
The entire movie ends in somehow underwhelming way for being second in a trilogy. Somehow I am not feeling too excited for the final chapter.
And this is it. This is all I have against this movie and this is the main reason why I didn't give it a perfect 10 mark.
To all SW fans who hate this move for doing this and that to specific characters and focuses on characters who have nothing in common with Luke or Vader or any of the past characters. Please, understand:
1/ Sooner or Later the Skywalker thing had to end - there must be other characters on the horizon. Plus, with all due respect to the actors - they can no longer be the heart of the saga as they simply need to pass the torch
2/ Sooner or Later the Death Star /Planet thing had to end. I am sorry - the plot of SW revolves around the death star for too long. It IS SIMPLY GETTING BORING! I found almost 0 differences between Episodes 4 and 7.
3/ Sooner or Later the Master - Apprentice Jedi and Sith thing had to end. We need a fresh villain to replace Vader so that simply the SW universe can expand and no longer to be connected only to Vader and the Emperor or Obi Wan and Anakin / Luke
So, please, stop ranting. The movie is brilliant! The humor is at places over the top but in general - amazingly good.There are amazing twists and most importantly - the movie is bold enough to try to create an entirely new SW world with a brand new amazing villain and no more relatives to Vader / Skywalker. Not to mention that it was visually stunning!
Nothing more to add. Hopefully Episode 9 will not be a Episode 6 replica. We need a new direction of the Saga and this film sets it with fashion!
9/10
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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This film is the echo of one of the best star wars, the empire strikes back.
but also some parts of the 6
There is the classic two stories in same time. With a space and scum/rebel story and the most important one, the force with the major characters.
I very liked the yoda's appearence, kinda puppetish in 3d, very close to the original trilogy's one. More than a fanbase action, it serve wells luke and the audience at a critical moment.
There is hips of suspens, things we never see in star wars. Things are surprises, others are things were thing i dreamed to see in alternative story in star wars, like what if the emperor would be kill by darth vader and luke or doing an hyperspace jump into a fleet. Things we wait the most are finally details or driven into a blank sheet. maybe revealed in the 9.
The visuals are splendid, way more elaborate in every aspect than the 7.
i get 1 star off because of the double side of have a such a long movie its really like the salt desert scene as been added and maybe they would show more of the duel between Kylo Ren and Rey than put than empire strikes back scene, but witch is nice and important at the end., has i said, it's kinda a 5 and 6 in one movie and some parts are less important than others, also the interaction between Finn and the rebel girl i don't believe it too much but it was a lightweigh story to kinda balance the more serious one with the force.
Finally i liked the way the film ends, it's really an odd to all generation and for the first time there is children other than anaking skywalker in the first episode who are looking for the future with the force, it's an important share from generation to generation star wars is all about.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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This has been my most anticipated film for about 2 years now and I am happy to report that star wars the last jedi is a fantastic complex film. The premise of the film is set just after the events of the force awakens and sees rey attempt to get Luke skywalker to train her, meanwhile, the resistance attempts to stay out of the clutches of the first order. Daisy ridley became a star after her performance in the force awakens and she is great here too, she is still that tough female protagonist from the previous film that's owns the film. Onto Mark Hamill as Luke skywalker, he is brilliant in this film. He gives a really good dramatic performance but also keeps the heart of the character alive in this brilliant performance. Also his chemistry with ridley really carries this film especially for the first half of the film. Adam driver reprises his role as Kylo ren and once again he provides a very complex and emotional performance. Just like the previous film, there is lots of conflict in his performance and it really makes him a fascinating character. Oscar isacc gets alot more to do as poe dameron in this film and he is great., his enthusiasm is infectious and it really allows a fun performance. John boyega is given a bit less to do as finn this time around but he gives a fun performance that you would expect. Unfortunately, this is Carrie fishers last film due to her sad passing but she gives a great final performance as leia really paying respect to her. The story has a few different story arcs in it and I really enjoyed the majority of them, as mentioned before the scenes on the island involving rey and Luke are fascinating and possibly my favourite part of the movie. This film takes a lot of bold directions in it that might upset some people but I thought they really worked. However, there is one story arc I found to be really lacking and that involved finn and a new character called rose and it just felt like filler and it didn't really engage me. The script has similar humour to the last film and I felt when used it worked for the majority of the the film. The drama really worked too adding depth to pretty much every character in this film. The style of the film is absolutely beautiful, the cinematography is a step up even on the last film, the space battles are great and rival even that of rogue one. Overall this is a fantastic star wars film that proves this series has plenty of life in it yet.
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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10/10
A little different than other SW movies but very great
Yesterday I went to the cinema to watch te movie twice.
Although I watched all the trailers before I didn't have no real expectations of this movie or the storyline. I just went in blind. The only thing I knew that it would be great in a visual way.
And it was but not only that. It was fun, the story was unpredictable and refreshing and the acting was really good. For such a long movie it wasn't boring at all. There were some minor flaws but for me nothing great to be sad about.
Overall it was a fun and sometimes emotional ride. IMO Rian Johnson did a fine job.
I also would like to praise ILM for the beatiful visual FX. They did a very good job like always. Some scenes were really stunning.
I am a Star Wars fan since 1979 and what annoys me is that some reviewers on IMDB seem to talk for all the other SW fans and say that you shouldn't watch this movie. Everybody has his own opinion so respect that. If the movie didn't work out for you, that's a pity but so be it. This is the case with a lot of movies. And if you're childhood is ruined by this movie I would say: Come on, get a life it's just a fantasy movie after all. I also think that the prequels had some flaws en even the original saga had some, but I am not going te be depressed about it. Besides that a lot of the next generation viewers like this new storyline, just like we did with the old trilogy in the seventies/eighties.
Maybe not everybody will like all the decisions in this movie, but I think this is a Must See for a SW or SF/Fantasy fan.
MTFBWY, always
5 out of 16 found this helpful.
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Midnight showing is all done for Star Wars The Last Jedi.
My rating is 7 and here's why.
Let's start with the pros:
Andy Serkis as Snoke
Mark Hamill is fantastic
The action is visually stunning and a joy to watch
Lots of surprises
A few bits of laughter which was actually funny and well timed.
The cons:
Snoke was built up for 1 whole film and brought into this one and was ... wasted as a villain we have waited so long to see.
Princess Leia using the force in space to bring herself back and fly her way back to a ship. I know we were going to see new force powers but I never thought it would come from her in such a ridiculous way.
Humour was good for a majority but some bits were in the middle of something rather serious like a battle and just felt slightly misplaced.
Ray and her story was pushed to the side slightly and dragged just a tiny bit more than I thought.
The force was a little bit over complicated
Overall I had a really fun time, the audience had the same reaction to certain parts.
I heard tuts and WTFs
The action is so cool to watch
However, the trailer builds up so many ideas in your head on what could happen and ... nothing You came up with or any rumour you read was correct.
I'm not sure how other people rated it but I'm going by how I felt afterwards.
Most of me was smiling
But I did have a few puzzled looks.
I hope you enjoy it like I did
Maybe you agree with me
Maybe you don't
Thank you
May the force be with you
4 out of 12 found this helpful.
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7/10
What did the writers do and who did the Editorial?
Snoke was a Sith Master, right? When I saw the scene unfold, in which Snoke perished, I was aware of the Lightsaber at his side and I knew Kylo was looking for a way to betray his master. To be able to sense that, it suffices to be human. I didn't need to be Force sensitive, let alone be a Sith Master. Oh boy, this was as worse as it can get. I hope.
There're other failures in the screenplay. Other reviewers pointed some of them out already, so I'm skipping those.
Just for the record: I'm a Star Wars fan! I'd like to remain one!
4 out of 12 found this helpful.
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I want my money back, and I need a time machine to find a way to stop Disney from ruining this franchise for everyone. I was already put off enough by episode 7, and this one sealed the deal. I'm done.
The plot doesn't have any relevance, or any depth like the originals had. The characters and their one-liners somehow manage to make me miss the prequels. The unbelievable sloppy story line leaves massive plotholes unfilled along the way.
I have a really hard time believing the rating on this site, I feel like someone's being paid to make this piece of trash look watchable.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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1/10
People need to stop fanboying this movie just because of Carrie Fishe r
I think people are only saying good things about the movie because it is Fishers last performance. So no critic will slam it because they are afraid of the back lash. Up front the movie sucks.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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This is probably the most sad thing I've ever seen Hollywood do. Unfortunately, this franchise has gone straight down hill and is more so about jamming a political agenda down your throat than continuing what was once the greatest Hollywood franchise of all time. I hope we learn from our mistakes in the future.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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I think the easiest way to sum up this movie is to call it "The Empire Strikes Back II". In many, many ways, it's a bridge movie between the last film and the next and, if you think about it, nothing is really resolved in the film. Now this is NOT saying it's a bad film. Heck, it's exactly what most fans probably want--tons of action, lots of heroism and a lot of the familiar.
The plot is basically this. The Rebels* are about to be wiped out and the film consists of the new Empire (which looks pretty much like the old Empire) is intent on wiping them out. In the meantime, Rey goes of on a desperate mission to try to get Luke Skywalker to STOP sulking (which, apparently he's been doing for the last 40 years) and help! Along for the fun are some nice newer characters and one who seemed a bit annoying (and that would be you,Poe...Mr. Know-it-all).
Overall, it's a lot of fun, there are a lot of explosions and it has a lot to offer unless you stop and realize it is, essentially, a bridge movie. A well made bridge movie but still a bridge film.
*Yes, I know the Rebels won a few films back.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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5/10
This is meant to be a space opera! Someone didn't get the memo!
Well Star Wars is officially dead. It's now a meandering action film with a terrible script, made for people who think it should have had 'more action', like "the last one was boring it needed more action". Well I hope you people are pleased! Star Wars is just another meat-head action movie now, like we didn't already have enough of those! So sad, the last movie was quite goof, rogue one wasn't bad, this is a farce.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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Lets just say i wasnt surprised how rubbish it was... i mean its disney after all... they should carry on drawing MICKY MOUSE for all i care.
but it seems hollywood been so poor the last few years. all they do is pay reviewers to get good reviews. to fool people to cinema... my advice dont waste your money wait for a online copy to watch for free as its not worth a dime.
i hoped there was a 0 rating here too....
the force was mor like a fart in this movie....
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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I can't bring myself to say this is an awful movie, it's not, it's well made, and has some amazing sequences and artistry.
Unfortunately, it just kills Star Wars for me. The decisions that led to this outcome are baffling, and I feel deeply sad at the end product.
I could go on at length, but beyond any nit-picking, complaining that things are different, or any neckbeard criticism like that, I want to say that at a fundamental level I don't think this film works. It doesn't work because the text and the subtext don't line up more often than they do, and the emotions of a given scene are waved around constantly.
If you've been a fan of Star Wars for a long time, you probably won't enjoy this movie. If you're new to the series, you probably will. There are some redeeming qualities here, but not enough for me.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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I went into this movie expecting a 'dark story'. I remember reading that it 'darker then Empire'. It is not. This movie is a very light movie with few if any truly dark moments. There were too many jokes taking away from otherwise serious scenes which I felt hurt this movie overall.
But this is not to say that this is a bad movie, just not what I expected. It is a very enjoyable if you are looking for a fun movie that can watched with all audiences. I cannot help but compare it to a marvel movie - light, fun and accessible to everyone but missing depth in some areas.
Overall I believe that some of the terrible reviews that this movie is facing are completely unwarranted. It is visually stunning and a great addition to the star wars universe. Just don't go into this expecting something like Empire.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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I'm not even going to write a review. I'll just tell you that there were so many wasted opportunities and wasted characters. I left the cinema completely unsatisfied and frustrated and I am still in denial that what I saw was actually the film I have been waiting 2 years to see. I have zero interest in Episode 9. There is nothing to look forward to. The franchise has been ruined.
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Did you want the sequel to The Force Awakens to actually explain plot points without creating more giant plot holes? So did I, but this was not to be. The film certainly has some pretty setpieces, but it's so fundamentally flawed that it beggars belief. To the critics who have near-universally praised this film I can only ask: did you see the same movie that I did?
The theme of The Last Jedi beats you over the head until it's sure you get the memo: let it all die. The First Order, the Rebels, the Jedi, it all needs to go - even new characters that we don't know anything about. If this isn't an allegory for the whole film, I don't know what is.
Did you want to know what the deal was with Snoke? Who he was, how he came into power, how he met Kylo Ren? Too bad, he's dead. He didn't even give us the courtesy of answering any of those questions. Did you want Carrie Fisher to have a proper send-off? Unfortunately she was the crux of the most bewildering and comedic moment of the film, and after that scene she was of no actual use to the plot whatsoever - even posing the question later on when our good guys turn to her for guidance of "What are you looking at me for?". I can only assume that Leia was kept alive for the sole purpose of seeing Luke's force projection later on in the film to attempt to give them resolution before he died of exhaustion, but it could have and indeed should have been done in a different way. Her arc was concluded in that moment before the Superman sequence that felt like it came out of a particularly awful dream. Yet Leia is still alive by the end of this movie. Holdo, who should have taken her place to carry on the fight was killed in a visually appealing but utterly stupid sequence that makes you wonder why lightspeed wasn't weaponized in every other film in the Star Wars universe when it could be used to such devastating effect. It certainly makes the sacrifice of Rose's sister feel completely and utterly pointless at the start of the film.
Speaking of the start of the film, the opening is so awful I almost can't believe it. Hux is now nothing more than a walking joke not even ten minutes in to the film because of an extended sequence between him and Poe which plays out like a prank call and ends with a "your mother" punchline. This isn't hyperbole. Poe then continues to be insufferable throughout the feature, pretty much directly leading to the death of the majority of the remaining Resistance. If he and Holdo could've talked like adults and established what the plan was, then there would have been no need for Finn and Rose to go gallivanting off to Space Monaco in order to bring back Benicio Del Toro. Del Toro's character is an interesting one, but he's introduced far too late. The problem here is that his character arc is so truncated and devoid of resolution that it's complete and utter sequel bait, and by this point you're aware you're watching a juggler with far too much going on to keep it all up in the air. The Monaco subplot tries to establish that the war is propped up by people who profit from it in some way, and it makes you think that it really wouldn't be so bad for Rey to join Kylo and just nuke it all from orbit. Especially the porgs.
The tone of this film is unbelievably erratic, swinging from slapstick to emotionally/hormonally charged to awful porg cameos that utterly outstay their welcome. I struggled to care about any of the growing number of dying Resistance fighters, and even Admiral Ackbar only got a passing nod as he went up in flames. Luke's character is written as if he's utterly lost his mind for 90% of the film, which compromises a lot of Hamill's performance. In those moments where he actually is written like the Luke we used to know and love, he's fantastic. As for others: Yoda's force-ghost is an utter madman who can now call down lightning from the afterlife, Finn is a massive coward despite his character growth in TFA, Chewie is absolutely relegated to porg joke territory, etcetera. Amongst all of this awful writing, Kylo stands out as the only one with a decent character arc. In fact, Adam Driver's performance goes some of the way to redeeming this film, and if he could have carried the movie solely on his broad shoulders then he probably would have. I'm sure this wasn't the writer's intention, but he's the only one in the movie that seems reasonable despite throwing a couple of temper tantrums. Daisy was a decent counterpoint to Adam, but there's even less justification for her absurd powers now that we know she was born to a couple of no-names, so if you were looking for some vindication that she was a Skywalker, you're going to walk away disappointed.
This isn't the full extent of my gripes with the film and I've certainly got issues with some of the lazy framing of scenes and general cinematography amongst other things, but I think I've covered enough to justify my 5/10.
TL;DR:
TLJ could have been a good movie with a different director and a screenwriter that knows how to create a cohesive narrative, but it's bogged down by stupid plotholes, stupid writing and too many characters. I'd give it a miss in the cinema, but if you're looking for a pretty popcorn movie that you don't want to think about, this might be an okay watch. It's not the worst film ever, but Rian Johnson and Disney seriously dropped the ball. It's no wonder that Disney didn't want the Battlefront II controversy when this is already polarizing enough.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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As a life-long Star Wars fan. Gutted. TL;DR version: Story sucked, but was visually and auditory appealing.
And this rating on IMDb obviously manipulated for the official release world-wide Friday. The Disney media machine is at work, I just saw a news headline "best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes back?" LOL. You have to be freaking kidding me!
The story was incoherent. It did not satisfactorily answer ANY of the questions from episode VII (which is in my opinion was a better move than this one - as it actually had light saber duels LOL).
There is no way to salvage this. Star Was died for me today, and I am sure a lot of cult fans feel the same way. And I was open to these new movies...
If I were Disney, I would have fired this director, and remade the movie. The double expense on it would have been much better than killing this multi-billion dollar franchise. But in the director's defense, he probably didn't approve this script alone.
I'll just end off with: HORRIBLE.
3 out of 8 found this helpful.
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10/10
Easily One Of The Best And Most Enjoyable Entries In The Series
The eagerly anticipated next chapter in the Star Wars saga; "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" has arrived and it is by far one of the best films in the series and a significant upgrade over "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". The film picks up where the last film concluded as Rey (Daisy Ridley), has located the long in hiding Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), and attempts to recruit him to return to fight the evil First Order and train her in the ways of the Force.
At the same time, the First Order has commenced an assault on the retreating forces of the Resistance and this has caused a rift when key members of the command staff are lost/injured leaving Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) in charge. Her style does not mesh well with the impulsive Poe Damron (Oscar Isaac), and in a move of desperation, he oversees a mission for Finn (John Boyega), and Rose (Kelley Marie Tran), to make a desperate move to allow the forces to escape the relentless assault and pursuit of the First Order.
For many films, the above scenario would be enough to comprise the bulk of the movie but in the case of The Last Jedi, it is simply part of a much larger and far more intricate storyline that is at times much deeper and darker than one would expect from a Star Wars film.
Rey finds Skywalker a broken and bitter man who is consumed with his past failure regarding his Nephew Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and wants no part of his former glory and praise believing the best thing for the Universe would be for the Jedi to end.
Ren at the same time is a conflicted mess as he is eager to win the approval of his brutal master Snoke (Andy Serkis), while being drawn to Rey who believes he can be redeemed. It is this conflict as well as the tug of war between Snoke, Ren, and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), that shows a much more dynamic and complicated connection between the characters as well as drives home their complexity of their relationships and the situations they find themselves in.
The late Carrie Fisher is captivating as General Leia and her presence lifts the scenes she is in. She portrays Leia with a calm yet feisty and determined edge which shows that she is always in control no matter the situation.
The action in the film comes in waves and when it arrives, it is a wonder to behold as the lavish visuals and complex action sequences are dazzling but unlike the Prequels, never once overwhelm the cast as this is first and foremost a character driven story.
The film does put more of an emphasis on the new characters vs the old, but as this was always the plan, it is nice to see that older characters are not shoved aside or given a token cameo, they are still central to the plot just let the younger cast do more of the heavy lifting, but still get plenty of moments to shine.
Writer/Director Rian Johnson has done a masterful job in crafting a new entry into the series that not only entertains, but gives a deeper and dark look at the universe which makes the film easily one of the best Star Wars films ever made. There are sequences that will delight and surprise fans, and when it was over and I could catch my breath and reflect upon what I had just seen, I found myself saying that I could not have asked for a better sequel as it not only entertained thoroughly, but provided plenty of unexpected moments that makes me all the more anxious to see how the new trilogy concludes in 2019. "Star Wars": The Last Jedi" is the film that fans have been waiting for as it contains all of the best elements of Star Wars and boldly moves the franchise ahead.
5 stars out of 5.
13 out of 58 found this helpful.
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I think 8.3 is too high, 7 is more adequate! It is too long, it will be better if it's 120 minutes! I think Star Wars is on its way to a dead end, because there's no more story to tell! The Last Jedi is just repeating all the old stories! Snoke has to be the wimpiest dark lord! Mark Hamill is just an old turd. Leia's face looks fake, perhaps its done by CGI?
I went to see it with high hope now I want my money back! It is just not good enough!
9 out of 37 found this helpful.
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8/10
A thoughtful and gorgeous addition to the Star Wars epic
Finally, after two long years, the third trilogy continues in "The Last Jedi" by Rian Johnson. From a writer/director of this calibre I could only expect the most mature Star Wars ever, and I was not disappointed on this end: in this film we finally see some doubt in the sharp distinction between good and evil, a more interesting dinamic between the baddies and the good guys. Rey doubts master Luke, Luke himself hides some shadows in his past that he would like to bury forever, Finn and the newly introduced Rose team up with a guy whose lesson is "Good and Evil are the same: it's just business". One could see this as a common carefree character, but in reality he channels an interesting point made throughout the film: good and evil may not be as different as they seem. Maybe. Because eventually the good guys (kind of) win, and Kylo stays true to his baddie persona, if with some very interesting twists coming along. To this regard, Rian Johnson seems to be playing with fan fictions here, proving all of them wrong even if the solution he finds is not quite as satisfying sometimes. Is it really a good idea to make Rey's parents some nobodies? What about all the threads scattered around in Episode VII that we got crazy to understand? Can it really be the best choice to let it all die this way? Sure, Kylo said that, Rey believes that, but nothing forbids for Ep. IX to change everything on this end. Luke's death is pretty good, although maybe not that necessary. Same goes for Snoke's fate: he was never anything more than a nobody himself? An all-powerful being without any connection to the past of the Sith order? Seems very cheap if you ask me.
If this SW really did something better than all his predecessors, it is to show us what the "Wars" in the title mean: there are so many combat scenes, but they are unusually complex, with great military strategy behind every move and with incredible visual effect on the spectators.
I really loved how some things require some time to be understood: for example, Yoda laughing at Luke's willingness to destroy the tree containing the Books of the Jedi and telling him that Rey already has what she needs to become a Jedi is a great piece of writing, because everything gets a simple, clear explanation later on: she had already taken the books away, with her.
The Last Jedi follows the trend started with Episode VII and continued with Rogue One last year: it's not as groundbreaking as the originals, but it carefully works both with the source material and with new ideas, crafting a very good new entry. The best part are its insightful ideas about shading the line between good and evil; the worst are some writing choices (like Snoke's and Phasma's deaths, two interesting and completely underdeveloped characters).
5 out of 17 found this helpful.
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After reading reviews I thought that it will be bad. But it was not! I really liked the movie. I don't understand why people never appreciate anything at all.
There is no need to compare this movie with previous trilogies. C'mon! we all know that nothing will be the same. People have to get rid of their biases.
If you really want to compare, just see how visual aspects had improved.
And also I think the last jedi is even better that force awakens.
6 out of 22 found this helpful.
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There is brilliance here, but it's buried beneath over-stretched and bloated plot.
I'm not really a great Star Wars fan, so nothing they would do with the characters would upset me.
However this was still not very good. There are high points which are brilliant but it's not enough since that is buried beneath a bloated plot with many dull and useless characters and subplots. The movie had me mesmerised with what was happening on screen, but later I would just roll my eyes or be bored.
At times it felt like a Transformers or Pirate sequel with the needlessly convoluted chain of events.
So I don't know whether I can recommend it or not but a lot of the children at my screening got restless , I don't think it makes a good children's movie.
4 out of 13 found this helpful.
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This was the Closing Gala Movie on the 14th Edition of Dubai International Film Festival, screened on 13th December 2017.
As the most celebrated movie franchise Star Wars is celebrating it's 40th Anniversary, the 8th installment Trilogies releases, The Last Jedi. This is the last Star Wars movie of the beloved Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). With a running time of 152 minutes, the longest movie in the Franchise. The film is too long, but, you don't feel it. As usual, opens with a battle, followed by comedy, drama and sentiments, and this pattern follows the movie throughout. The entry of Disney might have made the addition of comedy.
But, these changes may not be 100% satisfactory for the fans. For normal audience, this is definitely a great entertainer.
The 3D was satisfactory. Performance of the stars and visual treatment etc. were really good. But, in top of all, there was something wrong somewhere. This may disappoint the film's fans.
Just waiting for the public opinion on the release.
#KiduMovie
6 out of 23 found this helpful.
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My first memory in life was seeing A New Hope (or just Star Wars to me) in 1977 when I was three years old. It left an incredible impression on me, and my whole life has revolved around that movie in some way. I have lived and breathed Star Wars for 40 years, and I never thought I would ever feel the same way about a movie, until I saw this entry in the saga.
First of all, I cannot believe some of the negative reviews people are giving this movie. Did they actually watch it? This is most certainly not your average Star Wars movie, and if anyone goes in expecting to be given all of the answers, or to be spoon-fed a rehash of an earlier movie, then they will be sorely disappointed. This movie is exactly what the saga needed - a fresh, new, and completely unique take on the GFFA.
Second, the humor in The Last Jedi is spot on, and it is by far the funniest Star Wars movie ever. The jokes here are not tacked on just to provide comic relief; rather, they flow organically from the circumstances, as if the characters are actually talking. (And for those wishing George Lucas had written the movie, just think of Jar-Jar Binks and the forced humor he brought to The Phantom Menace.)
Third, and I think most importantly, this installment, as others have noticed, is about failure and the lessons we can take from it. Never before has a Star Wars movie been at once so gloomy and yet so optimistic. Happy ending? Nope. Hopeful ending? Most definitely.
I feel Rian Johnson has made a masterpiece of a Star Wars film. It is beautiful. It will make you laugh, cry, cheer, groan, gasp, and sit at the edge of your seat. And it will challenge all of the assumptions you have made concerning Star Wars. For me, that is the best part.
3 out of 9 found this helpful.
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8/10
The Last Jedi puts a nail in the coffin that is the 'Old Star Wars', but it also comes with the new generation of cast that is the 'new Star Wars'
The Last Jedi has opened with overwhelmingly positive reviews, which was an instant sign that I may be in for disappointment due to the film being overhyped and admittedly I didn't come out of the film being very satisfied. Personally, my instant response was negative towards the choice that took with several of the films characters, for instance the choice to very lacklusterly offing supreme leader Snoke when he has been built up in episode VII as the next big bad or the way that Luke was in fact using his 'Jedi hologram' to battle Kylo Ren in the final climactic battle which ended anticlimactically when Luke disappears into the winds in the first Jedi Temple.
The thing is, this all goes against our expectations as fans, we have come to expect the force running through a major blood-line (Skywalkers), to expect this big menacing force of evil and impactful deaths. But, we did get all of these things, we got them in The Force Awakens, so after really thinking about the Last Jedi I think it really was a worthy entry.
Many in fact complained that the Force Awakens was essentially the exact same as A new Hope, complete with its own death star, an evil sith with its own version of Vader: Kylo Ren and the comparisons do not end there. It was a nostalgic film, harkening back to the nostalgia of Star Wars and was definitely effective for an initial return to such a franchise.
However, Rian Johnson certainly realizes the danger of this and chooses to go on a very different and offbeat tone for The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi was an ensemble of storylines that were meaningful (perhaps with the exception of Finn and Rose's arc) and character building arcs that ended with every character being more that what we came in with, and this is a truly difficult balancing act that I think The Last Jedi executes very well. Albeit there are moments that at first viewing may seem odd and completely undermines the build up of A Force Awakens and a few unnecessary comedic scenes.
You see as fans we have expected Snoke to be this big menacing force, but instead he is just this old guy who has been pulling the strings, Kylo is the real villain of the story, and this in many ways is different. Rey's parents were revealed to be nobodies once again hearkening to the 'anti cliched' tone that Rian Johnson is heading to. While these choices are surely going to put off certain fans, they weren't unreasonable and in fact do propell the characters forward. Kylo Ren's character has become so much more interesting because while he does have this inner conflict also is now overtaking the big-bad Snoke and coming to his own. Poe Dameron's character also has a very interesting arc as he comes to understand the importance of good leadership and the choices a leader must make fully coming to his own. Rey's character stands to represent the beacon of hope in the galaxy, and throwing away of the common trope of the 'Skywalker bloodline'. Because, if anything the overarching message of the Last Jedi is that the force isn't a tool that a few can utilize but rather something that flows through all, something that everyone can use and that is what Luke comes to realize, why he ultimately does think that the Jedi order must end. It is time for the galaxy to step up and it would take the whole galaxy to come together in order to bring down the First Order. Kylo Ren in fact puts this in perspective very well when he said "It is time for old things to past" truly symbolizing the end of a Star Wars that we as fans are familiar with and really putting away the nostalgia goggles and having a new generation come to their own.
3 out of 9 found this helpful.
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I know it is not cool to like new Star Wars movies but this movie is a good Star Wars movie unfortuately. It understands what Star Wars is good at its core and builds upon it. Its only big flaw is some confusing subplots that doesnt come together and pay off in the end in a neat way. Also, I like that this movie pays its due respects to Empire Strikes Back but also boldly says this is a new movie about new characters, new time, a new generation.
3 out of 9 found this helpful.
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Doesn't feel like any other Star Wars movie. The plot is dreadful and full of holes, but that's not the problem, and if we're honest, is forgivable for a Star Wars movie.
One thing about the original trilogy, and even the prequels for the most part, is that they don't consciously reference the ideas "issues" of the period in which they were made. This makes them quite timeless, and brings them down to fundamental concepts- justice, freedom, belonging, greed, etc
Not so this latest movie.
From the opening gag about poor cell coverage, through to the dice over the rear-view mirror of the millenium falcon, to the guilt-trip about eating meat, we get a little time-capsule that is going to fix this film in a certain time period. In 20 years, we'll be saying "oh yes, that's because in those days, sometimes the net would drop out and you wouldn't be able to hear the other person on the phone"
The previous movies are also flawed in terms of gender and racial diversity. But there are female pilots and soldiers and leader, and the occasional flicker or racial diversity, just not enough screen time. It's like it was a better, less prejudiced world, but the camera wasn't always pointed in the right direction.
In this movie, the problem is that, like the cell phone gag, etc, these "issues" are made explicit and current to the Star Wars setting. So we get some ridiculous parable about female leadership (where, bizarrely, the female leader in question doesn't know how to communicate, and just comes across as a terrible command and control boss). Nothing a woman does or says in the movie is presented as wrong. It's up to the women to teach men about love, duty, etc. There's even a #womanintech! Is Disney worried about a backlash? Or is Disney after the wonder woman dollar?
Also, no positive role models for boys. Every male in the movie is evil, destructive, stupid, scared, callous, weak... that's not what I want my boys to aspire to. And, hey, Disney, that's not what's going to make my boys want Star Wars toys ;)
A final annoying thing about the movie. The terrible out of place humour. "A-what-now?" is used twice. The steam irons? "I changed my hair"????
The more I think about it, the worse it seems.
I wouldn't say to avoid it- you're probably going to see it. You probably should.
But I hope someone at Disney will wake up...
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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Luke was utterly ruined and wasted, Snoke was wasted, Kylo's character development wasted, Finn's character development was wasted, Rey's backstory and explanation of her being such a Mary Sue was wasted, Fisher's exit was wasted. EVERYTHING WAS WASTED, but hey, it looked pretty and served their intersectional feminist SJW "down with zhe patriarchy!" agenda, so corrupt critics are raving with false praise even as true fans weep.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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Shame on you IMDB for selling out your brand to the corporate marketers and allowing a highly elevated review rating for this poor piece of filmmaking.
Whilst I acknowledge the target market for the writing of this film was for the younger generation of film goers it was no excuse for this ponderous rip off of a great movie franchise.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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This movie was....fine. That's pretty much all I can say. It had all of the cool characters everybody loves acting their hearts out to a meaningless plot. Don't get me wrong. I was entertained, but the fact that Rian destroyed all the interesting plot points that J.J set up, made me feel heart broken.
To begin, opening a movie that is highly anticipated as an epic story through all the hype and build up with corny jokes, and how they attempted to integrate it as a battle strategy made me cringe to say the least.
The cliffhanger of interest that we were left with in TFA was ruined in 3 seconds by making it slapstick. I mean come on, he throws it of a cliff, from what I can tell to introduce some cute owl things they have named as 'Porgs' (which are fricken awesome btw). It was disappointing to say the least. Paired with that let down, all of the epic scenes that should have remained epic were soiled by more crappy comedy.
The main plot story was a boring space chase that was frankly disgusting. Not only did they fail to kill Leia (who given the circumstances had to die), but they killed 2 iconic characters, and one new character that would have been extremely interesting. Snoke is sliced in half by Kylo and then Rey teams up to beat snokes guards which was the best scene in the movie. This is then ruined with a boring plot device that lead nowhere. Admiral Akbar gets blown up and Leia uses the force to survive space. This is downright dumb, so much for let old things die. Han's death meant nothing to this movie. Luke is bested in a lightsaber fight (sort of) by Rey who has no experience prior to this event. Luke was trained by Obi-Wan, this is frankly not possible and it makes George Lucas look good.
Yoda....no. Disney just stop. The movie kept alive characters that should have died and killed interesting characters for no reason.
Luke uses a hologram to trick Kylo. He would have sensed this. Then Luke dies because of the draining of all his power for like 20 people. The casino subplot was for no reason, and there was a flippin stampede. Why......
To summarise, this movie was a let down and comes close to being just as awful as ROTS. I was still entertained, but let down. Even the actors disagreed with the decisions made in the plot. Don't pay to see this in cinemas. It's not worth it. The next movie better be the last and better explain, why this movie went the way it did or I won't be to pleased with Disney for ruining a legacy. Rogue One remains the best Star Wars movie. Rian Johnson is a disgrace to Star Wars.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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Movie started out great, battle sequence was one of the best of the franchise.
Then the silly plot line starts with Finn and Rose where they had to go to some planet in search of a code-breaker(DJ) another boring character, the whole purpose of doing this was waste. It was just for setting up an explanation of idea of FORCE that was briefed by Luke(i,e jedi can be anyone/anybody can use the FORCE).
Then there is killing of Snoke by Kylo Ren, you never get to know who he was.
Rey is just the same, no character development. The FORCE connection between the characters was bit odd. And the movie was too long.
Luke and Leia were just fine.
-----------------------------------------------------
Kylo Ren, General Hux were great.
Amazing background score.
Great action sequences.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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1/10
Terrible... the high-praise critic reviews are obviously paid off by Disney
This was so bad and such a mess, I honestly don't know where to begin. As a long time Star Wars fan, I'm angry and disappointed. This franchise is dead to me as long as Disney is involved.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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4/10
Once the dust settled from watching it...all I could remember was its catastrophic flaws
No doubt you've read a lot of the reviews on here, and how fans loathe this film with a passion. So I'll skip to the plot points that make this the most perverse anti-Star Wars, Star Wars film ever.
Luke Skywalker. This guy is not the Luke we know and love. He wants the Jedi to end, is fearful, and has lost all hope. I could have run with this if he had not just been killed off at the end. I was like WTF. Luke decides to just disappear into the Force. We have been totally cheated.
He gets some of his mojo back towards the end and when an epic battle is teased, we find out that he has projected his consciousness from another planet and Kylo Ren can't kill him. What a let down.
Snoke. So in TFA, Snoke is teased as this mysterious figure. And for two years fans have asked the following questions. Where is he from? Is he a creature from a distant galaxy? wOr is he related to Anakin or Palpatine? Is he Darth Plagueis? All valid questions which could have added richness to this new story. But instead this all goes no where. This apparently most powerful Dark Force user is easily dispatched by Kylo Ren -and he didn't even see it coming! WTF???
So with Luke and Snoke dead we are not going to get an epic showdown between arguably the most powerful Light and Dark force users ever. Wasted opportunity.
-This leaves Rey's parentage. Is she a Skywalker? Is she a Kenobi? Is she a Palpatine? Or is she a reincarnation of Darth Vader? Nope she is none of these. She is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Nobody who left her on Jakku.
So none of these important plot points established in TFA seems to have been important enough by Rian Johnson and co to explore in TLJ. In fact, it seems that Johnson has been reactionary to fans expectations. He wanted to create the unexpected by simply eliminating all these plot points in fear of TLJ being predictable. Bad form I say.
Hopefully Episode 9 will kick off with Luke waking from a nightmare and it was all just a bad dream. I wish I could joke about this, but Luke Skywalker is a beloved character and he, Mark Hamill, and the fans were very much short changed with this movie
I have to admit that the spectacle of it all won me over for a few hours after seeing it. But once the dust settled the rot set in.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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1 tiny battle involving light sabres. The second act is terrible and boring. Do not believe the scores you see, Do yourself a favor and wait for it on TV. Just doesn't have that Star Wars feeling like the originals, or even the prequels, despite all of their flaws.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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I watched episode 7 and loved it. I watched Rogue One during the in-between wait for the next episode, and loved it. So, after waiting 2 years for episode 8...here's come a great one...highly anticipated Rey's training, Ren's completion to the Dark Side, some epic fights between them, with Master Luke's fight as well...and Satan-liked Snork's epic appearance...
Crap...Firstly, Rey hardly has any training from the great Skywalker. All Skywalker teach her is about feeling the force, and sort of introduced her to the Dark Side???2ndly, Ren never got to complete his training...all he got is more insult from his Master. 3rdly, We never get to see Snork's epic battle with the last Jedi...he was killed before we can get to know more of him. And other illogical stuffs that honest reviewers have already mentioned.
I couldn't believe i wasted good money to watch it. I am giving it a star, to bring down it's high score of 8.2, just to make the ratings more realistic.
If all any reviewer could write is "visually stunning", "good acting", or "great score"...you can bet the story aspect of the movie is meh...
Love Carrie Fisher thou, may the Force be with her...
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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1/10
I am grateful for the experience of the original trilogy
I felt a disturbance in the force. It is like someone took one of the best memories from my childhood, Disneyfied it, and the added a lot of CGI farts around it.
I am greatful that I grew up during the times of the original trilogy.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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The movie suffers from a bad direction. It is not the actors who pose a problem. I think director Rian Johnson does not know how to make movies. I hope the next episode will be done by a good and gifted director. Now, I wonder if this episode is worse than clones attack.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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I am no movie critic, and I am far from being one. But I felt like the star wars fan in me had been stabbed by Rian Johnson. I am not going to say the movie was trash, but I personally liked The phantom menace more.
Luke, who at the end of "Return of the Jedi" was a strong and determined Jedi who was eager to be a Jedi and bring the order back, now is a hermit who doesn't even care if Leia is in danger.
Snoke. what can I say about Snoke? A character with more than great potential, and with knowledge, understanding, and deep bond with the force equal to the emperor, was killed without a backstory, without a fight... truly disappointing.
Needless to say to those who watched it that there were scenes that were unnecessary, such as the quest for the code master or whomever. Why all the secrecy about that stupid character Holdo? tell the plan to all the resistance and it would have given enough time to explain the past of Snoke or more on the battle of the salty planet, or more of the duel between Rey an Ben. On episode seven we were teased about the knights of Ren. Where are they? Where the hell are they?
On the bright side not everything was trash, visual effects, personally I'd give it an oscar; John Williams's composing was flawless (as usual); and Yoda played with the nostalgia in our hearts. C3P0 is still C3P0, Chewie is still chewie and Leia is still Leia (moment when she uses the force aside).
I started this review saying that I liked Episode one more, here why. Every previous Star Wars movie left something. On the original trilogy: nothing to comment, we all know the legacy they left. Episode III: Origin of Vader's betrayal of the Jedi, and the reason why Luke and Leia are appart, also the light saber duel on Mustafar was superb. Episode II: Origin of the Stormtroopers, and origin of the mentioned Clone Wars by Obi wan on episode VI. Episode I: At least left us The duel of the fates, and i am not talking about the song, I am talking about the Duel (It also left us with the second most loved Sith of all times Darth Maul ( not a personal opinion but a fact confirmed by a poll).
In conclusion I think it would be wise not to include Rian Johnson in the creation of a new trilogy. However my STAR WARS fan inside me (which is big, really big) forbids me from giving the movie less than 5 stars, but mind you I would give the Phantom menace a 6...
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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This film makes characters way too overpowered. The scene where Rey encounters Luke on the island was a big insult to the fans. Two years of build up and for half of the movie he refuses to train her for no plot given. Through the magic of plot convenience princess Leia now knows the force. Yoda's rival while good, made him far too overpowered. They let Supreme Leader Snoke die in the dumbest way possible by letting Kylo change to position of the light sabor. The pacing for the first act was horrible and it took awhile for things to start to unfold. Disney recreated episode 5.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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Where to begin ??????? Sorry for the spoilers in advance
I AM dissapointed beyond the whole Universe.......
I was in the first movie , Rogue one was a good spinn off and then i had high hopes for this one , and they did it again !! shameless copy paste of the old movies with some new elements...... SHAME ON YOU DISNEY !
This movie is the empire strikes back and Return of the jedi.... hell they did not even covered the scenes up they literally took the scenes from the first triology !!!!! So where are the new Starwars movies Disney ? The last jedi is just like The force awakens : a blunt ripp off from the old movies...... ( or a shameless copy paste with a twist)
*Spoiler*
Everything went wrong...... Luke dies in the most idiotic way !!!! come one you let him die like Yoda???? at least with yoda it made sense and it was sad because he was old...... But no Luke dies in the most stupid way and so does Snoke btw.....
Story line......, dunno where to go, we jump from here to there, copy paste scenes we just throw in some new elements but hey fans won't see this .....we are aiming for the new people so we can take the scenes from the first triology and ram it in your face, the fans are stupid anyway i hear Disney think....
There is no feeling or empathy , characters are acting if they are held against there will in a follow up of idiotic "been there done that scenes" Some actors are excellent btw but in general it lacks this " i am part of something great feeling......"
What is not new and ripped from the old movies :
Fight at snoke's = the emperor scene inlcuding the " your rebel friends will die"
battle at the rebel base
entering the new orders battle cruiser to stop the tracking device
death of luke = yoda
falcon flying in the tunnel/cave narrow spaces
etc etc etc .......
What could have been done or what should have been done with the movie?
Luke should have trained an army of Jedi and restart the order with some refreshing characters and new Jedi that would fight in an ultimate battle against the first Order and Ben solo could have trained some dark forces that would give a lot of stuff for another 3 movies like a hidden temple where they can start planning and recruiting also poo could have trained rebels , and together with the rest they could have gone out in search for new jedi's to train , this would lead to the next movie where you see new jedi's develloping and they would go on missions and encounter the dark forces , with some tragic ,heroic losses on both sides. Then the new order needs to do some cowardly unforgivable things that fans can feel the pain and are discusted with them so you could end with an ultimate air to ground and sea battle that has non stop action and suspence where you should have killed off Luke Skywalker in an heroic sacrifice. ( in between this there is room for exotic locations, side story lines, introducing new rebels/jedi/dark forces/sith) new weapons , vehicles and spacships, new bases and alliances on both sides with new species, etc etc etc )
You have one more movie to put this shit back on track ( except for Luke he is death, unless you made him dissapear and he went to the secret jedi temple)
or else i will just watch the next starwars movies on blu ray on a sunday when there is no episode of Hanna Montana on because there is where the Starwars universe is going to end like some teenager Hanna Montana shit....... hell even Rogue one the spinn off was better , so find a good director and fire this one and also executive producer JJ , just don't let them touch Starwars anymore, get Ridley Scott or Alex Proyas or James Cameron but please let the idiots that made The Force awakens and the last Jedi go do a walk of shame and direct children disney series.......... so at least teenagers can still recover from the trauma that they will suffer.....
Come on Disney you could do way way way better.........
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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Ruined everything about star wars, this movie achieved nothing and made everything feel stupid, didn't even elaborate on snoke and who he was. if your a true fan you're going to be let down
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
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When I saw the trailer for TLJ, I had very high expectations for this movie. What I expected was some awesome lightsaber duels, the identity of Snoke revealed, and some kick-ass scenes.
What I saw was 2+ hours of my life that I will never get back. The SW films, up to now, has been great. Even TFA had it's moments. But this?
SPOILERS FOLLOW
Let's start with the basic plot. Cruiser is low on fuel, and cruising just out of range of the Super Destroyers Blast Cannons to do major damage. This takes up a good part of the movie, which could have been condensed down to 5 minutes.
Poe taking on a Star Destroyer by himself in his fighter. Unlikely.
General Leah - There's a scene where she gets blasted into space, and moments later uses the force to glide back to the ship.. No offense to the late Carrie Fisher, who was a great actress in her own right, but that scene did not make sense on any level. She wasn't a Jedi Master, and being able to survive in space for as long as she was, defies everything that Jedi or Sith could pull off! Maybe they "borrowed" some ideas from the DCU to give her a moment of being Supergirl.
The opening scene, where Rey hands Luke the lightsaber. Two years we waited for this moment. The expectations we must have all had, to see where this was going to lead.. And what happened? Luke tosses the lightsaber away. WTF!!!!! Two years of waiting for this moment just for that?
Chewie - Scenes with Chewie were great to see, although we did not get to see him in much action whatsoever. A waste of great screen time for a lovable favorite.
Snoke - This character is supposedly a Sith Lord. More powerful than Palpatine. What I expected was a confrontation between him and Luke. Instead, what we see is Rey and Kylo Ren in his throne room, and in what has to be the most unmemorable death scene of a villain in cinematic history, he merely gets sliced in half by Kylo. (Mind you, a moment later Snoke boasts that he knows everything that Kylo was thinking. Yet, he didn't know that Kylo was about to kill him??? PALEASE!)
After Snoke is wasted, Rey and Kylo go up against Snoke's guards, who are nothing more than Samurai Ninjas. That scene reminded me heavily of something I have seen in Chinese New Year parades. I was just waiting for a 50 ft dragon to make an appearance in that scene. :)
The Pogs? Great for merchandise, but despite the rumors of how "vicious" they can be, they are nothing more than Disney product placement. Very poorly done on the part of Disney.
Yoda makes an appearance. The CGI was poor at best. One would think that with all our modern technology, the CGI would have been so much better. But no. Then, in a new move, Yoda's Force Ghost manipulates the atmosphere to make lightning burn down the ancient Jedi Tree. (Jedi Tree? Seriously???) Perhaps they got the idea for that from the movie, Avatar?
Then there's the ending scene where Luke faces Kylo. Luke performs a few Neo (Matrix) maneuvers, then we find out that it isn't Luke at all, but his Force Projection! HUH! So Luke, (having abandoned the ways the force), can project an image of himself across galaxies, then we see him at the Island where he sees the twin suns (Tattooine) and then dies.
WOW! Worst death scene of a Jedi ever... Even Mace had a better ending scene than this!
General Hux - This idiot reminds me of a Hitler wanna-be, but has no clue how to command his own military and is often incompetent in the smallest orders Snoke gives him. An idiot through and through.
The plot was a mess. Disney really pulled out all stops to make this film even more unbelievable with the tripe this film was.
It is obvious Rian has never watched a Star Wars movie in his life.
Although it was great to see old favorites in the film, such as 3PO, R2, Chewie. They served no real plot purpose other than screen time to remain in the series. R2's cameo moment was also uneventful.
SPX was average. Overall, this movie was poorly written, with no real purpose. It definitely was not worth waiting 2 years that I (and many fans) had hoped for.
With Luke dead, Snoke dead, that leaves nothing for the next installment in the series. Which is sad indeed.
With Kylo and Rey both without masters to teach them, where do they go from here?
Too many questions left unanswered in this. Who was Snoke? Who were Reys parents? If Snoke was "so powerful", why was he so easily killed off? WTF was with Luke "fading into the sunset" at the end?
I think we all know what will happen in the final installment. Kylo will turn back to the Light, and the saga will be complete.
I give this movie a 1 out of 10. That 1 being for the Crystal Foxes. Otherwise, don't waste your time watching this.
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I've never written a review before & I'm not a hardcore SW fan - I just like the story & concept a lot but...
I came out of this in shock at what I have just watched. I'm 22 years old so I was a kid when Episodes 1-3 came out & I really liked those films. When I got older & saw the anger from the older fans about those episodes, I didn't understand until I looked back. Saying that - I still liked them overall & I thought TFA was a solid 'reboot' film (even if it copied a lot of the story from the originals)
Now on to The Last Jedi... Christ. There's so much that doesn't make sense but the worst part of all is the Lea floating through space scene. I couldn't believe what I had seen when it happened. To kill her at that point was actually shocking but would have made sense. Has she ever used the force before? Did she hold her breath? What the actual fuck? From that point on I just sat there & let the film torture my soul.
There was no direction, you don't care *that* much about any of the characters. They fucking killed the main bad guy & now we're left with Kylo (a solid character in fairness) as the main point of evil, but you don't hate him so what's the point?
It has now left me with more questions than I had after TFA & I don't even know who we're meant to be 'scared' of going into Episode 9.
The endless jokes in EVERY supposedly tense scene were just stupid. I thought that I may had just become like the older fans who hated 1-3 but I actually liked TFA so I don't know how they've managed to fuck this one up so much. It's just disappointing in honesty.
It was aesthetically pleasing, of course, but everything else was just plain bad. It's the worst of the whole saga, for me, and I don't know if they'll be able to save it in Ep. 9.
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What a mess. Ok, which Star Wars fan is going to start the petition asking for Kathleen's resignation from our beloved franchise? Now I see why Mark disagreed with Luke's story. Help us Filoni, you're our only hope!
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2/10
Terrible story, Bad writers, bad acting. *spoilers*
1 day of training (sitting on a rock) you're a Jedi knight! Ships that run out of power and randomly fall/drift off (Guess space dont work the same way), Princess Poppins somehow only now shows her 1 power? Token chick to get the Asian market, Talking about marketing "Jar Jar worthy" Porg's for kids to buy, Luke was a pussy, remember not just 1 person in the same place at the same time who can do the same thing *crack codes*, Dead Jedi can still use force lighting?! Random orphans, Phasma was a space filler, pointless crystal foxes again just to sell toys? Snoke was a total badass but pointless and dumb & So where are the Knights of the Ren? Or did they become the red cheap henchmen?
Anyways as a great man once said "ITS A TRAP!" - Admiral Ackbar. (Rip)
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Having thought that TFA was a fairly safe re-introduction to the Star Wars cinematic universe, I was looking forward with great anticipation to The Last Jedi. This film, I felt, was an opportunity for real character development, whilst also setting up a darker tone for the series and surprising us with some interesting narrative twists and turns along the way.
I can't believe I'm saying this but, had I not been with a group of friends, I would have walked out of the cinema about an hour in. To think that I would even consider that for a Star Wars film is absolutely mind blowing to me.
From the jarring attempts at humour to the awful dialogue, this failed on every level. There was no real pacing, with scenes cutting back and forth at an alarming rate, and no real sense of threat, with the main villain disposed of in such an insultingly unconsidered way.
Even the much-awaited reveal of Luke Skywalker was throwaway, in both a literal and figurative sense. Mark Hamill did the best he could with a rubbish script, as did Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac. The rest of the cast really didn't add much, with Daisy Ridley's wooden performance lacking any kind of nuance or subtlety.
Altogether, I left the cinema feeling incredibly empty, angry and frustrated. How this script managed to get green-lit is anybody's guess. I've absolutely no idea where they are planning to take the franchise from here, other than by having Disney find more ways to milk the strange cow creature on Ahch-To for all it's worth.
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My first time going to a cinema, in 1999 being an 8 year old brat knowing nothing of the world. Watching this weird movie I picked with my grandpa called The phantom menace. Absolutely blew my mind, open my imagination wide open and set me on a journey of discovery. It sparked a love an yearning for more about this franchise that is to this day my undisputed favorite, despite watching hundreds if not thousands of movies since. I love ALL previous 8 movies - the OT the prequels, Rogue one AND the Force awakens, the Rebels and Clone Wars animated series. Love them all because they all had something special and different compared to each other. And all had minor flaws (emphasis on minor) which made them unique and distinguishable. And yet all bubble up the same feeling inside me no matter which one I watch or how many times. This inexplicable feeling that every Star Wars fan has inside him, almost like the force itself.
But this one, this pains me more than I can describe to say that it does not have the Star Wars soul. It looks like a Star Wars movie, it sounds like it too, but it just doesn't feel like it at all.
--Spoilers from now on--
Here are some examples:
1. Right from the beginning Hux is made a fool, for the first but not the last time, and I'm wondering how has he been given command of the First Order army in the first place? He is nothing compared to General grievous or Grand Moff Tarkin for example.
2. Captain Phasma was defeated in an highly underwhelming manor - for the second time.
3. The outcome of "battles" between force users. It just continues from TFA really. First of, the way an untrained Rey bested the man who defeated AND simultaneously saved Darth Vader and the galaxy from the Empire. Luke is old, but still, really that easily? Then "Supreme Leader" Snoke who is all-seeing and all-knowing dies while being completely clueless. Without even establishing his origin, person, or agenda. I cannot for the life of me think of a worse way to portray a villain. After all that build up they do a mocking shot of him dead with his tongue out. It's just one of the examples of how Rian Johnson didn't take this movie serious at made a feel insignificant.
4. "Rey's vision" sequence was unoriginal, confusing, unresolved, and completely pointless.
5. The casino sequence was the same.
6. Rey's parents reveal was one the biggest let-downs and missed opportunities of the movie. Even if it's not true.
7. R2D2, C3PO and Maz's roles were just cameos to be honest. I love BB8 but come on .... Oh and how about that casino security guy lifting BB8 like he is a football and throwing him away with one hand, when it appearance he nearly crushed Finn in the Falcon in TFA?
8. The way Leia survives. It's just .... how? Why?? I was waiting the entire movie to see a proper farewell to this iconic star, and it never came ..... just a plain stupid credits "in memory of .. " bullshit. You couldn't even do what Fast and Furious did with Paul Walker? I cried my heart out saying goodbye to a smiling CGI. But for arguably the best franchise and character ever, just a credit after the movie ???? Wow.
9. The way Luke dies. Not only the way he somehow managed to make an illusion feel real to so many people, even in combat with Kylo, I just hate how they portrayed Luke Skywalker. Utterly horrified. Now I understand why Mark Hamill had a big disagreement with Johnson. It's just mind boggling to me how far they have strayed from what Luke was and represented in the OT. He is scared, cynical, discouraged, unsure of himself. All a complete opposite of what he once was. How does that happen?
10. The last scene going back to the pointless casino planet for the "transferring the torch to the younger generation" - when did Star Wars become a such bad cliché? Now I guess.
Overall, the great visuals are completely overshadowed by the lack of sense and logic the the characters decisions. The plot holes are too many to remember. You can definitely feel the lack of a charismatic character like Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan in the prequel trilogy or Harrison's Han Solo. The humor made it look like it was trying to be a Marvel movie but failing miserably. All the death and obviously pointless sacrifices in the movie try to make it sad and dark, so the survivors seem to overcome a great difficulty, while in reality I lacked any compassion nor did I feel bonded with any of them. How do you honestly expect me to believe that this is the start of a rebellion when at the end only a handful survived (literally less than a dozen) with one ship, getting no help from the distress signal. It's a true parody of a Star Wars.
For the first time ever a movie has made me feel awfully heartbroken and disheartened, not because of empathy for what happened in the movie, but because of the butchered legacy of Star Wars. I don't know who is to blame, but whoever managed to misjudge so badly what makes a Star Wars movie, I can honestly say he should apologize to the fans and the actors, quite his job and never return. Ever.
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I don't what movie the critics watched but it's not the one I just witnessed. Rian Johnson clearly despises JJ Abrams and George Lucas so why make a Star Wars movie. He made fun of it, and mocked all the fans who have lovedp these movies for decades. I feel betrayed, I am angry. Please don't waste your hard earned money on this pointless show. Hated it!
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How delusional does one have to be, to give this move anything more than 1 star? Apart from the spectacular cinematography in some rare scenes, this movie is one of the biggest pieces of garbage that i have seen in a long time.
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Sorry, but this film killed the rest of our old favorite characters.
Luke is a joke.
Leia is flying through space.....and her first words seeing Luke are:"I got a new hairstyle".....WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!
C3PO.....was allowed to talk 3 times or so....but only sensless not funny shit
R2D2....waits for 1:30 hours in the Millenium Falcon and then recognizes Luke only when he sits in front of him??? But BB8 is the new intelligent Droid who can steer an AT-ST Walker????
Please help us.....these Versions of Star Wars have to stop!
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I'm still digesting the last Jedi, unsure if I really loved it or not. Parts of the film were incredible, and some parts of the plot and character development were really disappointing.
Things I liked:
Space battles and lightsaber battles were epic!
The little porg creatures were hilarious and had great chemistry with Chewie.
Ray is fantastic and carried most of the film.
Mark Hamill steals the show, great character development within the film and was sad to see him go, amazing final scenes!
Yoda with Luke was great idea and worked well, but the scene was too quick and Yodas CGI was horrid.
The cinematography was really impressive.
Things I didn't like:
Opening scene where General Hugs was made fun of, is very 'un-star wars like humour' and really bad to portray him as a moron, with Snoke gone, we're left with a confused young Kylo and Moron Hugs as the 'feared' First Order evil. Really bad character development here. There was also a lot of technical faults and 'as if' moments in the opening.
The whole 'let's chase the 1 rebel cruiser for 2 hours'... How anyone could think this part of the plot would work or be entertaining is a lunatic.
The random care taker creatures on Lukes island planet. When they appear on screen the first time surrounding Ray, people in the cinema yelled "wtf!?" Which is what most people were thinking, the 1980's effects on the them were horrendous and they serve no purpose but to confuse and distract us. I'm trying to focus on the scene between Ray and Kylo yet still thinking about the annoying care takers.
Star Wars films tend to try and have 3 plots happening together and meeting at the end. Rays story is the best and she was fantastic, again the chase the cruiser for 2 hours was boring and Fin's story shutting down the tracker, travelling to find the keymaster and failing, felt plot forced and in the end utterly useless, which pissed me off.
-
As a star wars fan, I still enjoyed it and looking forward to seeing a second time
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With a very quick look I saw that I'm not the only one who thinks that it could be better. I'm glad so many people can see this.
These productions have all the money they can need, talented material, talented actors, talented VFX artists, basically everything a film production can ask for and yet they can't write a decent story which is in my opinion the most important aspect of a film.
I won't say what exactly was wrong with it. You will all see the movie soon ad there are already reviews who analyse everything.
Another thing that pisses me off lately when it comes to movies in general is that they put their social justice agendas above the plot. This is Kathleen Kennedy acting like the little girl who must have everything her own way. I hate hate hate HATE her!
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This movie advances the plotlines significantly while being thoroughly entertaining. Rian Johnson has done a terrific job and should be highly commended. A
The acting is some of the best I have seen in any SW movie
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Ignore the bad reviews from disgruntled nostalgic fans/others. I saw the 2D version last night and thought this film was both very entertaining and absorbing. I grew up with the original trilogy and Episode IV has always been my favourite. However, 40 years later it's time for Star Wars to move in a new direction for a new generation. Of course we all miss the original characters but It's time to see some new ones too. Good to see nice solid performances with real props once more. Episode VIII is a very enjoyable film and succeeds on many levels. Probably my favourite of the post-original trilogy films.
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10/10
Came to have fun and with high expectations - loved it!
I know the whole Star Wars universe rather well, and I was happy to see a Star Wars movie like no other. The Force Awakens was just so similar to A New Hope, but this one... this one was different, but amazing. People here are complaining about ruinig Luke, but I loved his Mark Hamill humor, I think it suited him. As for other characters, they felt true. Visuals were about standard for a Star Wars movie.
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10/10
A great sequel that does a great job at both borrowing from the previous movies and bringing something new
I understand many people who were disappointed after watching Episode VIII. There were some wtf moments, like Leia not dying in an open space and using the Force to drag herself back to the ship. Snoke is completely wasted as a character. However, it was a great and surprising plot twist that made possible for every major character to die. The plot and small romance thing between Fin and that girl is just not satisfying. Also, some moments were a little bit childish, but they had to do it to approach greater audiences.
But putting all these things aside, the movie overall is gorgeous. First, it is visually stunning - the space battles, action sequences and, especially, the scene where Ray and Kylo fight Snoke's guards together. It was a great shot. Second, all characters perform really strong. They all have their own drama and reasons to be who they are. The conflict within each major character is strong and compelling. Both the new and old heroes are at their best.
Third, I really liked how they touched on political aspects in this movie (Even though, many people hated it). The main theme is about the balance. There is no clear line between good and evil, especially when it comes to war. The light and the dark cannot exist without each other. The movie is filled with making hard choices and dealing with consequences. Also, I personally enjoyed the moment where Fin is shown that people made profit on war by selling weapons to both parties and not only the First Order. It is really close to what happens in the real world.
Forth, Yoda's cameo and their dialog with Luke was a surprising and heartwarming moment. This movie does not simply go around the established truths of the Star Wars franchise, it tries to challenge them instead. Everybody remains just human after all. JJ Abrams will have a really tough job at concluding the trilogy properly.
This is a must watch and a really enjoyable ride, if you decide to close your eyes on some small issues.
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At the onset I have to admit I am a Star Wars fan and this review might be slightly biased in this favor. However, I also want to state the fan in me felt satiated seeing the movie and hence the review is a reflection of the same!
The movie begins with the Rebellion lead by Princess Leia is combating the First Order forces led by Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren. Meanwhile Rey arrives to meet the Jedi master Luke Skywalker to seek his help to crush the First Order. The movie then expands on the battle strategy sought by the Rebellion and the interactions Rey and Luke have regarding the latter's participation in this war. Will Skywalker be convinced to fight alongside his twin sister? What does Kylo and Snoke have in store for the Rebellion? What role will Rey and Finn play in the battle forward? To answer these questions and catch some other interesting turns you must definitely watch the movie.
Talking at first on the script - it is very well developed and though its a longer than the last one by at-least a good 20 mins, it manages to capture your attention, particularly owing to the fact they introspect the main characters. The movie will remind fans of the second part of the LOTR trilogy wherein the character development is made for the final showdown. Personally, I found the climax emotional and I cried (yes, I did!!) and it might be due to my fandom to Star Wars. I cannot wait for Episode IX.
The acting by the lead cast is particularly brilliant and everyone has showed their prowess in their own fashion. Daisy Ridely has everything in her to be a Star Wars phenomenon. The movie also has a some good jokes that keeps the tone relatively light and enjoyable. The length might be an issue to a few and maybe restricting to 130 minutes would have been better. But, I personally did not find the running time an issue.
The technical team is brilliant and John Williams keeps the movie upbeat and exhilarating with his resonant soundtrack.
Finally, Star Wars is a franchise and the core fans might have a different view on the movie than the one presented here. To the non-fans a bit more understanding of Star Wars will help you appreciate the true marvel.
My recommendation is not to miss this spectacle and is a perfect Christmas Treat!!
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7/10
Partially a disappointing plot, but this is quelled by the many, many different things that happen in this movie.
After the large disappointment The Force Awakens was, I was expecting more of the same rubbish from Disney, but I'm glad this isn't the case in this movie.
If you come into this movie expecting it to be a carbon copy of the Empire Strikes Back, then I'm glad to dismiss this idea. I could only find two similarities, out of hundreds of conversing themes.
There were many gobsmacking moments which left me astounded, and if you haven't watched the movie so far, I'm sure you will be left equally dismayed as I was.
My main disappointment with the movie, despite its many successes, is the pacing throughout a large chunk of it. The movie attempts to avoid this disappointment by creating events which were unexpected; attempting to literally 'shock' the audience back into gear - effectively veiling the audience from a plot hole which is too big for me, at least, to leave unnoticed.
If the central plot made more sense, this movie would easily be a 9.5 for me.
The central theme throughout this movie showcases the conflict of which the force has between the main characters. A lot of redeeming things occur in this movie based on this idea and that's why I admire it so much.
Having Luke Skywalker play a large role in this movie was a huge positive for me; Mark Hamill's performance, overall, was incredible.
Daisy Ridley, despite her laughable performance in the last movie held her own very nicely. Her presence on screen didn't feel rushed or forced. If you ignore the plot holes from the previous movie, and perceive Rey as a developed character already, you will be very happy with her performance overall. Ridley's acting in this film is miles ahead of the 7th movie.
We also understand, and somewhat sympathise with Kylo Ren in this movie. Adam Driver's portrayal of the character was exemplary. Much was left out in the previous movie of Ren's backstory, and this movie completely quells this.
I was very critical over the pointless and childish jokes in the previous movie, and became aware that the director incorporated these into the film from an interview that was done with the director, but these jokes had actual meaning in the plot and were far more funny than in the previous movie.
The best thing about this movie, which I felt that the 7th movie lacked entirely, is the purpose of our characters. It is apparent that each individual character has a crystal clear purpose, and this authenticates the plot much, much more. They don't feel lost, it feels right, as to where they are and what they are doing. There is appropriate backstory to explain why certain paths have been taken this time around and this will satisfy a lot of people.
It is a very dark film; unlike any other star wars movie made before, but I welcome this. This theme took the film to a completely different dimension and helped repair the mess which was brewing from the central plot.
I was very scared coming into this movie; alike other people, I didn't want to give an extra cent to Disney after the 7th, but for the sake of the saga, I'm very glad this movie turned out to be a great asset in the Star Wars saga.
The path is somewhat unclear as to what we shall expect from the next movie, but all I know is that it will be a good one.
(Pity that Abrams is directing it though).
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Wow where do you start with this film, there is so much to process and figure after this marathon of a film. This film is certainly surprising and a breath of fresh air for the Star Wars Universe, from my point of view. However I get the feeling this film will be divisive and is definitely not for everybody, this is not your conventional Star Wars film.......at last.
Positives.
Rian Johnson has created a film that is truly different to anything that we have seen in the Star Wars films up until now and for me personally that is great. Even though I thought that The Force Awakens was a good film it felt a bit of a safe bet and to familiar, that cannot be said against this film. The directing for the most part is great considering the vast amount of story threads there are in this film, it is very difficult to balance them and I think he did the very best he could. Some scenes are absolutely breath taking from a visual standpoint, things that we have never seen in Star Wars before like the communication between Kylo and Rey is amazing. The story again for the most part is very good, it definitely takes some interesting turns throughout the film that keep you guessing and has you on the edge of your seat. Does it answer more questions than it brings up? No and that is brilliant that there are more questions at the end of it rather than everything being explained. I now understand why Disney gave Johnson a whole trilogy of his own, very well done for making Star Wars interesting again!
The Performances across the board a brilliant, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar Issac, Domhnall Gleeson, Gwendoline Christie and Laura Dern are all really good in there roles. A shout out should go to Benicio Del Toro extremely interesting character that would love to see more of.........he did survive didn't he? Cant remember?
However there are a few others that are just a little bit better, starting with Mark Hamill. This is probably Hamill's best performance as Luke Skywalker there is a lot of depth with the character in the film and is quite different from Return of the Jedi. It shows the journey and the emotional struggle that the character has gone through, it is the most complex and best portrayal of the character I think we have got throughout the saga. Also the death of Skywalker is fantastically handled much better than Han in TFA, it served a purpose for the story and for the character, tear jerking moment. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren is again brilliant however there is definitely a sense of change in the character from Ep 7. He is much more driven to succeed and impress Snoke, however still being conflicted at the same time. At the end, Ren looses everything he had and is the victim of himself and clouded judgement. Daisy Ridley is much better in this film as Rey than in TFA, the character has purpose and determination to defeat Snoke and turn Ren back to the light side. The best scene was when Rey and Ren were side by side fighting the guards, hinting at the possibility of becoming a team and "grey" force users rather than Jedi or Sith. Andy Serkis as Snoke is truly special and haunting, the big shocker is the fact that they kill him off so quickly, but for the screen time he has it is fantastic. Lastly but certainly not least is the late Carrie Fisher as Leia, what can you say other than it was a great performance, has some very powerful moments at times amazing to see.
Negatives.
Oh yes are there some negatives with this film starting with the biggest elephant in the room and that is the humour. Oh wow was there a lot of humour in the film, definitely not what I was expecting and unfortunately for the most part there was just too much of it, Star Wars is not a comedy. However some of the jokes did work and some didn't, overall there was just too much, Disney please tone it down.
The stories and endings of Finn and Captain Phasma, Firstly we spent far too much time on Canto Bight with Finn and not enough time with Captain Phasma. There is a moment when Finn was going to sacrifice himself for the resistance, which would have been a great ending to the character, but was unfortunately saved. That is twice now that the character should have died in back to back films. What a pathetic ending a story of Captain Phasma, she is barely in the film for 10 minutes has the quickest fight with Finn and then has a really cheesy death, what a waste of a character.
Lastly this film is far too long, yes the idea of a 2h 30 min Star Wars film to any fan sounds amazing however there are parts of this film that drag on for far too long, the final act could have easily been trimmed down. Blade Runner 2049 that has run time of 2h 44 min felt shorter than The Last Jedi, not good pacing. This leads me into the last point of the film and the most important, this film is not for everybody. This film is not for the casual fan it might not be for the hardcore fan because it feels the least Star Wars ish, for me that is a positive because the franchise was a bit stale after TFA and Rogue One. This will be an extremely divisive film but I will argue that it is good that they tried to do something different even if not everything worked, I commend the balls that this film has.
Therefore this film is 85% out of 100 and vast improvement from Ep 7 and maybe even better than Rouge One, due to pushing the boundaries and making a unique film that we have seen before. Yes does the film have problems but for me the positives out weigh the negatives. I cant understand how people can criticise this film for not being like the Original trilogy, there will never be another film like those films plain and simple get over it. Yes this is different and that should be embraced, rather than ripped apart because of that and for not answering every minuet detail about itself. One question though, Where do they go from here in Episode 9???
5 out of 22 found this helpful.
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The force awakens restored hope to the star wars series. And for me, Rogue one was one of the best Star Wars films. then again, disney pulls their Marvel-Style move. great trailer with an empty movie.
I will not get into spoilers, but long story short, this movie is an excuse to create a fight between the major characters. with many attempts to please the fans by showing more and more of the old droids, too much sentimentality that literally destroys the movie, and finally the completely expected story and boring turns in events.
The only plus side in this film is the great acting of Mark Hamill and Adam driver, at least disney didn't manage to destroy that.
Do you think Jar Jar Binks was cringy? watch the Last Jedi.
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1/10
Disney goes the way of EA and Bungie - money is all that matters.
Life long Star Wars fan. I've played every game, watched every series.
This movie is a joke. Ignore the critics - it is just plain bad. The lore is completely ruined, and honestly, my mouth tasted bad within the first 30 minutes. Our heroes are destroyed, useless side quests that make no sense increase the run time pointlessly, and we are given zero plot resolutions, and just given more.
To hell with Disney. To hell with Rian Johnson. His new trilogy will just suck even more than this pile of crap that is Episode 8.
No need to make a good movie - just a profitable one.
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6/10
Get's worse the longer you think about it SPOILERS
I saw The Last Jedi last night, and I was really excited and looking forward to seeing it. I loved The Force Awakens, and as the movie started I thought 'here we go again! The movie starts out great, but after a while I suddenly found myself not liking any of the various storylines, and I started to feel massively underwhelmed, and thought 'hold on, am I not enjoying this?'
The first thing that started to bug me was the comedy, it threw me straight away, and felt cheap. The prank call by Po to the ship was funny but it was more Family Guy than Star Wars. In some parts characters might as well have turned to the camera and winked at the audience. It was just like Thor Ragnorok or something. Is everyone a stand up comic now? A film can still be light hearted without cheap gags every 5 minutes. I feel this is Star Wars trying to be more like Marvel.
Finn and Rose's side story was really bad, first I thought that it was exciting what they were attempting to do, to save everyone - but I hated the casino scenes and I hated the DJ character and his stupid stutter. All the CGI creatures and racing track felt very 'Phantom Menacey'.
While they are on their mission we are left with Po and the others on the sip with the First Order in some kind of slow motion chase like OJ on the freeway! The First Order people are like 'should we finish them off?' and the answer is 'no lets just wait until they run out of fuel, its a lot more boring this way but what the hell'. The whole ting felt like a boring version of the van falling off the bridge into the water from Inception. And the whole time their only plan is to run away to a nearby moon and call for help?
By far the best part of the movie is Rey and Luke on the island, but this whole plot line does not go as you would hope, pretty much the first thing Luke does is fling the lightsaber over his shoulder after Rey throws it to him and that sets the tone for the rest of their time together.
I really liked the scenes on the ship with Rey and Kylo Ren , and the fight with the imperial guards was amazing. But that whole part was a rip off of Empire. I still enjoyed it though.
There were some Hugo plot hole which bugged me, and I will list a few here:
The speeders take about 20 minutes to race towards the 'battering ram' with no clear way on how they are going to stop it if they ever get anywhere near it, it seems like the only way is for someone to go kamikaze as Finn prepares to do, then Rose stops him and is like 'I saved you' but if it hadn't been for Luke showing up, everyone would have died because of her. The even though they have been speeding away form the base for a good 2 minutes, all the pilots who survived seem to get back to the base on foot within about 5 minutes, including Finn who was dragging Rose!
Luke can project himself and appear either solid or transparent, this fools Kylo Ren, but it seems like Leia knows what he was doing because she doesn't go back for him or anything when they leave. So how does Kylo not realise Luke is a hologram? Does he not know Jedi can do that?
Also the who force connection thing seemed just like a way to get Rey and Kylo to interact without having to be in the same place, so it seemed like a crutch for the screenwriter rather than a new thing Jedi could do.
Two of the biggest questions for TFA - who is Rey and who are her parents, and who is Snoke, were just squashed. I was very disappointed that Snoke's origin was given no explanation. He is clearly powerful with the dark side of the force, and old - so he must have been around while episodes IV, V & VI were going on? It seems a bit far fetched that he is so strong with the force but doesn't realise that Kylo is messing around with a lightsaber he is sat right next to. If it were so easy to do that Luke could have do it to the Emperor in Empire and Return.
Ah well I guess I've written too much. I don't see myself watching this movie again too many times, unlike the other Star Wars movies. I hope that JJ picks up the pace for episode IX, and won't be getting too excited about the next spin off.
6/10 mainly for the great visuals, music and well filmed lightsaber fights.
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I am as always surprised every time I watch an American movie, for its simplicity, tendency to falsify everything and for its sick penchant towards superheroes. This is no exception. The only interesting thing is the almost erotic connection between Rey (all characters have stupid names like this) and Kylo. Full of feminist and political correctness insertions and lacking any coherent character, it is strange that this bland fairy tale saga still makes billions of dollars. It is only proof of how stupid can people be in their tastes and how easily manipulated. And surprisingly it had a good critic reception. I tend to believe it is just like the English royal family with its good press. They have bought the critics.
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Where do I even begin? How does one go about reviewing such an epic failure of a Star Wars film? Since Yoda says "Do, or do not. There is no try," then I will do my best to lay it all out for you.
The good:
I was delighted to see that Billie Lourd (daughter of the late Carrie Fisher) was given a larger role in this movie. If anything, she was the one thing Rian Johnson, the great con artist, didn't screw up on. I hope she is given even more to do in Episode IX.
The bad:
Let's start at the beginning. As the Resistance is evacuating from their base, the First Order (which has miraculously reorganized itself just hours after the destruction of Starkiller Base) shows up and prepares to bombard the planet with a brand new, never-before-seen, Dreadnought star destroyer. This incredible weapon is so advanced that its main guns can be taken out of action by a single star fighter. Ingenious? What happened to deflector shields? Oops, I guess the First Order forgot to install them. Also, since when do the Resistance and the First Order communicate via radio with each other? I didn't see that coming.
Despite the odds, the Resistance successfully bomb the Dreadnought and escape into hyperspace... only to drop out of hyperspace moments later with the First Order right behind them. Yikes! The First Order can track Resistance ships while they are in hyperspace. Such an incredible technological advancement! But wait! Didn't Darth Vader track Leia's Tantive IV blockade runner through hyperspace from Scarif to Tatooine, in Rogue One? Evidently even Princess Leia has forgotten about that.
So, there they are. The Resistance vessels are low on fuel and can only proceed at sublight speeds. Miraculously, they are just on the edge of gun range from the First Order ships, who, strangely enough, can't seem to close the distance. Gosh, General Hux, why not just lightspeed ahead of everyone and double back on your course to position yourself in front of those Rebel scum? That never occurred to you, did it? Thus, the chase begins, with the Resistance vessels, one by one, running out of fuel and mysteriously slowing down only to get obliterated by the First Order. Since this is Star Wars, I will forgive the fact that the filmmakers forgot that a vessel underway in interstellar space doesn't abruptly slow down if an engine fails.
As the chase goes on, Princess Leia is temporarily incapacitated and is replaced by an utterly despicable character (played by Laura Dern). Dern's character (I don't recall her name) couldn't have caused more trouble than if she were an Imperial spy. She refuses to talk sense, ignores any advice, and keeps her plans secret for absolutely no reason. This causes Poe Dameron to become suspicious of her, and, in turn, creates over 30 minutes of unnecessary filler in the story. Fin, who makes friends with a new character named Rose, comes up with a wild scheme to prevent the First Order from tracking them, and departs for Planet Los Vegas. Why didn't the First Order pursue Fin's shuttle? Who knows? Fin arrives on the Casino planet, gets thrown in prison, escapes in a wild and destructive chase sequence, and returns to the scene of the First Order-vs-Resistance chase. Guess what, the Fin and Rose get captured! Great plan, that was!
As for Luke Skywalker, he and Rey simply can't communicate. Rey wants Luke to help the Resistance. Luke doesn't want to help. Lovely, right? Luke wants the Jedi gone because of the mistake he made in the past with Ben Solo, but then he abruptly changes his mind and decides to train Rey. Was that actually training? No, not really. Rey learned more on her own than she ever did from Luke. Rey and Kylo Ren can communicate using the Force. I didn't see that coming, either. Now for the big reveal. We finally get to know who Rey's parents are. They are (drumroll, please)... nobody. WHAT?!!! You read that right. They were nobodies from the junk world of Jakku who gambled their daughter away for drinks. Wonderful storytelling... NOT.
Now for Supreme Leader Snoke. He's Mace Windu! He's Darth Plagueis! He's Darth Sidious reincarnated! He's Darth Maul! Well, you're all wrong. HE'S NOBODY, just like Rey's parents! You've got to be kidding me, Disney! Wait, wait, there's more. He gets killed halfway through the movie! The trilogy's greatest villain... killed in what is easily the stupidest scene in the entire movie. Give me a break.
The movie, which has been pretty slow and pedantic up until this point, suddenly picks up speed. It heads on a collision course for a final, deadly confrontation on a desert planet with salt and red rocks. The AT-M6s and AT-ATs arrive. An epic battle is about to unfold. The excitement and anticipation are in the air. Suddenly Luke appears. He steps out into the battlefield, one man against the First Order. The excitement reaches a fever-pitch! Here we go! Luke's about to be the hero at last! But no. His final "duel" with Kylo Ren isn't even a duel because their lightsabers can't touch. Why not? Because he's not really there! He's a Force Illusion! He distracts the First Order just long enough for the remnants of the Resistance to make their escape. AND THEN LUKE DIES!!! To coin a phrase, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
Disney, you have failed me for the last time. Rian Johnson, you are as clumsy as you are stupid. You don't have a clue how to make a Star Wars movie. You have no business directing even one of these movies, let alone those next three films Disney has promised you. You have destroyed my faith in this sequel trilogy. I don't think even J.J. Abrams can repair the damage you have done to Star Wars.
Even before going to see this movie, "I had a bad feeling about it." Luke Skywalker had it partly right when he said, "It's time for the Jedi to end." I would be even bolder than him. "It's time for Star Wars to end." Disney, you have killed the Star Wars fan in me. I probably shall never see any of your "Star Wars" movies again. I bid you farewell. Oh, and before I leave, I give you a very generous token: one star out of ten. Goodbye.
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To all the 'hard core" and "die hard " Star Wars fans out there ...Just stop and tell yourselves "It's only a movie " !!..Rian Johnson's movies were complete crap before this ...Especially, Looper !! And,I like Noah Segan as an actor !!But, Joseph Gordon Levitt or Lewitt ,what ever his name is ,just sucked as a lead character !! And, the direction from Johnson didn't help ..So, I already knew TLJ was going to suck !!.Plus ,Mark Hamill's interviews before the movie was released ,was a dead giveaway !!
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This movie had its high points. They were scenes, technically very well done. However, the story, the plot, the premise for the story line - no thanks.
This was a literal slap in the face of what we go to see star wars. I want my money back, Im calling the theatre.
You don't invest time with 3 prequels, 3 originals, and 1 new star wars, to do what this movie did. Feels like that one time I watched 5 years of Lost TV series to get to a unplanned ending. Create a mythodology and a story line - and dont make it up as you go along. Want to fix it? Make the last 5 minutes a dream.
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Not worth the time. Disney has not done a good job with this franchise. I actually fell asleep at around the half way mark of the film. Wow. Just saw this with my family last night. We are all huge Star Wars fans and we all agreed this was just terrible. Disney has succeeded in inserting their agenda once again and ruined what could have been an epic storyline with their 'anyone can be a Jedi' bs. This movie was rushed but so slow at the same time which I guess is a good accomplishment? It was boring and the stupid blatant stand up jokes were so out of place for Star Wars. Not the typical dry humor of c3po or han. I knew in the first scene when it opened WITH A JOKE that this was going to be painful. The characters were mostly lame and sappy. Too much talk and feminine drama (and I'm a woman btw) what a waste of $90.
Thanks Disney for ruining Star Wars.
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Characters are not believable, especially the dark side characters.
Every now and then there is a joke that makes it look like an SNL bit.
There are almost no light sabre fights (I used to like these).
It feels they've turned the franchise into something a 13 year old might enjoy, but for long time fans (I'm 38) looks like it's goodbye, if they keep producing this kind of Star Wars filims.
Disappointing.
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AFI ranks Atticus Finch as being the best hero ever to grace the silver screen, and rightly so. His character and morals are impeccable. He and my grandfather are who I try to model my life after.
That is, until Harper Lee released her sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman.
To anyone who hasn't read it, let me sum it up for you. Lee takes what is perhaps the best literary protagonist ever and rips him to shreds. We see a man who seems to be the exact opposite of what we had come to love. Grey morals, pessimistic, hardened.
Rian Johnson must have loved that book, because he took a page from it when writing the script for TLJ.
One thing I love about Star Wars--what many fans love about Star Wars--is its structure of good and evil. The Star Wars universe has always been black and white. You knew where each character stood on the moral scale, with very few exceptions. (Good exceptions, I might add, such as the transforming of Vader at the end of ROTJ.) At the end of the day, you knew who the snakes were, and you knew who the saints were.
Now, however, it seems that even the mythical religion of the Force has succumbed to the postmodern world's view of all religions. There are no true good men or bad men. (According to one character in TLJ, these are just made up words.) There are different levels and twists; sometimes good is bad, sometimes bad is good. Black and white don't exist, only grey.
In TLJ, Luke Skywalker has become Atticus Finch: an old man who is seemingly oblivious to all around him, who cares little for what most people would consider good and just. He is a man who is a shell of his former self. Mark Hamill was right to say he disagrees with every choice his character makes in this movie. From his opening bit with Rey (taking the most important relic of the Star Wars universe and tossing it over his shoulder. This sums up the entire movie perfectly.It's as if Johnson just said to the fans "I'm gonna take everything you hold dear and say 'Screw it'") to the last line he says ("See you around, kid"?!?! Really?!?! Luke would never say that! Han, maybe, but never Luke!!) everything about Luke just feels...artificial. This is not the Jedi I wanted to be when I grew up. I feel cheated.
Let's talk about the other characters now.
Do you know why Han, Lando, and other characters remain fan favorites to this day? Because they were cast perfectly. Who else besides Harrison Ford with his permanent smirk could play the slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler that we all know and love? Who else besides Billy Dee Williams with his smoldering good looks and velvety voice could play the old smoothie? The second installment in a trilogy is the perfect time to introduce some of the most memorable characters in a saga: Lando, Gollum, Jesse and the Old Prospector. This trilogy has given us three new characters: Benecio del Toro's character, Laura Dern's character, and the character of Rose.
What a disappointment.
What was Del Toro's character's purpose, what was the point? Why didn't he have the flower on his lapel like he was described? Did they ever address that in the movie?
You don't have an Academy Award winning actor play the nonessential part of a bumbling idiot no one understands.
And Laura Dern's character...ugh. Why does everything have to be so politically correct? I guess we'll never see a damsel in distress ever again in a Star Wars film. If ANH were made today, Leia would never have been captured and then rescued by Luke and Han.
Then we have Rose. A decent performance, but she's not memorable. Unlike Lando, she has no ties to established characters, so it's really hard to care about what happens to her.
There are so many other things wrong with the film: too much modern humor, too little romance, horrible political undertones, and pointless plot lines (Fenn and Poe could have been killed off during the first 20 minutes of the movie and it would have ended the exact same way. Much like Indiana Jones in Raiders, they are completely useless in this film.) And I feel like I could write as much about each of these points as I have written about my main grievance, therefore I will abstain.
TFA had problems of its own, but at least it seemed like a labor of love. One could tell that JJ Abrams is a big fan. And even though TFA seems to be a clone of ANH--imitation is the sincerest form of flattery--it had enough heart in it for me to enjoy it during multiple viewings. This newest installment, though...I'm just not sure if Johnson's--and Disney's--heart is in the right place. I think I will close my critique of this movie with a quote from another literary figure, Dr. Ian Malcolm. (Edited for the purpose of making my point.)
"If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with what you're doing here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it. You wanna sell it. You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could that you didn't stop to think if you should."
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I really wanted to love this movie and when the critic rating came in and were really high I was like!!!! And bought tickets or the midnight primer. Very disappointing to say I hated it. Second least favorite Star Wars movie and calling it a Star Wars movie is a stretch. It ignores everything established in cannon so far for cheep shock value moves. Left me more confused seeing Luke die then actually being sad so much so that I don't care that he's dead. It had good visuals but this doesn't make up for the shit plot. I really liked the beginning but everything fell apart in the end. Rey in the move is absolutely horrible. She isn't the same person she is in TFA, she's overly naive like nothing I've ever seen and I was happy when she got hit in the head with the back of a lightsaber because of it. I honesty wanted her to die bc of how stupid she was compared to how she was in TFA. Disappointing that's what this movie was.
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The word is out that the very respectable Rian Johnson had put his watermark all over Last Jedi, but on the last line it largely comes across as more of the same Star Wars sausage as the previous installment from JJ Abrams. Whatever your feelings were about it, you'll feel the same about this one.
Expectedly glorious production values and uniformly good acting get bogged down by the script that is an uneven mess jumping all over the place. Ray's scenes with Luke don't go much anywhere but make a far more compelling thing to watch than Resistance's artificial standoff with the utterly incompetent First Order (which also has the disadvantage of the rulebook changing whenever needed) or Finn and Rose's contrived quest to find some random hacker and share a message about animal cruelty. After one central character, first reduced to a ridiculous clown, gets a deliciously laughable sendoff, hopes get briefly elevated there might actually be something at stake here, but then nothing much happens. So many die but nobody gets hurt.
The Last Jedi milks both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to such extent that it seems ever ready to toss away any reasonable logic to squeeze in another gorgeous throwaway fan-service variation of what was an integral part of earlier stories but now stands only for some nostalgic shivers or gorgeous cgi. This was already the case in Force Awakens, but if something positive should be said, the well is about dry after this one, and for the final episode they need to come up with something truly original - unless they go back to the beginning, once more, rebooting the copying within their reboot.
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This film is all set about a director/writer who made a Star Wars film unlike any Star Wars films... because.. It doesn't seem a Star Wars film without the known transitions between scenes, the fights, with no dialogues, very flat line..
Ryan Johnson made a movie without his personality like J.J.Abrams did (thank god he is the frontrunner for the last chapter).
Johnson wrote this souless film without any discussion, like Kylo Ren's face scar in other place because in The Force Awakens, it didn't look cool...Or like Mark Hamill said in some interviews, that he spoke Johnson after reading the script saying that he didn't agree or like any of the paths that Luke Skywalker character takes on the film.
And he wasn't mistake.
From one side we have Skywalker, we recognize him, his voice, even his Return of the Jedi haircut seem similar. Old man, but Skywalker at least.
And what about his "Death"?? Very unclear, we hopped for an incredible battle between Uncle and Nephieu.. and nothing.. What about Leia's destiny in the next chapter (late Carrie Fisher). Could it be better than Ben Solo killed his mother like he did with his father and be a more tweested, dark and pervert character? and if you like, killed Skywalker too.
He vanished like Obi Wan Kenobi against Darth Vader... the worst death of all for a legend like Luke...
I hoped a better film. This is the vision of a director, I think, not right from a franchise like Star Wars requires...
I really hope Abrams could reppair this all damage. The Force Awakens was a very entertaining film, A STAR WARS FILM.
This one wasn't.. Really Sad.
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3/10
Now in contention with phantom menace for the worst star wars film ever made
"Kill the past" says Kylo Ren, well Disney, you did it, you killed the star wars franchise. Ridiculous plot, cringeworthy dialogue, overuse of CGI, weak political and religious statements scattered throughout. Ruined the newer characters such as Finn, destroyed legends such as Luke. As a lifelong star wars fan, I couldn't wait for the film to end so I could stop being horrified. In serious consideration for worst star wars film ever made, it had just as many negative aspects as the phantom menace without any of the redeeming ones.
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2/10
A crappy Sci-Fi Action movie that claims to be a "Star Wars" movie.
1) Story? You mean STORIES! And there's like 5 or 6 of them crammed into a nearly 3-hour long movie. As soon as you start to get up to speed, they INSTANTLY cut back to another subplot! Between Rey, Luke, Kylo, Fin, Poe, Leia,....It's just way too much. I felt like I was trying to read 3 books at once. It's what modern day cinema likes to do best though...make a bigger script for the sake of having a bigger movie. I know this because when a movie(s) have multiple climaxes, that's very bad story pacing. It feels more connected to the prequel trilogy rather than the sequel trilogy.
2) This movie got way too carried away with the cutaway humor. They keep ruining scenes, AND CHARACTERS, with the random comedic moments. When you do that many cutaway jokes, you DESTROY the emotion and flair that the characters were building up. The movie has constant need for comic relief...again it feels like something out of the prequel trilogy. I don't care if you have hammy acting or melodrama...at least you still have SUBSTANCE. It's like they put in the outtakes on purpose...
3) HOW is this movie an 86/100?? How much did Disney bribe these critics to give them a good rating? Did Minnie Mouse give them the House of Mouse special and blow their steam willies? Seems highly biased if you ask me. And who's giving the movie 9/10 and 10/10?? Ill tell you who... MINDLESS CONSUMERS! As long as it's STAR WARS...as long as you have cute little CGI characters and loveable little droids...as long as you have fancy SFX (kudos to the CG artists though)...as long as you drag out the ol' cast and crew...as long as you have BIG MOVIE making BIG MONEY...you're movie's gonna be a hit to all the little kiddies and all the clueless parents!!!!!
4) EVEN THE ACTION WAS DISAPPOINTING. The opening scene was alright, but everything else was just LAME. The space battles didn't bring anything new to the playground...just all things we've seen before. THERE WASN'T EVEN A GOOD LIGHTSABER FIGHT. Rey and Kylo don't even fight...they fight those palace guards (that I admit were pretty cool), and when Luke goes to fight Kylo it just becomes kind of nothing. THERE WASNT EVEN A LIGHTSABER DUEL.
Between the 5 stories crammed into 1, the excessive comic relief, the lazy action, the NO ACTUAL LIGHTSABER DUEL, the pointless new characters, the poor character development...This is one of the few times that I have to say NO to Star Wars. DON'T LISTEN TO THESE PROFESSIONAL "CRITICS". I've seen a good Star Wars movie...this is just an overhyped movie that wants to be "Star Wars".
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Its filled 90% in close ups so we dont see the shitty green screen and that s one of the good things new characters are here just to die old characters like chewie side lined so rey can end up with kylo and bad choices made with liea. This movie is bad, but funny at times with one good fight scene, as a starwars it fails for the first time i do not want to explore that world no joy is there. I would recomend not giving your money to this we need to be the resistence against this garbage
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Just got home from the theater and I feel this was a huge let down for me. The Force Awakens left so many questions to be answered, and this just left me feeling even more incomplete. I can't believe I'm writing a bad review. I anticipated something truly special, and was met with a movie that was misguided, incongruous, and repetitive. Truly a waste, especially for a movie that had so much potential. Ill try to see it again soon as I hope my opinion will change.
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2/10
The Last Jedi met my expectations... I expected it to suck.
This is a muck fest of a film that attempts to create a story for the post-modernist millennial.
It felt like a mash-up of elements from Empire Strikes Back, a little from Return of the Jedi mixed up with elements from The Matrix and a Chinese Wuxia film.
The script tried so hard to become "fresh" by trying to break movie tropes but it doesn't work.
I totally agree with Mark Hamill this is not the direction Luke Skywalker would have taken, it seems like the character arc of Luke regressed and I didn't like his eyes bulging out most of the time in regret and fear.
Benicio del Toro's character seemed slapped on just to provide a betrayal but we never got to know his character that his betrayal didn't have much impact.
How did Poe and Rose escape execution? All the stormtroopers around them died except for them? And how did Captain Phasma survive and jump from standing next to Poe and Rose and then suddenly emerging from afar?
The rebels needed to go to the planet to transmit a message to the outer rim but yet Poe could communicate easily with Maz Kanata.
There is effectively no gravity. So how did the bombs fall?
Kylo offering his hand to Rey to rule the galaxy together didn't feel like a homage, but plagiarism.
Rose saving Finn from sacrificing himself wasn't heroic, it was a stupid and a cowardly selfish act.
So now Jedis have holographic projection powers?
Fight scene between Luke and Kylo felt like it was from the Matrix not Star Wars.
So even kids can suddenly get force powers? And that rebel ring is an on-the-nose merchandising attempt. That last kid scene really felt like it belonged to a Disney kids film, I half expected him to break out singing "Somewhere out there, beneath the clear blue sky..."
I don't really see much hope in the Star Wars movies anymore, I now hate the sequel trilogy even more than the prequel trilogy.
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This was absolutely terrible. Horrible pacing, story line, and script writing. The star of this film was Adam Driver. That's it.
The chemistry between Rey and Kylo is the only good thing about this film. Literally every other aspect was complete garbage.
So many characters were introduced that made no sense to the story line and were forgotten about.
And Rey's backstory? Really? You think that's goikg to please fans in ANY way? Most of the people going to see this film are going into it with high exceptations and several theories about this backstory. And it was not only given 3 minutes of attention, but was completely stupid.
And this is coming from someone who saw The Force Awakens and Rogue One at least 5 times in theaters.
I'm sorry I really wanted to like this film and I was incredibly excited but It was just sad.
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After wasting 2.5 hours of cheesy, borrowed dialogue, and watching a plot which was basically The Empire Strikes Back in Reverse, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to save this is to title the next movie "The Last Sith"
The plot would have to focus on the the Master Sith Lord Darth Meesa - aka Jar Jar Binks.
I mean it was that bad. Did they not hire any continuity supervisors? Did they not think to create any sub plots that make the viewer feel invested in the characters? They did not even build any storyline to attempt to explain any of the characters.
Not one epic light saber battle and Luke Skywalker, the man, the myth, the legend even calls it a, and I quote, "LASER SWORD."
I am going to have to blame it on the writer/director Rian Johnson. As my son said after the movie tonight, "WHAT THE F***. Rian Johnson?!?!?!? What has he done? HE RUINED STAR WARS, HE RUINED BREAKING BAD WITH HIS EPISODE ABOUT THE FLY. IT WOULD APPEAR THAT HE IS ON THIS PLANET TO RUIN THAT WHICH I LOVE."
I would wait for the dvd to come out and then not buy it.
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Around 2/3 of the way through I started looking forward to the end so I could leave the cinema and go home..... and I love Star Wars.
Villains are pathetic, do not come across as evil like the Emperor, Vader etc. In fact they are like Disney villains, like clowns trying to be bad..... The Dark Side would seem to be a place where villains with single digit IQ's go - instead of being sinister and evil they are laughable in their stupidity.
Characters I could not care less about - Fin, Rey, etc I couldn't care less about them. This is a terrible thing to say about a Star Wars film.
A story line that was all over the place, I got tired trying to keep up and I struggled to stay interested. This is a terrible thing to say about any Star Wars film.
I actually spent the last 45 minutes just wishing it to end (really I was bored and my mindset had got so negative it was no longer in any way enjoyable) and I was so pumped to see it...
Crushingly disappointing, cannot for the life of me understand all the positive hype and luvvy back slapping but at least from these IMDB comments I can see I am not the only one - The 'critics' and press made me think I would be the only one stupid enough to not like it - seems that's not the case.
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Where do I start? When I paid full price for this movie I was expecting an emotional and shocking 2 hour ride through The Last Jedi, that is not what I got. The film was simply bland, boring, unfunny, and just plain misleading. This film brought many hype with its trailers and rumours, and many key plot points we all thought would be revealed. Snoke was next to useless in this film, with only a 15 minute total runtime, we were all expecting his background and his identity to be spilled, and then he died like a bitch. Expecting anything from him? Forget about it. Rey's parents was also a very interesting and shadowed topic, but instead of giving a full shocking reason who her parents were, they excused their origins by giving a simple "They were nobodies". The fact that Luke training Rey was said to be one of the most central points in this movie, it was not. Luke told Rey some shit for about 15 minutes, until turning into an asshole and lying to Rey. Rey saw some supposed "visions" about the balance between the light and the dark side (but didn't actually end up turning) then saw a whole lot of nothing in that weird hole where the mirror was, where we all thought the mystery behind her origins were going to come to light, but didn't. Luke stayed on his stupid island the whole film, whining about how he hates the force, and wants to end it, which was also the central plot point of the film, but of course didn't deliver.
The final confrontation between Luke and Kylo was short and stupid, as Kylo was as weak as ever, and didn't deliver any blows to Rey or Luke, then they excused the situation with Luke appearing as this force ghost, bringing absolutely nothing to the situation, and dying like an idiot.
This film killed off characters like they were just nothing, we all know Captain Phasma was going to kick the bucket, but Snoke got cut in half, and Luke stupidly "disappeared" into thin air, obviously going the same way that Obi Wan and Yoda did, with his probable return as a force ghost.
The unnecessary amounts of Carrie Fisher we got in this film was annoying, the trailer basically said that she was going to die at the hands of Kylo in the ship, and it was extremely expected. But, she pulled a Superman on that one and flew out of space with her force powers that weren't even mentioned, what the actual f**k. We had to see her expressionless and boring face constantly, doing absolutely nothing, and she still didn't die in the film! How are they going to give excuses for her death in episode 9?
The new characters bring a whole lot of shit all to the table, with Finn, Rey, Poe, and a new character, Rose. I couldn't care less for these shitty and bland characters, Rose just annoyed the hell out of me, and the other new characters juts get more boring and boring as each scene plays. They will never live up to the older characters, and I can't feel that connection with them like I do with the original characters.
The humour that was once again demonstrated like TFA was extremely unfunny, with the likes of those Porg creatures, Rose, Chewie, and of course, BB-8. It doesn't feel like Star Wars should, it just feels like another Disney title. Granted the film does have pretty cool space battles and the 10 minute appearance of Yoda, but even those fell a bit short. It just ceased to bring the surprise factor that the other titles did.
The underlying question remains, how are they going to execute episode 9? Now we just have Kylo, Rey, and the other bad characters. They have nothing to work with! Star Wars's target audience is little children! They are losing its actual dedicated, hard-core fans, who have been there for years! Everything about this film flopped, and is on the same level of The Phantom Menace, and dare I say it, the Star Wars Holiday Special. All the good reviews of this movie come from brain dead parents and adults who have never seen an actual Star Wars movie, and this film definitely brings a bad name to the once great franchise. Definitely not seeing this film again, so heartbroken.
Alex, 14 years old
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Please, do not go, if you don't NEED to, don't buy tickets, it will only encourage them to make more c**p like that... Sorry, I have just watched the movie couple of hours ago... and I'm stunned. I can't express how bad it is... If you love SW for its mythology, wit and charm, don't expose yourself to this film. There are some nice details, and the idea was quite good, I can admit that - but execution drowns in mediocre screenwriting, disappointing and predictable twists, childish jokes, awful conclusions... It's just a slap in a face for a hardcore fan like me, way more than the FM was.
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2/10
so bad I actually signed up just to write a review about it
Geez, where do I even bloody begin....
I wont give spoilers.
But here's an indication of the movie. If you were displeased with the substance of the Force Awakens, this ones a whole new level of garbage storyline.
Script was terrible.
It was predictable in a very very bad way. yeah there were some cool fights and stuff (some were comically bad) but the trouble i had was there was absolutely no stake. I didn't feel invested in their plight.
When you feel bored watching a star wars film EVEN DURING BATTLES that's a bad sign.
I can cut out 3/4 of useless content of the film and it will still make absolutely no difference to the story.
This movie will NOT age well
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Not writing a fake review as so many appear to be doing, but as a Star Wars fan of some 40 years, I am compelled to ask "Where the hell do they find these young actors?" Unknowns are always welcome; all must start somewhere and the premise and concepts for The Last Jedi (not a chance he or she will be the last, rofl) seem refreshingly back to basics, which works for me.
However, if the performances in the incessant bombardment of carefully scripted "this is simply wonderful stuff" trailers and promos are any indication, then the "noobs" in this series, in particular Ridely, Boyega and Tran, all seem to clearly demonstrate a surprising lack of both the intelligence and common sense so critical to a good performance, indeed it was key to the success of the original three episodes in the series.
Comparisons to the likes of Guinness, Williams, Prowse, Cushing, McDiarmid and Co, most of the costumed characters, e,g, Frank Oz, and of course the young Ford, Fisher and Hamill are inevitable. The current crop, blessed with unearned wealth as they now are, simply don't stack up; IMHO they don't even come close.
This movie will be emperor's new clothes, like so many recent high budget failures. The experienced critics will probably pan it, and in the end it will be just another demonstration of the lack of discernment in the modern day movie goers who will rave in group hysteria. It is unfortunate, sad in fact, that they missed the real deals of old, which for many were even life changing.
I was looking forward to this one, especially after the three computer-generated, "acting ability not required" disasters of the late nineties and early 2000s. After watching all the promos, I probably won't bother now. A quick perusal on Blu-ray later will do me.
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10/10
This movie will separate the Dark Sided Fans from The one that are with the light.
This will be the movie that will separate Star Wars Fans. The ones of the Dark Side from the ones that are in The Light.
The reason why this movie will hurt many fans feelings is because they expected some hollywod plot with a dull and predictable finale. The Fans that didn't like this movie are the ones that wanted Rey and Kylo to be Siblings, the ones that expected that Snoke was some superpowerful Sith Lord that was going to have a finale battle with Luke or some of the likes of it. The fans that didn't like this movie were the ones that expected Luke to be some sort of Saint that was in seclusion in order to become stronger and come back at the right time. They are the ones that can't take that Luke is just an impefect human being that though he is and always will be a Hero also had his demonds and his personal struggles like any other person. Those struggles led him to run in fear of himself. The corrupted fans won't understand it.
This movie has everything and what it has most is Heroes. Impefect ones, afraid ones but still the real true heroes that one could easily find in real life. This movie finds the power to transcend like a True Jedi when he becomes one with the force. I don't know how will i find the strength to wait for the next one witht falling into dispair.
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If George Lucas read a book by Joseph campbell, Rian Johnson read it twice. The Last Jedi picks up where the last film left off and solidifies what is going to be the tone and structure of the new trilogy. Homage is a strong word but the Last Jedi continues to use the foundation of previous trilogies, but where Force Awakens used the original trilogy to get off the ground, Last Jedi uses it to elevate the story and themes. This was the most thematically heavy of the Star Wars movies, spirituality, theology and repetition build into a story that resembles archetypical mythology and legend. George Lucas said of Star Wars that it is an epic poem and each verse rhymes, this is true of the last Jedi. Each callback has payoff and does something to enhance the story. If I were to have one critique it would be of the pacing. Between some of the best action sequences in the Star Wars saga the parts in between can suffer from a lack of momentum. Through and through, this is the next generation of Star Wars, if you disliked Force Awakens, you will probably not enjoy this movie, but based on this I am anticipating great things as the franchise continues.
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I have mixed feelings about this movie... during the first 1,5 hours I felt that this is the best SW film yet, but then something went very wrong. By the last half an hour the whole movie turned out to be an awful American romantic comedy style movie considering the script and the dialogues. I had the feeling that writers let the whole thing gone and stopped writing normal dialogues and they tried to be ironic, however the whole thing turned out to be something awful... like it was a Twilight or other awful young adult romantic fantastic drama.
We left the cinema after a massive 2,5 hours without knowing more about the enemy and their aims... that was absolutely not working....
However I really like the character of Kylo Ren and Adam Driver did an amazing job.
Mixed feelings at all.
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7/10
Not a 'franchise killer', but not the most satisfying movie
I was really disheartened by the reviews by users after having seen the glowing critic reviews of this title. Words like 'franchise killer', 'worse than the prequels' and 'mindnumbingly bad' were being thrown around like wildfire. Avoiding the spoilers was like trying to avoid grass in a field. This review will contain spoilers to back up my statements.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi picks up immediately where episode VII left off, with our new characters all up to many exciting things. We were looking forward to Rey's jedi training, Luke's story since episode 6, Finn's continued badass-ness and so on. For the most part, we got exactly that, but this movie falls flat in terms of how each of these stories were weighted. Rey's training was only 2 scenes, while the reveal of Luke's sudden (and inconsistent) need to kill Kylo Ren as a child due to fear of him being evil was did not sit very well with me. On the positive, Finn's arc was great fun, although the romantic element was a bit odd.
In terms of continued character development, along with the introduction of new characters, this movie does well. We learn to love Rey that little bit more. Kylo Ren is a bit of an oddity. Is he really evil? Is he confused? This movie does well to continue to develop this element and made the twists and turns that followed all the more exciting.
Luke, however, takes a bit of a backseat. I (and many others) wanted to see more of Luke and learn more about how the hell he ended up on this island. However, it appears the production team want us to sway away from the old cast and focus on the new generation. If you think about it, this has happened before. Yoda was huge in the prequels, yet his presence in episodes 4-6 is overshadowed by new characters. The same can be said with Obi-Wan in episode 4. So for people hating on this, try and rationalise the reasoning.
Now onto the specific issues I had with this movie. Let's forgo the 'Mary Poppins' reference to Princess Leia in space (although it was a bit odd) and focus on two things that grated with me. Firstly, since the Marvel era, many movies want to add comedic elements to an otherwise serious storyline. It works for Marvel movies, but not very well in other cases. Take the 2017 release 'Justice League' where they tried to copy Marvel and it not only made the comedy feel forced, but also misplaced. The same is true here. Jokes don't need to be inserted all the time guys! The second thing was the final plot twist that Luke sent a Jedi Shadow of himself to fight Kylo Ren. However, after this pseudo-fight, Luke dies. If Luke was intending on dying in the first place, why on Earth did he bother sending the shadow? Hmm.
All in all, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was a good movie. I enjoyed watching it as an average movie-goer. Sure, there are story elements that could have been done better, but I think they did a darn good job. Just because they have not followed through with all the fan theories does not mean they deserve such hate. Enjoy it for what it is, a great space opera!
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Ignore the wild manipulation by the vast numbers of trolls who are running this film down. This is a hilarious space romp, right back at its roots of what Star Wars was really all about - having some fun. The tone of the film is set from the moment that Stars Wars fans have waited 40 years for: the utterance of the first words from Mark Hamill - the hand outstretched for the Light Sabre, only for him to toss it over his shoulder and walk away. I laughed my head off - it was a true comedy moment and I could feel the ire that moment would have drawn, which made me laugh even harder. Star Wars had finally stopped trying to be super-serious lost in boring stories and was about to deliver something truly entertaining...
The painful over analysis of so called fans between films builds things up for themselves far too much and as a result expectation levels that each film must somehow be a masterpiece are silly. Star Wars has consistently been a failed franchise - 4 out of 8 films are dogs, but this is NOT one of them. If you ignore the fact that Rogue One was a disaster and should not have been made, The Last Jedi follows the Force Awakens nicely though I think it would have been a fitting end to Carrie Fisher if she could have floated off into space preserved in ice instead of coming back to life and moving back into the ship in a semi-ludicrous fashion. This one moment aside, the film is brilliant. Go see it, you won't regret it.
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10/10
Almost Perfect - It's brave and bold and beautiful
The Last Jedi is astounding; Rian Johnson has done an admirable job. It's the first Star Wars movie with nuance and has genuine character development. Every shot means something to the greater whole of the movie and Johnson's approach fixes a lot of the force issues that Lucas introduced in the prequels. The middle section is a little long and doesn't add much to the overall plot and this is my only minor gripe. Stay the course because the final third of the film delivers with pay off after pay off. I'm upset audiences seem to have quite juvenile issues with this chapter because Star Wars need this - it needed a re-interpretation and re-imagination; it needed an auteur like Johnson tackling its mythology and 40 year characters because you simply cannot have episode after episode of the same thing repeated over and over. Thank you Rian Johnson for a movie with feeling and originality and for making The Last Jedi the 3rd best Star Wars movie (after 4 & 5).
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The Last Jedi takes big risks by tearing down a lot of old mythology and re-imagining the Star Wars universe for a new audience, for a new future. I don't get the hate this movie is getting because this is exactly what the saga needed. Rian Johnson has done an incredibly brave thing by taking the individual stories to totally unexpected places. It's a movie with genuine twists, just the right amount of humour, and beautiful set pieces. It is so much better than The Force Awakens and the 3rd best Star Wars movie after Empire and Return of the Jedi.
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9/10
Perhaps not for die-hard Star Wars fans, but a very good movie otherwise!
I see a lot of negative reviews for this movie, but mostly from die-hard Star Wars fans. Perhaps this is true, but I approach this review as a fan of movies in general.
I only have a passing interest in the Star Wars franchise and didn't much like the previous instalment. However, I found this to be a truly entertaining movie.
It has all the elements a good movie requires. Humour, excitement, action, a splash of sadness and some surprises. I felt that both the main characters had found their stride from the previous movie and that the acting and production values were excellent.
Sure, there were one or two elements that could be viewed as being re-used from the other Star Wars films, but isn't this true for all franchises? I thought that there was a lot of new stuff too and liked the direction the movie was going in.
To be honest, I suddenly felt like I had gone back in time and had that feeling where you weren't de-sensitised to everything. Where you came out of the movie theatre sad, because the great experience was now over.
I wasn't a fan of Star Wars, but I think I am starting to get there.
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I don't understand why people have such a hard time with TGA and TLJ. I mean, do y'all refuse to pay attention to what matters? Dialogue, people! Imagery does tell us quite a bit about where the movie is headed. It's called foreshadowing. Try it.
This movie is stellar.
I didn't see anything wrong with this movie, or the previous one. Because some folk can't seem to look at the little things, I'll explain what happened here.
1. Hahn solo died because Harrison Ford didn't want to be in the series anymore.
2. Admiral whatsherface doesn't run a transport vessel through the destroyer. The survivors were being transported out on transport vessels. She does it to save the survivors. (Oh boy, could it be... a theme?)
3. Snoke is a minor character. We didn't need to know anything about him. The movie is about kylo/Rey. Not about snoke. Kylo has to kill snoke because kylo has to follow what he thinks is his destiny. His conflict is very apparent. The guy killed his father, and you didn't think he would or could kill snoke? Please.
4. Rey isn't a Mary Sue. She was sent by the light to counter kylo. Snoke says this. Duh
5. Rey doesn't need a backstory. Throughout the story she wants to find a place. If she had sky walker parents, it would have been a cheap answer, a cop out. There's no reason why she should have a background. Again, see snoke saying that the light will send someone to combat kylo.
6. Luke milking the sea cow shows he doesn't care anymore about the Jedi. He isn't balanced, and does not know his place until yoda reminds him.
7. He didn't say feel this rock. He was teaching her how to step into the force.
8. Holdo couldn't tell poe her plans because of protocol and because of how he was acting. He was demoted. This is how military works. You follow orders. You don't ask questions. You know what you need to know. You follow chain of command. Also, if a soldier is taken hostage, he or she cannot give away plans if they don't know what the plan is (remember, in TFA, poe is forced to give up information).
Think. Be like holdo.
9. Rose stood for something. She was vulnerable, brave, and reacted to a situation to help others rather than allowing abuse to happen. It's what good guys do. Side quests may be distracting, but the scenario introduced us to who she was as a person, why she is rebel scum, and gives great insight into hope for future generations. She gave hope to a kid who has potential to be a Jedi via her words and actions. (Foreshadowing!!!) Also, by releasing the animals (?) she and Finn have a means to find transport back to poe, and can escape imprisonment.
Rose also sacrifices herself to save Finn (theme? Anyone...??? Bueller?), as finn tries to sacrifice himself for the rebellion. Yeah. Again. Team effort, and everyone is committed.
Hence, the rebellion has everything it needs to rise.
10. Luke died because his life force was drained via force projection. He knew that he was not the last Jedi, and even says so. By sacrificing himself (theme!), he allows younger generations to live and fight on. I mean, he is well into his 60's. The dude can't fight forever.
11. Finn was a storm trooper, not a janitor. Soldiers mop floors and clean bathrooms. They also make beds, iron clothes, buff floors, and whatnot.
12. Luke projecting because he had to stay alive long enough for everyone else to leave. Luke was being smart, and sacrificed himself for his friends. (Omg- an ongoing theme again!) This also shows that he has found balance between light and dark by unblocking the force. Be like Luke. He dusted off his shoulder, and said what he needed to say. It was a warning to Ben that he will exist in the afterlife, and he will continue to help the rebellion. He brought the hope we all needed when he said "see ya around kid." After all, it is said that people have lost hope now that Luke isn't around.
13. Rey is told that her going to pull kylo away- is not going to go as expected. Snoke says she is foolish. Kylo has no intention of turning- none. He wanted power, and he wanted Rey to join him because he knows she can beat him. Nice setup. What's that word? Starts with an F.....foreshadowing.
14. Kylo probably thought his mother was dead, or felt that she was. And if he didn't, it may have been due to his rage against Luke blocking his connection. Hence, he didn't attempt to kill her a second time.
15. The space flying scene was epic. Fisher flies (or floats) over the exact spot that admiral whatsherface crashes into. (Oooh foreshadowing!!!) Also, she's a skywalker. She has force powers, albeit limited, she uses them to save her life. Be like Leia. Use what you got when you need to. (Not to mention, I felt that the scene was a great nod to fisher's last wish. She wanted people to be told she died in space, in the moonlight, strangled by her bra"
16. George Lucas had the idea for Luke being depressed and in exile. Yeah. I said it.
17. Rey is seduced by the dark side, as she is trying to find her place in the world. She answers it's call, finds herself psychologically split up (so many versions of herself!), and asks an important question whereby she doesn't get an answer. The glass shattering signifies that an answer to her question will cause an inner break. This is the dark side lying, as she doesn't break when she has her answer. She gravitates to the light. Notice the water she swims through? Water, in general, is symbolic for rebirth. She leaves the darkness reborn, tells Luke she will not disappoint him, thereby committing herself to the light/rebellion. She is the next Jedi, and he knows it. Be like Rey. Stay in the Light.
18. Phasma had to be defeated because of how she treated Finn previously.
Be like Finn. Stand up to Bullies.
19. The ongoing theme here is.... sacrifice. Kylo sacrifices possibly losing his own life for more power, which causes him to become irrational, threatening everyone around him. Rey sacrifices her safety to save kylo. Rose sacrifices herself for Finn. Finn sacrificed himself for the rebellion. Holo sacrifices herself for her crew. Poe sacrifices his ego for strength. Luke sacrificed himself to save everybody. It is letting go of the past, and moving into the present, or the future, regardless of how you think it'll go.
All of the answers are IN the movie. It is remarkable, loveable. Luke's death is not an end to a childhood, but a birth into the balance. Be smart. Be like Luke.
May the force be with you.
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Shortened Review:
Unlike other Star Wars movies The Last Jedi doesn't focus on continuing the story. The movie tries more to rethink and challenge the former perspectives and thoughts in the Star Wars Universe. On this way we can see strong parallels to our real situation.
This is the one thing I want to give you away before you watch the movie, since they should've done it already. The Force Awakens opened many questions. This part doesn't try to give strong answers. So don't focus too much on the previous part.
I disagree with many people that the story is weak. But maybe the execution of VFX makes people think like that's, because it was beautiful. You don't really think about CGI models and it feels real and it makes the atmosphere even better.
Next the character development and the performances of the cast were all fine. The old characters, just like the new characters fulfilled their duty. People who complain about Luke's development are just hurt in the story and it's supposed to hurt them. For the story the changes of Luke were brilliant and it also redefined our former perspective. His decisions are clear and understandable, if you remember that he is not superman, but a human being. The Kylo-Ren character also was way more likable than in TFA. Just like that, Mark Hamill, Ridley and Driver were the MVPs here, excellent acting.
Now one of the most criticized part was the execution of the story. So there are a lot of comedy elements. Some didn't fit in, but others didn't really ruin the mood and just made the scenes more lively. Now then the movie has a non-linear perspective story-telling. So we have a lot of subplots and not a main story. Stop compare it to LOTR, you can't pick a masterpiece as the bar. Except for a few transitions the movie faced this challenge fine. And please don't let people who complain about the logic in the movie confuse you. Those guys clearly don't think about the feelings and suffer of the characters. Regarding the thoughts of the characters the decisions of them are totally understandable.
So the usual aspects like the Williams score were great as always.
Well, it's often stated this movie is only likable by youngsters. I clearly doubt this. There are two groups who don't like this movie. The first group is the Hardcore Fandom. They are too much in the story and things that are supposed to be hated in the story make them hate the movie. Then we have people, who want everything to be good, classic and simple. If you're one of these I'm sorry for you, but please try to rate this movie objectively and systematically, instead of ignoring the good aspects. If you just want to watch a good movie based on the previous SW movies, The Last Jedi should be a interesting movie for you.
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The Force Awakens was better but The Last Jedi's worth seeing for the photography (truly cinematic - deserves an Academy Award) and for the awesome scenery, and the scene at the end (although it kind of rips off the planet Hoth scene in The Empire Strikes Back + the final battle in Return of the Jedi). Good to see Mark Hamill (he was good in this). Overall, it was about what I expected; awesome and awful; if only they didn't have those annoying, little, cutsie penguins; Chewy's trying to fly the Millennium Falcon, and fighting a battle and these penguin thingy's are sitting on the dashboard: WTF!? This is becoming like Transformers; those movies would be okay if it weren't for these annoying little toy transformers thingy's buzzing and hopping around; it spoils the tone of the film. I noticed this in the The Force Awakens; Chewbacca looks CGI or not as good somehow or too good/too polished compared to Chewy in the early Star Wars movies; has anyone else noticed this?
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10/10
Don't read the Haters and Trolls reviews! The Last Jedi is AWESOME!!
I've seen every Star Wars movie during its opening week in the theaters. I was 7 years old when I saw the first one. I am huge fan of Star Wars and one point in the past my younger brain actually had all the dialogue from episodes IV, V and VI memorized. I could recite any of these movies on command. I have a betamax copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special and I can sing you "R2D2, we wish you a merry Christmas" and "What can you get a Wookie for Christmas?? (When he already owns a comb)" I have them on vinyl.
I am THAT kind of fan.
I explained all that so I can say this: The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back. Yes, it's better than Return of the Jedi.
Rian Johnson has dug us out of all the silliness that we were exposed to in episodes I, II and III. He also digs us out of all the "birthright" crap. You no longer have to be a Skywalker or the descendant of some great Jedi or Sith or have the right amount of "midichlorians" to use the force! And in the midst of all this freedom he also brings us a fantastically written and directed masterpiece that is never boring and advances the story beyond it's previous predictability.
No, It's not perfect. What ever is? I do have a few questions that I feel should have been answered in this installment: Who the hell was Snoke?!? How did he go unnoticed for so long without being detected. Why can't I get a Sith in a modern Star Wars movie? (Yes, I know we got Vader in Rogue One, it was awesome!)
But all this hate? Yeah, I've seen it all before. I heard the same crap when Empire and RotJ came out. A lot of "How can Luke be a Jedi after so little training??" and "How can Luke and Leia be siblings??" etc etc. And of course all the hate for the prequels. I even spit some of that venom myself...
In the end, it's Star Wars. The Last Jedi, when watched without some preconceived notion of entitlement to adherence to what came before, is amazing. If you can't manage that, you can join the crying former fans of Doctor Who who still cannot believe she's a woman now. Together you can boycott something you love.
You are what we grow beyond.
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Going into this movie I had one wish, I thought "Please don't be a repeat of Episode V." The Force Awakens mirrored A New Hope, and while it made sense to reassure returning fans, and give any new fans a fantastic story to start with, it disappointed me a little how safe they played it. The Last Jedi took all the expectations I had going in and threw them out the window.
Now most people are upset by this. They wanted all their questions answered more or less the way they were expecting. I feel the exact opposite, and yes I am a long time fan of ALL the previous movies, not that I should have to qualify my opinion with that. This movie was exhilarating. I can't remember the last time I turned to my friend in the theater with my mouth open in amazement because I'm so shocked about what just happened. It made the movie exciting, and the stakes higher, since I no longer felt completely sure about anything that was going to happen. Movies are ultimately just entertainment, and it certainly succeeded in that regard.
The visuals, acting, spectacle, sound, etc was phenomenal. The entire scene in Snoke's throne room made me want to cheer. I enjoyed this movie the whole way through, and I am excited about what direction the new Star Wars will take in the future. For all the people who want to nitpick every detail and piece of lore, Star Wars doesn't belong to you. It doesn't even belong to George Lucas anymore. If you don't like the ideas of the people who work very hard and do their best to make the best movie they can then don't watch them, and leave the rest of us alone.
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This was a great Star Wars movie. It was a bit different than previous installments, but the magic is still there. The humor and plot are good, and certainly provides an interesting problem for the Resistance and the First Order. Just see it for yourself with no expectations, that's how movies get ruined.
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10/10
To dislike The Last Jedi is to deny the spirit of Star Wars
To dislike this movie as a Star Wars film is to deny the spirit of Star Wars. This movie was perfectly adapted for the times, while maintaining the heart and soul of Star Wars. The added humor was appropriate and very in-character. The surprises, the rumored relationships we hoped for, the character development, the plot twists... all of it was everything the new trilogy needed and aspired to be. This movie was meaningful, compelling, and enthralling. One of the best movies I've ever seen. Thank you to everyone involved - for breathing new life into the world of cinema (and the world of Star Wars).
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In terms of character development and storytelling, Empire may only be slightly better. The fan backlash is completely understandable, though. Especially if you spent three decades investing in toys and sticking them up on the wall, watching Ewok movies hundreds of times, and sucking dry the galaxy far, far away. I adore some of the parts of the expanded universe, like Shadows of the Empire and Knights of the Old Republic. I get it. I do. Those who played all the games and read all the books, did so because they couldn't get enough. Now, even with a freshly wiped slate for a creative playground, it seems many have finally had enough of the Star Wars. It began in '99 with the fan wrath invoked by the prequels, and will cycle on as generational shifts do. I currently still can't get enough, so keep 'em comin' Walt's-head-in-a-jar!
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The film was good and established a good balance between action and reflection, but I think it could have had more action.
Good music and special effects.
The deficiencies of the plot were compensated to a certain extent by the talent of the actors .
I agree with most of the criticism against Disney.
The film would have been better with the direction of George Lucas.
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Luke Skywalker is back, but has turned into a grumpy old cynic.
This movie is way too long and I did not care about several of the characters. Also, after nine movies the whole premise and battle scenes all seem a bit tired and worn out by now.
But it is all worth watching for the great ending, Mark Hammill's acting and great set design using the colour red.
In a way, it would have been best if the whole saga, and I mean every Star Wars-related saga, just ended at the end of 2015's The Force Awakens. With the death of Solo and the appearance of Luke.
This would have left some unanswered questions about Luke but science fiction always leaves unanswered questions.
It has come to the stage where I am not even sure if I will bother seeing the next Star Wars film...and I never thought I would say something like that.
The Last Jedi is just okay.
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Fanboys? Where we are going we need no fanboys. This is what I take from "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017). Disney decided to troll the man-children and oh boy how they did it. From in-your-face feminism to the unnecesary love of a nerdy Asian girl, they managed to fill the movie with satiric touches about the failure of fandom. This is the anti-Nolan in a way: it tells fans that they are stupid.
A dark spaceship arrives ominously? Never mind, is just an iron ironing. The hero has a plan? Nah, he is stalling with a trick he learnt from Seth MacFarlane. Actually, that is the basis of TLJ: this movie is the franchise equivalent of "The Orville", and that makes me happy. I don´t care if Leia flies in space, because Star Wars is an infantile space saga, nothing more, nothing less.
There is spectacle, there are some good set-pieces, there is Mark Hammill, and also your typical Hollywood over-explanation of the situation (I shouted -internally- "show, don´t tell" some three or four times). A good stupid time at the cinema.
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It has flaws. Many flaws. For one, I really did not like Rose. She felt like Rey 2.0. She was given knowledge and skills that she should not have had, and they did that finishing each other's sentences that made me cringe in Episode 7.
The animation of Yoda was...horrible. Unbelievably horrible, like worse than Episode 2. He looked like the Yoda in the Clone Wars animated series.
On to what I liked about the movie, Luke was the most entertaining character in the movie. His interactions with Rey were the funniest scenes in an otherwise somber movie. As a shock to no one, Luke Skywalker dies. As with Harrison Ford in Episode 7, Mark Hamill was eager to retire his character and pass the torch onto the next generation. His death was terribly anti-climactic though. Heart attack. Yes, the most iconic character in the Star Wars franchise next to Darth Vader dies from a heart attack. I can see why so many fans hate this movie for that reason alone.
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3/10
Honest Casual Fan Review - I Know Disney's True Plan
Let me clarify and straighten out all of the 'hate' and 'love' that this movie is receiving once and for all. All the ruckus stems from where you stand when you watch this movie; are you a casual or new watcher or are you a long-time Star Wars fan?
As a casual Star Wars fan (not crazy fanatical) I would give it a 1/10 but as a new watcher (if the movie had a different name and wasn't "Star Wars") I'd give it a 5/10. So overall my score is 3/10.
Here is the MAIN reason why many people hate this movie and a big part of it has to do with episode 7: The Force Awakens. The main problem is the 'bait' that the producers cast out to the fans to then say "sike" or "just kidding" in episode 8. People don't inherently care about Snoke's past, Rey's identify and parents, Luke's disappearance, etc. except that they set up the movie like it IS a huge deal. Episode 7 set up everything like it's all complexly intertwined and connected somehow and then left off with a cliffhanger, seemingly to be answered in the upcoming films. Episode 8 was 'supposed' to answer those questions literally thrown at the audiences except they never did. Instead, all of the questions were literally squashed like a fly. The way The Last Jedi was executed made most of The Force Awakens useless, pointless, and a waste of time. Also, instead of putting in some answers they concocted a whole side mini story that pandered to SJW and animal rights... of course people are mad. It's like telling your kids they're getting something for Christmas and when Christmas comes around you say "just kidding." Then you show them a documentary about animal abuse. This is where most of the issues come from.
As for myself, I'll list out the main things that killed this movie for me:
Luke is not Luke. He's a completely different person to the core, inside and out. He's supposed to be wiser, stronger, and more mature. Instead, he cries more than anyone and does not help anyone. (I'm with Mark Hamill on this and I'll explain how he feels later)
Snoke does NOTHING the whole film except stands up once or twice to talk, moves Rey around a bit, then dies in his seat without a fight. LITERALLY. No story, background, explanation, fighting, struggle... nothing. Hell, each one of the guards in that same room put up a better fight and lasted longer than he did...
Rey's identify, background, and parents are all "nothings." That is literally all.
Not a single light saber battle... really. Not one. There are many scenes with light sabers in them. The main one is Rey and Kylo fighting guards, not each other. The other scene is with Luke (holding a saber but never using it then putting it away) dodging Kylo while he tries to hit Luke but never actually fighting. No actual fight between two people with light sabers...
When the ship went light speed into the other ship Finn and Rose were on the ground about to be tortured and were surrounded by hundreds of troopers and Phasma. After the strike, the whole room was trashed and desolate with ONLY them two in the room and Finn wakes up to Rose pulling on him... then Phasma and a huge group of troopers randomly marched in from the sides as if they somehow got teleported out of the room during the strike. Then Phasma proceeds to fight Finn, gets hit in the face, then falls and dies...
The whole Holdo trying to act tough and not tell anyone anything is extremely annoying and completely unnecessary.
When Finn and Rose were at the Casino, they were locked up for "illegal parking" so they never found the key-master. Well, a different one happens to be in their cell and they all escape together. AND the craft was not towed and was just conveniently left there.
BB-8 is literally immortal and is always in the right place at the right time and knows how to do absolutely everything.
The way they made it look like Luke finally got over himself to come help the Resistance and then quickly found out it was just a "projection," Luke then dies without ever leaving that island at all, very anti-climatic.
Why Finn decides to ram into the cannon INSIDE the extremely hot beam, extremely lowering his chance of succeeding is beyond me. He could just fly outside of the beam and then turn in when he's closer. Perhaps it's to shield himself from potential oncoming fire? A potentially good moment where Rose randomly decides to knock him out of it, destroying both of their crafts and crucially hurting herself. Then the cheesy line and kiss.. then they're randomly back inside the base safe and sound.
These are just some of the things that are easy cop-outs that make no sense and is plain and simple too convenient to work for ANY movie, not just Star Wars.
This is 100% what I believe Disney is doing, judging from the direction of the movies and the way Mark Hamill reacts to it:
They are ONLY making this triology (and the next trilogy as well... really) for the new generation and younger audiences. They only want to use Han Solo, Leia, and Luke to bait in the old Star Wars fan so they can include a wider audience so they can make more money. But the way they quickly kill off the old cast, uplift the new and younger 'replacements,' and discard most of the things that happened in the previous episodes/prequels makes it pretty clear that it was never their intention to produce a new cohesive trilogy. Rather, they used the Star Wars name, as well as some originals actors and actresses to get a good head start before they dump them. I can understand why Mark Hamill was mad about The Force Awakens and furious about The Last Jedi. He was a huge figure in Star Wars and is one of the main reasons Star Wars is where it is today. I guarantee you he feels used and abused and underappreciated. They used him and his name and character to boost the hype and sales and then simply turn him into a sissy grump and kill him off so the movies can go on with the newer actors and actresses is extremely evident at this point and I feel very sorry for Mark Hamill.
TLDR: Most new watchers, younger generation, SJW, Feminists, or people with political agendas WILL like this movie much more than old school long-time Star Wars fans because of the way the movie is set up and executed.
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Preachy, pretentious, and hypocritical ... A lot of action and effects make it entertaining, but the value of those things will only decrease in time. Do it Luke, just kill it.
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1/10
Overrated Garbage (clearly they paid for the ratings just like EA like to do)
Genuinely the worst movie I have seen in years. If you feel like walking out, do it, I promise you it doesn't get better. Every point that could've had an unfunny quip, or turned into a tv tropes cliches, did. Don't trust any review above a six.
Save your money, Star Wars is dead.
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This film is literally pure hatred of everything white and male.
The white men are presented as either bad guys or incompetent idiots who need Admiral Gender Studies with purple hair and 'diverse' characters to lead them. The female lead is ridiculously capable. While Luke trained for weeks to learn how to move a pebble, this woman can do anything, be it the force, fixing stuff, winning American Idol. See, women are not only as good as men at everything, they are so good, they don't even need to break a sweat.
If you are a young white guy, you will only have bad guys to identify with. And that's actually good, because the 'rebels' are literally a gang similar to antifa or al qaeda, while the 'bad' guys stand for order, hierarchy, commitment, loyalty, ambition, strength, tradition... All the things we need to restore in society.
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There are an awful lot of upset fans out there, and rightly so. The film is laboured and it's clear that the writers did not have a well thought out plan to take them to three films. Or that it was the result of a 5 year olds brain-storming session
Rey's journey in the Force just doesn't seem credible from the POV that she never appears to need teaching. Luke, the one person that is supposed to versed in the force, appears incompetent and moody, like a teenager that never grew up and the last person that Rey needs as a teacher.
Sadly much of the storylines that seem to have been set up in the Force Awakens unravel like a pair of knitted underpants on a Velcro seat, leaving you to wonder if it's worth tuning in to the third instalment.
Despite the poor storyline the acting and visuals are pretty good. The action is compelling enough, but as in the Force Awakens, the sinister characters are just pastiches and are too readily revealed. Kylo Ren hints at being an interesting and tormented character, but largely comes off as a moody teenager. The bad guys roam around without ever really having a raison d'etre. And this is problem with Stsr Wars, the more you show the bad guys the more you need to understand about them. The mystery of the Dark Side, and it's followers dissipates when they lose their motivations - if they were perusing inter-planetary dominance, rather Chasing around 'small resistance' groups you could believe in their badness. Instead much of the action is massively contrived.
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9/10
Ambitious and one of the best in the franchise!! "This is not going to go the way you think"
Star Wars: The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson, will, as Luke tells Rey, "not go the way you think". The Last Jedi begins straight after the end of the Force Awakens and it is immediately apparent that Rian's vision for the new Star Wars is being put on the big screen. This is the most ambitious film in the franchise to date, as it settles all the fan-theories that have strangled every Star Wars fan for the past two years, by simply scrapping them, and I seriously liked it. First and foremost, all the characters, bar Han Solo, return in this epic, action-packed and emotional film, including Rey, Finn, Poe, General Leia, and Kylo Ren. After appearing briefly at the end of the Force Awakens, we finally see Luke as the old, rugged and isolated Jedi, who simply does not want to go back to what it used to be, saying that "it is time for the Jedi to end". We are also introduced to a trio of new characters: Rose, a maintenance worker in the resistance; Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, a leading officer in the resistance; and DJ, a codebreaker and a thief. Each character, both old and new, have a shining moment, few, in particular, were visually stunning to watch, such as Kylo Ren slicing Snoke in half with Luke's lightsaber and Holdo sacrificing her own life for the escaping resistance ships by flying the command ship straight at the First Order fleet at lightspeed, silencing the film so the audience could stare in awe. The acting was the best that's ever been in a Star Wars movie, with Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and the late Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa the highlights in that department.
The action was spectacular, particularly as the Rey and Kylo team-up against Snoke and the rebels escaping the First Order fleet was panning out at the same time. The story arc of Rey, Kylo, and Luke was incredibly well done, with Rey planting herself as a powerful force user and Kylo apprehensive on his allegiance to the light and dark sides. The reveal of Rey's parentage I believe was very well done and came as no surprise to myself, but I'm am certain that many who were expecting something more grandiose will be dissatisfied. Admittedly, however, many Star Wars fans will find these revelations and events irritating and conflicting. One such being of Supreme Leader Snoke, who was simply a red-herring this whole time, and though his death was shocking, it was somewhat unwarranted that the Force Awakens painted him as the ultimate villain, similar to Emperor Palpatine, for then to be killed off. Despite this, the whole sequence of events spanning a short period time that led up to this moment was suspenseful and thrilling to watch, and the immediate team-up of Rey and Kylo, as well as the kamikaze of Holdo into the fleet, culminated in without a doubt, one of the greatest Star Wars moments.
My other issues, some are nitpicky, include Captain Phasma, who was a wasted opportunity again, and will be known as the Boba Fett of the current trilogy; the Finn, Rose story arc was weak and the ensuing romance felt forced; how did Finn, Rose and Poe know to call Maz Kanata to find the codebreaker when only Finn had met her for barely a brief moment in the Force Awakens; and how did DJ know about the escaping rebel ships when they were captured. I know many found Leia's using the force to fly in space far-fetched (I initially found it weird), but knowing this was Carrie Fisher's last movie as Leia, it was a nice to see her using her force sensitive powers numerous times. My lowest point of the Last Jedi was Canto Bight. What was the point really? The entire plot to find the code-breaker was utterly pointless and eventuated in a total failure. It introduced nothing that was relevant to the rest of the main plot and in the end, they found a less qualified thief in Benicio del Toro's DJ.
Overall, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, despite its weaknesses in some aspects, is one of the best in the franchise, and where many of the negativity comes from maybe because it is the least like any Star Wars movie previously. Many of the complaints are fair, but the surprises that we were least expecting made this a far more thoughtful film and its ambitious take on the universe of Star Wars is a refreshing new step.
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I usually don't review films, however seeing the hate this great Star Wars movie received I just want to say that if you understand Star Wars you will love this film.
Choices made by the director are absolutely great and ballsy.
Finally a director who dares to take riskes. Too bad that there are many people out there that can't appreciate a real Star Wars movie.
Great job Rian Johnnson!
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1/10
This movie was not Star Wars. This movie was ridiculous.
When I walked out of the movie theatre, I didn't know what to think. I wanted to be excited about the visually appealing film I had just seen. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this movie is pure garbage. There are way too many plot holes, inconsistencies, horrible plot decisions. A complete disregard for what the series of Star Wars was.
Admiral Ackbar is killed and hardly given a mention. While a brand new, annoying, condescending "hero" takes a farewell that could've been his. Complete demasculating of Luke Skywalker. We never even get to see him fight again, and he dies creating a force ghost? Snoke's death was ridiculous, and I didn't even like the character that much before. Completely underdeveloped plotlines. Mission to Canto Bight? Ridiculous. Holdo not telling Poe the plan just to teach him a lesson? And create conflict I guess. Ridiculous. I could go on and on.
This movie was not Star Wars. This movie was ridiculous.
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1/10
There are pron movies with better script than this
Simply as that.
Totally horrendous and the story doens't progress towards anywhere besides oblivion.
One more glorious and epic saga turned into trash just like Alien.
Now go and buy the merchandise for your kids because that was the only goal why this movie was produced.
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2/10
Finally beaten Family Guy to make a comedy star Wars
Everyone at some point seems to be playing it for laughs. The bad guys must have gone to shouty acting school; the good guys must have watched an old video of Top Gun and thought, that's how you talk to others. Then something happens, then something else, then something else, and someone makes a funny remark.
Zak Skywalker, still looking as though he hasn't quite finished with the Hangover movies, appears to spend most of his time in an outside toilet. Kylo and Ray manage to talk to each other in space, whilst Finn is just a waste of space.
I guess the main thing wrong is the script. Two and a half hours and I was still looking for the story, something that had a beginning a middle and an end. If your character does not advance the story, get rid of them. This could have been done with a lot of the characters. Those that you would keep, really needed to up their game. Snoke, Zak Skywalker, Rey, all were poor. If everybody makes jokes, important speeches lose their power. People were trying to be funny, to the point that it became like Spaceballs. Although I did like the cameo from Barry Manilow as one of the Rebellion commanders.
The film perked up at the end, if only because it went back to men being in charge and blowing stuff up. But it still couldn't help get away from this Disneyfied world of toy creatures and shiny spaceships.
But, it was way too long. The lighting was not as good as Rogue One, and those little easter egg moments were done to death in the Force Awakens.
And perhaps the most important thing to take away from this film is that there is a rebellion coming. Those professional critics, paid by the dark mouse, have clearly not been telling us the truth. And we, the Jedi keyboard warriors, will keep fighting until we see a decent film come out of the galaxy.
My only hope, is that Disney look at their market, and make the next star Wars two films. The first, 90 minutes of 3d shots, jokes and toys for the younger viewers. And then the same film, but based on a decent story, with a good script, and something adults would enjoy.
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Great movie opening, I was super excited once it started, then it was 2.25 hours of disappointment. I'm sure Rian Johnson makes great movies, it was visually stunning, but I was extremely disappointed with his take on the Star Wars story. The popcorn and Coke was good, but I had to buy the "White Cheddar Salt" to give it good flavor. Also, the butter makes me a little queasy, I don't think it's really butter, but it looks like it.
I wish Kurt Vonnegut could've written a Star Wars story, that would've been really cool. Maybe he could've written a story where Luke Skywalker turned into a crazy punk rock singer that hated the First Order and started an underground rebellion. Leia was getting embarrassed about her brothers new career and she found out that Holdo was managing his tour. That created a huge rift between the two because Leia hated punk rock music and Holdo.
Rey, Chewbacca and R2D2 were busy looking for Luke, they finally found him playing at a Club on Canto Blight, and tried to get tickets to the show, but the show was sold out. They found out the only way get tickets was through a ticket scalper named DJ, he's the best DJ scratcher in the Outer Rim.
Meanwhile, Finn recovered, met a girl named Rose on the Rebellions medical cruiser and they immediately fell in love.
Poe and BB-8 are in Canto Blight cruising around making Aerial Smoke Signs trying to draw in the First Order to Luke concert. Kylo Ren spots the Aerial Smoke Signs, notifies Snoke and the First Order and then all Hell Breaks loose.
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This movie exists because and for to the merchandise. It doesn´t have nothing... no mysticism, no wisdom, no age, no great villains, no great heroes, no heart... no nothing.
Compared to this horrible movie the Phantom Menace looks like a masterpiece.
Poor Luke... his rol in this movie is.. I don't know how to say it... unrespectful...
I thought 'The Force Awakens' was a bad movie, but this is worse. I cannot believe it.
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Let me rephrase that...THIS MOVIE WAS SHIT. I'm not it's goong to say much because it seems like a lot of people already have, I do want to start by saying that I am not not a bot or troll or part of a FB group trying to sabotage this movie. This movie was not good, it shit on everything the force awakens laid a foundation for as well as anything the fans were looking forward to seeing in this movie. Fuck you Disney and fuck you Rain Johnson, I won't be seeing the next one at all. I'm killing the past like Kylo said
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This should be the name of this movie. I wonder how much money Disney is paying to the critics for those high grades and good reviews! They certainly watched another movie or don't know nothing about the meaning of this saga! The Force Awakes was poor and weak but tolerable. It was like "The New Hope - Part 2". But this???? This is pure crap! From the beginning to the end it's horrible! I'm not going to tell any spoiler but until this moment I just can't believe that a garbage like this carries the name STAR WARS!!!!! This is an insult to this name, to Geroge Lucas and to the fans, like me! I won't see another Star Wars movie made by Disney! They ruined this franchise! I'm really angry! I can't even express how I feel about it! The movie is an absurd! Full of silly jokes, bad characters, empty story (I don't know if we can say it has a story!) and no answers at all. Things just happen from nothing! What they did to Luke was... so disrespectfull! After seeing this, I'm 100% sure that STAR WARS actually has 6 episodes. And they were written by the same person who created the saga and Knows about it, and loves it (or at least, he loved). But now we have each movie written by a different man, and the second just decided to give a slap on the first guy saying: "Now this belongs to me and I'll do whaterever I want and I don't care about you, or George Lucas or the fans! They'll go to the movies anyway, so we'll make a lot of money and that's the only thing that matters to me and Disney". This is really sad! Please stop now Disney! You are insulting the name Star Wars! You should never name your movies as ep 7, 8, 9! This crap is not part of the SAGA! Darth Vader is dead, so is the force and this fake Disney-Star Wars!
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Yesterday I went to the cinema to watch this movie with my friends, who all LOVE Star Wars... Born in 1978, watched the movies from the day I can remember, played with the toys, Star Wars is not just a movie franchise to me (and with me a lot of other people around the world), it's almost a religion.
....I didn't watch a Star Wars movie, right now I'm just in total disbelieve, right now I'm just shortening the critic I will speak later on....
People who say it's a good movie? They are right, but people who say it's a good Star Wars movie? They are totaly WRONG, or they just don't LOVE the world of Star Wars as much as many do.... I realy think this is the most brutal failure in movie-history.... Damn, just can't believe how they ruined en puked on this thing I truly love....
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The Force Awakens asked about a dozen interesting questions. The Last Jedi answered half of them as stupidly and irreverently as possible and completely ignored the other half.
Beyond that, the plot was the galactic equivalent of watching paint dry.
There were too many plot holes to list.
Comedy relief in SW movies is a tradition, but this was over-the-top, beat-stopping silliness.
The way the movie evolves and ends, it seems impossible to make a story out of the remnant that anybody would want to see in Ep. IX.
I was a die-hard fan who defended The Force Awakens and the Disney takeover, but I was wrong. Disney has murdered Star Wars and this movie was the murder weapon. Rian Johnson clearly doesn't know anything about established SW lore and it doesn't even feel like he watched The Force Awakens before scripting this train wreck.
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I hated it. Although, there are many reasons but the one I would like to point out is lack of character development for Snoke, no backstory and origin and then killing him just like that. Same thing goes for Rey's parents, for two years they were trying to tell us that who are her parents, then we found out they are basically nobodies. Casino scenes were so pointless. Leia flying scenes, wtf was that!? and slapstick humour every 10 minutes...I mean, there is a time and place for funny moments, but even serious scenes are getting ruined by so much jokes. It's like I was watching a parody of Star Wars and I like watching parodies but Star Wars movie should feel like a Star Wars movie, you know like dark and gritty. Overall, the movie in this trilogy felt like 'Attack of the Clones' rather than 'Empire Strikes Back'.
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5/10
Let's Take a Giant Dump in the Hat of Every Die-Hard Star Wars Fan (SPOILERS)
If you're still reading, I assume you already saw the film. I had to sleep on it to digest everything, but while I really liked the film, I have some major problems with it, mostly for the utter disrespect it shows to fans for its lazy writing, unnecessary plot devices and attempting to be "fresh" for "fresh's" sake instead of being good and true to the Star Wars ethos. In no particular order, here are my thoughts:
(1) We learn NOTHING about who Snoke is (now was), where he came from, how old he is, why he knows the force, why he's on the dark side, how he tempted Kylo, where he was during the Empire, what happened to his face, how he came to lead the First Order, why he's so strong in the Force, and why (if he was that strong) he didn't see Kylo's attack coming ... NOTHING! This was a huge disappointment as many theories had been floating around as to his origin, where he draws his strength, etc., and many were hoping those would have been answered in TLJ. His monologuing (especially to Rey) would have been the perfect opportunity to answer some of these questions. Instead, he becomes almost a wasted character, going from mysteriously all powerful bad guy to dead guy with no further character development. In my opinion, he should have survived TLJ (along with Luke), and Episode 9 should have ended with an Epic battle between Luke and Snoke, and Rey and Kylo. With the events that have occurred, it's like they moved the third act up into the second, and there's nowhere good to go from here.
(2) They made Luke into a whinny little wimp. If you've read any of the expanded universe, Luke post-Episode 6 was awesome. Here, he's portrayed as weak, fearful and, well, a loser. His major contribution to the universe is teaching Rey to reach out with her feelings and to buy the good guys some time to escape. And then he "becomes one with the Force," which was way too soon and showed off none of his mastery of the Force (which is what he should have been doing on that island lo these many years). Even after the visit from Yoda (who didn't look exactly right...), he still doesn't really return to proper form. I now know why Hamill wasn't happy with the character's treatment. I admit the trick at the end was cool, but for him to then die? What a waste.
(3) The trip to find the code breaker was just weird, and ultimately pointless and stupid. They don't even talk to the person they came to find, and there was no reason they couldn't "park" in the appropriate spot, so that plot device is just stupid and incredible. In fact, the whole junket seemed more like an attempt to make a statement against animal cruelty and war profiteering (for no other redeeming quality than the statement itself) than any real plot advancement. It's as if they didn't have anything for Finn or Rose to do (and had time to fill), so they set off on an utterly pointless (in the end) errand, which brings back (and introduces) Benito Del Torro's character "DJ" - a truly despicable backstabber who gets half the rebels killed in exchange for money. He's been compared to Han Solo's character in ANH, but they're not even in the same Galaxy - Han would never have betrayed the rebels for money, and in the end, he couldn't even abandon them to fate. DJ is a character without charm or anything worth saving; yet, he presumably lives. I suppose he could be more comparable to Lando, but even Lando fixes his betrayal by the end of ESB. I also thought the Mas Katana "union dispute" fight was silly, and an excuse to remind the audience that she's still out there.
(4) Once the First Order starts firing on the fleeing rebel transports at the end, why doesn't Holdo act sooner? Obviously, the jig was up after the first shot was fired, so why not move the cruiser to shield the fleeing ships? And can't a droid fly that cruiser just as well as a person could? So why does she even stay behind anyway? A KSO droid could have done it, like we saw in Rogue One. But the most disturbing is that she just sits there for a good 5 minutes and watches her "friends" get shot out of space before doing something. The "something" was totally cool, but this sequence bothered me.
(5) Why would Kylo and Rey have such a hard time with non-Force-using guards? They shouldn't have, and this was just for "action's" benefit. It would have been more accurate and more fun if they would have used the Force more and played with the guards, rather than the guards being portrayed as their near-equals.
(6) What's with Kylo's conversion fake out? The problem with Kylo's character is that he has NO REASON TO BE BAD, especially after Snoke is dead. What's his motivation here? It seemed that it used to be Snoke's influence, but he keeps going in that direction after killing Snoke. Vader's motivation was that he "must obey his master," but that ended when his master did. That doesn't happen here, which in and of itself is fine, but you need a real good "why," and wanting to rule the galaxy with Rey is not really a good "why" when it hasn't been convincingly explained how the son of Han and Leia, and the nephew of Luke ends up being the universe's #1 bad guy. He can't even explain why he killed Han. Why? Because he has no why. As with Snoke, Kylo suffers from a lack of character development.
(7) Rey's Heritage. What a let down this was. I was hoping for some kind of Empire-level revelation as to who Rey really is - is she Anakin reincarnated? Luke's daughter? Han's illegitimate child? Palpatine reincarnated? ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT? Nope. Instead we get a Force-cave experience that was totally worthless (unless she's her own parents) and a claim by Kylo that Rey's parents were just some nobody space junkers who sold her off to pay debts. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We also get no explanation as to why the saber was "calling" to her in TFA.
In the end, the plot of this movie could have been SO MUCH MORE, and could have set Episode 9 up for an epic conclusion. As it stands, I have no idea where they could even go (Cloud City?) from here that would advance the plot beyond "First Order = Empire = Bad, Rebels = Rebel Alliance = Good." Obviously, the Rey v. Kylo angle will be played up, and I can see Rey being trained by some Force ghosts, but we didn't get any Empire-level cliffhangers (like Han frozen in Carbonite) that need answering in the next film. In sum, TLJ is visually a stunner, was acted to perfection, shot very well, but ultimately leaves so many opportunities untouched and potentials unrealized that upon reflection, it seems more a swing and a miss than a home run.
And where was the "I've got a bad feeling about this" line?
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Full of marvel humor, terrible writing, corny scenes, the movie was all over the place. The only thing that makes the movie even bearable was Rey & Kylo. I wasn't a big fan of The Force Awakens but I at least enjoyed that it felt like a true Star Wars film. Last Jedi was just weird and felt like some crappy fan fiction.
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I first thought it was just me, but apparantly everybody shares the same thought.... This movie isn't worth to be called "Star Wars". The genre completely transformed from sci-fi action, to sci-fi comedy. This high-budget movie has great FX, which is why I'm giving it 1 star, but the movie itself is ruïned by a very thin plot, questions remaining unanswered and sure as hell won't be answered in the next movie, and I could go on complaining until tomorrow... my 8 year-old boy WAS the biggest fan, until he saw this piece of crap. Worst Star Wars-movie ever!
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6/10
Its like JJ Abrams set the table for a nice dinner, but when it was time to eat Johnson decided to sit on the floor.
I didn't hate this movie. Let's get that out of the way now. There is plenty to like here. Hell, I'll probably go see it again before it leaves theaters. That said, let's get in to where this movie disappoints. SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW!!
My first complain, and maybe my biggest complaint, if the way it totally just dumps Snoke. One of the most talked about elements among hard core fans over the past 2 years was the identity of, and history behind, Snoke. Who is he? What's he been doing? Where did he learn to use The Force? Why does he look like he went through a meat grinder? How did he come to take over the remnants of the Empire? How did he find Ben Solo? If you wanted answers to any of these question, well, tough shit buddy!! You get a few minutes of generic big bad type talk out of him and POOF!! Gone from the story. This is borderline criminal IMO. You create this mysterious character, cloak him in mystery, get the fans interested, and then deliver nothing. Did this really seem like a good idea?
My second complaint, the explanation of Rey's heritage. Once again, if you thought you were gonna get an interesting answer to this question, your gonna be quite disappointed. I won't get in to the specifics, but I will say it's unbelievably anticlimactic. Now, Johnson has since come out and explained his reasoning, and it really does make a certain amount of sense when he breaks it down for you, but my problem is this. Why build it up in the first movie, only to cop out on it in the second? Really, really annoying.
Number three. The Space Poppins scene. Looks, having Leia learn to tap into the force could have been a really neat way to go, had it been done correctly. Maybe even have her learn to commune with her brother? Unfortunately, the way it gets done here just feels like another cop out. Like they couldn't decide how to handle that scene, so they said, "hey, she just uses the force!!" Dues Ex Machina, plain and simple.
And lastly, in the previous 8 movies, has anyone ever heard anyone talk about space ships running out of gas? It's pretty much this movies McGuffin. Included to give it a ticking clock, but it seemed quite poorly thought out. Then they have the First Order ships somehow follow just far enough behind to where their guns aren't effective? What? Really guys? This was the best all those great minds at Super Mouse could come up with? Jeez.
All this isn't to say the movie is without merit. I loved Luke's story line. Ditto for Rey, and the scenes with her and Kylo Ten were mostly really good.
Visually this movie is quite dazzling. Esp in the final scene. If this had just been a run of the mill Sci-fi film, it would have been amazing. Unfortunately, it's a Star Wars movie, and the fans have come to expect more. If you ask me, changing directors between movies in the trilogy was a huge mistake. It needs a unified vision. It often seemed like the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing.
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1/10
Not watching the next one.. You broke starwars for cash.. Bravo you ridiculous pieces of ********
I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is the worst Star Wars movie ever.
It breaks all the rules of the canon (*Cough* Genereal Leia), disregards any of the mysteries and questions brought up on The Force Awakens, has a terrible plot and terrible dialogue, characters who were charismatic such as finn and rey in the Force Awakens are dull and lifeless in this one.
The only reason to watch this is to see how bad it really is.
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1/10
It's just not Star Wars or a Good development but instead story and characters came 2nd to propaganda
Just as a note I have never commented on the internet before, not even on a youtube clip, but as a life long Star Wars fan I felt compelled to sign up and say my piece.
The film is confused in so many ways....what the force is, who the characters are, even what star wars is.... etc etc.
I was very hopeful going into the movie! Even though Force Awakens wasn't great it did set an interesting base for development. And the flaws of the Force Awakens seemed to have been addressed in the excellent Rogue One spin-off.
My hope was those well rounded characters, direct story telling and insurmountable enemies that made Rogue One and the original trilogy so likeable would be echoed in it's own way in this movie.
But instead it focused on nothing other than mocking and distroying the enjoyable concepts of - even a few people can be the winning tipping point in a larger battle and you must believe in yourself. With over the top political messages and character distruction.
Poe Damoran became a stupid gun happy idiot.
Finn is STILL a coward, up until he becomes just another silly boy trying to be heroic.
Luke, the great guardian of the light side, has murderous thoughts.
Rey rather than a strong young capable women (see Ripley in Alien) just seems selfish and arrogant and barely spares a thought for any of her friends whilst discoving who she is.
The baddies were made to be errrmm, well just poor.
The incessant political drive of the movie meant I wouldn't have been surprised if someone got bantha muck on their shoe and wiped it off on doormat made of Donald Trump's face.
And when it comes to the force, let's ignore 40 years of development and have no consistency. Kylo can stop a laser in mid air but not a man with a knife. And the force makes you fly through space, and project somewhere else in space????? And almost best, Yoda the teacher of 1000's of Jedi beleives you don't need to train Jedi.
(Yoda! what were you doing for 900 years to not know all this, would have been handy in the clone wars!)
The film wasn't created or written. It was produced. Just a product not a labour of love.
Just to add to the woe. Almost all media is being Disney and Hollywood driven to say that Star Wars fans don't like it because they and the old films are racist and sexist. NO NO NO NO NO. They weren't, we aren't!
But you'd have to know Star Wars and it's fans to know that.
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Enough has been said already about this ship wreck of a "sequel".
I would like to point some other thing, for all of those that are not concerned about the plot and the statements made.
Imagine that all the other franchises decided to throw away (in a very stupid and shallow manner) all the stories and philosophies that made them great. How would the fans feel?
Change is good, new plots and characters are desirable, but not in this shallow form.
Sadly, Disney bought the rights not to make something greater, but to milk the franchise...
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I love the Star Wars comedy in Robot Chicken and Family Guy, but the humor in TLJ just felt out of place and awkward. I had to check with my wife that the film had actually started and they weren't having a bit of fun with a preview film.
After thinking on it for a day or two, the main issue with this film and the last is that there is simply no story to tell. It stopped when Anakin/Vadar died. Same with Terminator, Alien etc. The original films are the story. Unless someone thinks of a decent story please leave them alone. Its fine to do a remake at some point or separate films like Rogue One.
I'm pleased that I got to enjoy these films first time around but I'm now trying to find the next Star Wars/Terminator/Alien films to enjoy and won't be wasting time with these obvious attempts to just generate money.
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I cringed through most of the movie, half of it could have been cut. Storylines that didn't go anywhere, a flying Leia, overuse of CGI, hammy acting, unnecessary comedy in heartfelt scenes, why was Rian Johnson even attached to this? Useless director and couldn't get out of the actors what JJ Abrams did with the Force Awakens. This movie pales in comparison.
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I have registered with IMDB especially to write this review.
Positives first: the actors were really good, Hamill, Ridley, Finn, Poe, Fisher, Driver, they all gave it all they had. Good score, good special effects, it "looked" and "sounded" like Star Wars (except Yoda).
Now the negatives, in no particular order.
All the things we have believed in, from 1977 until Force Awakens and Rogue One, have all gone down the pan.
Not just destroyed, but declassified, ridiculed, dragged through mud!
The Force requiring long training, dedication, the path of a Jedi, etc? Nah, all nonsense.
Yoda's teachings, 800 years of respected career? Down the drain.
The mysterious Snoke, is he Sidious? is he Darth Plagueius? Is he Sypho Dyas? Is he Mace Windu?
Nah, just some punk who cannot even tell he is being conned in the most childish way.
The fact that Rey (and to a lesser extent even Finn) were able to do Force things, wield a lightsaber, give the (Skywalker, full of Midichlorians, fully trained by Luke first and then Snoke), sure they must have some special lineage, sure there must be some big surprise in store?
Nah, nothing of the sort. The Force is clearly something you can get at the Disney store with your Mickey ears and your Goofy hat.
This is the main problem, the Star Wars universe we have known and loved for 40 years, with its lows and highs, will never be the same anymore. All to the scrapyard.
And that's before we even start discussing:
What they have done to Luke as a character
The useless Benicio Del Toro subplot
The gaping plot hole of the space "chase" (First Order ships could have jumped ahead)
The gaping plot hole of the Rebels' vessel having barriers while the Star destroyer has none
The forced, useless comedy
The new Admiral had a plan (nearby planet with a hidden base, suicide mission) - why could she not say so all along instead of looking like an idiot, keeping everyone else guessing, and causing a mutiny?
Leia floating in space - pretty please. They could (should) have found a way to send her on the suicide mission and give her the send-off she deserved.
So many more things I could add. The SW universe is now ruined forever, but I am sure they will be able to sell a few more Porg dolls. I had such high hopes after the to previous films. Disney has so many other franchises, they are doing a fantastic job with Marvel and I am sure they will do great with Fox, they should have saved the money and left Lucasfilm alone.
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Star wars under Disney instigates liberal propaganda in favor of blacks and lesbins. Now, there's anything wrong with blacks or lesbians, only with Disney that disguises it's propaganda under the Star Wars franchise as an "action film". In fact, this film is a crappy piece of cinematographic garbage that's only meant to sell more tickets to a broader audience who likes to pay for getting brainwashed.
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1/10
Worst Star Wars ever, complete waste of time and money!!! Save your money and time.
This has to be the worst Star Wars movie ever. I couldn't believe how horrible and bad this movie is for 2.5 hours. Don't make the same mistake I made listening to paid critics, this movie is 1 out of 10 at best, only recommended as a rental.
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1) The Mel Brooks (Space Balls) moments with Dumhnall Gleeson, further accentuated with a cut-away shot to remind the audience it's a comic moment.
2) Bombs in space within the StarWars universe can fall, just like things fall on Earth (because of gravity).
3) Princess Leia's Superman moment - her body can defy the laws of physics - won't explode in spite of the lack of a pressurized suit, and she can fly through space.
4) Supreme Leader Snoke can see through walls, eaves-drop across solar systems, and defend attacks with a twitch of his upper-lip, but one little accidental jab by a sabre can end him (like the inflatable pilot in Airplane (1979))
5) Luke survived for years on an island drinking space-goat's milk, and housekeeping team is manned by fish-people.
6) The Force now comes with Skype features. In addition, VR/AR capabilities that can fool even those who are equipped with The Force.
7) more new toys to be made available from one episode than any other previous installments of Star Wars - including a Swarowski figurine.
8) Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren's Kurosawa - Samurai Stand-Off.
9) You can track your target that's travelling in the speed of light, but in normal speed, you are only able to fire shots at your target but the shots don't the ability to land.
10) Plot-holes are a plenty, and conflicting logic throughout The Last Jedi, but it'll still be the most profitable Hollywood product in 2017.
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The story line was terrible. Whoever wrote this took scenes from the other movies. I felt like we have gone full circle and this and the previous was a reboot. It would of been better if they got all of the authors who have written books about Star Wars and come up with a better story line.
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I didn't think it was possible to top the prequels as the worst Star Wars movie but Rian Johnson has done it. The Last Jedi is officially the worst Star Wars movie of all time.
Everything they setup in The Force Awakens, this movie just said it's nothing. Who's Rey's parents? Nobody. Where did Snoke came from? Nowhere. What's special about first Jedi Temple? Nothing. Why did Luke go to the temple? No special reason. Just to hide. Why is Kylo Ren wearing mask? No reason. Why did Luke's lightsaber call to Rey? Don't know. Why did C3PO had red arm? Don't know.
People had all kinds of theories about all these after TFA. And Rian Johnson's only goal was to surprise the audience. And in doing so, he turned Star Wars into meaningless garbage.
And since Carrie's passing, everyone expected Leia to die and only question was how it was going to happen. But again, Rian Johnson's only focus was to do something unexpected. They'll probably do CG Leia in EP9 which I'm NOT looking forward to.
Johnson has no clue about Star Wars Universe either. Luke manifesting himself across the galaxy and fight. As Han Solo said in TFA "That's not how the force works!" And he destroyed the long standing Jedi and Sith tradition of "Always two there are, master and apprentice" Rey now has no training with no master. How is she the Last Jedi? I now understand why Mark Hamill said Disney should've listened to George Lucas.
And Disney approved Johnson for 3 brand new Star Wars trilogy. I am never going to see another Star Wars at theater.
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2/10
Every other Star Wars film is worse because of this terrible movie
I hated The Force Awakens. I hated the recycled plot points. I hated the sloppy, nonsensical Starkiller Base (how did that obviously-sub-lightspeed beam travel halfway across the galaxy from the Unknown Regions to the Hosnian System? how did Finn see the beam and planetary destruction in the daylight sky on Takodano, an entirely different *third* system? how did Finn know where Starkiller Base was, since it *had* to have moved, since it killed its native system's star to fire the first time?). That said, I liked Poe and Rey, looked forward to seeing Luke, and was interested in answers to questions set up by TFA. Where did Rey come from? What's Snoke's story? Who were the Knights of Ren? So, with low expectations, I sat down to watch The Last Jedi.
It's awful. I'm embarrassed for the director. I'm sad that good actors and decent characters - Rey, Poe, Luke, Kylo - were wasted on this farcical plot, about which much has already been written. Briefly, here are the highlights (lowlights?) of this film's many disappointments.
Where are the Y-Wings and B-Wings? Why are these bombers so slow?
The bombers are...dropping bombs, with gravity...in space?
Super-Leia? Mary Poppins Leia? Bonkers sequence.
If three TIE fighters can take out a capital ship's hangar and bridge in one pass, why don't they ever do it again?
Who thought making half the movie a low-speed chase through empty space was a fun idea?
Why doesn't the First Order just send part of its fleet on a short hyperjump to wait for the Resistance?
How do Finn and Rose - the equivalent of a pair of janitors - recognize thus-far-unknown advanced First Order tracking tech and immediately deduce how to stop it?
Once they do, why don't they immediately tell leadership? Why keep it a secret?
Wait, ghost-Yoda *can control the weather and call down huge lightning bolts?!* Dude! You should've done that on Endor, or Starkiller Base, or in Palpatine's or Snoke's throne room! Why'd you waste it on a dumb tree?! Literally billions of people are dying!
Wait, why did Luke die? He's fine! Nothing happened to him, except he used some bonkers interplanetary Force-projection power! Just like Padme, he simply dies for no discernible reason whatsoever! Maybe it's genetic.
Regarding the questions above about Rey, Snoke, and the Knights of Ren: Rey's a nobody, Snoke's origin remains unknown, and the Knights of Ren may as well have not existed. It's as if Rian Johnson simply wasn't interested in JJ Abrams little mystery nuggets from TFA.
Quick break for positives: Luke is fine, and Ahch-To is interesting (even though it's just a new version of Luke training on Dagobah with Yoda). Snoke is actually pretty cool, and the Kylo Ren/Rey team-up fight is good (even though it's just a new version of Luke facing the Emperor and Vader on Death Star 2). Poe is fine. The salt planet Crait is visually interesting. Umm...that's it.
Now: HERE'S HOW THIS MOVIE MADE THE FILMS THAT CAME BEFORE IT WORSE. Two reasons:
1) Holdo's kamikaze fleet-destroying hyperjump. If that's an effective strategy, then *why didn't she do it ten destroyed transports earlier?* Wait...*why didn't the other two support ships do it, instead of sitting there getting blasted?* WAIT...*why didn't anyone else do it, ever?* From Episode 1 to 6, there were *plenty* of great opportunities to take out a capital ship or a superweapon with a hyperspace jump. Shoot, you don't even have to sacrifice a pilot; just plop an R2 unit in an X-Wing or A-Wing, point it at a star destroyer, and punch it. This sequence changes space warfare strategy, and it's baffling that nobody would've even *thought* to try it before.
2) The original trilogy has no point and accomplished nothing. No successful marriage of Han and Leia. Luke didn't establish a new Jedi Order. The Rebellion didn't defeat the Empire and can now literally fit in a midsize freighter, which is its only remaining ship. Every victory from New Hope to Return of the Jedi is erased, and we know that Leia's going to bite it in the next film.
I don't care if this movie makes two billion dollars. Fact is, Disney killed Star Wars. RIP.
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7/10
An uneven film and a somehow different review from Greece.
I waited for the smoke to clear and , after hundreds of raging reviews from fans, I thought I'd write one as well.
I'm not a SW hardcore fan, I wouldn't care less if Luke had turned to the dark side himself. But this was an uneven film in every aspect. It seemed as it was written, filmed, processed and CGI-crafted by two (or three) entirely different teams:
Splendid CGI along with horrific plastic alien masks (clearly Luc Besons' team on Valerian would have done it better - and surely more imaginatively).
Engaging moments between characters along with atrocious lines.
A terrible misuse of the force: every mystery behind it trashed to the garbage bin.
Ray and Kylos' (and even Luke') stories well written while every other part of the plot thinner than paper.
And then it became clear:
It was not only the producers and Disney trying to milk the genre and merchandise stuff towards the new generation of 12years.
Noooo.... It was the director that written and directed Looper - a film that could have been (based on its idea) far much better...but didn't.
That sums it up.
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But then I would only give the Force Awakens 1 out of 10. This film has some truly hilarious moments in it... in the shaking my head laughing at the stupidity of the film. Some epic moments:
The film start with a telephone joke from Po. Its actually a well done gag but its totally immersion breaking for a film that is expecting its plot to be take seriously.
If Leia didn't want Po attacking the Dreadnought why did she allow the bombers to follow him in... were they all disobeying orders.. is Leia that bad a leader.
How does Leia get back from space when surely opening the door would have caused all the air to rush out (instead it appeared to rush in)
Why can't some of the First Order fleet jump in front of the fleeing resistance.
How can Finn leave the fleet and come back while its being pursued but the First order ships can't do similar.
Why is Po mutiny necessary, if she had just told him the plan.
Why is Po forgiven for his mutiny, didn't somebody get shot during it.
Can the first order really not detect a fleet of transport craft leaving the Cruiser... does that mean they couldn't detect fighters flying at them as well.
I'm sure there are more that slip my mind.
Terrible characters (the SJW is strong in this one):
Finn achieves nothing for another whole film just like he did in TFA... his side plot was ultimately pointless.
Hux is just a bad joke (have you noticed how the first order is lead entirely by white men)
The leaders of the resistance are terrible at doing there job... they can't lead or communicate (the good guys are lead by women... but if this is supposed to be an advert for female leadership it fails)
Po's character is attacked several times (presumably for being too male), belittling one of your hero's is a good choice by the writers. Then he has his mutiny and gets instantly forgiven for it (over the course of the film Leia treats him like a misbehaving child).
Snook's character is not developed or any background explained and he dies in a pathetic anti-climax.
Ray was improved from TFA where she was a total Mary Sue but she still turns Kylo (he can't kill Ray or Leia but Han was no problem), and of course she doesn't actually need Luke's help.
Kylo remains the worst antagonist ever... losing pretty much every encounter he has (I almost found myself routing for him the poor love).
As for Luke... you could really cry the way they ruined his legacy. How pathetic was he and even his grand entrance to save the day turned out to be an illusion that achieved next to nothing... excused with a poor plot point of delaying the attack on the base.
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1. Enjoying the moment: if you want to be entertained then this movie is great. Great visual effects, great fighting scenes and it does fix some of the "The Force Awakens" worst moments.
2. But if you are more interested in the story off Star Wars, plots, logic and the Wiki of all the new characters - then this one will disappoint you.
"The Last Jedi" is great directed but not written!
I think if you can compromise - this is a 7/10 movie.
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I'm not sure what the direction of this movie was going for. Everything that was mysterious in the TFA, is either belittled and tossed away, or executed poorly. Also, for a continuation of the Skywalker saga it felt misplaced as it leaves you confused and out of words, which is never a good thing for a Star Wars movie. However, as a movie, by itself, it is enjoyable and fun, but as a Star Wars movie, it is severly lacking in terms of a compelling mythical story, which the franchise is often associated with. I can also understand those who think that the franshise has been radically "disneyfied". Therefore, I left the theatre quite disappointed and I wonder how the next installment will ever redeem this trilogy.
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There are some really iconic moments in the movie. But it is cluttered with unnecessary "Disney" plots that do not serve any purpose to the story. The unnecessary Marvel jokes are funny but do not belong in a Star Wars movie. It is a good Sci-fi movie but the soul of Star Wars is slowly disappearing in the saga.
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9/10
One of the most emotionally heavy films in the entire Star Wars saga and easily one of the best in the franchise
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the second installment in the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the eighth "Episode" in the overall series. Written and directed by Rian Johnson (Looper), it is one of the most emotionally heavy films in the entire Star Wars saga and easily one of the best in the franchise.
As with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I will not be posting any type of synopsis or mention of plot elements at this time, as discussing even the slightest moment could potentially spoil this entire film. All I will say is that it takes place shortly after Force Awakens and I will leave it at that.
Like its predecessor, The Last Jedi does just about everything right in terms of storytelling and character development, a far cry from George Lucas's prequel trilogy. The acting is strong and packs just the right amount of emotional impact a Star Wars film should. Practical effects and on-location sets are shown more frequently and CGI is only used when absolutely necessary. One common criticism some had with Force Awakens was that it retread too many moments in other Star Wars films and felt unoriginal, however, in this film, there are several surprises and twists involving with some character's actions and their backstories that will likely come as a shock to many viewers. I still believe that the Star Wars series is in safe hands with Disney and I am already highly anticipating the release of Episode IX.
I rate it a solid 9/10
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Saw this movie last night in Belgium, part of a movie marathon with The Force Awakens. I found The Last Jedi to be just what a Star Wars movie should be. There's epic battles, great emotion, well done humour and some nice twists and turns. Acting was really top notch and it really did not go the way we were all thinking.
That being said, of course there are things that could be better or that definitely will raise some criticism. My main negative is that the subplot with Finn is a bit of an odd part and while I understand why they added this, it felt a bit out of place. There seemed little to no time to expand on all the new characters, they seem to come and go a bit quickly.
There will be a lot of criticism about Snoke and Leia and the way Luke handles certain things, but thinking about it some more, I really don't think it's bad. Snoke may come off as a little underwhelming, but that's more to underline how impressively powerful Kylo Ren is and at the same time explains why Luke, being the greatest Jedi of his time, reacted as he did when he saw the darkness taking over Ben Solo. The part with Leia and space still feels a bit odd, but I suppose they handled it this way to emphasize how strong the force is in Leia too, again explaining how powerful Kylo Ren is.
Looking forward to seeing it again.
5 out of 26 found this helpful.
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I will keep this review spoiler free but from start to finish the movie keeps you guessing. Characters still relatively new to the Star Wars franchise become really something in this movie. If any doubts were had as to where this trilogy was headed all doubts are gone.
Now I wouldn't say its as good as Empire but its still very up there in terms of Star Wars movies. The action was great right from the start with some of the greatest space combat this series has ever had.
The movie takes some very interesting twist and turns and leaves you wanting more. Mark Hamill's return to the franchise for more than just an ending scene was great as well. Every scene he had was very memorable.
Many of us grew up with the original trilogy and have carried it with us and always watched it throughout our lives and held it in the highest regard. This new trilogy is so far brilliant for bringing new people into the franchise and a great trilogy for a new generation.
I would easily give it 10/10 being one of the most enjoyable experiences ive had with a movie in years and look forward to many future watches.
My movie experience with this was amazing and im sure yours will be too so if you haven't seen it already, you are missing out. Take the time and watch the movie, you definitely won't regret it.
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We are finally far from the utter blandness and laziness of "the force awakens", which was kinda painful to watch at times. This second chapter is definitely more fluent and rich, enjoyable even to me, who knows something about the saga but is far from being an hardcore fan
. The visuals are gorgeous, with bright reds and incredible palettes, the battles are epic, even if the story basically revolves around the usual schemes and some parts are weaker than others .I can see something popping out tho, there is a distinct identity that I missed in j.jabrams movie and that I gladly found in here.
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I had massive hopes going into this movie. I could quote Star Wars before I could run. For me, Star Wars was how I related to my dad, how we communicated. Now, as a film student, Star Wars has become a point of contention. My classmates don't have time for this kind of popularist enternatiment, despite my attempts to change them.
In comes The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson, one of all time favourite writers and directors was given the mantle of a new Star Wars. I was beyond excited. I was manic. In rolls the title scrawl and from that moment I was hooked. This is a film made my a die hard fan and it shows in every scene. The amount of twists and turns keeps you rooted to your seat. True, there are scenes in the film that shouldn't be there, if written by a lesser writer. The fact that there are moments that make my inner geek happy to be alive proves that new CAN be epic.
I've read some terrible reviews of the film, and every one makes me sad because those people decided to ignore how amazing this film truly is. This film cannot ruin your childhood. In fact it might just make a whole new generation of Star Wars fans.
This is the new bar for what Star Wars can be. Embrace it. And it will make you all the more richer.
5 out of 29 found this helpful.
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After having read some of the user reviews here, I did my best to stop getting my hopes up, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. Entertaining to the core, this movie has sharp graphics, some clever plot twists, and is action packed. There were a few moments here and there when it moved a bit slowly, and the dialogue was lacking, but those elements were few and far between. This one was absolutely worth the money to experience in IMAX 3D.
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7/10
Well, not the one that I expected (a little bit disappointing to me as a huge Star Wars fan), but hey, at least it doesn't just copy "Empire Strikes Back!"
But some elements from the original trilogy (especially "Empire Strikes Back") will still remain recognizable to fanboys and fangirls from all around the globe such as the giant-but-ineffectively-slow-four-legged-metal walkers, the attack on white-hued-rebel/resistance-base planet, the stranded Jedi Master in a faraway uncharted sacred planet (both are running away from the war to find the best way to die peacefully), the last Jedi candidate training with the said Jedi Master, the reckless way the last Jedi candidate to avoid his/her friends/allies/loved-ones form certain death in the hand of the enemy by stupidly facing of the main force behind the Darkside (directly) while he/she isn't even ready yet (for their training is incomplete), the union of the aforementioned Jedi Master with the Force, and of course, the attempt of the rebel/resistance to escape from the empire/first order reach that happens from the beginning of the movie until the closing credits.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one big weakness of this movie: why does this movie have to be a run-and-chase movie in the outer space? Isn't Star Wars called Star Wars because there are WARS among the stars between good and evil instead of just running away hopelessly just to survive? I mean, sure "Empire Strikes Back" did the same (that's why it's not my favorite Star Wars movie despite everyone saying it as the best Star Wars movie, though it's not bad) but at least in "Empire Strikes Back" the rebels are running not for the sake of survival, but to prepare for their next great (and final) assault against the evil force (in "Return of the Jedi") for they were assembling their massive fleet somewhere among the stars before warping their asses out right in front of the main villain's latest hideout. But in this movie, almost the entire portion of the conflict (or war) happens during the chase-and-run-away scene when the supreme leader's massive mega star destroyer (FYI, the name of the mothership is "Supremacy", which fits the tone of the latest darklord, which is kinda awesome and badass for a name!) where the big-ass ship keeps firing on Leia's fleet without the latter has any kind of power to fight back.
But, despite the slow-paced plot the writers pulled on us, there are several awesome scenes worth to be highlighted like Admiral Holdo's fearless sacrifice, Luke's display of one of his force powers that shows viewers the level of his connectivity with the Force, Rey-Ren duo against the royal guards, Master Yoda's (yes people, he's back!) wise teaching and the degree of his force power, and, the last one that I personally think worth mentioning, Kylo Ren's shirtless hot body (no homo).
Oh, I forgot to mention of how MCU has an influence on this movie regarding the jokes, the kind that the previous Star Wars movies didn't have, which I think, elevates the value and scoring/rating of the movie and helps to lighten up the dark tone this franchise had since it's very first movie.
Well, I hope the next (and final) installment of this new Star Wars trilogy doesn't just fix and cover the weakness that belong to this movie, but also become the perfect and satisfying closing of the war between good and evil for total control of the torn up galaxy, just like "Return of the King" did to the Lord of the Rings saga
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SWTLJ definitely has a different tone than rest of SW episodes.
It is packed with a lot of action, but it also has a drag part (all summed around 30min) .
It is clear to me now that Disney wants to "slowly" reboot the saga.
I can't blame them tho.
The force awakens was a letdown in a way, but I realised that that force awakens just sets the new tone for Star wars saga, and therefore I see FA from a different perspective now.
I'm a fan, but not a fanboy, so I will try to clearly point out why the movie is good, and why it's bad.
Without further ado, let's start.
As I said tone of TLJ is different, some might find it odd.
The beginning of the movie was action paked, but also felt disconnected from ending of the force awakens.
To clarify, it does start where FA ends, but changes a setting a bit.
It keeps audience on the edge all in all, but drags a bit.
There are some, in lacking of better word, amateur mistakes.
I'll point them out spoiler free for now:
-odd, kinda forced plot twists.
-lack of explanation for some major plot points (I'll explain this in spoiler part down bellow)
-pacing issues
Good points are visible if you are open minded, and if you want to see the new perspective of saga.
I don't want to list them here, because I would like it for you to see it for yourself.
SPOILERS BELOW -----------------------
So ... wtf was Snokes role in all of this ...
Amazing villain build was shanked with a lightsaber throu ass... littleraly.
I really try hard to see bigger picture here.
Ben solo is a amazing caracter and even better villain.
But there must have been a better way to make him main villain than this.
That was the part that needs explanation.
Pace of new "romantic" sub-plot was odd.
The thing that im trying to understand is how Rey became a jedi master-like powerful with couple of days of training?
She, in some way, literally defeated Luke in one on one combat!
Hope the pacing gets better in next movie.
I would give this a lower score, but it was amazingly fun.
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The Last Jedi is a very good star wars movie. It may not be the best ever but it is much much better than "Force Awakens" and one of the best sequel movie after the original trilogy.
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Unlike most of the reviewers on this site, who hated this movie, I love and deeply enjoyed this movie. Director Rian Johnson challenged and played off of all the ideas and expectations of star wars fans, and creates a unique story. The visuals of the movie are only matched by the emotional weight and character development. The only negative thing I would have to say about The Last Jedi is the too many comedy moments don't land. Some moments feel like a generic marvel movie. There is too much tongue in cheek humor, where it is not needed. Despite the comedic lows of this movies, the highs meet and exceed expectations. I highly recommend and would put it in my top 5 star wars movies of all time. I would also like to add one last thought... This movie is not perfect... and the original trilogy isn't perfect either... the idea behind all these movies is the experience we feel when we watch them. These movies are suppose to fun, enjoyable, and grand. I think you will find all these traits in this resent expansion on the star wars universe.
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9/10
Imagination is a wondrous thing...but the response just shows the age of cinema we're living in
I woke up this morning to the surprising disbelief of an incredible wave of backlash and overly-sensitive "bitching" towards a movie which I saw last night and have since felt incredibly excited and moved by.
In respect to the entitlement of all people's opinions, I still have yet to be convinced by the cult-like hatred towards this picture, that seems to be quite unfair and truly disrespectful towards a vision that many fans appear to be confused and insulted by. Fans claiming and justifying it's awfulness as if I am not even allowed to enjoy this movie. This is leaving me dumbfounded and absolutely confused.
Whatever the unjustified consensus of disappointment is, what I experienced last night was a spectacularly cinematic follow-up and an almost orgasmic orchestration of Sci-Fi adventure and momentous climax entertainment, built-up with such filmmaking quality and high-brow entertainment, it had me in applause.
Truly, I was taken back by the brilliance of where Rian Johnson took this story. If anything, Episode 8 could've been somewhat stretched out in moments, to focus and hone in on the true emotion of the characters fully. But how it plays out naturally is still as epic as any episode in the saga's history.
And really if we're going to talk about reliable opinions, it's funny how critics, moviegoers who get paid to watch and review movies week-by-week in a professional context, without bias, have agreed to critical acclaim compared to that of the many apparent fanboys whining and nitpicking useless and unnecessary details including mythological story-points that most true moviegoers and critics don't even look twice at.
What seems to be clear is how we approach movies. Do we go in hoping it's a culmination of everything we'd personally hoped for and expected, or do we just simply go in to enjoy a cinematic experience? It's clear what's more important. But the way cinema is going, and the way humanity is progressing in the projection and perception of this medium, I'm not surprised.
Imagination is a wondrous thing, but in observations of all this unexpected, overly-cruel, and undeserving backlash of a movie I very much enjoyed, it just shows me the time we're living in and that which is currently appreciated in cinema.
Whatever it is we had hoped or expected The Last Jedi to be, based upon my vast movie-going experiences over the decades, Star Wars The Last Jedi, in terms of cinematic experience, stands as one of the most entertaining movies of the year, hands down.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I know quality when I see it and Episode 8 captures everything I hope for in movies and in the cinema, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again and again over the Christmas holiday season. May the Force Be with You!
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Seriously! Go see this movie. You'll enjoy it. I'm almost 50. I've seen them all.
Too many sensitive and critical people review this and are driving the rating down. That's too bad. Wahhhhh. I think people forgot what a whimp Luke was in every single episode right up until the end. Always whining and needing to be pushed.
Go back and watch. Give me a break. Leia was always stronger. This film is full of surprises. It had a lot more comedy than I would have expected, but maybe the jokes just landed better than the cheesy jokes in the older films (sorry George). There's a ton of scenes that will put a nice heartwarming smile on your face and a bunch that will make you go WOW! I plan on seeing it again!
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To all angry Star Wars fans saying this is a shitty movie, are you OK? This movie was a great mix of jokes and serious stuff. It is unique and is for me even better than TFA. After the movie it left me thinking and it is the only Star Wars movie that did that. It is long yet not boring or forced. For me this is one of my favourite Star Wars movies of all time and i think it is a must-see.
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The last jedi is not a usual star wars movie. It will not please the DIE-HARD-NOTHING-IS-EVER-GOOD-AS-THE-ORIGINAL-TRILOGY fans (as nothing ever will), but it will please almost everyone else. The force awakens presented a new vision of the Star Wars universe, but unlike the prequel trilogy (that had it's good sides), felt and looked like Star Wars. So logically, The last jedi continued down that path.
I will try and be modest and say that we are in fact facing the best Star Wars movie since The empire strikes back. Without that modesty (and with disrespect towards Episode V), I can state that this could be the best Star Wars movie ever made.
It is not just a great continuation of the story, it feels like a whole new segment in the entire SW cannon. Not only does it perfectly combine the story the prequels presented with the original trilogy, it actually showed us what the aftermath of all of those stories was. Herein lies the true emotional weight of the movie that is by far its strongest point. Also, such emotion driven story lines and the overall impact those emotions had on the viewer are unseen in any Star Wars movie to date. So, it fits perfectly within the now well established saga.
The acting is something that does not really change from the Force awakens. Ridley, Boyega and Isaac all execute their roles in fine manner and should be respected for it. But the ones that really stole the movie were Driver, Hamill and Fisher. Driver's portrayal of Kylo Ren in this installment has much more depth and most of his actions have a well explained cause. His persona is what we all wanted for so long - he is what Anakin should have been like in the prequels. He is a villain that Star Wars needs, now that the legendary Darth Vader is dead. Considering that is not an easy task, Drivers surgically precise and flawless portrayal is astounding. Hamill stole every scene he was in. Not is he is a great actor, he actually has a great understanding of what his character is going through. Even though it seems far from what he was like in the original trilogy, there are scenes, and a well placed cameo, that show us has he not changed much as a character. The same weaknesses and fears are still present within him, and whether we like it or not he is only human. Also, the way the movie ends is the most powerful and emotional scene in movie history (and I say that without any restraint). Fisher gave a much needed mother like and comforting character that highlights all of the Resistance scenes. She is a warm and emotional character, something of an Angel to all of the Resistance fighters. It is interesting that she understood that and portrayed Leia in what is surely the best portrayal of that character ever. As this was her final role, all that we can say is she will be remembered as one of the most heartwarming characters of the entire movie. Certain newcomers did a good job, had their fun but, honestly, nothing to really praise.
On the other hand, the direction and screenplay were ALMOST flawless. The way Johnson tells the story, perfectly cutting from scene to scene, giving us a decent (not great) sense of simultaneous development shows his skills as a director and a screenwriter (which is also shown in the perfectly fitted humorous scenes and dialogue). Unfortunately, the Finn part of the movie was a bit long, dragged and with questionable necessity. It's main problem was the fact it tried to say a lot in a short period of time, and resulted in feeling a bit overstuffed. Also, certain characters could have been developed more (e.g. Snoke, Holdo, DJ). Still, Johnson shows us exactly what all of us want to see, just the way we want to see it. It is clear that he understands Star Wars to it's very core.
Considering the music, I can only say it is the best work Williams has done in decades. Oscar worthy.
All in all, if approached with the notion that a continuation of a new saga is at hand and the fact that the original trilogy will never be made again, everyone will enjoy this movie to their very bone. If you disliked The force awakens, this could be the turning point movie for you. If you loved The force awakens, you will worship this movie. It does everything to respect the original trilogy, it recognizes the prequels' story, and it manages to tell it's own, developing a new and original one. Not many movies can do this, and a decent amount of respect must be shown.
May the Force be with you.
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This is the second star wars movie that I have seen in theaters, beginning with the force awakens. I am too young to know what it is like to watch the original trilogy in a real theater, but I enjoyed myself greatly seeing The Last Jedi with a large excited star wars crowd.
I have seen all of them, but this one is the fourth best after the original trilogy. If you are someone that was disappointed with the prequels and the other two, this movie is good enough and might just recover your faith in the series. Rian Johnson did a great job directing this, and it was wonderful to see Carrie Fisher for the first time on a big screen.
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I read a few bad reviews lurking around so I thought I'd give my two cents.
I think all those who think this movie ruined their childhood are morons. In fact the reason you fail to recognize the beauty of this movie is the essence of what movie is about.
It's about change, going beyond, off with the old, on with the new.
It's a direct call to everyone to say: "Let go of the past and move on". And it's such a smart and ballsy move. If they didn't go their own way a whole bunch of you would say it's too much like the old one. (Pretty much like a lot have been whining about The force Awaken).
People deconstruct things in a weird way. I didn't like the subplot here and this character there wasn't deep enough... You should look at the big picture. What's the underlying meaning behind it.
Personally, I thought the movie used great metaphors to illustrate profound meaning about our internal battle between sorrows and hate and hope and love. We all have this internal battle and it's about making peace with it. To promote the good stuff you need to make peace with the bad stuff and face it straight on.
It touches almost religious subjects and is much less Manichean than the original trilogy. In my opinion this is far superior in intelligence and depth than the original ones. You'll just have to make do with the fact it's different.
I'll watch it again a few times I think.
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10/10
FANTASTIC!!!! Unpredictableand Amazing Movie!!!!THE BEST STAR WARS MOVIE
Fantastic....so fantastic...... From the beginning until the end of movie is fantastic!!!! Ryan johnson is amazing!!!! I love the ending of movie... Luke skywalker the greatest ever character in star wars!!!! Fantastic...
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9/10
Bad ending, but one of the most entertaining SW films
No spoilers from me but I read some of the negative reviews here and I think these people had written their own movie in their head before going to see this. I did not and therefore enjoyed it greatly for what it is.
Just a little background; I stood in line for 2 hours in Times Square on day one to see the first SW on May 25, 1977. I was 15 years old and went on to see the film 15 times that year. Star Wars is a fantasy. It does not need to conform to my particular feelings and emotions about the individual characters. I enjoy it for what it is. If you feel the same, then go and enjoy this because it is one of the most entertaining Star Wars films of all... may be... just may be better than The Empire Strikes Back.
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8/10
It's not the Star Wars you know and love. That doesn't automatically mean it's bad.
1. This will be subject to change, greatly. A lot happens.
2. Loved the subversion of expectations. Going in, nobody wanted this to be a rehash of Empire. Well, the film starts out very similar in structure to it. Right when I was about to lose faith, well, "This is not going to go the way you think."
A lot of what we thought was being set up gets thrown right back into our faces. For me, this wound up being the least formulaic and predicatble Star Wars movie. Some is great, some doesn't work so much. I'm happy they took the risks, though.
3. On that same note: They made a freaking Star Wars movie without a proper lightsaber duel! And it went just fine! Impressive. Most impressive.
4. I thought Kylo's character arc was outstanding for the first two hours, but his final reversion back to - what appears to be - pure evil just felt a little flat, to me. The movie presented him as, by far, the most complex Star Wars villain yet, and sort of failed to deliver on it all after the Snoke scene. Still a ton of potential moving forward, though.
5. The Luke/Rey/Kylo island scenes all worked perfectly for me. They carried what was an otherwise slow middle of the film.
6. I also enjoyed Leia's passing of the torch to Poe as resistance leader. It was a completion of a great character arc for him, and obviously needed moving forward.
7. The reveal of Rey's parents was perfect. Just perfect. They avoided the shitstorm that would have come down if yet another Skywalker/Solo is introduced, yet they made the reveal greatly important, and true, to the theme of Rey's character. The reveal, which could have so easily fallen flat, had a ton of weight to it. Well done.
8. Mark Hamill. Show stealing stuff.
Some cons:
8. Finn's storyline was bad. It wasn't all that interesting, the casino setpiece can be fired off into the sun for all I care, and it didn't do a great job of building on what we already knew about his character. It felt like a big waste.
9. The first hour, as mentioned, was so structurally similar to Empire that most of it ranged between cheesy and dull. Again, this may change on second viewing, as the many subversions that came after really pulled it out of the fire. Still, the early segments are loaded with cheesy dialogue, puzzling character choices, and humor at every turn. Some of it works, mind you, but a great deal misfires.
10. The whole "Good guys running away from the bad guys" extended plot device was, again, done so much better and more interesting in Empire. It really ruined the first half of this movie. We've seen it before, it doesn't even really make sense for the situation (Why, exactly, can't the first order just speed up, penetrate the shields, and destroy them? They seemed to destroy the bridge of the flagship just fine), and just serves to extend a movie that already has a ton of better content.
11. Speaking of the flagship bridge scene.... that Leia scene..... just why? Hated that. That's some prequel level shit right there.
Lots of good, some very real bad. Overall, I thought the twists and big emotional moments of the movie all hit, big time. Most of my gripes are all contained within the first hour. The Last Jedi gets better as it goes on and rids itself of that Empire Strikes Back shell. Once it stands on its own feet, it does a pretty darn good job.
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*I really recommend watching the force awakens and The Last Jedi, back to back.*
The movie started very interesting, the resistance had to evacuate their base after their attack on Starkiller base and are surprised with an attack from the Firstorder. Poe is trying to distract the Firstorders fleet so that the resistance could escape.
This movie is all about character development. We see the heroes from the force awakens deal with some serious problems that impact the survival of the resistance and the Jedi. The movie gave us some clarity on the questions we had leaving the theatre after the force awakens. I really liked the reveal of Rey's parents and how Ben Solo became Kylo Ren.
I have to confess that I thought the first bit of the movie went really slow. but after some time the force awakened and the movie really kicked off!
I think this movie has a very strong story and that it's very appealing to a new generation of fans. Because let's be fair, these movies are made for the new generation of Star Wars fans. The Last Jedi really makes you like the new characters but the old characters even more. The way this movie portrays Leia and Luke's relationship is very powerful. Leia misses her brother but won't let this stand in the way of her objective. Just as the Leia we know from the original trilogy.
The story of Kylo and Rey, I think, is really interesting! It's a little bit like the story of Vader and Luke in Ep.6 but with a different outcome. I really liked it and this story gave us an amazing scene with an awesome twist at the end. And I really hope J.J. explores this story further is Ep.9.
The final showdown gave me Goosebumps. Finally, we could see our hero Luke Skywalker back in action! We saw how much Luke's skills with a lightsaber and his mastery of the force have grown. I really like to see new ways of using the power of the force and how the force can connect to everything. Just like Obi-wan said in Ep.4: 'the force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.'
Think about it.
Is this movie perfect? No it's not. But can a movie ever be perfect? There will always be people who like it and people who didn't and that's the beauty of it all. Now there are enough Star Wars movies for everyone to like. Everyone has his/her own favourite star wars movie and their favourite character.
I think this is an awesome and interesting movie and I can't wait to see how they'll end this trilogy!
Loved it!
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Star Wars has never delivered excellent stories for me. Cool mythos, great universe and characters, but having grown up with the films, it's difficult to remember a time before I knew Darth Vader was Luke's father, before we knew how the Jedi order fell, before we all understood that the concept of telling the ending of your story first means the prequels cannot surprise you. The Force Awakens told a familiar story with unfamiliar characters, stayed safe to deliver in other areas. The Last Jedi has taken the most important step it could, has become thirtyonly Star Wars movie which contains subversive plot twists, important subplots, strong and unique thematic storytelling and acting, and in doing so has left fans flabbergasted. It's almoat as if many didn't see that leaving the old and embracing the new is a cental theme of the film. Nor have they understood it's been apparently over thirty years since this series had the ability to surprise them.
The movie is by no means perfect, but it's subversion of expectation deserves nothing but props in my book. The first five minutes are more emotional than all of Rogue One, putting it even further to shame; the acting (Oscar Issac and Adam Driver in particular) is powerful and perfectly sells the space opera genre the films belong in; Kylo Ren evolves from a somewhat interesting outline into the most impressive character in Star Wars within a single film; Mark Hammil sells Luke's age and degredation as well as could have been hoped for; the action balances grit and weight wirh flair expertly, delivering unique and exciting character-driven spectacle. And it's all tied together with the first story in a Star Wars movie that has you truly guessing what might happen next, and reacting when something unexpected and real punches you in the face.
Kudos to the team at Disney and Lucasfilm for finally, after two attempts, breathing their own kind of life into Star Wars. These are unpopular steps, clearly, but there is a brave product here to be found, and one which I enjoyed a great deal.
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10/10
"Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi" - An Amazing Addition to Star Wars Universe
The Last Jedi. Also titled as "Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi"
Honestly, I wasn't expecting this movie to be great.
Interestingly, this is now my favorite Star Wars film ever made. I'm not BS you. I
Superb acting from start to finish. Superb effects from start to finish.
More than ever we, Star Wars fans, get what we deserve.
Only a genuine passion could've made a movie like this one.
Very layered and very introspective. It's great.
I can't wait to see this movie for the second time. I rarely do this for movies.
Everyone is great. Kylo Ren is now officially the best Star Wars baddie.
Sure, there are some flaws, but none of them are fundamental.
Unintentionally or not, but there is a lot of humor in this movie, and it's amazing.
Carefully crafted and made, TLJ proves why Disney is at the top of their game.
Knowing in which direction Disney is going, Star Wars is at the safe hands.
So, I don't know what else to say without spoiling the movie. It's just so good.
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First thing first, let me tell you that I absolutely, unabashedly LOVE this movie. This is the best Star Wars film we ever had. No question there. Sure, the original films were fun, nothing wrong with that. But they were all, you know, kind of goofy, over-the-top, and unbalanced. This, however, is the opposite of that. This movie makes the original trilogy look like cheap school play. But again, I'm not saying that the original films are bad. They're just pale in comparison to this new one. Rian Johnson is a master of his craft. He's a true genius that deserves all the praise he gets. A true mastermind. A true filmmaker who understands what people want. He made the best movie of the past decade. And we, true Star Wars fans, should be thankful him for that. The characters in here are the best in the series. Snoke and Luke are, unarguably, the most interesting, multi-layered characters in the Star Wars universe. Heck, I can say that they are one of the most interesting characters, period. All in all, this movie is amazing on all accounts. You should watch it, and you should love it.
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10/10
Haven't enjoyed a movie so much in a very, very long time.
To be completely honest, I feared that this episode might be something that would ruin SW universe for me, but I've never been more wrong. "The Force Awakens" seems dull and bleak compared to this one.
It is clever, well-tailored and genuine. Heroes and viallins, and those who are somewhere inbetween, cinematography, dialogues and music make you feel overwhelmed and fill you with odd admiration. I left the cinema with warmth in my heart. Thank you for this experience!
P.S. Rose is my new favourite character. You'll see what I'm talking about.
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This movie is already being criticised and largely hated as people declare "Disney has killed Star Wars' "This isn't the Star Wars we all love" I myself was sad watching the movie, not because the movie was bad but because I knew people wouldn't understand why this film is so important and what a genius thing Rian did with the universe of Star Wars as a whole. Yes this is the end of Star Wars as we know, and the bold new step into something new and exciting. It's no longer just the dark side vs the light this film ingeniously throws that black and white morality out the window in one harsh move and declares that Star Wars is evolving into something deeper. This is a movie that can very easily be spoiled but the spoilers aren't superficial like someones parentage or secret name instead the spoilers are the things that set off this change in vision. This is all summarised in Kylo Ren who in this film evolves into the most fascinating Star Wars villain we've ever seen it's as he said in the trailer "let the past die, kill it if you have to its the only way to become what you were meant to be" and thats what Rian Johnson does here, he lays Star Wars to rest only for it to rise again more spectacular than ever. The old Star Wars bows out in some of the most beautiful scenes we've seen in the franchise with Luke and Leia both having their finest hour. It was indeed time for the Jedi to end and for something new to be born and continue the legacy of the galaxy far far away. Let's just hope they find someone a little more interesting than Rey to do it because unfortunately she is the biggest weak link and any semblance of character she had is dropped and she is now the Mary Sue we all feared her to be, this is a negative in an otherwise wonderful cast of interesting characters. In conclusion Last Jedi is not the best Star Wars film but it will be the most important one for decades to come and I sense that all the backlash it's getting for having the courage to do something new and controversial will one day turn into the admiration I and many others feel as we see this movie for what it is.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is EPIC!!!
SO AMAZING AND BRILLIANT!!!
WHAT A GREAT MOVIE!!! 10/10!!!
Love it so much!!!
Luke Skywalker is a SAVAGE!!!
Mark Hamill's performance is SO EXCELLENT!!!
WHAT A GREAT ACTOR!!!
WHAT A LEGEND!!!
Thank you so much to everyone involved in making this masterpiece!!!
May The Force Be With You!!!
#StarWars #TheLastJedi
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As long as you keep an open mind, and have no pre conceived view of how a star wars movie should be like, this is a great piece of work. And it also got George Lucas's approval. i suspect many negative comments made here are by people who haven't actually watch the entire movie. the same negative reviews and comments appear in episode 7, and heck ep 1,2,3..
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I was once a big fan of Star Wars and grew up even watching the Ewoks movies. The Phantom Menace came out and I wasn't as disappointed as most people because as much as the movie had its major issues, the lightsaber duel we got was a first of its kind on film and it made it worth paying for. Episode II was unwatchable and because of how terrible it was, took me time to finally watch Episode III. I gave up on Star Wars because of the Prequels, or maybe I just grew out of it.
Then came the Force Awakens and it was a retelling of the Original Trilogy. Too many problems to list, but the Last Jedi, for me was the "Last" time I'd give Star Wars another chance and at the Fan Event last night wholly smokes it made me feel for Star Wars again. Maybe it was nostalgia or it was the POSSIBILITIES of the future of Star Wars that makes this movie worth watching and you'll know what I mean when you see it.
Unlike TFA, I'm connecting with the new characters now (except for Rose, maybe IX will be better for her), for the first time I finally see who Kylo Ren is rather than just another "sith guy". I didn't care for Rey before, but now I do. It was funny and what critics have said is true. The only complaint I had was that it was TOO LONG, BUT isn't that what we all wanted? Didn't we always wish for that in the past, but now what we have it it's a problem? Come on lighten up and maybe it's not the Empire Strikes Back, but I agree with others that it's right up there.
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The Last Jedi takes its viewers on a stunning journey, from despair to hope. I think many reviewers here are being negative because this journey is different from what they expected, but that's what gives this installment of Star Wars its vibrancy.
So many of the characters are trying to figure out who they are, and what their role is, from Poe's desire to be the flashy hero, which recklessly costs lives, to Luke's deep pain at his own personal failure, which has cost the universe its freedom. In this mix, Rey is trying to find purpose to her life, and Kylo Ren, like Anakin before him, attempts to solve the universe's problems with a lightsaber. Finn and Rose go on their own, seemingly pointless journey, but the last scenes of the film highlight that theirs was perhaps the most important in the film.
This question of purpose is what the film tackles thematically; how do we move forward? Do we need to cut all ties with the past, and reinvent ourselves? Do we need to find some sort of hazy truce between what is good and bad? In our postmodern world, is there even a good or bad? And while no answer is definitely given, we can cheer as hope returns, sacrifices are made, and the universe is given something to fight for.
Plus, it is highlighted that failure is part of life, and your past victories are not diminished by your failures, neither does failing once condemn you to a life of failure.
Mark Hamill was awesome as Luke, worth the price of admittance alone.
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I went to see it last night and all I'm seeing is so many people panning the film like it was the worst piece of work ever done under the Star Wars saga banner.
There is no intention of spoiling the film for any potential viewers but all I can say is that you need to remind yourself why you wanted to see it in the first place.
Now it's hard for me to objective about it because I was 7 years old when I went to see the original and have been an avid fan for the past 40 years but the whole purpose of a review IS to be subjective as it's solely your opinion on the film, nobody else should influence you into making a decision about what you expect from a movie. All I can say is that it met almost all the expectations I had and nothing will change that.
When I fell in love with the Star Wars universe I was a child, it gave me an opportunity to escape from being a schoolboy on planet Earth and drift off into a place that triggered marvellous things in my imagination, made me want to want to be a part of it and experience it, I absorbed it and let it invoke emotions in me through the entire spectrum that it could possibly have done. I was never interested in how great the script was, or the political messages behind the film or how hammy an actor was.
So 40 years go by and I don't expect anything else from a Star Wars movie other than going through a gamut of emotion and being awestruck by the special effects and John Williams' mastery in film score writing.
It appears that people expect something that NONE of the other films were and will never be happy unless it becomes a serious story in it's own right. It was always meant to be a story for children ( the highest classification any of the movies ever had was PG-13) and to bring back the inner child for a few hours for the adults that go and watch it.
So be a child again, bring your children if you have any and just turn the clock back, sit back and let it remind you of why you are sitting there in the first place
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10/10
My Favorite Star Wars Film, and I have been watching all of them for 40 years.
I am not a die-hard fan that has read all of the books, so I can see why some would dislike this movie. It does have a Marvelesque feel to it, but the Marvel movies make tons of money and they also make people happy, so what's wrong with that?
As for the merch haters, come on, George Lucas started that whole business. Star Wars makes way more money on their merchandise than on the selling of the movies. I'm looking forward to my crystal fox.
Another complaint is that they overdo it on preachiness. I guess I'm just so used to that in today's cinema (Avatar, cough cough) that it just doesn't bother me that much. The original Star Wars had their preachy moments as well.
I hated TFA. I thought it was the exact same story that we've seen 1000 times. I loved this movie. Writers make all of the difference. For the first time in forever they were doing something other than blowing up a death star. I thought the movie was very original, and I guess that is where a lot of the hate is coming from. People feel that it is not true to the original story.
Even the haters admit that this movie is visually stunning. The salt world is the best world that I've seen in all of Star Wars. The battle scene is beautiful and artistic.
Big Spoiler Alert:
People were very disappointed about Luke. Obi-Wan goes into hiding. Yoda goes into hiding, but heaven forbid Luke go into hiding. Luke considers killing the bad guy before he does anything bad-and people fault him for this. It's that great moral dilemma-do we kill Hitler when he is a baby to prevent WWII? Do we enact a Minority Report? So Luke has a moment of this and we feel that Rian has ruined Luke's character? So yeah, haters gonna hate, but I loved this movie. It was my favorite Star Wars film and I love everything Star Wars. I'm a huge Star Wars Geek, but apparently not geeky enough to dislike this movie.
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No spoilers here, But I just walked out of the theatre thinking that this is my new favorite Star Wars movie, even above Empire Strikes Back.
The depth of Kylo Ren's character, the strength of Rey, the Awesome light sabre battles, Luke Skywalker being THE Legendary Jedi Master, and Just kicking so much ass in the coolest way possible. The interaction between Rey, and Kylo, and Snoke.... Action, suspense, and great characters. Not only was it a great action movie, but the characters were well developed, and interesting.
It wasn't perfect... there's a really goofy scene with Leia, that's just really bad, but aside from that one little hiccup... Wow, I was blown away.
I need some time to digest this, and reflect a little more objectively, but at this moment... The Last Jedi is my favorite Star Wars movie!
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After J.J Abrams eased fans back into the franchise with the force awakens, Rian Johnson delivers what could take possibly be the best instalment in the Star Wars saga. As the credits rolled the cinema I was sat in sat in a stunned silence at the pure brilliance of this film. It contains everything that makes Star Wars great whilst bringing a fresh take on the new universe. Gritty action scenes and magnificent dialogue brought together by stellar performances from the cast, past and present, have crafted not just the best star wars film but also one of the best films period
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This episode was so different, new and unique to all the others. Absolutely loved it. Rian Johnson is a talented director but also a talented writer. And it really shows!!!!!!
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Rian Johnson is a genius, I can't say enough good about this Episode!! He took predictability and threw it out the window.
The humor was spot on, the acting was the best out of all the Star Wars movies.
Twists and turns to make M. Night go "OMG"
So many moments that had my theater cheering and clapping. This truly is one of the best, right next to Empire.
When The Force Awakens came out, all of you same people on here were complaining about it rehashing everything from ANH. Now an Episode comes out that is all in a league of its own and you still whine and complain. Shame.
Taking a big franchise movie and giving a Director like Rian Johnson complete freedom is AMAZING!! Something special came out, everyone needs to open their eyes and hearts to this tremendous entry in this beloved saga.
8.1 rating is way to low for this entry. It will rise when true Star Wars fans review it.
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Rian Johnson definitely broke the mold that every other Star Wars movie fit into, but he kept the heart of the franchise intact. I think he created the perfect balance between creating something very new and bold and continuing the classic Star Wars story. Without a doubt The Last Jedi has some flaws, but overall it was a stunning story. I'm giving it the full 10 stars because despite the low moments, because it is a beautiful work of art and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Now for specifics:
*Spoilers*
What I Didn't Like:
Finn and Rose's side mission. It happens as the Resistance is fleeing and running out of time, yet they have to sneak out, go to a planet, find a code breaker, fly back, sneak into Snoke's Ship, disable a tracking device, and sneak back off. It's way too complicated, especially with the 'time crunch', and of course when they're on the planet they have these 'hero moments' when they help slave children and animals. This part felt way too cheesy and the Finn/Rose side mission over all was way too complex and felt forced.
New Force Abilities. JJ Abrams added the force being able to freeze blasters and now Rian Johnson added several new abilities in TLJ. Rey and Kylo can connect with each other, mentally and physically, while being light years apart. Also Luke can now sort of astro-project himself. He fights Kylo in front of the resistance base while never leaving his hideout. He's able to touch and move things, but things can also go through him. It's a weird new Force power.
Luke's Death. I know Luke can come back as a force ghost and everything, but it felt really unnecessary to kill him. He ends up dying after he projected himself to fight Kylo Ren. It felt like a cheap way to kill Luke since he finally decided to make amends and help Rey.
What I Liked:
The Plot Twists. There are several genuine surprising moments in TLJ and none of them feel forced. A heavy theme in this movie is sacrifice and we see the resistance with their backs to the wall and their numbers dropping like flies. There were several very surprising moments within their battle and of course with Snoke and Kylo.
-Character Development! This is a big one because I felt like Rian Johnson must have worked a lot with the actors on this. Kylo has his conflict, dark vs light, raging in him and I think it culminates perfectly when we see him kill Snoke, but want to continue ruling the first order. It isn't clean cut like people wanted, but it makes sense. Finn also got a lot of development too. We still see the shades of cowardice in him from TFA, but we also see him growing into a hero and fighting.
-Carrie Fisher. She had an absolutely stunning role here. We saw Leia using the force and leading her troops through Hell. She had a lot of laughs and a lot of very touching moments and it was a brilliant way for Carrie Fisher to say goodbye to us all, even though it will make episode 9 tricky.
The overall best part of the movie, and why I love it so much, is the ideas of perseverance and hope. By the end of the film the entire resistance can fit into The Millennium Falcon, yet Leia is still fighting. We see Luke who has given up for years find his will to forgive himself and to keep fighting too. It can get a little cheesy, but in the best way. The Last Jedi has heart and keeps the spirit of Star Wars alive.
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Whilst I fully accept and understand the disappointment of many fans writing reviews of The Last Jedi on here, I can only assume that much of the disappointment stems from their desire for the saga to keep on using the same old formula and see the plot twists and turns follow the same pattern as the original trilogy. The Force Awakens was good, but very much weakened by its close adherence to the originals (for example, nothing presented in TLJ is as bad a misstep as the dreadful repetitive muddle that was the Starkiller Base); TFA was enjoyable blockbuster filmmaking but fell short of greatness. Disney were quite right to let Rian Johnson take risks here, and it have really paid off with the most surprising and intelligent Star Wars film since TESB.
Yes, there are slightly embarrassing elements: the milking scene, Kylo with his shirt off, overuse of humour early on. And yes, the wisdom of using Luke's character in this way is debatable. However, the bigger picture is being missed here. How do you find new creative space in this saga? Rian Johnson has truly delivered here, as he finds several ways to wrong foot the viewer, invert expectations and add new elements. Luke is not a wise benevolent Master. Snoke is not that important and does not survive. Finn's subplot does not end in success. Luke is not even present for the final battle. There is more than meets the eye to both Vice-Admiral Holdo and DJ. Rey's parentage is (apparently) insignificant. All of this serves the deeper themes of impulsiveness versus wisdom, failure as the greatest teacher, letting go of the past, and togetherness. The obvious messages of animal rights also resonated well with the mood of the film.
Other influences are well used. The Battlestar Galactica (remake) idea of the last dwindling survivors being pursued through space is well adapted, and the confrontation on Ach-To has overtones of the Battle of Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. Best of all though for me is the transcendental showdown between Luke and Kylo. It is magnificently shot, visually incredible and reminded me of the resolution of King Hu's 'A Touch of Zen'. It is also very much in keeping with the Buddhist origins of the Jedi. Luke's 'resolution' here is surely one of the best moments of the entire saga. So it may not be the Luke we expected, but it is magnificent nonetheless and better than a simple Kenobi/Yoda retread.
I suspect may of the true fans on here who've taken such a deep exception to it will change their minds when the dust has settled. Well done to all concerned. I loved it.
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The Last Jedi was a film with so much potential, but in the end it fell short of the mark with poor character motivations and unnecessary scenes. To say that The Last Jedi was bad would be wrong, I enjoyed large sections of it and found myself on the edge with many scenes, with well crafted suspense, and subversion of expectations, but it was deeply flawed as a film.
Starting with the opening scene, within a minute we are thrown into an exchange between Kylo Ren and Poe Dameron which reaches cringeworthy levels of cheap humour, setting the tone for much of the rest of the film. Little lines of dialogue which had been reserved for just Finn as the comic relief in TFA now have been dished out to all the characters, with a particular stand out being a jarring line from Luke, during a heartfelt scene with Rey, undermining the entire scene and the connection forming between the two.
Mark Hamill was quoted as saying that he fundamentally disagreed with Rhian Johnson's character choices for Luke, and whilst I enjoyed the moral struggle he toyed with, the character was quick to change his previously principled stance on not training Jedi, despite signs that Rey was seduced by the same dark forces that Kylo Ren was years earlier, with Luke even commenting on this not minutes before his change of heart. His rationale seems questionable at best.
An appearance by bad CGI puppet yoda seemingly adds nothing to the film particularly, and after an exchange with Luke he disappears again, leaving you scratching your head as to why he was even there in the first place.
Finn and Rose's daring plan which constitutes the middle third of the film sees them travel to a casino to find a master coder. Ah the casino, it somehow feels very George Lucas, the glitzy glamour, the sparkling clean setting, just waiting for a Jar Jar cameo as I get vivid prequel flashbacks. In a 2 1/2 hour film there is no need for any filler but this whole plot seems unnecessary and time wasting, when the plan eventually leads to nothing. There isn't any great character development and bar a brief cameo from a criminally underused character, Captain Phasma, the endeavours of Finn and Rose are actually mildly boring. The chemistry between the two never quite seems real, and much of the time their more emotional moments are subverted by BB8 providing unnecessary humour.
A very touching moment came when Kylo Ren resisted the opportunity to kill his mother, adding to the moral dilemma which had troubled him in the previous film. However he forgot to notify his ensemble who still open fire on Leia and the rest of resistance high command, blasting them into the cold, inhospitable reaches of space. An abrupt but ultimately poignant end for Leia, and for the best, wrapping up the character before Carrie Fisher's untimely death in 2016. But nope! An alive Leia force pulls herself back into the ship in what might just be the most jarring scene of the film, which is saying something.
Rey is drawn to Kylo Ren due to her belief that he can still be turned after a series of incredibly cinematic mind links. Upon arriving in Snoke's ship, Rey is escorted to him by Ren in a scene paying great homage to ROTJ, before arriving on the nicest looking Star Wars set, Snoke's room.
After all the moral qualms we've seen Kylo battle with, it shouldn't be entirely surprising that he turns against Snoke and kills him, however to kill off the evil mastermind mid way through the second film is a very bold move and thus still catches you off guard. The subsequent fight between Snoke's guard and Rey and Kylo is magical, well choreographed, and set against stunning scenery. It was my favourite moment of the film. However quickly it becomes clear that Kylo and Rey want different things so after their little fling they have a bitter disagreement and break up.
Snoke's death, while being a bold move, seems premature as absolutely no questions surrounding the characters were answered, clearly a highly skilled force user, but no more information given before he is cut down, and thanks to his death it seems that these questions probably won't be answers at all. The death paves the way for Kylo Ren to then be solidified as the chief antagonist of the trilogy, however this comes just as he sides with Rey and shows that his leanings aren't entirely black and white and he isn't an innately evil character. This poor character development then further confuses as by the final third he is once again an evil baddie, wanting to hunt down and kill every last resistance member.
The final third sees our gang take on the first order on the ice planet of Hoth *edit* the salty planet of not Hoth. The spectacle is amazing and the stakes are high. Soon enough, Finn is moments away from sacrificing himself in a noble bid to save the resistance, but along comes Rose to stop him, almost killing herself in the process, and seemingly dooming the resistance. This "heroic" act doomed the lives of the resistance fighters and thus drives me to actively dislike Rose, Rhian Johnson totally failed with this, making it one of the bigger shortcomings of the film
Luke comes to the rescue, wearing what can only be described as your mothers poor attempt at a comicon Jedi robe, and after being fired on thousands of times and presumed dead, he emerges from the smoke and the dust, unharmed. A then underwhelming fight, especially given the previous one in the film, pits him against Kylo Ren, before it is revealed that he isn't actually there and it is merely a force projection. However, due to the mental toll of this, he becomes one with the force moments after, in a beautiful shot reminiscent of him looking out over the two moons of Tatooine. A beautiful end to the film.
It isn't the end however, after brief moments with the resistance aboard the millennium falcon escaping, we cut to a young stable boy, who has the force, where he watches a space ship jump to hyperspace. *prequel Jedi youngling flashback* This unnecessary ending dampens the somber mood which has been created by Luke's death, and leaves me with a sour taste coming out of the film.
Overall the film wasn't awful by any stretch, the acting was superb from Adam Driver and Mark Hamill in particular, but I would still ask questions about Daisy Ridley's slightly wooden performance. We got a brilliant lightsaber fight and some of the best space battles to date. There were major twists which I didn't see coming, and certainly no one could expect the film to flow the way it does.
The entire middle third, focussing on getting the ship out of the way of the first order could've been cut down to reduce the run time, and some Finn and Rose moments could've been significant shortened, especially when their plan doesn't even work and only results in the first order realising the real resistance plan.
I enjoyed to film, that isn't in question, however they missed the perfect opportunity to kill off Leia, they relied too heavily on cheap throwaway gags, many scenes were unnecessary, and character motivation seemed all over the place.
With the death of Snoke, the first order just doesn't seem threatening in the same way as the empire, and thus at the conclusion of this film the resistance doesn't feel particularly threatened quite in the same way that the rebels did at the end of ESB, and it didn't feel like it was building up to a bigger finale all.
For the pure enjoyment of it and the amazing scenes, it's possible to overlook much of the flaws, so I'd rate it a 6/10, on par with Rogue one but beneath TFA and the OT.
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A film of moments good and mostly bad. It felt completely alien to the rest of the films after Rouge One and now this the writers have clearly have no clue on what a Star Wars film should be.
Spoiler:
Lukes character was completely besmirched his actions which lead him to the island make no logical sense.
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I loved TFA and Rogue One was the best I'd seen since ESB. I was not a hater of the prequels, though they weren't the best either.
I was disappointed with this one. There were some great moments, but they were set up with clumsy, awkward, and just plain bad storytelling. The dialogue was decent, but the story just wasn't there on this one. I'll withhold final judgment until IX, but for now I would actually give this one a pass.
I may end up liking it more later, but my first impression is that it was 2.5 hours' worth of missed opportunities and 'what in the world' moments.
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The Last Jedi is a paradox. Amazing depth of depth and story arch for some characters but so very little depth and story for others. Sadly my two (potential) favourite characters fell into the latter.
A Luke Skywalker and Commander Snoke story arch was handed to the scriptwriters on a silver platter. It goes without saying that 7 movies had build up Luke's character and The Force Awakens had created a powerful mysterious character in Commander Snoke. I went into the cinema expecting a clash of the dark side of the force vs the light - or this 'balance' that's been teased for so long.
Unfortunately, the movie seemed confused with itself. There was depth to the Rey and Kylo/Ben storyline - great! Princess Leia and Poe Dameron was another interesting storyline with great depth and emotion. But where was the Luke and Snoke storyline?! They'd built it up during the last movie! Instead, they decided to surprisingly kill off Snoke out of nowhere and without even bothering to explain his character. I wish they'd spent less time filling up space with social justice nonsense and instead focused on Luke and Snoke. I can only assume Snoke is Plagius and he''ll find another body to inhabbit, otherwise Snoke will be the lamest Star Wars villain - yes, even worse than Jar Jar Binks.
I love Star Wars for its diversity between space action, lightsabers duals, humour, emotion and the light/dark side of the force. 2/3 of the way though the movie I seriously thought that it was shaping as one of the best Star Wars movies ever, but... it just fell flat in the final 3rd.
There weren't really any pay-offs. It set things up great and teased a climax but that's as far as the movie went and why i'm so disappointed. I walked out the cinema feeling like I was part of a practical joke. I'm seriously wondering if the director is sadistically laughing at us all for thinking half way through that it might actually be the best modern day Star Wars movie. I don't even want to discuss what happened with Luke.
The Last Jedi does a great job of character building... they just focused on the wrong characters. It's very different from other Star Wars films unfortunately it forgets a few key elements that made it a cult classic.
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For the record I'm a Star Wars fanatic since i was a little child, the original triolgy is the Holy Bible for me. I-II is okay, probably because I was a kid when they were released. Revenge of the sith and Rouge One are really outstanding moives, however with episode VII I had some problems.
This short review contains a very little amount of spoilers, what you may get from the trailers, or if not, it is not detailed so it won't ruin the experience (IMO). I rather try to describe it by the characters.
So, let's begin. During the film I had the 'OMG it's gonna be superawesome' and the 'they just ruined the whole meaning of star wars' feelings. After I came out the theatre I was unsatisfied. Unlike episode VII was the copy of The new hope, The Last Jedi is the mixture of episode V and VI. That does not make it unique or original for me.
The story is the following: the rebels are fleeing from the First Order in space, on land, and their life is in great danger about 4-5 times. Sounds like hopeless and exciting tale? Rather annoying.
The non-force user rebel characters were plain, could not cause any surprise, except Admiral Holdo. Her role, her story is a really nice one, just wait til the end. During the pursue something happened with Leia which will freak out every fan. I think it was the first moment when I thought they spat on Star Wars.
The film wanted to be funny, serious and cute. You can see the whole in a planet what Finn visited. I believe that those unnecessary scenes describe the whole film.
The 'force part' of the story was way more insteresting, that gave a lot of positive points. The meeting of Ray and Luke was really entertaining. We could learn some history, and I bet you did not except that what you will see!
Luke's past and his current character is done well, he shows his weaknesses too and Mark Hamill acted just perfectly! They gave us some really funny, heartwarming, nostalgic and tear jerking moments with him. Finally we can see some badass Luke, but the ending of the film does not fit for him. They wanted to make a double plot twist or whatever, but it was pathetic. This is what really ruined the movie for me. He is the greatest Jedi who ever lived, are you serious Disney??
Rey was way more symphatic than in the previous episode, she really does fit in the new generation of the force users. Same for Kylo Ren, he is going to be a real tough guy!! I don't wanna go into details, this would be the spoiler sensitive part. Anyway 10/10 acting both of them!
You will see Snoke, his part is the one where I can't decide yet that I liked it or not. One thing is sure, he is nothing compared to Palpie-Papa-Palpatine.
I was really happy to see Chewie, he did bring back the good old times feeling!
Other characters no need to be mentioned they are easily forgetable or would spoil something huge.
2,5 hours is a little bit long, there are some really awesome pictures, especially with Luke. The battles are done well, however we saw a lot of cgi movies so it just won't show any outstanding sights.
Another sad thing is that we won't get any epic lightsaber duels, nor stormtroopers. Just a really few troopers and they focused on close combat. OMG why? :( I like that they can't aim.
Additionally too many jokes - however I have to admit there were some extraordinary funny ones - and lot of annoying new creatures what the kids want for christmas as toys.
Oh and green milk is the new blue!
Anyway we will watch episode IX. who am I kidding? They are forcing us.
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Essentially episode 5 and 6 rolled into one and another example of the epidemic of lazy writing and a lack of imagination. Saying that the first hour or so is an enjoyable watch when leading to the climax - the last 30 mins or so is what lets it down. There was a lot of anticipation for the face off between Luke/Rey/Snoke/Kylo Ren and that was deflated faster than a balloon.
Kylo Ren also remains a very unconvincing villain. Whether this is down to bad writing or acting or even both, there is nothing intimidating about him and his obsession to be the new Vader is just cringeworthy.
Acting was good on the whole. Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley stood out.
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6/10
Full of plotholes but visually delivers as promised
There are a number of vexing plotholes in the story and subplots that feel redundant. Emotionally charging scenes are undermined by aforementioned, glaringly obvious plotholes and the abrupt, inappropriate comedic moments.
I can't believe I'm saying this but I wish they'd gone further with imitating the originals and recreated an homage to the awe-inspiringly dark Empire, instead of putting in blatant references to RotJ and trying to look smart by subverting said references. The visually creative feel of the scenes doesn't lend to emotional attachment - I didn't root for or worry about the Resistance or the First Order, because neither entity or their proponents could move me to do so. Sadly, as the highly disappointing Snoke said, Kylo Ren is "no Vader, but a child in a mask", therefore not even a proper villain to juxtapose with Rey the Mary Sue with her inexplicable powers.
It cannot be denied, however, that the film's cinematography rises beyond expectations in several scenes: the lighting, the colours, the transitions, etc.
In short, it's an okay film that falls short of my high expectations (after Rogue One being a pleasant surprise since TFA suffered from similar and at times worse issues though it was superior in other much valued aspects).
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There is life in the Star Wars saga still. Writer-director Rian Johnson brings a somewhat more nuanced depiction of the forces of good and evil and there's an interesting dynamic between the characters of Rey and Kylo Ren. And Adam Driver - wow!
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YES!!! BEST STAR WARS MOVIE EVER! I especially love how dark it got... Not only do we see Snoke to be revealed to be a beloved character like Jar Jar Binks, but we also find out that Jar Jar is Rey´s father as well.
The last act was the best part. We see Poe get frozen in carbonite, and Finn profess his love for Poe, to only get ¨I know¨ in response. Then, Poe is taken by a mandelorian clone, to one of the Hutts on Jakku.
Then, Rey senses her friends are in danger, as she is training with Luke (who mentioned f*cking a gungan), and goes out to save them, and encounters Kylo Ren, to take part in an epic lightsaber battle. Rey gets her hand cut off, and Kylo then reveals himself to be Rey´s cousin, only to leave her hanging on a weather vain, before she is rescued by Finn, and the man who sold Poe out to the First Order.
So, overall, it was the best Star Wars movie ever, with pure originality, and I can´t wait for Episode IX: Rehash of the Jedi.
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I am not new to Star Wars. I grew up with it as a kid, I've read about a dozen post-ROTJ novels (now non-canon), and I even played the Star War CCG card game just because it was Star Wars. Put simply, I am flabbergasted by the overwhemingly positive reviews of this film and the Force Awakens. I just don't get it. The first 3rd of the Last Jedi is outright boring. During the second 3rd I started to have hope. There were some good twists and it really seemed to get moving. Then it all falls apart. There was more than one moment where I found myself saying "You mean you could have done that this whole time, and you waited until now?"
At least the Last Jedi is it's own story instead of a soft reboot, but I only give it 3 stars for the middle stretch of about 30 minutes.The rest of it was so disappointing. But again, what is everyone else seeing that I am not?
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8/10
My saggy balls have more watch appeal than this movie.
Take the original Empire Strikes Back, then strip away pacing, character growth, sense of good vs evil, proper, flowing story development and, most important of all, originality, and we're left with what is effectively a sequence of Star-Wars cliches without a reason to give a damn about any of it. There just wasn't any sense of menace at all in this, Kylo Ren being reduced to more of a side character with moments of telepathy. All this leaves an emotionless hole for 2 and a half hours full of countdowns to being obliterated by yet another powerful weapon while the good guys hastily cobble a plan together to escape again (usually involving one small ship evading all the bad guys. You've seen it before).
For the record I enjoyed The Force Awakens.
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I went to the midnight release of this film and 30 seconds in it was already ruined with horrendous dialogue and an over the top action sequence. I felt so angry as the people around me laughed and clapped, it made me want to leave, but I was just frozen in shock.
I have so much to say, but here are my top ten points.
1. Jokes, I'm fine with jokes, but they deserve to be well written, correctly timed and placed, and genuinely funny, I laughed at one joke in this film, the rest felt simplistic and ill placed. Even in the most tense scenes, with powerful themes and meaningful moments the writers apparently could not resist working in a lame, unfunny "joke". And they just don't stop.
2. Lacking set up, the entire film seems rushed, I couldn't put a finger on this at the time, but I realise now it's because the film is not built up slowly to a climax, they launch right into the action and catch you by surprise. It means that you don't get invested in the characters and story and they don't seem to have believable motives.
3. Too many angles, The Last Jedi seemed to want to fit as much in, as fast as possible. This leads to you becoming distracted and annoyed at many points. There is an entire sequence with Finn and Rose that is completely pointless and drags on for an unacceptably long time.
4. Cut away, There are so many frustrating cuts in this film that it does my head in, it's written as if we have the attention spans of gnats, and that we couldn't possibly remember what's going on without being reminded of it constantly, even if you have to cut away from a climactic scene to do so.
5. Overt themes, the film's main theme is renewal, which is fine, but instead of subtly working in this theme with visuals and combining it seamlessly with the story, we are smacked over the head with it and it is explicitly mentioned several times.
6. Characters, I failed to become invested in the plight of the characters, again their setup is lacking, we are introduced to Rose for a brief second, she "works behind pipes", and her sister died recently, that's it. For someone who is featured quite heavily in this film she comes across as shallow.
7. Overpowered, The characters in this film are shown to have incredible powers, this makes them unrelateable and boring, the characters don't work to overcome challenges or develop in interesting ways, they start strong and never learn anything.
8. Relating, In a story it's very important to have a character that we can relate to, that way we can become invested in the story, in The Last Jedi I couldn't relate to anyone, you would think it would be Rey, but she is so incredibly powerful and special that I can't.
9. Unoriginal, many sequences and even some shots I noticed were directly ripped form the Original Trilogy, this is beyond enraging, these are new films and seeing a reshoot of those timeless scenes is disrespectful to say the least. it made me want to get up and leave.
10. No true loss, I should have felt some sadness and the pain of the characters but I didn't, it left me relaxed, not excited at all. Rey has so far not experienced a loss, she hasn't lost a fight, she hasn't lost someone she cares about, her character seems boring, plain and overpowered.
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6/10
A Fun Movie To Watch But A Very Disappointing Star Wars Film!
Star Wars The Last Jedi Is A Fine Movie With Great Visual Effects Great Acting,Things That Made This Movie Fun To Watch But Beyond That To A Star Wars Fan Eyes...Was A Disappointment.2 Years Have Passed Since The Force Awakens Was Released, 2 Years Of Anticipation And Theories About The Backstory Of Some Great Characters That The 7th Film In the franchise brought to us.
The 7th Film Introduced Us To A Very Mysterious Villain Named Snoke Who Had corrupted Ben Solos Mind And Turned Him Into Kylo Ren...But Who Is He?Why Is He So Disfigured?Where Was He When Emperor Palpatine A.K.A Darth Sidious Was in Command?Could He Be His Master Darth Plagueis?Or His Brother Maybe?Or Son?Who Is He???The Answer Is....WHO CARES? He Dies at the Half of The Movie By Kylo Ren, This Mysterious Figure (Who Many Of Us Went To The Cinema Just To Satisfy Our Curiosity About Who He Is) Dies After Almost 20 Minutes Of Screen Time!But Dont Worry Because Dissapointment Doesnt Stop There. Another Character The Force Awakens Brought To Us Was Rey. Rey Had A Very Powerful And Mysterious Connection To The Force That Left Us Wondering About This Connection And Who Were Her Parents, Like Snoke Many Theories Were Out There Like Luke Is Her Father Or She Is Related To Obi-Wan Kenobi.The Answer About Reys Parents Was That Her Parents Were Junk Traders Who Sold Her. I Have Been Waiting 2 Years To Hear This...Really?Where Is The Plot Twist We All Hoped For? Unfortunately Disappointment Doesnt Stop Here.
The Third And My Biggest Disappointment Of This Movie That Made Me So Frustrated Was...Luke Skywalkers Death...Yes He Dies.They Actually Kill The Star Of The Original Star Wars Movies On the Second Movie Of The Trilogy. Yes I Know That We all Believed That He is Going To Die But Not So Soon, I Thought Like Yoda He is Going To Die In The Third Movie Of The Trilogy Not So Soon And The Most Frustrating Thing Its The Way They Kill Him. When Luke Closes His Lightsaber In Front Of Kylo Ren You Are Sure That He is Going To Die (So Yoy Feel Sad about It), Then When Kylo Strikes Him You See That Luke Is Not Physically There And He Is Safe On His Island(So You Feel Happy About It), Then He Dies Because...I Dont Know He Was Spiritually Wounded Or Exhausted? That Made Me Angry Because What Was the Point Of Luke Not Being Physically There If He Is About To Die 2 Minutes Later...He Could Lift His X Wing From The Bottom Of The Sea (A Great Reference To Episode V When Luke Tries To Lift His X Wing) Fight Physically Kylo Ren And Die(He Could Use The Force To Dodge The Bullets...Chirrut Did It).
Another Disappointment Was That There Was Not A Propper Lightsaber Duel. In EVERY Star Wars Movie We See A Jedi And A Sith Striking Each Other With Their Lightsabers. This Movie Doesnt Even Have That. Sure We See Them Killing Some Soldiers With The Lightsaber but Thats It. Even When We See Kylo Ren Vs Luke Skywalker There Is Not An Actuall Lightsaber Battle Because (As Mentioned Before) Luke Is Not Physically There, Is Just Kylo Ren Trying To Hit Luke And Luke Just Dodges His Attacks. This Movie Has Many More Disappointments Like Captain Phasmas Death (Another Character Who Died Too Soon And Without Any Character Development) And More. Of Course It Has Some Cool Stuff Like Great Visuals, Rey And Kylo Ren Working Together, Yodas Force Spirit Advising Luke Of What Is The Purpose Of A Teacher And Encourage Him, Leia Using The Force But These Are Not Enough Unfortunately To Save This Movie.
In The End Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi Is A Fun Movie To Watch With Great Visuals And Plenty Of Cool Stuff But When You Exit The Cinema The Disappointments Are So Many That Make All These Nice Things....Forgetable!
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7/10
If the next one is this confusing stars will be lost
There is no doubt that fans will recognise and relate to the Star Wars universe and be happy about it. However, I find the story confusing. The story lines of all the Star Wars movies up to now have been crystal clear and pertinent to the title. E.g. A new hope - the empire has taken over and the rebellion gets organised. This one does not seem to have sense of purpose. Is it the end of the Jedi? Is it the begging of a new Jedi order? The contours of the new order are fuzzy and so are that of the rebellion.
Don't get me wrong, there a many positives for which I have given a rating of 7. But sometimes you get a feeling that the motive of was essentially commercial - to create a transition from the old to the new and lay the foundations for a new number Star Wars movies including television series and spinoffs. In the process they forget to tell a good, old fashioned story - which I believe film making should be about.
I also do not understand the need to have broken the flow of everything that was set in motion in the episode, The Force Awakens. It feels like the producers, directors and script writers have had a good fight about where to take the franchise thereon.
The promise of a new lead that takes over Luke in the first series and Anakin in the second is not fulfilled. Rey, that was such a powerful character in The Force Awakens seems to have lost her clout. The attempt to pick it up in the end, to me was not enough. The most exciting question after The Force Awakens was her origins which had a very lukewarm treatment in the sequel. The love plot fizzles out. We see no remnants of the Republic that was supposed to have flourished after return of the Jedi. The training of Rey is nothing compared to that of Luke in the Empire strikes back and lacks the many spiritual layers of Yoda and his Dagobah refuge.
On top of that, The Last Jedi introduces so many elements that do not deliver, the code breaker, the dark level of Luke's planet, the vestige of the Jedi heritage, Snoke's death, the planet promised to be special where the rebellion goes to take refuge.
On a positive note, it is the Star Wars universe all right and leaves a good aftertaste for a fans like myself. But a feeling of incompleteness and a flawed attempt to make a film with the DNA of the Empire strikes back just as The Force Awakens was made of the DNA of a New Hope.
Let's say I found the film good in form but lacking in substance. I would agree with the critic who said "I am not sure if I saw a good film or a bad one."
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There is no doubt that fans will recognise and relate to the Star Wars universe but the story is very confusing. Watching all the Star Wars movies, you would be able to describe the story in one line that would relate to the title. This one does not seem to have sense of purpose.
You get the feeling that is main objective is to create a transition from the old to the new and lay the foundations for a new Star Wars series and opportunities to create spinoffs. In the process they forget to tell a story - which I believe film making should be all about.
They also break the flow of everything that was set in motion in the episode, The Force Awakens:
The promise of a new lead that takes over Luke in the first series and Anakin in the second. Rey that was such a powerful character in The Force Awakens seems to have lost her clout in the second. The love plot fizzles out. We see no remnants of the Republic that was supposed to have flourished after return of the Jedi. The training of Rey is nothing compared to that of Luke in the Empire strikes back and does not have the many spiritual layers that were laid.
Then they introduce so many elements that do not deliver on their promises, the code breaker, the dark level of Luke's planet, the vestige of the Jedi, the planet promised to be special where the rebellion goes to take refuge.
The film is good form but lacks in substance. I would agree with the critic who says "I am not sure if I saw a good film of a bad one."
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9/10
Imagination is a wondrous thing, but the response reveals what time in cinema we're in
I woke up this morning to the surprising disbelief of an incredible wave of backlash and overly-sensitive "bitching" towards a movie which I saw last night and have since felt incredibly excited and moved by.
In respect to the entitlement of all people's opinions, I still have yet to be convinced by the cult-like hatred towards this picture, that seems to be quite unfair and truly disrespectful towards a vision that many fans appear to be confused and insulted by. Fans claiming and justifying it's awfulness as if I am not even allowed to enjoy this movie. This is leaving me dumbfounded and absolutely confused.
Whatever the unjustified consensus of disappointment is, what I experienced last night was a spectacularly cinematic follow-up and an almost orgasmic orchestration of Sci-Fi adventure and momentous climax entertainment, built-up with such filmmaking quality and high-brow entertainment, it had me in applause.
Truly, I was taken back by the brilliance of where Rian Johnson took this story. If anything, Episode 8 could've been somewhat stretched out in moments, to focus and hone in on the true emotion of the characters fully. But how it plays out naturally is still as epic as any episode in the saga's history.
And really if we're going to talk about reliable opinions, it's funny how critics, moviegoers who get paid to watch and review movies week-by-week in a professional context, without bias, have agreed to critical acclaim compared to that of the many apparent fanboys whining and nitpicking useless and unnecessary details including mythological story-points that most true moviegoers and critics don't even look twice at.
What seems to be clear is how we approach movies. Do we go in hoping it's a culmination of everything we'd personally hoped for and expected, or do we just simply go in to enjoy a cinematic experience? It's clear what's more important. But the way cinema is going, and the way humanity is progressing in the projection and perception of this medium, I'm not surprised.
Imagination is a wondrous thing, but in observations of all this unexpected, overly-cruel, and undeserving backlash of a movie I very much enjoyed, it just shows me the time we're living in and that which is currently appreciated in cinema.
Whatever it is we had hoped or expected Episode 8 to be, based upon my vast movie-going experiences, Star Wars The Last Jedi, in terms of cinematic experience, stands as one of the most entertaining movies of the year, hands down.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I know quality when I see it and Episode 8 captures everything I hope for in movies and in the cinema, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again and again over the Christmas holiday season. May the Force Be with You!
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I guess I'm not completely surprised by all the negativity coming from fans. This movie was in many ways a departure from the rest of the series and took a lot of risk, but I loved it. It felt really refreshing and more like something new than the Force Awakens. It had character, was hilarious, but still fairly heavy and intense. I love quirky little indie movies, and this struck that chord for me while still being a big sci-fi fantasy adventure. It was a great addition to the Star Wars library and my favorite movie since The Empire Strikes Back.
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First people complained that Episode VII was too much like the original trilogy, and now everyone seems to want to complain that this one isn't enough like the originals. I have been a life long Star Wars fan, read all the books, watched every animated epsiode. and I'm even a memorabilia collector. If you can't allow them to take the series in new directions, you've forgotten the joy of losing yourself in Star Wars. I never saw many of the character changes that Episode VIII introduces, but I loved every minute of it. People like to forget that when the original trilogy was released, it had incredible flaws (Ewoks were a transparent marketing ploy. So are Porgs. Get over it). But since most of us that are writing reviews here were kids at the time we first entered the Star Wars universe, we just let ourselves get lost in the wonder of it. Now that we're grown up, you want to nitpick something that has all the essentials of a Star Wars film-the struggle between the light and dark side, archetypal story imagery, and a simpler yet beautiful look at the universe. Let yourselves get past the negativity for a minute and appreciate Episode VIII for what it is: a new direction that pays homage to everything you loved about the movies when you saw them as kid, yet isn't afraid to try to push the story into new and creative wonder. I loved it.
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You'll either love it or hate it. Not much middle ground. I loved it because it was fresh and new. Lots of surprises and I loved the humor. It wasn't a "Space Opera" this time around and that's why the die hard Star Wars fans will hate it. The inner nerd in me still wants to know where Snoke came from and Abrams will probably address that in the next one. It's ironic how the last Star Wars had all the "Star Wars" die hards saying how much it was a copy of "A New Hope" and now they're whining that a truly original story has ruined their universe. In the words of Willam Shattner, "Get A Life!". This was pure fun and a very entertaining film!
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10/10
It worked for me, but might very well not work for you!
Will THE LAST JEDI please every Star Wars fan? Since THE FORCE AWAKENS, we all know that that's impossible. Nonetheless, it is safe to say, that this movie will divide audiences even more. Rian Johnson took many risks and made many choices, making this the kind of Star Wars movie like you've never seen it before. For me, 95% of what they did work beautifully, and the few real issues I had with the movie were outshined by all the excitement of some scenes and the gut-wrenching emotions provoked by others. That is why I give it the full 10/10 rating, knowing that there are a lot of people who will furiously disagree with me.
From a purely technical standpoint, this might very well be the best Star Wars movie to date. Never before did we get such well-written dialogue, incredibly interesting and innovative directing and most importantly just wonderful acting. Even the most diehard defenders of the OT should admit, that Mark Hamill has never been better as Luke and all the new actors and actresses do an incredible job portraying their characters. Also, the camerawork is outstanding. I, for my part, can't understand, how a movie this competently made can be considered bad by critics. By an average audience member who doesn't give a shit about those things: ok, but not by someone who analyses movies for a living.
Johnson took many chances in regards to story and some of them will not work for some people, others won't work for other people, but overall, this movie has so much to offer that I feel bad for anyone who couldn't enjoy this movie.
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Just returned from an opening night showing of Star Wars. It was 4 am and I was literally the only person in my particular showing. I have to say, I absolutely loved this movie. I had read some of the early user reviews on this website, and I was absolutely dumbfounded because I had also seen the rave reviews from critics, the majority of whom seem to appreciate this movie. After watching the movie, I'm relieved to say that this is a great movie.
I went in expecting some huge shockers in terms of the storyline based on critic reviews, so I did not end up being surprised by any of the plot twists. I expected Luke Skywalker to be an old, lethargic and cynical sort of dude. The only real surprise was the story behind Kylo Ren's genesis.
The movie does so many things well. The lead actors shine. The action is entertaining. There is some humor that works, and a few cute moments from the Porgs. I liked the campfire moment with Chewbacca and the Porgs in particular.
Signature moments between Luke and Leia, Luke and R2D2, were just amazing and extremely gratifying. To thing how far these characters and actors have come since the 1970s when the first Star Wars movie was released is incredible.
I loved this movie, and I believe Rian Johnson did a great job with what he was tasked to do. This was a better movie than the Force Awakens. I'm sure I'll be watching this movie again..
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I've seen a lot of strongly mixed reviews about this movie -- understandably. It was a lot to process. TFA left the audience with a lot to think about, asking a lot of questions. No matter how Johnson decided to answer those questions, someone was bound to be disappointed. The people making outrageous claims that it's "worse than the Phantom Menace" are just wrong. Yes, there were flaws in the movie, but it was a solid continuation of the franchise overall.
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The Last Jedi is the first film that steps away from tradition. It's the first to dance to its own beat. The "This is not going to go the way you think" line from the trailers, is true for potentially everything that happens. Suddenly all the rumours you have heard or imagined equate to nothing. Aside from the fact that the difference between the new actors and the veterans is vast in terms of acting ability, the film's overall story, easter eggs, in particular the cinematography and soundtrack are now the gold standard for the series. Aside from one instance, the VFX from the series which started industrial light and magic are beautiful, with a great balance of practical and cgi working in perfect harmony. The film has some truly beautiful shots and one light sabre battle in particular was perhaps the best and the coolest there has ever been in Star Wars. Some wired story threads and a slightly dubious ending are not enough to ruin what is easily the best Star Wars film since Empire Strikes back. More importantly, the film does what the Force Awakens couldnt..... Star Wars is reborn.
9/10
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10/10
Lots of hate from people who've likely not even seen it yet.
Seriously, what's with all of the trolls? I guess some people just want attention, but don't want to spend the money to see the movie (or just don't like Star Wars). IMDB is starting to become the Facebook of reviews these days. Sigh...
Me? Saw it tonight - EXCEPTIONAL MOVIE!!! I thoroughly enjoyed every last bit of it. There was never a part where it dragged or was dull or uninteresting. The lines were fantastic and had excellent delivery and flow (with plenty of hilarious one-liners, as we've come to expect from Star Wars), and Kylo, just as intense and moody and angsty as before, just keeps you guessing. Is he a true villain? Is he truly lost? Can he return to the light? So many twists and turns in that kid's brain that it'll make your head spin!
Two new faces join us in the roles of Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) - both showing that women can be just as badass in Star Wars as the men (as if Rey -Daisy Ridley- didn't already demonstrate that in TFA), and once again, Leia (Carrie Fisher) kicks some serious butt in this, her final silver screen performance (stay through the credits for a heart-touching, very fitting dedication).
I highly recommend spending the extra to see it in 3-D - there are a couple of areas where they didn't pan out well and tried to do the whole "reach into the audience" thing, but even these weren't overly distracting...but the battle sequences? Or even just the island scenes with Luke and Rey? In 3-D, it felt like you were THERE!
Breathtaking camera work throughout, tiny little background elements that make everything just seem REAL Just a great picture - everyone in the theater LOVED it (myself included) and everyone - and I do mean EVERYONE - was talking about it as they left. None were saying anything these 1- and 2-star people were saying. In fact, a good many were saying that they were coming back tomorrow night! Had I the money right now, I'd be among them!
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... That if something is great and loved by many, people come out of the woodwork to shit on it as much as they can. Seriously, over 300 reviews, not a single one that I have seen is above a seven. Now, I'm not saying it's perfect, and my rating of 10 isn't supposed to say that it's perfect. My rating of 10 is because I loved it. Yes there are some faults, big deal. In the end I was cheering and you know what, I was in a packed theater where everyone was cheering, so I'll take that over all the collective trolls of the internet.
One of the common things I've seen in peoples reviews is them saying "as a fan, I am insulted by this". Well let me tell you. I am a fan. I have been a fan all my life. Star wars is one of the most important things in my life, and I flippin loved this movie. Does it change some stuff up, take some risks with characters? Absolutely, and I give them massive credit for it. I remember when TFA came out, people were bitching about it being unoriginal and playing it safe, yet when this comes out and takes risks and is original in many ways, everyone is bitching. Talk about a tough crowd. I honestly can't see how you can be a true fan and not enjoy this film.
I'm not gonna take up too much more of your time, I'm simply going to say that if you love star wars, give this a shot. Sure it has it's faults, and maybe it isn't just like the originals, but it has the spirit flowing all throughout it. No spoilers, but I will say that this film has hands down some of my favorite scenes out of all of star wars, and one scene in particular was the single most jaw-dropping moment I've seen all year (all the haters, you know what scene I'm talking about, and you all are bunch of stuck-up-half-witted-scruffy-looking-nerfherders). I truly loved this film and am so happy to have experienced it with a fantastic crowd that loved it just as much as I did.
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Currently being hailed by critics as the best 'Star Wars' film since 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back", Rian Johnson's latest film really brings the goods for the midpoint of the 'Star Wars' saga.
Following Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, General Organa, Kylo Ren after the events of Episode 7, the viewer watches as the battle royale comes ever closer to fruition. While Finn and Poe try to help Leia with the Resistance as they take on the First Order, Rey has found the exiled Luke Skywalker to convince him to help his twin and fellow fighters but easier said than done as Luke has become so disillusioned with the Rebellion. Events get even stranger when Rey begins to bond telepathically with Kylo Ren, could the new heroine turn to the Dark Side or will she succeed?
The cast of characters become even more fleshed out with their goals and purposes being realized within the oncoming battle. More depth is given to why Kylo Ren is determined to destroy his former Jedi master and turn Rey's allegiances providing the film's most gripping plot point.
The cast shows massive growth in their talents to shed light on the players of the fight between good and evil; Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley being tremendous standouts as we wait to see if Driver's Kylo can win Ridley's Rey over to evil. John Boyega and Oscar Isaac continue to shine as well in the roles of Finn and Poe, constantly building up their friendship from 'The Force Awakens' while allowing Kelly Tran's Rose to become part of their comradeship. The late Carrie Fisher returns one last time to play General Leia Organa, but she is used sparingly as Poe and Finn take more command of the Resistance's army. However the influence of the Princess/General remains strong even with her limited screen-time. And making his long-awaited return to the franchise he helped start is Mark Hamill as the legendary Luke Skywalker. Gone is the fresh-faced heroic boy of the original trilogy as Luke's traumatic experience with his nephew has shaped much of Luke's lack of faith in the fight against the First Order. Rey tries her best to gain the Jedi Master's trust, to no avail for a time but when her power astounds Luke he is forced to take on a new apprentice. Yet his distrust of everything in the past once again clouds Luke's sense of duty, forcing Rey to abandon him and go back. However in the end, the heroic Jedi we once knew does come back for a climatic showdown for the ages.
Utilizing the series' staple of visual effects and epic battles, the action unfolds the minute the title crawl is over as we watch the Rebels try to take down the First Order's commanding ships. With bombing explosions that are far more exciting than Michael Bay's, fighter on fighter ships taking on each, cannons, lightsaber combat galore and more there is no shortage of excitement.
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This movie may not work with some fans, but I couldn't get enough. Filled with great character arcs, set pieces, surprising comedy, and twists that will leave you gaping, The Last Jedi is in my opinion, the best Star Wars movie. Prepared to be wowed. Final Review, A++
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The Last Jedi is a very different Star Wars movie. It does things and goes places with the story and the mythology that other star wars movies have not. Gone is the trope of Good vs. Evil and Light Vs. Dark. Instead we are given a genuinely human story. People are not inherently good or evil, conflict exists in everyone, and I think The Last Jedi portrays this struggle beautifully. The visuals are stunning, the performances exquisite, the action pulse pounding and the story engaging. That is not to say this movie is without it's flaws, the humor is a bit much at times and there are parts that feel unnecessary, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. When this movie isn't at it's best it is still a good movie, and when it gets going it's breathtaking. Rian Johnson has done a great job honoring what we love about stars, as well as doing new things that are bold, and work. The Last Jedi pushes the star wars saga into a new place, that I can't wait to see explored.
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First off, great film, a lot of fun, a lot of action, a lot of stuff to leave you hanging, and a lot of stuff to keep you wondering.
Now, admittedly, I have not reviewed many films, but just a note - consider the source of your reviews - a lot of these users have been on IMDB for an alleged 4 to 10 years and only writing ONE review? And that ONE review is to trash Star Wars? Something doesn't seem right here.
Just go see the film - remember - this is a new trilogy - the 'passing of the torch' - a new generation - and completely uncharted territory.
Your own opinion is what matters most - love it or hate it - you take the story with you.
...heck, I hated the prequel trilogy, but I least rated them fairly.
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10/10
Real different than the orginal but still extraordinary
I really dont know why everybody is so negative about this movie because i thought it was really great. There are a lot of new characters this new triology and you see them evolve and thats really intersting to see. All the characters have battles inside of them about the dark and the light. People are angry because Luke is being so not Luke Skywalker but they forget he's much older and everybody is changing in the course of their life. The whole movie isn't about Luke.
I thought the movie was refreshing, suprising and above all nothing you'd expect thats why its so good.
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10/10
"Try to insert a smart title to rate the movie 2/10, the review"
Awesome Star Wars movie, with some of the best scenes in the star wars history, also has a problem with trying to be comedic at a times and not being able to. Id rate this film an 8/10 an encourage everyone who has watched star wars to go and see it for themselves, placing a 10/10 just to bring some balance to the hate trend train.
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Bottom line SW:TLJ is the best Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi - and it isn't even close. The writing/directing is light years ahead of the last 5 SW films - probably closest to being on par with the quality of Return of the Jedi, just without the ewoks.
This is space opera/science fantasy at its finest - at least in the medium of film.
So why my (?) title? Because it appears the majority of reviews coming in on IMDB, opening night, are opinion generated discharges of hate. It's baffling. It's like people went in with some expectation, and when this wasn't a ESB the reboot? They stopped watching.
I can never prove to anyone the quality of this film. I can just tell you what I saw. Two dimensional characters from The Force Awakens suddenly have depth, humanity and.... real dialog! At its worst TLJ can be a little heavy handed with direct/obvious lines, but often this is very intentional and a lot of humor is derived from these moments.
The visuals are absolute top shelf and somehow functional effects at the same time. The effects are used strictly for story telling purposes. This movie is actually pretty spare, with every moment mattering - this hasn't happened in a SW film since ESB!
Fanaticism should never inhibit someone from appreciating fine film making.
In time this review will be absolutely buried and forgotten, and hopefully so will most of these initial low reviews. Time will treat this film very kindly.
SW fan who is also a big fan of this movie: 9 out of 10
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Luke says "things aren't going to go the way you think" , an apt description of the movie! With so many brilliant visuals and excellent cinematography, background score , direction and high stakes , this movie blew my mind . The sheer epicness of this movie brought tears to my eyes , it felt like the force reached out to my soul and took me on a journey to a galaxy far far away!!!!
The epic saga continues to go uphill with this brilliant new installation to the franchise. Apart from being the epitome of excellent movie making , the whole movie is just beautiful to look at! It's very poetic, a true work of art indeed!
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10/10
Great film- do not pay attention to bad reviews- see it yourself!!!!
I am not sure why all the bad reviews??? In my opinion it was a great part of Star Wars SAGA!!! Really good acting too!!! Nothing to complain to be honest! I will not write too much here to not spoil the plot. Go and see it yourself and try to ignore all the critics. Film is great!!! I was in cinema yesterday and I did not get disappointed- as a proof- I am going to see it for the second time today with my son. We both can not wait.... :) Enjoy the movie! And....may the force will be with you....
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When I walked out of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I was absolutely thrilled. Beforehand, I would never have dared to hope for the experience it was. So, seeing quite some negative user reviews on IMDb was frustrating to me. Especially when I feel like some of the arguments, mainly about bashing the script, were not well developed at all. I will get on a sidetrack immediately, but it will do perfectly as a bridge to my other arguments: the character of Benicio del Toro. Some people here say his plotline is useless, I beg to differ. His character, flawed through his stutter, is telling you as a spectator that it is not all good and bad in the galaxy far, far away. Not everyone is getting involved in this war we are watching, some people just want to make a living and profit as best as they can from the circumstances around. The codebreaker is not here to feel allegiance with, he is not here to save the day, he is here because there is something he can personally gain from the situation. It is not all crystal clear in our beloved galaxy and that is something I definitely loved in this episode. It was refreshing and, as I said before, thrilling.
Then, what the hell was up with Supreme Leader Snoke? First of all, I have to agree with this critique a little bit. I too was disappointed at the glimpse we saw of Snoke's powers. However, this did not bother me that much, because it was a gateway to something we did not even know we were watching. The other characters had no clue as well, except for our famous hero Luke Skywalker. During the first half of the movie we get a sense of where the story is going. Personally, this was somewhat rewarding, but also somewhat troubling to me (especially in pacing). Were my guesses after Episode 7 going to be right? Is Ben not evil, just misunderstood? No. And yes. But mostly no. After a brilliant constructed climax scene in the first half, where Rey and Ben get to feel a sense of their destiny together, Kylo Ren enters the scene. And he kills it. A villain is born and up to this point we were watching an amazingly constructed, very well written, origin story. The disappointment with Snoke being not the main villain we thought he was going to be comes from the fact that we sense his danger. He is a crazy powerful man, in an unsettling setting, capable of doing horrible things. We did not even see that much of it, yet we know this. That seems to me as a great cinematic achievement. Then Kylo Ren comes in, misunderstood indeed, and we understand his frustration. We also sense that Ben won't come back at this point: the main villain is born and with that a return of main evil. This is what I missed in the prequels; this is a journey I hoped Anakin Skywalker would have gone through. But here we are, now stuck with Ben Solo, I mean Kylo Ren. And Luke was right after all.
Luke is probably the most troubled character in this movie in relation to the nostalgic feel we have with him. Our hero from the original trilogy is a Jedi master, yes, but shows that there is still much to learn. "We are what they grow beyond," another old friend tells Luke. Luke is terrified and for good reasons, he is also flawed. The film is screaming: 'Please Luke! Rescue us!' But Luke is not interested and this is his wisdom. This is not his battle to end. It goes beyond. Luckily this does not mean we will see nothing of the powers of Luke. He is a great Master of the Force and teaches us how to understand it, and be at peace with it.
In the end, this movie is a brilliant character study. Not only for the characters I highlighted here, but every single one gets his or her moments of glory and downfall. Being an action movie, this happens through action. But not blunt action and pure special effects. There are personal moments in the heat of the battle; action sequences with emotional depths. They all lead up to a balance in the Force in watching this spectacle, while setting up high stakes for the last part of the trilogy. At the same time the feel of Star Wars as I knew it, returned. The endless, beautiful galaxy is featuring humorous and mysterious creatures and places, all with characterizations that they made their own in an unbelievable believable manner. Yes, this film does not portray good and evil in the old ways. But if I want to watch that, I'll watch the original trilogy. The Last Jedi made me feel flabbergasted in a whole new way while remaining true to the love I shared with the original saga. Going to the movies for me is about feeling, and I felt a lot during this film and especially through this film. 9/10.
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This movie was awesome! There were some plot issues but there is in every movie. Too many EU fanboy crybabies on here giving a bad rating cause all they can do is complain. TFA was ripped on because it was too similar to A New Hope. This one goes in it's own direction & had a couple surprising twists, but now since it's not like Empire, fanboys are crying like the little mommy boys they are. Can't have it both ways
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10/10
Mark Hamills best performance and easily a top 3 STAR WARS movie of all time
I cant understand some of these low scoring reviews on this page .They seem to be made more to get some views, than actually rate the movie.
It popular to hate on popular things i suppose and its really a shame and dont be fooled. This movie is a gigantic rollercoasterride of acting, effects and humor. This movie has EVERYTHING!!
Left the theater with a huge smile on my face last night. Halfway through the movie, i caught myself thinking: "My God, this is good!".
It has the humor of the first movies, and i doenst take itself too seriously, but is at the same time very, very deep. You will be thinking about certain scenes again and again.
The performances were top notch, but Mark Hamil stood out, and delivered his best, and one of this years top perfomances. Seriously, this is Oscar material.
10/10 caise i cant give 11/10
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First of all, this movie is a 100 times better than the Force Awakens, it aint perfect.
There were some useless scenes and some bad jokes. But great twists, beautiful acting, brillant space scenes, stunning lightsaber fights.
Haters what did you expect tbh? This was the perfect sequel to a horrible EP7. Disney didnt kill your childhood, they just do different things than your head-canon, either accept it or dont watch SW
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I am a huge Star Wars fan. What can I say: Beautifully made and well paced movie. Great action scenes and amazing character development. So many surprises. Really like the direction this is going. The most satisfying entry since the original trilogy.. Had a blast watching this. Will definitely go watch it again.
Let me just say that I love the original trilogy. But this is something new, something fresh, something original. New plot twists and new directions. This is NOT a predictable movie. For me this is a big plus in the upcoming Star Wars movies.
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10/10
Throw Your Preconceptions and Theories Out of the Window - Massive Spoilers
What can I say? I am a massive Star Wars fan, I went to see this movie with my own preconceptions and theories of how I thought Star Wars should move forward.
The writers did not agree with me and I left utterly surprised and pleased. This film is far away from being predictable. Yoda's force ghost, Supreme Leader Snoke killed by Ren within the first half of the film, Leia remaining alive throughout, Poe stripped of his glory, Resistance in a panic, death of Phasma, I could go on!
The only sort of predictable thing was Kylo Ren taking after grandfather Vader. But this was one film earlier than I expected.
If you are wanting Star Wars "business as usual" then you probably will not like this film. But just like in life; sometimes it doesn't go the way you want it to. So anyone writing poor reviews I suspect is suffering from "sour grapes", because I went through this for a few minutes. They make Star Wars more "believable", its not a Disney fairytale.
They blur the lines of good and evil, they finished the stringent Sith and Jedi concept. I see in Kylo Ren the conflict of Darth Vader before he turned back to the "light", whatever that means anymore!
True Star Wars fans with an open mind will love this film.
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I don't undestand all the hate. But in spite of it, this one has a 8+ rating, which I agree.
I think people need to understand that this is a new trilogy and Han, Leia and Luke are no longer the main characters. And that every film has its flaws, heck even the almighty ESB has its unforgivable sins.
The action starts right away and its great. IMO its scattered at the right time. Every time you think the movie is turning slow, it backfires with action sequences.
Rey. As the main character she is great again. She doesn't steal the show like she did in TFA, but only because now there's plenty of Luke. (And in part explains why there was almost no Luke in TFA)
Luke. I think I understand how Mark Hammil felt when he first seemed dissapointed with how the character was treated, but he later acknowledge he was wrong and its clear to me why. There will be paralelisms with Obi-Wan, and maybe there are a few, specially with how Obi-Wan felt about Anakin. BTW its takes a long time to finally see him the way we wanted, but man, its just amazing. Worth the wait.
Finn. The weakest character IMO. Very much like he was in TFA. Its like he's some sort of Han-Lando Hybrid and not in a good way.
Leia. Life is unfair, I wish we could have her for EP IX. She is that good. She will be missed.
Kylo. Kylo is exactly the way he is supposed to be. You may not like him but its certainly not because of Adam Driver. Lots of surprises under his belt.
Poe. He is quite good carrying the action scenes, the character seems underdeveloped, but this is not about him.
Snoke. Biggest dissapointment. He seemed like a great villain with unparalleled power, but...
The Asian chick who I don't remember her name. 'nuff said.
The welcomed beloved SW rumored character who everyone was expecting.
Great. Its nice to see him again. He teaches Luke a leason or two.
Captain Phasma. I had so much hope for this character. On paper it looked like a merciless bitch and after her pretty short appearance in TFA I thought she would have her day. In the end its a forgetable character.
The Porg. Well, they are cure. At least they are not ewoks.
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The Last Jedi... Ufff, if you love Star Wars as much as I do, then you have to watch this one, it's seriously the best one in my opinion, the 2 hours and 30 minutes feels like one hour, if you are really into it. I was sad when it ended because I wanted more, but to be honest... The movie is worth every minute!
11/10, I rarely rate a movie that, go to the cinema and watch it, if you haven't already, it is so good!
#StarWarsTheLastJedi
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People giving movies these low scores should be given a criteria to mark against. The special effects alone are worth a better score than three. If they are not happy with the storyline then they can mark it down. The acting, costumes and music deserve a few points so already we have at least five. Just the atmosphere at the Star Wars with the history and characters make non sci fi viewers like Star Wars.
I saw the very first one when my children were young so each one evokes memories for me. I did enjoy the movie and it was a family celebration which made it special. Was it the best Star Wars film, well obviously not, but it was also not the worst one.
Would I recommend it to others, of course, go without huge expectations but look for the Star Wars themes, costumes, much loved characters never to be seen again, music and the overall emotional aspect that brings back Star Wars fans again and again.
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In Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back ....at the end Luke is injured and picked up by Landau and Leia.....and we know when Luke laid there injured he called out to Leia, and she told Landau we need to go back and pick up Luke.
So we all know Leia and Hans got married, and had a son and a ...daughter...
but Princess-General Leia was smart as her Step Father the Senator....they separated the twins........Luke felt because he fail Kylo Ren in training, that the Jedi should die out. He did not trust his instinct in the Force to help him.
So Leia separated the twins as her stepfather the Senator decided to protect the children that were strong with the force to separate Rey and Kylo to protect them.
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Had an awesome time at the theatres watching it with my father and fiancee, would reccomend seeing the movie and not trusting the hate bandwagon going on right now.
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This movie opens up with an awesome action scene that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the film. I remember a review saying that this was the funniest "Star Wars" movie ever. I'd have to agree. It's funny how a lot of films that work great as serious movies have great funny moments too. They're intentionally funny. This movie actually does not pick up exactly where the previous one left off.
We do in fact get the action sequence before Rey meets up with Luke. I knew Luke would just toss away his lightsaber. Anyway, it was pretty interesting to see Kylo Ren kill Snoke and then not turn to the good side. I guess the notion was that he wanted to become the new supreme leader. Snoke was provoking him a lot before. I admit Kyl Ren isn't the best of villains, not on the same level as Palpatine, but was portrayed quite well here.
There's this awesome and funny scene where Luke survives being hit by every blast from the enemies. Granted, it's because he was just a hologram, but it's still a great scene. We get absolutely amazing music not to mention how beautiful this film looks. I especially love seeing all the little creatures that appear. The special effects work quite well and I loved how unpredictable it was. I knew it would be dedicated to Carrie Fisher. It's these reasons why I'm a "Star Wars" fan. ****
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This movie was at best okay. At least they did not blow up another death star, but this title does not do anything to further the story or scope of this trilogy. It is a disappointment. Rogue One has been the only original content with good writing so far. The current group of people definitely knows how to cast and do special effects, but writing a genuinely good script is not in their bag of tricks. You would think when Disney paid billions for the franchise they would hire better writers to protect their investment. At least Darth Emo is a bit better this time around.
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The feelings I felt whilst watching this film were not quite in line with those I felt as I watched the previous seven (especially the inaugural, Empire, and Force Awakens) entries in the saga. Contrary to the "Star Wars feel" that each previous film harboured--this one felt like a completely different recipe. Last year's anthology chapter "Rogue One", felt more like a "Star Wars movie" than this one did; a reality which I find discomforting if anything.
I personally believe that this film wasn't by any means bad. I also firmly disagree with the many remarks of the legion of fans nitpicking every possible aspect of this film, and finding any reason to scrutinize its faults, regardless of how minute they may be. Rian Johnson's take on this franchise is interesting, fresh and extremely ambitious. Despite the former, this film falls flat on its ass because of the many narrative threads introduced in The Force Awakens, which are brushed off, dropped or underwhelming in this film:
1) Rey's mysterious parentage was persistently mentioned and toyed with, which implied that the former would have a narrative significance within the trilogy as a whole. This plot thread is made completely irrelevant in The Last Jedi. I was disappointed.
2) Supreme Leader Snoke--whose identity remains a mystery, seemed to be an important character, whose backstory could pave the way for a number of new narratives, whilst resolving previous ones. That's all completely wasted, since he just kind of fucking dies at the hands of Kylo Ren. Don't worry though, that's all gonna be explored in the next hundreds of novels and comics!
3) Luke's just mean, and extremely vague in his explanations to pretty much everything we as an audience want to know.
4) What the fuck happened to The Knights of Ren?
5) Poe Dameron fucked up.
6) Finn and Rose had a really pointless arc, which took up a portion of the film that I found to be way too large. Finn's fight with Phasma was also extremely underwhelming, and Phasma remains as useless as ever.
7) This might be a nitpick but the scenes where Kylo is "force facetiming" Rey are just so incredibly awkward. The shirtless scene especially.
8) Why the fuck does Luke die?
This film just felt like a plethora of ideas that just didn't go together. Though because they interweave, nothing could be removed. It's a passionate, ambitious mess. I love it for what it is, but very much hate it for what it could have been. It's a 2.5 hour film that could've benefited from being a half hour shorter, with a tighter focus, and more attention paid to the narrative threads of its predecessor. This film is a visual spectacle--Rian Johnson knows how to direct a picture; the fight scenes are beautifully shot and choreographed. The space battles are fantastic--and the visual effects are breathtaking. This marvel is not enough to carry a film that suffers from serious pacing issues, along with warped characterization and a messy narrative.
This was a good film, but for something that was speculated to be the next Empire Strikes Back (in terms of quality), it very much falls short. I liked this film, but I wanted to love it; and unfortunately, that didn't happen.
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Oh, just shut the hell up, all of you, whiny bitches! Of course everyone has a right to have an opinion and be entitled to it. My opinion doesn't worth a tiny bit more than anyone else's. That said, NO, I was not disappointed and YES, I've watched and pretty much enjoyed every movie of this beloved saga. What is wrong with people nowadays that they are so arrogant to actually believe they get to decide what is right and what is wrong for the franchise just because they can log in and grade it?! They and NOT the professionals who at least know what they're doing and can definitely do more than just that?! For instance, write a damn script that is actually pretty decent and original. By the way, isn't the originality was that thing everyone craved so much after watching the previous episode?! No? Ok!
Camerawork was outstanding, so are the effects, so is character development, so are the ideas delivered, so are the locations, so are the fighting sequences! Yeah, some of the fan theories got gutted (which I actually enjoyed a lot), but, guess what? The movies are supposed to surprise you, not give you exactly what you expect! And last but not least - Luke. He was awesome. His doubts, his evolution, his usage of the force for god sake! (the best of all we've seen in the series so far in my humble opinion). Just like the force, this fantastical world does not belong to specific group of people (angry fanboys in this particular case) - it's out there for everyone to enjoy.
P.S.: Yeah, I get the irony - Disney is now this giant monstrous corporation, basically monopolist, that's taken a grasp onto Star Wars and wants to get as much money as possible, but this time they actually tried to deliver something decent. And yeah, the canon thing: of course it may be frustrating for lots of devoted fans to feel deprived of something they've got to know so well, but sometimes you have to let go of the past in order to move forward, which is exactly what this movie did.
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I totally disagree with what most people are saying! This is one of the most misjudged movies I've seen on here. The last jedi shows a part of star wars we've never seen before and introduced us to a hole new concept of star wars. The only bad part about this movie is that Carrie Fishers character Princess Leia is still in the movie until the very end, and JJ Abrams will have to find a way to write her out because of her unfortunate passing or use a computer generated version which we all know probably won't happen. The script is well written in my opinion. It brings back some old star wars themes that make us feel like we're watching a star wars movie made by Lucas. It also shows a new side of the star wars franchise that we've never seen before like characters physically coneceting threw the force which isn't a bad thing. Director Rian Johnson wanted to add his own little flare to the franchise and did so beautifully. If you like star wars you'll love the last jedi and I highly recommend it.
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I went for the third time and enjoyed even more. Not once, have I felt cheated, disrespected or feel that my lifelong movie franchise was being dragged down by the powers that be. I am not a film critic but I've seen a million movies and this movie is not bad. Does it have plot holes, and things to be debated? Yes, but not enough to ward off my love of this franchise and the way that it has shifted gears to carry on the saga of Rey and Kylo. I never felt that Luke was disrespected. No more that Han being stabbed and thrown into the abyss. Luke was going to get his island obliterated and choose his own fate (force Ghost to come). Bottom line is that making these movies is impossible task with the scrutiny one will face. I enjoyed it, will continue to enjoy it no matter what anyone says and look forward to more adventures in the years to come. Thanks to Kevin Smith for his thoughtful review and insight. Made my 3rd viewing even better.
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This movie is MUST to be seen in 3d Imax, otherwise it will be a total disaster. Why? Well, because it fails in places where it tries to be original, like whole "Rey-Kylo" long distance romance, or Benicio Del Toro character line. But when it sticks to the original movies plot-it is really good. Luke playing Kenobi's part is a brilliant twist, or "nearly identical" to the Darth Vader/Sidius/Luke scene with Snoke, Rey and Kylo. And "Last supper" scene on the last frame with Leya and Rey-is a nice little touch. Also "easter eggs" are all around the movie, like Poe's "I know" respond to Rey.
Visually it is very eye pleasing, dynamic and well produced movie, but some plot holes, rushed ending and other little things are keeping it from being brilliant overall. So 6 stars would be enough. And it is a pity, that it will be not remembered for 40 more years....
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10/10
The greatest movie of all time, because it's about safety having the ability to protect magic
Number of reasons:
The "Marvel" jokes, horribly timed and unnecessary. (only joke that felt like Star Wars was Leia asking 3PO to wipe the nervous expression of his face)
Changing the rules and ruining most of what The Force Awakens had setup.
Completely changing the character of Luke.
JJ has a difficult job on his hands.
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9/10
Despite the Hate, a Great Entry into the Star Wars Saga
Simply put, The Last Jedi is a solid entry into the Star Wars saga that charts a new course for Star Wars. My advice: go see it yourself and go with an open mind.
Many people say they hate this movie because "its not what they expected" or they "didn't respect the OT characters," particularly Luke. As to the first point, Star Wars needs new ideas and opportunities or its going to stagnate and die. I get it: change is hard, it hurts, but Last Jedi charts a new course brilliantly. Rey is not a Skywalker, or a Kenobi, but an unknown who is beyond naturally gifted with the Force and who can rebuild the Jedi without the baggage of the previous Jedi Order. Ben seems to fully embrace the dark while his Grandfather ultimately turned away. (I wouldn't be surprised if his redemption is still coming, and think that to many people have given up on him to early). Even if Ben eventually does return to the Light, retreading old ground every time, in every episode may be comforting, may be what we EXPECT, but it won't challenge us or the characters to change and embrace new ideas or outcomes.
As to Luke's character, I kept thinking throughout Last Jedi about Empire Strikes Back, and Luke's failure to use the Force and get his X-Wing out of the swamp. What did he do in that moment? He went to a corner of the swamp and SULKED. Yoda pulled the X-Wing for him. Luke's hiding on Ahch-to, in my mind, is no different. He failed, and is sulking, hoping someone else will save the Galaxy. Its perfectly in line with his character. Yes, he was a beacon of hope and rose to the occasion during the Galactic Civil War, but when he failed, he was to hard on himself.
And this time, he didn't just fail a lesson in using the Force, he believes he failed as a Jedi Master, an uncle as the legend he was, panicking for a split second - but a second that changed the rest of his life. I think that, while he understood light can redeem the dark, he felt (for that second) he couldn't deal with having to redeem Ben, particularly after feeling how far gone to the dark he already was and not after the energy and loss it took to save his Father. The mistake was only a second long, but it was enough to change him and the Galaxy. He can't face himself, let alone Leia or, later, Rey. In short, he took to his corner and sulked over an epic failure on his part. This is the Luke we know. We just don't want to see him this way. We always want our heroes to be beacons of hope. But our heroes are imperfect, too. I was glad to see Luke's struggle, his wake-up call from Yoda, and his return to help the Resistance in the end, albeit from afar. His end was perfect, at peace, just like Yoda.
Is the movie long? Yes. Is the comedy sometimes forced or out of step with past episodes of the Saga? Yes. Could Johnson have shown Leia's growth in the Force another way than having her survive the vacuum of space and Force-fly back to the ship? Yes. But these blemishes don't overshadow this movie as a strong entry into the Saga, one that humanizes our heroes and blazes an interesting and exciting new trail for Rey and her new Jedi. You now don't need to be a Skywalker to make a difference in the Galaxy far, far away now, and that's awesome!
As for all the negative attention that is surrounding this movie, I believe that it is a derivative from the internet more than the true reflection of the the quality of this movie and how people really feel about it. I've read plenty of reviews where laughter, applause, and people generally enjoying the film was evident in the theater. This was my experience too: a good crowd that laughed and enjoyed the film the entire time. I even overheard people saying they liked this better than "the last one". I agree, and rank it easily in my top three favorites. I'm excited more than ever for Episode IX.
Go see it. You'll love it or hate it, as there appears to be very little middle ground. But don't take anyone else's word for it - be the judge for yourself.
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Just watched The Last Jedi from the latest Star Wars Trilogy and I really enjoyed this episode. I loved the beautiful cinematography, the music, the vintage science fiction set, the relatively new actors, and their interaction with the renowned, older cast.
Moreover I like the turns in this saga about "The Force" and "Turning To The Dark Side". The writers try to explain to us what The Force really means, some Life Force that is hidden in each living creature on the Planet(s), with the Good and the Bad. The Jedi Order tries to maintain, or regain "The Balance". Also the former evilness of Darth Vader is downsized in Kylo Ren, a vulnerable young man with an unstable character. His being "unbalanced" makes him unpredictable and therefore truly dangerous. Actor Adam Driver is an excellent choice for this kind of role playing. I can relate to him feeling abandoned by his parents and his Jedi Master although I should be angry with his character Ben Solo, who turned to the dark side because of this while the same happened to Rey, and she stayed at "The Good Side". Why? I hope I will learn more of this in a next episode of Star Wars, that becomes more and more some kind of tv drama.
I think it is this different take on Star Wars that makes the classic Star Wars fans really mad, or disappointed to say the least. Apparently Disney has calculated this risk, and aims for a new generation of fans that has grown accustomed to Netflix and other drama channels. Watching the last Star Wars trilogy is like watching your favorite drama series: pick up the characters and story lines you like, skip the rest.
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I'm shocked to see the litany of poor reviews here. This movie was outstanding. It is the best of the Star Wars movies, without question. There is depth, plot consistency, complex characters and an extremely inclusive casting. Heroes are deep, nuanced and real. There's a moving story told and it reflects the changing of our culture - the parts that are changing for the better, at least. Sure, it's not the "same" as all the others, but it shouldn't be. We shouldn't stay mired in the past or we'd still be watching "7 Brides for 7 Brothers" and thinking it's funny and cute to kidnap women with bags over their heads. We've moved beyond Princess Leia in a bikini chained to a fat slug, and what a fitting tribute to Carrie Fisher, an advocate for inclusivity, that this was her final role. If any of the people who worked on this film read this, which I doubt you will (but hope you do), ignore the poor reviews. They're just disgruntled people who feel small when they realize (shock of all shocks) that heroes aren't just white and male - and when they are white and male, they're just as imperfect and accountable as the rest of us.
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I like the symbolism in this movie. However, some things are a bit random. Why are the First Order rulers so powerful with the Force, whereas the Rebellion heros feel much less powerful. For example, Snokes (Supreme Leader), is extremely powerful, Rey stands no chance with him. Why he is so powerful is not really explained, which makes the power balance a little unclear.
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9/10
Up there with the Empire Strikes Back as one of the best Star Wars movies ever made
Really impressed with Star Wars: The Last Jedi! As much as I liked The Force Awakens, it followed the plot of A New Hope a little too closely. This film, however, takes the story and the characters in directions I was not expecting. Rather than just retread what we love from Star Wars, the film expands the universe and takes us places we have not yet gone before. And it was great to see Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher actually get something of substance to do this time around.
The movie also takes the time to flesh out the characters introduced in The Force Awakens, which makes the overall experience more emotionally compelling than the last five or six Star Wars films. The particular standout is Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, who continues to be one of the most complex characters in the entire Star Wars saga. A solid 9/10.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi has already divided Star Wars fan to two camp, those who love it and those who hate it. Me myself belongs to that camp, who can not dislike any Star Wars movie. Biggest problem in The Last Jedi is it's fragmentation and focusing to tell too many stories. After all it is story of Skywalker family saga. Movie doesn't fixate enough of Skywalker story, like the original trilogy. For example leaving Rey out of the family drama even she is in the middle of story telling is a little baffling. Although it may be deliberate and the next movie may contain some big surprises. If so this is easy to forgive at this moment.
After all movie is quite satisfying space soap opera. In many times you start to compare it for original saga and The Empire Strikes Back. In many ways movie feels a variant of Empire Strikes Back, but there are enough of plot twist not to compare them too much. But something seems to miss. Killing Snoke at this point of trilogy feels a little precipitate. On the other hand, some of the big villains has already killed and still they came back to saga later, like what happened to Anakin Skywalker on third movie. Other thing is Rey not seems to be part of Skywalker saga, even she is in the middle of story telling. It may be that they haven't told us everything yet, but somehow it would been better to give some hint to us at this point if she somehow be part of Skywalker family saga after all.
Final Result is not perfect Star Wars enjoyment, even it is eligible space soap opera. Movie is brilliant to watch and it is best to watch in 3D as big silver screen as possible. Vastness of space feels really vast and star ship chases feels like sitting in a roller coaster ride. Movie is simply must to see for all Star Wars fans and even you haven't seen any Star Wars movie before, it is still visually stunning to see.
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7/10
Good, not great, but also not horrible (an even-handed review)
It's as though they where pitched a softball over the plate, while playing against a 5-person softball team, and yet only managed to hit a double (we've all been there though, haven't we?). But the movie doesn't strike out, and it is able to score better than a single.
Before I give a brief review of this film, here is how I rank all of the Star Wars films in order of best to worst: Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, Force Awakens, Return of the Jedi, LAST JEDI, Rogue One, Revenge of the Sith, Attack of the Clones, Phantom Menace.
I would actually rank The Last Jedi and Rogue One on the same level. People who are giving this movie a one-star rating shouldn't be allowed to review films - ridiculous. This film is no where near as bad as episodes I - III (which the worst of those films should still get at least 3 stars).
The film is entertaining enough for those who are NOT looking for it to change their lives and create world peace. Its main weaknesses are in the lack of character development and overall narrative structure. It is as though all the pieces are present (decent acting, good narrative elements, great ambiance and cinimetagraphy - as opposed to Attack of the Clones), but they just couldn't take it from good to great. The good news is that it has a lot of potential. Even though this potential wasn't realized in this film, it still sets up plenty of good pieces for the next film. I could also see how this film could get better with age when it is contextualized with the next one....we'll see.
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It's alright. You came out of the theater pissed. You disagree with the direction your childhood hero went. That is ok. It's understandable. But relax, it's just a movie, a STAR WARS movie at that. This franchise isn't some genius thing. It's a franchise of dumb, fun action movies.
The movie actually explores some interesting themes. The force, the balance of light and darkness, the gray (good guy, bad guy). It's pretty good.
The first half is useless but it eventually picks up speed.
Adam Driver kills his role as Kylo Ren. Mark Hamill's acting is top notch. Daisy is amazing too.
Humor was forced, a lot of resolutions anticlimatic (or outright didn't make sense), One part of the moive could just be deleted and have absolutely zero impact. (you know the one) Rose was useless, but not as bad as many make it seem. Snoke was underwhelming too.
It looks, and sounds, absolutely gorgeous. Two scenes in this movie are some of the most beautiful in the entire franchise.
Overall, an OK movie. Not great, but now awful.
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People just don't understand. Are they expecting to see the same thing of the old movies or a remake? Original actors are old, so is time to introduce others, and continue the saga. Everything evolves, but the force remains the same. Before hating the movie try to accept the end of the old characters... nothing is eternal. I hope the producers won't fell unmotivated about so many haters. It's time to move on and continue with Start Wars. I can imagine infinite ways of continuing the story from the end of this movie. Open your f****** eyes people.
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I'm a crazy fan boy who knows everything there is to know about Star Wars! This movie did not line up with my specific vision of what Star Wars should be, so therefore it sucked!
Just kidding. I liked it. Was it perfect? No, but very few movies are. What I found so enjoyable about this 8th installment was the mash up of fresh new re-imagined Star Wars elements mixed in with traditional Star Wars canon. (I think this is the thing that makes the super fans so angry, but I thought it was a breath of fresh air).
Furthermore, one of the best aspects of this movie was the highly intense moments of dwindling hope. There were plenty of moments in the movie where I honestly thought to myself "how in the world are the rebels going to make it through this one".
The plot was simple, but in my opinion, effective and at the end of the day was entertaining.
Some of the jokes fell flat. But a couple of bad one-liners could not out weigh the positive aspects of this movie.
Overall, I left the theater feeling satisfied. I guess I like Star Wars more than the super fans.
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10/10
Ridiculously good. Depth, humor and insight. The force is back!
This movie is different, does takes risks and does not feel in anyway like a rehash of earlier movies. I loved the force awakens and i love this movie as well. I am sort of mixed on the prequels. The Last Jedi actually makes every Star Wars movie that has come before it better. Its character developments make sense but actually require something from the viewer and no it doesnt go they way you are going to expect but in a really good way. This film has a philosophical maturity that those stuck in an early adolescent cool guy with powers fantasies are not gonna get and as evidenced by the myriad negative reviews that i see on here prompting this one. Its just possible that closing the imdb boards pushed all the crazies onto the reviews instead of getting their troll habits out on boards. In any case this movie is ridiculously good, powerful, fun and completely perfectly star wars. anyone who tells you different is either a moron or a plant. or a delusional fanboy that wont be happy unless their own personal fantasy is up on screen and maybe not even then. I couldnt stop grinning coming out of the theatre and seriously considered simply getting right back in line. See the movie and dont listen any critics or anyone else. even me.
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7/10
The Last Jedi is good, but I expected so much more
Star Wars the Last Jedi is the only Star Wars film that I felt slightly disappointed with. While this film is not bad, and some of the harsh criticism this movie faces is a bit too much. However, this film is massively flawed and underwhelming on so many levels.
Now the first ten minuets or so of this film are brilliant, the open crawl, then straight into a very entertaining space battle. It was all Star Wars and everything I wanted in the Force Awakens. Although this scene also has a ridiculous unrealistic part. We all know that Star Wars is the most unrealistic space opera in the world, but here they took it too far. When the Resistance Bombers just drop their bombs, and a character is openly lying on a ledge while space is right under her! This was ridiculous.
The movie slowly takes a turn when we meet Luke Skywalker, which I despised. We waited two years to see the encounter with Luke, and some fans have even waited decades to finally see the legendary Jedi Master. In the now Legends, Luke was a badass, wise and powerful. In the trailers they built up this great meeting between Rey and Luke, and we got ... that! It was so Disney to completely wreck that scene. I don't know what was going through their heads when they thought that was a good idea.
The film begins to fall a little, it becomes filled with plot holes, slow paces scenes and a lot of unnecessary side quests. The introduction of Vice Admiral Holdo was good, I enjoyed her character, despite her being an overall weak character. Laura Dern does a good job with what she's got, but her character was bland. They could have easily replaced her with Admiral Ackbar, who we have all loved since Return of the Jedi.
The character of Rose is ... okay at best, I think she too, was weak and had little to do other than just be there. DJ was useless and did little to nothing. All these things bring this film down even more. Phasma also was dreadful, and had less to do this time around than the last movie, then there's Snoke.
I was so looking forwards to seeing this character in person, Andy Serkis is one of the greatest actors in the world, and his motion capture skills are unparalleled. And while he is brilliant and intimidating in the role, Snoke is also underused and useless, only providing a story plot point for our main characters. However one of his scenes led to one of the greatest action scenes in all the movies.
But my biggest issue with this film is by far, how the treated Luke Skywalker. They ruined his character in this film. He was iconic, loved by millions, and they wrote him like that! What a bloody waste. However they gave Leia the honourable tribute to Carrie Fisher, and I truly loved her character in this movie. And I know some had an issue with her 'scene' in the movie, I loved it. I thought it was a beautiful scene that showed just how powerful she could have become.
Our main heroes are Rey and Kylo Ren who are for the most part, doing nothing for most of the movie other than talk. Their stories get more interesting as the film goes on. Finn is just Finn, and Poe has a lot more to do here as well.
The Last Jedi is a good film, but a heavily flawed Star Wars film, it lost all the magical adventure feeling of the previous movies. Yes, I even like Episode 1 more than this. But despite its flaws it is entertaining, and has some moments of brilliance, and a breathtaking soundtrack by the great John Williams, but this didn't feel like Star Wars.
7.3/10
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I'm 49. I was 8 years old when I saw the first trailer for the first Star Wars movie back in 1976... and I had just turned 9 when the movie opened and my family and I saw it in a rare trip to the cinema. I had known from the trailer that there was something about this lore, this galaxy, that was meant for me. My friends at school all liked/loved the franchise, too... but none seemed to have the affinity for it that I had.
In college, however, I met 2 new friends... Heather and Chad... and they did love "all things Star Wars" in a way that was very familiar to my heart.
I'm one of those people who completely loved THE LAST JEDI... and how the story, the characters, even the Force are all evolving to speak to today's minds... but somehow, it still speaks to me... even stronger than ever, I dare say. So, I was very interested to see how my old college chums felt about this newest installment of the saga, which seems to have polarized some enthusiasts (if this online static is to be taken seriously... and highly questionable in my estimation).
Heather lives nearly 900 miles away (I moved north) but she had just seen the movie with some friends of her son (since her hubby and son don't care for movies). I was tickled to hear that she and all 7 boys (all at the age I was when I first became enchanted by Star Wars) loved THE LAST JEDI, as I hoped they would!
Chad lives nearly 4000 miles away, in London. He also loved THE LAST JEDI, he confirmed by email!
So... 3 friends nearing 50 years old... separated over 25 years after their stint at the same university... along with some 8 and 9 year-olds in tow... all loved this movie.
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Detecting a downwards trend here. A few interesting moments throughout but not enough. Most of this stuff is filler. I liked the previous episode better.
Why doesn't Disney understand that they are playing in the realm of Star Wars here, not Mickey Mouse. This is a cultural phenomenon spreading out 40 years now. They need to take the scripts more seriously and actually amaze us with the story from start to finish. Yes, we will show up for every new Star Wars they produce but we demand to be properly entertained.
The effects were good but I recon CGI humanoid characters are yet to be perfected, best to be avoided, other alien lifeforms look pretty cool, though. I liked the acting, the few jokes that I caught, music, the major plot milestones but not so much the filler in between.
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9/10
Rian Johnson delivers an epic space opera that does the saga justice.
Carrying on from where The Force Awakens left off, Luke Skywalker's peaceful and quiet existence is brought to an end when Rey, the young would be Jedi arrives and attempts to convince him to journey back to the Rebel Aliance who are very much in need of his presence. Learning of her strong connection to the Force, Luke with reluctance eventually chooses to train her. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance commanded by Princess Leia are fending off the The First Order, led by Kylo Ren and General Hux who direct them in to battle.
As with The Empire Strikes Back, The Last Jedi shares a couple of aspects both tonally and in terms of it's narrative, with Rey (Daisy Ridley) having travelled to the Oceanic planet of Ahch-To with the imperative in convincing Luke Skywalker to join the Rebel Alliance and tutor her in the ways of the Force. Her fiend and Ally Finn (John Boyega) meanwhile awakens onboard the resistance cruiser after recovering from the severe injuries inflicted upon him by Kylo Ren in the last movie. Having recovered he, Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac), BB-8, and new addition to the Star Wars Universe, mechanic Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) devise a plan to disable a tracking device utilized by the Last Order in home in on their combatant. The result is an overall darker, more irremediable dark and complex part of the saga than like it's more immediate prequel.
With Master Jedi Luke Skywalker we see Mark hammil give what is probably the best performance of his career. Here we have a man far removed from the wilful, impetuous youth that we first saw in 1977's, A New Hope. Instead we have a disillusioned, jaded soul, an impression that is made by his worn and weary countenance. contrastingly Rey proves to be the anthiesis of everything Luke once was with her forthright idealism and tenacity she makes for a fitting foil to her elder contemporary. The dynamic between them both is palpably felt as is their shared chemistry. Finn's personal journey is both emotional as it is literal as he finds his path crossing that of the spirited Rose, as he single mindedly sets out to find Rey and warn her of the even great, impending threat imposed by the insidious First Order. With a past tinged with the very tragedy that the war between both sides brings, it has infuriated her thus strengthening her spirit while not compromising her humanity. Tran delivers a well executed performance, acquiring the required balance her character deserves. She sparks off John Boyega who once again is effectively stalwart as the storm-trooper turncoat. With the absence of Harrison Ford as the cynical old rogue, Han Solo he is succeeded by Oscar Issac as the courageous Poe Dameron. Lacking Solo's trademark cynicism, he never the less makes for a self-assured, stoic presence who is not adverse to some sneering banter in the face of danger.
Placed somewhere in the centre of both story strands, and overlapping in to both is the emotionally damaged and erratic Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo as played with understated, conflicted intensity by Adam Driver. Having been previously left underwhelmed by his stilted rendering of the dubious successor to the legacy of Darth Vader (he was after all was really Anakin Skywalker who was his grandfather), he refreshingly redeems himself with a more polished performance.
But with this being Star Wars, there always has to be a prime antagonist who is pulling the strings and calling the shots, and with Supreme Leader Snoke we have arguably the most formidable of antagonists. Manipulative and cunning, and brought to life via a combination of startlingly realized CGI and the impressive vocal talents of Andy Serkis he infuses the Sith Lord with a subtle, threatening majesty that is downright ominous.
As far as the direction the story takes, screenwriter Rian Johnson who also takes directing duties has crafted a grandiose space opera of epic proportions that he brings to life with his winning screenplay that is complimented by the exorbitant technical deftness of it's production. There is something of a war of wills between Rey and Luke, as she attempts to hammer home how essential he is in battling their common enemy, both practically and symbolically. This is later keenly paralleled with the spiritual and physically frenzied battle between Rey and Snoke as vye for ownership over Kylo Ren's allegiance. It harken back superbly to Luke's memorable confrontation with Emperor Palpatine and his prodigal father in Return of the Jedi back in 1983.
Where it does go awry is that in it's final act I does become too drawn out making it somewhat overlong. The presence of C-3PO strikes me as a-typical fan-service and his absence would have had no substantial impact on the plot. And at 152 minute in length it does feel a tad overlong, and becomes a bit too drawn out in the final act. However these flaws are minimal and did nothing to rob myself of my enjoyment and awe of the cinematic spectacle that this is. With first rate support from Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro who make an immediate impression and aren't there merely to play superficial lip service, The Last Jedi marks the upturn in quality for the franchise after the somewhat disappointing, The Force Awakens, although given how the movie plays out and with the untimely death of the late Carrie Fisher, one wonders what course J.J. Abrams has set in compensating for this. Either way, I await the as of yet entitled Episode IX with since anticipation.
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Perhaps not the best Star Wars, but certainly the most morally and emotionally thought-provoking.
I left the theater wondering which direction characters were headed in, both logistically and emotionally. Earlier, and thanks to originality, probably better films in the franchise hinted at moral complexity. Darth Vader wound up second-guessing a lifetime of work in what was an excellent ending to the original trilogy. Anakin Skywalker fumbled around for three movies, loudly hinting at turning dark.
This time around, the moral complexity reaches levels typically reserved for art house pictures. Where does everyone fall in the good-evil meter? Through six movies, it was always pretty obvious. This time around, I'm genuinely interested to see what happens to the souls of the characters.
From an action standpoint, this one stands with the best in the series. The limited lightsaber battles were visually poetic and the space warfare was thoughtfully produced. I left with the feeling that Rian Johnson was the most talented director the series had seen.
But he wasn't without his faults. John Boyega's Finn was given a sideplot that, aside from introducing some galactic social commentary, was a wasted 15 minutes. There were some jokes that winked a bit hard at the camera and I felt insulted by the final scene in the movie.
But I was also touched emotionally more by this than by any other film in the canon. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are absolutely captivating. Driver's Kylo Ren will never be a better baddie than Darth Vader, but he is a more compelling villain than Vader in a way I might say something similar about Travis Bickle.
And while this movie moved in exciting new directions, Like Skywalker is still my favorite character in this universe. He's human, but when pushed, is a hero above all heroes.
Heading into Episode IX, I'm as excited as I've been for a sequel in my life, and that's all I can really ask for.
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When The Times pronounced The Last Jedi "The best in the whole franchise" I was a bit taken aback. Its definitely not that good but Its a stunning movie which kept me and my wife enthralled all the way through. Its VERY emotional and it keeps building on that feeling. I was not disappointed. There are some classic shots that are going to go down as truly great moments in cinema.
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10/10
Great film, surprised by some negative IMDB reviews
We are star war fans and thought this was just as great an installment as The Force Awakens and original trilogy with well-loved trademark elements mixed with better quality next generation story telling/film-making which gives this trilogy a great unique edge - I personally think this makes the final trilogy relevant both from its original theme and for the new generation of films we see (the acclaimed ones rather than the overdone franchises out there). There are great contemporary characters and storytelling with morals to learn in this film too that you don't get to see done so well or even covered in most mainstream movies, one thing I particularly love about Star Wars.
If you remember the original Star Wars trilogy and appreciated it for what is (great story, still sci-fi with some light hearted fun), and appreciate the new trilogy is made in this generation - I then hope you enjoy this film all the same.
If you expect it to be exactly the same as the original attached with characters that haven't developed since then, you might not like the movie, and it's probably best to re-watch the originals that already exist.
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The franchise just gets better and better. I really enjoyed the the movie and so did the rest of the audience proven with applause.
As for the haters, this movie will out shine your hate and lonely lives for years to come. You are all lemmings being led by butt hurt feelings to standards you couldn't meet in your own fantasies. May the Force fuck you all.
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First, I have no idea why so many people don't like this film. While I would say it's not as good as episode 7 or Rogue One, this is a fine addition to the SW series. I personally thought the story good, and (slight SPOILER COMING) adds a deeper level to the Jedi mythos, particularly in that they aren't the perfect people many believe. This movie promotes the underlying theme present in the greater SW universe: balance. Light and Dark live side-by-side, and always will.
Definitely worth seeing, definitely a good addition to the series.
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I decided to wait on writing my The Last Jedi review/rant until I saw the movie for a second time. I thought it was only fair to do it that way because I came out of The Last Jedi for the first time with a lot of different emotions, which is typically the case for every Star Wars film for me as a complete and utter fanboy for the Saga. I knew I liked the movie after my first viewing, but the movie was such a rollercoaster of emotions I had difficulty pinpointing the way I felt for sure. Did I love the movie? Was it better or worse than The Force Awakens? I adored nearly everything about The Force Awakens and came out of that movie instantly loving it. Upon my second viewing of TLJ, I discovered that I do indeed love the movie, despite its flaws. It isn't a perfect movie, but the shining moments of the movie are some of my favorite of the entire Star Wars Saga.
The way the movie starts works really well for me. It feels like a classic Star Wars opening and it gives time for Poe Dameron to shine, a character who simply didn't get enough screen time in TFA. I loved the opening bit of humor with General Hux and Poe. Overall, the scene is a great action piece that puts me in the right mindset for a Star Wars flick. After this initial opening, the film does have some small spots where it sputters a bit. The stuff with Finn and Rose just isn't that interesting overall. Although I found myself enjoying it a little bit more the second time around, I could see this part of the movie being cut out or being reworked so that Finn and Rose have a better place in the film. Honestly, I would have rather had Finn and Rose stay on the ship and held an intense mutiny with Poe that could have truly tested the patience of the Resistance. Instead, we get the Canto Bight stuff, which isn't inherently horrible but it's also ultimately pointless as the plans don't really pan out anyways. The only redeeming part I see coming out of this is you get to see the failures of the Resistance, especially the failures of Poe Dameron as a leader, which he ends up growing quite a bit in this film. You see him as stupidly headstrong in the opening scene where as by the end on Crait, he's yelling at Finn to not sacrifice himself. In that sense, we get to see Poe grow quite a bit from these failed plans, not so much Finn and Rose.
The strongest points of the movie are everything between Rey, Kylo Ren, and Luke Skywalker. In a sense, the movie could have almost entirely focused on this part because it really is the main chunk of development for the film. Seeing Luke Skywalker simply decide to throw his lightsaber and become this grumpy, old man Jedi is everything I never knew I wanted. We all expected Luke Skywalker to be this superhero that we remember from the original trilogy, but that isn't real. This is real, raw, and true-to-humanity Luke Skywalker, a highly flawed man who doesn't want to do anything anymore because of his failures. His resistance to training Rey makes so much sense once we learn more about the origins of Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker training together. For me, this extreme resistance is only natural on the part of Luke Skywalker. Why would he want to train another Jedi? Generally, I love everything that was done with Luke's character, from his first appearance on-screen during the film to him becoming one with The Force.
In regards to Rey, I love everything that was done as well. Rey became one of my favorite characters in the franchise after this movie. I mean, to put it simply, she becomes a badass. She has to deal with her troubled past, her origins, and her strength that seemingly wants to tip her to the Dark Side of The Force. The training sequences in the film are spectacular, from Rey cutting the rock with a lightsaber to her using The Force to see all of the life, death, and darkness surrounding her. It effectively develops her relationship with The Force in such a stellar way that only makes me more excited to see where her character goes in the next film. Another standout scene with Rey is when she goes into the weird darkness area with the mirrors of herself where we think we're going to get the reveal of her parent's origins. Initially, this scene pissed me off. It gave me so much anxiety while watching it for the first time because I thought we were finally going to get the answer us fans have been contemplating, debating, and arguing about for over two years. Upon second viewing, this scene is far more impactful. Rey is Rey. Her parents don't matter. She's an independent and strong female who's origins do not define who or what she is. She has all the power to do what she wants to do. This message is so wonderful for not only the kids watching this film, but even for the adults watching it. You have the freewill to become the thing you want to be, to not be defined by the past, what you were, what your family was...it's in your hands. Of course, this message isn't totally realistic to some of the circumstances of real life and getting out of some terrible situations (poverty, racial discrimination, etc.), but it doesn't change the fact that a message like this MATTERS. In cynical times such as these, it matters even more. Optimism and not being defined by your past matters.
Let's talk about Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren is also one of my favorite characters of the Saga now. He's one of the most conflicted characters that has ever been in Star Wars. The conversations he has with Rey through their weird Force communication thing are just great and work so well to develop their characters. But the truly defining moments of Kylo Ren in this movie are when he refuses to kill his mother and when he seemingly goes to the Light Side for a moment but switches back to the Dark. When he refuses to kill his mother, we realize that Ren does have an ounce of empathy within him. He can have some level of redemption, although I doubt he will in the next movie, especially after what happened toward the end of the movie. When Kylo and Rey have one of the coolest fight scenes ever in the franchise and it seems for a slight moment that Kylo may switch over to the Light Side, our expectations are instantly subdued. Instead, he pulls a Darth Vader in Empire move and asks for Rey to join his side to rule the galaxy, not under The Dark Side, The First Order, The Resistance, or anything, just them, together, ruling. Rey obviously refuses and Kylo forces the truth out of Rey about her parents. She knew all along, they were just drunks who sold her off. They were nothing. In this moment, I'm not sure Kylo has any chance of returning to the Light Side. But the fact that he is such a conflicted character makes it possible for redemption.
I've seen some people be frustrated by the fact that Snoke was killed. Personally, I don't see this as a problem. Why do we need to know his origins before he dies? Why does it matter? Snoke's death isn't about Snoke. It's all about Kylo. It's about Kylo flipping to the Light Side, even if it's for a brief moment. Maybe we'll get some origin story in some novel or maybe it'll be in the next movie but I don't really care. Was The Emperor developed in the original trilogy before the prequels? Even in the prequels, we don't get his complete origin story, in fact, it's quite limited compared to what is in certain novels that aren't canon anymore anyways. The point is, Snoke dying and not getting developed isn't some 'plot hole,' it's telling you that he wasn't important in the first place. He wasn't the main villain and he never was. It's all about Kylo.
Luke Skywalker died. After my first viewing, I wasn't ready to let go of Luke. I felt really frustrated that he died. We just lost Han Solo in the last movie. I thought, if anything, they would kill Leia because Carrie Fisher had died. Yet, the way he dies is perfect. He dies to help the Rebel Alliance come alive once again. Isn't that only appropriate? The hero and legend of the Rebel Alliance sacrifices himself to help the Rebel Alliance live once again? It's just perfect. The way we get to see Kylo rage out on Luke is also impressive.
Broom Boy. So yeah, a Star Wars movie ended in a way that wasn't typical at all, with this relatively unknown Broom Boy character. Some people have a theory that the next movie will take place nearly a decade later to allow Princess Leia to die of natural causes and because Broom Boy could grow older. Broom Boy is irrelevant. He's simply there to show that the Force is in other normal people, like Rey. That's his only purpose. I'm nearly 100% sure we will never see Broom Boy in another film. If we do, it sure won't be in this trilogy. I do think some time will pass in-between TLJ and the next film, but probably the typical amount of Star Wars time between films. The Broom Boy scene gives me absolute chills and I love that The Force has now become a concept that normal people can have it. It isn't about the elitist Jedi culture of the past or the sinister ideas of the Sith, it's about normal, everyday people who can have the Force. That's what Star Wars is all about at its core.
Even though I spent most of this review raving about TLJ, it isn't perfect. Finn and Rose barely have a place in the film. A lot of the stuff outside of what's going on with Kylo, Rey, and Luke feels sort of like filler at times. Some of the humor isn't perfect in the film, although most of the humor worked for me personally, some of the jokes don't always hit. Regardless, TLJ is a breath of fresh air for the Saga. It took bold risks that paid off. It did things with characters like Luke, Rey, and Kylo that I didn't expect. Almost any other director besides Rian Johnson wouldn't have done what he did with Luke. They would have went the typical route. I'm so grateful that Johnson directed this movie and did what he did.
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I know it's been a while since I wrote a review on this site, but I don't get the hate this film received; sure, the new films aren't as good as the OT, but I didn't see this film out of obligation, but rather on the notion that I didn't want to waste my money. So, on this lazy Sunday afternoon reading all the bad reviews about this and that, I sorta reluctantly decided to go "what the heck" and see it anyway.
Now, I understand that the Star Wars films holds a very special place in the hearts of millions of people; including me, but I actually felt some parts of the film were good; the special effects and action scenes for one, and a touching moment here and there with some tension and excitement along the way; though none of it gels smoothly and that's due to the clunky dialog and some questionable plot twists; namely Leia's MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL IN OUTER SPACE BY BEING FORCE SENSITIVE!! "That's just complete bullshit" I thought to myself while watching the film and I'm sure many others were just utterly baffled at how such a feat is possible; isn't the Force powerful, yes, but has boundaries as well? Even if "Force sensitive" individuals aren't as powerful as the Jedi, they should NOT BE ABLE TO SURVIVE BEING BLOWN OUT INTO SPACE!! It's one thing to have rules based in a fictional universe; it's another to break said rules for the sake of "rule of cool".
I also felt bummed that none of the dangling plot threads and mysteries that were present in the Force Awakens weren't even explored. At all. This is due to the lack of continuity between that film and The Last Jedi. While Rian Johnson has made some impressive films, Looper, being one of them, I suspect that prior to filming, he was even interested, let alone, overlooked the glaring continuity errors, lore, history, and pathos that TFO had.
Some of the characters, such as Snoke, Phasma, Rose, and even Leia, weren't even utilized to their full potential, due to the limited scope of the script that left so much of the fleshed out lore, mysteries that were present in the OT and TFO. A MASSIVE disappointment for ANY fan and casual viewer of the franchise as a whole.
There are some great moments though. The psychic conversations between Rey and Ren, a possible romance between Finn and Rose, as well as new characters such as Admiral Holdo, etc. Unfortunately, none of them get much to do, other than following objectives and commands from General Leia.
I hope that by the next film, we get a more cohesive and engaging story, better character development, tying up loose ends from the previous films, and overall quality. But as it stands, The Last Jedi, sadly, is average at best.
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I got to admit that this film surprised me in so many ways. Granted I'm more favourable to the whole cannon than many, but my expectations weren't as high after the Force Awakens which I didn't warm too. However I really got into this and loved it.
We have the return of Luke but also a strengthening of the new stable of characters. Our Rebels are again under the cosh by the dark forces and escape seems hopeless, but hope can set you free.
Our two leads are excellent as the Jedi and Dark Side hopes, but very ably assisted by many others. It's Mark Hamill that all are interested in, and he is perfectly fine. Interesting how he carried his role.
Beneto Del Tor is in this too, but really his part seemed slapdash and a waste.
Action is great, the film looks wonderful and in the cinema it's a real experience.
Ignore any naysayers, this is worth the visit to the the cinema. A wonderful addition to the cannon that sets up the series well for the next movies.
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7/10
An inconsistent blockbuster. Fun to watch, hard to digest.
The Last Jedi is a long and fun roller-coaster ride: beautiful scenes, breathtaking action, crisp dialogue. And it's massive in it's epic complexity. At moments it seems to be two or three episodes in one. If you are new to the Star Wars universe, you'll love it. If you're a die-hard fan... that's another story, because Episode VIII is flawed.
The Star Wars universe is a masterpiece. A space-opera, but, still, a masterpiece.The Force Awakens brought "new hope" to the SW galaxy after a not-so-bright "prelogy". But The Last Jedi burns all bridges to the past, And it does it in an unconvincing manner. Why so?
* First of all, Rey is the no-one on the path to becoming a legendary hero. Nothing wrong here. But she is (without any training whatsoever) the equal of Kylo Ren or even Luke. Maybe even Darth Vader - all characters with special genealogy, characters who have undergone intensive training for years before mastering a light-saber or the use of the force. In an instance, all the hype surrounding Anakin/ Vader or Luke is erased. She is their equal or even stronger from the very start.
* The epic confrontation on Crait is inconsistent to what we have seen so far. Weapons capable of gargantuan destruction, imperial star destroyers and dreadnoughts. Yet the final battle is fought between a dozen AT's and a dozen Resistance scooters.
* Last but not least, in the opening battle scene, we witness curious case of gravity manifesting in space. Bombs should be floating in space, not falling on the ship of the enemy. Yes, there is a planet in the background, but not close enough to justify gravity as we know and feel it. Unless gravity on the surface of the planet is a thousand or a million times stronger that what we consider normal, in which case the planet would be uninhabitable to humans.
And still, I enjoyed it. The first time, that is. The second was... problematic. Good bye, Lucasfilm! Hello, Disney Studios! Or, better yet: Star Wars is dead. Long live Star Wars. Here's to embracing the new!
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For me " The Last Jedi " was thrilling , congratulations to Rian Johnson and to his team , i'm from the generation of the original trilogy , and i can say that " The Last Jedi " is the best movie after " The Empire Strikes Back " i can't understand the hate from a lot of fans of the original trilogy , life is changing and nothing stays stable so even Star Wars can't stay stable , for my opinion people must not hear the negative reviews from the fans , the movie is amazing ...
with all the respect for the haters :
the dark side clouds your mind
Merry Christmas
and may the force be with us always
Best regards
From Greece
George Argyris
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8/10
Mark Hamil, Ridley, Dern it is good to see you again.
I have to say in the words of Yoda! (Yes I was surprised to see the wise little jedi master) "It is good to see you Luke Skywalker" and I hope we will see him again in part three, please because we lost Mrs. Fisher whom we will always miss, so please let him be in a significant part of the film. There was a part where Kylo Ren is so convinced that we must let go of the past (yet I am still waiting the Return of Han Solo in part 3 do not disappoint us, did I mention that Mrs. Fisher passed away and that we will always miss her and that there is an ache that can't be filled in her absence.) But I have to give you a snippet from this review : A Lesson in Ageless Thinking From James Bond "Age is no guarantee of efficiency," the quartermaster says. "And youth is no guarantee of innovation," Bond replies. Quite true. Please be careful that you don't disrespect the elders in your midst while seeking to carve a name for yourselves. Whatever you do to the seniors amongst us you do to yourself and later when your own handiwork returns to the hands of the masters seeking the same fate for you that you handed out in your youth. It was also George Lukas in an interview (I cant remember which one) one time whom mentioned the old saying "old sins cast long shadows", I think the best way is to respect all life, all things as Jedi Master Skywalker tells Rey on the first of three lessons he gives her and I add to forgive and forget, seek to heal old wounds with the balm of kindness, gentleness, good will and honest diplomacy. This does not mean that evil will not raise its ugly head, as Skywalker said there will be evil it may be here to stay for now but it doesn't have to be here forever, cruelty, hate, war, violence, can go away and we can find the way together, hand in hand as Rey tries later with Kylo Ren who refuses in his quest to destroy everything and start anew which we can't do, you destroy the good with the bad if you do that and we cannot do this as Rose Tico (a rebel fighter) tells Finn's character "we fight for what we love", which hit me like thunder when she acts out of love for him in a special scene which should bring a tear to your eye or atleast leave you with a lump in your throat. Moving away from the philosophical, I have to say that I wanted more at the end, that I was at first dissappointed with Skywalkers behavior at first but then realized that yes after so many years of fighting it takes it's toll on anyone but I need to see him again in part 3 triumphant in every way as he was when the first films came out because it does a heart and soul good to see him one in the force, one with the force! Lastly I would have like to see a more exciting sword fight, like the kind in Phantom Menace with Obi-wan and Qui-Gon vs. Darth Maul which is one of the greatest fight choreography I have ever seen (along with the fight scenes in Ipman part 1 which are incredible). Also if this movie is some 20 years later shouldn't the technology be more advanced, the space ship that Laura Dern's character (was great although too rigid, but good to see you back laura) is in towards the end seems advanced but other technology seems the same, for the next and future films and yes there should be a follow up to Rey's character she is just exciting as a jedi, her youth and please her purity must remain intact as the years pass to light and gui de the rest through the darkness that surrounds the jedi universe and I am excited to see new Jedi and hopefully alien ones like Asokah Tano from the animated clone wars. Hopefully Star Trek (the competitor) will not go Rated R but remain PG-13 but follow many of the same advice I gave above especially with the elders, while enhancing the story and action. I would like to see William Shatner make a significant Cameo alongside with John Luke Piccard (yes Kirk LIVES! As in the self written answer to his untimely death in the time traveling storyline, hey he could appear before that story line, just have him and the rest of the surviving cast appear to pay them tribute and satisfy age old fans and show respect), p.s. Chris Pine is great as the young Kirk, he has grown into the role and is very charismatic. I would love to see some new droids and more aliens and alien creatures a jungle planet would be awesome to see and a great back drop for a great battle scene as intense as you can make it with hundreds of resistance/ emperial fighters making their stand. By the way the 3D Effect continue to disappoint because although there is depth perception in some scenes, the whole idea is that the scenes need to POP-OUT at you and they don't. Come on guys get this done to really give us a real experience like no other, during some of the regal cinema promos we get the regal cinemas logo POP right out to us in TRUE 3D but that's it, can you guys get this happening, I mean we're paying a bunch of money to go see it in Imax 3D just for this (once again yes the depth perception is well done).
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10/10
Why do you hate this? It's the best episode and the 2nd best film I've seen!
Seriously? It's such a great film! Thank you Rian Johnson! Thank you! Episode I is trash next to this. Really, believe me.
P. S. If you're wondering what's the best film I've seen, it's Titanic. :D
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10/10
You Have to be More Open to this Movie!!! Not Everything Can Go Exactly How You Want It To.
NO SPOILERS
I can understand why a lot of people claim they "hate" this movie, and that it is the worst they have ever seen. But I think this movie is great. It challenges previous notions of the previous Star Wars installments and asks uncomfortable questions of some of the most important characters in the series. Yes, I agree. Some things made me very sad. I read reviews in which the writer says they are "conflicted"; I think that's exactly how you should come out of the theater. Asking questions that the previous Star Wars installments avoided. That's all I have to say. If you're willing to enter the theater with an open mind, go watch this new movie.
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Beautifully made, new and unexpected. Despite the long 2 1/2 hours long film, The Last Jedi redeems alot of the cultural values and resets another foundation to remind us how much is there to identify in this film.
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The Last Jedi reaches the depths of storytelling, pathos and imagination that haven't been tapped since the early 1980s. All of the storytelling and technical elements fire on all cylinders as Rian Johnson takes old fans and new on a roller coaster ride of emotions (which some may and will find unsettling.) He respectfully pays homage to the mythos and boldly expands on it to varying degrees of success.
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Acting was top notch all throughout the film
Music was incredible
Planets and ships were beautiful
Liked the twist ending with Luke on Crait and the broom kid scene
The force connection between Kylo and Rey was fresh and provided some great dialogue between confused eneimies
CONS
The Finn Rose story line was boring and served no purpose
To many fake-out deaths
Did not agree or like how they handled characters like Luke, Snoke, Captain Phasma
I enjoyed some comedic scenes but most felt forced and dragged on to long
All new characters like DJ, Rose, and Admiral Holdo felt forced and had little importance towards story
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I loved this film. It was funny, dark and very progressive. I really enjoyed seeing more lore in this movie, like vibro swords and staffs. The ships were awesome too like the flagship destroyers and the mg-100 bombers, so cool. The story was great, it's like we finally get to see what starts happening after the star wars of old. The way Luke was presented was fantastic, very noble like a samurai warrior, much how I've always perceived the Jedi. His sacrifice was legendary to say the least. Watch this movie with an open mind and you will understand it better!
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Not a frequent writer of reviews, only on a few occasions when something is really, truly bad. In this case TLJ is far from bad, but I believe the many 1-star reviews are.
There nothing (more) wrong with this than any other major motion picture these days, its just entertainment. And I liked the direction Johnson took us in TLJ.
Like Luke said this is not going to go the way you think, and the movie is al the better for it.
Yes, the Canto Bight subplot was unnecessary (but it is definitely Star Wars!) and could be dealt with differently. And Leia's spacedrift was far-fetched. But that does not maken this a bad film by any means.
Only think I disliked was the slapstick manner 'over the shoulder throw away' of the light saber by Luke at the start of the film. He should have used a manner which far more suited his feelings towards the Jedi and the force given his state of mind and should have trown the light saber in away in a more resolute manner.
I liked TFA, I loved Roque One and I think this is also a good new addition to the Star Wars universe. Better than any of the prequels (which I also do not dislike, but they are more forgettable that the OT). I'm not a fanboy who automatically likes everything Star Wars, I'm just a fan of movies in general and like being surprised by them sometimes. Where many are negatively suprised by TLJ, I definitely am not.
And I'm sure in IX we will find out how Maz Katana got a hold of Luke blue light saber that he lost on Bespin.
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I cant believe the reviews what a bunch of moan old goats get a grip on life. The film is full of action just enjoy the journey its not 10 stars but a good 7 only rated it 10 to offset the idiots giving this film 1 and 2 stars that is simply not accurate.
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I have been a Star Wars fan since a child. I have watched every Star Wars movie multiple times, except the The Force Awakens and Rogue One. With The Force Awakens I was expecting a relaunch, something new and fresh, instead it was just a remake of Episode 4. Rogue One was ok, but not the kind of movie I expected either.
However, The Last Jedi, finally did it right! It is something new, something unexpected and unpredicted. It always kept me wondering, what will happen next and I could never predict the outcome. And my favourite part about Star Wars, the Jedi and the Force, finally reawaken. This is what the title The Force Awakens should have been like. For me this was the best Star Wars movie since long and I felt the same amazement as I did as a child. I can't wait to see Episode 9!
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I came out of the theatre with mixed feelings. For the most part I thought it was a "good" movie although a missed opportunity for the new trilogy in many ways.
There were some excellent battle sequences that used CGI well along with some beautiful scenes and a diverse colour palate. The different and darker tone that was used was interesting and refeshing, Kylo Ren changed from being a weak antagonist in the last to a more interesting character in this and I also liked the general movement and decisions the film took. Unlike many others, I was fine with the way Luke was portrayed and felt that it blended nicely with the rest of the story.
With all of this being said though, this movie is not without its faults and there are a considerable amount of them.
There is a noticeable pacing issue that lends to boring scenes and awkward transitions. I also felt that there was a level of over saturation in that they tried to fit too many characters both old and new to the film with too many subplots into a single movie. The result is time devoted to sequences with questionable relevancy to the main story and close to no character development in many characters that makes me wonder if they were included for marketing, toys, red herrings or set ups for a next instalment.
There is also a lack of logic or explanation for many things including how the force is used in instances, how time has past and why decisions are made by characters that seem to simply be there to pander to a lazy and convenient way to make a story arch among other small less significant parts. Needless to say, although most are not blatantly obvious, the keen viewer or one that will view it more than once will notice these are plot holes.
Even though the film has taken a much different direction that the others, one still cannot deny the mirroring that is throughout the film. It is nowhere near as noticeable as The Force Awakens but it is still there. you could argue that it is just a product of it being in the same universe and story line but it has aggravated me.
There is also some comedy relief and cute creatures sprinkled throughout the film that wasn't too distracting but still felt too "Disney" to me and not reminiscent of the original trilogy minus the Ewoks of course.
I would have liked to see Rey interact with Luke more and even though I liked Kylo Ren's character in this, there still seems to be a lot missing from his story.
Looking past my nit picking, I still feel like despite the actual significant plot points within the film, we still haven't learned a whole lot more of the story and I dread a single sequel to complete the trilogy like planned will not be significant enough to make the story seem finished. It is a good time and a casual movie that you can enjoy. Nothing outstanding but just another placeholder for the next film.
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Critics have seen a different movie than the general audience. Their high ratings are quite baffling since The Last Jedi has very large plot holes, lacks the sense of humor of other installments and has a twist you could see coming from miles away.
As surprising as the Vader-father-reveal was in the original second movie, as obvious was the twist in this one. It is in fact so blatantly obvious that without it, we would be left without a bad guy in the next film... and you figure that out while watching, which means all immersion goes out the window instantly.
Ouch.
However, many people will probably forgive that. And in all fairness, there is a lot of entertainment to be had as well. The exchanges between Rey and Ren are excellent. The light sabres shine in this movie. And so does Mark Hamill.
But is also way too long, has unnecessary bits in it, truly gaping plot holes and largely plays out in space, meaning we don't get a lot of action on cool new planets. And when we finally do, it feels 'tagged on' for fan service.
This means the writers have created a serious problem for themselves. It's just not original anymore. Not only does this episode suffer from that, but so will number nine. We've lost a bit of SW soul here, which is likely to continue into the next installment.
There are times that I love everything about the SW universe. And there are times I just wished they had left it with the three movies from back in the day. This time around, I definitely feel the latter. If I would really try to nail all of this into one sentence I'd say... Star Wars is running out of steam.
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9/10
Without a doubt. The BEST Star Wars film from Disney.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi sees Rey (Daisy Ridley) trying to learn the ways of the force from Luke (Mark Hamill) while Leia (Carrie Fisher) leads the surviving Rebels on a dangerous escape route from the First Order. And Kylo/Ben (Adam Driver) faces his self-conflict.
One of the most noticeable improvements is the increase in character development. Poe (Oscar Isaac) is a bigger and more likeable character.
Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (Adam Driver) has improved greatly as a character.
The four of Hamill, Fisher, Driver and Isaac deserve praise for their great performances.
Two downfalls:
1. Rey is still boring and lacking of depth nor development. Though Daisy Ridley does try to be more energetic.
2. Finn is terrible. His dialogue is bad, Boyega's performance is bad. Not to mention that Finn is completely unimportant in this one. He's just bad.
Overall it's the great change of pace that kept this one likeable. The action scenes are exciting and well choreographed.
It's less humorous and it's jokes generally less cringe-worthy.
Personally I agree with the critics that it's the best Star Wars film since Empire.
I definitely recommend The Last Jedi.
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In early 2017, Star Wars: The Last Jedi's trailer launched, and the world swooned. All but one. Instead, Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker grumpily intoned, "This is not going to go the way you think" - an effective trailer-stinger line that only served to further fan the flames of excitement.
Boy, was he right.
No historical Star Wars whipping boys - Ewoks, Jar Jar, or George Lucas himself - have incurred the polarizing cultural ire of The Last Jedi, which courts opinions as diverse as 'best since Empire!' to 'worse than Naziism!' Objectively, it's a mixed bag of extremes, flaring up with standing ovation-worthy moments of giddy movie magic, but misfiring more than a blindfolded Stormtrooper. Halfway through my screening, clutching my Admiral Ackbar figurine in a death-grip,* I became afraid for the film I was watching. And, Yoda called it: anger and hatred were soon to follow. And the aftershocks of such potential falling to waste through carelessness and clumsiness? Suffering.
If J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens courted nostalgia to the point of verging on being a New Hope remake, director Rian Johnson shrugs off the bridles of fan service with the disdain of a surly teenager - "Let the past die," poignantly, is less a trailer stinger than mission statement. Those expecting the 'dark Chapter II' will not be disappointed (content aside, the film is frequently so aesthetically murky it's frustratingly imperceptible during key scenes), but this is avowedly not Empire 2.0. Johnson, to his credit, makes Star Wars an utterly unfamiliar terrain, with bold left-field twists from canon and expectation providing a real sense of vibrant uncertainty. Nothing and no one is sacred or safe, and characters fail, fall, and grow in unexpected and fascinating ways. Divisive or not within the old guard of fans, a franchise that could too easily stray into stagnation here feels the most alive since the revelation of Luke's real parentage.
Unfortunately, Johnson's screenplay feels like a first pitch draft, anchored on a handful of bold story beats, but with preciously little fleshed out in between. There's an overbearing sense of uneasiness pervading both plot and tone, with momentous melodrama clumsily interrupted by anachronistically inappropriate Marvel superhero-style comedic beats. Poignantly, the film's two central plot strands are BOTH(!) anchored on inert evasion, lending an irksome, procrastinating feel to the narrative. And if that wasn't enough, Johnson effectively stalls his plots about stalling(!!), orchestrating an inexcusably artificially motivated second act jaunt to a casino planet (which may as well have been named 'MacGuffin'), for the sake of a humdrum Cantina rehash and a lazy message about war profiteering. A judicious editor would have exorcized the segment completely, and saved audiences from 20 minutes of bum-numbing redundancy.
Thankfully, Johnson finds his footing on the spectacle front. The Last Jedi conjures some of the franchise's most eerily beautiful settings and imagery (scars of red slicing across a porcelain salt planet; the mythic dampness of Ireland's Skellig Michael), tied together by virtually flawless CGI (though the dearth of fun and visually memorable new alien characters is a bummer), and the sheer perfection that is John Williams. Similarly, Johnson's action scenes are breathlessly enjoyable, from a succession of dazzlingly intricate lightsaber duals, to exhilarating and unprecedented usages of the Force, to an epic finale so jaw-droppingly jubilant it's about as masterfully bombastically entertaining as Star Wars gets - no idle praise.
Sadly, Johnson is more adept at balancing the Force than his ensemble. Many key characters are ingloriously sidelined (sorry, Oscar Isaac's blandly charismatic Poe, and poor Chewbacca, 3PO and R2...), underutilized (sorry John Boyega's formerly interesting Finn, Andy Serkis' woefully camp Supreme Leader Snoke, and Domhnall Gleeson's warily comedic relief General Hux), or killed - sometimes offscreen(!) - with an appalling absence of deference or dignity. Instead, Johnson introduces a cabal of new players... who are universally reprehensible and useless (Laura Dern's grim Admiral, Benicio Del Toro's transparently superfluous thief, and the intolerably chirpy Kelly Marie Tran's trite Resistance hero all range from forgettable to infuriating). And: the elephant in the room that is the tragic death of Carrie Fisher? Well, Fisher herself is as fiery and ebbing with sass and aching humanity as ever, but more than a few eyebrows will be raised at some of the brain-bending character beats Leia is subjected to throughout.
Ultimately, it seems that, if Johnson had his way, the film would singularly revolve around its titular trio of Jedi. The Rey/Kylo Ren/Luke Skywalker storyline is by far the film's most heartfelt and effective, and Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and Mark Hamill each give blistering and formidably emotive performances. Their melodramatic morality play strikes unexpected depths of darkness, hope, and tenderness, and hypothesizing how their genuinely unpredictable story will reach its culmination will fill the year with fevered expectation.
Oh - and those worrisomely cutesy Porgs? They're inoffensive, charming, and sell arguably the film's biggest laugh. Eat it (heh).
The Last Jedi is, overall, worthwhile, but more fundamentally conflicted than Kylo Ren. It takes fearless strides with plot and characters, then mires them in hours of dithering uncertainty. It's infectiously, thrillingly zippy, then plodding and inert. It loves its internal lore and history as much as it resents them. It's both invigoratingly unpredictable and disappointingly safe. In a sense, it exemplifies the mantra of Yoda: it either Does or Does Not with equal conviction, with its successes mercifully (slightly) overshadowing its frustrations.
If anything, Johnson's enigmatic final shot poetically speaks both to the cyclical timelessness of Star Wars, and the tremendous joys it heralds for past, present, and future audiences. Let's just hope that Supreme Overlord Disney extracts the appropriate conclusions from The Last Jedi's furor: DO keep Star Wars joyful and nostalgic, but remain unafraid to take chances. DO NOT succumb to rushed, excessively convenient scripts, poorly crafted new characters, or forced, cheap tonal shifts. Otherwise, Hamill's other trailer stinger line may yet prove worrisomely prophetic: "It's time for the Jedi to end."
-6/10
*:(
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10/10
Not what I thought it was going to be but I loved it!
I disagree with some of the reviews on here and I felt I had to write about this movie. I don't think it's as bad as some people made this out to be. It sort of mirrors the original Trilogy, like Empire. Some people didn't like Empire strikes back, complaining it was too dark. I'm not one of those die hard Star Wars fanatics that wait in long lines desperate to see a new Star Wars film. I am not sure why some of you are complaining a movie's direction when there were so many likable, interesting characters, I get it, it has a darker theme compared to Force Awakens. What I like about Rian Johnson's direction of Star Wars was that it was not meant to be produced in a way to make star war fans angry (I actually felt Luca's prequels were far worse). There were many similarities with past Star Wars movies with this one. Many of the characters in this movie were so ordinary and end up as unlikely heroes and you really feel for the characters.
Johnson also said, he wanted to open up the possibilities for more Star Wars stories in the future.
I also understand where fans of Star Wars is coming from with legendary characters like Luke who ends up as a ordinary hermit on a isolated island and many feel it seems a let down but I feel it's normal for characters to end up like that. In a way, I feel this is more realistic in that your life is full of ups and downs and not everything turns out the way you want it to. I think if the movie was taking a traditional direction with Luke as this all powerful mentor of Rey and Rey's background explained related to this so and so's character would've have been too predictable. And even though there wasn't a traditional love story in there somewhere (although there sort of was a interesting dynamic with Finn and the Mechanic Rose Tico), I think many who petitioned with the ending should get a grip. There were many likable, comedic, characters and interesting special effects (though some parts a little too CG) and even though it wasn't a perfect movie for everyone, it did pay homage to past Star Wars movies with interesting plot twists that makes you want to see more.
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First of all, ignore the haters. Most of their arguments against The Last Jedi are rooted in false reality that the original trilogy was without fault. Almost every criticism I have seen for this film (and Episode VII) can be applied to Episodes IV - VI.
The Last Jedi is not without its faults. The new character, Rose, is annoying in almost every scene. She is not Jar-Jar bad, but her presence feels somewhat unnecessary, but that may change in the next film.
There were also a couple scenes that may have dragged on a bit too long, but that's a matter of taste.
On to the positives: The acting is fantastic. The movie is beautiful. John Williams' score is once again awesome. The action sequences are stunning, and there are several nail biting thrills.
Rian Johnson pulled no punches, and I feel his narrative choices are inspired. When characters use bad judgment, the ramifications are immense. Just when you feel the movie is too derivative, it takes an entirely new direction.
Most of the critiques I have seen involve "plot holes" which do not actually exist seeing as how the story is not yet over, and fan boy theories that did not come to fruition.
Do yourself a favor. Go see the film with an open mind. Do not rely on the rose colored nostalgia of a perfect classic trilogy that is far from (Ewoks, whiny Luke, sub-par acting, lack of backstory for the villains and most of the characters not named Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett's lame death and 90 seconds of screen time, etc).
See this movie with fresh eyes. Don't compare to the other movies, and try to be objective. It is a very good film, and a very good Star Wars film.
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I've never been the biggest Star Wars fan, Rogue One to me is the best film in this considerably bloated franchise. I enjoy these films for their campy fun but I think now Star Wars has run dry. This film whilst it kept me entertained throughout just lost me due to the wasted plot potential.
Daisy Ridley is such a talent and I am usually enthralled whenever she appeared on screen.
John Boyega is also such an incredible actor although I wish he was given more to do.
By far Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron is my favourite of the new characters as I hope he gets a more central role in the final installment of this trilogy.
This film has a strong supporting cast with Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Gwendoline Christie, Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro. Whilst each of these actors give their best they're characters are completely wasted. Honestly disappointed with how most of these characters are just discarded.
Andy Serkis is as always amazing yet his character is just unceremoniously thrown away.
Poor Domhnall Gleeson deserves much more then to be a basic runt of the litter officer even though he is meant to be General he is just treated by trash by both the characters and the writers of this new Saga.
Gwendoline Christie better come back, swear to god JJ.
Del Toro and Dern were great characters but they just needed more screen time for their effects to be fully felt and their arcs to be really recognised.
The visual effects, cinematography and music are clean, pristine and mean. Stunning scenes on the planet Crait with William's score forever soaring. I just wish his score felt a little more recognisable then the other films.
Mark Hamill is just meh. Could he ever really act? No. Is he better? I guess.
This is Carrie Fisher at her best which sadly isn't saying much.
Adam Driver I can not get around, I can't stand him to be honest. Respect the actor, hate the character.
Kelly Marie Tran Was fine I guess, didn't love her, didn't hate her. I did hate that damn kiss though. Everyone knows Finn should be with Poe.
The new planets are fine and well constructed although with some green screen issues especially on Canto Bight. There was also this really unsubtle reference to animal cruelty which was laughable, Johnson clearly trying to tug on the heartstrings but failing to do so.
Motive is kind of thrown out the window in this film so don't expect much reasoning for character's actions.
Yoda's appearance was fan service. Simple. I enjoyed it, but fan service nonetheless.
In it's entirety this film is considerably entertaining and good to look at. The passing of Luke Skywalker felt kind of anti climatic but it does provide an interesting set up for Episode IX (christ) even if many promising plot points such as Who Is Snoke, Who Are Rey's Parents, along with many characters such as Snoke himself, Phasma, DJ, Holdo have been discarded.
This film is a let down due to the wasted potential (along with some incredibly cheesy dialogue and forced attempts at humour) but entertaining nonetheless. It may seem like I hated the feel, I just personally prefer the gritty, contained harshness of Rogue One which had subtle performances much unlike this entertaining whirlwind of wasted potential.
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6/10
First "Star Wars" without Lightsabers having contact with each other
Not the movie you're looking for. Probably most disappointing Star Wars I've seen in the current state of the series. The phantom menace was hyped so much but I personally have never felt as hype for a Star Wars as much as this one with reintroducing Luke and all. It has it's good moments but this was supposed to be a serious and important plot driven Star Wars. It felt so much more with the title just being in red. It's way too funny and completely kills almost all the drama and emotion to every scene into look we're meta and it's Star Wars, something movies tend to do a bit too much, as yes it does have a real cheesy script. Especially with the force lines. This movie is also not very predictable, in a bad way since it fails to make sense many times. There are all many plot holes ranging from the best ship in the entire First Order Fleet having No shields to the force being messed with. The force in this film is turned into something Indescribable without spoiling plot, but it does not follow the ways of the prequels or originals. Kylo Ren works the best but the majority are the extremely disappointing and do absolutely nothing important. Characters that were supposed to be important are the ones that just nothing. They killed off these characters that meant something and could've been something. Snoke is the worst villain of all time, how is Phasma here, etc. Luke's character has become the opposite of what he was before and that annoys many though it wasn't that major problem. Mark disagreed with how Rian wrote in his character and I do as well but its not insanely unrealistic result. The meanings tied with the story are also awkward and inconsistent with animal cruelty, poverty, and rich people that made money off war, the balance of the force, this, that, and just again a mess. All the fan theories in this current state are completely wrong on multiple questions. It's an extremely messy Star Wars film with the pacing being action for 20 mins and then story for a whole hour and a half but it felt longer and maybe I say it is longer. One scene in this movie, the Casino one, apart of the story/plot focused chunk is not really needed and ruins the movie a lot. The focus again feels out of place and the character Rose, makes it feel two people in a Star Wars set screwing around. Two scenes were ruined, one by Rose and the other by the force. There is a lot of accepting to this film's new take on the force and its powers, along with the Jedi order. It does have its good parts with the action and some otand by no means is it a bad movie but it is not a good Star Wars. It's a 6/10 mixed with it being a Star Wars it being a film. It's 7/10 as a film with the pacing and holes lowering it as of now, with the next movie maybe help/hurting but as a Star Wars it's 5/10. Hopeful that the next one can clear it up because this one is just messy.
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I have been reading a lot of biting comments from others and I just didn't hate it. I had a good time! Was it one of the best movies I have ever seen? No. But it was entertaining and fun! A great way to spend part of a holiday weekend with family!
I do believe some of the plot points and battle scenes could have been cut/shortened to reduce the film's running time to under 2 hours.
But the cast is great and the addition of Benicio del Toro (one of my favorite actors) and Laura Dern added a lot, for me.
I enjoyed the humorous parts, and the creatures and special effects were great!
I have seen every Star Wars movie, but I am not obsessed to the point where I found this movie as "offensive" as so many others have.
I will close by saying this was a fond farewell to Carrie Fisher. May the Force be with you always, Princess Leia!
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The best word to describe The Last Jedi must be: Shocking. With two years of speculation on characters origins and future, there is no one who could have predicted the masterpiece that Rian Johnson created in Episode 8.
Is this movie far different than all other Star Wars movies? Yes.
Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not!
When Episode 7 was released, it's only popular criticism was that it was too similar to the original Star Wars trilogy, especially IV - A New Hope. Now, with the release of Episode 8, the criticism is that is doesn't feel enough like Star Wars! It seems like Star Wars fans cannot make up their minds on what they want.
But, I digress, this movie takes incredible risks and they almost all pay off beautifully. Johnson and cast manages to tell a compelling story that expands the mysticism of the Force, furthers the characters in a tangible way, and gives an incredible commentary on our decisions, regrets, and growing old. These themes, combined with acting, cinematography, and visual effects never before achieved by Star Wars results in, by my standards as a lover of cinema and especially Star Wars, a Masterpiece.
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If the next movie in a series is different from the others; you complain. If it is like the others; you complain. This one brings balance to the force and you missed the point. Known characters grow and change. New characters are introduced. Luke was the new hope and now the last jedi. Rey is now the new hope. The next film can go into a universe of directions. If you hated this movie please don't come to the next. That way, Star Wars will end for you. The rest of us, who "look closer", can enjoy the new galaxy in the near future and near to our hearts.
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8/10
They gave us everything in VII so we expected change in VIII, and change is seldom comfortable.
After I watched Star Wars : The Force Awakens, I concluded that the Star Wars series has finally delivered after a very poor run in episodes 1-3. TFA gave us everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, we wanted and longed for: the return of familiar characters like Han Solo, Leia, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, C-3PO, etc; the return of the Star Wars feeling of wonder and fun, the introduction of solid new likeable characters like Poe, Rey and Finn that fit into the Star Wars canon well.
I remember coming out of TFA thinking to myself, "Now that they gave fans everything they wanted in TFA, I bet they will start changing things up a bit in the next movie - they won't want to remain same-same". Sure enough Star Wars : The Last Jedi did exactly that, some of which I liked and others that time didn't.
With TLJ, there is a brand new evil empire, with a new name, establishing itself while Kylo Ren attempts to remove the evil empire's old history, similarly, it seems Rey is ushering a new order of Jedis as the old school literally disappears away with Luke Skywalker; there is a bit of "teen angst" (common in today's teen movies like Hunger Games and Divergent movies) between Rey and Kylo Ren; the rising importance of the new characters and decreasing importance of the old; an obvious over-abundance (personally, I think far too much) of female leads (remember, even Rogue One had a female lead!).
Firstly, what I liked. I have all Star Wars 1-6 on Blu Ray, and have watched them multiple times, but I'm no fanatic. And I think the direction which TLJ took was OK by me, as I didn't expect Star Wars to stay the same forever, and change is always difficult for some fans. There are some nice touches with the new direction TLJ takes, there's a certain humanity in the relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren / Ben Solo - I swear they almost feel like a brother and sister (a la Luke and Leia)! There's a bit of humour thrown in, which works and wasn't overbearing - including a cute critter or two that doesn't overstay its welcome (like Jar Jar did). I like the amount of action that was constant in the movie, and that is expected from JJ Abrams' style. The movie definitely feels like classic Star Wars, unlike Episodes 1-3.
Now for what I didn't quite like. The evil empire is so weak. The leaders for the evil empire - unlike Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine - seemed so weak. Kylo Ren is conflicted, and therefore weak. I hope that in Star Wars IX, they will develop him into a much more powerful - and menacing - opposition to the seemingly stronger Rey. Snokes, despite his menacing presence, was hopelessly weak, so easily slayed by a weak Kylo Ren! As I alluded to earlier, epic movies like this shouldn't be so politically correct e.g. female leads / heroes everywhere Rey, Leia, purple-haired lady, Asian lady, etc. etc.. I mean, it's so obvious it feels terribly forced. Look we live in the 21st century, we have NO problems with competent female leaders, enough already, OK? Sheesh.
All's said and done, I preferred TFA over TLJ. That doesn't mean TLJ was a fail by me, in fact, I enjoyed it, hence my rating. But they'll have to really up the ante in Star Wars Episode IX, the force MUST be strong in that one!
Onwards and upwards for Star Wars IX!
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I have been involved in the Star Wars universe since 1977, and I've seen all of the Episodes (Including Rogue One) in the cinemas. I have my own "First-to-worst" list, like everyone else on this planet. Like many, I too have a relationship with the Star Wars universe. Well, after seeing "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" opening weekend, all I can say is "Rian Johnson, you've done good, real good!"
I left the theatre invigorated and exited in the new directions you've taken the Star Wars universe, and I fully respect your risk-taking. I applaud your tenacity in telling your story, and I thoroughly enjoy your movie...love it, actually.
Mr. Johnson, you hit a home run with Episode VIII.
I will not get into specifics, nor will I go into defense mode. ALL of the Star War's movies have issues, so be it.
I will say this; "The Last Jedi is not your father's Star Wars."--The Last Jedi is MY Star Wars.
P.S. "The Empire Strikes Back" is my most favorite of all Star Wars films, followed Closely by "The Last Jedi."
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8/10
Mark Hamill is a great actor - the only worthy point in this movie
First of all, this is a well-made movie, better than most out these days.
On the other hand, it has absolutely destroyed another part of Star Wars. And well, nothing else left from now on.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not mad at Disney because they purely want to sell products and use a movie as a vehicle for them - George Lucas made way more money with gadgets and collectables than with the movies, too.
And well, he made terrible mistakes with the prequel trilogy, yes.
The Force Awakens was a simple copycat of the original Star Wars movie - a very lame one. And it made one of the greatest mistake: You don't get your heroes killed. Yet, Han Solo, who was made to do character-distant actions, was absolutley lamely massacred.
This, Last Jedi, made Luke Skywalker be character-distant, nobody in his true mindset, would ever suppose the good and noble, mature Luke, Jedi master would murder a teenager padawan. He would rather seek for more wisdom and try and try again. He would never ever leave the problems for good.
Though, I'm giving all the credits to Mark Hamill, who is a great actor, and anything he does in the movie proves this: worthy to watch.
Anything else?
Not exactly. Too many characters, to little given to them (c'me on, what did Chewbacca did in the movie? Trying to eat but failed?)
Not to mention the absolutely nonsense thinking in warfare. Or the simply unexplained space-levitating Leia, who can sleep-save herself, but can't do anything with her existing powers for others?
Honestly, this movie showed me: childhood is over, Star Wars is over.
There is no coming back from this.
No, not even with this Yoda appears in the movie - breaking all the rules established before.
So, Star Wars is over, watch Mark Hamill in anything, read any non-canon SW books, and use your imagination. This will save you money and disappointment.
This movie has destroyed the last remaining part of Star Wars.
Not with just the ridiculous acting of the supporting cast.
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9/10
The Last Jedi is the Empire Strikes Back of the new Star Wars Trilogy.
The Empire Strikes back got the same amount of negative and divisive feedback as this movie did back in the 80s because it tried to innovate. This movie is the exact same.
This movie's cinematography may be one of the best of any movie. The score is excellent. The story is well thought out, with many many layers, twists, and hidden elements in it. SPOILERS: (How to gauge if you actually watched the movie: Who is Rey? (Answer: Rey is the child of the Force. She has no real parents. ). What happened to all Jedi books (Answer: Rey took all of them and are on the Falcon. Last few shots show it.) Leia was bullshit?! (No, it wasn't, Leia is a Skywalker, the strongest force-adepts of the galaxy, and in a fit of despair, Leia called for the force, and the force answered. ). And there a ton more "plot holes" like this. Plot hole is in quotation mark, because if you think there a ton of plot holes, then you should watch this movie again. Because you weren't paying attention.
This is not like the prequels, not the TFA, hell, not even the original trilogy. This movie does not tell you everything. It wants you to think. To speculate. And I love it for it.
The only reason this movie is not a 10/10, is because I do agree that the humour was forced way too much.
Other than that, it's a masterpiece of storytelling and cinematography.
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As a viewer we could feel what Rian Johnson was attempting to do. A very different feel to what JJ Abrams brand to us in Episode VII, much more colorful and lively. However, this was not close to meeting our expectations in my opinion.
The depth of the character was one of the two positive points for me. Adam Driver's performance as Kylo Ren was heads to tails compared to episode VII. Less fragile, deeper sense of meaning and a convincing performance for me. The second main point was the esthetics of the movie. Play on colors and sounds ws sublime compared to JJ Abrams darkish hue with constant solar falir usage. Contrast of colors to illustrate symbolisms as well as give it a visual appeal. Matching sound with the ambiance, there is a moment in the movie, I won't spoil which scene where Rian Johnson knew that there was no need to use sound the simple beauty of the moment was enough.
Now we finally come to the negatives of the movie or if I had to summarize it in one word. Jokes. The amount of continuous jokes in this movie ruined it for me. It rarely felt like an actual Starwars movie but more like a Disney movie. Constant jokes just after moments that were supposed to be epic but just left us plain dissapointed. Unlike Episode VII that wasn't the best Starwars there were still goosebump moments that made us rejoice of the comeback of the Starwars universe, I did not have chills once throughout this movie.
Don't get me wrong this movie is worth the watch but it is not a worthwhile StarWars Movie.
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I will never understand the bad word of mouth with the last Star Wars outing, The Last Jedi. There's no going wrong with this franchise as far as I can see. In my honest opinion, Rouge One wasn't as good as The Force Awakes but after watching The Last Jedi, I will say it is one of the best. This gives me reason to question why people are going out of the way to bash what is being done with the Star Wars series.
Nothing stays the same, and in this case the changes being made here are suitable and necessary for growth and expansion. I will respectfully add that The Last Jedi was ingenious. All the hate can't change that.
Any film is worth viewing to make your own opinion. Forget the negativity and bad reviews being spewed by others. it is almost laughable. Even George Lucas has given his blessings and approval stamp before any of the Star Wars releases. One learns to expect a lot from anything of this magnitude and I was not disappointed one bit. In fact, it turned out better than I could have imagined. So see it for yourself! I gave it a 10, it's that good!
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Most of the reviews I read were at grade 1 to 5. And they were all wrong, because the authors were to blind to see. Star wars are not only the Skywalkers and only a true fan would know it. What this film and previous one are doing is transition from one generation to another. There is an adventure, an action and a drama that the Star Wars movie need. Of course I could make it different, every fan can, but you will need a perspective to understand what this movie is offering to. There is still to much mystery to go on. For example only clue to Reys parents is Kylos statement. Who can tell it was true? Further more, how far is Reys training and who will continued it for. Only a limited mind fan would disprove this film. For the rest of us, it's another chapter in the saga. And I couldn't wait for new one.
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Firstly, I'd like to say that having seen the movie for the second time, my initial reaction of slight dissatisfaction was hugely shifted to an incredible parallel of complete understanding and accepting of this film for what it was intended to be.
In my opinion, the film is a slight turn against 'loyal fans' in favour of producing a film which encapsulates the intention of the entire Star Wars brand, developing characters in a power struggle between good and evil. Certainly there are scenes in the film which 'throw away' what some people have spent a lot of time mulling on, both relating to this trilogy but also the deeper world of Star War, however to me, this is not a bad thing.
The main plot twist of the film makes complete sense to me, at first I was upset about the killing of Snoke, I'd spent a lot of time wondering who this mysterious character might be and what JJ intended with this character. I think a lot of people may be missing a subtle point the film tries to suggest both obviously and quietly, that is that underneath the surface, Kylo Ren's character is developing both in terms of freeing himself from his past, but also moving forward with his struggle between the dark and the light.
My second point would have to be that, if you've come for a film which is about Luke Skywalker and the other characters from the original trilogy, then you are better off rewatching those. This film is bold in its movement from the past in developing a new story. Which I think is a difficult task, which the prequels (despite having better grounds for familiar characters) clearly struggled to do. This film shows the acceptance that throwing in old characters for the reaction of fans is not always successful, and the steer away from the doing of this in the prequels has thus been successful.
Another concern I had was with the death of Luke. Until I realised, that he has served his purpose, he passes on the torch to Ray and there is now little more he can offer than advice (which makes more sense to be done as a force ghost than need to be collected on route to rebuilding the rebellion). It is the accepting of the past, and the final transition to the next film. For me it shows the first film to be looking back, this film as a transition to the future, and the final film as the future.
I particularly enjoy the recurring themes and overarching messages this trilogy is trying to convey. If you take this film for it's visual effects, it's bold step in a different direction, it's departure from expectation and it's character development, I believe you are left with a very enjoyable film, which for me has been one of the most enjoyable, if not the most enjoyable Star Wars of all of the films. I advise any unsure of watching, or dissatisfied from the first watch to give the film another try. Rian And JJ have given the Star Wars franchise the new breath of life it needed. And for that as part of a huge audience, I am grateful.
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I don't fully understand the bad reviews. I think the performances were good and while the story wasn't very original, it tried to borrow the ingredients from the other films, for example getting the other to join their cause aka switch to dark side. The jokes were a little lame.
Maybe some die hard fans think it might not be serious enough? In regards to skywalker I dont see why he is disrespected?
Honestly I thought it was a resonably good movie and was entertained.
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Please, do not pay attention to all the whiny reviews. This is a GREAT movie if you are not into sticking plot lines. The action is top notch, the characters are all believable. Well worth taking time out to go see, especially at this time of year when you get sick of all the Holiday movies on TV.
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Seriously, this might be the main problem for many viewers - Disney re-tells the very same story from the first (ok, "the only") trilogy. It's a well working formulae, it was great before and why change it? But it's also a problem for fans and "old viewers", because they saw it already and re-telling is never as good as original in eyes of those who remember.
As someone who knows next to nothing about Expanded Universe and does not have any religious attitude towards original trilogy (thought sees it as "the only" true one as well for "re-telling is never good" reason), I would say the plot is no worse than it was before. Jar Jar Binks remains the main horror of all sequels-prequels-spin-offs for me, new trilogy is not there yet horror-wise.
I could forgive Luke's self-flagellation, Leia's survival in the open space, Rey's superpowers developed without a hint of training, not-executed Po (personally responsible for loss of half of the fleet, mutiny and death of many last survivals) and many other craziness and inconsistencies of the story. Though, execution could be better - jokes do sound as if they are there only for the sake of joking, plot devises could be a bit less obvious, side-plot resolutions more meaningful, time/resources management could be less absurd, and so on. All forgiven. This is not what made me give the not bad and entertaining movie only "6".
My personal biggest gripe with new trilogy (or whatever number we expect now) is the cast and - as a result - acting. Rey, Finn, Po, Kylo - as un-charismatic as human-being can be. Mind you - I am talking about charisma, not prettiness. They are all frozen, emotionally bland and do not spark a hint of sympathy in me. Their weakness as actors is especially shows itself when they share the scene with true actors - like in a scene where Leia and Rey talk about Luke's death. You can see Leia's sadness on her face, but without text you would never guess what Rey is feeling - she barely blinks. Kylo is convincing as hysterical teenager with a big chip on his shoulder and, so to speak, nuclear bomb at his disposal (a disgusting Main Antagonist, rather than interesting, if you ask me, not to mention he _looks_ more like a "thinker" not a "bully" he plays), but even a side character Rose was still more lively than he and all of the main characters combined. And Del Toro? As downplayed as his character was (really, they did all they could to not allow him steal the movie), he still beats every single new character just by appearing on the screen.
Unfortunately, cast is something that can not be changed. Unless next trilogy develops from Rogue One, or switches to those kids from the stables (grown up and played by someone who can act) it will remain "an old story about boring nobodies". Something I am not looking forward to.
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I went into the movie worried and expecting the the worst, having heard that the critics had rewarded it with good scores. I left the movie feeling exhilarated. The action sequences, the story line, the humor, all felt true to the spirit of Star Wars. Thank God for no more midichlorians. Than you for no Jar Jar. Can't wait for the next one.
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It took me a week after its premiere, but I still watched it. It does have its similarities with Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, but it's still enjoyable. I'll keep it spoiler-free and leave it at that. There's plenty to see and it's not as talkative as the prequels. This is my new number-one favorite Star Wars film under the Disney banner. Rogue One comes in second. It's a little different, but as Homer Simpson would say, "It's still good! It's still good!"
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I must admit that this movie is on the top of my personal favorites, alongside 5 and 3. What I really liked about it was the brave new approach to the Star Wars universe that it's creators took.
If you want more of the same, you could watch the original sequel over and over again. To me, it never gets old or boring.
What we have here, however, is a very intense and emotional story with deep character exploration. We are exposed to the toughs and emotions of our main characters, we get to know their motives and their struggles, we see a world, which is not merely black and white, where decisions are not lightly taken. This is a very contemporary take on the franchise and I believe it reflects very well the time we live in. In contrast to some of the previous movies this one was packed with action and kept my attention all the time. This is really an area where some of the previous movies lost me. Take episode 1 for example, where so much time was spent watching Anakin race on Taboo or episode 6 where we saw a bit too much of the cute little bears on Endor. Episode 8 stands out to me with being very conscious of the use of screen time. In my opinion everything that we saw had a place in the movie and in the overall storyline.
I struggle to see why so many people dislike this movie. The world, in which we live, is changing every moment, that's only natural. I am happy to see that the creators gave as a new perspective on this immersive universe.
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I think people need to step back and view Star Wars realistically; I wouldn't consider myself a Star Wars fan at all, but the whole franchise has always been pretty darn campy and is not a cinematic masterpiece by any means. But the originals are certainly fun, enjoyable, turn-your-brain-off films with great set-pieces and likeable characters, and The Last Jedi continues this tradition.
As a film, The Last Jedi was some great cinematography, a brilliant soundtrack and is simply just a load of dumb fun. There are certainly some cheesy moments and poor lines, but like I said, they have always been a staple of the franchise.
I can sort of understand why hardcore fans dislike it, but this is certainly an enjoyable experience for the casual crowed.
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10/10
Great film, Rian Johnson got right what past directors got wrong.
In my opinion, it is the best single Star Wars films to date. It had the most likeable cast in any film, I personally loved all the humour, which some people seemed to dislike. I also thought this film had the most memorable and epic fight scenes in all of Star Wars history. I loved the scene with the supreme leader's guards fighting Rey and Kylo Ren.
I especially loved the island scenes with Luke sky walker where all the porgs are located.
However, my 2 caveats with the film is. The scene with princess Leiah coming back to life and using the force to get back onto the ship, it really took me out of the moment. Also, she was not know to have the force which broke her already built character profile.
Also, the purple hair woman. I dont like her, she seemed to have an annoying aura around her. I didn't like her or felt i could relate to her.
However, in conclusion. It was simply phenomenal.
I for one, hope that rian Johnson directs the next upcoming sequels.
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This is brilliant! Unlike most genre films, it has real heart. It's not really about lightsaber and spaceships, but more about relationships and the nature of war. Mark Hammill gets to have a proper Jedi send off, saving the day with his powers and passing the torch to the next generation. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver steal the show and set up a great finale by killing off the MacGuffin, Snoke....
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9/10
People will either love The Last Jedi or hate it..
Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers. Meanwhile, the Resistance prepares to do battle with the First Order. Star Wars: The Last Jedi has received a hate train that i didn't expect to see get since it's freaking Star Wars but somehow is happened. The characters that we saw and loved in 'The Force Awakens' are back and even better this time around especially Rey, Poe and Kylo Ren who have some terrific scenes both in terms of action, comedy and drama. The cgi is amazing but i expected that to be honest. The new faces such as Rose and the Porgs were much better than they get credit for. Now in terms of flaws? I didn't like the direction that Luke's character went especially in the end and after THAT Freaking Scene also Snoke and Captain Phasma? Well i expected a bit more to be honest and the film at times felt a bit "fast" to begin with. Star Wars: The Last Jedi took some serious chances and did some things different than what i was expecting and even tho i enjoyed 90% of it some of it's flaws were hard to not be noticed especially the call backs to Empire Strikes Back (which i didn't mind since TFA did the same with New Hope but it didn't become a distraction as it became here) and as for Carrie Fisher? I liked the direction that her character took but it wasn't the dramatic fairwell that i expect even tho i did shed a tear twice (look at Paul Walker's fairwell in Fast and Furious 7 for example now that was tear jerking). Overall The Last Jedi so far is my least favorite Star Wars film from the previous 2 that were released (The Force Awakens and Rogue One) but is far from being the mess that people are talking about and even tho some of the risks that Rian Johnson took didn't work as people hoped it's far from being the disaster that the RT audience makes it look like besides there's no worse Star Wars film than the Holiday Special sorry but no sorry. (9/10)
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Plenty of good reviews and points being made by others already. Was sort of enthusiastic when the movie finished, after that it has subsidized and made way for a disappointment and disbelief. Kind of entertaining anyways.
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I just got back from watching Star wars episode 8 The last jedi And i have to say i was very pleased with this movie Those other reviews are so Disheartening I mean what was really wrong with the flim. I mean people are saying this is the last time they are going to see a star wars movie which is pretty ridiculous. Also i The last jedi is a huge improvement over its predecessor the force awakens. The story is about that rey is the only last jedi of her kind Story rating: 7/10 Special effects:8/10 Characters:7/10 Acting:8/10 Overall:8/10 Go watch this movie its worth you time and money.
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It's supposed to be for children not a bunch of moronic cry babes expecting a Star Wars version of Apocalypse Now get over your selves. Excellent film for the kids
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I'm usually too lazy to write reviews, but seeing all the negative criticism directed towards this movie, I felt I had to say something.
In my opinion, the only sin this movie is guilty of, is that it's different from most of the other SW movies. Perhaps, that is the reason why so many people are complaining about it.
Fo me, I thought the movie had incredible action. Not once did I feel bored, like I do in most "space battles" (I practically slept in the 3rd prequel). There was real tension, where you had the feeling no character was safe. The settings and the world are amazing and jaw dropping, like you'd expect in SW, and the creature design was perfect!
The movie managed to keep a sense of bleakness and despair in most of the duration, given the overwhelming odds faced against the rebellion, but manages to to give us a sense of hope towards the end. It makes us really look forward to seeing how the rebellion will finally gain momentum on the 3rd movie to come.
I strongly recommend this movie to any person who wants to enjoy it, for what it is. A good movie that has a fresh take on Star Wars, and not just the same old thing we've already seen multiple times.
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I loved this movie i have been a fan since 1977 when i saw Star Wars aged 7 years old.I really cant believe how much everybody is crying about The Last Jedi i loved it and the story was good and well put together great action all the way through Rey & Kylo worked well as the story moved on.
Princess Leia:s performance was spot on as always.
Snoke is dead long live supreme leader kylo super ace scene all round.
How people can say this it the worst Star Wars movie is having a laugh, episode 1,2 & 3 are pants compared to this.
George Lucas did right selling out to Disney because now the story can go on and on.Yippeeeee
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Now I've been waiting for this movie since the time I heard about and when I went to watch this film in the theater, I was disappointed. Now I am a Huge Star Wars Fan and my all time favorite are Star Wars Episode V and VI. And when the movie came out, all the reviews then said that this was the next darkest film after 'The Empire Strikes Back'... I DON'T THINK SO! I believe that it was over-hyped a bit. And there was not that much of suspense. And what I mean by that is, 'SPOILER ALERT'... when Luke Skywalker passes away, I don't know about you guys but I was not surprised or I didn't find anything suspenseful about it. Only because you saw that coming. And they tried to make the fact the Rey Is the Last Jedi a big thing but it didn't workout well. When I was watching the film in the theater, I thought this movie was amazing. But No it ain't that good enough.
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To me, the theme of Star Wars cinema is hope. The first movie had it in the title, the 2016 film character Jyn offered, "Rebellions are built on hope", and to his credit Rian Johnson masterfully took hope to another level in The Last Jedi. His unpredictable plot and storyline elevated this story to the level of one of the greats, almost comparable to the caliber of Empire and Rogue.
Seeing Luke once again in lightsaber battle was mesmerizing. The humour of Chewie and what I've been calling the gophers on the Falcon was actually humorous, like the dialogue of the droid K2 in Rogue One, removing the cheese from the humour of the earliest droids and the silliness of the non-humour of Jar-Jar.
I would have scored this a 10, but I didn't find there was a scene that caused my adrenaline to race, such as in The Force Awakens, when Rei, engaged in battle with Kylo, becomes calm, embraces the Force, and becomes the stronger of the two combatants.
One other element of script writing and realization by Rian Johnson that is worthy of mentioning is in relation to his ability to create flashbacks to earlier films in the mind of the viewer. There were those moments in The Last Jedi, and that Jedi-like ability is admirable.
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I admire Rian Johnson for basically saying "F#ck You!" to the Star Wars fandom and its expectations while introducing some fresh new concepts that test the characters' ethics and morals, but the final product is an unfocused film and story (that doesn't really go anywhere) with too many sideplots, characters (spewing out cheesy dialogue *cough* Rose *cough*) and a horrendous last act. Loved the ideas and intentions behind the film more than its execution, but overall the good far outwheigh the bad for me (a light 7/10).
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Personally, I do not understand all that hatred. Many of us (including myself) do not understand Luke's "cowardice" at the beginning of the movie.Okey. But from there to demand its elimination from the canon ... Luke dies. At some point he was going to do it, or did they want him to die at the hands of the main enemy, like Obi Wan? Snoke is just a secondary character, or did they want to repeat the figure of the Emperor? Rey's parents are (in principle) scrap dealers, or did they want her to be Luke's daughter, or Obi Wan's granddaughter, or Yoda's niece, or what? Or did they prefer that Snoke had appeared and cut off Rey's hand, saying "I am your father"? Would you prefer to constantly repeat the original trilogy? The characters are not going to be eternal, or would you prefer them to die in the explosion of a ship or while destroying the new base of the enemy, as in the Return of the Jedi? If you want a reboot, better go see the original trilogy. The best trilogy that there will ever be of Star Wars, but accept this new one that comes, and that tries to create a new story, not to repeat an already written one, however much you like it. My congratulations to Rian Johnson.
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I found this movie to be an excellent addition to the Star Wars saga. I realize that a seeing Luke deteriorate to a withdrawn hermit or the rebellion being reduced to a rag tag group may be disappointing to many but what many people see as flaws is the genius of this movie.
This movie made star wars a universe and not just a story of the Skywalker clan. The characters are flawed and people who you would think were major plot points die making little impact(very GoT). The ending offers a nice point back to a New Hope when an unknown farm boy dreaming about something bigger saves the galaxy.
I can't wait to see where they go next.
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Some people probaby like SW for the always the same story telling
and the same black and white hero schemes.
Well I don't.
That's why I wanted to give the artist a little back up,
(yes folks, directors are artists not a puppet on your string)
cause I know what it's like on stage in front of an audience.
So: Thank you Ryan for the best movie so far since Empire strikes back.
I'm looking forward to N° 9!
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I am not a huge Star Wars fan (LOTR franchise is far more superior to me), but I really like all movies except prequels.
When I went to cinema there were already a lot of negative reviews, that didn't bother me and I gave this movie a chance.
Pros:
-Adding new stuff to franchise that we never seen before
-Great acting, mostly by Mark Hamill
-Very unpredictable moments that suprised me in a good way
Cons:
-Some new characters really don't fit in (Rose mostly)
-Whole casino planet plot
-It doesn't really answer questions that were asked in TFA
Star Wars: The Last Jedi was enjoyable ride although it had some problems.
Rating 8.5/10
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A good movie for both old and new Star Wars fans. A little rough around the edges, but manages to provide good entertainment and a solid narrative. It definitely left me excited to watch the conclusion of this trilogy.
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5/10
see it at the theater - just keep expectations low - 2nd worst SW film for me
While there are great moments and great scenes in this movie, there are several major issues with the film. Much like Phantom (E1), I expect to see an "unofficial" edit that could bring this movie up to a 7 out of 10. But look, it is a Star Wars film, so go see it and have fun and enjoy the special effects and music.
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After viewing the last Jedi the first time i saw it i was left confused as to where the franchise will take this. This was both a good thing and bad thing. It has some very good features within the film and some very weird scenes and plot holes.
Pros
There are a lot of very big ships. LIKE VERY VERY BIG!!
Snoke is very powerful but not used to his full potential.
Mark Hamills plays a beaten down Luke sky walker filled with regret and grief. This is one of his best performances, however if you are expecting to see a Luke Skywalker return where his killing everything etc you will be dissapointed.
Cons
One thing I found frustrating with The Last Jedi was how underused some characters were. Snoke was shown to be seriously powerful but was so underused.
And Kylo could have been shown to be very powerful however he was shown to be a very conflicted character which was both good and bad.
One of the main things that left me rather confused when viewing The last Jedi for the first time was how disjointed it is. Watching it a second time I was able to look passed this. But for a first time viewing it did leave me confused.
Carrie Fishers return to princess leia is both great and hilarious.
One scene in particular was her Mary Poppins scene which left me in stitches.
Looking passed that terrible scene she is a very well acted and is one of her best performances of the character.
In conclusion i found The last Jedi a fun adventure with some imperfections. Looking passed the plotholes and the film trying to be funny in some very weird ways the film is very good with some very good lightsaber combat. The Last Jedis main strength is the way it turns everything on its head and goes down places you wouldnt expect.
People giving the film alot of hate i can understand as I was in that state when i first watched it. However after a second viewing I was able to look at it for what it is.
I hope this was useful!
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Certainly, the most polarizing Star Wars film yet.
I'm not even sure where to begin, really. The Last Jedi is a technically proficient spectacle and a lot of what it does well it does infinitely better than it's immediate predecessor. I cannot argue that visually this is a film that goes leagues beyond what I anticipated in this new brand of Star Wars films. The excellent visual direction from Rian Johnson and Steve Yedlin is breathtaking. But unfortunately for The Last Jedi, being technically proficient doesn't excuse all of the other issues that are prominent throughout the much-debated addition to the series canon. In fact, the other issues in The Last Jedi are too far in number for me to be comfortable with what the film says and wants to achieve.
I don't say this lightly, but The Last Jedi made me feel an emotion I never thought I would feel when watching a Star Wars film. This is not a good thing. For the first time in experiencing an addition to the Space Opera spectacle, I feel dejected, disappointed, and unmoved. I'm not even sure I can say "it's an okay film" without doubting myself. The Last Jedi with all of its visual excellence and technical qualities is not entertaining or frankly, good. Perhaps this is the risk of developing a franchise film, but how can I have such a strong feeling of discontent with The Last Jedi when I didn't with Revenge of the Sith? Perhaps it is due to the mere fact that Revenge of the Sith didn't betray the very foundation it stood on for the sake of defining its own destiny, burning the bridge it had crossed; stabbing themselves to spite their face. Betraying the heart of the series, the very core of the characters within it and their journey. That will be the legacy of The Last Jedi. For some, this may be liberating, ingenious, and smart. For others, it is the exact opposite. I fall in the latter camp.
I wanted to like this film. I really wanted to like it. But nothing connected on a positive level when it came to the content provided from the script written by Rian Johnson. The character development that The Force Awakens laid the groundwork for seems to be intentionally ignored, offering little depth nor organic growth. Perhaps if this was not a franchise film this would be less of a glaring issue, but even taking The Last Jedi as a standalone film what is pretty obvious is that the film is fighting itself in its identity and what it wants to achieve.
There is no consistency to the tone of the film, often shifting between a Star Wars film and a Guardians of the Galaxy film, which to me is an intolerable offense. Star Wars does not need to follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe's design; Star Wars has been defined for over four decades at this point and it should need to cater and deviate from the spirit that makes the series in the first place. Beyond that, it repeats the errors of its immediate predecessor with no sense of foresight. My biggest criticism of The Force Awakens was that it was founded on nostalgic callbacks and derivative concepts and when I went into my viewing of The Last Jedi I expected it to build upon those things and amend any doubt or anxiety I had in my mind. It did not. Characters are given impractical and contrived achievements in situations that make little sense, an entire side story is shown to us that has no immediate bearing on the plot, jokes are unnatural and unfitting during certain sequences, character development is voided in favor of committing to a very narrow conclusion, and ultimately there is no payoff.
With that said, I will concede that the film's ensemble of actors do their very best to make it work; to make the characterization choices feel organic, to assert likeable portrayals, and create an experience that cannot be described as mediocre in terms of performance. Mark Hamill is absolutely excellent, showing us that the long-awaited return of Luke Skywalker was more than worth it. In fact, it might be one of Hamill's best performances in his career as a film and voice actor. The rest of the cast, especially the younger and newer additions, are exceptional and I would say that the returning actors from The Force Awakens have found their momentum in these roles. It almost makes the whole experience despite the mishaps and fumbles ignorable.
Almost.
Ultimately, The Last Jedi has made its bed and it will now have to lay in it. Fans of the franchise have three options: accept it, tolerate it, or reject it. Those with a true passion for Star Wars will never be able to reject the franchise, but they will be sorrowful and remember December 15th as the day Star Wars died. The shape Star Wars takes following its death and subsequent resurrection will hopefully be inspiring and interesting; perhaps it will open new doors to stories that fans of the franchise can take away from as enjoyable to their tastes. If not, the novels and original films will remain as a testament to what once was and will always be cherished.
I give Star Wars my sincere faith going forward that it will be resurrected into something greater, though perhaps I am too optimistic and forgiving.
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Like many peoples said before, the first part of the movie feels like a bad parody. So, the humorous scenes in the old movies and even in the TV Shows Star Wars Rebels and Clone Wars are miles better.
What I realy like in the movie is, they have set the focus on the force.
The acting was not so good like in Star Wars 7.
Many scenes were bad especially "*Spoiler!!!!* the Rey, Kylo, Snoke scene, by the the Rule of Two the scholar killed the master but the way how they've make the scene were rubbishy, so far Snoke realy is daed now.
The best scenes are the scenes with Lea.
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I thought "The Force Awakens" was ok. If it had been marketed as a reboot of the series I would have liked it much more. I went in expecting something new and was surprised and disappointed when it was simply "A New Hope" with a different cast. I felt nothing for "Rouge One" as it was to me simply an action movie set in the Star Wars universe. The Vader scenes were awesome, but those five minutes could not make up for an entire movie of stuff I did not care about.
"The Last Jedi" is everything I could ever have hoped for. This is hands down the best Star Wars movie since the originals. Which is why I am so confused at the hate it is receiving in the media. But it's the cool thing to hate things these days I suppose.
Was this a perfect movie? Of course not. But to say that it is the worst Star Wars movie ever made and fans are calling for it to be struck from the timeline?!
It is this humble Star Wars fan's opinion that this is the greatest modern day Star Wars that has been made to date. So great that I saw it twice opening weekend, and I want to get to seeing it a third time in IMAX if possible.
Don't believe what your read online. Go watch the movie. Hate it if you want, but go watch it with an open mind and I think you'll be surprised.
I can think of a bunch of things I didn't like about it. But I also had a huge grin on my face for most of the almost three hour run time. And if that doesn't speak for itself, then I don't know what will.
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6/10
Not a good star wars movie, but there are worse movies
Yes, the movie is heavily flawed, which is almost entirely the fault of the storyline. I'll summarize what has been mentioned already many times:
Luke Skywalker has somehow changed from the greatest optimist into a grumpy old man. He can in no respect be linked to his former character in the original trilogy. A one-minute flashback is not enough to explain that. Hell, they would need at least another trilogy to explain that change. It would be even more credible if he had turned over to the dark side!
Lord Snoke is killed before we ever found out who he was.
Kylo Ren is nothing more than a teenager with emotional issues, but at least he plays it well. The Hux character however is completely incredible as military hotshot. How did he ever make it to that position? He wouldn't have survived a single day in boot camp.
We still don't know who Rey is. OK, the revelation is probably saved for the last part, but at least give us a hint or a cliffhanger.
The main story about the low-speed chase in space is boring and the redundant side-story with the code breaker didn't conceal it.
Fans can only be disappointed by this movie. But on the other hand, the special effects are good, the battles (both the ones in space and the man-to-(wo)man kind) are fantastic, the music is as good as always and there is no problem with the acting. Is this had been one of those hundreds of superhero movies, people would have said it had been excellent fun and good entertainment.
Therefore I give it a 6. Very poor for a Star Wars movie, but a reasonable score for a random action movie.
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I watched yesterday wih my wife , It was a fantastic movie i've ever seen , well especially when the star plane crashed with the speed of light and made it divided into two. Best Star wars series for me.
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Yes, you read that right. Old trilogy was inarguably worse in so many elements it would take hours to mention them. But people still love it.
This did better job, didn't fall for traps set by J. J. Abrams and delivered almost perfect Star Wars. I love new approach with characters, I love little jokes on the side of deep story (mostly about not dwelling on old stories when there are new stories to tell).
I love how unimportant was one presumably big character. I love shocking reveal of Rey's parents. I love all that unexpected twists.
This si materiál that people hate for one reason - it shakes their world. It is too new. But new things are important. There is no fun in telling old stories all over again. Star Wars evolved and this is movie that is designed to by the forming pinacle of new generations of Star Wars fans.
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But this movie made me miss the genius that was Jar-Jar Binks. There were a few good moments here and there, but overall I don't know what this was supposed to be. It did absolutely nothing to advance the stories of the previous saga films, and instead turned the mythology everyone loves about Star Wars into bantha dookie. It's time for Disney to end.
UPDATE: I read a lot of reviews (non-professional critic reviews) and watched a lot of YouTube video reviews both positive and negative about The Last Jedi. The negative reviews mirrored my own feelings after watching TLJ. The positive ones touched on many things, some of which I hadn't considered with my initial viewing. I was all set to "never give Disney another penny" after TLJ, but after my fair research (I really wanted to like it), I gave it another shot/viewing. And i honestly did like it a lot more after seeing it again.
The initial viewing is so polarizing with what they did with Luke Skywalker and how they handled the Force and Snoke.
But the new Force powers (one of my initial problems) made sense upon the second viewing. Not to make this too long, their basically just extensions of Luke and Vader/Leia's ability to communicate through the Force in TESB. And Yoda sensed Anakin's feelings/pain in AOTC without the more personal awareness in TOT, so okay, it's an extension of this ability that progresses throughout the Saga. Actually, can be seen as quite clever. Maybe.
I still have a problem with flying Leia, but if we pretend that Kylo Ren, who couldn't get himself to shoot and kill her, assisted in her survival, it makes way more sense, and is actually pretty cool. KR couldn't shoot and kill his mother, the accompanying ships did it for him, and he used the Force to help will her back to the ship to save her. I mean it really makes more sense since she was in a coma when she got back, that she had help outside of her own Force powers.
Snoke's death. He died way too easily, although watching it was satisfying. What if Snoke, who was so powerful, and could "not be betrayed, not be beaten," and could see KR's thoughts and intentions, also foresaw his betrayal? What if Snoke was so powerful that he could, like Luke, astral-project himself into that throne room, manipulate the Force within that room (as he did Hux from a distance earlier in the film), and fake his death to Kylo and Rey, and yet still be alive elsewhere? What if he's just messing with Kylo Ren the same way he was messing with Rey in that scene? Then his alleged death scene becomes so much more.
Luke's character and his death. This is what pissed me off the most after my first viewing. And probably most fans. But upon careful inspection, it does kind of make sense, from a certain point of view. After the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker became this mythical hero, this legend, this deity in the eyes of so many in the galaxy. Looking to rebuild the Jedi Order, and live up to this imaginary pedestal he's been put on, he moved forward with his new Jedi Order plans. When it failed, he didn't feel that he had failed, but that the legend of Luke Skywalker had failed; a legend too big to fail. So the let-down was seemingly much greater than an individual failure. And that's what drove him off, made him so bitter, and reluctant to try again. Jumping now to the end of the movie, Luke's redemption moment, when he appears as a Force astral-projection to "take on the entire First Order" (as he jested to Rey earlier in the film as it couldn't be done), the "spark" in the galaxy, the "New Hope" reborn, is the legend he left behind by single-handedly taking on the entire First Order, and Kylo Ren, so the Resistance could escape. In that moment, he lived up to the "Legend of Luke Skywalker" and only Kylo Ren, Rey, and maybe Leia knew about his failure of Ben Solo. The children at the end of the movie exemplify this final scene exactly. The Legend lives on, even with his death before twin suns, that similarly signified his birth (in the Force)....
It's got to lose a point for being so contrived and difficult to see at first, and even still, there are aspects that could have been better, (Canto Bight is nearly unnecessary), but honestly, I do not hate it nearly as much as I did in my initial viewing. I was ready to burn Disney to the ground, but it's actually much better if you give it a second chance and fair consideration.
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Its now been over a week since I viewed The Last Jedi and its still playing in my mind - as much for its misfires as its good points. Kind of shows how much Star Wars has ingrained itself in our psyche I guess.
As many have noted The Last Jedi is long - in fact very long - but never boring. I didn't find myself clock watching at all during its 150+ minutes. Its safe to say there is enough entertaining escapist fare in a galaxy far far away to make The Last Jedi a worthwhile viewing experience.
However, The Last Jedi is far from a perfect film. The biggest issue here is respect, or lack of, with the source material that precedes it. In particular is the completely jarring change in personality of Luke Skywalker. His weariness and hermit like existence is understandable - we saw that happen with Obi Wan and Yoda in the original trilogy so its certainly nothing new - but the complete cynicism and his now mean spirited antics basically undermine the character.
Where The Force Awakens paid respect to the legend of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker becomes a caricature here, often played for laughs. A couple of the jokes work well, but too often it becomes self parody.
Another misstep was the expansion of the ways of the force. The mind-meld between Kylo Ren and Rey across the galaxy is getting very close to jumping the shark territory. It is reminiscent of the oddball voiceovers of the 1984 flop Dune. In fact, the grotesque imagery of Luke milking and drinking from a sea creature channels that film too.
Disappointing as well is the lack of screen time for R2D2 (for the second time since The Force Awakens). Here's hoping he gets to go on an escapade with BB-8 and C3PO in tow sometime in the future. A droid father figure type exchange between the old and the new would be a nice touch.
And now for the good bits. The Poe Dameron character is given much more screen time and has now proven to be the most interesting of the newcomers. The CGI is not overwhelming throughout The Last Jedi, save for the silly Canto Bight escape scenes. We get an awesome puppet Yoda. General Leia has a couple of dignified moments (which are real tearjerkers given the passing of Carrie Fisher). And despite the attention they've been getting, the Porgs are not overdone and have some rather amusing moments.
While its entertaining in its own right, to say The Last Jedi will eventually become legendary for its take on "shattering" the nostalgia and mythos of the original trilogy is probably a bit off the mark. The reality is that Episode 9 is now going to be all the more crucial in repairing some of the damage that has been done.
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Speaking as one of the generation who has seen every Star Wars movie in a theatre, I must say this last week of fanboy outrage has been a devilish indulgence.
Finally, a rebel Star Wars film - not kow-towing to the gigabites of bandwidth wasted on predictions, plot speculations and character assassinations by the entitled generation of demanding, new First Order smartasses.
And how it slaps down and pokes a finger in the eye of every know-all on the web forums and tube sites who now seek a safe-space to nurse their wounded egos and ferment about big bad Disney corporations 'betraying' the 'fanbase'. Spoiled brats ahoy!
Director RJ pitched the tension beautifully, pulled the rug from under every angry-millennial theory and led us into a scintillating final hour of simmering drama and epic vistas.
What I liked :
The space battles - no need for endless seat-of-pants dogfights any more and we got variety - flyboy gung-ho bombing raids, suicidal lightspeed assaults: WHAT a scene that is - the silence, the white lightning mega-explosion and the intercut blitz of angles it throws at you; a stunning 10 seconds of cinema if ever there was. See it in 3D; immense.
Kylo Ren/Skywalker - Adam Driver shares the show with Mark Hamil; conflicted Ren and rueful Skywalker are two great performances. Their showdown is raw and intimate and epic; master and apprentice, emotion bridging generations.
The meme of the 'side-quest' - surprised and pleased to see the addition of a little grim reality as Finn and Rose - and us - are introduced to the reality behind every war - even galactic ones - when we see the mercenary nature of those who feed off death; the arms dealers and suppliers. A very mature theme to introduce, albeit amid a herd of giant racing puppy-dogs or something.
That lightsaber battle in the throne room against the red praetorian guard - superb. Brutal, lethal, spectacular and 'believable' use of the force - had me on the edge of my seat and whistling appreciation; everything the ridicuous balletic displays of the prequels failed at.
Final hour - as mentioned, total Star wars porn - a rollercoaster of great scenes - the Crait battle/Throne room/Finn v Phasma/Ren v Rey/Leia's sentimental moments/Skywalkers' end; just terrific. Even the cryptic force-kid at the end and the eyebrow raising 'ohhhhhhh...'s he induced from the cinema.
Humour - first gag too early; would've fitted nicer about 10/20 minutes in once we'd established the feel of the film. Rest of it - fine, well pitched - Porgs not at all irritating and provide a true LOL moment when Chewy tips the Falcon and one slams into the window.
The unpredictability; guessed nothing right going in, grinned at every red herring revealed.
What I disliked:
first hour or so a little iffy; unable to establish what exactly was being aimed for - we had a prequel-ish interlude around the casino with those aforementioned racing giant puppies. Felt scattered a bit. Settled into overstretched scenes with one character when you were itching to see a little more development with others. May be due more to the final edit than content.
Mary Poppins Leia was poorly thought out; the wrong physical execution of that idea; too open to parody. As ironically, I've just reverted to.
Not enough of Del Toro's character - like an amoral Han Solo; he may play a greater part to come. I hope so; there's a dimension to his character that adds to the new 'maturity' of the Star Wars universe.
The whines of fanboys around me. Really, if you want to bleat like a little shaved ewok when things don't work our just the way you want, keep it out of my range, snowflakes.
When I hear the countless proclamations of some Last Jedi event being 'unfeasible' I would like to remind people that 34 years ago the watching world was perfectly happy to accept a gang of feral teddy bears taking on and overcoming a battalion of crack Empire stormtroopers led by the most evil villain in the galaxy.
There's a line you may be familiar with at the opening frame of the films, -something about a galaxy far, far away: that hints at fiction; Science-Fantasy fiction. Roll with it.
OVERALL:
8.3 out of 10
Surprising, spectacular and unpredictable. The way Star Wars SHOULD be. Kudos to the crew for knowingly defying the demands of the undeserving and producing a controversial but solid epic.
This is the way the Star Wars story is going, kids; dig it or walk.
Episode 9 here I come. Kill 'em all, JJ, kill 'em ALL!
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First thing first, let me tell you that I absolutely, unabashedly LOVE this movie. This is the best superhero film we ever had. No question there. Sure, there are some other good superhero flicks out there, nothing wrong with that. But they were all, you know, kind of goofy, over-the-top, and unbalanced. This, however, is an opposite of that. This movie makes every other superhero film look like cheap school play. But again, I'm not saying that the other superhero films are bad. They're just pale in comparison to this one. Rian Johnson is a master of his craft. He's a true genius that deserves all the praise he gets. A true mastermind. A true filmmaker who understands what people want. He made the best movie of the past decade. And we, true fans, should be thankful him for that. The characters in here are the best in the series. Luke Skywalker and Snoke are, unarguably, the most interesting, multi-layered characters in the this universe. Heck, I can say that they are one of the most interesting characters, period. All in all, this movie is amazing on all accounts. You should watch it, and you should love it.
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Wow, just wow.
I am not talking about the movie, it was okay. Just another holiday popcorn sci-fi, no biggie.
No, what I am wowing about is this very awesome, and very original marketing ploy to sell tickets. Someone is a marketing genius over there
at Disney Industries.
"Hey, let's start an online campaign that appears like fans are panning the
movie. The 'actual fans' will follow blindly because that is what they
do...and the next thing you know, we will have a juggernaut at the box
office because EVERYONE will be talking about The Last Jedi."
Well, it's working. People are flocking to the theaters to see who's right -
the gushing critics or the die-hard cry-babies.
I would not be surprised if this one breaks the record for profit haul. I am
sure this idea has been thought of before, but not to this degree of
success. There is a saying in show business: "There is no such thing as
bad press".
I am not sure this ploy was needed though. The Star Wars brand is going
to do well at the box office anyway. But maybe the studio was worried
about recouping their investment for whatever reason and concocted this
online blitz idea to hedge their bets?
When the film is viewed in this light, it takes a back seat to an even larger,
and arguably more interesting, story ~ the story of us, the movie goers.
Somehow we have become unwitting tools of the industry to sway the
money in a certain direction. We are just pawns with disposable income.
I am giving The Last Jedi 7 stars. It has solid production values and
the storyline at least held my attention. As a stand alone film, it easily
rates 7 stars. I will not respond to the film as an entry into the Star Wars
canon or lore, I don't like being a pawn even if others do. I give an extra
star for the brilliance of the marketing campaign. Peace out.
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This is the first Star Wars movie that I watched the whole way through and I really enjoyed it. Prior to seeing this film I had a little bit of an idea of the Star Wars history, but not a lot. I like the storylines and characters, there are some unanswered questions that will hopefully be answered in the movies to come, and I really like the new relationships and conflicts that were formed in this movie.
My biggest critique is that it's SO long. Luckily it doesn't feel that long when you watch it. Most of all, it has sparked my interest to watch the other films!
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Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, John Boyega. Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac and Carrie Fisher star in this 2017 sci-fi sequel. This installment picks up where "The Force Awakens" ended with Rey (Ridley) finding Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker (Hamill) who trains her. Meanwhile, Finn (Boyega) and Poe (Isaac) help the resistance attack the New Order. New Order leader, Kylo Ren (Driver) is not only determined to find Rey and Luke, but Rey tries to get him to turn away from the dark side. Fisher also makes her final film appearance as Leia Organa. This is a very good film despite many negative reviews, the cast & score are great and like the previous film, there's nice nods to the original trilogy. I recommend this.
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Disney paid billions to acquire Lucasfilm, the gamble paid off and The Force Awakens was a brilliant comeback for the space saga, I was all the more excited for the follow-up, directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper). Basically General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and many Resistance fighters are forced to evacuate their base when the First Order fleet arrives, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) leads an effective but costly counterattack. The Resistance fighter vessels jump into hyperspace to escape, but the First Order uses a tracking device to pursue them, Resistance support fighters are destroyed, but Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Leia's son, senses his mother's presence and hesitates to fire at the lead Resistance ship. The bridge of the ship is destroyed by TIE fighters, several Resistance leaders are killed, and Leia is incapacitated, leaving Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) in command, but her passive strategy leads to Poe, Finn (John Boyega), BB-8, and mechanic Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) to embark on a secret plan to disable the First Order's tracking device. Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley), with Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and R2-D2 (Jimmy Vee) aboard the Millennium Falcon, has found Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on the remote planet of Ahch-To. Luke has become disillusioned by the failures of the Jedi, despite learning of Han Solo's death, he refuses to join Rey and become part of the Resistance, unbeknownst to Luke, Rey and Kylo begin communicating telepathically. Prompted by R2-D2, Luke eventually agrees to teach Rey the ways of the Force, she receives differing accounts of the incident between Luke and Kylo of what turned Kylo to the Dark Side, Luke confesses he momentarily contemplated killing Kylo, sensing Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) had corrupted him, causing Kylo to retaliate and destroy Luke's emergent Jedi Order. Rey is convinced that Kylo can still be redeemed, like Luke's father Darth Vader, Rey plans to confront Kylo without Luke and leaves Ahch-To. Luke prepares to burn down the island's temple and library, but the Force ghost of Yoda (Frank Oz) appears, he destroys the temple him and encourages Luke to learn from his failure. Poe learns of Holdo's cowardly and risky plan to discreetly evacuate the remaining Resistance members using small transports, he instigates a mutiny, while Finn, Rose and BB-8 travel to Canto Bight to find a hacker to help them disable the tracking device. They encounter hacker DJ (Benicio Del Toro), who says he can help, then they infiltrate Snoke's ship, but are captured by Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), though BB-8 manages to escape. Meanwhile, Rey lands on the ship, and Kylo brings her to Snoke, who reveals that he controlled the mental connection between her and Kylo as part of a plan to destroy Luke. Snoke orders Kylo to kill Rey, instead Kylo kills Snoke, and works together with Rey to kill the guards, Kylo invites her to rule the galaxy with him, but Rey refuses, they struggle using the Force together for possession of Luke's lightsabre, it is split in two. Poe is stunned when Leia recovers, allowing the evacuation to begin, the Resistance flee to the nearby old Rebel Alliance base on Crait, but Holdo remains onboard to mislead Snoke's fleet. DJ, who double crossed the Resistance, reveals the plan to the First Order, the evacuating transports suffer heavy losses, until Holdo sacrifices herself, ramming Snoke's fleet at lightspeed to stop the barrage. Rey escapes in the chaos, while Kylo declares himself the new Supreme Leader, Captain Phasma is defeated and falls to her apparent death, Finn and Rose are freed by BB-8, and join the survivors on Crait. The First Order arrive at the Rebel Alliance base; Poe, Finn, and Rose lead a charge with old speeders, while Rey draws TIE fighters away in the Falcon, Rose saves Finn from a suicide run to destroy the main enemy cannon, is blasts a hole in the Resistance fortress. Then Luke appears and confronts Kylo alone, allowing the surviving Resistance fighters to escape, the First Order weapons have no effect on Luke, so he and Kylo battle, Kylo realises, when he strikes Luke with his lightsabre, that he is fighting Luke's Force projection, Luke defiantly tells Kylo that he will not be the last Jedi. Rey uses the Force to help the remaining Resistance fighters escape the cave and board the Falcon, while back on Ahch-To, an exhausted Luke peacefully dies and becomes one with the Force. Leia reassures everyone that the rebellion has all that is needed to rise again, and on Canto Bight, one of the children that helped Finn and Rose escape uses the Force to grab a broom, he has a Resistance emblem, and gazes hopefully into space. Also starring 12 Years a Slave's Lupita Nyong'o as Maz Kanata, Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Billie Lourd as Lieutenant Connix, Amanda Lawrence as Commander D'Acy, Adrian Edmondson as Captain Peavey, Andy Nyman as Jail Guard, Lily Cole as Party Girl Lovey, Warwick Davis as Wodibin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Slowen Lo (voice), Gareth Edwards as Resistance Trench Soldier and Edgar Wright as Resistance Trooper. Hamill is back in fine form, Fisher (who gets a touching tribute in the end credits) is good in what is her final film, and Ridley, Boyega and Driver remain great, as before you really feel the nostalgia of the original trilogy, it is long, at 2 and a half hours, but with a well crafted story, amazing special effects, and exciting, explosive chase and fight sequences, you can't complain, another brilliant science-fiction fantasy action adventure. Star Wars was number 24 on The 100 Greatest Pop Culture Icons. Outstanding!
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I went in the theater not knowing what to expect since I saw headlines in the newspapers saying that the critics loved it but not so much for the general audience.
I watched it and enjoyed it thoroughly. I thought it was essentially a return to classic Star Wars lore. In other words, it respects what I would expect from the original universe, the force and the struggle between light and dark sides.
Essentially well developed characters, great battle scenes, lots of interesting plot turns and, lots of touching moments. Acting seemed so natural that, at times, I wondered about actors being so much into their characters to achieve this level of realism. And finally, no, I am not a great Star Wars fan. I like fantastic movies in general. I am more of a fan of good movies, and I think this is a great movie.
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8/10
I am 40 years old .... the force is strong in this one
Am a huge fun of Star Wars ....After the force awakens I thought that Star Wars at my age was dead ... I found the force awakens a very bad movie ....2 years later my childhood dream is back...An epic movie with the battle of light and darkness at the middle... I totally diasagree with the bad critics...
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To take on a movie dynasty like Star Wars was always a daunting task... and when Disney got involved, I thought 'I've got a bad feeling about this'.... luckily with JJ on the case, The Force Awakens was very good, and more importantly, very true to the nature of the saga.
Then, for reasons i will never understand Rian Johnson gets the gig... I mean I loved Breaking Bad and The Fly episode was very memorable cos it was so quirky. Then Looper - an ok movie, made ok.. How on earth does this guy then get this gig ?!?!?
Relatively unknown and told he can re-write almost the entire script... what do we then get - a very long movie, trying to tell lots of stories (almost all not to a decent standard), a major lack of character development and then well, you get an ok movie which is almost entirely received as meh !
Lets hope IX can make amends, please.
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10/10
Not for people who think their star wars universe is the one and only universe
The usual storylines were totally destroyed....and I loved it. The story stays loyal to the canon, however it is not what you usual expects. A lot of people feel uncomfortable with this, since the Star Wars universe is so old, people start to making it their own universe. If you cannot let this go, than please don't hurt yourself and watch Hello Kitty or something like that. This movie contains everything a true heroic movie must have: cheers, grieve, heroes, bad guys, folks somewhere in between, nobodies who turn out to be the real heroes and a 50 shades of gray area which lies between good and bad.
So let it al go, watch the movie and do not commit on the star wars universe you created, otherwise you cannot handle this. It is a masterpiece which gives you a new mindset of a galaxy far far away.
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I don't understand the constant negativity. A lot of reviewers justangry they didn't get what they conjured for 2 years. I laugh that this movie is called anything but Star Wars. Take off your assumption hat and go see it again
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From a technical movie-making point of view, this is probably the best Star Wars yet; the scenes in deep space with the slo-mo chase are the only ones that kind of suck (why do the cannon shots from the First Order bend down- there's no gravity!) but the rest of the movie is just awesome.
The sets, the effects, even the Porgs... loved them all.
From a story point of view, it's very much a twist on the "old" Star Wars universe. (This is no doubt why so many people are so upset.) But in the overall plot, it's actually really good; it implies a much deeper, broader vision of what we know.
What can Jedi, or Force-sensitive people, actually do? What powers do they have? Why would anyone imagine that what was in the original trilogy, or the first six, be all that there is?
Go see it. It's worth it.
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Episode VIII moved the franchise in the right direction. In many ways the film was very familiar with the original trilogy but Johnson ensured that he added bold, brave decisions with the story. It did something different and moved the story on.
When The Force Awakens came out, it did what was asked of it, 're-establish the franchise. The diehards didn't like it. It was too like the originals. With The Last Jedi, they did something unexpected and again the diehards have come out saying the movie is a travesty.
It's a shame but I think there's no pleasing some folk. Personally I loved it and enjoyed the risks the film took. Well done Rian Johnson, great addition to the Star Wars franchise.
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I have read many reviews of films. I notice in this that many times people are caught in expectations. They don't see the film anymore because they have their own idea how the story should enfold. For this reason many beautiful films are neglected, beautiful visions, ideas not seen.
When I look at the reviews here I have the idea the same thing happened. No open mindedness open heart for the story for the flow of the film so the film is not enjoyed anymore for what it is.
I just saw it, and I just say wauw what a film. What a story, how the story enfoldes so unexpected. It is made with pure joy, and it really has something to say about life, it has humour, drama, everything. The visual effects are amazing.
So ok a new direction for Star Wars, but I dare you, dare to follow the flow, dare to be open to that what the film is, just as it enfolds then it can open for you the treasure it holds inside. Not just for this film but for any film you watch. You will be pleasantly suprised.
Kagib
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the newest Star Wars movie in the new trilogy. And really Star Wars the Last Jedi isn't a mess but it is messy. That doesn't mean i didn't like it. In actuality, i really was impressed with what they did with this film. Aside from the Force Awakens and Rouge one, two awful Star Wars movies, this one is actually consistent. Rian Johnson has taken helm of it, which was exciting because i like Rian Johnson. Looper, The three breaking bad episode's he directed, and Brick are great and he did a decent job with this film. Anyway, i want to talk some negative things first, because i need to get all that shit out first. My first negative is with the insanely jarring subplot with Finn and Rose. It felt like it was just there so Rose and Finn had something to do. It was so lazy. Like one of the worst subplots i've seen in a film. No character development during this sequence, and any development that there is, is incredibly lazy and just thrown in there. This is also when we get introduced to Bencio Del Toro's character DJ who is the "master code breaker" Bencio Del Toro is ok in the movie, but the character that was written for him, not so much. He just felt there so that people can go "Ohhhh. A big hollywood movie star" He felt so out of place in this movie. Speaking of fucking characters let's talk Rose and Snoke. First Rose. She is there, much like the main subplot, just so she has something to do. She doesn't have much a character and we spend too much time with her. Her stupidity really affect's the movie in a way. Once you see the movie, you'll know what i mean. But she's completely useless. Snoke is also just there. He's there so that Kylo Ren has an arc. His arc is totally forgotten and misused. An opportunity that was completely underused. You have so much ambiguous traits and mysteries with him, that you could lose interest. I never liked snoke, but i wished they delved into his character more. The movie also was surprisingly dumb. This movie has moments where the movie just gets really stupid. Stupid moments that are extremely laughable. And the ending was a bit cheesy. And that's pretty much it. This movie also has force awakens jokes, that made me cringe so hard. Probably as harder than the force awakens. Now positives. The action was really impressive. The space battle's were really awesome. The beginning action scene was really amazing. Made it feel like it was the original Star Wars, It was extremely fantastic. There's a lightsaber battle towards the end of the movie that was fucking awesome. Just overall, the action was awesome. Most of the acting was good. Daisy Ridley was fine. Her performance in this movie was equal to her performance in the force awakens. John Boyega is the same. Oscar Isaac is also fine. Carrie Fisher is extraordinary. Her last performance is her best performance. Adam Driver is amazing as Kylo Ren once again. Andy Serkis is chilling as Snoke. Even though his character is fucking dumb. Laura Dern is decent. I didn't care for her character because they did nothing with her character. Mark Hamil is stunning as bitter Luke. He was amazing in this movie. The best he's ever been as Luke. The characters are really built in this movies, they has clear and perfect arcs. Rey is more developed and more perfected in this movie. Poe has my favourite arc in the movie. His arc was really built throughout the movie. Finn has really confusing arc. Kylo Ren has a amazing arc. You see every thing that this character has gone through. Already his character is extremely fascinating and can't wait to see what they do with this character. Leia is great, like always. In the force awakens, her character was there for, what it felt like, nostalgia. But her character here is really good. What i heard, is that Luke's character was awful, and that it ruined their childhood. I thought Luke was great. His bitter character was really cool. Seeing Luke as a bitter, brutal, old man was reeling. The first act and the last act are really great. But all that second act stuff with the casino, Rose and Finn, is really bad. But overall the story is fine. The direction and cinematography are amazing and great. And the special effects are stunning as well. The music is fine, but still feels kinda rushed. Like the force awakens where the music is just really awful, the music is just fine here. Overall, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is decent, enough for me to like it. Where they go with the Star Wars series is really fascinating, and i can't wait to see where the new franchise go's.
73%
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Pros:
Excellent acting and chemistry (epically between Kylo and Rey),
Great action scenes,
Excellent CGI,
Excellent Character development (exc: Kylo, Luke, Rey, etc..)
Great conflicted villain,
Cons:
Plot holes in side story,
Doesn't answer every question,
Most jokes don't work (at least in my opinion),
Snoke is very Disney like (Old man saying evil exposition with a creepy voice and face)
8/10 - An almost excellent film, that is stopped from reaching great heights by stopping some potentially great future side plots
The porgs were cool AF though....
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No, seriously, "defying expectations" seems to be the only thing they wanted to do in this film, and you can take that in just about any context you like. Serious scenes had gags, lighthearted scenes had serious casualties, "the one thing we need to do" was several "one things" that never happened, the ancient Jedi religion wasn't so important, the entire mission with the new character was a misdirection, Luke was rumored to go bad (and didn't), Rey was supposed to learn the Force and her history (she didn't), the showdown with the Sith was both brutal and slapstick at the same time (and not in a good way like Army of Darkness), and a significant portion of the movie (and the casualties) could've been avoided if the senior Rebel leadership took 20 seconds to explain the plan to key leadership.
I'm still giving it a 6, since it had more substance than Episode 7, and significantly more was done right here than the prequel trilogy. The characters had a purpose in life, the battles were appropriate in scope and brutality, the shots were appropriate and epic, and it was still fun to watch. Kylo Ren was definitely better here, but still not quite the presence of Darth Vader...which they even kinda kept in perspective at the beginning of the movie.
All in all, sequels are considerably better than the prequels, but still not quite the caliber of the originals.
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8/10
Some thoughts on why I like Luke's development and the whole movie - Spoilers
I am a devoted Star Wars fan. Luke Skywalker is my childhood hero. I have never ever commented on anything online, but after genuinely enjoying The Last Jedi I was so shocked to see all this hate that I felt like I had to do something. No-one has to love this movie, but such hatred? Let's spread some love....
I think The Last Jedi was a perfectly entertaining movie. I loved how it captured the spirit of the original trilogy: Everything was as old, shabby and dirty as I want my Star Wars to be. I particularly enjoyed the scene in which Poe Dameron accidently kicks through the bottom of that decrepit speeder. Hello, Star Wars, so good to have you back after those uninspired sterile shiny prequels.
Of course, it is not a flawless movie. An 18 hour slow motion chase in space as frame story? Unrealistic and a bit lame or maybe a good shot of self-irony in reference to the rebels awaiting the Death Star in A New Hope? I'm not sure.
Finn and Rose setting off on a mission to find a master code breaker to somehow get onto Snokes ship and deactivate the tracking device and all of this on Maz Kanata's advice? Fathiers? I didn't like the story line. I like Finn and Rose, though. Please let them do something useful next time.
The fighting scenes were darker and more sincere than they used to be but were unfortunately often ruined by a misplaced fun comment. Surprisingly, this did not bother me as much when I watched it the second time.
I could go on. However, I think those are minor flaws in an overall well-made film. I like how they make us say good-bye to our childhood heroes and at the same time make us welcome the next generation. Thus, I was surprised about the negative response to Luke's destiny. Let me please share my thoughts on it:
Another user, monum-563-227405, wrote: What happens to Luke is a nod to what happens in the original three. I totally agree, thanks, man! When I walked out of the theatre I was confused, shocked and heartbroken. I would have loved to see Luke as a mighty Jedi knight, training Rey and saving the day at the end of the movie in a powerful lightsaber battle. But let's face facts... Luke has never been a shining hero. Dear old Luke - idealistic, altruistic, sometimes a bit too naïve (but in a good way) and always first when it comes to helping his friends. However, these character traits come along with his sincere sense of responsibility. Luke has always been too hard on himself. Even in Timothy Zahn's books he is portrayed as always struggling and scrutinising himself. And let's not forget: He has never had proper Jedi training. So when he learns that because of his strength in the Force a short moment of weakness (the one second he fears Ben's turn to the dark side and thinks he has no other choice than to kill him) ends in such a disaster he takes the responsibility he believes he has to take. He gives up everything to protect the galaxy and his family from his powers - he breaks with the Force and the Jedi and hides on a desolated island. So a tiny mistake can never ever lead to such destruction again. To me this seems to be so in character! Also, it is in character that he reassembles all his powers for one last time to save the one person he loves the most - his twin sister Leia and her dream of bringing peace and justice back to the galaxy.
I was even more heartbroken about Ben and Rey breaking THE lightsaber. I literally stopped breathing. What a powerful scene and metaphor! Kudos to the filmmakers for having the courage to do that! My heart is still breaking...
So much for the farewells.
Regarding the welcomes:
Rey is a nobody? I am still feeling ambivalent about this. Maybe there will be more in the upcoming movie. Ben could have been lying after all.
I was positively surprised by Ben Solo. I have to admit I did not really like him in The Force Awakens. It did not feel like he was evil but rather a rebelling teenager. However, The Last Jedi made him show everything he's made of: Han's temper and cleverness, Leia's determination, Luke's pain and Darth Vader's cruelty. A dangerous mixture. I am certainly looking forward to seeing his future development. Even though there are a lot of new characters it is not the end of the Skywalker-Saga. Ben is a Skywalker after all.
Again, I could go on but this review is already too long.
To sum it all up I would like to say thank you to the filmmakers for breaking my heart. The Last Jedi is a good mixture of old themes and fresh ideas. Let us all take a sip of cocoa and stop the hating. And may the Force be with you... always.
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Sure one of my favorite star war movies. Great kylo character development give me chills when he cut snoke in half.I like how the storyline going, it is different from the old ones and that is why is so good.The only thing I disliked a little was how they destroyed luke and that he died and he didn't even gave us one last badass scene he was a force ghost in the end.
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When I first saw TFA, I knew that there were issues but was just happy that Star Wars was back and that it wasn't boring. On rewatches, I realized that the movie didn't make any goddamn sense and was filled with contrivances. JJ opened up a mystery box hoping that would provide intrigue, but it was really just poor storytelling.
Fast forward to TLJ, rather than waste his film revealing the contents of all the mystery boxes, Rian Johnson moves forward and tells the story he needs to tell, as if he said "it's not my job to make your movie better."
Before, the heroes were mildly annoying or uninteresting. Now, they are sympathetic and humanized. Before, we had a soft reboot of ANH. Now, we sprint through ESB and ROTJ while twisting and subverting their tropes and structures until we are left in unexplored territories. It's a shame RJ didn't write/direct the first film in this trilogy and that we are only now breaking away from the template. People can theorize where we will go with episode IX but the future is really murky, which means Star Wars gets to be exciting again. Knowing JJ though, moving forward will likely mean going back and IX can only be a letdown.
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9/10
Thoroughly enjoyed, not willing to standby and see it rubbished
I usually just rate my films, but I couldn't believe what I saw when I read all the negative reviews on imdb for this film so felt the need to come in with a different perspective.
For some reason when I was younger I never really got into the Star Wars films. My interest has come in more recent years when I saw the force awakens, then went back and saw some of the originals. Since then I've been really enjoying the franchise and looking forward to each new release. Rogue One for example I enjoyed in its own right.
I am just back from seeing he Last Jedi and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't necessarily know that I've picked it apart like a number of the reviewers but I just say and watched it and enjoyed it.
There is action and tension throughout, I found myself willing certain events and dreading others leaving me feeling just like I want from a film.
I am sure there will be people far more invested in the series than I am and I can respect that for them elements will mean they feel compelled to mark this movie down.. but there is no way this movie deserves to be getting some of the under 5 scores it is and a score of 1 is absolutely mental.. clearly some of those reviewers have never seen a true 1 star film!!
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9/10
Get over your own ego, and enjoy this fantastic SW film
Fantastic and emotional. I rank it with Ep's IV and V. All the hate seems to be from those clinging to their own theories and ideas of how the series should have developed or what was presented in the EU. As many have observed, the theme of failure (of mentorship, communication, trust) is dominant in the film, without being a retelling of ESB (unlike the Ep VII's duplication of Ep IV).
I accepted Ep VII's throwbacks and recycled plot because I understood that the film would work as a bridge between the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy and was hopeful and anxious to see into what new territory Ep VIII would take us. And I'm more than satisfied with where the series now stands. Yes it lags slightly in the second act, but not to any great degree.
I love the themes and feel of the OT and can accept the story behind the PT (which was saved IMO by the very enjoyable Clone Wars series). I loved the EU (Wedge, Rogue Squadron, Thrawn, etc). But there is a new future (a long time ago) and I'm excited to see where the end of the Skywalker Trililogy® takes us.
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People tend to think that Star Wars is about Heroes Vs Villans. It´s not. People already forgot Star Wars IV. Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi was hidden where only a handful of people knew about him. That was the way to keep the galaxy at a ingrateful peace. Yoda too never returned from his deep obscure hideout. Luke made the same option.
Ben Solo wanted to be the new Darth Vader... and that´s what he made all the way.
On the other side, the movie shows us that ANYONE can be a hero, because each person thinks different. A fighter pilot wants to take out the enemy and survive, even that he loses his entire squadron, if the mission is completed, it was a great mission and the losses are normal. For an Admiral, there are other options and even that nobody cares, it need to hide from any enemy or spies, until the end... even that it costs people lifes but saves much more. That´s something that people tend to forget and want do see victories and defeats.
Only the ones that survive can say they where there and lost less than the ones that died.
All the movie is based on that. On the 4 acts, that´s the main point of the entire story. Anyone can be hero since everyone wants do survive but only the ones that are cautious can do it and will lose many on that escape.
Can´t understand why people bash the movie... because it did the same think that started the IV movie.
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Mesmerising from the first moment to the last. The way they introduced nuance and conflict into Luke Skywalker was excellent. Pushed the boundaries of the core idea of a universe saviour but stayed the right side of that. The demise of Luke and the hoodwinking of Red was brilliant.
Flawless.
I understand the negative reviews which are philosophically opposed. I can see how it would upset some evangelicals. I don't get the points about plot or lack of and character developlement. Star Wars is a riot of nonsense and this film held that up with panache.
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I'm going to be direct, and if haters start their pestilent attacks with who they liked, fo ***, I LIKED A LOT OF THE MOVIE!
I'm going to keep kicking. Forgive me, but the Luke he built is FOR MIN, incredible. I think Mark was attached to the classic Luke, but this Luke is the result of all that has happened to all the jedi. He erred just like all jedi, feared the dark side like all jedi, isolated himself just like all others, redeemed himself with strength, because he understood that the Force is not only in a reclusive group, and became a legend - A legend that endures in all the stories in several galaxies that make him the greatest hero in the galaxy, and the reason to catch the rebels shattered by the New Order, and instead of fleeing or being slaves like the boy, fight. Karamba.
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Good, but not great. If you have any scientific background, you'll very often be forced out of your suspension of disbelief by the story's frequent ignorance of the laws of gravity, the reality regarding transmission of sound in a vacuum, its disregard for how a battle environment would be under constant surveillance, etc. Still, the movie is satisfying in the same way that fast food will kill hunger.
It's well acted, fast paced, and visually arresting. but lacks the depth of a good meal. Still, I recommend seeing it on a big screen rather than waiting for the streaming or DVD versions to become available.
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40 years ago when I was 11 going on 12, my Dad and I went to see a fascinating new movie called "Star Wars" at our local small-town cinema. I was dazzled. My father liked the use of holography in the special effects. It is a great memory. Everyone was talking about it.
It's 40 years later. I'm the father. My son is 11 going on 12 and we went to see the movie together. We had a great time sharing popcorn and enjoying the latest story. We like the new characters, and the prominence of women in the story - my son learned about the Bechdel test from his sixth grade teacher (who is a man), and this movie passes the Bechdel test, to our delight.
We both feel this is a good story - and my son is a lot more well versed in the particulars, I highly recommend this for a men's night out, a women's night out, or a family night out. I am not sure what other people are complaining about.
Go see this. It is epic!
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Prepare to have a lot of what you liked about the OT destroyed.
Directors seem to often have to make a trade-off between sticking to the Star Wars canon and lore on one side and creating a new piece of art on the other. Regardless in what order you rate the original Trilogy (OT), they seem to have (mostly) struck the right balance between these two extremes. Hence the rabbit multi-decade fandom. Arguably Star Wars fans put up with Episodes 1 to 3, because even though they were terrible films, they paid homage to the universe. You felt that you were, even kind of, watching a Star Wars movie. The Force Awakens drew criticism for basically following the same plot as A New Hope. Yet seemed to generally win over fans by mostly striking this balance. Paying homage to the old (too much for some) but introducing the new.
Mr Johnson has been lined up for his own trilogy of the Star Wars Universe. A storyline that would be separate from the known characters and old plots. It feels like he decided to jump the gun and impose his own take now on the OT storyline. The Last Jedi is very much nihilistic take on all characters, canon and lore you loved. There is no way that Mr Johnson could have been a Star Wars fan given the lips service he gives to every one of the old characters.
If you are new to Star Wars you'll like this film. It's a fun Sci-Fi Adventure. If are not new and actually like Star Wars, prepare to have most of the characters destroyed. Judging the film on it's own it definitely had some strong cinematography. There were also solid performances from some of the actors.
However, the film had very strange humour throughout, which did not land once with a packed audience in my cinema. There were strange plot directions and twists that took characters on journeys purely, it seemed, to introduce bad CGI. There were some incredible continuity errors. (Like dropping bombs in zero gravity space). A villain that, in my mind, lacks any depth. And lastly, what I have seen and tend to agree with. A complete re-writing of the Luke Skywalker character.
I am not a rabbit fanboy of the films. Only someone that grew up with the original Trilogy. I really just could not make the mental leaps we were asked to make. A character whose arc involved aiming to save his evil father years later wanting to murder his nephew.
I completely understand that Disney and Mr Johnson wanted to spark the interest in a new generation of fans. The entire film was exactly about that. Yet it seemed pointless to have these old characters involved at all then. I can honestly say that this Director has killed the franchise for me. I sat through all the terrible prequels hoping that the next one would be good. The Force Awakens and Rogue One, I thought, were great steps to revive the franchise. I have no interest in seeing the last film. For Star Wars fans, thinking about seeing this film I would advise not to. For anyone that likes Sci-Fi and CGI, you should be okay.
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Much as we all thought The Final Destination, a/k/a Final Destination 4, would be the last, and final, existential foray into what Death penultimately wants from us, I am sure we all saw the first teaser for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and collectively subconsciously rewatched "Looper" and "Brick", Rian Johnson's promo-wheels as his audition to rewrite cinema.
I had heard that Domnhall Gleeson, despite the extra acting lessons, had narrowly beaten Ahmed Best for the role of Whiny Little Snot, but alas that role was given to Adam Driver, the galaxy's hugest whiny little snot, despite being shorter than Gran' Poobah Snoke by a good couple feet. All hail Whiny Little Snot; long live Whiny Little Snot.
Some even said it's a kids' movie, a mystical adventure shut off from the credentialed elite adults, walnut slices ping-ponging down onto a vertiginous pizza dough, all a-Twitter with glitter.
Others said George Lucas wasn't even involved. Once you make a galaxy, next up is fashioning a whole 'nother universe. We won't stop craving, so do not stop your suppliance.
Adam Driver, you are getting slightly better at pretending . . . to be an actor. Then again, if you were good at pretending to be an actor, you might have qualified to take lessons at the Mark Hamill School of Acting Lessons Academy.
Pshaw, and whatevs, bros. I'm Ben Solo and I'm Kylo Ren. I wear shirts as needed, and I salt to taste. Let's all run for cover, and just in time, for the kids, and may the Force also be with you.
Not every problem requires self-sacrifice, and not every problem has a solution, at least in This Economy.
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I too am struggling to understand all the negative reviews. There was so much to like about this film, and for me it's the strongest of the series since the 1977 original. There are plenty of spoilers below, so if you've not yet seen it - just ignore the negative reviews and go!
To start with, I liked the way that the idea of the 'hero' was used. There is an initial meeting between Finn and Rose, where she recounts how everyone knows of his amazing exploits... but she's not so in awe that it stops her zapping him; and then there's way that Luke is held up as a saviour figure, such that if people only knew he was getting involved in the conflict that would re-energise the forces, but this theme was balanced by Luke's own sense of his failure, and Yoda (I think) saying that being a flawed hero was the most important bit; and then the scene at the end where the boys are playing out the scene where Luke faces down the forces, i.e. he becomes an even stronger motivating figure for the next generation... and I'm sure their stick figure of Luke looked remarkably like Christ on the cross.
And I liked the use of the amoral counterpoint in the form of the code-breaker , and his revealing that one of the rich people in the casino had built weapons for both sides; and Kylo Ren's view that the whole conflict should just be left to finish off the rebellion so that a new start could be made, ie forgetting the past, as if the two sides were as bad as each other. And Rey's uncertainness of where she fits in terms of her personal history. This sequence of ideas introduced much more ambiguity to the normal good-vs-evil Star Wars narrative.
And then the whole treatment of the Jedi religion - with the burning of the holy books, the revelation that Luke never read them anyway as they were pretty dull; and Yoda's view that that Rey embodied all their principles already... and that strikes me a parallel to the Reformation, where the veneration of the traditions and texts of the Church were overturned by Luther, to be replaced by a much more personal relationship between the believer and the higher-power. And we know that arguably didn't end well... It'll be interesting to see how this idea gets played out in the next film.
Ok, there were some very questionable parts: could the First Order ships really go no faster to hunt down the rebellion ships? Poe was a complete liability, but seemed to suffer no consequences of his reckless actions. Though I did like the idea that Finn and Rose's adventure in pursuit of the code-breaker ended in complete failure, and in fact worse: if the code-breaker had not given away the rebellion's escape plans, perhaps the rebel forces would all have got to the new planet safely, avoiding the need for the sacrifice of the commander in ramming the First Order ship... It's unusual to have a demonstration of such complete failure and damage as the result of heroic activity in an action film.
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Guys, it's been 40 years since episode IV, you were probably 13 when you saw it back then - every big movie looks amazing when you are 13. Now you're 53, middle aged and grumpy, which is why the newest movie looks bad.
I admit I was somewhat underwhelmed. Yes, there were a bunch of pointless subplots; yes, there were more plot holes than in, say, Prometheus; yes, there were a bunch of scientific anomalies; yes, the script was bad (and mumbled - I couldn't make out what half the characters were saying); and yes, the acting did make us want Harrison Ford back...
But the movie does have its plus points:
The music is quite good.
The soundtrack is very noisy - in a good way.
The Millennium Falcon looks just as amazing as always (I'm glad they managed to recover it from that golf club in the south of England...).
The new cute bird creatures are brilliant - they need a spinoff movie of their own.
I really liked the grumpy fish creatures on the island (did anybody else like them, or is it just me?).
See? Plenty of good bits. Lighten up guys!
I'm giving it a 6 - because it ain't all that bad!
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8/10
Forget the haters - The Last Jedi is big, bold & exciting with brilliant characters, shocking story developments and beautiful action scenes. Star Wars at its finest
Flicking between storylines emphasises the film's long runtime
Exciting questions posed in the last film given underwhelming answers
Several surprises you won't expect
Plenty of references to older films
Lots of comedy - perhaps too much?
New planets are imaginative - particularly the final planet
Incredible fight and battle scenes - Star Wars action at its best
Characters new and old are important to the story
When it was announced that Disney would be buying Star Wars and adding more films, there was widespread fear and moaning on the internet. However, Disney found our lack of faith disturbing and our doubts were suitably crushed. But what now? Can lightning strike twice and can Rian Johnson pull off something as wonderful as J.J. Abrams? The answer is a resounding yes.
TFA has often been compared to ANH, where there are a number of striking similarities. Therefore it's long been assumed that TLJ would continue along a similar vein, being alike to TESB. However, whilst there are certainly similar aspects, TLJ is a very different beast to TESB. Now we know the characters, the plot is split in 3 parts, much like TESB was split in two. But neither of these storylines feels like a "side-quest." Instead they all feel like substantial parts of the film, keeping the story fresh and engaging, coming together perfectly.
One minor issue with flicking back and forth is it emphasises the films long length of 2 ½ hours. Whilst the pace never feels slow or boring, its skipping from one story to the next does make you realise the long run-time. But when it's so enjoyable it's hard to care. On top of this, not much has really changed. Whereas sequels should take the overarching plot further than the first, not much is different and it feels as though some significant plot point is lacking. Additionally there were some potentially big, exciting questions posed in the preceding film which are wasted, some great potential just being thrown away, almost as if this film doesn't want to be included in the overarching narrative.
Also every blockbuster now insists on including so many comic moments it becomes a quasi-comedy. On one hand, the comedy in TLJ is very funny and it adds a fun characteristic to the movie's personality. On the other hand, it verges on overstaying its welcome, occasionally going a gag too far.
Still, we do get to explore more planets. The world of Star Wars is a big one with unlimited potential and part of the original joy was seeing things we'd never seen before. With CGI as incredible as it is these days this challenge is becoming harder, yet the creativity of Star Wars' galaxy still taps into our imagination. It's safe to say that Las Vegas will soon see a Star Wars-y element to it. Luke's planet is also a lot more fleshed out and not as barren or boring as it could have been. After all, who doesn't want to run away to an island populated by those adorable Porgs?! The final planet we find ourselves on is stunning. A thin layer of what looks like snow hiding a mass of deep red salt that, when disturbed, goes flying into the air, a gorgeous rich burgundy cloud of dust floating around, contrasting with the pure white ground - an incredible backdrop for a thrilling climactic battle. This is the sort of look we really need and want from the Star Wars sequel trilogy. The CGI in the prequel trilogy made that galaxy look very different to the original. What the sequel trilogy excels at is faithfully continuing the look and feel of the original trilogy whilst subtly updating it to feel more authentic. It's a joy to see that along with the references to the originals to revel in the nostalgia; yet the message it also gives is a good one - especially for a beloved franchise transforming to suit the modern day (for better or worse); namely it's fine to look back fondly and smile, but it's important to be able to move on and look to the future...
The newer films certainly improve on action scenes. Take any space battle or light sabre fight you want from this film; they're all thrilling, edge-of-your-seat stuff, giving you a big enough adrenaline rush to boost you into hyperspace. TLJ shows us Star Wars action at its finest; quick, fun, kinetic, explosive, acrobatic. It's all wonderfully varied, excellently choreographed, seamlessly performed and beautifully scored, with the returning John Williams remaining the biggest behind-the-scenes hero of the Star Wars films.
The biggest bridge between trilogies is the characters. We have a pleasant mix of classic and new characters. The original characters are still highlights, with many an audience incapable of giving a cheer when they see Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2... and yes, even C-3PO. They don't appear just as cameos though; these characters bridge the gap between films and are crowd pleasers (along with all the nostalgic references and appearances), but more than that they are genuinely included within the story as substantial roles. This isn't just a brand new trilogy, but the use of these characters show it's an expansion of the Star Wars saga, emphasising how this is one continuous story. However we see a different Luke Skywalker here than before. Still time has passed since ROTJ and it's important for characters to progress... Their inclusion of Carrie Fisher's General Leia was done very well (apart from one particular strange scene in space) and often felt like a fitting tribute.
The new characters can stand proudly among the classics. Rey and Finn come back, each leading their own storylines confidently, both developing their characters; Ridley going from naïve to more confident, and Boyega as always being a consistent to joy to watch. Hux get more time on-screen to shine and uses that time well, establishing his character much more. Kylo Ren goes deeper and brings out the conflicted nature of his character effortlessly, showing us the real danger is how we can never trust him. Serkis could have been a memorable antagonist, but isn't given the chance. Newcomers Del Toro, Dern and Tran all put their own unique touch on the franchise, Tran's Rose in particular lending a personal, more human touch that gives us pause to think and reflect on our own world. The best character change is Isaac's Poe. A stand-out character from TFA, he's given more screen-time, his electric energy permeating his scenes. Then there's BB8, who, while not used as frequently, still steals the scenes he's in.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has proved to be a divisive entry in the franchise. This came as a surprise to me as I came out of the cinema with a huge smile on my face. While it may suffer from a long run-time, thrown-away plot-points and maybe a bit too much comedy, TLJ is excellent and enjoyable. Big, bold and exciting with brilliant characters, shocking story developments and beautiful action scenes, this is the Star Wars film we needed.
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This certainly was a refreshing addition to the Star Wars saga. It is packed with action, humour, and wisdom, and explodes into life following the events of The Force Awakens. There are also some outstanding individual acting performances, most notably Adam Driver, Mark Hammill and Oscar Isaac.
Upon first viewing, I found that there was too much going on in the movie in terms of action - it was all over the place and hard to keep up - but with any Star Wars movie, one viewing isn't enough and it made a lot more sense and I was able to appreciate it more the second time I watched it. The story has a lot of likeness to Return of the Jedi, but it still maintains a sense of uniqueness, and some of the scenes are very enjoyable to watch, including the surprises that are revealed. Overall, the movie sets itself up nicely for episode 9 of the sequels.
My only criticism is that this movie was hyped so much but failed to deliver on certain aspects. For example, it wasn't as deep or spiritual as expected. However, it wasn't too much of a problem, and I did enjoy how they make a lot of reference to nostalgic elements, which you'll see when you watch it.
Overall, an enjoyable movie, that fits in well with the Star Wars stories, in a different fashion.
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I can't believe all of the backlash for this movie on this site. I thought this was the one of the best Star Wars movies, if not, "the best". The acting was superb and the movie aesthetics were incredible. The plot, along with all of the sub-plots, made the climax and the ending of this movie epic! And sot since Empire Strikes and Return of the Jedi have we seen a Star Wars movie with some great and intense emotions in it. Finally, we have Star Wars actors that can produce real tears in "convincing" emotional scenes. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are great actors that portray their characters beautifully with deep and convincing emotions. This saga really centers on them two and I think it is fantastic. Their scenes together are some of the best in all of Star Wars, and that climatic sequence towards the end in Snoke's chambers was amazing - never before has that happened in Star Wars before, making it just unbelievable. And how the movie ended with Luke was fantastic as well. **SPOILERS AHEAD** Luke projected himself on a remote planet (Crait, which by the way is the best planet ever created in Star Wars) to confront the Kylo Ren because he was doing what Yoda taught him in Empire Strikes Back, and that is "a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack." I'd say Luke did that against Kylo Ren better than any Jedi in all of Star Wars! The only other Jedi that ever came close to fighting the enemy in that fashion was when old Ben Kenobi fought Vader in a New Hope...and he became one with the force after too! You also have Rose saying to Finn a few sequences before the Luke and Kylo scene that "we will win by not fighting with hate but saving with love". Luke didn't fight Ben Solo with hate (at all actually), so maybe that is Luke's first step in trying to save Ben's soul...maybe Luke's Force Ghost connects with Ben Solo on a spiritual level in Episode 9 to help turn him back to the Light Side? Episode 8 was a great second act in what has been a great new Star Wars trilogy so far. Episode 9 is shaping up to be the most epic Star Wars yet with everything dependent on what happens between Rey and Ben Solo! How someone can watch The Last Jedi, and not "like it", is mind boggling. Even if die hard Star Wars fans don't like Luke's character and/or how the Force was used, the film still deserves at least a 3 out of 5 stars for great acting, movie aesthetics, character development, creativity, intriguing story, and fantastic emotional and action sequences!
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9/10
A very divisive movie... but I enjoyed it a lot! (SPOILERS!!!)
Star Wars has been, beyond the Skywalkers, about the force and the mythology... I had a lot of expectations regarding Luke, Snoke, Ben and Rey and what was going to be their arc... and after two years of avoiding spoilers and information and just imagining things, it was absolutely different from what I had come to expect... but different does not equals bad.
I know it has been terribly divisive among fans, but I believe there is more than meets the eye here... I did not buy somethings like Snoke being killed and Luke's arc just to end like that... I do not think Disney is going to be this stupid to just "kill" the two most powerful users in the galaxy like that in the middle of the trilogy without having thought what will come next...
I just hope Rian Jhonson is being hired to be the ultimate star wars twist in the saga... making him endure two years of angry fans just for the sake of the way the story needs to be told, making the fans talk and speculate in order to have a well deserved payoff on ep IX! (because if things turns to be the way they supposedly are right now, this review is worth one star and I am going to be pissed as 50% of you are right now!)
It was not a perfect movie, and I will start with the things I liked the least: Leia Poppins, Finn and Rose story and Luke´s unexpected background story...
On Leia Poppins: Don´t get me wrong, I believe Carrie Fisher gave a hell of a performance, and every time I saw her onscreen I was really sad she was not going to return for her bigger part on Episode IX... her interaction with Luke was amazing, as were her lines about being a leader to Poe´s character (another good surprise), my only complain is the way the Poppins scene was handled... her powers came out of nowhere (had she even really trained to pull something like that? or did her powers just come to her naturally just like Rey?) and, even assuming I had liked that display of power... How come it was not addressed after it happened? everybody was around just saying "Oh, General Organa was pulled into the vacuum but there she is at the other side of this pressurized door, can you open the door please?" Perhaps this scene was originally conceived to establish some of the things she was going to do on IX... but it felt just weird.
On Finn and Rose: I was reading a review which said that Rian Jhonson had so many characters and needed to still do something with them after the force awakens that some stories feel forced... and to me this is the biggest one (not counting the Mass Kanatta's jetpack one bit) their story didn´t add anything to the story, except by the critics to profiting on war (which I believe is one of the best critics star wars has ever made... come on guys... the excuse of war is putting our planet to sleep just for some coins!) and the little bit with the kid... but I believe it didn´t really add anything to the story
On Luke´s background story: as one IMDB user and Mark Hamill himself said: "I have known Luke my entire life but I did not recognized him on this film" and This is the turning point for me... how in the world does a Jedi Knight who has gone through hell, blowing one deathstar, losing a hand, rescuing a friend, becoming the last jedi, fighting the emperor, redeeming his father and being the HOPE of the OT just get to this??!!! for crying out loud! Luke would have never turned his back on Ben like that! (unless Snoke´s influence is actually THAT big to make Luke see the galaxy devastated by Kylo)
Now... to what I liked... and it´s got to do with the fact that even thought I did not get to see Luke at his prime (having a hell of a lightsaber fight, using the force in an action packed choreography against the knights of Ren, marrying Mara Jade and having his son, flying the millennium falcon in the best battle sequence of the whole saga, seeing him smile as he finally found peace with his Jedi identity - Man, this is becoming one hell of a parenthesis, but I guess you get my point and how hyped I was just for his character-), I did not thing his failure was that bad a thing... we just got the opposite of the Happy story we all wanted for him and for all of the characters after Return of the Jedi!
And if you look at it, it had been established during the force awakens... Han went back to do what he was best at, so did Leia... their lives continued linked to their decisions as does real life... with ups and downs... we just did not get the story that we had imagined with all of them happily ever after... but WE GOT A STORY WHICH HAS ALL OF US AGAIN STILL DEBATING ABOUT A FREAKING MOVIE! and this, to me, is movie magic.
I got to see Luke speaking about the force and the way he understands it, I got to see him talk to Yoda and Leia, I got to see him come to terms with his mistakes and decide to take action on a hell of a force display, I wanted to say "don´t get cocky" to him as he swept his shoulder after the attack, I loved the binary Sunset and the fact that even him finally accepted that the stupid battle between light/dark side of the force could only be finished through balance... finally accepting that the Jedi have made some terrible decisions during millennia!
I got to see also that the fate of the force is no longer linked specifically to the Skywalker family (which is a relief, since it has always being bigger than that!) and I got to see two sides of the force fighting side by side in one of the coolest scenes ever!
Now... the reason for my 9 stars and not 10 comes from the fact I hope that my expectations may be somehow addressed on episode IX... again, if the story that we see is just what it is without any more depth - which I refuse to believe at this point-, this review will go from 9 stars to 1 in two years... however, I do not think Disney will be stupid enough to do this... and here are some thoughts:
1: Why on the hell is the novelization coming out on MARCH for crying out loud? this is a very weird move, specially given the fact that all of the novelizations have been released before the movie!
2: After all of the background on Snoke from the visual dictionnaries... I refuse to think Disney will just let it go like this... it was conceived by JJ Abrams and thanks God he is coming back... also... the fact that TLJ was a back to back to TFA does not leave a lot of room to include new plots or situations (Rebels destroyed Star killer´s base, First order destroys rebels base, then almost obliterates all of the rebels) and that´s where we are... If there is a bigger plan it has been too short a period for it to unveil.
I believe Snoke is not dead... I believe at this point he is strongest than Luke and, if Luke could pull out such an illusion, so could Snoke just to tempt Rey or to Test Kylo, and I hope to see him be a badass
3: If Snoke tuns out to be the Badass I expect... the only thing that can confront him will be something more powerfull than he can possibly imagine... This was the first time I saw a force ghost affecting the physical world with a hell of a power - thanks Yoda!- and perhaps Luke will have a word on that.
4. If Disney pulls this con on all of the fans... they will become more powerfull than we can possibly imagine.
I just hopes this turns out this way... and that we can take literally Luke´s words: This is not going to go the way you think.
Help us JJ Abrams... you are our last hope!
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Ignore the trolls and the bad reviews from the so called 'fan base' half of which were not even born at the time of the original trilogy...
Don't read any of the spoilers - go and see it with open mind. Take it from an old fan that's seen all the star wars movies thousands of times.
To all the pathetic haters - may the force be with you !
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In 2015 we - us 'Star Wars' fanboys - finally got treated to more 'proper' Star Wars (and by 'proper' I mean with characters we actually cared about in a story set after the events of 'Return of the Jedi' rather than prequels or spin-offs). 'The Force Awakens' opened to almost completely positive reviews, most completely overlooking the fact that it was a thinly-disguised reboot of 'A New Hope.' Yes, I too enjoyed it, but never really went as far as to claim it was as good as many were making it out to be.
Now, 'The Last Jedi' opened to mega-praise by the critics, describing it was either 'The best Star Wars film ever,' or (at worst) 'The best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back.' Then the audience reviews started rolling in and it seems they weren't so impressed. Personally, I enjoyed the film for the most part. I certainly wouldn't say it's perfect, but what film is these days?
First of all the (new) cast, as they had more to prove that the returning Luke and Leia. Daisy Ridley seemed more comfortable as 'Rey' this time, however she did struggle with some of the more 'dramatic' moments, but she did play of the 'battle-worn' Luke well. Oscar Isaac was awesome as Poe and was almost like having a new (younger) Han Solo back again. Adam Driver was much more in sync with being the villainous Kylo Ren and clearly enjoying his beefed-up role. However, like I say, it's far from perfect and for every Isaac and Driver there were new faces who just didn't work. Almost all the extras (who had lines) in both the First Order fleet and the Resistance appeared to almost be reading their lines off prompt cards and, despite new face 'Rose Tico' getting high praise, I found her annoying and pointless.
At least we had Luke and Leia to fall back on. The two 'old faces' (no offence Mark and Carrie!) are seasoned pros of the genre and it was a joy to watch them back in the roles that made them famous. For me, Luke was the perfect evolution of the character (I understand that statement may be shot down from many!). Leia too is awesome, however the storyline itself does seem to be troubled by Carrie Fisher's unfortunate death, leaving many (including me this time) to wonder what's going to become of this highly-prominent story arc.
The film looked brilliant and was a joy to watch - visually. I felt the majority of the (large) cast worked well and played off each other, plus there seems to be a view held that there's 'too much humour' in the film and it's 'typically Disney' and 'almost like an 'Avengers' movie.' Yes, there were a few humorous moments, but I didn't think they detracted from the overall story or feel. However, the films was way too long and this leads me to the point which does seem to unite most viewers - that the Rose/Finn sub-plot was not just annoying, pointless and too CGIed, but simply padded out the film to levels which made many of us check our watches when it was revealed that the film was going on (and then on).
That was my major gripe about the film, i.e. too long thanks to wasting Finn on a pointless mission. When this film comes out on DVD I will buy it, but just skip these scenes forever after. I understand that most people who hated the film were hung up on decisions made by established characters and I can sort of see where they're coming from. However, for me there were more minor grips such as how certain (interesting) characters are underused, various plot points from The Force Awakens aren't answered and, if I'm really nit-picking, The Force itself just seems to add new powers whenever it wants, making us wonder why Jedi/Sith didn't use all this a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away!).
Overall, I did enjoy this film, despite its flaws (biggest of which I will personally rectify courtesy of the 'Chapter Skip' button on my DVD remote. However, no matter how bad you've heard it is, it's NOT going to be 'removed from Star Wars cannon' like that pointless petition seems to want it to be. For me, it was a decent enough addition to the Star Wars universe and I'm looking forward to seeing where they take the final part of the (new) trilogy in a couple of years time.
http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/
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6/10
Seven sins of the Last Jedi (FULL spoilers review, includes spoilers from other SW movies)
1) Breaking of Star Wars tradition #1. No, this isn't about the 'I have a bad feeling about this' SW tradition. (You should be able to find an online article explaining how it is there.) This is about there being no actual lightsaber duel. You heard that right, there is no actual lightsaber duel in this movie, something I never even imagined before: the possibility that there would an actual SW Saga movie (Rouge One doesn't count, it's a non-Saga movie) without a lightsaber duel. By lightsaber duel, I mean two (or more) people wielding a lightsaber each to face off against each other, and their lightsabers clashing. Rey and Ren using their lightsabers don't count, because in that fight, they face off not against each other but against a group wielding weapons that although can repel lightsabers, aren't lightsabers AT ALL. As for Luke versus Kylo Ren, yes, they face off against each other (seemingly) using lightsabers, but their lightsabers don't actually even touch at all, let alone clash, it isn't a lightsaber duel, it's a stupid bullfight with Luke being the matador and Kylo being the bull. It isn't even an exciting bullfight at that, especially if you know how it'll play out or are seeing it for the 2nd (or more) time. It's terribly boring - barely there choreography. There are just a few Luke matador moves (that aren't impressive) and then he spews some crap and then....
2) The way Luke dies... by committing suicide? This is not the way anyone imagined Luke's journey ending. What the heck was Luke thinking??? Either he knows that he is going to die (I.E. commit suicide) or he doesn't. If he doesn't, he's an idiot, if he does, he's an even bigger idiot. His goal (as Finn said in the movie) was to stall the First Order and allow the Resistance to escape - he could have done a better job at this and not get himself killed in the process - like not just standing there and take ALL the fire from the First Order walkers and then not just stand there and take a direct lightsaber slash from Kylo. There's no point to that AT ALL. Obi-Wan did that (in a way a few million times more elegant than Luke, but that's because he didn't want to be captured). And so Luke dies pointlessly. Did he know he would die shortly after that slash? As already said, if he doesn't know, he's an idiot (hmm, wow all those walker firing didn't even hurt me, I think I'll just let him slash me, hehehe, I bet it'll be itchy), if he knows, he's committing suicide which makes him an even bigger idiot, in fact, that makes him the biggest idiot in all the SW movies. Makes the act of him blasting the controls to the door right behind him in ANH while there's a gap in front look like genius. Geez.
3) Making Luke and the past Jedi idiotic, diminishing/destroying everything good previously associated with him/them. Luke from the OT did not show any hints WHATSOEVER AT ALL that he would go down the path he did in TLJ; once he started down the path of the hero in ANH, he was the paragon of good, even more so than any other SW character, even Yoda, Obi-Wan and Leia. And yet he whole movie makes a CONCENTRATED effort to destroy the good images of Luke (and the past Jedi). Also, at no point in TLJ does Luke behave in a way that one would call wise. Heck, even Yoda's appearance in TLJ is mostly his jokey self over his true serious Jedi self. Luke deserted his sister, brother-in-law, friends, all the people who needed him. Even after the countless deaths by the Starkiller base in TFA, he still refuses to rejoin the fight. Talk about an a-hole. I thought that TLJ would do a good job explaining why he's in hiding - it does the worst possible job of that without making him a villain. His so-called 3 lessons about the Force? Two of which are stuff the audience already knows (the 3rd one was deleted) and he delivers the 2 lessons in a way like an alcoholic who read about them on Wookipedia. Lesson 2 was all about the bad of the Jedi without mentioning the good, which far outweigh the bad. The galaxy would have been worst off without them and wouldn't have the peace they had prior to the rise of the Emperor. Not right of Luke to not mention the good and only focus on the bad. Some other examples that the movie makes to belittle Luke include Luke squeezing alien tit and drinking green milk as an effort to make you think less of the fan-favourite blue milk of Aunt Beru's that Luke drank in ANH. Another is making the island/planet Luke was on: Ahch-To (btw, how do you pronounce that without sounding stupid) show double suns (it had no good reason to have double suns unlike Tatooine which is a complete desert planet and you have to farm water) and looks at them after committing suicide, forever tainting the classic fan-favourite scene of Luke looking at the binary sunset on Tatooine in ANH. And the way Luke brushes off R2's serious attempt to get Luke to rejoin the fight by showing Leia's plead to Obi-Wan in ANH? Luke should have been more serious after that and shown more emotion, but no he calls it a cheap shot, another attempt by the movie to taint another classic element and make Luke look bad.
4) Breaking of Star Wars tradition # 2 and # 3. All of the SW Saga movies have 2 traditions related to the epilogue right before the end credits fade in. 1 - There's no spoken words, it's all carried by visuals, music and sound effects (the beeping by R2 in ANH and the short chant from ROTJ SE doesn't count as spoken words, it's just to add to the music) and 2 - it's about the main characters, where they go from there. TLJ defiantly and unnecessarily breaks these two traditions for no good reasons - no main characters at all, and some alien language crap about Luke Skywalker that just mucks up the music.... Ends the movie on a really sour note and left fans like me waiting for the music-only, main characters-only epilogue, only for it not to ever come and asking 'wait, what about the epilogue!!!!' What we have for the final scene instead is the Marvel-style mid-credits/post credits scene with some boy whose name was revealed to be Temiri Blagg. (I can't imagine how Blagg could be pronounced in a way that is acceptable for an important character.)
5) Belittling of Snoke. I liked the way Snoke died, and it's okay for me to have the movie not reveal his background. What I have a major issue with is that there's almost no character building for him. The first full scene he is in (the rest I wouldn't call full scenes - he either had a cameo in a scene, or the scene was too short) and he dies at the end of it. A major character can't be killed off like that, only minor characters can and Snoke is not a minor character by any means. You can't kill off a major character just like that and not be accused of belittling him/her. Another thing is that while I think the how and why Snoke was killed was brilliant, I think that Ren's reaction to it is way too unnatural, he needs to say more about it to Rey and more important than that, show more emotions. I can't imagine anyone in his shoes behaving the way he did after killing his incredibly powerful master. Compare this to Vader killing the Emperor or Obi-Wan defeating and thinking he killed Anakin, they both showed so much more emotions through their facial expressions and spoken words. Kylo's reaction to the death of Snoke is another of Rian's attempts to belittle Snoke, like saying it was nothing to Ren, just another simple and easy task he knew he was going to accomplish, just a matter of time - it was nothing.
6) Breaking of Star Wars tradition # 4. All right, maybe this is not so much of a tradition than a rule, an unwritten rule. The rule is that all lightsaber wielding heroes need to be defeated/killed by the end of the second movie they appear in (counting from the first time they first switched on their lightsaber onscreen). Qui-Gon by Maul, young Obi-Wan by Jango Fett and Dooku (twice), Anakin by Dooku and later Obi-Wan, Mace by Anakin together with Palpatine, Yoda by Palpatine together with his own failure (George Lucas almost breaks this rule in a most brilliant way, but Yoda is Yoda, and it is still considered a defeat, he even admitted it 'Failed I have'), old Obi-Wan by Vader, Luke by Vader. This rule is very important as it helps to keep the heroes in check, to ensure that they aren't too powerful and can be killed. Rey is the only one who totally and completely breaks this rule (her capture in TFA doesn't even come close to being counted). By breaking this rule for Rey, it makes her way too powerful...
7) Disproportionally powerful users of the Force without training. (DPUTFWT!) This is something that continued from TFA. In TFA, Rey can use the Force and lightsaber better than seemingly anyone could ever at rookie stage, and all without training. I was hoping that TLJ was going to explain this (with Luke being actually responsible for it and it is one of the main reasons he went into hiding.) But no, not only did they not explain it or even address it at all, they made her even more powerful, all without training again. Like when she and Kylo Ren took on the elite guards, the final and most memorable shot of it was Rey helping/saving Kylo by tossing him a lightsaber, indirectly making her seem the better of them both. And then there's when she took on Luke. This is easily the worst duel in the whole saga. There are a few non-lightsaber duels in the saga, (Jango Fett vs Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan vs Grievous), this is one of them too, since the story requires them to fight, why not make it as cool as possible, instead just turns into another opportunity for Rian to make Luke look idiotic and Rey a DPUTFWT.
There you have it, the seven sins of the Last Jedi. Thank you for reading.
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PROS
Daisy Ridley - brilliant actress. Emotional and captivating.
Special Effects - Epic and stunning all the way.
Snoke - engaging and more enigmatic than TFA.
Characters seemed more embellished.
Cenamatography was great.
Soundtrack was great.
CONS
The scene with Rey and Kylo touching fingers should have continued with a romantic kissing scene instead of remaining in this banal platonic attitude.
Depiction of Luke Skywalker - not the L.S. from the original trilogy. Lacking in scope and charisma.
Misplaced humour. Sarcastic remarks kept muddling the tone of scenes.
The nun things on the island - a waste of time.
Pace - Uneven, choppy, cutting between things so fast you can't settle into it.
Uneven tone. Luke Skywalker is dark and moody, Chewbacca kicks his door in and Luke jolly and jokey. C3PO seemed to be ignored by everyone in the film, the theme of C3PO making precise calculations feels long-time redundant now. Luke Skywalker is climbing the sombre terrain of the island, drinks the green alien milk and pulls ridiculous jokey face.
Most of the dialogue is horrific.
On Canto Bight there was a stampede of horse-creatures. Rose delivers her dialogue so fast and with no articulation or intonation - it's just a blast of blurb with no full stops. So when she's explaining about the horse-creatures I couldnt understand a word of what she was saying and made no sense of why the creatures went on their rampage. How can a horse-creature crash through a solid wall in the casino? The scenes on Canto Bight looked more like the Great Gatsby than Star Wars. If the film is set in a Galaxy a long time ago why do the patrons of the casino look like they're from the 1930s?
Too many repetitive scenes - the spaceships being attacked, the spaceships emerging to a sudden stop after light speed. Swooping shots of the island etc.
Does the young boy at the end indicate that future Star Wars films are going to be kids films like Avatar? My God, I hope not!!
Limited story - cutting between 3 scenes - Skywalker, Rebellion and Canto - nothing else.
Ultimately felt like a cheat of the 70s originals. Comes nowhere close to the dark majesty of The Empire Strikes Back. Comparing the two films is a vain attempt at elevating The Last Jedi way beyond the cheap imitation it is.
SUMMARY:
Disney is trying hard to keep the original trilogy burning, they're succeeding but only just. It's patchy and lacks the freshness and charisma of the originals.
Rain Johnson is not the right director to pull this together. He is no Irvin Kershner. Kathleen Kennedy needs to find a new Irvin Kershner or Star Wars is gonna run out of steam within the next 2 or 3 films. The same story is being repeated in every film.
Final Score 6/10.
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Out with the old and in with the Disney new. Seems to be the theme with this movie. Kill off the Jedi v Sith as if it was always a sub plot to the real saga of plain old good values v bad regardless of gender, race, sexual or any other alien persuasion that exists in the underverse. Don't have a problem with that as long as it's entertaining and the saga is heading somewhere. This movie isn't entertaining for sure, though where it is heading? That is anyone's guess. Frankly I stayed out of the guessing game years back and encouraged my kids to do the same. Don't like it....well become a creative and invent your own franchise based on Millennium old storytelling! Speaking of which; at least they didn't blow up the Falcon!
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Before we go into the review I just want to say that I'm sorry that I didn't do any reviews for the last few months. I'm now back with another review and this time I will be doing Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi! Let's get into the review!
-Spoiler Warning!-
Star Wars: The Last Jedi takes place after the events in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This time Rey goes to Luke Skywalker's Island and she needs to be trained to use the force and the resistance needs to prepare for battle with the first order.
I really liked the action sequences. My favorite scene was when Rey and Kylo Ren were fighting together against Snoke's bodyguards. Another favorite scene was the fight on the rebel base. Going away from the subject of action sequences, the acting was great and it was also well directed.
Other people may disagree with me because there have been many people saying that this movie was not good or some parts ruined the movie and all that stuff. :P
Going into spoilers, Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren have a showdown outside the rebel base to let the resistance escape. However Skywalker does not appear there in person. He uses the force to make people think he is there. It is revealed when Kylo Ren runs up to Luke with a light saber in an attempt to kill him but he doesn't die. He then disappears and you see him on his island looking at the sunset and then dies.
Overall I really enjoyed this movie! Great action sequences, it was well acted and directed. I'm now excited for Star Wars: Episode IX!
10/10
My final review of the year will be on Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle which will come out soon so be on the look out for that!
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8/10
This was a great film, people need to stop whining, just cause their fan theories weren't true.
The only way to please star wars fans is like this...
Make it new and different, but don't change anything. Do something original, but keep it the same. Don't kill off the old characters cause we love them, but kill someone off to surprise us. Make sure all our fan theories are true, but don't be predictable. Got to have it mystical, but don't make it cheesy! Bring back unexpected characters, but don't do it in the way you want.
Seriously, star wars fans are the actual WORST fans in the world. Never happy, so ungrateful and massive whiners. I didn't think this film was perfect either, but I enjoyed it. That is the point. It's a fictional universe, of course it's meant to be fun. The reason there is now so much hate it because it's such a huge and popular franchise.
If you look back, the original star wars film is full of cheesy acting, silly jokes, plot holes and weird decisions. But we still love it, because it's a classic. Back in the day, people didn't have the ability to put their opinions on the internet, and the world was all the better for it.
So it wasn't perfect, I agree. But I think lots of things happened that were brilliant. There were touching emotional moments, twists and unexpected things.
The fact they killed snoke was a shock, yes. But it was unexpected. It shows that the over-confident and arrogant bad guy can be killed off. Which does break the norm. And it now sets up Kylo Ren as the main villain. I seem to remember him being pretty awesome in this film. But fans didn't like it. Wait, didn't they complain about him not being badass in the force awakens? Oh yeah, never happy. Also, they can still reveal information about him even though he's been killed off, seriously. Pretty sure in the EU, lots of new things were learned about Vader and the Emperor, AFTER they were dead.
Reys' parents. Oh no, none of the theories were true. So what? The point of this trilogy is to not make every important person in the galaxy related to the skywalkers! And it's possible they can still reveal who they actually were in episosde 9. I liked this twist.
There were cool new characters, fun moments, and Luke and Yoda had some of the most touching moments in the film. Seeing Luke find peace and become one with the force was very nicely done.
All in all, it was fun, like star wars is meant to be. And it wasn't totally like Empire, which is what everyone was worried about. But now that is isn't, people are STILL not happy! You'll never be able to please all star wars fans, and in that respect, directing a star wars movie nowadays is an immense task.
To round up....let's see all of you do better!
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9/10
Daisy Ridley pulls of a brilliant piece of acting!
Daisy Ridley has grown so much since her last appearance in the Star Wars movie. Quite frankly, I 've never followed the Star Wars themes, so I wasnt expecting much. But the scene setting, art and development of the film were wonderful. Almost every scene and setting had an artistic touch and visual angles brought the movie to life and added to it. There was also some humor which has been sprinkled in the correct places. Not many other actors stood out except Daisy Ridley, she is the best find from this movie series, a great talent to be nurtured and developed, she's got a bright career ahead of her!!!
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Let me preface this review by stating that I completely understand why there is so much divisiveness among fans for The Last Jedi. This film takes Star Wars in a place many probably didn't or couldn't have imagined.
After the first viewing, with all my Star Wars fanboy insides questioning every moment and trying to enjoy the ride, it was very hard to. It seemed as though there were a lot of poorly written moments, or even crazy (even for Star Wars) moments that didn't make anymore sense than a Gungan riding a Bantha.
After reading up on fellow Star Wars fans reviews and also an in depth interview with Director Rian Johnson, the second viewing was plenty more enjoyable. Now I have heard many people that agree with that statement, and like the overall divisiveness of The Last Jedi, many who don't. I didn't find myself nitpicking every moment, and focused on the performances and over arching story being drawn out, and somehow it was starting to make a little more sense to me.
Don't get me wrong, there is still some stuff that I would prefer to have been left out, or changed all together. But upon second viewing I actually found myself coming out as a fan of this film. I wished IMDB would change to a 100 point basis, because rather my score being an 8/10, it would probably be closer to a 75 or 76/100. I think we need to drop our expectations of what we would personally like to see, and be open to change. No one complains about an stand alone film, or novel, or song for not being what they wanted, rather if it is good or bad. I do not think The Last Jedi is amazing, as either a Star Wars film or a film in general, but I do think it is good. Not as good as the critics would like to think, but better than the fake accounts on Rotten Tomatoes.
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I think Luke Skywalker was undermined. Due to the sensitive nature and like qualities of Mark Hamill, I truly believe some of the decisions made about his character in this film undercut his strengths as an individual, an actor. The way the whole thing plays out almost makes a fool out of him and Skywalker. I think its a damn shame, too. The guy more than held his own in this film and i was impressed. In the first films he had this aloofness, a sense of being far away. And this suited him well. It also added depth, perhaps meaning to the films. His sensitivity would have been a powerful vehicle if his character was handled less sloppily here. The writing decisions here make him come off as weak, unsure, even a bit unstable. Its too big and bombastic for his natural way and what he can bring with that to the role of Luke.
Also, comic relief is one thing but this was a bit too much and in an over the top sort of way. I enjoyed the silly animated porgs, is it? and Chewy having problems eating one of them in front of the others. I thought the force training sequence with Luke and Rey where he busts out the branch and messes with her was totally in line with how Lucas might have played out some humor in the originals. Genuinely funny. I actually thought the the Momma joke that the pilot makes at the beginning to the commander was funny. Unfortunately, i dont think it works as a whole and i would have sadly cut it out if it would have been up to me. It works but doesnt quite considering it utterly undermines any sense of dread of adversary and leads to a complete undoing of the enemies plight shortly afterwards.
Ive seen a great deal of die hard fans reviews and i completely respect their disdain. I actually agree with most of the extremely low rating despite not usually doing so. I dont like to live in extremes, typically. Some things said in reviews here that i agree with actually are so full of negatives that it seems there were hardly any redeeming qualities found in some peoples view. I think some of the negatives pointed out are truly too harping of certain aspects of the film.
In conclusion, this film would have been better suited with a more spirited sense of wonderment as opposed to slightly resembling a parody in many parts. Its just that most of the decisions made and characters are so wish-washy that the whole thing is rendered as not all that meaningful. Hell, some of the main characters im stretching to remember the name of at this point. Thats not good.
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The new Star Wars movie is boring...Nah. The new Stars Wars movie is actually really fun (your kids would love it!). As for you old school fans, you will be plenty satisfied by the callbacks and genuine humour. It is not a great film by any means, but it is an enjoyable film.
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The Last Jedi was an absolute thrill ride of a film, and really sets up an amazing finale for Episode 9. The movie was well cast, and the pacing and excitement builds and flows to its ultimate and legendary climax. The space battles were top-of-the-line Star Wars, and the addition of Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro really gave the film that extra "kick" it needed. Kelly Marie Tran also surprised many in her heart-warming role as Rose Tico. The new planets were incredible, especially Crait...and I can't say enough about Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley. Their chemistry is amazing, and it will be a treat to see how their stories end up in the next chapter. Well done, Rian Johnson and Disney!
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Star Wars Episode VIII is truly mainly about the denouement of the story of Jedi master Luke Skywalker who Luke´s own Jedi master makes a cameo as a spirit of the force and assuages the conscience of the conflicted but always good Luke. It is a wonder and awed spectacle each time the elderly countenance of Luke Skywalker appears in the screen, every time is it as awed impressive as the first time Mark Hamill face appeared to see at Rey in the mountain island, the sacred temple island of the Jedi where there are the ancient canon texts of the Jedi, the tree of the Jedi and even a dark side cave under the sea. To see Luke Skywalker in the Last Jedi has the same feeling as in The Force Awakens when Luke grizzly face appears for the first time, now in the Last Jedi is a joy to see Luke Skywalker, and to understand that Luke is played by the same actor that 40 years ago appeared in a New Hope in 1977 and how Mark Hamill had grown old with his character Luke, truly this is one of the best cinema experiences that had transpired as a cinema lover. Now after all this good feelings of joy to finally see Luke Skywalker again and he does speak this time, it is time to get to the film. Again this is Luke´s story and how he has to see what Yoda saw in him so many years ago, when like Luke was now, Yoda had run away after the failures of the wisest of Jedi masters, to stop the rise of Dark Sideus in The Revenge of the Sith. Yoda exiled himself like his student does now, when Luke after his own failures exiled himself in the ocean world island, Yoda and Luke are similar and there is a lot of hope that now Rey who eventually like Yoda did with Luke, now Luke also does with Rey, he reluctantly would become the master Jedi of Rey who would become a Jedi knight and now a Jedi herself, Rey finally can have the teacher and also like Han Solo before, the father she never have. Luke is disillusioned, saddened, depressed, defeated after his failures with Ben Solo, his nephew, he cannot forgive himself from failing to avert the rise of the First Order, and like Anakin before him, Ben Solo followed his grandfather footsteps to make the Sith liked First Order rise in power like Darth Vader did with the rise of the Empire. This is in fact very interesting as is a fact that the creator and the genius who created Star Wars, George Lucas had read 10 000 books in his library and he had read a huge amount of history to create a hugely complex political world in space. One of the themes of the Last Jedi is that although History does not repeat itself, History continue to happen in similar ways, like a wise Levant king once said, there is nothing new under the sun, that is in fact History and George Lucas as the creator of the Star Wars universe, and seeing the complexities of both the rise of the Sith Empire with the help of Darth Vader and the rise of the First Order with the rise of Ben Solo or styled himself Kylo Ren, it can be seen that the director and producers clearly are learned men and women who grasped the historical significance of George Lucas masterpiece.
Luke lives in the island like Yoda, because he wants to escape as far away as he could from his failures in this case Ben Solo, Luke knows he failed him as a Jedi master, he was Ben Solo teacher, and he was his nephew and for a mistake Luke makes when he saw how much darkness was inside Ben Solo, the drama is explained in three great scenes of the Rubicon moment, the no turning back between Luke and Ben Solo, the scene is depicted three times, first as the Luke perspective of the events, then Kylo Ren more visceral version and then most likely the truth of the event as the confrontation between Rey and Luke when Rey demands the truth from Luke. When the story is told finally with veracity, Rey sees wisely that Luke should forgive himself, and that Luke did not failed Ben Solo, the fact was that Ben Solo failed his master, also the same way Anakin failed his master and father in Obi Wan Kenobi in Revenge of the Sith.
Luke is a good man, has always been a hopeful man, he is the man who believed in the Dark Sith Lord Darth Vader in the Return of the Jedi, Luke´s hope has always been vital to Star Wars, and now seeing Luke a broken man, without faith or hope, it is melancholic and sad but all hope and all fight is not gone from the Last Jedi as he will fight one more time. The answers of Rey´s parentage are not given and it is obvious that the corrupt, insidious, malevolent, liar, pernicious Ben Solo, Kylo Ren is not saying the truth about Rey´s parents. The questions of Rey´s parentage and heritage are not given, and one wonders when if ever the questions will ever be answered, who are Rey´s parents, that question keeps Star Wars fans awake at night and the answer is still not given evidently and Rey wonder still who her parents are and although Kylo Ren tells Rey that he knows who Rey parents are, there is little and actually no reason to believe a liar tongue Ben Solo, there is more in Rey´s parents question and hopefully in Episode IX the questions will be answered at last with no gray area with definitive faces as the origin of Rey, everyone wants to know, Rey too wants to know, Star Wars fans demand real answers.
Well, as good as the Last Jedi is, the other parts of the movie when Luke, Rey, are not in are not as good, those scenes are hard to watch, boring even, without much of anything happening. This at the end of the movie becomes a dual match between the two sides of the force, the light and the dark side, represented in Rey´s hopeful side and the hateful and resentful and unforgiving dark side of Kylo Ren and Ben Solo. Overall the Last Jedi is a great movie that is not a masterpiece because of the weaknesses of the other characters and the scenes where there is not much of anything happening, this must be attended to by the producers and directors of the next movies, as there has to be an investment and good writing to make the other character´s arcs and scenes and stories better than the ones in the Last Jedi, perhaps that is the chatter about some fans are talking about in the media, the movie can be better. But as a Star War fans of the older movies, there is a need to tell the truth, if you loved the young Luke Skywalker learning from an elder Obi Wan Kenobi in A New Hope and now you see an elder Luke Skywalker teaching Rey, the new Jedi, you feel happy that the Last Jedi is a great epic poem about one of their heroes, Luke Skywalker and when Luke Skywalker again walks in the sky and in a powerful and beautiful scene when there is the sun, the heat of life, the sun is beginning to dusk and the twilight, nightfall and before the sun goes down, Luke is there in the sky fighting in a astral form and in another plane, with his great power and concentration, he can even change and touch events millions of miles away and when Luke Skywalker, a great Jedi master finally like the sun light at twilight needs to rest, when Luke helps the light and uses the force once again, there is like one of his students say, the new Jedi, that Luke had finally find the peace and the purpose that he had wanted all along, like Obi Wan Kenobi, Yoda before him, the force is one with all and Luke hopefully will teach Rey more like Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda continued to teach Luke all along, the Last Jedi is a potent, powerful love poem for one of Star Wars heroes, Luke Skywalker that in a defeated stated said that the Jedi because of their hubris, arrogance had made possible the rise of the Sith Empire in the zenith of their power, and now it was time for the Jedi to end, but the last Jedi saw Rey and perhaps he saw in Rey himself, and against his wishes, the Last Jedi did not let the Jedi order to end, the Last Jedi taught another student, a Jedi knight, a new Jedi to take his place in the sun, and Rey does promised Luke that she will not be like the disappointment student Ben Solo, that Ben Solo failed Luke, and Rey promises that she will not fail the Last Jedi, that she will be a good students, and seeing Daisy Ridley comely, nice, innocent face one believes her and there is hope for the Jedi and for Luke´s legacy and that there could be balance again in the force, Rey is hope, Rey is light like Luke before her, now it is Rey´s time to shine in the light.
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10/10
One of the most thrilling movies in the world. 2 thumbs up, way way up!
Top movie making and story telling. Emotional with real heart felt fun in just the right places. A tip of the hat to the great star wars film before (Empire) while moving onward to a few generation and new "hope". To bad the people and so called professional "critics" can't see past their stupidity and see what this film was doing. Thankfully these people don't make films... well those that can do... and those that can't become dumb critics. I fart in your generation direction critics - this film is perfect. Period.
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I feel like a lot of the negative reviews here are written by the same person. They nearly all say the same thing in the same language. I've loved Star Wars since the very beginning (I even read the novelization!) and I found this one terrific. My whole family enjoyed it. I have no idea what people are talking about when they say this film destroys the legacy. Seems like people's expectations got in their way of enjoying a fine movie.
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8/10
A recommended watch; The Force Awakens truly here.
It's Episode VIII, but it feels like Episode V, all over again. I mean it as a good thing. As a teenager when i had started watching Star Wars movies, what appealed to me were few elements. The Last Jedi has, it seems masterfully studied each of them and planted them seamlessly into the narrative, while staying true to the central theme.
So, in this review, i'll dwell on how Director Rian Johnson has revived the franchise from the debacle (although not financial) of 'The Force Awakens', by focusing on what audience always loved about the epic, rather than..... well, you can read my review of Episode VII in this link - http://www.imdb.com/user/ur21321686/reviews
And i'll try my best to minimize spoilers.
1. Start with Action, with Resistance on the verge of a collapse: This was always the reason for the opening crawl, to bring you right into the action without having to elaborate or build up situations. 'The Last Jedi' as expected begins with the new empire 'First Order' about to attack a rebel base. Poe, the suave looking fighter pilot is again at the centre of action, with almost an expected escape. This start lays down the foundation for the movie to build on.
2. Bring in the padawan - master relationship and the differences between them: Episode VII ends with Rey finding Luke skywalker in the faraway oceanic planet Ahch-to. An expected relationship between the master and apprentice takes a new twist revealing the past of Kylo Ren and the continuing differences between them. The 'curious' among you may want to google about the 3 lessons which Luke promises to teach Ren.
3. Focus on characters who stay true to what they are: One of the main reasons for a movie franchise spanning 40 years (1977-2017) is the characters. While Episode VII raised questions on whether this legacy of creating memorable characters was ending, 'The Last Jedi' makes up for it by establishing the nature of Rey (passionate and honest), Poe (instinctive and loud), Finn (stops running and finally chooses a side) and Kylo Ren (revealing a new layer, now strong and bold, although nowhere near to Darth Vader by any sense of imagination). Special mention to BB-8, who takes the role of R2-D2 a step further and undoubtably is the 'hero' who saves the day multiple times. New characters Rose Tico (a sweet chubby honest resistance fighter) and Vice Admiral Holdo (purple haired straight faced surprise package) are also enduring.
4. The myriad planets with it's native creatures: 3 planets feature in film, each of them with different creatures. Ahch-To has the adorable Porga (screaming big eyed fat birds), Caretakers (factually named) Thala-Sirens (huge marine milk cows); Canto Blight has Fathiers (tall and strong racing horses) and the Vupltex (shiny crytal foxes) in the planet Crait. The script has ensured that most of the creatures play a relevant role in storyline.
5. Comic timing through dialogues, situations and failures: Something which was sorely missing in the last episode. This one brings out chuckles, even in expected serious scenes. Instead of creating 1 character providing comic relief, the opportunity has been presented to almost all major protagonists.
6. Throwing up surprises: This was where Episode V stood out. Prodding the narrative along a familiar path with an unexpected twist at the end. In the 'Last Jedi', we get along many such familiar plot themes, be it the escape of the rebellion, a search for master codebraker or the expected fight scenes between Rey / Luke and Kylo Ren; only for us to realize that there's some minor twist which keeps us hooked.
7. Use nostalgia as the key: Nostalgia was the only reason millions of us watched 'The Force Awakens'. Rian Johnson (also the writer) has used that feeling in the best possible manner here, be it through the old characters (Luke Skywalker - the shining star who walks away with all the applause, Chewbacca, Yoda (with a surpirsing sentence at the end), R2D2 (the sense of timing being brilliant) and C-3PO (shiny and reluctant as ever); Or via situations which we are familiar with.
8. Focus on the eternal conflict to lay the path forward: Surprisingly, amidst the 152 minute running time, the focus remains on the Light vs. Dark, Jedi vs. Sith, Resistance vs. First Order and Rey vs. Kylo Ren. Due to this, whenever the conflict becomes alive on the screen, audience gets a chance to become biased and at the same time empathize with the losses on both sides.
9. Let the audience feel it as an adventure: Personally for me, this is the ultimate win of the movie. I'd recommend watching this one to every single person who has a sense of adventure as ultimately that's what we are looking for when we walk into the theatre and plonk our bottom in cushion. A fun ride with a message of hope. That's what we wanted and what we get.
In between all this, the film also manages to throw in a relevance to current affairs with a comment on the business of funding wars by supplying weapons to both sides. That's a nice touch.
As i left the theatre, the scenes in the movie and especially the face of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill reprising his character with swag, emotion and all the force he can muster) kept rising in front of my eyes. I can honestly say, it brought back memories of Episode I, 18 years ago.
For a perfect 10 though, i'd have liked all the actors (excluding
Hamill) put in that little extra effort in expressing emotions; especially Daisy as at times, it's difficult to fathom her sculpted face and eyes which don't move at all. After all the movie is named after her.
A recommended watch; The Force Awakens truly here.
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I bet that most of the negative reviews are being done by Stupid Millennials.
Nothing is to good for them and they try to find meaning for every scene. i'll suggest them to keep with their Twilight Saga Movies. As for the movie, it maintains the Star Wars original essence in a very good way, very close to my favorite: The Empire Strikes Back
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10/10
Finally Star Wars Drops Formula And Gives Us Something Fresh & Exciting
I am blown away by how amazing The Last Jedi is. Do not pay any mind to the butthurt DCEU fans that seem intent drive the score down for this film. They vow to do likewise with the upcoming avengers. Wise up people and check this movie out if you want to see it. You will not be disappointed. It's filled with twists and turns and exhilirating action. I've seen it twice already and I'm seeing it again tomorrow.
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The Force Awakes, Rogue One and now the last Jedi have completely removed the taste of garbage (the prequels, especially Phantom Menace) from my mouth.
Not to say this film isn't without issues (Mary Poppins Leia and the pointless Finn quest, captain phtasma being lame af) but the good points far outway the bad. I appreciate Rian Johnson not only exploring the mythology of the Force but also killing off the stupi midi-chlorian idea Lucas gave us. He did a great job reshaping the whole adventure giving us so many possibilities of what could happen in the galaxy far, far away. Rian also really pushed boundaries of what a villain should be and gave us the most interesting, complex villain ever in Star Wars.
Jumping to hyperdrive to take out a fleet? Dope as hell.
Force Skype? Love it
The visuals of the red salt? Sick
Rey possibly being a better Jedi than Luke? Outstanding
Didn't get Snoke's backstory? Who cares. In the originals we didn't get the Emperor's back story and it suited us just fine.
I think fans complaining about this are just uncomfortable in having to think and not being placated by rebooting old stories and nostalgia.
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'The Last Jedi' is the first post trilogy movie worthy of the originals. I wasn't very pumped to see this movie and was waiting for it to start rehashing old ideas or just sucking outright like most of the new Star Wars movies have. Well, while I was waiting I started getting engaged in what was going on and then I actually started enjoying the movie. What a pleasant surprise. There are some iconic scenes in this one. Also some real bad-ass moments. Daisy Ripley is very good, though they should make her smile more. She's got a really charming smile. The rest of the cast was great. It was a little rough seeing what was an obviously CGI created Carrie Fisher in some scenes but I'm guessing she would've approved or did before she died. (Very sad about losing our Princess, still)
I really like that they didn't make Luke into Alec Guinness 2.0. He is just an older and only slightly wiser version of his younger self and still wracked with self-doubt. Some scenes did go on longer than they should've and the entire movie is at least 30 beats too long. But it's the first Star Wars movie since a long time ago in this galaxy, in the 80's when the franchise was young, that's made me look forward to the next movie. They should make Rian Johnson the official writer/director for SW from here on out. He really gets it.
This is a mini-spoiler so don't read any farther if you are concerned but I loved that they had Luke pull the Jedi Mind Trick to End All Jedi Mind Tricks.
Well, done them. Go see it, you'll enjoy it. The Force is with them, again.
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I am a big Star Wars fan (not including those three hideous ones) and I was really looking forwards to this one. However, I wasn't long into this film when I felt that something may not be quite right with it. The storyline felt very static and was reliant on cheap gags that made the film feel a little cheap.
The visuals and sound were spot on. No complaints at all. The moment one ship light speeded into another had some memorable effects with a different look and feel to them.
The problem is that this film doesn't really do anything. It just follows the rebels running away, a lot. Everything in-between felt a little pointless and the highly anticipated Luke scenes were very anti-climatic. In fact, I soon found Luke to be very annoying. That said, the make-up on all the characters were good but Lukes was especially good. It looked genuine.
When the end finally came I was just so glad. I had been clock watching the last half hour as soon as I realised that the final act was going to be a dud. The way it was all wrapped up was non-sensical and the ending led you into a black hole. I have found myself not caring one little bit about the next film.
For me this film was a HUGE disappointment. The story was really non-existent and the acting reverted back to that wooden type. I want to recommend it because it had a lot of visuals in but being a Star Wars fan I am struggling because it felt such a let down. All that waiting for nothing...pity :(
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Minor plot holes are easy to look past with a more humanized and intricate face of Star Wars. A variety of characters whom move past archetypes into individuals helps this become the most well written yet, along with masterful cinematography, this may to be the superlative of all post-trilogy films in time.
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This movie is not well received from a big part of the audience. The main critic is that this movie, completely "destroys" an old beloved character. I absolutely disagree, with those opinions.
Personally, I think this star wars movie is a good example of progression. Progression and evolution, from the three previous films that introduced as to the world of star wars. The way it was chosen to do this, in this film, was to "mess up" with one of the most known characters of the franchise, and that is totally fine by me, since it was done in a decent manner.
The previous movie, although it was a good movie, it seemed to me far more boring than this one. It was like I was watching "a new hope" again, but this time with far better graphics. "The last jedi", tries to shake things up a bit, and this is why I think it is a better movie than it's predecessor.
However there are, some weak points that cannot be overlooked. First of all, one weak point was the scene with Leia after the attack of the first order fleet to the resistance's vessels. It was pretty bad and excessive, but I I don't want to say any more, you'll see for yourselves. The other point, was the acting of Domhnall Glesson. His acting reminded of a more comedic role than a villainous one. This is a bit of a disappointment, since in the previous movie his acting was so much better.
All things considered, I think this is a pretty good movie with all it's flaws, which do not take away anything from it. The good thing about it, is that it enters a new world of possibilities, bringing finally something new in the franchise.
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Great follow up to Force Awakens. Good enough in regular format, will wait for a flashier movie for Imax, next time.
The plot moved along plausibly, the characters we were rooting for grew a lot (this is what happend to children in war settings) love the new addition, the imagery were beautiful. Unlike some people I did not waste my time the last 2 years coming up with fan theories and was greatly surprise by some turn of events. Would rewatch when the trilogy is over to see how well it flows. I like doing that.
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Me and my son are a huge fans of the Star Wars and Episode VIII was the most awaited event of the year for us. But After watching this movie, I was a little confused.
At first I rated this movie with 8 stars and it's very good in my book. But still there was something disturbing, something what was not present in the previous episodes.
Because I am a Star Wars fan, I don't care about mistakes like gravity in space (when bombers dropped their load and those bombs fall straight down like they would fall on earth) and I am ok even with princess Leia's unbelievable survival - although it was one of those main reason why I lowered my points. It would have been totally acceptable if Leia have died there. What I mean by that, is that even Leia's death would have been better than this, where she were flying to the ship like true Disney princess. As we all know from previous episodes, even Jedi can die. But miracles happens and as I said, I am fine with it. But the for most main reason for lowering my points was the inappropriate jokes here and there. For shore those jokes were funny and I laughed for them as all the viewers did, but every time after that I find myself thinking ... really!! What kind of movie I am watching? Don't be mistaken. Star Wars has been always fun but this time it was so noticeable and it was too much for me.
For my opinion, the best film in Star Wars series is "Rogue One" and it is not even the main line episode. So all my future hopes and dreams are placed to the Episode IX for now.
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The Last Jedi pissess off all those fan theory lovers and puts the story straight.
This movie is a great setup for letting go of the past and creating new, like it should.
The Last Jedi is not perfect in any means, but it's entertaining and very grounded, throw away the legends and ridiculous theories this is the real story.
The comedy was a step off for the originals but the war scenes were a bigger step back. What the movie takes away, its gives back, bringing balance.
If you are edgy "real" fan or a neckbeard hater who spent most of you free time writing crazy theories or debating who snoke really is, you probably gonna hate this movie, you probably feel salty, you probably don't really get what was the point of this.
But if you are casual viewer or a regular smart star wars lover you will enjoy this. This movie is all about creating new and ending the old. Why would you watch the same thing all over again when you can see something new in the universe that you already love.
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Ok. It´s not the best movie in the franchise, but it´s really not that bad.
I think most people have a problem with change. They don´t like to "let go" some things... When Kylo Ren asks Rey to let go all this old style Rebel stuff, i find this very interesting, because now we could see that the light and the dark are sides of the same coin. Wich botters more me are the fact that most of the scenes were not well explored. They went to fast to various scenes and situations without exploring the deepness os the main plot. But let´s face some good points:
The cassino plot was about how our word works. We, the poor people, are explored by the rich ones without any hope. You can see also some claim for animal rights. This pleasure me.
The relation beetwen Kyle and Rey was amazingly constructed with many twists. In every moment of our lives we can make choices. Good and bad ones. There is no more "one side" characters, we must live with the good and bad in us.
I believe luke was really the last Jedy. It´s like if the last catholic dies, but not the christianity. The christianity continues without the need for a specific religion. It´s the same with the force. The force can be achieved by anyone, not only for bloodlined families. Rey, the garbage boy, and the child in next door. It´s a claim for evolution, with no more restrains like a specific kind of cult. Wonderfull, amazing... But not for every fan-boy intelligence...
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So Star Wars: The Last Jedi came out. I've seen it twice, and I have some strong opinions about it. This review will contain absolutely no spoilers and will be as vague as I can possibly make it. You will not read this review and know anything that would hurt your moviegoing experience. Everything that I mention has been in the two trailers or has been released by Lucasfilm.
Let me preface the review with some backstory about myself as a Star Wars fan. I am a GIGANTIC Star Wars fan. The amount that I think about Star Wars in any given day is honestly kinda ridiculous and a bit sad. But I don't care! It's Star Wars! I was SO HYPED for The Last Jedi, but not just because it's a Star Wars film; Force Awakens set up excellent characters and got me back into this universe in the first place. To sum it up, I am still in love with that movie and consider it to be one of the best in the franchise so far. However, I don't just go into every Star Wars movie ready to blindly love it. That's never been me, and it never will be me. I love good Star Wars movies. Just because it has the label Star Wars slapped onto it doesn't mean I will automatically say it's the best thing ever. In fact, I didn't really even like Rogue One, which, prior to Last Jedi, was the most recent Star Wars film. Even if it's from a franchise that is so near and dear to my heart, I am going to admit when a Star Wars movie is not up to snuff, even if it will absolutely crush me to do so. On the other hand, when a movie from this franchise rocks like Force Awakens did, it'll make it that much more special.
I went into this movie with an open mind, ready to be blown away. I didn't read or watch a single review, only taking a look at the Rotten Tomatoes score every now and then. My first viewing was this past Thursday, which was before the fan reactions came out. All I saw was that giant "94%" plastered like a badge of honor on the official page. That being said, I think Last Jedi was a major, major letdown for many different reasons. It has some absolutely incredible moments and at the same time disappoints narratively. Let's break this thing down.
Let's start with the positives. First of all, the direction is hands-down the best in the entire franchise. To say that this film looks gorgeous is a MAJOR understatement. There are so many memorable shots as well as incredible creative elements, like its sound editing. When you see the movie, I think you'll see this within just the opening scene alone. By the way, not that this really matters that much, but the opening crawl was great. Just saying.
The performances were also generally great, especially the ones from the actors playing the main characters: Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, John Boyega, Carrie Fisher, and Adam Driver were the standouts for me. The passing of Carrie Fisher hit all of us hard, but I can definitely say that she is wonderful in this movie. Mark Hamill is also fantastic as Luke Skywalker, who is not quite the same person as he was in the original trilogy. The soundtrack is also really good; I thought it was probably on-par with Force Awakens, if not a bit better. The special effects, CGI, and action sequences are all completely gorgeous. The fight choreography is off-the-charts great, and I have a particular sequence in mind that will be sure to wow audiences. Snoke in particular looks much better in this movie; the CGI is actually not that noticeable. The practical creatures and puppets all look stellar as well. The creatures on Canto Bight really gave that location personality and I was happy to yet again see Disney's devotion to making the films feel dirty, practical, and real. The movie also never has a dull moment; it's thoroughly entertaining all the way through.
This movie has a ton of problems though. It's hard to talk about these without spoilers, but I'll still work around them and stay vague. Firstly, there is something that I fully expected to be in the movie that wasn't, and its absence made the movie very narratively unsound. It made the accomplishments for certain characters seem nullified. Also, there is a plotline in this movie that literally goes nowhere and feels like filler. It's fun and entertaining filler, but filler nonetheless. During this plotline, there is humor that also doesn't land and it bothered me. In fact, there's a lot of humor in this movie that feels out-of-place. There's also a peculiar scene in the first act that, upon first watch, I liked. But after seeing it again, I thought it was a bit goofy, even if it was well-intentioned. I like the idea of the scene, but it should have happened in a different location and in a different way. Also, I didn't think Finn had enough character development at all.
Overall, I (kinda) like The Last Jedi. It takes a ton of risks, some of which REALLY work, and some of which don't. I know that the fan reactions have been negative so far, but this is one of those movies that you just have to see for yourself before you can make a judgement. It's certainly never a downright bad movie, but some of the choices made were questionable, I needed more character depth from Finn, and the story overall needed to be reworked a bit in order for it to have been a truly great movie.
Grade: B-
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Frankly, there are very few films that I'm in love with. That being the case, I'm confused by all the hate. The only thing I can come up with is that fan boys/girls had ridiculous expectations of this movie.
Keep in mind that you likely saw these movies when you were a kid. I am actually 41 years old. I get that the franchise seemed larger than life- but are you being fair or looking thru a lens of nostalgia? Think about it.
That being said, if you want a tried and true regurgitation of ESB or ROTJ, then this is not the movie for you.
If you want to understand that a new generation will not really follow the exact same story line of the "heroes" of the past? Then you'll enjoy this movie.
*** Spoilers***
1. Luke Skywalker is not some perfect golden boy. And he shouldn't be. I know that the 1st three painted him this way....but is that actually realistic? No. He failed with Kylo Ren. He made a mistake. Of which he owns up to- but not until much soul searching...which makes him an even more believable character.
2. Kylo Ren and Rey are BOTH complicated people. Neither one of them are completely good or bad. Obviously, we have the idea that Rey will side with the light and Ren with the dark, but BOTH of them have the capacity to have good and bad- and that was demonstrated by both of their actions in the movie, as well as the meager "teaching" that Skywalker gave Rey. There is a balance. Nothing is 100% this or that. Again. That's real life. It may not make you warm and tingly inside, but that's real life.
3. Kylo Ren is shaping up to be one of the best villains of the Star Wars franchise. He's dark and complicated and conflicted. Inside all of that? He is very alone. Which is why he was able to connect with Rey, and why he was so angry when she left him towards the end.
A few take aways:
I actually didn't care for the ending with Luke. I liked him thru out because it showed him as more of a real person and less of the perfect idea of a hero. What I didn't like about the end was that it was confusing. He fought Kylo Ren, but he wasn't there, but then he died anyway? That is one situation where I think they SHOULD have borrowed from Obi-Wan and Vadar's last fight.
It was long. Now, this doesn't offend me- I don't think it made the movie any worse. There were probably a few small details that could have been left out. But nothing that I found that would have made the movie any better or worse. Just simply that it was lengthy.
I understand that people were complaining about the Benicio Del Toro's character? Why? He served his purpose. What was that purpose, exactly? I'm sure people think that it's to move the plot along to where both Rose and Finn get captured. It's more than that. Just like Poe having to eat some crow pie. Just like Rey going out to save Ren and bring him back to the light. Just like Ren believing he could entice (and boy, he was damn convincing, too) Rey to be his First Order girlfriend and rule with him.
The impetuous behavior of youth. The inexperience of life. And how going into a situation half-cocked and impulsively can lead to catastrophic consequences. Benicio Del Toro shows exactly what Rose, Finn, Poe, Rey, and even Ren are. Kids growing up. People like Benicio Del Toro's character is what happens when you disregard the advice of older, more intelligent people to simply win the fight.
This isn't going to turn out how you think it is- that is the main theme of this film. This is a rite of passage film. This is a very solid movie if you are not set in your ways that this has to be another cookie cutter Star Wars film.
So, Kylo Ren is now Supreme Leader. In the past, the chance of redemption is via killing the big baddie above you. He already did that, and now HE took his place. Where does Klyo Ren go from here? Will he come over to the light again, or is he going to have to be destroyed?
What of the connection between him and Rey? From the start, he has clearly had a soft spot for her. And she could have killed him.... and she didn't. Granted, he's plenty mad now because she rejected him, but I feel like this could change very quickly with him. Where will this go?
These are questions I will have going into the next movie.
Also? Where are the Knights of Ren and will we be seeing them soon?
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Just saw this and though it was better than the last one....Han's kid got real strong real fast no more mysterious than the girl in the last move.....I liked it
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8/10
Wow this movie just proves how people are afraid of something different and dont really knew what they want
Honestly ppl are entitled to like or not to like what ever they want its there perspective and opinion and i respect that but giving the movie a 1 or 2 to me is not justified.
Many complain that the movie kills all that the star wars franchise built just because they do things different here and many there sole reason just being the direction they took with Luke, i find it very funny how the majority of ppl complained about TFA being so unoriginal and a like New hope that the movie was bad and boring and now they make something different unique something that does not follow the usual star wars formula and now its to different they killed star wars.
Look the movie is not perfect it suffers from some plot holes mainly the casino portion, they ignore some characters or dont give them the time they needed, at time it felt like they did not know were the movie was going and yes i dont like the end the chose for Luke either and the Snoke plot was dumb but you know what i actually liked it in the end they did so many things i did not expect it was refreshing, it was new the movie maintained a good pace and does really well to keep you interested and talking way before the movie ends.
It takes so much risk and brakes the typical flow of fantasy movies and bring something unique at least to me and open a whole world of possibilities to new characters in the franchise if you haven't seen it go see it and judge for your self dont listen to all the negativity out there and formulate your own opinion on the matter.
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In a strange way, this movie reminds me of the original Ghostbusters. I went to see that with two friends: one who went expecting an action movie but got a comedy, and the other who went expecting a comedy and got an action movie.Both were disappointed.
Now, we have "diehard Star Wars fans" complaining that the last movie was just a remake of the original, and this one was too far removed from the past. And it seems that they were disappointed by both.
Me, I'm a third type of moviegoer. I go to the movies expecting to be entertained. I'm rarely disappointed. Just don't get me started on Nightfall. Or The Phantom Menace.
Now, I'm an old-school Star Wars fan. I stood in line multiple times (6 hours my first time) to see it when it was just Star Wars, before it became "Episode IV: A New Hope." I read a half dozen or so of the novels, but never got into the comics, cartoons, or any of the rest of the Extended Universe. Star Wars for me has always been about the movies - the throwback to the serials, cliffhangers and B-movies of the 40's and 50's, but updated to the styles and technology available in the late 1970's and beyond. I prefer the original trilogy as they were first shown over the enhanced version (not only did Han shoot first, Greedo never even got a shot off, dammit!). I prefer to ignore the prequel trilogy ("I hate sand" - such great writing), but have them on Blu-ray out of a sense of duty. I consider Rogue One canon, and a worthy lead-in to the rest of the series.
And through that lens, The Last Jedi is a fine film - not the best of the series, but certainly not the worst either. I've ready Mark Hamill's comments on the writing for Luke, and I can see his point, but I can also see Rian Johnson's. Hamill's Luke was stalwart, and faithful to the path in the Force that had been set before him; he would not let the events at the school unfold as they did, or react to that setback by cutting himself off from the Force. Johnson's Luke was shaken to his core, and turned aside from the path; he retreated physically, mentally and spiritually, doubting everything he had said and done to that point, not just because he failed, but he failed with his own flesh and blood.
Different takes on a situation, different arcs in the story of a character. I'd love to see the movies of Hamill's Luke, but we got Johnson's. And that's a good story, too.
There were many elements in The Last Jedi that either left me wanting more, or just didn't land well with me. I wanted to see more of the training with Rey. I thought Poe went a little too far on the strongheaded hotdog scale, which made his sudden recognition of the "greater good" at the end a little jarring. When Luke appeared in the Resistance stronghold as the younger Luke from the school flashbacks, it signaled to me that it wasn't really him, which spoiled what could have been a nice little surprise.
I did like the presence of humor, especially in some of the throwaway lines from Luke. Finn's growth as a character and participant in the resistance was also nice to see. The battle over/on Crait was very well choreographed.
The biggest lingering question for me has almost nothing to do with the movie itself, but more with what happened outside the movie. The Force Awakens focused largely on Han out of the original three main characters, and this one was clearly Luke's. It seemed to be setting up Episode IX to be centered on Leia, with her as the driving force (no pun intended) in rebuilding the rebellion and stopping the First Order for good. But with Carrie Fisher's passing, that's now impossible. So I'm very interested to see how they deal with that, and carry the story forward to its conclusion.
Anyhoo, that's my two cents. If you're someone who goes to movies with a lot of preconceptions and expectations, The Last Jedi may disappoint you. If you're heavily investing in the Extended Universe, it might even piss you off. But if you like the sci-fi/fantasy genre and are going to the movies to be entertained, you probably will be just fine.
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6/10
Not as bad as some of these people say, here's my take on the movie...
The newest installment in the Star Wars series has critics and a portion of the fans divided. While, I can't say The Last Jedi is without its problems, overall I did enjoy it and consider it to be an improvement over The Force Awakens. In some ways The Last Jedi is predictable and rips off The Empire Strikes back, but director/writer Rian Johnson took some left turns and added some plot twists that made it interesting. I thought Mark Hammill gave a excellent performance as Luke with this new take on the character. The film looks great and is fairly on point with action and special f/x. The characters are beefed up are and there are more layers to them and the cast did a fairly good job. The creature/critters are there for little kids that like that crap, but are mostly in the background and did'nt bother me too much. On the downside, the story could use some tightening up. The film also is too long and could have edited some of this stuff out to make it flow better as a whole. Some scenes and humor go way past ridiculous as well. The Last Jedi is a kind of mix of highbrow and lowbrow elements that does not always work and won't please everyone, but it is far from being a bad film and at the very least entertaining and not completely predictable. It also must be noted that movie productions with gigantic budgets have a lot of people's hands in the creative side of this, with studio executives, producers,etc that go out of their way to try to make this appeal to as much of a wide audience as possible, so some of those problems are probably a product of that of what elements to throw in/take out. It is doubtful that on a big studio production like this how much creative control Rian Johnson really had or how much material made its way in to generate money and appeal to the lowest common denomenator. As of this moment, I found this to be interesting and enjoyable, how well this holds up, time will tell in the years to come.
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There has been a lot of criticism of this movie, and it certainly doesn't go the way many expect, but this is not a bad movie, and remember there is one episode to come.
Episode vii was strongly criticised for lack of plot originality, yet this movie has a plot that is totally unexpected with a few twists. It is far less predictable than episode vii. I personally felt the plot was mostly great, and the Snoke/Guards/Rey/Kylo scene/storyline was outstanding.
Some reviewers complain about the premature destruction of various story arcs that defined the previous trilogies, but let's just wait and see...if Snoke is who many suspect (me included) then the present plot fits in perfectly with what may transpire in episode ix. And Kylo is a proven liar so why take his word for what he said about Rey's parents (and why would the writers give that mystery much screen time if it were simply to be fobbed off?). I don't agree about Luke's character being ruined - most of the Star Wars key characters have major changes occurring during their Star Wars life, and just because some don't like what has become of Luke doesn't make it wrong. If Luke had turned to the dark side...well that may well have assassinated his character and left us angry and in tears...
Consider these observations from the "best" Star Wars episodes before criticising this story (which is not yet complete):
-if episode i-vi had been made in chronological order, then at the time Yoda returned in episode v most would say that yoda's character was destroyed - how he was reduced from someone wise, rational, and mature, to some juvenile comedic figure (ie. in the way he first interacted with Luke).
-remember obi-wan effectively killed off the "Luke's father" story in episode iv with a lie, only for the astonishing revelation to occur in episode v.
There is nothing wrong with any of the actors or acting - superb on all fronts. There is some comedy but I don't feel it's overdone, and there are less corny lines than some of the previous films.
If episode ix fails us by not properly completing the story and leaving key questions unanswered then I will be one of the first to criticise Disney and the current writers, but just see this film for what it is now: the middle episode in this particular star wars story arc (one in which questions remain unanswered, as they should be). This film is a lot of fun, with a few twists that we don't see coming (yet may rock some out of the comfort of their Star Wars crib).
My only criticisms were: the first profanity spoken in any star wars story (why do that? 'blast' was probably the worst previously heard); the casino setting felt too much like Earth circa 1920's, and could've been done better differently; the ending should've been tweaked to save one character at the expense of another, in light of the passing of Carrie Fisher.
I rate it 8.5/10
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I have no idea why some people are being so negative about this film. I thought the way Luke was portrayed was clever and much more in keeping with his character in the original trilogy. I really liked the fact that you were never really sure which was it was going to go.
Fun, funny, inventive and unpredictable. Better than TFA.
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4/10
Third best Star Wars film ever? More like third worst
Imagine ten people on a boat (nine bad, one good). A giant wave crashes into the boat, knocking off nine of them, and the one remaining just happens to be the good guy. This just about sums up The Last Jedi.
This movie may be a small step up from The Force Awakens, but it still suffers in many regards. To begin, at least the story was (mostly) original, as opposed to its predecessor, which was a simple copy and paste of A New Hope. The visuals and such were good, but only middle schoolers playing xbox care only about graphics.
1. Perhaps the largest flaw in this film is the number of "What the?" and "Come on!" moments. There are some truly ridiculous and outlandish scenes that virtually the entire theater was complaining about by the end, and too many random events that just happen to turn out in the hero's favor. You can only wonder how these moments managed to be filmed, let alone even written in the first place, all while giving yourself a shameful palm to the face.
2. Gaping plot holes. Characters have abilities out of nowhere, and few things actually make any degree of sense. Whoever wrote the story failed at a primitive level, with so many obvious mistakes that even previously mentioned middle schooler could identify.
3. Unlikeable characters. Don't be surprised if you find found yourself constantly rooting for the First Order (aka the "Empire"). Kylo Ren proved to be the only interesting individual amongst several stereotypical and underdeveloped characters whose motivations are never explained. One can understand Disney's approach in using a diverse cast, but the diversity seems a little too forced and obvious.
4. Poor usage of music. A few recognizable tunes play in the background, yet they add little to the the movie's quality. There's movie, and then there's music, but the two never work together to create something special. Gone are the exhilarating moments of the Falcon navigating the asteroid field to John William's epic score, and heck, even the Dual of the Fates scene in Phantom Menace was something.
5. Too many critters. This movie boasts at least three new creatures, only one of which serves even the smallest of purpose. Other than the teenage girls behind you that cry out "awwwww" for the new "Ewok-like" critters, it's hard to see any positives that come out of this wasted CGI.
What is most confusing is the number of positive reviews by critics, including 9.7/10 on IGN, and 4/4 on Roger Egbert. Others claim it to be the third best Star Wars movie of all time. Third worst is much more accurate. Had you removed the Star Wars from this movie, you would be left a very poorly written and directed cinematic tour de flop.
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Overall, a lot of the story wasn't terribly engaging, though it did have moments of brilliance. Several aspects of the plot felt contrived or convenient. The effects were, of course, top notch.
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I never wrote a movie review nor had I an IMDB account. And it is not my style to take part in open discussions. But in this special way I had to take the word. It felt like an obligation to me to cry out loud.
Rian Johnson buried the my SW childhood dream. In general Rian Johnson buried this wonderful SW Magic forever.
Rian Johnson degraded SW to a flat Superhero action movie with Superhero movie humor but without any Superheroes. The slapstick and jokes are objectively not funny. Not even little kids will laugh about them. The movie is so full of facepalm humor and gesture. A prime example is the Bruse Lee signature move made by Luke as he easily wiped over his cape after being pounded by multiple shots. WTF, Rian?
And this is by the way only one poor example of bad quotations. The movie is full of it. Worst are the multiple citations of SW Episodes 5 and 6. He nearly topped Episode 7 in this method. Please, why didn't you stop that after Episode 7?!?
The story itself is dumb, silly and absolutely boring. It is furthermore full of plotholes. The soul of SW, the lore,has gone to the toilet. Everything concerning the force has been presented so uninspiringly and half-hearted that it hurts. You can nearly feel that Rian Johnson pisses on all that.
The CGI is mostly not that bad. But where it is important the CGI really sucks. You can see that clearly and especially when a well known character reappears from an older Episode on Lukes Island. The CGI is so poor that I nearly wanted to cry out angryly in the theater.
In total the movie is not only uninteresting but also a destruction of the mythos. It will take me a lot of time to come to peace with this piece of crap!
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When the last breath of the rebellion faces annihilation, young Ray goes out, seeking help and guidance from the one and only Luke Skywalker, who seems to have isolated himself for an unknown reason. Through patience and persistence, she must find a way to convince him to help, one way or another, as the little that remains of the rebellion are in a desperate need of a saviour. We follow closely the evolution of her character as well as the fabulous battles between the dark side's enormous battleships and the rebellion's tiny cruisers.
This movie, one of the many instalments of the Star Wars franchise, presents a captivating episode which, as its title suggests, might bring an end to the Jedi order. Thanks to its great length, it is able to present in great detail everything it has to offer, from complex characters to stunning visuals which are sure to impress any viewer. It manages to create a very good atmosphere, without dead or boring moments, which keeps you interested from one end to another.
Unfortunately, it has a tendency of deviating from the main subject, sometimes introducing side events, just to complicate the situation and somehow introduce a deeper sense of complexity and even thrill into the equation, but it ultimately feels more like a filler than an actual part of the plot. Also, some characters seem to be predestined to take questionable decisions which affect more or less the overall outcome. It's not as tragic as it sounds but you can't quite miss them, thus somehow spoiling the overall quality.
I have to confess that it is the first movie I've seen from the series and although I acknowledge its problems and flaws, I have to say that I enjoyed it. It kept my attention, it even made me laugh and I ended up with a pleasant sensation. This is precisely why I cannot understand the huge amount of hate which surrounds it from almost any type of viewer, but especially hardcore fans. Maybe it's an advantage that I haven't seen its predecessors, not knowing the complete story or how good everyone says the first ones were, but from here to say that this movie is a complete disaster I simply cannot understand.
From my point of view, it's a good movie which makes me want to see the rest of the movies in the series, it's a movie which provided a pleasant time watching it so I can only recommend it to anyone!
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So I went out to the movies to see this on Tuesday, 12/19/17.
I watched the movie before this one and found it helpful knowing the back story. I have seen the older generation Star Wars and liked how this one followed the story. I am not going to write too many details because there are MANY spoilers. But It ended how I wanted it to. It still didn't connect a few deaths for me though, which was a bummer. All in all, the graphics to the movie, the flawless character acting, helped out the movie tremendously!
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It seems obvious that a bunch of angry trolls are spamming the reviews here. I found the film moving. I like the characters in The Last Jedi and their motivations make total sense to me. The good far outweighed some odd choices and Disney-ish subplot details that didn't quite work for me. The "off" parts didn't ruin the experience for me and the best parts are as good as the best parts of any previous Star Wars film. I already have tickets to see it again.
I stood on line as a kid to see Star Wars in 1977. I was inspired by that film to study film in college. I'm a "real fan" of the films but I don't care a bit about the books, comic books or animated shows. I can see how some people with huge expectations would be disappointed in this film. I think fan theories are silly so I don't give a darn about them, but if you're an "extended universe" person with a whole lot invested in a bunch of characters you'd only know from books & the animated stuff you might be disappointed.
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I really don't get it. All these reviewers thrashing this film. Although I agree with some users saying that the side plot with Finn and Rose was a little bit lame, this movie was really good! Kylo was badass, Luke was great. Rey was being Rey, like her a lot. I thought this movie was good when I saw it for the first time, but the second time was even better. In TFA Kylo was a winy little bitch, but in TLJ he was amazing. It has everything that a star wars movie should have. The force is treated a little bit different than in the original trilogy. I can understand if hardcore original trilogy lovers have a problem with it. But things change.......just stop watching new star wars movies.
I hope Ep IX will be as great as this one. After seeing TLJ it even made me appreciate TFA a little bit more. Don't believe the haters. They just want to see Ep V over and over again.
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10/10
Can't see what everyone's complaining about, best Star Wars to date!
Well... I loved this movie. It was my favorite one. But all the hate, it really saddens me, cuts and hits me deeply in the heart. So if anyone cares to read, I'd like to get somethings off my heart considering all the hate surrounding this movie. Okay, so some thoughts... If one cares to read:
The thing with the Prequels is that I can get the hate, I think Ep1 and 2 are pure kids movies, there I can see the hate. This one? Far better than "Force Awakens" and not as childish, not at all that funny as people complain about it being. Or did I miss something? Because I found it a lot darker than "Force Awakens". But this matter, it can simply not be argued over or settled, it's all a matter of opinion. So why explain myself? I just can't see the reasoning behind all the hate comments because I loved "The Last Jedi".
But I do pity you, fans being let down and all. Hoped people would've enjoyed the movie as much as I did, and as my friends and fellow auidence members did. It saddens me to see this movie getting such bad reviews, it's no matter of who's right or wrong, it's just sad that people seem to be so hateful of a movie that dared to do what "Force Awakens" didn't, and got hated for. And you know what, come to think of it, what are people really that upset about? People bash the prequels don't they? 3 movies are gone, we're left with Ep7 and Rogue One, people seem to hate them too, Ep7 being too funny and not Star Wars, Rogue One being over the top and unnecessary, with no good characters, with only one good sceen (the one with Vader). There goes another 2, and we're left with the OG saga, the true Star Wars movies, and dare say one bad thing about those and you're a heretic... But, even fans agree Ep6 was kinda weak, with the Ewoks and shit.
So? What series did Disney kill? What did they ruin? Nostalgia for two good movies that are 30 years old, or hopes that can't be met, by fans that won't get satisfied? And then there's me, not angry at all, really impressed by a fantastic movie, just worried over all the negativity the movie suddenly spawns out of nowhere.
(MILD SPOILERS) Crying over the scene with Leia that everyone seems so pissed about, crying over how beautiful Lukes sun set scene was or gasping over how bad ass they made Jedi Master Luke. Luke was my least favorite character out of the Original movies, now he's one of my top dudes, so freakin' bad ass! Kids will grow up loving these movies as much as kids grew up with the other ones, and maybe that's it? For kids, isn't it? I'm fine with that, some silly scenes, some jokes, the way it's always been like. Star Wars fans, I'm not sure people really should be calling themselves that, because who loves all of the movies? I do, I love them all, despite the flaws, it's the wonderful adventure and story, the characters and the magic... And if you can't see that anymore... I'm sorry to say, you've fallen to the dark side...
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8/10
A Star Wars movie I wanted to see, but with a lot of things missing.
We can all agree that The Force Awakens, while sort of a rehash of A New Hope, opened the way for the series to go in a new and exciting route. Do we get that. Somewhat.
The story: Following the destruction of Starkiller base, The First Order forces the Resistance to flee their own base, while our main young hero goes to another world to learn the ways of the force from a wise old Jedi master. However as the resistance nears defeat by the First Order, our young hero must go to save her friends and face off against the black suited villain with a red lightsaber...................ok, ok, this is starting to sound like Empire Strikes Back.
In a lot of ways it's very different of course, so here we go. Ummm, let's see. What I like most are some of the twists, so I think I'll go right ahead with all the positives. Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker is as amazing as I remember from watching the original trilogy. Carrie Fischer as Leia is still great, but I'll get to a main problem with her character in a bit. Daisy Ridley as Rey is still amazing, and she carries much of this film, even if she'll be nowhere as iconic as Luke will ever be, no matter how many instalments she's in. John Boyega is still really good as Finn and Oscar Issac as Poe Dameron still does a great job. Adam Driver really brings Kylo Reb to a new height in this film, and I'd even put him on par with Luke in the original trilogy. It was also a joy seeing Yoda again
As for the twists and turns; some I like, some I don't, none I hate or love. Rey's parents turning out to be 'nobodies' works for me, and finally does away with this hereditary/midichlorian bull Lucas fed us. Good on Rian Johnson. Also, this movie kills off 'supreme leader Snoke' and gives us probably the best lightsaber fight we've had in these movies. I liked Luke turning out to be a hologram at the end. I'm not a Star Wars fanboy so I wasn't ripping my hair out at that 'blasphemy'.
As for negatives, there are some. The most talked about 'POINTLESS' scene is the Finn/Rose detour to this casino planet. It really drags. Some people defend it saying it's meant to show the oppressed people of the galaxy, but I didn't get that, just felt like a cheap way to drag out the film. To me it felt like if a friend of mine was sprawled out on the floor having a seizure: but instead of calling an ambulance I just started playing X-Box Live instead. it's so out of place. Not to mention the whole Finn/Rose relationship felt like it was improvised. The kiss, and Rose is like "I love you" at the end. WHAT!? Then I remembered Star Wars is owned by Disney now so.................
As for Leia, I really think not killing her off was the greatest disservice. Which means, all we'll get now is a CGI Leia, or she'll just die off screen or in some graphic novel. The biggest sin of all though would be if they re-casted her for episode IX. She should have died in this film. Maybe they were saving her death for episode IX but considering what happened, killing her off in this film would've been better.
You could say this film was a bit disappointing. I guess since I already had an idea for the film in my head watching the trailer. I don't know what there's left to do. Johnson's talked about producing his own instalments in the series but what. Just more Empire/First Order vs Rebel/Resistance plots? Episode IX should just call itself "Return of the Other Jedi" and own what it'll turn out to be, a rehash.
I don't agree with Red Letter Media that Star Wars is limited. There's so many interesting ideas for conflicts I can think off, but Disney doesn't give two S£$%s about them; as proven with the MCU, they're fine with safe, cliche, formulaic films. Kinda makes me a little sad they're buying Fox Studios and the X-Men with it.
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I think when we look back in ten years- this movie will get the respect it deserves. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a film that paves its own path. It makes choices that you won't be expecting. It's fresh- original- and is taking our characters to places they have never been before (thankfully).
This movie has some of the best moments ever seen before in the Star Wars Saga- and multiple times during my viewing (at least five times) I said, 'Oh WOW' out loud in amazement or surprise.
This film is jammed packed. There's a lot happening. It also feel like the first Star Wars movie that feels like we are in space. I loved it!
Now- this film is incredibly divisive--- I went in with an open mind wanting to see what Rian Johnson would do with this Saga- and I was delighted to see the lore open up more, the galaxy to actually feel BIG, and see what we aren't even close to being done with these characters, the jedi, or the darkside users.
Just because you made fan-theories, or are disappointed that things might have not gone the way you thought they would- destroy this movie. Good filmakers don't pander or stoop to what they think the audience wants. They get a vision- and they act upon it. That's how Star Wars started in the first place. Great film- go see it with an open mind- and enjoy what it has to offer. 9.3/10
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If you saw Lost, then this is a version of Lost but with jedis.
It has a magical island, a cave at the bottom, dark and white everywhere, things that only some can see.
Also the last Lost movie where they said farewell, this is the same atmosphere, same gestures, good byes everywhere...
And coincidence - it has the guy who did Lost producing here.
There are more things on the same line but this is a ferwell movie to all we knew about star wars. They were prisoneers to very spciffic things and they did this to say a big good bye to all - we are making our own star wars from now.
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I cannot for the life of me figure out the negativism in so many reviews out there. I'm a 40 year SW fan and know the good movies from the bad. I swear there must be a Russia-backed fake social-media campaign going on here. If critic and rotten tomatoes scores are high... it can't be a one star movie. If you have criticisms, that's fine, please register a rational 3 or 5 (out of 10), not a childish 1-star. IMHO, This is a good SW movie. Extremely good in fact. That doesn't mean it's without flaws, and I'm sorry if you felt it violated esoteric elements of Star Wars cannon, but get over it. Compared to the Force Awakens, this was absolutely fantastic, especially in that it did new things vs. making a hash out of old themes. Things moved forward. Characters were developed, new locations were seen, old characters gave strong performances (Mark Hamill has learned to act!). Weak or has-been characters were removed. (yes sorry at some point everyone in the original trilogy has to die!) Sorry. Don't be a baby about it. The script is well thought out. The dialog flows and is witty. We learn new things and they improve some old things. Yes there are a few cheap plot devices but please realize they existed in the old movies as well. I and my whole family (age range from 17 to 51) enjoyed it immensely so, don't believe the haters.
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1. You can b!tch and complain that it's not what it should have been, or expected, and I agree, there are flaws, but much of this anger seems to flow from a crowd that wanted a nicer, more pleasing end. It was disappointing, not as a film, but for many reasons fans caused themselves. Mad that Snoke wasn't more epic, Angry that Rey didn't have a more exciting background, stuff like this. Stuff fantasizing so much, stop speculating and dreaming for an outcome you want. If you got everything you wanted in a story, what would be the point in watching it?
2. Special effects were amazing. Some puppetry and real world effects made me almost giddy.
3. Creepy and disturbing scenes, unheard of since Empire.
4. Painful character arches, such as Kylo's and Luke's brought new blood.
5. The mainline story sucked some ass. Slowly being chased and running out of fuel?
6. Fin was a waste! Nothing good at all came from him. The acting was bland, sadly, and I don't know who to blame for that. But his character changed radically over night. He was a goofy, over the top coward, and became a stern die-hard with some cringy quips.
7. Rose was cool. Her sister was WAY f^cking cooler though.
8. I am hoping some of the blander aspects of this film, such as the casino crap, will pay off in the next, and matter. Time will tell.
9. This movie doesn't deserve anything less than a 7. It wasn't a 1 star film. If you think it was, your completely mad. The music was great, the effects were great, the characters were superb, and tragic, and painful. The acting amazing, the visuals beautiful. The new force abilities were incredible and terrifying. There is no way this is a one star film. Your'e just pissy about something not working out like you wanted, and you are over-reacting.
10. Far better than the milk-toast, copy and paste Episode 7- though I still loved that movie.
Overall, amazing film. Amazing action. Amazing everything, besides some story elements, and some sh!t with Fin. Haters gonna hate though, I guess.
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8/10
Defense. (Sorry for bad english, it isnt my mother-language.)
The movie has problems, like not fitting jokes and basically "gameplay" issues, for example bombs instead of missiles or torpedos or that the evil guys have no bombers themselves and apparently no fast cruisers or frigates to hunt down the ships they KNOW are fast.
Also the rebels are looking too much like hipsters for my taste but thats not that important.
Important is that I like Rey and Kyle now, basically all characters that show up are great, CGI and Action looks very good.
If you can live with the death of old Star Wars, this is a new Star Wars thats not that bad.
Now free the fucking game license Disney, 3 years and two ok multiplayer titles is way under potential.
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9/10
The first Start Wars movie I am not feeling stupid about
I was amazed on the amount of bad reviews for this. If you look on the previous pack of new movies - without CGI they are nothing, the original saga - it is quite straight forward and childish, there is not much to watch in terms of actors performance and Force Awakens was slightly better but awkward.
But here there is finally a space for actors to do their job and you rate this movie that low, I try understand it, read reviews but still it is a mystery to me! It is the first main Star Wars movie that a grown-up intelligent person not familiar with the saga can like, as it appears to me. It took a lot of good things from Rouge One.
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I know it's divisive and has gotten a lot of negative pushback from the fandom, but I'm with the professional critics on this one. This is one of the best Star Wars movies, certainly the best outside of the original trilogy (I'm torn on whether to rank it above or below Return of the Jedi).
This movie delivered exactly what I wanted from a new Star Wars trilogy: a fun and engaging story with a new, loveable batch of characters and a warm send-off for the old generation (Luke, Leia, etc). I felt the movie was fully in line with the feel and aesthetic of a real Star Wars movie (ie. not the prequels) and, whereas The Force Awakens hewed a bit too close to the old classics to rise above the level of cinematic homage, this film struck a nice balance between nostalgia and narrative risk-taking.
It doesn't work for everyone. It worked for me, big time. I loved Rey, Finn, Poe and even the much-maligned Rose (who delivers a great line near the end about morality-this film approaches the subject with more maturity and nuance than any other entry in the franchise). And Mark Hamill... damn, the man put in a great performance here. Some people don't care for the way the aging Luke Skywalker is portrayed in this film, but I "fundamentally agreed" with his storyline even though it's not what I would have dreamed up myself. Whatever your thoughts on his character arc, Hamill sells the role.
Finally, Kylo Ren... easily the most complex character in any Star Wars film. He's unpredictable, mysterious, clearly conflicted. And the performance by Adam Driver is really quite good.
There's definitely some bloat and, while there's no single storyline I'd axe if I were the editor, the film does suffer a bit from its length and the fact that some very climactic-feeling pivot scenes take place near the middle, leaving the viewer with the feeling that the film has about half a dozen false endings (it's likely that this is less of an issue on a second viewing).
But look, all the Star Wars movies have flaws. The original trilogy are so surrounded by fan-nostalgia that its many sins are basically overlooked. This film plays against an impossible standard that exists in the minds of many fans. And yet... I wasn't disappointed. I'm no Star Wars fanboy, but I have a healthy love for the series and if you can't tell, I was quite impressed by this offering.
Go see it and make up your mind for yourself. And if you did like it, ignore the haters... it's not a crime to enjoy a movie.
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This is a movie for fans who understand the force and that most of Luke's actions were dark and that this was his saving grace to make up for all his attacks and killings in the past (ep6 on the barge), (attacking Vader 1st twice in two different movies, his hate and rage and dark side he used to disable Vader on the Death Star before his light side choice to sacrifice himself for his father and allow Anakin to actually defeat the Emperor as it was always said that he would and defeat the Dark Side.
I have never been a fan of Luke because when things got tough he left, after the battle of Hoth he ran away, during the battle of the DS shield on Endor he ran away to confront his father abandoning his friends to whatever fate awaited them so in direct disagreement with Mark Hamill I think this Luke did exactly what he would do when some as strong rose to oppose him and he couldn't deal with it. Run away and hide away and wait for someone to deal with it.
To be honest I wasn't expecting him to show up at the end to confront Kylo, I was expecting Wedge or Hoping maybe even Thrawn or someone else to come in and save the rebellion but it was Luke in a twist of fate and that wow he finally got up the courage to over come his fear of what he had created and took responsibility for his error in trying to murder a child.
For the rest of the movie, there hints of Zahn masterful writing of Thrawn's thought process in both Leia and her next in command and if you have questions about the force there are so many references to Karpyshyn's writing of Bane and the basis for the force were scattered throughout and if you have read them then they explained the force so elegantly and beautifully.
It is a movie about characters trying to find out who they are, where do they fit while being a relay with the older characters handing off the baton to the next group with the Death of Ackbar and the Rise of Poe and the lessons in subtly and bravery and surviving that he needs to learn in order to take the place as leader of the rebellion (my hope at least) and become the next General. Finn finding out that he is so much more than he thinks he is and his struggle to find out that he is brave, he can stand up to those stronger than him because he needs those around him and they make him strong.
The baton has been passed, Leia (we will miss her) doesn't need to make an appearance in the next segment as she isn't needed anymore, the old stories have fallen into legend and new legends, new heroes have risen for a galaxy under the reign of the First Order both Evil and Good and it was exciting.
The fight scenes were wonderful, it seems like they had a person who had actually been in a bar fight or dare I say it to war and fought to survive and know that an honest person to person battle lasts a minute maybe less and then you either move or something else intervenes. For a moment if you read the books you see hints of the Jason and Jaina that we all love in the duet battle on Snoke's chamber that makes anyone who read books to feel that twelve year old child giddy from their fights throughout the galaxy back to back against evil and then they spin it rather wonderfully in a way that you know things are going to change.
I actually can't give this movie credit enough especially since I went in reading reviews of how terrible it was and a let down but I came out cheering and thanking Disney that finally got a SW right and made a beautiful movie in the background and forefront and opened up the possibility of really good dare I say epic books to follow.
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Beautiful and amazing, has genuine heart and surprised me in several places. The Force Awakens, Rogue One and the The Last Jedi have restored my faith in Star Wars after the terrible prequels.
Go into this movie with an open mind and expect to be surprised and you will love it, the people who are saying terrible things about this movie are doing so because they wanted it to be like the books that where based off the original movies, they are giving ridiculously low scores because they wanted the story line to be different and then trying to dissuade people saying things that are untrue about bad acting etc because they have the hidden agenda of wanting the movie remade so that it will be more like the books, it is not going to happen and it is rather shameful to give a rating of one for such an awesome movie.
I loved the fact it pissed off all the old baby boomers (I am 41 so I am in this category almost but at least I have an open mind) who wanted it to be like the idiotic books, this is a film for all the family, especially brings in a new generation of fans, don't understand how anybody thought it would be like the books, no director wants to produce a movie based on third rate drivel for something that always was meant to be a family movie series.
Hope no knew books are created to spawn any more idiotic cannon, sounds like Disney has a good handle on keeping this alive for many new generations unlike Lucasfilm.
Can't wait for the Han Solo movie and the also the third instalment.
About the only thing remotely wrong about this movie is the physics of space flight and combat is naff, but I will forgive given it was awesome and entertaining.
All my friends loved it and thought it was amazing and they are all in the 30 to 50 range.
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Well, it is almost Impossible to match the sky-high expectations of a new Star Wars movie. The Last Jedi is good entertainment and it has epic moments. The Kylo\Rey relationship is developed well and provides some surprises.The space battles are enjoyable, especially in 3D, for example the attack of the Resistance bombers.
However the plot is full of flaws and some characters are wasted.
I don't want zu see a depressed Luke. This is Star Wars and shouldn't mirror daily life. I fully understand Mark Hamill's frustration. Skywalker deserved a better fate. Equally bizarre ist how Johnson handled Snoke.Abrams' TFA wasn't perfect but it gave us a new fascinating villain.For two years people speculated about his origin and how he fits into the Star Wars Universe.And then Johnson kills him off?! He should have talked to Gareth Edwards to learn how to treat this universe well .Instead he just gives fans a punch in the face.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed most of the movie. To give a film two stars I have to be bored and with all due respect to some of the previous writers this is totally exaggerated!
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This is a far more complex and interesting Star Wars than previous films. I think the reason so many "fan boys" don't like it is because it simultaneously gives nods to previous films and fandoms while clearly saying that nostalgia can suck it. And the overarching theme of the film is that mansplaining and misogyny are only going to get you in trouble. The women and people of color are the true heroes here. And if you don't like the movie it's probably because you are the one being criticized here.
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I am writing this review mainly to refute those venomous posters on IMDB that displayed frustration with the movie's lack of clarity and dismissive storyline.
Let me start by saying that The Force Awakens was less of a sequel and more of a second act in a larger story.
I too was hoping for more answers after the enticing seventh episode (The Force Awakens) and was initially mildly disappointed when I left the theater with more questions than clarity.
After digesting the movie for a couple days, I have come to the conclusion that we might just have to wait another couple years to learn more about some of the more mysterious characters and plot-points. No, we didn't learn a darn thing about Snoke, but that doesn't mean we won't in the final installment. No, the Knights of Ren were absent, but I also believe this will come to fruition.
Taking on the Star Wars brand comes with tremendous responsibility, and Disney has done a remarkable job as chief caretaker since taking over in 2014. Much of the negativity from hardcore fanboys comes from an emotional perspective, and I can sympathize with that. However, it's important to trust the process. Things will flesh out and we will gain a better understanding of TFA after the Eposide 9 comes out in December of 2020. Think of it this way: You can't fully enjoy a piece of art until the entire picture has been painted. It's pretty much that simple.
Now, as a movie, TFA was technically flawless. The visuals, transitions, battle/fight scenes and imagery were excellent. The acting was top-notch and the sound was, as always, inspiring and realistic. I was a little disappointed with Luke's character, and the milking scene was a little ridiculous, but I don't think he was portrayed as terribly as many people are saying. The movie dragged on a bit as well. Three different times I thought it was going to fade to black and roll credits only to have another climatic 10-minute scene. I'm not saying I'm upset with his, merely making an observation. I mean, the more Star Wars, the better, right?
My biggest struggle as a fan is the fact that Luke and Han are now gone and Leia is on her way out as well. The Skywalker story has run its course and the ever-nostalgic Star Wars fans have to re-adjust and embrace the new generations of characters. It's going to take some time, but we'll get there.
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I honestly think most people are just dumping on this movie because it is a trendy thing to do. It is a good film. It is not a great film. It is a fun film. If you are upset over the writer/director's vision, write your own script, pitch it to Disney, and make the film. I'm sure most people won't care because I enjoyed the film, and that makes me an ignorant, scumbag piece of excrement, that should just go kill myself because I can't tell a "good" movie from a "bad" one. There, now you don't even need to reply to my "stupid" post. I did your job for you. "Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you will be criticized anyway." - Eleanor Roosevelt
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9/10
Why so much hate? Very good story and positive suprise
I was positive surprise with this movie. I didn't expect too much and I didn't compare whit all other Star Wars movies. I must say, I don't understand, why so much hate. The movie has a very good story, enough action, but not too much and many moments are very tense. I must say, that this movie was the best positive surprise this year. Just go watch it without expectation and you will be positive surprise. 9/10
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Lorte filmlorte film lorte film lorte film lorte filmlorte film lorte film lorte film lorte filmlorte film lorte film lorte film lorte filmlorte film lorte film lorte film lorte filmlorte film lorte film lorte film lorte film
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5/10
i am glad they are making star wars movies but wish George Lucas had been allowed to continue
Warning major spoiler ! So this is Disney, a well oiled machine. Completely competent movie but completely vanilla. Somewhere I read that this movie had an unexpected ending and broke all the star wars tropes. Nothing could be further from the reality.
Disney the money making machine, heard that people hated the prequels (which by the way I love) and loved the original trilogy. So what did they do, made the original trilogy over again with a new younger and more diverse cast. Every plot point in the empire stikes back is covered like a check list. Rebel base gets discovered and rebels need to escape: Check. Main young protagonist goes of to seek the master: Check. Ground war: Check. Need help and seek it out on a gambling planet but seem to get sold out to the bad guys: Check. K could probably go on. It is empire strikes back with a gender reversal with the main and secondary characters nothing more.
And as for the movie itself, there was no character in there I really liked except maybe the the Asian woman who was a Tec. I wasn't really invested in anyone.
I loved Rogue one. I loved the characters . The robot was the best ever. I loved the backgrounds, the motivation. I loved the pseudo science. I cared about the characters. Why couldn't they have used the original extended star wars universe to create new movies rather then remake the originals.
Also it was sloppy writing. Unless I missed something there was a huge plot hole. She the code breaking character betrayed them he did so by revealing that the shuttles were sneaking down to the planet. How did he know this? That information was never revealed to him. When they were captured they were still under the notion that they were trying to get down the tracker.
And by the way, the prequels. I am a science fiction fan and these were true science fiction. Science fiction can be about Tec. But mostly it is about the human condition, about who we are as humans and is dorm of the deepest most meaningful of writing as in Brave New World . The prequels where about how a society can sink into authoritarianism. They are high art and so relevant to our times there 20 years later and high art. The Last Jedi is not. Also sorry about the editing writen on a cell phone
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This is the worst movie that I've ever paid this much for. Rian Johnson should be ran out of town with torches and pitchforks... Pull it, refilm it, stop this madness...There are so many good writers out there, you have all the money in the world and produce this pile of garbage....
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8/10
8.5 Stars for me, Loved the good parts, was so so on some other things
Overall a very good movie. Non spoiler review first: 1/3 of the comedy didn't sit well. The casino felt very not Star Wars and was off putting. The action was great, beyond great, spectacular! The the Luke, Rey, Kylo dynamics were incredible... very excellent writing and acting. The story was really good, I like where they are going with everything and how it is fresh material.
SPOILERS BELOW:
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
Let's get the gripes out of the way first. They didn't overshadow the movie, but as a HUGE Star Wars fan (originals), things that aren't right must be pointed out. To nitpick, a few of the comedic turns didn't sit well with me, especially the phone call piece early on in the movie. But a lot of the humor past the 30 minute mark worked for me, so it's all fine I say. My biggest gripes on the comedy are:
a. Don't use very modern phrases in space opera movies. 20 years ago people did not have cell phones, so that lingo just screams "the years 2000's and up".
b. I think they shouldn't turn Hux into a complete idiot from a cartoon; he might be rabid but he can't be a complete idiot and be in that role... keep him more scary I say.
c. I was OK with the cute factor of the Porgs... not my favorite thing, but I can deal with it. But if you are going to have cute style animals for comedy or kids, stick with the cute factor and see it through. Don't have good guys eat them or have them nearly kill themselves. That is just messed up... what the hell, did the movie makers love Porgs or hate them? Or was it purely for critics to "get", because critics are grownups and can't handle cutsie kid stuff, so there needed to be an underlying disdain for them? There certainly were tons of critic pandering in this movie, not that I am complaining for most of it, but this is one spot that it bothered me a lot. I do have kids, and if you want to put cute fluffy stuff in a movie, don't show them being skinned and cooked by my kids' other favorite character(s). And then Chewie and the Porgs become buddies. Where the Porgs begging for meat or making Chewie feel bad for eating them? None of that &^%$ made sense. I won't attempt to overthink possible PETA and gun rights messages... I love animals, but I do eat meat, OK, I believe in "if you kill it, it is honorable if you use that to continue to live, it is dishonorable to kill for only sport". The animal cruelty message worked well enough with the fathiers, I'm down with that. The Porg stuff... no it didn't work for me at all.
d. Luke was a little weird. For one he seemed a little too flippant about his old saber. Throwing it over the shoulder... meh, kinda weird. It could have been worse I guess. The milk scene... also kinda weird.
e. BB-8's disguise... um, no. That wouldn't fool anybody would it?
OK, biggest gripe: The Casino. It was not Star Wars. Too much CGI on the buildings. And inside it just looked like a real casino on Earth, I didn't buy it at all. Also, the way the aliens were portrayed, they looked too human or something. It just didn't sit well with me at all. The stuff with the animals and the kids on that world were fine by me, I get it. The CGI with the fathiers was distracting only during the run, but somewhat tolerable. They looked cool when in the stables. Tauntauns were more unique, but fathiers looked pretty cool.
Second to last gripe, shouldn't Rey require some kind of training? Some kind... just a little? What does she get, 2-4 days with Luke? It seems incorrect, so you just have to accept it... she's some serious prodigy.
One final gripe, Kylo's helmet. Oh dear lord, I mean what if Vader hadn't had his helmet on for 2 of the 3 movies? It would have been awful; he would have lost that mystique and scare factor. So Adam Driver is a great actor, no doubt, and he can do more without that helmet. OK, ... but to completely destroy the helmet and most of what drove him to be sort of "OK" with the dark side, following Vader? No. And mostly, the helmet just looks great. We need it back, he should rebuild one for episode VIX!!!!!! He doesn't have to wear it nonstop. Please?!?!
---Now for the good stuff---
The action and visuals. Oh my goodness, the action. The Kylo and Rey scene towards the end was just so awesome to behold! Was it the best fight scene in any Star Wars movie? Probably! The Holdo scene... wow, just wow.
The Luke and Kylo scene... yeah yeah yeah, it was stellar! SPOILERS, yeah I noticed Luke's beard was no longer white at all, and didn't figure he dyed it, but still I had no clue what was really going on till the reveal. Cool, and just how powerful is Luke, huh? Badass.
The walker + speeder visuals were beautiful, just beautiful. And I was totally down with the Rose "crash"... what a nice change/surprise!
The acting. All the supporting roles were great, loved the new characters, loved 'em! Rose and Holdo especially stood out as interesting. While some say it's impossible for Luke, Mr. Hopeful, to have been so negative... if you accept it was possible for something like that to happen, you will enjoy one of his best performances ever.
The story. Loved it. Loved how they kept you guessing (so did the critics it seems, I figured that). Loved that part with Snoke... I am not a "read all online theories before the movie and get upset when my favorite theory doesn't pan out", so your mileage may vary. I had avoided all that speculation as much as I could. Loved how Kylo keeps flip flopping, ... Adam Driver makes that very believable.
I could go on, but I must run. Go see this movie! I need to rewatch it ASAP!
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Was bored to the point of agitation. Rey's character was fine. Luke Skywalker-- Mark Hammil, I'm sorry, could't believe the cardboard performance. And don't get me started on the Kylo Ren actor -- as bad as that awful thing that played a young Darth Vader. For me a real snoozer. In fact, I walked out after 1:15 mark. Ugh. Sad.
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I think those of you against this movie were so set on certain ideals, and when those certain ideals weren't met, it ruined it for you. Surprise, you're not writing the movie. My husband and I absolutely loved the movie and are shocked at the bad ratings. There were a couple inconsistencies in character development, but I'm hoping with JJ Abrams coming back for number #3, that he will tie everything back together. Regardless, the action was great, awesome graphics, and there were genuine funny moments. I usually don't care for funny moments in these types of movies (Guardians of the Galaxy 2 killed me with that), but the jokes in The Last Jedi were actually funny.
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6/10
Good in parts, but trying too hard to be 'Marvel funny' (ie, not funny) was too distracting
By the end of The Last Jedi, it seems Rian Johnson still hadn't figured out what tone he wanted for it. The film clumsily jumps from serious to embarrassingly unfunny slapstick humour every few minutes. It really feels like he never watched the original Star Wars films more than once, and doesn't understand its characters. The humour in Star Wars always came from the natural personality of its characters, look at the Han Solo "boring conversation anyway" line, it was a funny moment that felt natural (because it actually was) and completely fit the tone of the film, as well as the person saying it. In TLJ, Rian Johnson wrote a lot of scenes with lame gags, silly faces and people falling over and just pasted them on to his actors. Why do screenwriters now arrogantly assume they can just suddenly write comedy? If you read the reviews of critics, apparently being "Marvel funny" is actually something to aspire to! Anybody I've seen defending the jokes in this have countered it with "but Star Wars has always had funny lines" - and NONE of them can tell the difference between the embarrassing 'Amanda Show' style slop we're served up here and Leia referring to Chewie as a walking carpet in anger.
I've spent a lot of time talking about the attempted comedy, but honestly it was so relentless and badly executed that it completely took me out of the film. Luke dusting off his shoulder like John Cena? Godawful. What are we gonna see in episode IX, Chewbacca dabbing?! For the first time since I saw A New Hope as a young boy 26 years ago, I don't care about the next Star Wars film.
It's only the 2nd movie in this trilogy, and ALREADY they've run out of things for Finn to do. They send him off on a pointless side-quest where he and Rose achieve nothing whatsoever, and seemed like a badly handled attempt to crowbar some "social justice" into Star Wars. The casino scene, on the whole, is one of the most bizarre, ridiculous, out of place scenes to feature in all of Star Wars (possibly only being beaten in sheer lack of belonging in Star Wars by the 50's diner in the prequel trilogy), and the movie really took a nosedive in quality during this whole segment. Total filler that existed only to pad out the film's running time. As much I genuinely like Laura Dern, her purple haired Desperate Housewives style cougar was hilariously unconvincing as an admiral. For all the failed jokes, the biggest laugh I got during this whole film was during the 'Leia floating through space' scene, truly hilarious! They didn't even get Yoda right! Why was he a mischievous, immature imp? Because he was at the start of Empire? That was before he revealed himself as a Jedi master, then his demeanour completely changed. Yoda isn't ACTUALLY a giggling little gremlin. Rian Johnson, WATCH THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY AGAIN!
It did redeem itself with basically any scene involving Rey/Kylo/Luke, I was pulled in and invested in that story. I thought the Rey mirror scene was pretty cool, and it was something a little different that actually worked! But again, like most things in this film... it didn't come to anything. I have no real problems with Luke dying, or how it happened. His scene with Kylo was genuinely entertaining, and I felt like we were getting a gilmpse of what a good mid 90's sequel with Luke kicking tush might have looked like. Ultimately though, nothing happened in this whole 2 and a half hours. No one achieved anything, everyone is exactly where they started, The First Order are still chasing the rebels, Rey is still looking for someone to be her father figure, Finn has nothing going on, Poe is... there, Phasma is dead again.
Sadly, Rian Johnson couldn't make his mind up on what he wanted this film to be. It could have been 40 minutes shorter, had maybe 3 well written jokes and been able to contend against the original trilogy. Instead it's a tonally inconsistent, messy film that only teased us with what could have been.
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6/10
I wonder how much the critics got to give this one good reviews?!
I smell corruption. I watched the movie with about 7 friends, about 6 more watched it the day before and none of us thought it was good. Just to be clear, this is not a drunk, stupid, gang, we are all college graduates, PhD students and masters students, so its safe to say that we can be objective about this. We pretty much all agreed that the Kylo-Rey scenes were great, but the rest was pretty much garbage. The Finn-whatevershescalled story was pure filler and completely unnecessary, the jokes were brought in straight from the Marvel movies. The huge reveals were all worthless. Its a messed up movie. A new cut was never needed this much. Cut out an hour of filler, cut out a further 15 minutes of stupid jokes and you get a good movie.
I almost sure the reviewers got paid off. I hope they are ashamed on top of their pile of money.
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3/10
You have paid off your corporate critics for those reviews?
The Last Jedi is a lot like the original trilogy. It's got lots of action, but it isn't just all action with no plot suspense like the prequels, where we all knew what was going to happen from the start. The Force and Jedi stuff is right on and very SW-y, and could have been original fanfic (and I mean that in a good way, nobody loves the canon like trufen.) Yes, it has its flaws, but so did all the other movies.
And what fan could resist seeing Carrie Fisher's last performance? Which was great, btw. I loved that Leia still looks kinda like me even though I've got gray hair now.
Slightly spoilery part:
So Luke basically turns into Obi-Wan. I guess that must be what the actor didn't like. He wanted his guy to stay the pure good hero. No character our age is ever going to be the hero. We are the teacher now. Despite not liking the direction his character went in, Hamill knocked it out of the park with his performance.
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In my review of 'The Force Awakens', I wrote that the major theme of the film was the reaffirmation of the myths and the legends of Star Wars. The irony is that the sequel, 'The Last Jedi' stands on the opposite end of the thematic spectrum. This film is all about the subversion and the deconstruction of the myths, the legends and the force. If 'The Force Awakens' is 'Stagecoach' or Leone's Westerns, then 'The Last Jedi' is a revisionist Western like 'The Searchers' or 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller'. We get to see some beloved characters as tangible, flawed human beings instead of the flawless idea of them as legends. Luke Skywalker's arc and storyline in the film is absolutely brilliant. Johnson doubles down on underlining Luke's dilemmas, insecurities and fears. To me, Luke's descension from the status of the legendary Jedi Knight/Master to being a vulnerable human being made him all the more admirable. Johnson deconstructs the character of Luke, but never disrespects him. But as a non-hardcore Star Wars fanatic, I can clearly see how my opinions regarding Rian Johnson's choice with Luke's character might not be the same as the opinions of a die hard Star Wars fan. For me, this is the first time that a Star Wars film has completely committed to delving deep in the murkiness that lies between the broad strokes of the light and the dark. I loved the explanations given regarding the origins of Kylo Ren's decisions. The film shows how a small moment of weakness viewed from differing perspectives can lead to misunderstandings and subsequently potentially devastating eventualities. I loved everything that Johnson did to connect the three characters of Rey, Kylo and Luke together.
Even though there are a lot of things I liked about 'The Last Jedi', it still has some problems. Apart from Rey and Kylo, the other new characters that were introduced in 'The Force Awakens' either get very little to do, or are burdened with tasks and missions that just didn't grab my interest at all. The plot machinations towards the end of the second half get a little too messy and haphazard. There are also a few too many contrivances and Deus ex Machina moments to drive the plot forward.
Another thing that sticks out in the film might not really be a problem at all, but it is worth mentioning. Rian Johnson tries to undermine the significance of destiny, lineage and determinism. However considering certain circumstances, certain powers that some characters possess, this might just lead to some potential contradictions. I'm interested in seeing how the existence of these powers by the relevant characters get explained/explored in Episode 9.
Visually , the film not only harkens back to the visual style of the original trilogy, but also to classic Japanese Samurai films(which were the primary influence on Lucas in the first place). There are shots that reminded me of Yojimbo, Harakiri, Sword of Doom, etc. There is a particular wide angle shot in the third act of the film that looked like it was straight out of Kurosawa's 'Ran'. The cinematography has to be admired. Despite the inherent darkening of the screen due to the 3D glasses, the colours on the screen popped and the world looked magical and alluring.
In terms of acting performances, Mark Hamill steals the show. He adds so much depth in his performance and beautifully portrays Luke as a changed older man. The performances from the rest of the cast is good, but Hamill's performance is great.
Even though 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' has its flaws, I can confidently say from a completely subjective standpoint that no other film in the Star Wars series has made me ponder over its themes and think about the characters as much as this one has. Rian Johnson's choices might distance the hardcore Star Wars loyalists, but as a neutral film fan who has always been a casual admirer of Star Wars, this film really compelled me.
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10/10
Critics get this right, never mind the bitter fans who are proven wrong in their premature assumptions
A bold, stunning film that subverts expectations. The characters have so much depth and flaws which makes them human and more relatable to the audience. The stakes have never been higher, especially for the Skywalker family. Beautiful cinematography, top notch visuals and overall excellent performance from the cast. Adam Driver and Mark Hamill are the standouts. Will definitely watch this more than once. Kudos to Rian Johnson for taking this film to another level.
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As a movie, this one was pretty good. Seven stars seems fair. If you go into it wanting to see a movie, you should be pleased and I think that is what Disney was going for. Unfortunately. As a Star Wars movie, this was atrocious. Possibly worse than the Phantom Menace. As a Star Wars fan, I'd give this movie three or four stars. Nothing goes the way the previous 7 movies indicate it should. At the end you are left wondering how they can possibly make an episode IX that anyone will be interested in. They gave Rian his own trilogy for the future. At first I thought this was terrible, however, in fairness, His own Rian-Wars trilogy may be fine since it will not be expected to fit into an existing story-line.
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I went to see this movie in hopes of loving it but it turned out I actually kinda got bored during the movie it was a nice time and there was plenty of action some 0of it was just dry in some parts its a good fun movie and family friendly don't get me wrong but I for one just wasn't as impressed as maybe I should have been and that's a big thing to me I did lobe rey and some other characters but it just was stail and flat in a few parts
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9/10
I throughly enjoyed the movie despite a few plot holes and weaker story areas
A visually exciting movie this expanded the horizon of the star Wars universe and I thought on the whole the movie was well written and directed
Spoilers in the next 2 paragraphs
However there some weak areas in he film,
Firstly I fundamentally disagree with the way the force is now so much more powerful than it used to be and in my opinion so much more powerful than it should be. Particularly the part where Leia used the force to get back onto the ship was for me simply silly. I feel that they missed a perfect opportunity to remove her from the franchise. I feel that Luke's force power at the end was also too strong and I therefore agree that the effort of that would have killed him, I very much hope that we will see him as a force projection in episode IX.
As for Snoke's death, I feel that it was good in one sense as it came as a big surprise which I liked, however I feel letting him die was also a mistake as I feel there was more potential in his character.
This film gives me mixed feelings about how episode IX will pan out, as I said I hope Luke will give his advice to Rey in the next installment, however I am also worried about episode IX as I feel that maybe the resistance has become to small. I am however very optimistic for the future of Star Wars beyond this trilogy with the teaser of the force sensitive boy at the end (although they have to be very careful about how they develop him).
To conclude, there were some weak areas but overall the film meet my expectations of being thrilling, exciting and pushing Star wars in a new direction.
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7/10
At most, a mediocre movie compared to some of the older episodes
good acting on Daisy Ridley's part (for the most part anyway)
the bad guys are well developed (they are now almost identical to the Sith and the Empire)
Cons:
bad character development for Kylo Ren (who still behaves like a frustrated spoiled brat)
seriously overpowered Republic pilots and weapons
mediocre sword-fighting
deaths whose purpose seems only to make room for the newer characters (e.g. Snook's death & Luke's death). Otherwise I don't understand why they killed their characters
- boring heroics (yeah, there are seriously waaay to many heroes)
idiotic political correctness
at times, the movie seemed to have "borrowed" scenes from other episodes
All-in-all it's, at most, a mediocre movie compared to some of the older episodes (e.g. Episode I & III).
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Initially, I wasn't thinking about writing a comment on this movie. But after reading all these insults about Disney and the movie, I realized that it might be an organized attack on a specific purpose. I haven't read the books but watched the movies over and over. Older ones are cult but we cannot say that the newest one is total rubbish. On the contrary, I really like the way the movie expresses the voyage of the characters through the Force, their shifts from the good side to the dark and back. And also the newest characters are not celebrities or aristocracy, they are ordinary people like me and you. Turning a stormtrooper into a rebellion hero and showing how he questions his being is a great detail throughout the movie. A scavenger daughter becomes the last representative of a galactic order. Isn't it so good or am I too dumb to understand a good sci-fi movie?
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7/10
Unfortunately, the film's overall story simply doesn't live up to it's potential
As a fan of the Star Wars films for, oh, several decades now, I was looking forward by the possibilities opened up by Disney's capture of the much-loved franchise, and their intent to both expand the universe, take the timeline forward beyond the events depicted in the Return of the Jedi.
Unfortunately, the execution of this promising idea has left me feeling empty and flat. Where Gareth Edward's Rogue One gave us hope that stories could be told around the events of the original films in new and refreshing ways, Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi takes it away with often awkward or misplaced humour, inconsistent storytelling, unneccesary diversions and a convoluted and at times meaningless narrative. This is not a very good film. It's not even a very good Star Wars film.
It does have it's moments; most notably arriving in the performances of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who both put in fine performancens in their respective arcs and bring much-needed heart and soul to an otherwise heartless, soulless endeavour. Benicio del Toro and Laura Dern also give us glimpses of interesting characters, but are otherwise wasted in all-too brief cameo appearences. Technically, the film is superb, with (a couple of notable instances aside) excellent use of CGI, practical effects and some absolutely stunningly realised locations. John Williams' musical score is as excellent as always.
Unfortunately, the film's overall story simply doesn't live up to it's potential, the efforts of it's cast and crew or take any advantage of the possibilites set up by it's predecessor, JJ Abrams The Force Awakens. In fact, it seems to reject it's role as the second film of a trilogy, and in it's attempts to subvert expectations and offer surprises it manages to both offer little meaningful resolution to moviegoers quesitons while at the same time creating little in the way of momentum in the story going forward. I'm not sure where the franchise goes from here, and I'm not sure this film has left me with any particular reason to wonder or care.
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No spoilers i guess but boy i was gutted.
I've never walked out at the end of a film and thought the agenda shone through more than the plot.
The reason we all loved the originals was because they were Apolitical, simply spacecowboys, blaster guns, light sabers & spaceships interwtwined with great characters and story line.
Now it appears Disney have bought the rights to slam a politically correct agenda down our throats and and try to shape how we all should think.
Sargon of Akkad has done a fantastic satire review on youtube that outlines the sentiment behind the movie!
I rated it 5 stars because it did have some good points, Adam Driver had a brilliant day at the office, as did Carrie Fisher, except for one moment but thats not her fault!
Peace out.
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I went yesterday to see the movie. As per usual, I check Imdb scores plus see reviews to get a general opinion and I was confused, since I understood that the critics liked it and at the same time, the general crowd did not.
Upon seeing the movie, I was frankly quite amused. The actors were great in playing their respective roles. It was serious, but had moments of levity. The action was really enjoyable and visually entertaining and must I add that for the first time it is Star Wars, as in we get the most amount of space fight in a Star Wars movie ever.
However, it's not without its faults.
*HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW, DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN AND INTENT TO SEE THE MOVIE. SKIP THREE PARAGRAPHS BELOW FOR FINAL OPINION*
One issue I had is that Luke actually gives the BEST ACTION SCENE IN STAR WARS SO FAR and then dies. The payoff for such a nice scene was disappointing and it can easily take a fan from the movie.
For me, my biggest issue is Supreme Leader Snoke. While he looks a bit like the Emperor, Snoke is actually a lot more amusing. He is serious, yet funny and played by the talented actor Andy Serkis. I really liked how he clearly toyed with Rey and he reversed her saber Force Pull. However, this enjoyable character dies with less than 10 minutes of screentime.
*SPOILERS END HERE*
I understand that the diirector wanted to have something different and I accept the choices, but frankly, giving us something cool and then immediately putting something disappointing affects the movie's enjoyability.
I enjoyed the movie, but I can understand both how the critics liked it and how the fans did not. If one or two disappointing things don't affect your view on the film then you will probably enjoy the movie too.
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I avoided spoilers and reviews and entered this movie with no expectations. was underwhelmed and bored during the film. I left annoyed and dissapointed. Total waste of time
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1/10
December 13, 2017 is a date which will live as an infamy
The biggest letdown of this movie is easily its story, but not because the plot did not go the way many fans predicted, but because the story they chose was handled rather poorly.
While all other Star Wars films allow a chronological time skip inbetween them, The Last Jedi takes place immediately after The Force Awakens. I.E. the same day. This was the story's biggest mistake. Because of the lack of time between movies, and even worse that the film's story occupies a fairly short amount of time, the main characters (Rey, Finn, Poe, Rose) appear to have not reached a point of growth they should have by the end of the film.
They could have had the story take place at least one year after The Force Awakens, and still have nearly the same outcomes as this film. The relationships between the old and new characters, I.E. the mentors and students, would have been a stronger one by the end of the film, when it's finally time for the younger heroes to take the lead roles full time. The younger characters would have been more experienced, have stronger relationships with each other, and ultimately be more self-established. And learning how the characters, both old and new, have changed and grown during the timeskip can easily be discovered during the film itself, just like all other Star Wars films.
Unfortunately, as a result of the immediate transition between films, while the older Star Wars heroes are in the process of "passing their torch" to the newer generation, the new characters for the most part, barely changed from who they were since the first film. And by the end of The Last Jedi, they almost appear as if they are still being introduced and still establishing themselves in the franchise.
So how much did the characters themselves suffer from the lack of timeskip?
By far the most compelling characters, along with the best acting performances, are Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren. Due in no small part to the the fact that they already benefit from their own timeskip, hence why they display such a powerful transition from an unclear start in history to the conclusion of the film. All of the most significant character development in the film appears to follow only these two.
Rey is just about the same as she was in The Force Awakens. She is still charming and idealistic, yet childish and gullible, often believing in good outcomes that don't happen her way. Her personal stakes take a back seat to Luke and Kylo Ren, and her reason/desire to become a Jedi is rather unclear. And for those people who accuse her of being an overpowered Mary Sue, I regret to say that this film will definitely NOT change their minds. Another mistake that can be blamed by the lack of timeskip, and lack of time for Master Luke to train her.
Finn does experience a slight change since The Force Awakens. While his first immediate initiative is still to protect Rey, the resolve to help the Resistance, whether he intended it or not, gradually sinks into him, making him appear more self-motivated and heroic, but also makes his personal goals just as unclear.
Poe Dameron, on the other hand, is just about the same. While he does grow out of recklessness and impatience, this character development appears to barely ave a major effect on the story as a whole. Much like in TFA, his status as a main character is still unclear, and he mostly serves little more than giving the real main characters something to do.
New character Rose is difficult to judge. The significance of her character is her friendship with Finn. And their development together by the end of the film was not at all seamless, with almost no establishing moment that would lead up to that conclusion. Another reason why these two characters would have benefited from knowing each other before the start of the film.
The film's direction, action sequences, and performances, are all up to par, and Star Wars legend, Mark Hamill brings his best to the movie. Unfortunately, due to the small amount of time passed within two movies, the story leaves too much undone, and the new heroes barely finished their introductions.
In addition, this also leaves the next film (the expected FINAL film of the trilogy), to have far more unresolved questions to cover and conclude within its own running time. What will happen to the main characters? What happened leading up to The Force Awakens? Who are the Knights of Ren? Who was Supreme Leader Snoke? What will become of the Jedi, Sith, and Force-users in general?
Can the final film even be its own great film, while it also has a lot of jobs that should have been done by the two films before it?
As for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, its story simply did not manage to accomplish the many goals that it set out for itself, and it's too glaring to ignore.
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Are there any artists left or is it all just committees and focus groups that drive everything now? It's plain to me that America's day in the sun as the leader in mass media is over. A society too overburdened with the idea of making money at all costs can't be a leader in creativity. And all the new generation cares about is texting each other 10,000 variations of the smiley emoji. They don't give a s*** about or even understand art. It's a new kind of society from the one I grew up in, instead of personal expression it's personal suppression. Suppression in the form of incessant buzzing technology demanding that we all look, think, act, speak, and dress alike. Watching this movie warp itself into a harry potter-esque monstrosity it becomes obvious that creativity is dying if it isn't dead yet. And toleration for things that are different is at an all time low.... Now I realize it is time for Star Wars to end. It wasn't meant to go on this long. The truth is, there was one good Star Wars movie, and it really was good. Everything after that has just been an excuse to profit off the thing that worked. Not art, just profit. Apparently my generation can't come up with it's own stories to tell the world, we're content just rehashing tired old crap for a new generation of imbeciles. Cei la vie, thats life, the end.
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9/10
this movie was amazing and better than the force awakens
This movie was one the best star wars of all, it was more darker and it had a big surprise in the movie that it should of had in the force awakens is that it had yoda to come back and help
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8/10
A few missing plot points. One disapointment. But overal, Star Wars is amazing.
Note: I have a shorter, similar review that you may find on Rotten Tomatoes. But, I decide to share the longer one on here.
This is my review.
Let me start off by stating I loved this movie. And while I loved this movie, there are some plot points missing. Plot points in regards to characters like Snoke, or Leia. An example would be when Leia uses the force. It's not explained who taught her. You just have to assume that Luke may have at one point taught her. And Captain Phasma doesn't exactly get as much screen time as she should have. I was a little disappointed in the fight between Finn and Phasma. I felt it should have been longer.
However, despite Phasma not getting more screen time, Poe Dameron on the other hand, does. In "The Force Awakens" Poe's character was just put on the side lines. Here in "The Last Jedi" Poe's lack of screen time is made up for. And his character development is definitely not lacking. I'd also like to point out that this is not an "Empire Strikes Back" remake. There was speculation that it would be. While it does have echoes of ESB, it's in no way a remake.
Then, there is Luke's character. Lot of fans said that Luke's character was all wrong. I do not agree. For, I found that I actually liked the way his character was written. Sure, younger Luke would just go right into action, and would want to be the hero. But, that was younger Luke. Old man Luke would not think or act as 20 year old Luke would. In "The Last Jedi" his character is completely justified. Here is a man that is completely torn, and conflicted. Luke retreated to the ancient Jedi temple as a result of seeing his temple destroyed and, finding out his students are all dead. There he found the history of the Jedi. Between discovering the mistakes of the Jedi and what he just experienced, it makes perfect sense. I can certainly see why Luke has changed. Some fans may actually identify with what he is going through. After he tells his story, one should feel for Luke. I found myself wanting to almost cry. For , I felt sad that Luke was so destroyed. You know the movie is good when you care about the characters. It's also refreshing to see that our hero of the original trilogy has changed, and grown. Other wise it would just be the same old, same old. Luke does (with the help of Ray, and other characters) find himself again, and then decides to once again be the hero.
Aside from what I just mentioned, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is an amazing movie. When you go to watch this movie, you should just expect the unexpected. I'm sure others have said to expect the unexpected already. But, it is true. Rian Johnson's "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is just a down right amazing movie. With great performances by the cast, amazing visuals, a long with some twists, turns, and down right spectacular action. All of which are reasons to love this movie. Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher (may she rest in peace) in particular give probably their best performance in this movie. Maybe even their best ever. Their performances a lone should be enough for this movie to be enjoyable. The other cast members such as Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Benicio Del Toro, and Laura Dern are also really good with their roles, and play them well.
"The Last Jedi" does it job in entertaining, and expands upon the universe. The movie does things that have not been done before in Star Wars. This includes showing us force abilities that haven't been explored in any of the Star Wars movies. The movie is just a fun Star Wars adventure. As long as you don't go into this movie with high expectations and crazy fan theories then, one should be able to just enjoy.
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10/10
So fresh and everything is headed in exciting directions
This Star Wars did something, maybe something different than others. It felt so fresh and exciting by heading into unknown territory. It actually dove deep into so many themes that are so true to the core of what Star Wars is: sacrifice, balance, truth, death and rebirth, old and new etc. and propped these up by unbelievable tension through characters and plot line.
There was realism too! Plans actually worked out and the impulsive actions of heroes in every Hollywood movie to save everyone through harrowing odds didn't! Those actions actually backfired, which was such a cool contrast and fought so many norms.
The Force Awakens lacked depth and elements of realism and simply was a repeat of the old films, serving our selfish and complete desires for nostalgia. The Last Jedi was so different, but kept everything "Star Wars" that we love. I respect everyone's opinions for films, but I wonder why people are so afraid of change and new directions into unknown territory, thus producing such a negative reaction to this movie. For all we know, Disney is going to make many more Star Wars movies, and do we want all of them to repeat the same formulas that we've already seen? Where's the progression in that? Where's the excitement in that?
I believe The Last Jedi is an incredible Star Wars installment and should be reflected upon with the utmost optimism and and respect for filmmaking that provides us with everything we want to see, but also giving us a taste of what we can't see yet, and giving us reason to be absolutely thrilled for what's next.
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1/10
As a long time Star Wars fan I felt insulted watching this.
People have already said it over and over again, but this movie is terrible. Fire Kathleen Kennedy and never let Rian Johnson near a Star wars movie ever again! This movie killed Star Wars for me. The Last Jedi ruined Star Wars like Alien: Covenant ruined Alien. I wish they would've just started fresh with a new cast and a new story rather than destroying the legacy of existing, beloved characters with this pathetic, poorly written garbage. Not only do they crap all over the legacy of Luke Skywalker, they tried to make the movie a joke-fest with one-liners that fall flat almost every time. The dialog is cringe inducing and the story is so predictable and boring that I almost fell asleep several times during the first and second act. There's just so much wasted potential here. It's depressing how bad this movie turned out. This is my least favorite Star Wars film. It's even worse than Rogue One and The Phantom Menace. Disney has ruined this franchise. I won't be watching any future Star Wars movies by Disney.
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You either love Star Wars, or your wrong. So who is wrong here? While the Last Jedi has polarized Star Wars fans, the movie is true to the spirit of overcoming odds against a despotic government.
The Resistance is licking its wounds, especially after a New Order attack. Poe defies orders of Leia Organa and is demoted. Now the Resistance fleet is plodding along with the General Hux and Kylo Wren slowly overtaking them.
Finn teams up with a new character, Rose to attempt to obtain a code breaker who can disable the Resistance flag ship. To do that, they must travel to a casino-type planet to locate him.
Meanwhile, Rey has found Luke Skywalker who is a jaded, old, cynical crumudgeon. He wants her to leave so he can guard the ancient Jedi Temple and texts. He lives off the land and sea. He learns of Han's demise, and sneaks past Chewie to see the Millenium Falcon once again. Artoo somehow rekindles him to help Rey learn the ways of the Force. However, he is full of self-doubt and fear because of his failure in teaching Ben Solo (Kylo Wren). During this time, Rey and Kylo make visits with each other via the Force.
At the same time, Finn and Rose locate DJ, a code breaker who could possibly help them. They return, but hope seems dashed as the New Order slowly closes in on the Resistance fleet.
All the elements come together for both, epic space battles, as well as a planet battle with walkers, and a light saber duel for the ages.
I will get gripes out of the way. First, Leia uses the Force to save herself, but it was pulled off in a cheesy and lazy way. It strained credibility not to her or the story, but to the lazy writing of Rhian Johnson. He also convolutes the plot in Finn and Rose's venture to the casino planet which not only seemed very out of place, but also hindered the plot and flow of the story. Finally, Johnson's writing almost gives us an incredible scene of self-sacrifice, but then derails it for another cheesy, lazy scene.
Fortunately, there are more positives than negatives. Mark Hamill shows some real talent, showing someone so jaded and unsure, that he fears taking on a new student. His acting is superb, besting his performance in The Empire Strikes Back. Also, Rey is a real sympathetic character who wants to do right, but still struggles with her own doubt and fear. What I really enjoyed was how Kylo Wren's character was fleshed out more. We learn of his training with Skywalker and how it went wrong, and of his torn conflict of befriending Rey while despising his Sith Master, Snoke. This part keeps an audience guessing, too, as to what choices Kylo Wren will make. Adam Driver really delivers a great performance on this one.
Also, just like the Empire Strikes Back, we learn a lot more about the Force and what it can do - without the long exposition scenes prevalent in the Lucas prequels.
The ending's ambiguity will leave some fans cold, but hopefully pique the interest of future audiences. Who knows where the Millenium Falcon goes next? Or what will the Resistance do after they are almost decimated? If Johnson continues his partnership with the Star Wars universe, he needs to look to other screen writers for help. However, I still look forward to episode nine.
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I will keep this non spoiler but this movie feels and is a product used to sell the merchandise of a brand called "Star Wars". The production team did pretty good to attract the kids to go to the shop and buy Star Wars products. The writing and the action seemed quite like a generic Star Wars movie so if you like the old one then you could enjoy the action. Overall this is not the best Star Wars movie nor the worst an stands as the awkward middle child of the Star Wars franchise when it comes to expectation and the content.
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Definitely not the best. I went in opened minded and came out disappointed. Just kept the word conflict in your mind. It resonates repeatedly throughout the movie. It had it's chances to be great but it failed. 5 stars might be kind...
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"Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi" comes from writer and director Rian Johnson and continues the story of Rey, Finn, and Luke Skywalker in their quest to find answers and fight off the first order helmed by antagonist Kylo Ren. Building upon its predecessor, this film takes the story and characters in very new and different directions that may challenge the viewer's expectation on how a Star Wars film should be handled. Divisive to its core, this newest installments is one of the boldest and most memorable sci-fi/action films in recent memory.
To my pleasant surprise, this film takes every turn unexpectedly with the most unpredictable plot of the whole year. Constantly being surprised, I found myself wondering if anyone was actually right in their predictions about what decisions these characters would make. The script and its execution felt fresh and thoroughly engrossing from start to finish. Every scene did offer new journeys to take with the characters and offered new themes to reflect.
Technically, the film is beautiful shot and well put together. Visual effects are top notch with little to no complaints. Sound design and mixing felt like a step down compared to "The Force Awakens" but it's difficult to beat that immersive sound design present in that film anyway.
The biggest flaw present in the story are bigger subplots regarding Finn and a new character "Rose." Their separate journey disrupted the natural flow of Rey and Kylo Ren's stronger narrative and felt considerably less engaging comparatively. Looking back after a second viewing, the weaknesses of those subplots present in the first and second act seem to do more damage than good. Despite said pacing issues, the film goes from oddly mediocre to downright fantastic during its second half which saves the film as a whole.
Generally, fans will most likely enjoy the movie for its excitement, characters, and unpredictable plot. The entire film builds to a beautiful payoff and stellar third act, even if the road to get there feels difficult muscle through. It's packed rich detail and influence from past films and definitely deserves additional viewings and further pondering as opposed to knee-jerk reactions. Highly recommended!
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8/10
If you want to live in a world where the protagonist never changes and is always 'good', dont watch this movie
This review is for the possible viewer who isnt a die hard star wars fan, its a freaking movie guys and gals. The Last Jedi (TLJ) is most comparable to recent marvel movies, the plot is another homage to the original trilogy that The Force Awakens was to A New Hope, and it is just fine. there is nothing about this movie that should honestly make your blood boil if you a casual fan of the series.
to elaborate, and here are the spoilers, all of the theories that many of us watched on YouTube in anticipation to this movie, none of them happen. answers are given but if youre to thick to hear them well i feel bad for you. in addition to this, just like in TFA and literally every other star wars movie, a main character dies. Honestly, the problem people have with this movie is just that characters are made to go through arcs and grow, without this movie the next star wars movie that comes out will have been ANOTHER homage to a previous star wars movie.
so to wrap up, the movie is easy and if your a die hard fan realize that your expectations for the film mean nothing. its a movie and your opinion means nothing. great movie will watch again
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8/10
Another great installment of the Star Wars franchise
Rian Johnson adds his own twist to this epic saga as the eighth installment expands the universe and tells a compelling tale of stunning science fiction and fantasy. As the opening crawl informs us, the Resistance is on the run from the First Order. The cocky pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) launches a brave attack on the giant Dreadnaught ship while also taunting General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). After Poe destroys the Dreadnaught's weapons, the Resistance launches a bombing run that results in heavy casualties but destroys the giant ship. Rey (Daisy Ridley) has found Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) but he is reluctant to train another Jedi after his failure with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). The evil Ben Solo tracks down Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) aboard the fleeing Resistance ship but does not to commit to killing her. However, she is blown out the window when other fighters launch missiles and have to use the force to save herself.
With Leia injured, the Resistance takes on a new leader Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), much to Poe's chagrin. Finn (John Boyega) wakes up and is desperate to find Rey. He tries to evacuate from the Resistance ship but Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) shocks him before he can escape. Together they come up with a plan to stop the First Order from tracking the Resistance ship. With the help of Poe, they head off to a casino planet to find a master codebreaker. Rey pushes Luke to resume her training and somehow opens up a force telepathic connection with Kylo. They communicate and Rey slowly believes that Kylo could be turned back to the light side as he explains how Luke attacked him. Skywalker claims to have sensed Kylo's evil and taken matters into his own hands, though it all comes down to a huge misunderstanding and the influence of Supreme Leader Snoke.
Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com
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1/10
I can't believe the IMDB rating on this movie (7.9 really?)
I usually use IMDB as a bible, and avoid movies that rate less than 7.
But unless IMDB is funded by Disney I can't believe that this movie rates a 7.9. I can't find a written review of this movie in User Reviews with a rating higher than 6 (and mainly 1s and 2s). I am from the original trilogy generation and my views have been well covered in other reviews on this site. I can only assume that the new generation loved this movie, scored it highly in the rating section, but don't have the time or inclination to write reviews. My 13 yr old son also hated this movie so maybe I'm not a complete dinosaur.
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I just want you to know that i'm a new star wars fan, I just watch all the movies last year, and I was not so hyped by this new upcoming movie. But I came into the theatre expecting just the usual, and I came out amazed.
Seriously, what are everybody complaining about? Yeah the movie have some issues, but give it a 2? Just 'cause your theory wasn't right, it dosen't mean you have to hate it. I cry so much when Luke became one with the force. Yeah, 'cause he didn't died. "There is no Death, there is the Force". Don't you get it? Something new is coming, you must to let the past die!
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While I loved many scenes in this film there were some that were written horribly. 1st, the scene with Leia I will affectionately call "Carrie Poppins" was just plain stupid. Even the CGI work has horrible looking in my opinion 2.) The entire Canto Bight series of scenes were not only filler garbage for the plot but look and felt like they were not even part of the star wars universe. Rian Johnson has single handedly shown he can not be trusted with anymore Star Wars movies. I will not be seeing any other Star Wars movies that he directs. The only reason I give it 6 stars was because some scenes stood out and were well done but not enough to forgive the others.
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The movie is like the previous two Star Wars films released by Disney: Enjoyable, but underwhelming. No character is particularly interesting or worked out. The acting is overall mediocre. The plot feels like rehashes of previous Star Wars movie plots (pre-Disney). The story was continued, but when you think about what actually happened at the end of the movie, really not much has changed, and what did is not that interesting. There is good action, but it isn't a strong point in any way. There was some really great scenes and visuals, which also do great justice to the Star Wars vibe--I think this is the strong point of this movie. The movie felt crammed and artificially fast (which is funny considering how empty the movie feels). The movie was cheesy often, but there was some "counter-stereotypical" scenes which were fun. There was quite a bit of appreciated humor, but maybe a bit too much.
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From the moment It starts untill the very end, this movie doesn't feel like a Star Wars Movie. The are many things in this movie that don't make any sense next to all the previous films and books. The way the characters of Luke, Leia and even Snoke, are treated in this movie, is insanely bad written and incoherent with the rest of the saga.
The only thing that is good in this movie is some of the visuals.
I never thought I would feel so dissapointed on a Star Wars film. And worst thing is that because of some things that happen in the film, It's hard to imagine how they can fix It in the future.
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'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' is written and directed by Rian Johnson and stars most of the same cast from the previous installment with one new addition of Kelly Marie Tran who plays a character named Rose. This is the first Star Wars film written and directed by one person since the prequels with George Lucas- An important point to make since one can definitely sense that there is a singular vision at play here. The visual style is unlike anything we've seen before in this franchise and that is most likely down to Johnson's sensibilities. There is breathtaking moment at a certain point in the movie where all sound is cut out and you're just left with the images of an epic moment and it is really something to behold.
The story follows on directly from 'The Force Awakens' with Rey (Daisy Ridley) finding Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on Ahch-to and attempting to get him to train her to which he is reluctant. The depleted resistance only has one ship left, which has almost ran out of fuel, and are trying to survive against the First Order. Then we also have another subplot in which Finn (John Boyega) and the aforementioned Rose travel to a new planet Canto Bight to find a code breaker to help the resistance against the First Order. While I didn't mind this part of the film too much it does take up a tad too much time and slows the film down rather noticeably. However, once it has passed the movie is right back on track again and zips by very quickly considering its lengthy 152 minutes run time.
Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) who was the main villain in episode VII, retains that position here too with a lot more screen time to boot. We get some interesting conversations between him and Rey via long distance telepathy which has been briefly explored before in previous Star Wars movies but Johnson took it all the way here. I can easily see how these expansions of the lore could be considered disagreeable by some fans but personally I thought most of them worked. There is a particular moment fairly early on in the film involving Leia (Carrie Fisher) that I can definitely see annoying fans and maybe even confounding some viewers- It is something we have never seen any character do in this franchise let alone Leia.
All the performances are compelling including Carrie Fisher's which is sadly her last after her passing a year ago. Another notable one is Andy Serkis as Supreme Leader. His motion-capture work never ceases to impress and he delivers a very good menacing performance her with the memorable dialogue he is given. Oscar Isaac is also reliable here reprising his role as Poe Dameron- He takes on a Han Solo esque part in this movie and will probably continue to do so in the next chapter.
Rian Johnson has delivered a very different but also very respectful Star Wars movie which pushes the boundaries of the mythology created by George Lucas which virtually a blank slate for JJ Abrams to pick up for episode IX. Let's hope he can deliver again like he did before and like Rian Johnson has here.
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10/10
As a Star Wars fan, I highly recommend The Last Jedi
I had been a kid growing up watching the original Star Wars trilogy from the late '70/early '80s in movie theatres during their first release so I know about the excitement that often greets these movies though I also admit I've only watched Episode II when it came to the prequel trilogy. So it's that in mind that I write this review of the second in the latest trilogy and declare this was even better than The Force Awakens. First, Mark Hamill makes a welcome return as Luke Skywalker though not having the same attitudes as his previous portrayal. I actually found this quite refreshing as it gave Hamill new nuances of his characterization. I also liked many of the new characters introduced here. Also, John Williams has not lost his touch in once again scoring another series entry. He's always the best at what he's done and this is no exception! And finally, the late Carrie Fisher does herself proud in playing Princess General Leia one more time. I especially liked her scene with Luke near the end. Great final scene with both together one last time. So, overall, I loved The Last Jedi and have no hesitation saying so!
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Because I grew up with the prequels I never had such an emotional connection to Luke as maybe some older fans have. So I was fine with his failure story even if I didn't understand why he doesn't think there is any hope with Kylo while he himself has even taken Darth Vader back from the dark side. I think he has a point when he gives attention to the failure of the jedi order as part of the republic (would have liked when he had also mentioned that even with very huge victories against the empire / first order like destroying three death stars and killing the emperor the resistance is still losing the war and so the whole operation is senseless and hopeless in the end). What I didn't understand in this story part was 1) why Luke died 2) the last jedi says the time of his religion is over and has some good arguments for this. Why does Rey then stills wants to become a jedi in the end when she has on the one hand all the freedom to do whatever she wants with her power without joining a restrictive club in which she would be the only living member and on the other hand a very intimate connection to Kylo?
I'm missing a philosophical depth in Kylo as well. In the moment it just seems that he wants everything NEW NEW NEW AND KILL HE OLD, but I hope they make some connection to old wisedom and traditions of both Jedis and Siths in part 9.
Unfortunaly the resistance part and the Fin part were mostly complete bullshit. You all mentioned the 'Leia scene' and many the senseless casino part as well as the stupid 'fuel problem plot'. What also really annoyed me was "commander incompetent" (forgot the name) of the first order. I think it would really support Lukes point of the end of the Jedi (and Sith?) when the First Order had some super smart non-force-user leader figures who would show that you don't need the force to reign successful over the galaxy. The same goes for the ship admiral in the beginning who says literally when resistance bombers coming in his direction that "this is exactly as we expected". Oh really? You expect this exact military situation and your defense is still that bad that your ship is blown up when just one bomber hits its target?!
FAZIT
I really didn't like TFA nor Rogue One and this episode was better then both of them while still has stupid and pointless subplots. In my opinion J J Abrams really messed Star Wars up with episode VII by creating many stupid plotholes and Rian Johnson tried to clean his mess up by giving answers to open questions (Reys parents) or killing characters who have been a plothole in the first place (old Snoke who should have been recognized sometime in episode I - VI). I think Johnson could have done better but at least he understood the problems of TFA and I'm a bit optimistic with his own trilogy when there is no stupid remake director creating plotholes before him. That said I'm afraid that J J Abrams will screw up IX again so I look forward to X.
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8/10
A short review of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017)
I'll never be able to love "Star Wars" the way its lifelong fans do. After the unexpected magic of the first three films, the subsequent movies almost always seemed to me to be just space fantasies for kids, formulaically developed to hit all the right notes and sell licensed merchandise. (The exception would be last year's generally excellent "Star Wars: Rogue One," which uniquely felt like a genuine, human story that a creator wanted to tell, rather than something brainstormed until consensus in a corporate writers' room.) With that said, I'll happily report here that "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" was actually very good - as someone with little favorable bias toward the franchise, I'd rate it an 8 out of 10.
The movie simply got more right than it got wrong. It's still a marketing-oriented space opera developed for mass appeal, but it managed to rise above that because its many elements included more hits than misses.
If I had to pick one thing that made this movie succeed for me, it's the balance it struck between its epic war story and its narrower sword-and-sorcery central plot thread. I like how the film began with an interstellar war - it had ordinary, mortal, relatable human characters fight and make sacrifices. Anyone can relate to characters like that because they are interchangeable with people fighting a war in our world. (It was also excellently rendered, in terms of fantastic visuals and some creative ideas.) Only afterward does the movie layer in the far-out Jedi stuff, which contrasts the war story and adds complexity to it.
The second thing I liked about it was its terrific special effects - I've never seen a "Star Wars" movie without them, even if the prequels had a more cartoonish, toylike quality to what they depicted.
The third, I think, was the return of Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker. Hamill is actually quite a good actor, and his skilled turn here was alternately funny and dramatically convincing. I found myself more nostalgic after watching Luke's return to the franchise than after Han Solo's return in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015). (And I love Harrison Ford just as much as everyone else in the universe.)
Is there a lot to nitpick? Sure. In addition to some plot holes, the character of Rose was rather annoying. (Spunky young idealists can grate on the nerves if they're too cutesy and seem to ingratiate themselves to the viewer.)
But a far larger weakness is that "the force" has become more of a deus ex machina than ever before. I can't be specific here because I want to avoid spoilers, but both the Jedi and their Sith counterparts employ incredible new powers in the movie that are absolutely unprecedented. It isn't explained at all, and it isn't consistent with any prior "Star Wars" movie. And it feels like a cheat that is both sweeping and ... a little strange.
Still, I'd recommend this movie - even if you didn't love every "Star Wars" movie you've seen in the past.
I'll end with a quick note about the "porgs" - those little penguinesque aliens that are supposedly dividing longtime fans into opposing war-camps. I loved the damn things. It makes perfect sense that Luke's hideaway planet would have local fauna. And I read that the filmmakers actually did include them for an understandable reason. The island shooting location's landscape was inhabited by puffins. It made more sense to overwrite them with CGI stand-ins than to digitally remove them altogether.
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2/10
There is nothing left in this franchise to "spark" my interest.
Whilst The Force Awakens set up some some potential good characters and story arcs I was extremely disappointed with where we have ended up.
I found both the resistance and the order to be incompetent from opening scene till the end. Humor in situations that needed to be more serious. Felt more like a parody in many places.
Origins or back stories were left untold or not to the fullest. Kylo turning bad; Snoke's involvement/origin; Luke's Jedi school/students; the grave and Ray's parentage. What you get is probably all you will get and it is not much.
Luke stands out but will leave you unsatisfied in the end. Does not set up anything that sparks any interest for the next sequel, instead I think I am now done with this franchise.
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3/10
Remember kids, it doesnt matter if its good. It only matters if it makes money
This film is one of the biggest sell outs ever, ruined the tone and feel of the Star Wars franchise for a few cheap laughs that will only be mildly amusing upon the first viewing.
Disney, how this is acceptable I will never understand. You have not only disappointed countless fans you have also completely spat in the face of the late Carrie fisher.
You should be ashamed, 3 stars is generous for such a pitiful cash grab.
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Just came back from the movie theater angry and totally disappointed.
I used to think the prequel trilogy was the bottom of the pit but aww well seems like Rian Johnson made sure the saga can sink even deeper.
Shame on that man proclaiming himself as a huge Star Wars fan, coming up with a weak story that was full of fillers and what felt like copy paste ideas from the previous films.
My opinion this episode VIII ought to be removed and re shot following the lead of Irvin Kershner who made the best Star Wars movie to date by far !!!!!
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7/10
Not bad for a person that has never seen an Star Wars movie.
The movie was not bad as everyone says. maybe is because people hate this since they watch all the Star Wars movies. I have never seen an Star Wars movie ever. So i find this okay. There were some good scenes like when Luke Skywalker fights Kylo Ren and when Rey fights with Kylo Ren. and yes. i can agree that it was confusing me everything whne i first watch this movie. My score for this movie is 7/10.
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Ok so my wife and I watched this one opening day. I will say it is not my favorite Star Wars movie but I appreciated the story. You must go in with an open mind. This is not a story focused on Luke and Leia. This is about Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo Ren. You can be a fan of the original and like this one too. BUT if you go into it thinking your theories will come true, you will walk out hating the movie. Just go in with an open mind and all will be well with the force.
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I could write a lot of thinks, but I am not a critic. As cynical as I can be, I'll tell you that: The movie is really nice, Luke steals the show. The effects are excellent, the plot is ok, there is no parody, there are not bad jokes, it's more dark, more interesting and more superior than TFA. If you wave an open mind about the star wars franchise, then you will enjoy. If you are a star wars geek that expects to see the 2nd empire strikes back, then don't bother.
And for all those who believe that Disney destroys the star wars franchise, i tell you this: Movies are for money, expecially that kind of films. Citizen Cane-like projects belong to the '40's. If you don't like it, then go to attend a film festival somewhere in Europe...
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10/10
I movie you need to see again. It makes us question.
Star Wars The Last Jedi was Awesome! It is definitely a movie that you need to watch again to catch things that you might have missed the first time around. It is definitely better the second time around, because it gives you answers to questions you might have left the theater with the first time around. I love how the story makes us question the force, and many things. It has us question the character of the characters. It has us question whether Luke Skywalker turned bad when he tried to kill Ben Solo, but then shows us that he only had a fleeting moment of weakness, which had consequences that he couldn't redeem. It made us question the character of Vice Admiral Holdo, Whether she was a bad admiral, or really good. The Last Jedi fits well with both the original Star Wars, and the 90s prequels. It ties the whole thing together.
Matt Ostrom
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It's certainly interesting, gotta give it credit for being a truly different star wars movie but it fells off in many moments. Luke gets a nice death mirroring New Hope binary sunset scene or downright replicating it but apart from that his character is not handled in a best way, I don't believe Luke would even for a second consider striking down a child, in general Luke should be a symbol of hope. Also forgetting all that Luke still should have been kept for the sequel to train Rey and show her the ways of the force instead of the writers further making her the Mary Sue that she is especially now that her parents are nobodies. There are many more issues to do with handling of Luke, Jedi and the Force in general that I won't get into here. One huge issue that I also have is Snoke, what or who exactly was he? This movie made him look totally weak, he's hopefully not Darth Plagueis because that would ruin it even more, whoever he was he was certainly used poorly and totally ruined the mystery of him. I do appreciate Kylo going fully evil, really did not want him to suddenly become good, especially after killing Han. Also appreciated the variety of different creatures and many other aspects but I just wanted this review to be therapeutic and convey my main emotions about the movie which were mostly to do with Luke. All in all it's daring and different and I appreciate it on many levels but there was a lot to it that did not feel right and elements that didn't feel like Star Wars and many mysteries of the first one were just straight thrown out the window and resolved in ways that were totally disappointing. Maybe it's true that only George Lucas can do Star Wars because even the prequels as bad as they were in places felt like Star Wars whereas all the Star Wars movies he doesn't have anything to do as great as they are in places don't feel like Star Wars.
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Just saw it.
It ruins the other star wars movies by ruining Luke.
It's prequel levels of bad with Finn and Poe's subplots.
Mary Poppins Leia was just an insulting way to ruin Carrie's Legacy.
The marvel style humor falls flat. I get Guardians of the Galaxy was a great space movie, but it ain't Star Wars.
Did Rian Johnson EVEN WATCH TFA ?! So many subplots were just DROPPED.
It felts like the Force Awakens was a setup to a completely different movie then Last Jedi.
The force awakens was GREAT! Why did they not make a sequel to that, instead of ignoring almost of 85% of it.
It really boggles the mind how they let this movie get made, and does not bode well for the future.
Do us a favor and retcon this movie out JJ abhrams.
Maybe use a mystery box to give us a revived young luke skywalker played by the "winter soldier" actor.
Something anything to save Star wars at this point b/c as it stands now.
The Last Jedi has killed the franchise.
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8/10
First Star Wars movie in nearly 40 years, that I want to see again
The one and two star reviews here can only be attributed to the younger audience, who likely see the prequels favorably. To those who grew up with the original trilogy, The Last Jedi should be thoroughly satisfying. Best Mark Hamill performance in a Star Wars film. Best dialog in a Star Wars film. Best visual and sound effects. Great music. Original cinematography. Hopefully J.J. Abrams follows this route.
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10/10
Over exaggerating die hard 'fans' trying to ruin a great movie.
There are many things I disagree on in this film. So before I get into the positives, i'll get through the negatives.
Finn, Rose and DJ in the casino. Finn is very, very under utilised in this film and nowhere near as good as he is in TFA
I hate fanboys. DC and Marvel fanboys think EVERYTHING is holy and sacred, they have an obviously biased opinion towards the movies, but at least they are positive.
Star Wars 'fans' on the other hand, are ungrateful whiny toddlers who can't be pleased by anything. Oh, "The Force Awakens was too similar to A New Hope, WE HATE IT!" and "The Last Jedi ruined Star Wars, it changed too much and is way to innovative and new for our liking, WE HATE IT!"
Grow up, like seriously. How sad does you're life have to be if you're setting up petitions to bring down a film, does it not cross their minds that they won't make a single change.
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OK, so the movie is not without it's faults. what movie is? My partner and I saw this on it's opening weekend and we enjoyed it and we're old enough to remember the original Star Wars movies.
The plot is really quite simple. The Resistance is trying to escape the First Order and keeps encountering obstacles at every turn, from without and within,as it attempts to outrun the enemy fleet. Finn and new girl Rose are trying to to disable the tracking device on the enemy flagship which requires them to locate a master criminal on a distant planet. Rey is trying to recruit a disillusioned Luke Skywalker back to the Resistance and discover her place in the grand scheme of things and discovers a connection with Kylo Ren via the force.
The special effects and stunts are amazing as usual with a mix of space battles, ground battles, gunfights and physical fights. There is a sense of tension as the Resistance keeps being thwarted in it's escape and at the struggle between Poe and Holdo as to what is the best solution. This is kept running right up to the end of the movie. There is an attempt to make the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren ierotic as each attempts to turn the other to their side. A new character, Rose, is introduced into the story and her backstory and place established well.
BB-8 provides some comic relief as does Chewbacca's relationship with the little birds on Luke's island.
Now for the faults. Who is Snoke? Where did he come from and how did come to be leader of the First Order? He doesn't really serve a purpose. Leia survives being blasted into space without a mark on her and her hair and dress are immaculate lol. The relationship between Luke and Kylo Ren, in my opinion, needs fleshing out more. The "erotic" connection between Rey and Kylo Ren was a good idea but doesn't come off due to the lack of chemistry between to the two actors. Rey's escape from the flagship needs to be shown and not just explained with one line, There is a distinct lack of one liners due to an attempt to create a darker atmosphere but this doesn't come off.
Die hard fans, remember we have moved on forty years in real time and thirty years in the story. It's going to be different. There is plenty to enjoy in this move in my opinion. And if you want to see a disgrace to the Star Wars saga you can always The Phantom Menace.
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Luke Milks A Sea Cow, Super Leia Is Marry Poppins And Snoke Is Only Half A Man
When in 2015 I had the displeasure of watching the bland and unremarkable copy-and-paste Star Wars-like "The Force Awakens", from noted hack and serial plagiarist J J Abrams, I had a hard time imagining how the next instalment in this new, soulless trilogy could be worse.
But Rian Johnson surely took care of that....by delivering something, much, much worse in the fecal cinematic form of " The Last Jedi". One of the worst movies of 2017 and the worst "Star Wars" movie period. "The Last Jedi" is soo bad that it singlehandedly rehabilitates and redeems the Prequel Trilogy!!!!
It is an overly long, sinfully boring, painfully stupid cinematic vomitfest. The humour and attempts at levity are badly timed and cringeworthy. A malnourished story is wrapped in meaningless and idiotic plots and subplots.
The direction is shoddy, the screenplay, if you can call it that, is subpar at best, the score is terribly forgettable and the special effects are average popcorn blockbuster fare.
The cast is either completely wasted, like Andy Serkis, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, Oscar Isaac, Gwendoline Christie, Mark Hamil and worst of all Carrie Fisher...or outright underwhelming and terrible. Of special note in the terrible department is John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran and Daisy Ridley.
With this latest instalment, my interest in the New Trilogy has pretty much evaporated. I really couldn't care less about Episode IX.
"The Last Jedi" is literally the cinematic turd in the punch bowl.
RIP Carrie Fisher
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8/10
Dear ALL- Star Wars is a story for children. That's it. Sorry.
It really is. And that's ok. There's nothing wrong with stories for children. It just gets a bit awkward when you're an adult and expect to relive the same magical experience you had when you were twelve. It's not gonna happen. And because you're an adult you then start to rationalize your disappointment- oh, the character development is lacking, oh the plot holes, oh the pacing, there was no 'spark' or 'emotion' or 'spirit' or whatever euphemism you find for the bright & fuzzy memory of your lost childhood. None of those things are the problem. The problem is that you're 35 watching a movie aimed for the emotional and intellectual expectations of a 12 year old audience. OF COURSE it will have cheesy lines and plot holes and deus ex machina and one-dimensional characters. If you had first seen a New Hope at 35 you would have said the same thing about it too.
Much bigger fans than I am will dissect and analyse the story to death, so I will limit myself to what is really my only point: this idea that every new episode since like the Phantom Menace is some sort of a betrayal of the 'real' Star Wars should be called out already for the nostalgic man-child syndrome that it is. It's a kid's movie people, we are all watching a kid's movie. Some episodes are better, others are weaker, fair enough. But it's still a kid's movie. Enjoy the battle scenes, laugh at the silly jokes, eat popcorn and be happy for your 10 year old nephew who thinks this is the most awesome thing ever. But for the sake of your grown-ass dignity please stop holding these movies up to the impossible standard of turning you back into a child.
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2/10
Can't these people get a focus group to screen this movie before release?
They had 2 years to work on this movie. 2 years where they could've made a story plan, polish and perfect said story plan, then go and make this movie good. Instead you get a mambo jumbo, of audience pandering. Forgotten are the laws that rule this universe, lets bring in the ninjas, the shinny costumes, the many tears. Lets invent parts for all races, with disregard of any context or character build up. Forget the mystifying enemies from the previous movies : Count Douku, Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, now we get a, pardon my language, "bitchy, whiny nobody", and he was created in a way that defies anything Luke Skywalker stood for. The man who suffered through Darth Sidious's lighting in order to restore Darth Vader to the light side.
Regardless, as many disappointed fans noticed, as long as Disney cashes in the money, they can't be bothered to care. The paradox is, if Disney doesn't get it's check, they'll stop making any movies, and that's bad too. So please, pretty please Disney, hire some people that would point out the bad things, that can come with a credible storyline. No more of this "Let's release it, cash our check, and move on strategy".
To my peers, the only way we can punish Disney is show them the carrot. It is my understanding that whenever a movie is released, for the 1st 2 weeks running in the cinema, the producers get like 90% of all ticket sales. After that the percentage moves more and more in favour of the cinema. Lets all wait for 2 weeks before seeing any Star Wars movie. That way Disney sees there is money to be made, but they have to attract viewers for the 1st 2 weeks. So hopefully they will engage the consumers in a real dialogue, about what is expected and what is delivered.
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3/10
World Turned Upside Down - Gotta give Last Jedi low rating
I had such high hopes for this movie, looked forward in anticipation, especially after Rogue One and Episode 8. Still can't believe I'm saying this, but after 24hrs of waiting to see if my reaction improved, my 3 rating is generous. I left the theater stunned at how disheartening the storyline was, felt like it turned the characters we've known and loved into pathetic, weak, troubling shadows of themselves (with the exception of Chewbacca and BB8). I truly feel like I wasted my money, a first for any star wars film (and I've seen them all in the theater, multiple times for most of them). Luke's character in particular, was so disillusioning that I nearly felt like leaving the theater. what we need is some lightness and hope in our current environment, not the dark and hopeless view of the world that one is left with by this film...
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1/10
They've got the wrong people making up the resistance.
MRAs should make up the resistance, not the gynocentric, feminist views of hollywood, the media and most feminist overtaken powerful western governments, and feminist institutions trying to repress MRAs.
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Well, looks like I've already had my turkey this Christmas.
Really surprised with the positive reviews for this. I was embarrassed watching it. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, disappointed with Episodes I-III but then excited by Episode VII and Rogue One, which i thought were brilliant - Then this.... A massive step backward. So much so I'd rather watch The Phantom Menace... or Spider Man 3!!!!
Needless CGI all over the place (George Lucas would be proud). Mindless occurrences (and no spoilers) - Leah, in space, that bit? yeah that bit? WTF?
My main grief being the plot, or lack of. There was literally no need to most of what was shown here, have the writers lost their creativity? And the very underwhelming and unsatisfying ending!!!
Really surprised a new trilogy has been given to Johnson, I thought Abrams and Edwards did far superior jobs with the previous two.
I'm the kind of guy that would watch two fly's crapping across the screen so I do give movies the benefit of the doubt in most cases and rarely write reviews but with the resources this film had how can they possibly deliver such a garbage entry into this franchise. Let's hope the Han Solo movie can revitalise everything but I have a sneaky feeling it's heading down Marvel path. Can't we leave a good thing alone?
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I would like to declare the makers of this movie not artists but capitalists.
What group of idiots ruined one of the greatest stories ever said?
Whoever made the last jedi;
You broke my heart with this trash.
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I can understand why people are upset with the ending.
It all boils down to is it Rey's story or Luke's. From the studio's point of view it has to be Rey's so they can control what happens in the future and profit by it rather than being dictated to by the expectations of the fans.
But surely pleasing the fans would make more sense. I offer my own version of what I would have liked to have seen happen.
Luke could have ended being in great pain and distress and we do not find out how this played out at the end of the movie. Is he done for or not?
In the next instalment, despite her best efforts, Rey succumbs to Kylo Ren and joins him. They appear to be unstoppable. Luke returns for one last confrontation. He puts on one last grand effort against two younger adversaries but he appears doomed. Will Rey strike him down and end the last of the Jedi Knights?
To me this would have tied up the stories of both Rey and Luke nicely and made everyone happy...unless you are a devoted fan of Kylo Ren!
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Mary Poppins, Oceans 11, Oliver twist, fantastic beasts, pokemon, harry potter, gremlins (when yoda turned up) and many many classics
Now for the actual review. Everything Force Awakens built is gone and there is nothing of any substance to look forward to.
The moment the movie starts the tone of it is set and that tone is forever with you through the movie. Snoke is basically nothing nothing seriously nothing. Those at the top of the Order are hormonal teenage like characters. Full of name drops with little reason. The back story to Kylo don't expect much. Back story to Luke going into exile don't expect much. Actually don't expect anything from Luke at all. He has butlers and a farm on that island. Expect a whiney Ren who continuously Skype calls Kylo in an attempt to establish a long distance relationship for no reason.
Slowest galactic chase ever. More weak point hits to blow up entire ships. What's the points of ships with gaping entry points? Do people not use their eyes anymore.
As one reviewer has put was this a parody? A joke? A laugh?
I can't even gather all the thoughts to put into words for this review so this is the end of it.
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10/10
I have no idea why so many people hate The Last Jedi !.So much better compare to The Force Awakens.Just go and see this movie!.Dont listen critics!
I have no idea why so many people hate The Last Jedi !.So much better compare to The Force Awakens , and one of the best Star Wars movie ever !.The last 30min of the movie is so Epic and emotional.Just WOOOOOOOOOOW!.Because episode 8 is so much different to the other Star Wars movies, I love it!.Something new , and something fresh !.
I love the story.I love all charaters.I love comedy scenes,and I have no problem with Rose Tico ,that many people hate her!I really like her character.She was great for sure!.
All action scenes were great and special effects were awesome!.So much better compare to The Force Awakanes!(I hate that movie ;]).
Too bad that the Soundtrack Music is not as AWESOME as from Star Wars The Phantom Menace ;], but even though the music still was OK!.Nothing special ;].
Poeple dont listen bad reviews and bad critics.Just go and see this movie because this is one of the best Star Wars movie ever.The new Blade Runner is still the best movie of 2017 ;], but was so close ;].
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I have to strike it for the story and plot. These two guys, JJ and Rian in their hubris tossed out multiple dozens of plot and canon advancement for the Star Wars universe in NY Times Bestselling novels by lead authors, to instead give us comic book level stories that don't hold up.
Instead of filling the void of dozens of huge story gaps from Force Awakens, The Last Jedi continues the trend, all but taking the franchise off a canon and story cliff into the abyss of inane. They seem to roll the dice in both films and whatever number comes up, voila, there's a new Force power that one of the Force users can do that makes no sense on any level of progression or mastery attained or earned.
Somehow 30 years after defeating the two greatest Force users, Palpatine among them, that were the font of the Empire, unlike the rational and logical novels, in JJ and Rian's bizarro galaxy, the Republic not only never won, but is now reduced to a room full of remaining participants.
30 years later, also, every move puts forth the latest superweapon, now under JJ's watch was now so grandiose to outdo past superweapons, is now a planet. Somehow galactic imperialists didn't get the memo that these things just get blown up, and better to build a great fleet of thousands of cruisers instead, no? Again and again, these things get taken out by single snub fighters, taking down their shields by a few guys on the ground, and in the latest film, by a single snub fighter to take out the dreadnought's defenses so a single bomber can undo the massive ship that has the rebel fleet wanting to run in terror from.
Where is the republic? Where is the vast galaxy and its inhabitants, it's democracies? Somehow the wealthy of all the galaxies worlds are all arms dealers who gather on one planet's casinos, so they tell us.
What drivel.
The first Star Wars was filmed when we didn't even have PC's in our businesses or our homes. We have come a long way since the 1970's. Well, Star Wars didn't get the memo. We still have gunners at manual turrets that can't hit a snub fighter in Star Wars film after film. This while in today's U.S. and ally navy ships, we have automated defensive turrets that will evaporate super-fast anti ship missiles and warplanes alike.
Drivel.
They should have replaced the worn and out of shape actors playing the key trio (though Ford really held up). Why? Because they haven't kept themselves up the way Luke and Leia, jedi masters (according to novels and logically so) would have. They should be in peak shape, at the peak of their powers. So now instead of integrating masters into the stories, they have to play this plot game of transitioning out the old with the new, like the meat sacks of Star Trek Generations. Enough. Replace them and use them as the characters deserve for winning stories and film quality, not to serve the actors.
I want to weep for the franchise. These vapid story lines are far worse than anything Lucas ever did. They don't offer canon, but canon chaos or canon vapor. Roll the dice and see what the main characters can do with the Force next. Pull a Force game card and play it on the board. Pull a plot card and play it. There's no sense to any of it on the film board.
Kathleen, JJ, and Rian have destroyed the franchise.
I pray I'll be alive for a reboot when maybe someone will do justice to the franchise again.
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This movie is the WORST Star Wars movie of all time. Luke Skywalker is made out to be a coward, completely out of character. Snoke is a Joke! Women are good, men are evil (estrogen fest,PC non-sense.) Finn and Rose storyline is ridiculously stupid and boring. BELIEVE the negative reviews, they are real! Real fans who grew up with this story are madder than mad!!!
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1/10
Left me furious, the WORST movie I have seen in YEARS
Once again, Disney revealed their lack of respect for story-telling craftsmanship. Rian Johnson can keep on lying to himself, but the audiences will always tell the truth.
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I am really scared about the new generation and the liberty of expression. It seems that we turned out to be an idiocracy nowadays. How is that possible there are so many people blind? Don't you see that all those pro critics were paid? Medias are paid? This movie is a disgrace to physics, psychology, coaching, and even throw away the ground basis of the Star wars first trilogy philosophy & principles. I am so scared to see that the young audience is not even able to understand the manipulation of Disney all over the place. How can we see so much poor ratings everywhere and still allow to market only top scores and professional paid biased reviews to push a maximum of people to pay for this disgrace.
How many 100/100 reviews from paid media did I read? How many lack of arguments from the people who rated it above 8/10? 8/10 My godness this is a shame on the humanity intelligence.
I wished I had read the reviews before. If you read it, I strongly recommend to avoid to give a single penny to this masquerade.
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Pointless and overlong, a disjointed mess of a film.
I don't really know what direction Disney are going to take with Star Wars in the future and frankly I don't care any longer. I am wholly indifferent and have no intention to see any more of these garbage films in a theater.
None of the major loose ends from The Force Awakens are resolved in The Last Jedi, we don't get to find out who Rey's parents are/were, what lead to the first order becoming a force in the galaxy, who Snoke is and what his origins or motivations were. The only mystery that is unraveled is Luke's voluntary seclusion - which of course is deeply unsatisfying since it's contradictory to what we know of the character from previous films.
To say that the plot of TLJ is simplistic would be putting it mildly, none of the villains are in any way convincing as their only motivations are being evil and none of the supposed heroes are in any way compelling either since they all act like disorganized morons and apparently the only way to make a buck in this universe is by selling arms, either to fuel or fight an insurgency no more than a few hundred men strong.
What are "the resistance" resisting against? The first order are evil yes we fully understand that any organization that keeps building planet killing weapons to cause wanton destruction is evil, but evil TO WHAT END? Having Leia fly through space like superman, Luke dying from going out of mana, the slow-mo chase through space, all the inappropriate and misplaced humor - these are all profoundly idiotic plot decisions but what really bums me out about this film is I have no reason to care about any of the characters in it.
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All you 30- 40 year old nerds sitting in your parents basement need to chill out. The movie is PG-13 and meant for kids, like they always have been... It is a fantastic movie. If you truly hate this movie I feel sorry for you, and your mom who has a really tough job kicking you out of the house... GET A JOB ALREADY!!!
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1. The whole movie takes place with the rebel juuuust out of reach because... "they are smaller and faster"? lol. Just because Empire ships are big, they are slow? Then how do they keep up that perfect 'just out of reach' pace? Hell, how bout a tiny hyper jump like the Falcon did to drop off Rey and jump over to the rebels? Or those big guns that destroyed an entire planet section? Not using em or did that ship the size of 500 only have tiny guns?
2. How about 1/2 of the plot that went nowhere? I mean that whole casino bit and the 2 of them being star-struck by the 'beauty'... uhhh all your friends about to die at any moment? Maybe focus a little? And that bit about money being evil because rich = gun runners and war profiteering? Mission failed but saving some racing animals (and leaving the slave children) made it all worth it. Was this written by a lame Social Justice Warrior from Berkeley? But hey why not, it was all for nothing and they just came back anyway. Good thing she stops Finn's heroic self sacrifice at Hoth 2 so she can get a kiss? Because 'feelings', folks.
3. Supreme Leader Snoke. I remember there was so much interest and mystery behind him and his origins after the last movie. How he would tie into it all... Nah just a random bag guy with no past or further development. What a waste.
4. So Luke played the whole strike me down bit, but ahHA he wasn't really there so he couldn't die. Pretty epic Force power. Oh wait. Random death because he taxed himself too hard?
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When Disney and Abrams restarted the Star Wars saga in 2015 with Force Awakens, they gave us a delicious, candy-like confection that gave us everything we loved about the space opera: adventure, earnestness, humor, and lots of space action. Now, with venerated filmmaker Johnson at the helm, Last Jedi is something decidedly-less immediately pleasing, though undoubtedly heartier. The nature of good-and-evil, the import of passing-time, the difficulties of truth. Sure, it's not quite revelatory, but it reaches for it...and is plenty of fun along the way.
There's a whole lot going on here. Rey is being trained by Luke, and that stuff is great. Leia and Poe are trying to evade the First Order while leading the rebellion towards a new base, and that stuff is (mostly) great. Finn and newcomer Rose team up with an awesomely enigmatic codebreaker on a first-world planet, and that stuff is hit-and-miss. Kylo Ren struggles with his finding his place in a universe stuck in the past, and that stuff is transcendently fantastic. The design is beautiful, the cinematography is sweeping, the humor is strong and the fight scenes are among the best yet. It's all bold and kinetic and flawed and jagged and fun. In other words, a Star Wars film.
Luckily, unlike the overstated claims that Force Awakens was just a nostalgic reboot, Last Jedi is very much its own beast, working in a mold while consistently finding ways to break it. Director Johnson has managed to walk into a money-making machine and put his personal imprint on it. Even if Last Jedi isn't quite as instantaneously satisfying, it thankfully moves the galaxy into new and meatier territory.
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FREE OF SPOILERS
***
I have never seen so many ridiculously negative reviews in all my life. Fundamentally, yes, this movie has quite a few problems with its tone, and the pacing slows down heavily in the middle. Heck, it doesn't even feel 'Star-Warsy' for a lot of the movie. HOWEVER, what this movie does well, it does BETTER than any other installation in the franchise. As a movie on its own, it is incredible, and I can only think that the negative reviews are from butt-hurt psycho fans who want everything to go their own way. The plot choices regarding fan theories and questions are resolved perfectly, and the character development for most of the characters is excellent. Even the plot, in my opinion, is solid.
***
I highly recommend giving this movie a chance, don't get put off by the reviews! Yes, if you are a die hard fan (lets face it you've probably already seen it) then you may have a few issues, but as a casual fan or even a stranger to the original series, be prepared to be surprised, to laugh, to be in suspense, and most importantly to be entertained!!!
***
7/10
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1/10
I will be surprised if the next movie does NOT reveal the following:
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (BUT NOT REALLY the "Last" Jedi) was so ridiculously riddled with predictable PC nonsense. I will be very surprised if the next movie does NOT reveal the following: 1) Leia and Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo were lovers (Pay attention to the nature of their "goodbye". This also explains Han and Leia's "complicated" estranged relationship). 2) Rey's "birth" mother is Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo. 3) Rey's "real" biological mother is Leia. Amilyn Holdo was the surrogate. 4) Hence, Rey and Kylo Ren are brother and sister (this explains why they could silently communicate with each other similar to Luke and Leia)
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5/10
Does all the things they say you shouldn't do in a movie...and largely proves them right.
Well, Luke acts like he's in a Robot Chicken spinoff, Chembucca becomes a vegan, Finn and a friend stop all horse racing on an alien world, Leia harnesses the power of gravity and most major plotlines from the previous film are blown off as the Evil First Order and The Resistance engage in the slowest space chase in cinematic history in this utterly bonkers second instalment in the new Star Wars trilogy.
I re-watched the Force awakens before I saw this . A good thing as I hadn't seen the film since opening week at the cinema. The main perspective it gave me was that when the Starkiller obliterated a star system, they had actually taken out just about the entire New Republic. meaning the Resistance was now in the minority fighting a lonely war against evil Nazis with no government or resources behind them. Hence we have the First Order stalking the final remnants of the resistance through space. And...Look. This just isn't worth talking about. Most of the movie sees the First Order slowly hovering after the Resistance waiting for their fuel to run out. You haven;t been punked. I'm not making this up. That is the central plot of this film.
While this "action" is ensuing, Finn and his new Chinese friend Rose run off on a wild goose chase to find Benicio Del Toro and have no impact on the story, apart from ending horse racing on a casino planet and, more importantly, freeing some enslaved kids,. oh, wait. They didn't free them. They just got their help and left them there in bondage. Wow, they really didn't achieve anything, did they?
In the meantime Luke throws away the lightsaber that Rey had been holding for the last two years. He then goes and drinks green milk straight out of the teat of some large alien animal. He gives her two half assed lessons, explains how Ben Solo turned evil. Rey then force skypes with Ben and hears a different story, before finding out the truth is in the middle. It's like Rashomon, only far less interesting.
Rey eventually gets sick of Luke's Robot Chicken impression and leaves to meet Kylo Ren, taking the sacred Jedi texts with her. Yoda appears before Luke , who's decided to burn down the ancient jedi tree and the texts within. He stops himself only for Yoda to do it anyway. But...Punk'd! Yoda knew the texts weren't in there.
So Ben takes Rey to Grandmaster Snoke so he can explain that the reason Rey is such a powerful Jedi is because, with Ben's powers growing, the force has risen up his equal on the light side. He kills Snoke (no great loss IMO) and he and Rey team up to kill the cool looking red cloaked guys whose function you've wondered about since Return of the Jedi. Instead of turning to the good side, Kylo Ren takes over the First Order and makes Hutz his bitch. Rey wants no part of it and takes off to the Not Planet Hoth that the rebels have fled to.
Luke turns up and reunites with Leia before taking on Kylo Ren in an epic light saber duel but...wait. Punk'd again. Luke is using a more powerful version of force skype to astral project his body from Jedi Island. His diversion works and the Resistance is able to escape with the help of Rey. Luke dies. That's it. He just dies. We then see the kids on the Casino Planet they didn't help earlier telling the story of Luke standing up to the First Order as one of them uses the force to pick up a broom and gazes out at the stars.
This ends like the Prequel Trilogy should have and really leaves nowhere obvious for the next story to go, beyind a showdown between Kylo Ren and Rey. Whatever.
What amused me was the ease at which the film blew off so many plot points. What will Luke do with the Saber? Throw it away nonchalantly. What's the go with Rey's parents? Couple of drunkard lowlifes who sold her for grog and are long dead. Who's Snoke? Who cares. I enjoyed all of these. I didn't care about Snoke. I think it's stupid that some random character in Part VII wound up with Luke's lightsaber and I didn't want Reyto be another Star Wars character related to the Skywalker family. I also liked that they made it official that the Prequel Trilogy actually happened. But as much fun as watching fanboys being punk'd is, the story they gave us here is so lacklustre. A slow space chase, spliced with a wild goose chase and a Robot Chicken comedy sketch? Wow.
Hamill and Fisher are the two best things in this film. Carrie goes out on a high. Can't say one thing happened in the rest of the film to make me care at all about any of the new characters save Kylo Ren. Hopefully, Luke will be given something to do as a force ghost in Episode IX. But really, It doesn't feel like anything is being built to here. I'm intrigued somewhat by how they will complete things in Part IX, but ultimately, I think this will be remembered as throw away and insignificant as Attack of the Clones by the time the full story of the new trilogy is told.
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2/10
The only redeeming parts of the movie were..."SPOILERS"
The scenes with Rey and Kylo and Snoke. But I found myself completely not interested with any of the other characters and their storylines. I seriously don't know where to start with my rant. "Spoilers ahead"
1. The Jokes.
Oh my, the jokes! In almost every scene of the Last Jedi they included some stupid joke that made me feel like I was watching a Marvel movie or something like Guardians of the Galaxy. I am not saying that those are bad movies but Star Wars should have had a darker more serious tone in my opinion. There was even a sex joke that Maz said, and it was just so cringy.
All the jokes und all the scenes that were so bad that they made me chuckle in disbelief resulted in me feeling absolutely zero suspense in the more "emotional" scenes. At times it felt like I was watching a star wars parody.
2.They destroyed their best villain
So Snoke had a really awesome introduction in TFA and there were a million fan theories about his origins and his powers and motives. And then TLJ happened and they just killed him in the middle of the movie. That was a big disapointment, since we actually got to know nothing about him in the end.
3. The 30 minutes of the casino madness
If they would have cut out that part of the movie it would have been so much better. This part was not only boring, but really badly written and - in the end - proved to be completely useless for the rest of the plot.
4. Rose
No words. Except for: forced romance. (And she has probably THE worst line of the entire movie)
5. Luke Skywalkers reason for why the Jedi "must end"
Luke's perfomance in TLJ was ...hard to watch. I'm a big star wars fan and I really wanted to like this movie but man did they ruin Skywalkers character. So he basically went into hidding because he was the reason that Ben Solo turned to the dark side and burned down the Jedi academy. They portray him as this whining coward that turned his back to the problems he's caused and his whole arc just ...doesn't feel like he is actually Luke Skywalker. They completely ruined his character. I would have liked it more if his explanation as to why the Jedi order must end had more of a spiritual meaning. If, for instance he thought that there could be no balance in the force, because it would always swing between the extremes of either the "really good" and the "really bad" and the solution to that problem would be something new, maybe a "grey" sort of Jedi. I thought that that was what they were hinting at with Rey and Kylo. Sigh.
6. The conflict between Poe and the purple-hair-lady
That was a waste of time. They just created an artificial conflict that was absolutely unnecessary since the purple-hair-lady could have just -you know- told Poe about her plans from the very beginning! And why did she wait until the transport ships were dying like flies until she suddenly comes up with the idea to crash the enemy ship?
7.Leia floating through space.
Ahh...yeah...
8. Yoda's force ghost and his lighning
I had already lost hope in the writing at this point but this scene still deserves to mentioned for how bad it was.
9. Finn's "sacrifice"...
"We can't win by destroying out enemies.. but we must safe the ones we love." The line was something like that. It was painful to watch, but also kind of fit really well to the overall logic (or lack thereof) of TLJ.
10. The ice fox solutions
All the "sudden" conflicts that arose in the second part of the movie were resolved with Deus-ex-machina or complete randomness/coincidences.
They are being traced by the first order > of course Maz knows a master hacker that can help > they fail their mission but of course there is actually an old rebel base nearby that they are headed at > they are stuck at the hideout and of course there is only one door to enter/escape > of course it turns out there is actually another escape route after all. > and of course Rey is patiently waiting at the other side of the tunnel to lift the rocks with the abilities that Luke taught her at the island (wait, he refused to teach her didn't he? But that's obviously not a problem because logic and character development don't matter. If a character needs a special abilty to further the plot the almighty writing staff of TLJ will graciously grant it to them. *Cough*Lukeandhishologram*Cough*Yodasforceghostpowers*Cough*)
Now I could go on about the things I disliked, but there is no point know is there? I have lost the hope that it is going to be an amazing and satisfying triology. What made me mad though was that I constantly thought that this mess of a movie could have easily been sorted out if they had just made some changes. There was so much wasted potential there and in the hands of a competent writer this might have been a great movie.
If they had structured TLJ more and cut out some of the millions of subplots and maybe focused on the storyline of Rey, Kylo Luke and Snoke, then I think it might have been awesome to watch. I did afterall enjoy most of their scenes, but it all was drowned out by the madness and chaos of the rest of the plot.
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I would like to preface this by stating that I didn't go into this movie expecting a lot. After seeing The Force Awakens, and Rogue One after that, I had a vague idea of what to expect. However, even I was surprised at how much this movie waned on me as it went on. The entire time I was sitting in the theatre I routinely thought "It can't get much worse than this". And to my amazement, it did.
I'm first going to cover the very few things I liked about this movie, then go on to justify my disdain in three main categories: the film's overblown length, the myriad of shenanigans going on in it, and how the combination of the two made for a movie about as interesting as watching paint dry.
First, I have to admit that it wasn't all bad. There were several moments I liked/I thought were executed well. First was the scene with Rey's "first lesson" with the force. Taken completely alone, I thought this scene was well shot, directed, acted, and paced. Furthermore, it was very cool to see Rey learn from Luke, and see her expose herself to the force's raw potential and come to understand how and what it is. It was a very telling scene which had great potential, and really showed what this film could have been. Unfortunately, this scene is only good out of context because we've already seen Rey's competent understanding of the force in TFA, which renders this scene almost completely moot. The only payoff in the movie, by the way, is when Rey quips "something something gotta move rocks" and then proceeds to move AN ENTIRE QUARRY'S WORTH OF ROCKS.
Next thing I liked was the opening battle. It was well shot, good VFX, solid acting, and kept me intrigued. That's it. nothing special, just a competent moment in an otherwise bland production.
And the last thing I can say I liked was the six or seven frame shot of the rebel cruiser shattering the First Order dreadnought. I thought it looked cool and was visually unique from any other part of the film.
As you can probably tell, I'm really grasping at straws here to give this movie complements because, as an overall product, the movie was not good. And I say that more as a definitive statement than as an opinion because the problems I have with it are technical, not subjective.
The first problem I have with this movie is the length. This film is two hours and 41 mins long. And oh baby, you can certainly tell. Even with the film's frantic pace, you can still feel it begin to drag on as the two hour mark approaches. Furthermore, there are several distinct moments in the film where I thought I was witnessing the climax, only to have it matched by something equally as over the top later on. The beats the movie hits as well are scattered and inconsistent, and this only adds to the mounting boredom experienced.
But this issue pales in comparison to my second and much more pressing complaint, which is this movie's desire to do so many goddamn things in one movie. When the movie gets chugging, there are 4 many main threads going: There's Luke and Rey, Fynn and the Rose( and later the other guy), Po and Leia (and the vice-admiral to an extent), and then Kylo and Snoke. And the movie tries to treat all of these with the same amount of importance. This leads to awkward cuts and transitions as we try to frantically keep up with what everyone is doing. And ultimately this leads to certain story elements feeling rushed or contrived, such as the codebreaker guy's ridiculous escape from the jail cell, and then the escape from the casino. Or the mutiny aboard the frigate, only to have it immediately fail. Most notably, is the interactions between Luke and Rey, which realistically should have been the most important central focus of the story, quite often just took a backseat for minutes at a time while the rest of the stories rushed to catch up. And for a movie billed to be a story about "The Last Jedi", we spend very little time with this segment of the story, which happens to be the most interesting and character rich portion of the story. It's almost a shame that this movie wasn't exclusively about Rey talking with Luke, learning about him, her, Kylo, and the interplay between Kylo and Luke, and how this affects his ability to impart knowledge onto Rey. But none of that matters anyway since Rey has seemingly unlimited and sharply tuned force powers and combat skills from the moment she was on screen in TFA. Let's not forget that she's already bested a trained warrior with little effort on her part, and already has a mastery of Mind-Tricks and levitation and other force-related powers.
This leads me to my final complaint, which is this movie was boring. And when I say boring, I mean it. There was very little keeping me engaged with the screen, aside from an ever dimming ember of hope that something would happen to pique my interest. Of course, nothing ever did. What was supposed to be the central focus of the film, Rey's "training", ends up being boring shlock about how Luke can't teach her/ time for the Jedi to die. It didn't even really make sense because, as I've stated and everybody has seen, Rey already has a mastery over many elements of the force, and just from some idle self-practice she becomes a goddamn warrior? I don't buy it, and that's precisely what makes it uninteresting to watch. The rest of the plots were either boring or aggressively stupid. Fynn and Rose wandering around a casino lamenting about the woes of capitalism until they're miraculously saved by the codebreaker, Deus Ex-Machina style? Boring. Kylo being a salty loser who wants to stop being a sissyboi? Boring. Po trying to explain to the admiral that her plan is dumb, except it works, except it almost doesn't, and then she dies? Aggressively stupid. All in all, none of the stories amount to anything, none of the main characters really grow or change, and nothing is accomplished. Just a boring sequence of audio-visual experiences chained together into a nearly three-hour snooze-fest.
So, in summary: Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi is an overblown, bloated snoozefest with few likeable characters, no compelling story or plot, way too many "Are you serious?" moments, and a complete lack of any of the charm a Star Wars move should have.
Send any death threats/hate main here:
73 Carniero Court
Lethbridge, New Zealand.
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What a great, great disappointment. I think in the previous reviews everything is already told in detail why this movie doesn't deliver. I just want to say: The Star Wars universe was about dreams, mystery, hope, struggle, adventure and that the Dark Side has to be destroyed and it's worth fighting for the good in the universe. This movie was made by people who want to earn MONEY, MONEY, MONEY. Well, i understand this is important, but in such a terrible and obvious way? They are aiming at a new much younger target group and therefore the old protagonists had to die in the movie, making place to the younger ones. But couldn't they do this with more respect to the characters and with a much better story that keeps the Star Wars universe still together? The movie feels as if the producers and the director where bored by Star Wars, almost disgusted, and therefore they wanted to kill everything that makes Star Wars Star Wars! Jedi? Ridiculous! The force? Ahh, buying a Cheeseburger at Mc Donald's is more difficult! Lightsabers? Boring! The biggest disappointment is for me that the mystery is gone. And perhaps they don't believe themselves anymore in the wonders of the endless universe. But its so easy, just - for one moment - don't think about money, but look instead to the stars at clear night. This IS a miracle! Obviously the director and producers forgot this in The Last Jedi and WHY people watch this movie: to feel the energy of the universe surrounding them - and not the money!
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That's quite an achievement. The prequels were so bad it's hard to rank them. The Force Awakens was a derivative retread of the first film that pillaged the characters and fairytale of Star Wars, writing the central characters out (or plain killing them off) in favour of emo Darth Vader, a load of other dull cardboard cut-outs and way too much CGI. There's nothing good about The Last Jedi. The script is truly awful, what passes for characterisation is so contrived that it's insulting, there isn't even a single exciting action sequence or fight. As a Star Wars film, perhaps script and characterisation aren't that necessary but when they're this bad the film is unwatchable. Crucially, there's no coherent plot, just a whole load of stuff that happens. So many tiresome grand gestures, sickening amounts of CGI, the odd pointless grandiose speech. Perhaps up to this point The Phantom Menace had been the worst film in the series. Its tale of some trade federation blockading a CGI planet is more gripping than the goings-on of The Last Jedi. They do some stuff that's supposedly really important. Then do some other stuff... and some more. Then the film ends. After The Force Awakens I wasn't expecting much, but how could it have been worse than the prequels?
I can't believe it's been a whole year since Rogue One. It's what Star Wars should be aiming for. I never got to write a review but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. In some ways, it could be the best Star Wars film as it's pretty solid all-round. The script and characters are well put together. There aren't really any throw-away, under-developed characters who're merely there as walking plot devices - they are all fleshed out to some extent and everyone has something useful to do. A bit like Mad Max: Fury Road, really. The friendship between Cassian and Jyn was well-developed and so touching that it moved me to tears. Not that the film was without flaw or cliché, but I think the writers really went out of their way to give us an interesting tale here. They knew the essence of what made Star Wars special and gave us some more of it rather than regurgitate tired facsimiles of what we've already seen. Friendships don't always have to end in romance and that feeling you get when you embrace a friend before you part ways for some time can be a powerful one. Everything in The Last Jedi is dialled up to eleven all the time and I just couldn't care less. The attempts at humour to lighten the mood are weaker than The Phantom Menace, but at least that film had a decent-ish fight at the end. The Last Jedi feels like a confused remix of scenes from the previous films (including the prequels). Like the prequels, the cast really doesn't care. Why should you?
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1/10
The Last Jedi dismisses The Force Awakens, abandons nostalgia and, worst of all, treats fans with utter disdain, in favour of an overtly political appeal to the masses.
At first The Last Jedi is deceptively pleasing, thanks to an impressive opening space battle and a lack of predictability, which hampered the enjoyment of The Force Awakens.
Unfortunately, it goes on an increasingly rapid and deep descent into the all too familiar territory of ticking off items on the Hollywood virtue signalling checklist. Most instances of this are so jarring that they ruin the immersive cinema experience for any politically conscious viewer. Attacks on The One Percent - check. Attacks on capitalism - check. Attacks on animal sporting spectacles as a form of animal cruelty - check. Strong female character needlessly debasing a male hero, in a sign of feminist empowerment - check. Character made to feel guilty about eating meat - check. The clumsiest of all movie subplots is the vehicle for most of these checklist items, and could've been avoided entirely were it not for the aforementioned male hero debasement. Keeping the hero and the audience in the dark about the escape plan is lazy story telling at its worst.
Despite Daisy Ridley doing an even better acting job this time round, the film ruined Rey's character - she had no significant character development beyond The Force Awakens and they removed the mystique behind her character with an innocuous line regarding her ordinary parentage. She's fought Kylo Ren to a stalemate twice now, and it seems any hope of an interesting development in their relationship has been quashed, as Snoke has been unceremoniously removed, and they're cemented as the leaders of their respective sides.
Finn's character had so much potential, and that has been stripped as well. That you could've taken his character out of the film entirely, without influencing the outcome at all, demonstrates how pointless he has become. The ultimate noble sacrifice during the siege on the planet could have provided his character with some redemption, but even that had to be spoiled by the Rose character, in a selfish act of a affection, that had no reasonable basis in plot developments, and could have very easily led to the immediate destruction of the last remnants of the rebels. Yes, the plucky Rose, who has no other distinguishable, let alone redeemable, characteristics beyond assisting in meeting the desired diversity quota.
Force users no longer need ships to fly through space. Force users have foolishly been wasting bandwidth by communicating via hologram, when apparently all they had to use was astral projection. Every subsequent space battle in the Star Wars universe should, logically, now consist solely of using the almighty light-speed kamikaze run. *picardfacepalm.jpg*
The comedy in the film is forced and uninspired, reminiscent of the same mess that Disney infuse into their Marvel movies, rather than the clever delivery of Alan Tudyk's K-2SO in Rogue One.
There's so much more awfulness to unpack; the lack of a menacing villain, disappointing direction for Ben, dismissal of The Force Awakens, the nature of Luke's death. This movie is a steaming pile of garbage that, like The Phantom Menace, I'll never bother watching again. It's unlikely that I'll see future installments at the cinema before going through some reviews.
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The guy who made this film is literally an idiot. Everything in the script is heavy handed and hackneyed. The first half of the film boils down to an overwrought attempt at animal rights propaganda. The second half can only be described as a mockery of itself. By the time it's all said and done the Jedi are dead and they deserved it, the Sith are pompous angry children, and Luke Skywalker is a hateful old fart who meditates himself to death in what can only be described as the least cool act of heroism in movie history.
If you're expecting to see a lot of awesome stuff happening on screen please allow me to lower your expectations significantly. There is nothing to see here folks, move along, move along...
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This film is full of plot holes so big you could drive the deathstar through them. There is no Last Jedi, nearly everyone is one in this film. The saga of Luke Skywalker is treated with disdain for the fans. The force awakens was not the best but we forgave it that for rebooting the series. Rogue One showed what you could do with the franchise, and then they follow this up with this hackneyed drivel that pays no notice to the lore of the series. Disney what have you done!
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Horrible movie. Dozens of plot holes and slapstick humor. The director has clearly never seen a Star Wars movie. There was so much potential after episode 7 raised lots of questions, but this is pure garbage.
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7/10
"Leia sent me here with hope", but will Skywalker return the favor?
"Star Wars - The Last Jedi" (2017 release; 152 min.) brings the continuing saga of the "next generation" of Star Wars heroes. The movie opens with a bang, literally. The First Order reigns supreme, and the Resistance is scrambling to escape their base. That results in a dazzling 15 min. sequence where there are ever more detailed and complex battle scenes. And did I mention it is loud? Meanwhile, while all this is happening (and picking up directly where "The Force Awakens" left off), Rey is trying to convince Luke Skywalker to rejoin the ranks of the Resistance. "Leia sent me here with hope", she tells Skywalker. Will he? At this point we're 15 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from rapidly rising writer-director Rian Johnson, who a few years ago brought us the excellent sci-fi thriller "Looper". While he alone is credited as being the writer, I imagine that Executive Producer JJ Abrams (who returns as director for Star Wars IX) had a lot of input as well in the overall story arch. As the years go by, and technology becomes yet more sophisticated, it is bewildering at time (in a good way) to take in all that we see on the big screen. Apparently this Star Wars movie is quite divisive among the Star Wars aficionados, and I really don't understand why. I was 17 when "A New Hope" came out, and 20 when "The Empire Strikes Back" was released. Now 4 decades later, much needed new life has been brought in this franchise, washing away the bad taste that Episodes I, II and III left us with now 20 years ago. The renewed Star Wars brings a nice mix of the new stuff along with some elements of the old stuff (Episodes IV, V and VI). In fact, I was struck by the parallels between this mpvoe and "The Empire Strikes Back" on a number of occasions. The original score by John Williams once again plays an important role in the overall enjoyment. My main criticism of "The Last Jedi" is that the movie is unnecessarily long at 2 hr. 32 min. Tighter editing could've cut a good 15-20 min. without missing any core aspects of the story. Last but certainly not least, it was with sadness that I watched Carrie Fischer in her last role ever. She was due to return for Episode IX. She will be missed by everyone in the Star Wars universe and fandom.
I was not able to score tickets for the opening weekend, but did manage (just barely) to get tickets for last night (Tuesday evening). That screening here in Cincinnati was completely sold out. Even more remarkable for me was that a sizable portion of the audience were young kids, I'm talking 6-7-8 years old, and I didn't see any of them getting restless, despite the movie's long running time. Amazing. While of course you can watch this on Amazon Instant Video and eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, a movie like this just BEGS to be experienced on the big screen, along with other fans. "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is a WINNER.
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10/10
An Interesting and Different Story in the Star Wars Saga!!!
I honestly didn't think this was as bad as a lot of the Star Wars nerds are making it out to be. I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan in the world, but I like them. I was entertained, that's all I care about. If the story is interesting, and it has cool battle scenes, then I'll enjoy it.
Some of my complaints were that Luke Skywalker's big return was kinda 'meh' He's just cranky and annoyed by Rey for the first half of the movie. There was hardly a lightsaber battle. Another thing was that they killed off someone that hardly had any character development. There were a lot of fan theories about this person, I figured they'd be around for Episode IX, but nope, they're dead and gone.
I loved the look of Supreme Leader Snoke's dark red room. It was a beautiful set. A lot of people are complaining about the scenes on Canto Bight, regarding the casino. I honestly thought it was interesting and refreshing. It shows that there's a big world in the Star Wars universe that we probably haven't even seen yet.
The movie picks up almost immediately after 'The Force Awakens' The First Order shows up and attacks the resistance. Meanwhile, Rey tries to get Luke to come out of hiding to help fight against Kylo Ren. To me, this is probably one of the cheesiest in the series, but I like 'cheesy' that's why I enjoyed it. If you love the Star Wars series, then you'll probably like STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI!!!
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This was a great movie! I am a very big Star Wars fan and thought it was a very enjoyable movie. What do you Star Wars fans want!! It seems that you people are never happy and need to relax. Things have to change or every star wars movie would be the same. This is a much needed breath of fresh air added to the Star Wars universe.
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Luke's line mentioned in the trailer is exactly what this movies about. It does not go how you think. It is almost like they read all the fan theories on the net and said ok lets not fulfill those notions. And you know what I'm ok with that. This new trilogy started with Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren, theses movies are about them not the original cast. The movie is good I was entertained but the problem lies (for me) in the elongated 1st act. Just like with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 I didn't realize that I was within the main plot until about halfway through the movie. The first half of the movie is a lot of filler that did not need to be there. I get what the over arching idea is supposed to be. The resistance in their most desperate hour, losses are great, choices are made, authority is questioned. I like all that but it could have progressed in a better paced way. During this first act though all the stuff going on with Kylo Ren, Rey and Luke are very interesting (and will create more fan speculation before Episode 9 comes out). Now to get into the good and the bad.
The Good: The opening battle, The second half of the film, Kylo Ren, Rian Johnson's direction (in the second half) and Mark Hamell's performance.
The opening battle reminded me of the opening of Revenge of the Sith but I think it was done better. This is also where Rian Johnson shines because its done like a little short film. We have two very, very interesting characters (good and bad) in this sequence I wish were in the whole film.
When certain events occur mid way through then the film becomes a true Star Wars movie. There are 3 sequences and a heartwarming scene that actually saves this movie. If it were not for these this movie would be a boring mess. It took an hour but the movie does find its pace.
Kylo Ren has about the most interesting story arch of these new movies. I really love how they are fleshing him out. You know why he is evil and you can see how he sees things. It does in a way echo Anakin Skywalkers motivation but it differs where as (spoiler) Anakin's fall to evil was for love while Kylo's fall was because of the betrayal of love (and may also be seeking it...hmmm.) This is why the Kylo Ren and Rey demographic that was presented in this film interests me the most and excites me as to where it is going in Episode 9.
Rian Johnson does a good job of bringing his style to Star Wars. It is nice to see a Star Wars movie with some style to its direction. Casual movie goers will not see the artful direction but inspiring filmmakers will and will notice he directed with his own style (to be fair so did JJ Abrams with the Force Awakens somewhat). There is a sequence that is so, pardon me, bad ass when the whole scene goes silent (and if I remember correctly I think it went into black and white also). There is also an awesome lightsaber battle (battle not fight) and a heartwarming scene with Luke and Liea. Its these moments that save this film. And the performance that Rian gets out of Mark Hamill is excellent. Hamill may have not agreed with the direction Luke was going in this movie but neither did Luke. And it gave Mark Hamill some juicy dialog to act to. I think Rian made the right choice for Luke, he is, after all, "only human".
The Bad: The first halfs pace, Canto Biat Casino, The subplot, Liea and the force.
Ok so like I mentioned before the first half has problems. The pace is off and goes into a slow crawl because it seems to want to fill time which it really didn't need to. The whole mutiny subplot was ok but it amounted to nothing. Finn and Roses mission was just out of place and once the story unfolds the sequence was very unneccassary. Finn could have been used a lot better here (I think his character as a whole could be more important to the resistance, like if he was an high officer or one of the technicians of the ships.) Laura Dern was used very useless until he bad ass moment but I was just started to like her character when it hinted that she may be more than she seems. But nope.
The Casino scenes were boring...that's all.
The mutiny subplot was ok but once the story unfolded it was unnecessary and would have had more weight to the subplot if the hint of what Laura Derns character really was turned out, but nope.
And when Liea uses the force is the most corniest scene in any Star Wars movie...EVER. The scene reminded me of a scene in Guardians of the Galaxy but I can except it in that film because they are superheroes. The scene took me out the movie and thought ok so now she is a superhero.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a entertaining film. It is worth the price of admission and I will go see it again. It's just that first act and some story points that are questionable but once the movie gets going boy does it get going (pretty much its when all the characters leave the locations they were at in the first act). Not as good as the originals, better than a couple of prequels and better than the Force Awakens do to its originality. One of the better Star Wars films but not the best.
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Sick of everyone trying to justify the low scores. Maybe a couple of morons feel that way about it. But its not because there are more Asians or more women or less white men. That thought never ever crossed my mind as I watched this movie. Its because its just a horrible movie, not just a horrible star wars movie. Your an asshole rian johnson. Should have stuck to making looper 2. I cant even look at my other SW stuff in my house.
Why didn't the first order just fly to the front of the ship and blow them up? This is supposed to be the last of the resistance and you cant call for more ships?
Why didn't they ram the ship onto them sooner? Why does no one care about Chewbacca? Why would Luke consider becoming a murderer? He couldn't kill his father.
You will not be getting anymore of my money.
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I have watched episodes 1-7 over 100 times and know most lines by heart. Since my first Star Wars movie, which I watched 35 years ago until episode 8, these have always been the series closest to my heart. Not anymore. Disney and the amateurs responsible for that joke really did a great job alienating so many Star Wars fans. To cut the long story short:
1. I undestand now why Mark Hamill did not agree with the Director about Luke. I will pretend that the Luke story ends with Return of the Jedi. I feel betrayed and devastated after watching what he has become.
2. Cheap jokes from B rating movies. We, the Star Wars fans are more intelligent than that. Who allowed such crappy humor in the movie?
3. All questions after Episode 7 go in the garbage. Good job killing the fabula and the character stories, Disney. In short, I didn't see any character stories in Episode 8. It all felt like a bad dream come true. What could have been done wrong with all characters was done wrong. Especially very terrible ideas about Snoke and Ray.
4. This is the first Star Wars movie that made me bored on the 30th minute after watching it and I couldn't wait to finish. I will never watch it again.
5. Forget about all previous episodes. Disney did a great job restarting the series, unfortunately in the worst possible way.
6. Bad character dialogues and story telling. I never felt excited or curious during the whole movie, which makes me feel strange as I have always watched previous episodes with great interest.
I wish the series ended with episode 6. Damage is already done, RIP Star Wars.
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I had high expectations for The Last Jedi, especially after they announced that Rian Johnson was going to direct it. I was curious to see where he would take the story and how he would answer certain questions we had after The Force Awakens. Needless to say, I was disappointed when I left the theatre, as The Last Jedi was not as good as I hoped it to be.
In 'The Last Jedi' we get to see how Rey (Daisy Ridley) trains with Luke (Mark Hamill) on Ahch-To, while the Resistance, with Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega), is desperately trying to stay out of the hands of the First Order's ships. Meanwhile, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) goes to Snoke (Andy Serkis) to complete his training.
The main issue with this movie is the pacing, we see a lot of shots of the First Order chasing down the Resistance, and this goes on for pretty much the whole movie. This made it feel very slow and at times, especially in the first half of the movie, very boring. Another problem I have with this movie is the way in which a lot of the characters are treated. Luke could have been used so much better in this movie, he made choices that didn't feel like it was the same Luke from the original trilogy, the Luke we loved. Leia (Carrie Fisher) all in all had a good story, but there was this one scene which could have been so much better (I liked the idea behind the scene though). Rey didn't have any real development in this movie, she is away from Jakku for 7 days, knows she is force-sensitive for 3 or 4 days, and is kicking ass like she is some Jedi goddess. Snoke is the biggest disappointment in this movie, all questions we have from The Force Awakens about him are still unanswered (he shows some great force abilities in the movie though).
Another problem is the humour. It is so forced and used way too much for a Star Wars movie. The first 15 minutes felt almost like a parody of Star Wars. A good example of the bad humour is the first scene with Luke, you won't believe what he does.
Now the good things, because this movie had many bad things, but also many good things. The plot was good and had several good and unexpected twists. The only problem I had were the subplots: there were a little too many of them which made it feel a little bit messy.
Another thing that I really liked was the dialogue, especially the second half of the movie had some good dialogue. The first half of the film was not as good dialogue-wise, but it was still acceptable.
While certain characters in the movie had a very bad story, there were also some who had very interesting stories. We learned a little bit more about Poe, Holdo (Laura Dern) was an interesting character and DJ was someone who I really looked forward to, Benicio Del Toro played that him very well. There was also one certain character which I won't go into detail about (because I don't do spoilers in my reviews), but the character was very surprising to say the least. The best character in this movie was Kylo Ren. He has such an interesting story and he is so conflicted, I am really looking forward to his further development in the next movie.
The acting in this movie was good, but there was one performance that stood out: Adam Driver's. He does a great job portraying Kylo Ren and all his emotions, he at least deserves an Oscar nomination for his performance in this movie.
The best thing in this movie was the cinematography. This was the best movie in the star wars franchise visually. The colours and the way the scenes were shot were just very pleasant to watch. There is one scene which is just mindboggling, everyone in the theatre was just gasping and amazed by this scene. Visually the best scene in the whole franchise.
The Last Jedi has many good things, but unfortunately it also has many flaws. This movie got me so conflicted, I really liked some things, but other things were just so bad that I couldn't enjoy the film like I would have liked. The Last Jedi certainly isn't a bad movie, but there were too many bad things to call it a good movie, that's why I'll give it a 6/10. I am very excited to see what J. J. Abrams will do with the next movie, because I have no idea where it can go.
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I loved this film simple as that, in my opinion it rivals the originals. This film showed Kylo Ren and Rey very well and i was impressed, I like how Kylo still seems like he has good left in him whereas Rey can feel anger which can lead to the dark side, overall the action and the story was great with a little bit of humour aswell. The ending wasn't great though in my opinion but I understand it, Luke dies, and he becomes a force ghost, I feel he drained all his energy when fighting Kylo with the force projection so he just dies peacefully and will return as a force ghost in episode 9, of course now he'll be stronger. Also Snoke's death scene. I know a lot of people don't like this one but heat me out on this. I DON'T THINK HE'S DEAD. I believe it was a force projection same as Luke. With the force projection also Luke managed to kiss Leia on the fore head as a projection. Snoke didn't really interact with anyone did he and he also look different in force awakens. The last Jedi starts pretty much at the end of force awakens as well so there can't be a massive change physically for Snoke, if you have a look on the hologram of Snoke you can see the scars are more deeper than the ones in the Last Jedi so he must've made himself look younger. Luke did the same as well as he made his beard go brown in the projection. Of course this is just a theory but I believe that Snoke isn't done yet. Overall the film is great, I don't get what's the fuss is really about, I loved Kylo Ren's growth in this and how strong in the force Rey is. I'm looking forward to episode 9 which will mark the end of the new trilogy and I hope that'll be fireworks too
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As the dust settled on "The Force Awakens" and I had a chance to re-watch it a few times, the weaknesses and flaws that were initially masked by both low expectations and it being so much more like a "Star Wars" movie than any of the prequels became painfully obvious. Fun as it is at times, it's just a rehash of "A New Hope" with a hopelessly lazy second half.
I was worried that "The Last Jedi" would therefore be a retread of "The Empire Strikes Back," and the fact that it's not is a notch in its favor. However, one wishes that Rian Johnson's entry in the space saga had "Empire's" propulsive narrative drive and cliff hanger surprises. Instead, he's made a film that feels like a placeholder until someone figures out where they want to take this story.
I am a "Star Wars" fan, but I am not upset about the things all of the other fans seem to be upset about. I feel like it's still early enough that I can't explicitly talk about what those things are for fear of spoiling the plot for others, but I overall embraced the film's theme of letting go of the past, even if that means letting go of some of our preconceived notions about the "Star Wars" universe and the characters who populate it. "Star Wars" for a new generation, indeed.
No, what I disliked about this film was more lazy storytelling and the fact that it felt stalled. There was a lot of action happening on screen, yet by the end of the movie I felt like the overall story had gone nowhere and all of the characters ended in the same place they started, with us having learned nothing new about them. Finn, for example, didn't have a reason to be in the movie, while Poe, who gets more screen time than in "The Force Awakens," shows us that he's a hotshot, which we already knew. The most interesting character of all of them is Kylo Ren, and "The Last Jedi" does well by him. And Adam Driver is emerging as the new cast's standout.
I did like the murkiness introduced into this film, and the suggestion that good and bad are points of view and the line between heroes and villains can be paper thin. But this movie should have left me begging for a third installment to wrap up all the unanswered questions and mysteries, while it instead made me shrug my shoulders about this part of the "Star Wars" story and want to go watch "Rogue One" again (which I did).
Grade: B+
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TFA was an action packed and fun. If it was a Marvel movie I would have given it 7 stars. I was entertained by the action, but very disappointed. It lacked an interesting, plausible cohesive story. It failed as a Star Wars movie.
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I am much more interasted now with public reactions to new SW, then movies themselfs. First reviewers were unhappy with milking of old story,and now with sudden twists. So there is no way to make them happy. As they couldn't shoot exectly same story forth time, they had to let it go and trust someone with new plot direction. The rules were:1. stratch the soap opera as far as u can 2. disney PG12 3.general SW theme of good vs evil and so on.
And so Johnson did. Bold plot twists, some action, some mystery. On top of that he tried to add some depth to the characters,sadly that did not go well with fans. I wish people would let go their nostalgia and hopes to relive their youth and embrace changes. On the other hand 2.5 hours dint get us anywere. Same problem with all franshises - nothing or no one in this movie makes you care. And after watching it, still hard to explain what exectly the story was here. I realy dont like when they make big movies with soap opera standarts of cliffhanger instead of the finished story.
Basicly rebels just running whole movie and dont get anywhere. Leia still playes no real role and kind of a place holder of a character. Even Snokes death looked more like an exident and definitly lacked dramatism. Also movie for no reson changes rythm and tone several times. Could have better fights, better dialog, better everything.
All in all movie is not bad and a step from the dead point. Hard to tell where, but a step.
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I had many theories, and was expecting a lot, yet the movie surprised me in a big way.
First of all, the story was very good. I found the main story arc with the starship chase to be a bit uninspired, but everything else was awesome.
The actors were great, especially Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and Mark Hamill. They all delivered beautiful scenes, both dramatic and action wise.
The music was on point, better than the score of the the Force Awakens, but not the best I have ever heard in a Star Wars movie.
The cinematography was just beautiful. Almost all scenes are wallpaper material, everything was fleshed out, detailed and just a pleasure to watch.
The action sequences were stunning, and mostly satisfying.
The movie was also funny, but the comedy was a bit overdone in a few scenes.
What makes this entry to the Galaxy far far away so good?
It is brave. It has moments - lots of them -, that left me speechless, and that gave me chills and excitement, something I did not feel a long time watching a Star Wars movie.
It felt like something new, and set the course for the Star Wars universe.
My favorite Star Wars character even got a cameo, ad it just melt my heart.
Episode 8 is not a homage like The Force Awakens, it is something different, and something fresh. I recommend everyone to watch this masterpiece, but advice fans to keep an open mind.
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I find it odd that people think this movie is so bad. I think it was because viewer's heads were on a swivel the whole time. The expectations for this movie were too simple, original, and based on fan theories. When people didn't get what they wanted, they called it the worst movie ever. I agree I wanted Luke's role to be stronger, Finn and Rose to have a more meaningful part, and a Snoke backstory, but it is what it is. I think because this took a step away from the textbook write up for a Star Wars movie people are hating on it. I am sure if people understand the point of the movie to move forward in the story instead of more cameos and the same lines, there would be much more appreciation. I myself did not like a good number of what happened in the movie, but you have to understand the reasoning behind it and realize that, it had some killer moments in there that made people amazed. I hate how this is tearing Star Wars fandom apart, but there will never be satisfaction. TFA was too similar to the originals, and it was criticized, now the TLJ is not that similar to the original, and is being criticized. Just recognize the good aspects of both and lets wait until 9. Assuming J.J. doesn't screw that up.
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What surprised me was the reviews written by haters who are disappointed in the new direction of this SW film. People who like this film give good score but not wasting time writing review to back while heartbroken haters do. The rating is 7.8 but the reviews are mostly written by shallow-mind fanboys whose masturbating fantasy is the old SW with only white main characters.
What I love about this film is the originality in both the script and choices of characters. The subplot of black guy and asian average-looking girl fighting against discrimination and suppression in the damned reality utopia dominated by the superriches is impressive and daring. These are plain fact even in our current world and if some hollow-headed fans dont want it in their masturbating fantasy franchise and pretend these shouldnt be addressed then its genuinely sad.
The message in this exceptionally original film is LOVE that transcends good and evil, rather binds them together in the way only human can perceive. Rey felt something for the unforgiven Ren despite his evil, Rose told Fin the reason for the fight is not the eradicate the haters but to protect the love ones.
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8/10
The Future of the Franchise, But Uncomfortable for Fans.
The Last Jedi feels alien, out of place in the Star Wars universe we have come to love for a number of reasons. This perception is what is driving Star Wars fans to come out against the film and as a dyed-in-the-wool Star Wars fan myself, I found myself initially in agreement. The movie- as a fan- made me feel... uncomfortable. As I walked out of the theater, I was annoyed by the films total lack of resolution for some of the questions its predecessor asked, but even more irritated by the fact that some of those questions that we fans were puzzling over- making dozens of theories over- were seemingly tossed carelessly out the window.
At first, I was convinced that these deliberate decisions for the movie were made to intentionally make The Last Jedi the anti-Empire Strikes Back. We had heard enough that The Force Awakens was nothing but a rehash of A New Hope that I could easily see the tastemakers at Disney saying, "They want different? We'll give 'em different!" But an odd thing happened. The more time passed, the more I began to understand what the director, Rian Johnson, was going for until I was convinced that the movie was actually genius, that it was my own expectations that nearly ruined a wonderful movie for myself.
I can virtually guarantee that every Star Wars fan- including myself!- wanted the following: an all-powerful Jedi Master Luke Skywalker battling his nephew with an epic lightsaber dual, a jaw-dropping reveal on Rey's parentage, a tearful goodbye to Princess Leia and for Finn and Poe to become full-on heroes of the rebellion.
Instead, Luke becomes a hermit who closes himself off from the Force, Rey's parents are nobody, Leia survives, Finn fails his first major test as a hero and Poe makes a near disastrous mistake that almost ends up destroying the Resistance. But all of these things are for a reason.
Luke closes himself off not just because he is a major reason Ben Solo goes to the Dark Side, he closes himself off because he knows the truth: the Jedi, the system that had been put in place to prevent something like the Empire had failed, not once, but twice in the span of a few decades. All of this was due to Jedi adhering to the old ways; old ways that even Master Yoda knows must go. Starting fresh is the only way to bear unspoiled fruit.
This is demonstrated with Rey. Rey is a new beginning, and exactly what the light side of the Force needs: someone who can touch the dark side, but is not afraid of it. As someone who is unburdened by the failures of the old system, Rey can create a whole new system, a whole new Jedi Order, unbound by the thousands of years of baggage that the old Order was saddled with. If she were trained by Luke properly, she'd be as much of a tool of the old Order as he had become.
The Last Jedi is filled with these moments and it begs the fans: let go. Stop with the expectations and just enjoy where the movie takes you.
It also contains a stark reminder: you can't go back home again.
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8/10
A Disturbing Lack Of Faith From Those Who Believe themselves To Be Fans
From reading the rest of the reviews here it seems the Star Wars fan base (Possibly a very vocal minority) have watched the film and looked to find all the faults they possibly can, attributing their own interpretation as Canon. I love Star Wars and I loved The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi to me felt quite distant from the fan service nature of TFA and Rogue One and while both were excellent films I feel Rian Johnson's take on this Chapter of the Saga was fresh and served a strong story and a great 2nd film. By no means is this film without fault, I felt the Dreadnaught 'Chase' and subplot on the Canto Bight were quite forced and took away from the pacing of the movie, if it were more involved with Rey's journey I would be happier but alas it only intersected in the end. I wish there was more to Snoke than what happened although I am now more invested in the journey Kylo is taking through this story. The redemption in this film for me was in fact Luke Skywalker and the interaction of the old and the new, it seems many fans are failing to understand that their interpretation was not the one Rian went with and his situation isn't what they wanted but I enjoyed all the moments he had on screen and was happy as a Star Wars fan to simply enjoy what was there. I could understand people not enjoying parts of this film but to rate it 1-3 stars is a joke. It had all the character of the previous films and took it in a different direction, people complained TFA was too similar and now TLJ is too different, with a franchise this big you cannot win but for me I cannot wait for the next instalment and the culmination of what both JJ and Johnson have created because while everyone is not happy with the way this turned out they need to take a step back and appreciate the decisions which have been made, trust in the filmmakers and just as we believed in George on the original trilogy believe in Johnson on this because we only understand the universe as far as the films and this is what we have to work off of.
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A highly enjoyable movie going experience in a Star Wars gift box .
This is not going to go the way you think....
The lights dim, the certification screen appears ... followed by the twinkling Lucasfilm .
It is happening ... a new Star Wars film continuing the story that started since before I was born & Luke Skywalker is in it .
The familiar fanfare & crawl .. not a whiff of trade taxation routes in sight . So far so good .. the crawl basically tells us what happened in The Force Awakens.
It starts off with a bang , straight into a space battle , Poe Dameron character introduction by brazenly flying straight ahead & requesting to be put through to General Hux & a jokey exchange ensued . It felt like a strange start to go straight for the humour , this movie is full of the unexpected though with a lot of what was set up in Force Awakens answered , albeit unexpectedly.
There is then a sacrifice of one of the bombers lives .. (the last remaining bomber) the sister of the character Rose who we meet later . This was a powerful scene & the sacrifice of her life to destroy the dreadnought is mirrored at the end of the movie by Rose . This battle shows the recklessness of Poe , who wants to shoot first & ask later .
Then we are introduced to the Mysterious Snoke who manages to rag doll Hux through a hologram (he gets thrown about a lot in this instalment)
Turns out while the resistance may have taken out the Dreadnought they were actually now being tracked by the First order . After resistance makes a jump to lightspeed they realise that the first order can now track them through jumps , so it would be a waste of fuel to continue to jump .
This makes up one of the main plot lines & is also the one with most plot holes , it felt like the first order could have taken out the resistance ship much sooner by simply calling on more ships & heading them off .
The first order plan is to simply wear them down & pick them off one by one until the main ship runs out of fuel. So basically a car chase in space where both were travelling same speed & just waiting on the tank to get empty .
The other part that bothered me watching it was the side quest that Finn & Rose went on . Whilst getting chased through the Galaxy by a massive imperial .. ahem first order starship .. it is possible to zip away unnoticed to another planet to find a code breaker , they managed to free some slaves & the animals used for racing ,get arrested & thrown in jail , meet Benicio Del Toro character DJ who just happens to be a code breaker & also seemingly could have escaped himself at any time .perhaps he was waiting there for his next mark .
They can go in this whole side mission to another planet & get back to the resistance ship & then still carry out the main part of the mission which entails getting aboard Snokes ship to destroy the tracking . Phew ... this whole mission was a failure & resulted in more people dying later due to being double crossed by DJ . This whole section could have been cut or trimmed extensively.. story wise it would have been avoided by Laura Derns character , Holdo , being a bit more forthcoming with the plan .. but then Finn wouldn't have anything to do.
It turns out that the plan was to sneak away when they were as close as possible to the old rebel base on Crait.
One of the most anticipated scenes from the intentionally misleading red herring trailer was Kylo Ren training his sights on his Mother's ship (General Leia) He decided against it .. but his wingmen has other ideas & opened fire .
Cue Leia being blown into space & seemingly killed . It felt that it was a possibility at this point that Kylo could save her & maybe begin his redemption arc towards the light ... but no .. Leia used the force to pull herself back to the ship. It did seem odd to watch this but there was no gravity & wouldn't have taken much force to nudge in the right direction .
Questions & answers-
Rey & Luke
What everyone was waiting for . What happens next after Rey hands Luke the lightsaber ... it was completely unexpected , he threw it over his shoulder & wandered off . This isn't the Luke Skywalker we were looking for .. he is old grumpy & doesn't seem too interested in the Jedi or the ways of the force . This whole section draws parallels with the Empire Strikes Back , when Luke goes to find Yoda.
Who is Rey's parents ?
They are nobody .. not Skywalker or Kenobi .. it is revealed by Ben Solo that Rey parents sold her when she was young & were never coming back . This is an important message of this film that you don't need to have Royal blood to be special. It is mirrored by the ending scene of the slaves on the Casino planet using the force & showing the symbol of the resistance . I got the impression that Kylo Ren knew something in the force awakens when he force chokes the commander " WHAT GIRL"
The same goes for Snoke .. all of the theories were out of the window as he was killed mid way through . No real answers to find , however that does make it more real .. the more the characters are connected the smaller the universe becomes . Think Anakin building C-3PO as an example .
The standout moments were Luke meeting with R2D2... it was a short scene but it was instant childhood right there , the old grizzly Luke melted away & he was the farm boy from tatooine. R2 also sucker punched him by showing the first clip of Leia "Help me Obi wan Kenobi ..your my only hope"
The throne room scene with Rey Ben & Snoke . Kylo says "I know what has to be done ..." mirroring TFA scene with Han.
& he kills Snoke . An amazing lightsaber battle folllowed with Reylo fighting side by side & for while it lasted it was amazing . It seemed he was Ben Solo again...
Then the old "join me & we will rule together " happened & they were back to being Rey & Kylo , Ben Solo was gone .
Yoda appeared as a force ghost & it was amazing . It was the crazy Yoda of old . "Patience Young Skywalker"
The whole film was tense and full of twists & a lot of great moments .
The final showdown between Kylo & Luke was interesting as it showed the force being used in a way that I haven't really seen before . When Luke showed up I knew something was up as he looked younger & had shorter (and darker) hair .
I turned to my wife & was like "why is Luke young?"
They had a short battle , mostly dodges by Luke & Luke said ala Obi wan . "If you strike me down in hate I will always be with you ."
The final shot of Luke when it's revealed he isn't actually there on Crait & is actually force projecting was amazing & a great callback to Star Wars with Luke looking out to the twin sunset & then disappeared like Yoda.
Luke must return as a force ghost in ep9 especially since Carrie Fisher will not be in it .
The acting was great by all involved , in reflection it wasn't as tight as the force awakens. The side mission was really what let it down for me , any time that was happening I wanted to get back to see what was happening elsewhere . There was a great scene at the final battle though where Finn was going to sacrifice himself to save everyone & at the last minute was saved by Rose . This mirrors the sacrifice earlier by Rose sister .
Some are rating this as the worst Star Wars film ,lower than Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones .
I would place this (if forced) just under TFA
Side note Porgs are better than Ewoks
Here is my order
Empire
New Hope
ROTJ
TFA
TLJ
ROTS
AOTC
TPM
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I gave this movie a 9 and am going to complain about it. I absolutely hated TFA. Everything about it was Lame. On this movie, I get the complaints and I get that the casting was over the top racist with 100% of the bad guys being moronic white dudes. It's totally ok to be offended by this as it is kinda a jerk move. I just rolled my eyes at this and enjoyed the movie. That being said, this is the first Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi that I did not know what was going to happen. It was a totally original script that really developed Poe and Rey and Finn. I still think they are making Kylo and the first order look totally weak and incompetent which is taking away from their impact on the film. These new star war flicks really need to step up and make a bad ass villain because the bad guys now are kinda dopey.
What they did to Luke is absolutely terrible and I was hurt that they took him out of the series. I'm just assuming he will come back somehow, some way. I couldn't stand Jar Jar Binks Finn from TFA but in this movie I really really liked him. He came across as a smart, brave and heroic character. Rey is coming along just fine. Princess Leah is my least favorite character from the old films so of course they are keeping her instead of Han and Luke, the fan favorites.
Even with all of my complaints, I still enjoyed the movie. My kids who didn't like the first movie were excited at the end. They kept asking if that kid with the ring on his hand at the end was going to be a jedi. I let them down gently and said "no" because the boy would grow up to be a white male which means odds are he will join the first republic. Totally joking. I really left the movie sad but satisfied and excited to see what happens next.
BTW more complaints... I didn't think the acting was great, nor did I think the CGI especially on Snoke was good. Yoda looked kinda cool and awkward like the puppet from the original. I liked him better like that.
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I feel compelled to explain why I think SW: The Last Jedi deserves far better than the staggering number of 1-star reviews and why I think it's genuinely a pretty good movie (though not without caveats).
Let me go ahead and give my concessions right away, because there is some merit to all the hate on this film.
There are some pretty annoying deus ex machinas sprinkled throughout the film (seemingly unfeasible rescues for the sake of the plot). There is absolutely some poorly written dialogue, and if you're older than 13 you will probably cringe at a couple of lines. I don't think the fan service was at all excessive, but the clear merchandising (what purpose did those cute puffin creatures serve?) was too obvious. I did not find the emotional depth to be at the level we the audience probably expected, and finally, I found some of the characters to be not nearly as likable as they were intended.
So what made this movie good? Everything else.
The storyline, for starters, was new, inventive, and for the most part compelling. I completely disagree with people saying it was difficult to follow, because it simply wasn't; that's something Disney has gotten very good at. There are unpredictable twists throughout the movie and most of them are exciting and bring a fresh feel to the franchise, to the point to where The Last Jedi FEELS different from a classic SW movie. I think this is okay. People saying Luke Skywalker would never behave the way he did; how would you know? More than 30 years have passed since we've last seen him, and the writers had plenty of creative freedom with writing him which I think they used well. I'm not a big fan of Finn personally, but I still liked most of the new cast, and I enjoyed how they incorporated Leia, Chewy, 3PO and R2 (and a surprise visitor in the 3rd act) into the story.
Additionally, the visual FX were incredible, but did you expect anything less? The battles were tense and thrilling, the space scenes are lovely to watch (esp. a particular hyperspace jump), and I loved the many, MANY new creatures introduced, with the exception of the useless puffins. My sense of wonder was piqued, and we even get to see a few new worlds. The musical score was beautiful, albeit less memorable than the older John Williams music. The acting was fine; not excellent, but not terrible.
Back to the feel of the movie. Compare the 1980s Mad Max movies to 2015's Fury Road. Or, maybe, the 1960-70s Planet of the Apes movies to the 2010 ones. Do they have the same "feel"? Of course not. Movies change over time, as do their audiences. I don't watch new SW films to feel the way I do when watching the Original Trilogy, I watch for the stories, the characters, the creatures and the awe, and there was more than enough of that to keep me coming back. I think Rian Johnson and the Disney staff that worked on this film had an impossible task: Create a movie that will please all Star Wars fans. I guarantee if this movie was near perfect, plenty of the angry 1-star reviews would still proliferate, because that's what fans with their own vision of the franchise do.
So trust me when I say that this movie is worth seeing. Is it perfect? No. We could have done without a lot of the poor dialogue and obnoxious merchandising. I'm sad that this will probably continue into the next film(s). But that being said, SW: TLJ was epic, riveting, beautiful, and fresh, and it's not going to go the way you think.
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You don't need to read pages of reviews, this movie is terrible. no spoilers here, just suffice it to say it's a terrible Star Wars film, fans should stay 'far, far, away', and it's a pretty mediocre film in general. This is nothing but another Disney vehicle to make the quickest buck and to push an agenda, having 'Star Wars' attached to the title is practically incidental. There is nothing here whatsoever that will get you excited, either the critics are all high, or were paid very handsomely for their cooperation. This is a disaster, a joke, a slap in the face, not just to star Wars fans or to George Lucas, but to the art of film making itself, possibly to rational human thought. I can't imagine even small children enjoying this, and I would never subject my own children to something so completely bereft of any redeeming qualities.
Do yourself a favor and watch the OT or prequels instead and pretend the Disney acquisition never happened, as Disney seems intent on pretending that nothing happened before this tripe - they seem to think that they invented Star Wars rather than bought it outright from the creative people that deserve all the credit and who should be rightfully throwing up in their popcorn buckets. TLJ is a baaaaad, folks. They will not get another penny from me, and there are plenty of worthy film makers out there that still have brains and heart that deserve your money more, too.
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6/10
Very Shaky Start Still Leads to a Satisfying Second Half From Amateur Writer Rian Johnson
What made Rogue One: A Star Wars Story so compelling is that is was a superbly written, ORIGINAL story. It masterfully filled the small gap before "A New Hope," and that was largely what made most fans love the film.
The Last Jedi is, yet, another rehash of borrowed elements from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I guess Rian Johnson didn't have the writing chops to come up with an original story. His story also shows a lack of consistency with characterization, depth, unnecessary plot elements, and a lack of even basic scientific knowledge.
Still, what ultimately keeps this film from failing miserably, rests in its ability to be largely unpredictable and a second-half that really steps things up nicely.
The story takes place right after the events of the last film. Leia is fleeing the First Order fleet after taking decimating losses, and a last ditch counterattack depletes their numbers even more.
In one scene, Leia is blown out of the bridge of her ship, seen floating in space apparently dead. After minutes of exposure to the vacuum of space, she is able to get herself back to the ship. Now, we have to assume that some elements of the Force is the only thing that kept her alive. Of course, we're given no explanation as to how she survived, given that a person can only survive for up to a minute, and even if rescued, would suffer severe damage and trauma..
We're given a very weak premise that the remaining ships of the Resistance, are able to stay "just ahead" of the pursuing fleet of the First Order. Rian Johnson shows his primitive writing skills again. Anyone with even the most basic tactical knowledge would have easily solved this "problem." The First Order could have easily jumped in and surrounded the Resistance, and thus, destroy them quite easily and simply. Johnson sacrifices basic knowledge for the sake of keeping his weak plot in place. And so, it fails across the board.
Meanwhile, Rey is on an island with a bitter Luke Skywalker, who refuses to even use the Force anymore because he is wracked with guilt over what happened with Kylo Ren. He's moody, sullen, and even hostile toward her. Again, this demonstrates that Rian Johnson knows next-to-nothing about the character of Luke. While it's not outside the realm of possibility that Luke would be wracked with guilt, it's highly unlikely that a man devoted to the mastery of the Force, would still retain much of the wisdom acquired from his long years of training and focus. Instead of finding a middle ground, where Luke demonstrates his mastery, but underneath, is still touched with guilt, would have serviced the character even better. Rian Johnson had no clue about how to go about this, and even Mark Hamill himself protested the direction and handling of his character.
The entire premise of Finn and Rose running off to find someone who can breach the First Order ship is ridiculous, boring, and uninteresting.
Still, the second half of the film (maybe the last third) with Rey falling for Snoke's trick and manipulation, the battle between the remaining forces and the First Order, and the final confrontation between Luke and Kylo Ren are done very well. These elements literally save this movie from being a failure.
It's sad that we didn't get Lawrence Kasdan or someone who actually knows how to write, to handle the script. Rian Johnson should not be allowed to write or direct the last chapter. He just doesn't know what he's doing.
Overall, the movie is still fun, entertaining, and ultimately isn't as bad as The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, but it's already the weakest entry of this last trilogy.
Take note that anyone who gives this film only one star is likely a kid or someone who is completely clueless about how to rate anything. I've been watching films for over 40 years, and I can only think of a handful of films that I've ever given one star. This basically means that there was NOTHING that you liked; NOTHING that worked at all for you. Beware of these so-called "reviewers." They are as capable of reviewing films as chickens are at ballroom dancing.
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8/10
a welcome return to the thematically challenging and irrevocable story turns of the original trilogy
The Last Jedi is easily my favorite Star Wars film outside of the original trilogy (I'm a huge OT fan). When I saw the disparity between the glowing professional reviews and the damning fan reviews I expected to side with those who hated the film but in the end I thought the good FAR outweighed the bad. Yes, it suffered from lots of cringe inducing over-the-top moments, some generic Marvel-esque production values at points, and 45 minutes of distracting subplot, but it's core (the other 105 minutes which contained the major plot points) was magic, the simple and elegant story of Luke Skywalker and his two students, one representing momentous regrets and the other representing the possibility of redemption.
A note about the depth of some people's dislike for this film:
I hope that some of those who hated The Last Jedi are not so much reacting to the film's level of quality (though it's deeply imperfect) but more going through the stages of loss that the story itself intentionally and rightfully engenders: denial, anger, grief etc, and that some of these fans will end up changing their minds and having the deepest and most hard-won connection with this film (much the way I hated Return of the King at first for having Bilbo go senile and then later loved it as one of the few tales that recognizes and affirms the depth of life's imperfection). Sadly it's hard for stories that require long processing like this, to even exist in an age of test audiences and instant social media feedback. At any rate my fear is that from now on sequels might be dictated by the internet mob and that will be lame.
So yeah, story-wise, The Last Jedi returned to the irrevocably forward moving and self questioning spirit of the original trilogy but in order to do so, it had to decisively depart from the spirit of both the prequels and The Force Awakens and I understand why that may have alienated some fans. I also understand why some would interpret the film's philosophical questioning of Star Wars past as SJW cultural vandalism given the deep tribal distrust that characterizes this decade (in 2017 when a character is tragically humbled we tend to take that as an attack on the character's demographic group rather than a statement about the human condition). But personally I thought the film's self questioning was very much in the spirit of the original trilogy and of good drama in general. It didn't ignore, undermine, or mock the message of earlier Star Wars films, it took it seriously and showed another side which makes Star Wars more whole.
Some notes on me so you'll know whether my taste is relevant to your own:
As I mentioned I'm a HUGE fan of the original trilogy. and I've been disappointed buy every single Star Wars movie since then. My other favorite movies are Andrei Rublev, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2001, Gummo, Back to the Future, and Gimme Shelter (the Stones documentary).
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This review will contain spoilers, if you do not want spoilers, then do not read. I will attempt to keep this short
I went to see this movie with a group of friends, and we all loved it. Even one of my non fanboy friends who came with us thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It was fun, different and not what you will expect from a star wars movie. Rian did a great job, the acting was brilliant, the visuals were stunning and John Williams score was on point (as always).
I found the plot fun and interesting, there were, however, things that I have an issue with.
SPOILERS START HERE!
Smiles death seemed anticlimactic, this is my only real problem with the movie. Andy Serkis said that Smoke was stronger than Palpatine and Vader, and yet his death seemed all to quick, and all too pointless.
Other than that, this movie was amazing in my opinion, I'd say probably third best star wars movie.
To all those who are hating on this movie, and believe Star Wars will soon end, well.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing"
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An unpopular opinion, indeed. When I first looked upon this thread, I was honestly shocked by the amount of people who are bashing this movie, claiming it is the worst one of the franchise and that it "killed Star Wars". I believe the sole reason why many hate this installment is that it is different from what we've seen before. Star Wars fans are well-known for their incapability to accept new ideas, or to look past the original three movies. That is why so many enjoyed The Force Awakens, for it was a cheap copy of the original. The Last Jedi, on the other hand, features a whole new approach, which non-fanboy fans will find more than entertaining. The sheer amount of symbolism and recurrent elements in this movie make it much more that a regular Star Wars. The numerous plot twists were among my favorite things about this movie, including the "much-hated" reveal of Rey's identity. Fans are used to this childish mindset that things are supposed to happen a certain way. She uses the Force so powerfully, than she MUST be a Skywalker. She speaks in a British accent, therefore she MUST be a Kenobi (or Palpatine). What they do not realize is that...the Galaxy is huge. Trillions upon trillions of sentient, force-sensitive beings. I, personally, really enjoyed the fact that Rey was shown to be a "nobody", proving therefore that the Force is not tied up to bloodlines, but can be found anywhere in the universe, even in the most unexpected places. This is, actually, the whole point of this movie, along with symbolically suggesting to not keep looking back, but rather forward. The originals exist, were amazing and will always be there. But, it is time for us to move on, and add new, wonderful concepts and ideas never explored before to the Star Wars universe.
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I had a few issues with the other 7 Star Wars movies but very few compared to this film. First massive issue is the sub plot, surely going very slow in space isn't the best they could come up with? Second was the other sub plot, Canto Bight looked cool but the story of Finn and Rose there was boring. I like Finn and I didn't mind Rose but give them something more interesting to do. Other issues with this film : 1. I like Rey but we still don't know why she's even force sensitive or why we should invest in her character, 2. Kylo is the more interesting character and he is under used the whole film. 3. Luke is far to different to the old films, his character change makes no sense. 4. light speed crash made no sense to the lore of Star Wars, why would you need a death star if you could crash a ship into a planet? 5. Snoke, if he is actually dead I have a huge problem with the scene, why build up a character to get rid of them for no reason, this isn't game of thrones... 6. most of the "jokes" human characters made are totally out of place. 7. super Leia - could have made sense but they didn't explain how she could do that... 8. Luke's dead made no sense.
For things that I enjoyed : 1. porgs, using cute bird things to break up the mood was a decent way to do it. 2. Kylo + Rey vs Praetorian Guard's - fight was great, only wish it was longer. 3. Poe's fight against the dreadnought, added to the story that Poe is the best pilot. 4. Yoda scene, loved old school Yoda, 5. Luke vs Kylo - great display of power on Luke's part
Overall I think it is the weakest Star Wars film of any so far, however they do have room to fix at least a few of the bad parts by explaining them away in the last movie. However a lot of the action was great plus music, practical effects and CGI are always on point with Star Wars
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I can't believe how much some people hate this movie. I am a long-time hardcore fan (and I really mean hardcore) and I just don't recognize either the Star Wars mythos or facts in most of the negative I read.
The Last Jedi is actually a pretty good movie. Great acting, great action, moving ending. No 'uncanny valley' CGI characters with their revolting lack of humanity, but flesh and blood ones whom you can reasonably relate to and care about (as opposed to the blank sheets we got in Rogue One).
I felt the movie was even true to Luke! How can self proclaimed hardcore fans ignore so many facts about Luke that they would find this version to be violating the character's integrity? Like the fact that Luke started off as a whiny, emotional, self-doubting and impulsive kid? Sure he has grown and defeated the Emperor and all that, but surely he can't have changed the core of who he really is, can he? Like the fact that his being emotional is what briefly opened him to the Dark Side in ROTJ (when Luke let the Dark Side control his actions so he could defeat his father and protect his sister). So we know that Luke, while a good and noble person at heart, can sometimes be tempted by the Dark Side. So what exactly is new or shocking about him not wanting his legacy and status as a living legend to be destroyed by a kid he knows is going to betray and kill so many? Or about the fact that, disgusted with himself for so obviously failing Ben and himself, he chooses to disappear and shut himself off from the Force? Luke was always a person who, at times, let his emotions get the better of him, so why should that have changed exactly ?
I thought the ending was cool; sure, Luke dies, but who doesn't? And he dies fighting and saving his friends; isn't that the best possible way to go for him ? And I just loved the binary sunset reference.
And really guys, really, you want Lucas back ? Someone once wrote about Star Wars that it succeeded in spite of Lucas, and frankly I have to agree. When you consider the amount of help and guidance he received for the first movie (which ended up far better than his original teenager gibberish screenplay), there is no doubt that Lucas, left to his own devices, would never have been be up to the task of creating this mythology. He took advice and help from the likes of John Milius for the writing, his wife Marcia for the editing, and even Steven Spielberg to bring his vision to the screen. He hired John Dykstra for the special effects. He got massive help from seasoned actors (something he would sorely miss in the prequels) to inform their characters so they would escape the tragically boring and/or ridiculous versions Lucas had in store for them. Peter Cushing knew how to play a villain long before Lucas tried to tell him how to. Alec Guinness fought hard to make Obi-Wan relatable in spite of what seemed like incomprehensible dialogue. Harrison Ford went famously on the record recounting 'Georges, you can write this stuff, but you can't say it'. Han is cool because Ford is, not because Lucas wrote him that way. And then Lucas went on to delegate directing the Empire and ROTJ to talented directors who each contributed to the Star Wars universe in their own way (so really, nothing new here either). Lucas' s most prominent talent was never writing (as sadly exemplified by the prequels). It was surrounding himself with talents who were compatible with his half-baked vision so they could inform it.
And all that stuff about the now-dead extended universe and Snoke?
First of all, who cares who Snoke was; he was an ugly, twisted villain (brilliantly rendered, BTW). That is pretty much all you need to know for the story to function. Only Lucas would insist on fleshing out villains for three entire movies only to (need I remind you) turn them so abruptly and ridiculously into the final versions of themselves we know and love to hate. Snoke was bad, came from bad, and died a hubris-led death. His value to the story isn't so much who he was as it is to allow emotional, unbalanced Ben to finally come into his own.
As for the extended universe, could there be a more conservative approach to the legacy of Star Wars ? Married couple gets three children while Jolly Uncle Luke gets his new school up and running. Give me a break. That's 'Little House on the Prairie' stuff. Real life is messy. People split up, even when you know they are meant to be together. Kids turn bad sometimes, even they seem to have everything going for them. Nobodies do achieve - thank God for that! To say that only Skywalker blood is worthy of screen time is nepotism. The Force can be strong with many. Force-sensitive kids are a fixture of the Star Wars universe. Even powerful ones ! Look at Obi Wan, for instance. He wasn't too shabby a Jedi Knight, was he? In fact, he was so good he took the 'chosen one', didn't he? So why should Rey have to be a Skywalker ? Somehow I don't see the Force being that big on genealogy (as opposed to, say, something biological and quantifiable like Midi-chlorians. I read somewhere that introducing them into the Star Wars universe was controversial. It wasn't. Midi-chlorians suck. No controversy here).
All in all, the Last Jedi delivers. Sure, there are plot holes big enough to swallow entire planets, but what Star Wars movie hasn't got its fair share of that? Star Wars isn't about plot. The first movie was about a farm boy rescuing a princess from the clutches of an evil Dark Knight with the help of a wizard, a pirate, two servants and a magical sword. Not exactly original or mind-bending as far as plots go. And as for plot holes, we take it for granted nowadays, but back in 1977 the sole concept of the Force made people go 'whaaaaat?'. The Force is the mother or all plot hole fixers. It conveniently makes practically anything possible. To protect a spacecraft from incoming laser bolts ? Check. To create diversions so you can cut off the tractor beam ? Check. Becoming 'One with the Force' and turning into a ghost ? Check.
Some viewers make such a big deal out of Luke Force-projecting halfway across the galaxy and dying of exhaustion as a result. How is that any worse than not dying at all ? Shouldn't existing on two different planes of existence/reality be much more difficult to achieve and therefore a lot harder to believe ? Apparently not.
No, Star Wars isn't about plot. It is first and foremost supposed to be fun. The Jedi, the Force, the cycle of life and death, light and darkness, and cool space ships and jokes. I remember how the first Star Wars was fun to watch. How Empire was tense and full of that 'WTF just happened ?' factor. How ROTJ was nice, tidy and familiar, albeit sad. That's what Star Wars is and should remain: an emotional roller coaster. The young fighting the good fight, while the old inevitably die trying to help them. Like in real life, only cooler.
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8/10
Not without imperfection, but vastly better then some are complaining about.
First off, there are huge holes in this story line, in additional not all the written story script and lines fit together nicely.
There are supposed to be parallels and new lessons, but sometimes, they are nonsensical at best, the galaxy seems tired of war, in fact it mostly seems like they would prefer most of the rebels to go away, while in the old films, it was a story of liberty versus totalitarianism, there is no subtle hints about it here, there was more berating over war profiteering then standing up against the first order dictatorship regime.
The scenes and sequences between Adam Driver and Daisy Ridleys Kylo and Rey are fairly resplendent, in fact without the two of them, the movie falls fairly flat, not wholly the fault of the actors, the story is the main culprit, where the first movies, are a series of extraordinary heroic events tied together with a faith that the force will eventually set a balance again, the series of events that happens in the movie seem, well odd at best.
The second tag story line between Poe, Finn and the new addition of Rose, goes no where, but its half the movie by itself, each of the characters actually work well, it was the story that let them down, hard, the final fight between Finn and Captain Phasma, seems very anti-climatic. You say to yourself after thier parts are done.. like, why did they bother? that was the best they could come up with?
Mark Hamill, is fairly dark comedic in this story line, by himself and the moments pin pointing this new aspect of his, worked fine. Where it did not work, was Mark Hammill playing Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master.. this was my take on that "Dude is seriously messed up, the sum of his whole existence was that he is a whiny brat, who going through a series of events, learns nothing and feels like his 18 old petulant self from movie 1, age, experience , patience, shouldve have thought him a few lessons by now " Again, was it his take, or was the script calling for a deeply angst and angry Skywalker.. I do not know, but it didnt play well.
Carrie Fisher, was just a afterthought in this movie, she mostly tried to reign in the irascible (but well played) Oscar Issacs Poe character, who is brash,arrogant at times and bold. But overall, she spends most of the movie in a coma , meh.
There are other minor characters, but they do not add that much overall to the story , in fact Vice Adamirals Holdo played by Laura Dern, was kind of off putting, she had a plan, she had no reason to share it per say, but , really, overall it was a unnecessary character, I dont want to pin that on Laura Dern per se, it was just a superfluous character, giving screen time, that had no overriding prerogative to be in the story line, all of her story, could've just been done by Carrie Fisher, if the elected not to put her in a coma.
But again.. these detract , but do not necessarily destroy everything good about the film, its Kylos and Reys galaxy now, everyone else doesn't shine as bright in the film, either via bad story telling, bad writing, or incorrect methodology from the actors to bring them around. That is ok, at least the two main stars carry most of it.
Worth the watch and re-watch a few times to get it all in.
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Incredible, beautiful, and daring. I love it when they get me out of the comfort zone with such mastery. Star wars needed this episode. I hope more surprises and more Rian Johnson!
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I don't normally bother reviewing movies. But I really enjoyed this instalment, am very much looking forward to the final instalment, and suspect that there are further twists in store that will change our perspective of this movie.
I thought the movie was visually stunning, particularly the scenes on the salt planet at the end with the red on white. I was genuinely engaged from beginning to end. Yes, it's a different story than the one we've been imagining for decades, but there is something powerful in the idea than it's not always happy ever after.
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Let me just start by saying that I am 43 years old, so Star Wars has been a huge part of my life since I can remember. I didn't get a chance to see this movie until Tuesday, so I read some of the user reviews on IMDB and they scared me. I just didn't think I could endure another Phantom Menace, and that's what the user reviews had me thinking this was.
I really think people went into this movie with expectations about questions that were going to be answered and things that were going to happen. Get over it, this was a bold, ambitious movie by Rian Johnson and he did an excellent job. From the very beginning to the very end, this was a Star Wars movie through and through. All of the negative reviewers need to see this movie again. But so yourself a favor, drop all of your expectations about what you thought this movie was going to be, and enjoy it for what it is - one of the best Star Wars movies ever.
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I liked The Force Awakens although I felt it was made for the Star Wars fan only, but after I was eagerly awaiting for came next, this is the first time where a Star Wars takes place shortly after the last story, like The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi where filmed back to back.. Also eagerly waiting to see Mark Hamill return has the Iconic character Luke Skywalker, and does not disappoint.
And another iconic Star Wars character makes an appearance, I won't say who. Mark Hamill gives an incredible performance has Luke Skywalker, has an older and broken down Jedi. The late Great Carrie Fisher really shines has Leia, in one scene has a force moment that will make go WOW. Daisy Ridley is great as Rey, so was John Boyega as Finn. But Adam Driver really takes the cake a Kylo Renn/Ben Solo, playing it has very torn conflicted. Writer and Director Rian Johnson shows his love for Star Wars here, but does not try to make it to fan based, it's not predicable or clichéd like you expect a Star Wars film to be, it will surprise you. Battle scenes are more epic than ever.
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9/10
Dear butthurt, and apparently the only 'real' Star Wars fans out there
I really wanted to write a review, as this movie is getting way too much negative attention, in my opinion.
Listen, the new Star Wars movies, "The Force Awakens", "Rogue One" and now also "The Last Jedi", aren't ever going to be like the original trilogy you grew up with, and at the end of the day that's what's bothering you.
The Last Jedi brought us a movie you could expect, considering what has been going on with the Star Wars movies during the last two decades, and what's generally happened in the movies industry. It had pretty much every side of a great movie: outstanding effects, talented actors, emotion, humor, a bit of love, which i agree, was a little out of place, and lastly lots of action, bringing you to the edge of your chair.
What makes the original movies great, in the eyes of mostly the original fans, is the whole feeling about it. The three original episodes brought a strong female leader, the friendship of two main characters, that also inspired a feeling of unity at the times, from what I've read (wasn't born back then). Look, I too like the original movies a lot, and they will always be the centre of the story, but don't start crying about how awful the new ones are, before admitting that the old movies have flaws too, because that is the hard truth.
A lot of the hateful comments towards the new ones are for example, that The Force Awakens looked too much like A New Hope. Well, sure it had, maybe a little too many elements, identical to the old one, but my thought was, that in order to continue the saga, they had to lay basis for it, and my personal opinion is, that this was a good (not perfect) way to do it. Then, when they went and changed the story, you fall on the floor screaming that whatever different is terrible. Seriously.
I read one of the reviews, saying that the opening scene in The Last Jedi is terrible, due to the detail, that they are out of fuel. Well, compared to the opening scene in A New Hope it simply makes more sense. What, you think the story just randomly begins when the empire catches up with Princess Leia's ship? At least in The Last Jedi we get the context - they're hopelessly outnumbered, and generally out of resources (e.g. fuel, weapons), and that they no longer can hide - Context(!)
Another example of a lack of detail in the original movies, is perhaps one of the most famous quotes: "I am your father". At this point we have established that there is a connection from Vader to Luke and Leia, and although the movies give the well known game-changing plot twist, explaining the relation, they don't tell os how the heck it can be. Not until the much hated prequels, is this matter explained.
And how can Vader sense Luke's presence later in the movies, when he can't sense Leia at the beginning?
Look, all I'm saying is, that maybe the original trilogy isn't as perfect as you like to make it. Maybe you love them so much because the created a magical feeling around you growing up. Well, I can say for a fact, that the new ones are inspiring youngsters today, just like back then, so while you're whining about how awful the new movies are from your 'perfect' point of view, please do let the rest of the world enjoy some excellent Science-Fiction movies.
Personally, I think this movie is among the best Star Wars movies ever made, due to the things before mentioned. I admit, that there are details, that are out of place (romance), as this is a spoiler-free review I won't comment further on that...
Sincerely, a very satisfied Star Wars fan.
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Really bold it made big decisions, the film essentially kills off the Jedi order once and for all (didnt the title give this away?) and although sad it's a fantastic move that nobody saw coming. All good things must come to an end the Jedi order will be reborn again but under a different name and under different rules. They must learn from their mistakes, the Jedi Order essentially created Darth Vader afterall.
The first 45 minutes of the film did make me feel indifferent I will admit but the final 1hr and a half blew me away!
The Comedy.
The comedy really didnt bother me I barely felt like it was much more than the Force Awakens tbh and it never detracted from serious moments.
The scene with Leia.
No problem with whatsoever she's the daughter ofone of the mostpowerful Jedi's to ever exist it was totally in the realms of possibility.
Snoke.
Probably my main gripe is we still dont know who he is, although I did enjoy his character, he was essentially a red herring and his death scene was unexpected. The fight that followed with Rey and Kylo fighting together was great!
I do get the bad reviews I really do and for some this film is a bitter pill to swallow. But this is Star Wars for a new generation out with the old and in with the new. People complained that Force Awakens was too much like the orignal films and asked for something new and different. Well you got both of those things! Go into this film with a open mind and without expectations and hopefully like me you will be transported to a new exciting galaxy far far away!
BRING ON EPISODE 9!
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I was a teenager when the first movie came out and haven't been much of a fan since, but I watched this yesterday and thought it was awsome. My only gripe would be that it looks like Luke snuffed it at the end. Would have been nice to see him in the next one leading the rebels battling Kylo Ren. I can see though how some people may not like the obvious plot hole in the movie, or the questionable actions of some of the characters, but I didn't take it that seriously. After all it's only a movie - if you enjoyed it its good.
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The thing is, I couldn't find a correct critic, because the movie we talk about, is Star Wars, so it can only be super good or super bad. Let me share my own thoughts about The Last Jedi. (No spoilers, HOWEVER I DO SUGGEST EVERYONE, TO WATCH THE MOVIE WITHOUT CRITICS, AND OTHER'S JUDGMENTS):
Things that were bad:
I think we can put the "A little bit too much" label on almost everything, which sadly makes the movie line a little bit jumbled. For example: 1) More characters then it was necessary, and I think they should have give us a deeper knowledge about fewer of them. 2) I also think there was a little bit too much action. Personally, I'd like if the story sometimes just chill a little in the neighboring tavern, or dance with the aliens at Jabba's... 3) A little bit to much moral messages, dramatic moments, but that's also cool at some point 4) A little bit too many adorable... things :D 5) And I'm sure most of you have already guessed this one is coming: Too much jokes. No. No "little bit" here... I mean there were a lot of good jokes, funny moments, which were all in all good, but some times it has no other effect on me, but ruining the dramatic moments, or making me feel embarrassed, uncomfortable. These things has their place in Marvel movies (which by the way I like very much) but not here, and especially not at these moments. It's a waste... without them, it could easily get 9, I may even consider the legendary 10. Why?
The good things:
1) I don't care how many people disappointed in some of the characters but most of them were awesome. Especially (!) those who could use the force. Everything has a meaning on that story line, every character did his or her part magnificently. Everyone had a little dark and light inside of them, and I really think it is a very good message. Even Luke's character became more complexed that way, and yes I liked it it very much. I even accepted that Rey has a base knowledge of the force without training. (Based on episode 7, no spoilers) First of all, she had a raw talent of using it, which I can accept. Second of all I realized it, that she already learnt sword fighting so she might be able to handle a lightsabre. And Kylo Ren was simply amazing. 2) The fighting scenes and battle scenes were truly monumental 3) We have seen many things from the Star Wars universe, which are only known by the gamers, or even new elements, and they were fantastic, I loved to see these things on the movie screen. 4) I think all the jedi got back their long missed dignity and mystery I always thought they should have before the prequels. Like wise mysterious monks hidden on barely known planets, coming only at the time when they are needed, not a bunch of old politician dudes living in a CGI d..k,, swinging glowing rods by the help of their genetically mutated X-men midiclorian genes or whatever...
All in all, yes, this movie certainly has it's dark side, but even if someone disappointed in it as a star wars movie, I cannot understand why giving it a point below 5? Even if I wasn't like it I would give it a higher score, because as a film, it undoubtedly has it's values.
I think if the original trilogy is 9-10, the prequels are 7-8, Then this should be at least seven, but for me (since I liked it) a strong 8.
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Its best Star Warsfree Star Wars after Star Wars and Rogue One. This movie is so stupid. Waiting for Jurassic World Star Wars in 2019 yeeeee, by mister Colin Trevorroooooow !!!
I wish Lucas was still here to winess that... wait, he is ! :D
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I've been a big Star Wars enthusiast since the mid 1980's. And I've greatly enjopyed every single movie. I'm not suffering from a ballooned ego expecting all the movies to be exactly how I feel it should be. And if they're not, I'm not one to expect anyone to owe me anything. I buy my ticket and enjoy the movie. With that said, of course there's things I'd rather have seen happen, or not happen. But at the end of the day it's Star Wars to me.
But I digress.
This movie was dark. Weighed up and balanced neatly with humour. If you expect this movie to be exactly how you dreamed it would be if you're an basement-dwelling neckbeard owning 3 metric tonnes of "Expanded Universe" novels, then tough luck. It won't be. The cinematic universe made it perfectly clear with episode 7 that they would take a new turn. And this is no different.
I absolutely loved how they handled the story. "But Luke Skywalker would never" waah waah this and that, ridiculous. Luke Skywalker drew into exile after Kylo did what he did. Luke was never a perfect Jedi, he had to wing it and reform the Jedi Order after how he felt it best. And it thrived until, well, the moment.
I digress again, my temper is probably not calm enough and I shouldn't even be writing this review in this mood, but I feel I must, after reading so many of the bellyachers spewing their opinions left and right, giving this movie a 1???!!!
The scenography was amazing, the acting was great, music was spot on and I LOVED that the director took information from the old old old tabletop role-playing games and early early novels. I hear people pissing on the scene with LEIA (Not f*cking Leah), calling her Leah makes all your idiotic opinions moot.
Anyways, I'm amazed and very impressed over how much old old old source material they used. Things I've wished they'd show in the movies since before Phantom Menace was released, they did now! And the pacing of the movie was great, they made almost 3 hours feel like 30 minutes. I can't wait to see this movie again, it was really really good.
But what do I know. It's like struggling through quicksand trying to navigate this site these days when all the village idiots are given free reigns to spit their bulls*it
8/10
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It's finally here-- The Last Jedi-- and after two years of waiting, it looks like we got a more than fulfilling result. The film picks up where The Force Awakens ended with Rey, Chewie and R2D2 on Achh-To with Luke and the rest of the Rebels trying to escape from the First Order. It echoes The Empire Strikes Back in some ways, one of them being that it's essentially a story about survival and defence, not attack. The stakes are set high and right from the first scene, we are plunged into action.
The Dark Side, lead by Supreme Leader Snoke is shown getting stronger with each passing second and the Resistance is seen struggling to keep up their fight but hope is kept alive even in the toughest of times. Some early losses in the film set a somber tone and weaken the Resistance fairly, allowing the enemy to take advantage. But the Dark Side isn't perfectly focused either. With an inefficient General and a rather conflicted warrior at the face of it, their decisions don't always seem to be the best (as usual) but due to the sheer power they possess in this film in terms of artillery and manpower, the fight between the two sides makes for an exciting watch.
Talking about conflict, we see it rising in the minds of almost all of the key characters in the film. The many different layers to everyone's psyche are explored and that's always something to love. Kylo, shown previously being torn between the Light and the Dark and having to carry the burden of being his own father's killer is more disturbed than ever and even Rey, tired of not knowing what her lineage is faces some moments of weakness. To add to this, the two are shown to be "connected" by the Force (the reason behind which is later explained) and this just increases the complications. In one rather cathartic scene, we see the possibility of redemption in Kylo but that is short lived and despite an inexplicable bond set up between the two characters, they resume their positions on opposite sides of the battlefield soon afterwards. Luke himself is an old and grumpy man with no interest in what is happening in the galaxy and it takes a fair amount of coaxing and our ever-so-cheeky R2D2, pulling a "cheap trick" in a really sweet throwback moment (you'll see), to get him to agree to train Rey. In a later scene, we see another character from the past, a Jedi Master whose name begins with the second last letter of the alphabet, make a small appearance and it warms our hearts to know that everyone and everything really is connected and those ties remain even after the physical selves cease to exist. However there remains a lot of tension in Luke's mind and a whole lot of back-and-forth about whether or not he should involve himself, even if indirectly, in the war again, takes place there. Haunted by what he believes is his failure as a master and his creation, Kylo Ren, he is never fully committed to what he is doing. We are told how Kylo Ren came to be and why he turned to the Dark. But in the end, Luke, very grandly and in a very unique way, regains his place as a Jedi hero.
One of the dialogues in the film where he tells Rey that things are not going to go as planned runs true through every turn of this movie. Learning from The Force Awakens, this plot was created starkly different. Nothing seems to work out and nothing comes easy. The film has three parallel stories-- one with Luke and Rey, one with Finn and Rose Tico and the other with Poe and Leia trying to protect their army and the plans of all of these people fail when they needed to work the most. Even though it rendered the subplots practically useless and is one of the biggest reasons behind the big divide between the fans and the critics about how the film was (the fans disliking the movie, for a change), it's a take that I liked as it made the story seem more real because not everything goes according to plan in life. Rose is a new addition to the cast and is similar to Finn's character in that she too is an underdog who rises to glory through her will. Some other characters should have been given meatier roles like Maz Kanata and Captain Phasma, whose potentials weren't fully tapped. Hopefully the former shows up more strongly in Episode IX.
One of the biggest questions from the previous installment was about Rey's parents. That is answered but it's not what was expected and even more frustratingly we don't know if it's completely true because we don't see anything play out in any scene, clearly, but instead just hear someone tell her about her family. I wish we'd have been given more of a definite revelation, in this film, like the one from the "I am your father" scene from its twin in the original trilogy. If the answer is true however, it would make the 'force' a more open power-- something that can be wielded by anyone and not just a special group of people.
The film has been made funnier than the others in the saga but in just the right way and only when needed. After all, the events are very grave in nature and emotion rules stronger throughout. Since the story references the past more than The Force Awakens, it reminds us of what used to be and how the lives of the people we know have changed and those ignited memories create just the slightest tinge of nostalgia. Every time the Resistance takes a blow and boy do they take a lot of those, it hurts a bit more because it really does feel like we're losing a part of our family and the fact that the dashing Han Solo is missing doesn't help either. One such loss right at the end was especially heartbreaking. Star Wars just isn't Star Wars without some of the characters that have died recently but I guess that's life. Hopefully this person will return as a force-ghost in the last of this trilogy. The death was beautifully sentimental though as it mirrored one of the very first scenes we ever see of this character, symbolically closing the circle of life, so to speak.
The Resistance is left lessened in number but 'reborn' as Luke says in the end. Their future is uncertain but they are safe, for now, and the final showdown in Episode IX will be one for the ages.
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10/10
Star Wars goes in a completely different direction, but I loved it
So this is my first written review on IMDB, and I have always been someone who scored the odd film but left the comments to others. However the sheer amount of vitriol aimed at this film, its director and Disney has prompted me to add my comments.
Before I get into the review, I watched New Hope at the cinema as a small child, have seen all the films dozens of times and love the series so so much that I do consider myself a die-hard fan.
Star Wars has always been pretty linear and comfortable, and as a fan you always kind of knew where it was headed. Certainly for the prequels, we knew exactly where Palpatine and Anakin were headed, and for a true fan that is quite comforting. Again with Rogue One, we knew the destination and all we wanted to understand was the journey.
The Last Jedi just went in a direction that none of us expected. I am sure many fans like myself expected some big showdown between Snoke and Luke in episode IX, with maybe Kylo turning good at the last moment to save the world, before dying heroically in Rey's arms.
We didnt get this, and what we did get was unexpected, but I loved the fact that Rian Johnson took chances and chose to go against the tried and trusted formula.
Was the film perfect, well no, and there were certain parts that I would have changed. The Finn/Rose mission felt a bit off-key, and maybe one or two of the jokes could have been left out. However there were some stunning scenes in the movie, and I honestly believe the Snoke/Kylo/Rey/Praetorian Guard scenes are up there with the Han Solo carbonite scenes in Empire as the best in the entire series.
The acting in this film, for me, is without doubt the best in the series as well. Mark Hamill and Adam Driver deliver nuanced performances that really show depth of character, rather than the 2d emotional substance that typically is on show in action films.
I love love love Empire, but if I take off the rose-tinted glasses some of the acting in the movie isnt the greatest. It is so hard to be critical of the original series though because it almost like being critical of those childhood memories that you cherish so dearly.
For me, there was so much in this movie that I loved, and as a note it was even better second time around, that I just could not score it lower than a 10.
We do live in a society where being outraged is the standard reaction to something you dont agree with. There are many films that I really despise, that others love, and you know what, that is absolutely fine. It doesnt change my opinion on the film, but i can also accept that different people can have a different emotional reaction to the same film
I, and nearly all of my friends love this film, and maybe, just maybe the silent majority also love this film, which is why the IMDB score isnt the 1 or 2 that a lot of the commenters on here think it should be.
I honestly believe that when we look back in 10 or 20 years, a number of fans who currently hate this film will have come to love it, but we will have to see.
If Star Wars is going to survive for decades to come, as we all hope it does, then we need it to be creative and to take chances, because if it becomes too formulaic then it will become niche, and that is the death knell that will see it peter out into something insignificant.
By all means have an opinion, and disagree as you see fit, but let's not have the kind of online abuse that we have seen these past few days. After all, we all know where hate leads dont we.
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10/10
Its a great Star Wars movie. People just pretend to be so smart and over analyze things.
The reason why we loved Star Wars as a kid back in the 70's-80's is because we enjoyed watching it with the whole family and just get mesmerized by the lasers and light sabers. Never mind if we dont have CGI back then. Who cares. . We just enjoy it as it is. A sci-fi movie.
The Last Jedi is no different. It is supposed to be just a movie that we enjoy watching with our family and kids.
I dont understand why people are discussing about unrealistic plots and poor script writing. Looks like a lot of people wants to appear to be so smart and over analyze the movie criticizing this and that. Pretentious smart wannabees.
Just enjoy it as it is. Dont ruin the magic to your kids. Let them have their fun the way we did back in 1977. Unless you are in your 50's and actually experience Star Wars in theaters back in 1977, then dont even pretend to know everything and say The Last Jedi is nothing compared to the original Star Wars because believe me, you dont understand at all.
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This film is great fun. It perfectly fits into the old trilogies tone. It has a light mystery touch, fantastic action, great pictures, wonderful actors. And it has that great sense of humor that also made the old trilogy special. I like it very much!
(and, by the way, imho it was the prequels that nearly ruined Star Wars)
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The acting is superb, the action and humor equally so, and there is not a dull moment in the film. There are some parts of the film that I feel could have been done better, but it is very much a great Star Wars movie none the less. The story also does not go where you think it will.
There is absolutely no reason for an intelligent person to give this move one star. "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is widely considered the worst movie of all time, and it has an average imdb rating of 4.0. Think about that.
So, I feel I have no choice but to give The Last Jedi a 10/10 score, not because it is a perfect movie, but because it is being "metabombed" by disgruntled "fanboys" who are angry that their fan theories did not come to be. I probably would have gone for 8/10 or 9/10 otherwise.
To conclude: I like The Last Jedi a lot. I think it is better than The Force Awakens because it is very much a Star Wars movie, but it takes the story in a different direction. It surprises us, and does things differently, which makes it new and fresh, while keeping the parts we love, and leaving plenty of questions to be answered in the final chapter. And that, is a good thing.
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8/10
A divisive yet brilliant entry in the Star Wars franchise
The moment Luke Skywalker throws away his lightsaber, I just knew there were some people who were going to hate this film, luckily I didn't. The Last Jedi is filled with twists and turns and a story that does many things different yet at the same time so familiar in the franchise.
One of the greatest positives in the film is the running themes, failure, letting go of the past and the quest to find yourself and what you can learn from all of them and they open the door for many, many great moments with our main characters.
There isn't many action in this one, but when it arrives it's very entertaining and the shining inkling of action in this film is without a doubt Ben and Rey teaming up against Snoke's guards.
There are negatives sure, some jokes feel out of place in certain scenes, but they're solid and aren't dumb, I was worried Porgs were going to be similar to the Ewoks in style, but thankfully they only got half a minute of screentime.
In the end, Rian Johnson delivered a solid film with great characters, themes and script.
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9/10
New Beginning of fight against dark forces for GenNext
Go back to 1977 when Mark Hamill was our teen hero as Luke Skywalker whose journey as teen to a Jedi is scripted in subsequent sequels as we grew up.Today as I watch the latest -'Star Wars the Last Jedi' film with my son in 2017 at age of 56 I almost feel what Luke must be feeling interacting with young Rye who is not at all blue blooded but a child almost sold off by less gifted parents.Still she shows the will power to face the brute dark forces and takes over the mantle of the Last Jedi.The film is a new revelation which will hopefully lead to new sequels as the old from my generations are wiped off or disappear giving the fight against the dark forces to gennext. Visually this was superb with 3D viewing and great sound reverberating in better theaters we have today.Those who find some faults are reading too much or too little in the magnum opus.All those who have never seen SW just go and watch the stretch of Imagination that made our youth and George Lucas!My son enjoyed it all- right from first movie till this last which seems to us both as new beginning.
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This episode definitely resonates with the force. There were some comedic scenes that felt awkward at first until their purpose was revealed, but for the most part the story flowed well. I love the force conversations between Kylo and Rae. It brought a great dialog of perspectives into the mix that really increases tension while giving us a chance to feel these characters more deeply.
I give this 8 out of 10 due to some apparent plot holes and my issues with Leia's character, but overall this has all of the Star Wars elements I love...and then some!
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Just like the last film (The Force Awakens) you are either going to love it, or hate it. But I also noticed a lot of people are very much in the middle. I am one of those people. Yes there were some good elements that made me happy, but, there is a lot more issues then I realized walking out; after thinking more and more about it, the more I feel unsatisfactory. I'm not going to go into spoilers, I'm just here to tell you if it is worth the watch. Honestly, it is, but I wouldn't go rushing to the theatre to see it like with The Force Awakens. I'll start off with the positives, firstly, Mark Hamill gives the strongest performance of his career in my opinion, however some of the direction of the character was off. With that said, I felt fulfilled with how Luke was portrayed in this film. Adam Driver gives a riveting, and damaged performance as Kylo Ren, surely his character is a lot more interesting then Force Awakens. I am very curious what will happen to him next. Daisy Ridley as Rey was spot-on, so was her character in many ways. There is a little surprise in the film involving two characters which I felt satisfied with. Ok, those were the ups. As I enjoyed Luke, Ren, and Rey...thats about it for the characters. The others fell flat, Finn is remarkably pointless at this point, he has no arcs, no story, he's just there right now to give John Boyega a paycheck, good for him, but not for us. The Porgs are Fu--ing stupid in the worst way. They're just a dumb excuse to sell TOYS, but why do you NEED that for Star Wars? Doesn't Star Wars sell enough TOYS! When I saw them in the trailer I snapped, this is what Hollywood has turned to. I wouldn't mind so much if they had a purpose, other then to sell TOYS. They are not as annoyed as the Minions, but pretty close. Finn wasn't the only character who was pointless or unneeded, and some of the ways they handle the characters makes no sense, I would go into more detail, but I want you to go experience this yourself. But in my opinion, this film is worth seeing, just don't expect The Empire Strikes Back or anything. It proves that Disneyfying everything isn't always great.
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1/10
Star Wars is finished, and if you see this you will know why..
Why was Daisy Ridley as Rey allowed to deliver her lines in a flat, detached, emotionless tone, with no acting skills evident what-so-ever?
Why?
Why did the Director obviously not watch any of her takes?
Why?
Why, if he did watch any of her takes did he let those takes go to the final edit?
Why?
Why, if Daisy Ridley has any pride in her art, did she herself not tell the Director: "Look Im obviously not feeling it, can you explain to me the emotional gravitas of Star Wars one more time?"
Why?
Why do we have to see the charge of the feminist agenda movie after movie, star wars movie after star wars movie?
Why?
Why does the feminist agenda need to equate the worst of the male character trait, violence, with equality?
Why?
Why is this thrust in our faces like we are just going to emulate the behaviours of terrible actresses? Or is that the hidden agenda?
Put forward a seemingly strong message for female empowerment via the only means stupid violent men have done it, but do it with such terrible acting that the message is totally lost and the viewers are just culturally confused.
Did we actually just watch a Star Wars movie,.. you know, the ones where in a New Hope we were so excited and emotionally invested in the characters they felt like family we never had. Adventures and fantasy creatures and landscapes that were scary but again, familiar. Where we felt like superheroes upon leaving the cinema,.. where.. Okay, you get it. Enough. Enough destroying Star Wars. You've done it now, move on. Destroy another legacy, maybe Lord of the Rings? You tried to squeeze Gollum back in there with Snore, ... I mean, Snoke. Jeez..
When you repeat a Star Wars theme from the original trilogy without any cohesive ongoing emotionally invested narrative you don't add to The Force Awakens, or The Last Jedi nor Pumpkin Pie, you detract from the poetry of the original trilogy, you crush our dreams and make such popular culture appear as it is, pathetic, a waste of our money and time. You rip the heart out of the illusion. Its not organized fandom as one review suggested, getting bitter with a new take. The idea, the love and dream of the fantasy, the hope gave us our bond.
With all but the original trilogy this has been ripped away from us. It's possibly a good thing, because, with movies like this, which idolize violence and war, the idea of idolizing those who do it best has to die with it too.
This message was hidden in one scene, in this movie, but it was done to such poor effect, it will be swallowed in the waves of terrible dialogue, dire delivery and the death grip of corny sheeny superficiality that has become the staple of Hollywood.
Embarrasingly poor Adam Driver tantrums, mean the casting director should never work again. He looks like a child with no character development going anywhere. What was all that stuff with Luke?! What the..?!
What was the point in just throwing Del Toro in there? Just floating around on whimsical mutterings of a script writer who was obviously tired of him or herself when they were writing his part, .. and all other parts:
Phasma? Not again, please, spare us.
Laura Dern? Why? Just why? Awful, just awful.
Cute little thingys getting on in the way, most annoying digital character sing Jar Jar BS.
What were those other things too, giant Lama Lambs, with big ears? Could they honestly not come up with new sound effects for the sounds they make other than another Wookie-like growl?
The whole movie was riddled by the achingly pointless fever to rush from one scene to the next, like a child playing Star Wars, only without the imagination, and with all the frenetic uncontrolled nonsense of wish fulfilment, without recalling what that wish really ever was.
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I loved the movie. I agree that the casino scenes might not have been necessary, but I did love all the scenes with the two main characters, and all the choices they made. The reveal about the parents was amazing - no better choice could have possibly been made.
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I'm not a die hard Star Wars fan. The Star Wars movies held more emotional value for me since I grew up watching them with my dad and I can play up the nostalgia factor while watching them. I never really thought much of the story lines or anything. Star Wars could have always been a darker universe, but the happy-go-lucky Disney vibes kept it from going in that direction. Until this movie...
This movie is everything the Star Wars franchise can be to form a complex, believable universe with real characters that face difficult choices in life and aren't the picture perfect Disney characters we've all come to expect. These are flawed human beings, with weaknesses and strengths, inner conflicts - everything that actually makes a person a human being.
The chemistry between Kylo Ren and Rey is palpable, you can genially believe the allure of the dark side and how someone could go down that path.
For all the people who hated this movie, it's because the movie was far too complex for them to comprehend. Life is not black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. Life is a huge shade of grey, and this movie perfectly captures that and presents a realistic universe with income inequality, war, profit, failure, doubt and all those pesky emotions people don't want to deal with.
On top of that, this movie ACTUALLY explains what the force really is and how it works, and let me tell you, it made me a believer in what seemed like a silly and incomprehensible concept in all the Star Wars movies so far. That's not a small achievement.
This movie is an excellent stand alone film, better than any Star Wars movie that's come before it. If you go to the movies to turn off your brain and enjoy some mindless fun, then you are not going to enjoy this film. But if you have always felt that Star Wars has a philosophical and intellectual depth that can be tapped into by the right people and the right story telling perspectives, then you will highly enjoy this film and be thinking about its themes long after the movie ends.
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8/10
I enjoyed it and wanted to provide insight to why. - Double Spoiler Warning!!!
For starters I've been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid. I've played the games, read the books, watched the movies, etc... I am not a critic by any stretch.
I thoroughly enjoyed the visual effects and the acting (Mark Hamill's especially). I enjoyed the story as well, the Casino arc was a bit out there...but other than that I had only minor complaints.
Now.....how I viewed things and what I knew going into this movie.
I've noticed how some thought the whole chase arc was stupid and a waste...if you break it down and think about it;
General Hux (I think that is how you spell his name) decided to slowly kill off the remnants of the resistance because he wanted them to suffer. The Resistance could not get away due to the hyper space tracker locking in on them. They had no fighters, no bombers, practically nothing left to fight back with. The only way to get away was to shut down the tracker which would require an infiltration team with someone familiar with First Order codes. Thus the mission to send Fynn and Rose to that Casino world.
To me it all made sense.
Now to the other parts I think people did not like.
Snoke's death I believe is a misdirect; I do not believe he is dead. I believe a few scenarios are possible;
1. He did what Luke did and was projecting himself through the force. This is feasible as he was able to throw Hux around like he was a rag doll while he was communicating as a hologram.
2. He transferred his life essence to another body/host. This would be less common knowledge for the casual fan, but again possible. Darth Plagueis learned how to do it, and created clones of himself to make sure this was possible. The Emperor did it in the EU as well. If those two can do it, why can't Snoke? I know the EU is cannon, but the point is still valid.
3. Or he is really dead, and Rian Johnson is an asshole, who made me think too much...
Rei's parents are a misdirect.
First thing I asked is how did Ben know this? He couldn't have extracted them from Rei, at least I don't think he did. I believe that would have awoken those memories for her as well. So she could have confirmed/denied it was true.
On to Luke...
Luke's portrayal made him more human. He sensed the darkness growing inside Ben and decided to snuff it out before it was too late. He realized what he was doing was wrong and changed his mind, but he was too late. He was the cause of the Jedi's destruction...
With all that pressure and expectation put on his shoulders, being the last of the Jedi, and seeing the utter destruction of what he was trying to build broke him. Hell, anyone would have been broken from what happened.
It was a moment of weakness and that made him more human as a character and less of a messiah that could do no wrong.
Lastly, Luke's "death" assuming you can call it that; is more symbolic than anything else. He was finally at peace and transcended the physical plain and became one with the force.. He will likely return as a force spirit (like Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon Jin, Yoda, etc..)
And for my last point; Rian Johnson has been known to make movies that mess with your head. What you see may not necessarily be reality. For example; Rei's parents and Snoke's Death.
I value everyone's opinion and from reading some of these posts they all have merit and good points.
Hope everyone has a good week and see you when Episode 9 comes out.
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10/10
The Last Jedi is the First Fulfilling Star Wars Flick in a Long Long Time
This is a long movie filled with actual characters and sub-plots that made you invest in the characters. Overall there was less copying of cliche Star Wars tricks and replays.
The rebellion is literally on the verge of ending, the Jedi legacy is in ruin, this was a much more believable storyline.
Rey in particular does a great job in depicting the "seeker" of the force alive in all of us and humanizes what the Jedi order is and can become. Luke's past actions are revealed to show even legends are just human.
I wouldn't say the film was mind-blowingly original, but a heck of a lot better than the over-rated last film in the franchise. That is so over-rated I nearly lost faith in imdb as an accurate reviewer.
You are left with questions, many questions. There's nothing quite as fulfilling for the 2nd movie in a trilogy. Rey's relationships of ambiguity and the theme of breaking away from the past are both genius in terms of storyline development.
Yet amid all the character development, the space fighting scenes actually made sense and did not seem as pointless and silly as in past episodes. This was nearly as good or maybe even slight better than Rogue One, which I felt was much more fulfilling than The Force Awakens (2015).
I'm disappointed with the IMDb community for rating this movie anything below an 8/10, and that kind of flaming is beyond belief - as this was one of the BEST Star Wars movies ever made. Some scenes were far from perfect, but the echoing narrative and themes of the movie were universal and make you rethink the Jedi order and what it means to "have the force". That's not an easy achievement and they actually were able to implement it here.
The Force Awakens was a really bad movie (like a poor copy of the originals). This is the complete opposite. It stood out both in script and character persuasion, something the franchise required to regain my respect.
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This movie is not bad at all. Yes, the movie has minor issues such as pacing and ignores key plot point from The Force Awakens, but it's still an enjoyable and fun entry in the Star Wars series. I guarantee those unanswered questions from TFA will be answered in episode 9. TLJ is its own thing and doesn't rely on TFA to be good.
As Mark Hamill said, you can't please every single fan. Some fans have gone crazy and made multiple accounts on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes to write negative reviews. Go see this movie and decide for yourself if you like it or not. Don't let the good or bad reviews influence your opinion.
In my opinion, TLJ is one of the better Star Wars movies and I'm still very excited to see how the trilogy concludes in Episode 9.
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Without getting into the story, go see it, this was a quality entry into the Star Wars legacy. It wasn't flawless but highly enjoyable for me. It ticks all the expected boxes for action, CGI, charm, creativity, humor and rich story. To pick at it, I did feel the editing or pacing during the first third or half was a bit heavy handed or scattered and a bit uneventful. They did mix in enough amusing moments to hold it together until it really found its flow and energy. Some of the humor felt forced but may appeal more to kids. There were a few plot decisions I could quibble with, not fully grimace, but overall the story and characters did progress, there were many meaningful battles and Mark Hamill had solid and well-acted screen time as did the rest of the key characters. I'd still favor Rogue One over this as well as The Force Awakens but this is certainly entertaining enough for re-watches.
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This film in my opinion has a great Star Wars feel to it alot more so than The Force Awakens did. I think we have to expect there to be things us older people will find cringy i.e the Rose story line but ultimatly this is a film saga that was originally and still is targeted towards children. I know when i was a child i had no care for plot holes, (which there are a few of) and backstorys, i dont remember having a care in the word Vader ws and where he came from only that he was abad ass mofo who scared the sh*t out of me. I think with these new movies people are looking for it to perfect which is impossible aswell as critiqing it on anything they can find rather than enjoying and taking in the good moments.
Some parts of this movie are incredible but are being overlooked by fans because theyre looking to deep into the film. Listing a few of these moments would be when Reylo team up, the lightspeed sacrice, the Luke hologram, the opening space battle scene, Finn vs Phasma to name a few. This saga also had had some incredible casting with the likes of Adam Driver whose peformance is incredible and I am personally now struggling to choose between him and Vader as my favorite villain of all time. Daisy Ridley is also very good in this.
If i was a kid I find it hard to believe that this wouldnt have been my favourite Star Wars, but due to some very cringy moments and General Hux being made as an idiot in a way that is not funny at all this gets an 8 from me.
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I'm a Star Wars fan and this movie is epic, fantastic, deep, suspenseful, rare but fun.
The plot is filled with gaps that will surely be answered in the other film, leaving us with even more suspense.
He's got a lot of memorable scenes, lots of fun ones. I recommend it, do not be fooled by critics who did not see the depth of this film, it is a new era for Star Wars.
The message... or the various messages that this film brings are incredible.
I recommend it.
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8/10
The Last Jedi sets up for an epic finale of the trilogy!
I really enjoyed what Rian Johnson did with the plot of The Last Jedi. He brought several new aspects to The Force that we have not yet seen in a Star Wars movie. He also created some really exciting fight scenes with very good graphics. However, I thought the subplot was weak because of Rose's character. I was not the actresses fault, it was the script that was wrote of her, and she brought an unnecessary element to the movie.
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Many will like it, many will hate it, but in my book, Disney did not ruin Star Wars.
This installment was a satisfying episode, with lots of twists and turns, an unexpected caracter pass by, and seeing again Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, who did a lot of voice work, including Batman's Joker) in action (thus a recusive hermit who rather to forget that his nephew turned on the Dark Side...).
Yes, you can say that many scenes were "taken back" from other episodes, but what are we looking for here ? We must adapt to new heroes here, and Rey has the Force in her, even if she has somewhat feelings for Kylo Ren (either good or bad...), who tries to bring her to his leadership...
But the essential here is to have fun, not to take anything seriously in this movie. And thank the late Carrie Fisher for one last appearance of the iconic Leia.
For those who hated it, time will tell if it will join cult status...
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6/10
I hated it the first time, I loved it the second time
I have been a Star Wars fan since I can remember. I was six when I saw Empire Strikes Back in theaters and eight during the night that I watched Return of the Jedi. After that came almost two decades of watching the Star Wars trilogy over and over again on video. So you can say that for me Star Wars is as essential to my life as my own blood. I read all the novels, the comics, and heard the soundtrack all the time. And you know what, in a certain way I believe in the Force. And then came the prequels, where we knew what was going to happen at the end, and then came Force Awakens, where we were given a recicled version of the original Star Wars, and we were happy, because I knew everything about the Star Wars Universe. It was my universe! Then, on Friday night I went to see Last Jedi and scene after scene I watched as they turn everything that I knew and felt familiar with upside down. When the end credits started rolling I jumped from my sit and left the theater so disapointed and I swore I would never see another Star Wars movie again.
This experience affected my mood the entire weekend. I was so upset and depressed about how Disney messed up my Star Wars. But as a fan I had to give this movie another chance. So on Monday I went to the first screening to watch the film with a clear mind, no expectations, and open to see the real picture, and not what I wanted to see. As it turn out, I enjoyed the movie, and actually liked it.
In essence, Last Jedi invites us to let go of the past and create a new future with new rules. That's exactly what the film does. I exhort everybody to give Last Jedi a second chance and you will see the light.
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8/10
Not much objectively bad. All up to personal preference.
I will not include spoilers in this review so do not worry, you can proceed. The Last Jedi overall is a very well made movie. The visuals, sound, and dialogue are all quite good. The action scenes are quite satisfying as well. The only true problem that I had with The Last Jedi that wasn't a nitpick was a drawn out and kinda uninteresting subplot. It really slowed down the pacing and for a movie over 2 and a half hours, that is not a good thing. Every time it would cut to this subplot, I would get frustrated because the other parts of this movie were REALLY grabbing my attention. Not to worry, The Last Jedi is not a Episode V rehash like The Force Awakens. The story took many risks, however that seems to be the biggest problem according to other fans. It all comes down to what you want out of The Last Jedi and where you wanted the story and characters to go. I LOVED the risks they took with the characters. However, not everybody did. I will even admit that I disliked a couple of them at first, however upon further evaluation, I began to appreciate these risks a lot more. All in all The Last Jedi is a solid entry in the saga in my opinion (much better than The Force Awakens and Rogue One). The one problem I had was a big one, so I could not give this any higher than an 8 out of 10.
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A great Star Wars movie. It took risks, it shattered expectations, it didn't care what Star Wars geeks wanted... it burned the tree down. Add to that beautiful visuals, good pacing, amazing performances, a lot of symbolism and the right amounts of humor, cheesiness and heart.
Would've liked to have seen one of the big characters fleshed out a bit more as well as some Lucasian political intrigue (what makes the SW universe unique), but this movie was a stark contrast to the timid and insulting scene-for-scene imitation that Force Awakens was. Rian Johnson is the man.
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I have never been more confused about how I felt about a movie than after watching this one. I know I feel strongly enough about it that it's either complete garbage or else a really great film.
Here's my thoughts. There are about 3 or 4 times as many quips in this movie as there ought to be. It seemed like every 5 minutes there was some witty one liner that nodded to the audience. It's the third trilogy of star wars and I feel like you gotta expect a few, but I do not need like 10-15 winks. Some are actually kind of funny though... but I feel like this film series is centered on being a bit more serious. I didn't come for the comedy
The next thing... there is a strong female presence in the casting of this film. It makes me slightly uncomfortable. Mostly due to the amount of prominent female characters in this installment. And I think there were already a fair few back in force awakens. But this time it feels like someone really decided to push a feminist agenda and use star wars as a vehicle to do that. I do sort of feel like this may be a watershed moment in movies for more gender blind casting practices in years to come but right now it feels awkward. In all honesty I think male and female roles are probably right at 50/50 in the film but it feels like a more in your face situation because I really can't think of a precedent that has taken it that far before.
Last thing I'll talk about is coherence. This film felt like it actually opened more loops than it closed. There is not much sense of closure or enlightenment or the hope that it will come in the next 2 hour film. I can only guess these plot blanks or holes are there so disney can make more spin off movies. I feel like the 3rd film is going to have to be at least 10/10 if it can resolve the confusing mess where this film left off. I really hope it is that 10/10 but I also think the odds are negligible that that will happen. I still don't know who snoke is, I still don't know why rey is so strong with the force, I still don't know who the knights of ren are, I don't know who the old guy kylo ren killed in force awakens is... you know? What is the point of watching a trilogy if it's not self explanatory?
Overall, I think the film is worth watching. It's got a lot going on and it's interesting. I just feel like they developed some unnecessary side plots at the expense of actually writing a story that tightens the plot loops for the final film. To me it just smells like disney is purposefully opening avenues to continue to milk the series. I don't respect that at the cost of the current film's quality. But I'd still take this over lucas having control.
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9/10
People are as whiny as Anakin in the prequels about this movie
It's so sad to see the fanbase raging on a movie just because it isn't what they wanted it to be. People sometimes forget that the beauty of storytelling is that we don't get to choose what the story will be, we get to experience what other people do with it so it can be something new and true to the universe. That's why canonicity exists and why fan fiction doesn't count. So get all your whiny ass and start seeing the movie for what it is, a new entry in the saga with some of the best moments in SW history, and also some bad moments, Just because Rey isn't who you expected, Luke changed while getting old (like anyone would) and Snoke still isn't explained, doesnt mean the movie is bad.
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8/10
Its the movie the fans deserve, but not what we wanted. Reasons to love it.
After first seeing this on Sunday, I was moderately disappointed, being a huge Star Wars fan and understanding the mythos and history of it all. But I knew i had to give it a couple days, not only for it to sink in, but to understand what they had done.
Luke- Seeing Luke removed from the force, tattered, grumpy and afraid was something completely different than the Luke we all know and love. And as an audience we were expecting badass Jedi Master Skywalker. But why would we need a story where Luke was the same. Much as no one wanted to see Anakin as a child, growing and learning and then fully transformed into Vader. This was Luke's transformation, paralleling his father as Vader in the OG trilogy, but understand that Luke is the polar opposite of Vader. In the flashback, Luke goes to confront Ben, terrified of what would become of his nephew if he would succumb to Snoke (similar to Anakin going to Palpatine and Mace Windu). Then Ben slaughters the entire Jedi academy and sets it aflame. And Sound familiar? Anakin is on a quest for more power, as is now Kylo, but as for Luke he does the complete opposite and shuts himself off from the force and then goes into hiding (similar to Yoda and Obi-Wan).
When we first see Luke, we want that old Jedi wisdom, but we don't get that. We get a flippant toss of the lightsaber, assuming this is a nod to Yoda tossing out all of Luke's stuff in ESB. At first you think it's a trial, but you quickly are aware that he is far from the Force and wants nothing to do with it. His story is a carefully structured arc that reveals itself quite shockingly in the third act. A shadowy figure coming down the stairs, (similar to his first appearance in ROTJ) gives Leia a farewell kiss and throws C-3PO (and us) a wink.
The battle between him and Kylo is fantastic as it demonstrated Luke's abilities, something you scoff at, but we have never seen before or has been demonstrated by any Jedi in the mythos. This deep meditation drains him of his life force and he leaves to the Force (same as Obi-Wan and Yoda) exiting the same as he entered Star Wars, with a binary sunset.
Rey instilled hope and faith back to the Force, making Luke return (Return of the Jedi) to save the last bit of the Resistance.
Snoke- We wanted answers, but we got none. Who was he? Still don't know and will we ever? But why do we need answers for a powerful beings past? Oh because Lucas did the prequels. In the OG trilogy, Palpatine was introduced physically AND killed in the same movie. I never seemed to have a problem with that, as well as many others. We are also introduced to Darth Maul, who also has no back story (until books and comics) and gets cut in half in the first movie he appears in. Count Dooku and General Grevious are also introduced and killed off with no explanation of backstory. So why should we be waiting for an immense backstory to Snoke? To Rey it doesn't matter. The reasoning doesn't seem to have any significance at the moment so why delve into who he is. On the contrary he served as a stepping stone for Kylo, for once he's killed Kylo could take over his position with no one in his way and can design the galaxy to his vision of his empire.
The CGI vision of Snoke was great, as most Star Wars movies have proven, as they try to push the boundaries of technology. Andy Serkis delivers a terrifying performance that makes you hate him without even knowing who he really is.
The death and consecutive fight scene was superb. Something that showed a glimmer of hope for Kylo, and for once showed light and dark balanced and working together. It was once again, nothing we had ever seen before.
Leia/Poe- At first I thought the slow-mo space battle was a bit ridiculous, but then again the opening to Star Wars was exactly that. ESB had a slow moving space battle that the Millennium Falcon only escaped by going into an asteroid field and then attaching his small ship to the Star Destroyer. Does it seem that theres a plot hole of speeds? Maybe, but most Star Wars movies have vehicles flying at almost similar speeds. Even if they say that "It's the fastest ship in the Galaxy".
Nonetheless the space battle starts very strong with Poe being defiant and doing what he does best, fight. It seems like a victory but many lives and ships were lost, leading to Leia demoting him. When the ships bridge is destroyed Leia is sucked into space and uses the force to protect and save herself. Did it look weird? Yea, but the idea that Leia was more Force aware than we took her for granted threw us for a loop. Which is exactly what should have happened. AGAIN this is the first time we have seen something like this, which I believe is what people are most upset about. They want familiarity rather than the unusual. This scene is as powerful as when Yoda raises the X-wing out of the water in ESB. Many people believe the Force to be exactly what Rey thought the Force was. And I'm paraphrasing "A power that allows you to lift and move things and control peoples mind" which Luke said what you have just said is completely wrong.
After Leia is comatose, the purple haired Admiral takes control, has a plan that Leia told her to do, yet does not disclose the plan to Poe in order to make him shut up and not do anything stupid. But he's too hot headed and does this anyways. They come up with a seemingly great grand scheme plan in typical Star Wars fashion, where Finn and Rose have to go find the Master coder on a casino planet, Canto Bight. (This is continued in the Finn/Rose portion).
After Poe learns that they are fueling the cruisers for an escape, he seeks to create a mutiny to put into effect his grand scheme plan. When he's about to jump, the plan fails miserably and he looks like a chump. We are all mad, asking why didnt this work? Because the plan was exactly what it seemed to be, too good to be true. In an ESB good guys lose style, but it made you want this to play out so bad that you feel cheated. Of all the cockamamy Star Wars plans, this was a huge time that we see a plan fail immensely, multiple times. Even the plan to escape to Crait fails. Ships are picked off before they land and the dog fight on Crait destroys more than most of the Resistance. A polar opposite ESB walker/speeder fight. All they can do is escape by running away again. We dont like this, we see the Rebels/Resistance at its worse and they are running away. But it creates the heroes at their "all hope is lost" moment.
Finn/Rose- Their plan to go to Canto Bight seems far fetched and farcical, and well it is. Poe bets this plan will work that he puts the lives of the entire Resistance at stake. But we forget in TPM that Qui-Gon bet on Anakin in a podrace to get a hyperdrive for their spaceship, and if he lost they would lose the ship and be stranded a very long time. In AOTC, Obi-Wan goes to a fat four armed alien in a diner to figure out where a poisonous dart came from, which he knows within seconds of looking at it, then sends Obi-Wan directly in the middle of the entire plot of the movie.
This time its our heroes Finn and Rose, going to find a codebreaker on Canto Bight and then sneak onto Snokes ship and disable the tracker. Within minutes of being there they are thrown in jail for a parking violation. Seems odd, but once again its something new. In all other Star Wars movies we see scum, villainy, the slums of the Galaxy. And finally we see some high class society, and of course that type of society would absolutely complain to the police about their parking abilities.
While imprisoned, they just so happen across a master codebreaker and they escape. Only to be chased into the whipped and abused stalls of the creatures used for racing, accompanied by slave children. Why are we mad we are seeing this? Because its terrible and real, but you forget Anakin was once a slave along with his mother. We never saw how terrible it was since Watto didnt seem abusive, but still there is slavery amongst the galaxy. And at one point Chewbacca and other wookies were slaves in some books. I'm glad it came back, just to show that throughout that long time ago in the galaxy that its still an issue.
Finn and Rose escape on the giant creatures, destroying as much as they can in the process and leads them to a dead end. And being saved by their last hope, the codebreaker. It almost seems that Finn and Rose were willingly choosing this codebreaker, but it's BB-8's who teamed up with the codebreaker to save Finn and Rose. This is the person that they have to trust at this point since time is of the essence, they have no other choice.
When they get caught, DJ cuts a deal (much like Lando in ESB) to save himself. He tells them of the ships leaving and where they are going, and Leia's plan begins to crumble as well. All hope is lost with the Resistance. In a last breathe effort the purple haired Admiral light speeds through Snoke's and surrounding ships to disable and help the remaining Resistance ships escape. Which was really awesome and beautiful. This also creates havoc on the ship allowing our heroes to escape, along with some Captain Phasma killing. And in keeping with her Boba Fett status, falls to her demise.
Finn and Rose land into the Crait battle station in a screeching crash, (similar to ROTS and Anakin and Obi-Wan crash landing).
When the Crait dogfight comes to a conclusion, Finn looks like he might be the hero, but is saved at the last second by Rose. Why!?! Well she couldn't save her sister, and she felt the need to save Finn, since the war wouldnt be won by fighting but by saving the ones you love. Would the sacrifice have been better? Yes. No. Maybe? But in allowing Rose to save Finn she completes her small character arc
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10/10
The Force Awakens was hated for not changing enough, and The Last Jedi is hated for changing too much.
I understand the hate, but it's not well founded. This is a GREAT Star Wars movie that aims to turn the tables and differentiate itself from the early trilogy. This is an example of a necessary change that most people cannot accept. Ask me what Star Wars has the best Cinematography and Direction, I say this one--ask me what Star Wars has the best lightsaber battle and tension, my answer is the same. Even the hardcore "love to hate it" fans can't deny that.
If it were up to me I would give Rian Johnson the pen and paper, and the directors chair for IX.
Don't let the bad reviews sway your enjoyment. Everyone that hates The Last Jedi, wants you to know how much they hate The Last Jedi.
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9/10
Ignore the mob of angry fanboys and take this movie for what it is - a great Star Wars film
I know that the general audience doesn't always have to agree with critics, but in this case I am baffled by the divide between them. Critics praised this film for many reasons, while the mass of upset fans can't seem to agree on what it is that makes this film bad: it's too much like The Empire Strikes Back, it does so many things so wildly different from any other Star Wars movie that it can't be considered Star Wars anymore, they don't agree with how some characters have turned out, etc etc etc.
In short, you can't please them all, and some of these people take their outrage that a film hasn't panned out the way they wished to the extreme, review bombing this film with 1 star reviews and sending the director more than just angry tweets.
I'm ashamed to belong to this very same fandom in which everybody seems to think that they are entitled to their very own personal vision of what a SW movie should be and if even one criterion isn't met it's reason enough to take out the pitchforks and post mean things on reddit.
All that BS aside: The Last Jedi is a fantastic film, despite a few smaller flaws.
But what works well, works incredibly well. While many people don't seem to agree with the depiction of Luke I personally though it was fantastic. It was unexpected and yet relatable and Mark Hamill's performance was outstanding, sincerely his best performance as Luke Skywalker to date.
But it wans't just Luke's character that was well written: every major character gets his own story arc, everyone is faced with a test, with an obstacle they need to overcome, something that challenges to the core by the end of the film all of them have grown.
Furthermore, the movie plays with and explores many different themes, offering valuable lessons and moral to the audience.
Yes, The Last Jedi takes quite some elements from previous movies. But it also turns them upside down, inside out and adds twists to them that are unexpected and unpredictable. Suddenly things aren't as black and white as they used to be, and this is a big step to be taken for Star Wars films, which were generally quite color coded.
It's one of the smarter Star Wars films just after The Empire Strikes back because it focuses on what's important in a movie. Not the spectacle, not the action, but the characters, their emotions and beliefs.
I hope that the anger of the vocal minority is going to fade and that people can appreciate the film for what it is: a fantastic addition to the Star Wars series.
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I don't usually wright reviews, but this film has left so many fans feeling controversial about the future of the Star Wars universe, I feel I need to put in my two cents.
First off. I am not a "die-hard" star wars fan. I liked the originals and what they created and what they changed about our society and pop culture. I laughed at Jar Jar when the prequels came around, but that was all I liked about it. I was still a kid at heart back then. I missed The Clone Wars, but saw Revenge of the Sith with my cousin and afterwards thought to myself 'so Anni became Vader because of poor decisions'. And that is why THIS film is so good. It makes note of THOSE poor choices of the Skywalker family, and then uses these new characters to boldly go where no Star Wars film has gone before - some where that doesn't involve the Skywalker family - Hooray!
So from the beginning.
After the opening crawl, which basically retells TFA, we have the rebellion who are on the BRINK of annihilation! How can that not be an exciting story? If you are not convinced, try and look at it like this:
Your race is being overwhelmed, they are being hunted by a more powerful group of people and they are hunting you for sport! The are so close to bringing your people to extinction. What do you do? You would be desperate to save your family and friends no matter what. You may even make some mistakes, which our main characters do...
I agree with some people that the space chase could have been better written, but it created a great suspense for the film. These people are being eradicated! In one film they go from being thousands on a giant spaceship, to a dozen in the millennium falcon.
Leia - OK, it was great to see Carrie Fisher again in a more central role, and very strange to realise that this is a post death film for her. I liked how after the opening scene we see her in a dilemma at how many people have died, practically on a suicide mission, to bomb what is essentially a B52 version of an Empirical spaceship. Poe calls the people who died heroes, but she is correct in calling them "dead ones". Which makes a good point: you can't win a rebellion without soldiers, or weapons, which I'll come back to later.
Luke - As at the closing shot of Force Awakens, the second scene of the film has Rey giving Luke HIS original lightsaber. Now remember, this is the lightsaber he battled Vader with. The lightsaber he lost the battle with, including his hand, and it reminds him of the time he learnt the truth about who his father was and a whole lot of s#!+ that came after which he would probably like to forget. Luke even says when he shows Rey the famous books of the Jedi, "I came to this island to die...It's time for the Jedi to end." So of course he's going to throw that lightsaber away. Who would want a weapon that reminds them of the worst point in their life? Imagine if I gave you a weapon that your father used to chop your hand off! Would you keep it!? Luke is perfectly justified to feel resentful in this film.
Kilo Ren - There was so much miss direction with this character in the trailers. He is still as conflicted as he was in The Force Awakens: Unsure if he can kill his mother, still needing to prove himself to Snoke, all the while dealing with the immature General Hux. Rey even reiterates Luke's speech to Vader - "I feel the conflict within you" she even refers to him as Ben, in an attempt to convince him to turn to the light side. A good element to their relationship is when he and Rey discover they have a psychic link to each other and use it like a secret phone line, a forbidden relationship, that neither can speak of.
Leia's Death - So as we saw in the trailers, Kilo is flying around shooting some space stuff, Star Warsing about, :) sorry, I will come back to the jokes later. Anyway, Kilo blows up Poe's ship in the hanger, Poe and BB8 are thrown back. I thought for a moment that BB8 was dead when his head rolled off. I could just imagine my ex grabbing my arm and whining "NO!" but he is run by magnets, so all good.
After this Kilo flies towards the bridge, where Leia is sat, he is ready to shoot his torpedoes at the bridge...but doesn't. Instead some rookie next to him does it and everyone on the bridge is sucked into outer space...
Then Leia FLIES back towards the ship. This is the point where "the force" for me, becomes ridiculous, I wanted to shout BullS#++!, it would have made sense to let her die here, but apparently she has more to do in episode 9. My opinion is "lets pretend that part didn't happen" and move on.
Rey - so Luke eventually teaches Rey some elements of how the force works. Again we see in the trailers she can levitate stones and rocks when she reaches out to the force. But What we learn in this movie is that she is more powerful than Luke! maybe Kilo, but 2nd only to Snoke. This is evident when she sees something on the island that is very dark and is dragging her into it. Luke is scared and tells her no, don't go in. But she does anyway, both physically and in spirit, and she comes back out again and still remains true to the light side. That is not just strong force power, that is strong will power! You can evidence this further when she goes on to Snoke's ship and meets with Kilo, again we saw it in the trailers, he offers her his hand to join the dark side, and she rejects it, but maybe not him...
Snoke - We have no idea who this person is. Is that really a bad thing? We don't really know who Yoda is or where he comes from, and the fans have appeared to be happy with that for the past 30 years, why the obsession with Snoke?
So Rey is taken before Snoke by Kilo, and it is almost shot for shot like RotJ. Rey attempts to fend off his tricks and she even attempts to summon the lightsaber, like Luke did with the emperor, but Snoke makes it fly around the room, hit Rey in the head and return to his side. He is one powerful being whoever he is.
I didn't see the lightsaber trick coming, but I did let out a laugh when Kilo split Snoke in two with Luke's Lightsaber. I think this is what makes this film great, as now the saga can go into completely new territory, which is intended with Kilo, as he makes himself the new supreme leader, and even suggests to Rey that they can now turn the First Order into whatever they want. (To be honest, wouldn't you if you'd just taken Hitler's place?)
There hasn't been a death of a main character like this since Hitchcock's Psycho.
Fin meets Rose - Kind of a separate story going on here, as they ended up going on a side mission that could have fitted into a spin off episode of it's own. Regardless, it created a new love interest for Fin (I don't know if he and Rey will/were to become an item) but it will be interesting to see how Rose affects the dynamic of these new characters as they come together in episode 9. Also that planet they visit, which is essentially Vegas, reminded me a lot of the Hunger Games for some reason - The rich thriving off the suffering of others. Those scenes did help to expand the cannon and the universe though, as it shows one question we have never thought to look for in star wars...Where does everyone get all of their equipment from? And who pays for it? I understand no one wanted to know this, but now we do.
DJ - So this guy was supposed to replace Lando, I can see that, but all he really did was provide a solution for Fin and Rose to escape.
Also the original coder they they were originally on that planet to find was still at the casino. This again makes the story so interesting for me, because Fin and Rose mess up. They get caught and drag this "other coder" to Snoke's ship, because they now have no alternative. So who was the original coder they were supposed to bring?
Black BB8 - wasted. Either have him fight BB8, or cut him out all together.
Now the jokes and quips - I can agree that there were one too many in each scene, but this to me reeks of Disney. As we know they predominantly make kids films and they want kids to see Star Wars so they can sell more merch, therefore they had to make each scene comical, because you can't traumatise a kid with an emotional scene about making mistakes and living with those choices...urgh,
I will conclude here, because I could go on for ages, but Rian Johnson made one hell of a movie. He was up against it, what with all of the fan theories that have been plastered over the internet about the characters and who's-who for the past two years. What he has done is blown all of that up in your faces and made something that can start another "New Hope" or New New Hope, for another generation and another potential trilogy. And if you are one of the fans who now wants to abandon this franchise, well that's fine because I'm sure it's gained some new ones such as myself.
The truth is, you wouldn't have wanted to see YOUR fan-made movie, because it would have been predictable, and boring. Johnson flipped the stakes of each scene to the opposing side each time so that we would then be watching something unpredictable and that's what made it a good film for me.
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7/10
Not as bad as the vocal majority are claiming it to be
Because the movie is 5 days old as of this review, I'm going to keep this very short. Quite simply, this movie is 30% awesome, 30% decent-to-good, and 40% questionable to atrocious. Due to this conflict within the script and narrative, it seems apparent that JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson have very different visions when it comes to the characters of the universe, and the universe itself. In some cases this pays off, and in others... it doesn't.
Kylo Ren: Easily the best thing about this film. Adam Driver's performance of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren sold me in Force Awakens and is only cemented further in this film. Throughout the film, he seems to be teetering on the edge of the dark and light, and we, the audience, are lead to believe that Rey is the one who will turn him back towards the light. Thankfully, in my opinion, this isn't the case and Ren descends further into the dark.
Poe/Leia/Haldo: This is the 'decent-to-good' percentage I was talking about. While Rey is with Luke on the island, Kylo is doing his awesome Kylo things and Finn and Rose are doing their pointless thing (I'll get to that) Poe, Leia and new character Haldo are on the last remaining Resistance cruiser, slowly being chased by Snoke's personal Star Destroyer and a handful of others. We're introduced to Haldo after Leia gets injured during a firefight... She got blown out of the bridge of the ship, sucked into space and then she Superman'd her way back to safety (Not a fan of how it was shot, fine with them showcasing that Leia is force sensitive) Anyway, it's due to Leia's injuries that Haldo is then in charge of the cruiser. This causes conflict with Poe and as a viewer, because Poe is a main side character, we're meant to take his side when he says she's doing a bad job. It's interesting to see it play out. This supposed legendary commander doing seemingly cowardly things but it does play into one of the most beautifully shot scenes in the entirety of the Star Wars franchise. Ya know what one I'm talking about.
Finn/Rose's arc: While Kylo Ren may have been the best thing about the film, the Finn/Rose arc is the worst. It starts off interesting with Maz making an appearance and informing the trio of Poe, Finn and Rose of a master
codebreaker who would be able to get them into Snoke's personal ship undetected so they can stop the First Order tracking the Resistance through light speed... Unfortunately, this all unravels fairly quickly when they travel to the codebreaker's whereabouts, specifically the planet of Cantonica. A planet where the rich and sleazy all come to make bets on races where the animals are treated poorly, and they all gamble and only care about their money and how they stample all over the poor. This may have been interesting... except this is what Finn and Rose talk about 80% of the time we spend here, about how the rich deserve to be punished just as much as the First Order. And all of this leads to nowhere. Once they get *a* codebreaker (not the one they set out to recruit), they make it on board Snoke's ship aaaannnddd... get caught. Yeah. They don't even succeed in their mission. Though it doesn't matter, because just before Finn and Rose are about to be executed. The ship explodes and they're able to escape. Rendering the entire codebreaker arc, useless. Oh, and there's a 10 minute CGI space-copter/space horse chase sequence... yeah... And what's worse is all of this ^ Is interwoven between better scenes. Whether it'd be Kylo, or Luke/Rey stuff. Removing this arc completely actually might improve the overall flow of the movie.
Snoke: Part of the 'questionable-to-atrocious' percentage, leaning more on the questionable... Why... Just why? Th-that's all I got to say really. I mean, you build him up as this beast. Show him using the force through a hologram to practically bitch-slap Hux. He Zeus' Kylo with a literal flick of his finger and yet. He got Maul'd... Yeah
The humour: I don't want to stick onto this subject because this one seems to be across the board, one of the biggest complaints - Simply, more misses than hits with the intentional humour. Though one moment that I did enjoy was the meditation sequence with Rey and Luke when she reaches out literally and he tickles her hand with a leaf... Now that I've typed that out, I take it back, I'm a terrible person for laughing at that.
Overall, as a viewing experience. I enjoyed it, apart from the Finn/Rose arc. During both of my viewings I just couldn't enjoy it. Especially because of it interrupted better arcs. Humour, while tolerable in the majority of the scenes, just isn't needed. It certainly isn't the worst in the franchise, nor is it better than, or the best since Empire Strikes Back. I believe it's a worthy entry with a lot of misteps but a lot of good things too. I kinda brushed over the good things because... Y'know, I thought it would make sense for me to tell you I enjoyed it, despite these lingering issues. Part of me is happy JJ is taking the lead on Ep. 9, because I really enjoyed Force Awakens, but another part of me is slightly worried because trading writers, who seem to have different visions, could be the final blow that would really put this thing in the ground.
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The Republic has fallen and The First Order under Snoke (Andy Serkis) is taking over. The Resistance led by Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) is on the run once more. Rey (Daisy Ridley) seeks guidance from Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is conflicted about his dark side. Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and new character Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) try a last ditch effort to save the Resistance.
I am left with a lot of nitpicks that don't add up to much and one big observation. This could be the most dangerous Star Wars. First, let's start with some of the nitpicks. There is a lot of humor in this movie. I appreciate it sometimes but there are some serious issues being pushed in this movie and the humor at times clashes. There is some melodrama and sometimes the scenes push too hard. For example, Rose's amulet gets a lot of screen time. It's interesting what happens with Benicio del Toro but sometimes the movie does not need to linger on that pendent. The little kids forced to work the stables can be too much. I'm sure Rian Johnson got the idea from kids being forced to ride racing camels. It would be helpful to have more than just kids in indentured servitude. It becomes too obvious in a bad way. The kamikaze run is cool but the question becomes why they didn't do that with the other ships or in the other movies. The casino idea of the 1% weapon dealers is intriguing but there is too much broad Vegas motif. The Porgs are the Porgs and I'm resigned to the Christmas gifting motive. I either understand or reluctantly accept each one and more of these little annoyances.
The overarching observation I have is a lot more uncertain. Rian Johnson is playing with the Star Wars sensibilities and its ultimate outcome is very much in doubt. It makes this a most dangerous Star Wars movie. The central idea of good versus evil is under attack. Benicio del Toro plays a criminal who talks a bit of truth to the audience. He essentially equates both sides. As long as there is war, the weapons dealers win and the people lose. Ghost Yoda literally burns down the Jedi religion. Skywalker's one moment of failure is also a direct shot at his character. Johnson is given new emperor Snoke and he promptly kills him off. Rei's parentage is given as nobodies. The question becomes whether that is the truth. I get the sense that Johnson intends it to be the truth and thereby cutting that branch away from the desperate needs of a Skywalker saga. Time and time again, he is pushing the Star Wars franchise in an intriguing and possibly dangerous direction. Stay tune to see whether it falls apart or succeeds as a new direction that The Force Awakens was never meant to be.
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I thought The Last Jedi was a pretty good movie, I enjoyed it. It had a decent story, fantastic acting, plot twists, better lightsaber battles, some tense moments, and good humor.
It does have a few unrealistic "how convenient" moments, and one that especially made very little sense and annoyed fans. However, those moments are no worse than the stupid moments of the other Star Wars movies. E.g., teddy bears akin to giant furbies (Ewoks) took down the Empire in Ep VI (it was really silly), Darth Vader actually fell down backwards off a ledge during a duel because he lost his step (it was a true facepalm moment), Yoda was this senile old man that couldn't even remember who R2-D2 was and pokes him with a stick yet he is still a master of the Force (how does senile idiot go together with Jedi Master?), the storyline of Ep VI was that they built another Death Star (unoriginal plot being recycled), and Darth Vader lost his duel to Luke because the actor literally sat down on the stairs and grabbed the railing to allow Luke to beat down on him (it's true, go back and pay close attention to realize how cheesy Vader's defeating moment was), etc. SO, the truth is people tend to forget the bad elements in the other Star Wars, or intentionally overlook them, to enjoy the rest of the story. So I promise you the handful of unrealistic or frustrating elements in The Last Jedi are no worse than any other Star Wars movie!
The Last Jedi also does not answer some questions people had about a particular character. Most importantly, many people did not like the character development of Luke. However, I thought Luke's character development was a) believable and understandable if you really think about the traumatizing event he went through, b) he has some fairly persuasive arguments for his disposition, and c) Luke's character is no different than Yoda when Luke found him (isolated for self-survival, a little discouraged by the dark side, and unwilling to train a new Jedi at first). Why do people complain about Luke's character in The Last Jedi when he acts nearly identical to Yoda's behavior in Ep V? Yoda himself hid his location from the Resistance and made no future attempts to battle Vader or Palpatine! What's most important is Luke remained a good guy, a symbol of hope, and a powerful Jedi Master in this movie. My only complaint is I desperately wanted to see Luke have some mad lightsaber skills, and we didn't see any lightsaber battle from him, and that was very disappointing.
The new director appears to be trying to take Star Wars a little bit of a new direction, which is necessary because Star Wars has always been the same old thing: Empire vs Rebels, good vs dark side, etc. So far there was not enough new content added or risks taken, but it's going that new direction. I'm not saying there's not room for some disappointment or frustration in The Last Jedi, I'm just saying it's overall still a pretty good movie. It may be different than you expect, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Try to watch it with an open-mind. I give it a 7.5/10.
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10/10
Definitely the second favorite Star Wars movie, after Empire Strikes Back
I've been reading the reviews here about the movie, and it left me in quite shock. WTF? People actually hate this movie? And there is rarely a positive review... Without a doubt, this movie was damn near close to perfection almost as close as Empire Strikes Back was. The story was unexpected, and it went into places I never thought it would go. Characters were amazing, and the movie made me love (most of) them even more. I was afraid that they were not going to do Luke justice, but at the end, his character was the one I enjoyed watching the most. At some parts, I felt like I was watching the original trilogy (but in a positive way), but in other parts there was this new refreshing side of the franchise, that I enjoyed even more.
To conclude, I have no idea how the fuck there are so many negative reviews on here, because I have yet to talk to a person that did not love the movie. Guess you can never please these so called 'fans' of a franchise that deserves much, much better fanbase.
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I believe this current reviews of the latest Star Wars title are being unfair to the title. The movie was great, you can't expect any better than this... It is the birth of some brand new heroes, we couldn't stick to the old guys forever... Everything has a begining and everything has an ending... it's life! So we just have to embrace the birth of brand new heroes such has Poe, Finn, Rey, Kylo and Rose...It's time to leave the past behind... there are so many good plot twist and the movie becomes so unpredictable that you feel no character is safe, and that is quite something when we live in an era that most of our heroes are unkillable... This movie shines because of it, everything can happen, and you can't predict everything... Rey doesn't need an important and noble bloodline and snoke doesn't need an impressive backstory...
All in all, one of the best movies of the year, a true masterpiece like no other movie of our time, mostly because it is filled with unpredictable moments and is for being bold enough to take some risks, such as the introduction of some brand new characters in the series and the divergion in the original storyline... Astonishing to say the least
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The Last Jedi is, in my humble opinion, the best of the Star Wars franchise. I saw trailers of the first Star Wars film even before it hit the big screen back in the 70's, and that one I felt held the title, until now. This story is overall well-developed, and I really liked that they built up the character of Luke Skywalker and made him very relevant again after so many years with him missing from the films. There is good emotion, heartfelt, and the fight scenes with Ben Solo are gritty and angry and filled with a lot of passion. Overall, I feel that the creators and the actors put a real nice spin on this ball, giving the viewer and life-long fans, such as myself, closure on aspects of the this story which have been hanging there for decades. And, no spoilers, it's set up for more sequels.
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I must say, that I really like this movie. It was fun emotional and back to very roots of the old movies. I really do not understand the reviews here, or maybe I am too different..
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9/10
This text is perfect for you who thinks that this signed abbreviation is correct.
IMAGE THE RETURN OF JEDI LAUNCHED IN TODAY'S DAYS:
1) What lack of creativity. Another attack on the Death Star?
2) After all, who is this Emperor? Did not he tell who he is, how did he look like that?
3) Where is the coherence? How did Luke become cocky like that?
4) Han Solo of comic relief? They broke my favorite character.
5) How come the Emperor did not predict that he would be attacked by Vader? Baita bore. And what an idiotic death! Play in a pit?
6) Infantilized everything! Ewoks winning the Empire? Everything to sell doll!
7) I even liked the movie, but a lot of crap out of time!
8) It turned out to be novelinha das 8! Is Leia now Luke's sister? And the kisses she'd given him before? Forget it?
9) Vader's ghost at the end of the movie? Nobody deserve.
10) The Rescue part of the Solo is very fast. What a rushed script!
11) Has completely disassembled the Vader. He turned into an asshole.
12) Oh, okay, is it just killing the Emperor that ends the whole Empire? Less, right?
13) Fuck, they killed Yoda, the best character!
14) Lesson of moral, right? They turned Lando into a good boy.
15) Who is Jabba? Why is he not affected by the Force?
16) Emperor letting out little ray? Only need to fly in space now ....
17).
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If you have seen - and enjoyed - a Star Wars movie, then THE LAST JEDI will be an entertaining way to spend 2 1/2 hours. Most of the "old standbys" are there - space battles, heroes in peril, interesting creatures, above average acting with characters that are watchable on the big screen and special effects that are as good as anything you will see in the movies.
And...I enjoy Star Wars...and I enjoyed myself for the lengthy 2 1/2 hours of this film.
Written and Directed by Rian Johnson (BRICK, LOOPER), The Last Jedi opens with some humorous moments that sets a tone that says "we're not going to take things as seriously as previously" and then we launch right into an action sequence. It is a great way to start things and I settled in for a roller coaster ride.
Now...let me jump to the end...the end battle scene (that is no spoiler, ALL Star Wars films end with an action scene) is terrific and the stakes of the characters at this point have amped up and pays off well during this sequence.
But, in between, the path is pockmarked with - good thing, not so good thing, good thing, not so good thing. While there are many more fun action sequences and moments of comedy or cuteness (I'm looking at you Porgs), there is just as many moments of the film being bogged down with character service and introducing "strange new lands" and (most annoyingly) "Jedi Angst" and Jedi training. If Director Johnson wants to know where to trim some time off this film, I can help him. But just as you start to rustle in your seat, along comes a funny moment or an action sequence - and all is forgiven.
The strength of these films are the characters (which is why the 3 prequels don't work, IMHO) - Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac are engaging as the next generation of "Rebel Scum" while old hand, the late Carrie Fischer, brings heft and gravitas to her screen time as Leia. Adam Driver is a bit too "whiny" for my tastes, but that is the direction his character is going, so I'll roll with it. Only Domhnall Gleeson's General Hux doesn't work for me (but this character didn't work for me in THE FORCE AWAKENS, either).
Unfortunately, with the action going and the angst strolling across the screen at a leisurely pace, many, many good characters get short shrift - Andy Serkis' Snoke, Lupita Nyong'o's Maz Kanata and (especially) Gwendoline Christie's Captain Phasma are all just extended cameos as are the appearances of C3P0, R2D2, BB8 and (unfortunately) Chewbacca.
As for the new characters, Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico is strong and engaging and makes the trio of Ridley/Boyega/Isaac a quartet. Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Hodo was a good addition and I liked what they did with that character. Unfortunately, Benicio Del Toro's new character of DJ isn't fleshed out much - or gets closure to his arc - perhaps that will come with the next film.
You might have noticed that I have not mentioned Mark Hamill's turn as Luke Skywalker. Unfortunately, I cannot say what I think without spoiling the film, so go see this and then get back to me and we'll talk.
And...a next film there will be as THE LAST JEDI is not THE LAST STAR WARS MOVIE. There is scheduled the 3rd of this new series as well as the standalone Han Solo film as well as ANOTHER trilogy that will focus on other characters in this universe, so pack a bag, we'll be heading to a galaxy far, far away for a long, long time.
Letter Grade: B+
7 1/2 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the BankofMarquis
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I have to say I wasn't too impressed and I feel a bit deflated from all the expectation. I think I am being over-generous giving this a 7 out of 10 to be honest. The finale was was like something out of an American Wrestling scenario where the heroes and villains do their stuff on cue and in turn and all the inevitable twists and turns take forever to conclude. The drawn out silent stares into camera,there were far too many too,suggests to me that this film won't be winning many OSCARS for direction, acting. or dialogue; although the camera work, CGI and special effects were very good and they may get some recognition. Bottom line, worth watching once, twice might be a chore.
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I was a teen in 1977 and loved Star Wars and the Hero Luke. And as Luke says in TLJ " This is not going to go the way you think" so sit back and enjoy the ride. The movie is beautiful, the soundtrack is perfect and it's a well acted fun adventure. I was worried I'd cry when Carrie Fisher first appeared onscreen and I didn't. But I did cry at certain points of the film. Certain wholesome and worthy themes were fleshed out: "Save what you love, telling someone you love you're sorry and nobody is too far gone" are all brought up and portrayed beautifully. I'm happy with Leia's role and proud as a fan of hers to see this as Carrie's last film. Mark Hamill puts in his best performance as Luke. I love all the new characters. Rey is my fav! So glad to see more of Poe and I like the Finn storyline, it helps with those themes I mentioned. Overall I say let go of your ideas of how things should go and have fun! I like TLJ better than Force Awakens but not as much as the original trilogy. My teen and young adult children loved it as well.
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When I first left the theater on opening night, I was very mad and confused. I thought, "Was that really a Star Wars Movie, or a parody. " Everything just felt wrong about the movie.
My original score here on imdb was 6/10 stars. I didn't think the movie was awful (I could never give it 1/10), in fact, the visuals were stunning, the music was amazing, and there were several moments where I was on the edge of my seat. The issues I had were the same issues as many of the others who have been reviewing the movie on this site.
"But why are you rating this movie 9/10 stars?" you might be asking me.
The movie took some time for me to digest. It wasn't until I understood the Motif of the movie that I started to understand why Rian Johnson went the direction he did. As Kylo Ren/Ben Solo says twice in the film: "Let the past die, Kill it if you have to."
This is the theme of all the decisions made in and for this movie.
In the movie, we see several characters from the original trilogy die. This is one of the more literal examples of this theme. But the theme also describes the direction of the movie itself. Rian made changes to the traditional Star Wars formula. For example:
-This is the first main series movie that does not feature a lightsaber duel.
-This is the first Star Wars movie to use a flashback as part of the narrative rather than using a force vision.
-This is the first Star Wars movie that doesn't end on a shot of a Skywalker
Rian Johnson is telling us that we need to break out of this mold, because our expectations for what a Star Wars movie should and should not be are limiting what kind of a story Rian, J.J., and anyone else who directs these films, can write.
Finally, we are being told to let go of the Expanded Universe. Ok, this is kind of a stretch, but this is the main reason the movie is getting ratings of 1s and 2s. People are extremely overly religious (for lack of a better word) with Star Wars lore. This is why "The Force Awakens" was not well received by many lifelong fans.
OK, enough of my META review of the movie. What did I like about the movie?
It was fun. After going to see it a second time, I enjoyed the entire thing. I knew what to expect, so the surprises didn't take me away from what was happening.
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi has proved to be a very divisive film for understandable reasons, with the choices Rian Johnson has made for the franchise being very bold and intriguing. In the end I quite enjoyed the film.
The scenes with Luke, Rey and Kylo in particular are fantastic, as discussions are made about the nature of the force in ways in which we haven't quite seen before, and the moral ambiguity of the grey area in between the light and dark side of the force is explored beautifully. Mark Hamill's performance is brilliant, with all the nuance of a jaded, broken man who has lost faith in the Jedi.
Understandably a lot of people were unhappy with how the questions about Rey's parents and Snoke were answered, but I feel it actually works well, as it points out that greatness can come from nothing, as Rey doesn't need to be related to a Skywalker or a Kenobi to be as powerful with the force as she is. Meanwhile, Snoke was seemingly just a placeholder for Kylo to ascend to power, which now establishes Kylo as the main villain of the film and leads to the best scene in the film with Kylo and Rey teaming up to defeat the Praetorian Guard after Snoke is murdered. (The Yoda scene wasn't too far behind).
Overall, the uproar from some is perfectly valid due to the choices of what to do with Luke's character and the story in general, but I really like the bold risks that were taken as I wanted to see something new done with the story. The Force Awakens was rightly criticised for being far too similar to A New Hope, so this film feels like a breath of fresh air with its ingenuity, and I give it props for that.
Also there is the need to mention the stunning cinematography which constantly filled me with amazement, particularly with the shots of the star destroyers being split in half after Holdo's jump to light speed.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the film, despite some of the leaps in logic that are made (plus the Canto Bight sequence) and hope that Episode 9 finishes the sequel trilogy off in appropriate fashion.
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Seems to be a lot of hate for this film and I'm completely baffled as to why. The only thing I can guess is everyone was expecting Luke to be a badass and come back with some special skills and kick arse.
I love how the directors aren't afraid to play with the story slightly. It could have been very boring and predictable if they had done what we thought was the obvious route.
Can't wait for the next one.
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I am glad I avoided reading the Reviews before watching "The Last Jedi." Wow there are a lot of negative reviews for those who saw it opening night. A lot of them I feel Don't get the Force. The Point is it is in and through everyone and everything. Ray didn't have to be from the lineage of a Jedi to become a Jedi, Hence the Title of the Last Movie. "The Force Awakens" The telepathic connection between Ray and Ben is interesting. I bet there will be more to come with that.
Mark Hamill was excellent in bringing a little sarcasm to his Character who has been through a lot throughout the series. I liked his battle scene at the end.
I would have liked to see more of a backstory into Ray's childhood, and Ben Solo's training and Snokes rise to power, and less with the Casino.
There was one part at the beginning they forget there is no gravity in Space. But all and all, it was a great movie.
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With the possible exception of Rogue One, Star Wars movies were always made with kids in mind. We loved it as kids. Now the new movie is not ground breaking like the first (er, fourth) one, but it's still an entertaining movie. Could it have been better? Sure, almost anything can always be better. But it could have been a LOT worse. For the adult in me, sure, I can pick holes in the plot and see the Star Wars formula play out over again, but the kid in me still gets goosebumps from the opening crawl onwards, and there is enough tension to keep it exciting. Moreover, my kids loved it, and they are the target audience. Watching my son vibrate with excitement in the seat next to me was worth the price of admission alone.
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Mark Hamill did a fine job. Daisy Ridley was glowing in this movie. I'm glad they ditched Kylo Ren's ridiculous mask, and modified voice. Now to some minor gripes. Chewbacca should look older, maybe with some grey, not younger. I'm tired of necklaces coming off with a slight tug, just remove it from your head please. BB8 can use AI to hijack an AT but you must have a person in the chair to push a button to do lightspeed kamikaze? No droid can do that? And that's the first time anyone thought of that? "Wait they're turning around, oh no they decided to destroy us by jumping into lightspeed straight through us, oh we never thought of that because no droid can do that and no one would sacrifice themselves to save the galaxy."
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Hey real quick ...I'd normally give this movie an 8 but with all the rage ratings out there I think it's unfair to tantrum rate this film as anything below a 6...especially giving it a 1 is just silly. So i rated a 10 to just try to offset the unfair 1's out there. Movies that deserve 1's are the films that are fundamentally broken god awful films like: birdemic, incredible bulk, replica etc.
While you may have your issues with this film it's not a fundamentally broken film by any means. I will say it has some pacing issues with the Casino scenes which felt a bit disjointed. Alot of people are angry that this movie shook things up too much while they also ridiculed TFA for being to safe. So what do you want? You'll never get the original trilogy again. The star wars lore needs to be expanded beyond skywalkers. This movie had to be different, It's what the story needed to be. The main theme of this film IS failure. Yoda even says "Failure is the best teacher" basically. Everyone fails in this film and that's refreshing and different. Nothing happened the way the fans expected and that's fun too right? It's nice that star wars can surprise us.
I feel like people put these films on a pedestal. In the end they're just movies. Go to them and just watch. I know it's tough to watch a film that has so much fandom and a legacy of other films behind it to compare it to. But try to watch them as their own films. That being said I do believe this movie is one you have to watch more than once. Because once the dust settles you can watch it again and look at it without the pressure and expectation.
People are angry that Luke was a hermit. Guys he experienced alot and felt betrayed by his own religion. He was a broken man, to me this is realistic and interesting to watch. He had an arc and we can't have luke be exactly the same to have as much of a story arc. He was his normal self at the end of the film. He was the hero the rebellion needed and he was more of a symbol to them. "standing up to the first order with a laser sword." I felt that was fun.
Rey took the texts and Yoda destroyed the tree cuz Luke wasnt going to. isnt the force all living things? Binds the universe together? So why couldnt Yoda do that? Why do we need so much explained to us? Can't the force evolve? Hell we had fast running jedi in Ep1 but we never saw that again. SO many times that would have been helpful but we never saw it again. Do we want midichlorians or something? Why do we all of a sudden want everything explained to us? We complained about these things but then it stops now people are mad again?
Snoke mentions that he warned kylo ren as he grew in power the light would rise to challenge him. But Luke closed himself off from the force so Rey's abilities through the force was created out of necessity by the force for balance. To me, this is fun that the force is this self aware entity.
I can go on and on you guys. Like the movie, hate the movie. But be fair. Does it have issues? of course it does. Every star wars movie has issues. Nothing is perfect. Empire when it came out, had a huge outrage and divided fans. Now it's widely regarded as the best star wars film of all. Am i saying that will happen with the last jedi? I dont know.
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It's an almost empty theater at 12 midnight. I came to the movies theater with less expectations because of all those unsatisfied reviews I read.
Now "Star Wars" logo.. and that evocative music.. the opening crawl start crawling. Cried a little and couldn't be happier.
I think The Last Jedi is a film speaks to many minds with a newer Star Wars experience. While watching TLJ, you can spot the differences between those eras. "it's not about the Jedis".."The force is for everyone" and other not so classical line you will hear in TLJ. It's a new era, new Jedis, new heroes, new way of presenting SW to many new fans in Disney way. And I don't know if that is really a wise decision, especially with all of these classical fans (including me), some consider TLJ as an insult to the whole SW history, and I understand their feelings.
Personally, I liked TLJ, it was visually stunning, fast scenes (not boring), acceptable humor (BB8 action) and new cute characters (Progs, The crystal foxes)
But..
as an avid SW fan, i think TLJ isn't really about SW more than one-star-wars. I miss these scenes from the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy showing those strange creatures and their creepy culture and their catchy music. I miss watching the "peaceful" part of SW alongside the great wars.
In concluding
The Last Jedi was quite an experience as a film, but since it's a SW film we look forward for more than just "quite an experience". I'm bit disappointed.. but not too mad
Star Wars: The Last Jedi 7/10
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I was 13 years old when I was totally blown away by "Star Wars". Just "Star Wars". Not Episode IV, Not V... No just "Star Wars". And boy, what a load of negativity when George Lucas came up with Episode V. Five? Are you for real? That couldn't be right. Or could it? And we all know that "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" was and still is the best movie in the whole franchise.
When I read a lot of criticism about Episodes VII and VIII, there is this thing that echoes in a certain way throughout all the negativity: "Star Wars isn't Star Wars anymore. Disney killed it."
Excuses me? Nonsense!
Things change. Time changes. The world changes. We change. When you see "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" you see the seventies! The hairdo, the set, the costumes, the technology. It"s the seventies! We are now 40 years later and that means you get a movie that's 40 years further in time. It"s now. And in ten years it will be ten years old. It's that simple.
If you go into a cinema and expect "Star Wars", like episodes IV, V or even VI, don't bother. Don't even think about it! Yes, then you will be disappointed. Of course you will. Because you can never expect something to be "identical", "similar" or close to the original 40 years later. No way. Impossible.
If you go to the cinema to expect a spectacular and highly entertaining movie, a movie that will keep you glued to your seats, then "Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi" will give you that. Two hours and 30 minutes of fantastic entertainment. There were moments when I was watching, so fascinated that I forgot I was holding an empty coffee cup for more than ten minutes.
No it wasn't "Star Wars", duh, but it was certainly in the spirit of Star Wars. As far as I can say, as a lifelong fan: this movie honours Star Wars. It has a high pace, great humour, incredible action, probably the best lightsabre duel ever, the Force light and (very) dark, a wonderful Carrie Fisher, an impressive Mark Hamill, interesting twists and mind-blowing special effects. I wanted to be entertained, and I was. And will be, because I will go back to the cinema to see it again, and probably again. And wondering where the saga will go to in Episode IX...
So to all the critics who bashed the movie: let go! "Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi" is a Star Wars movie, it isn't "Star Wars"! It's just great fun.
"Thank the Maker".
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9/10
All new Jedi; Good space fights; Cool sword fights; BB-8
It a incredible movie for fans, They give more insight of Jedi power; Although some stupid story plot line . Even though altogether it was fun movie !! Part of it felt like serials though such a long movie!! Any one watched rebel animated series will also like it they kind of bring stuff from there as well.
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First, sorry for any spelling or other mistakes, Im not a native speaker...
I personaly like this movie. The story is not a copy-paste as the force awakening was. To me it looks like trying to connect the old characters and the new for the story. Like it has connections with old movies, but is a new story. It contained many unexpected spins and yet let the story open. A good middle part of the trilogy. There were some scenes that were strange, but understandable.
The acting was perfect in my eyes, all the actors played their part well. The effect were also excellent. For example that kamikaze attack into snokes ship was amazing. I was like omg what just happened. The music was also good.
Personally I thought that luke will do more but anyway, it was good. His final scene with Kylo was just fantastic. Also adding Yoda was a great moment.
Overall, a good movie worth every cent I paid for it in the cinema. Waiting for the next part.
May the Force be with You
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It's that time of year again! Since Disney Studios has made it its corporate mission to release Star Wars films every winter from now until the end of time, it's becoming apparent that the ubiquity of the Star Wars franchise is making it impossible not to get caught up in the hype. The very moment John Williams's bombastic Star Wars theme sounded its trumpets to the expected opening crawl, I - like most everyone else I'd imagine - had a Pavlovian reaction ginned by anticipation and pure joy. I'm not sure how long this euphoria will last. The force of Force Awakens (2015) just barely lasted through the 2016 New Years...but for now I'm just going to have to say, "Squeeeeeeee!!!"
The Last Jedi takes the strong if predictable set up of the Force Awakens and turns it all into a big, blistering, emotionally charged, action-packed and gainfully complex space opera in nearly every sense of the word. Just as it is big, Last Jedi is also bold, taking all the characters you love (new and old) on a journey that veers into all kinds of new and exciting directions without snapping the tether of believability and strong character development (though it does pull it tight at times). Those who state that this one is on the level of the original trilogy (or the orig-trig as the kids call it) may be jumping the gun a little but it is in the same ballpark and liable to have a lot of people swinging from the rafters with joy.
After the destruction of the Star Killer Base from the first film, the First Order has regrouped and consolidated power under their nefarious leader Snoke (Serkis). With the Resistance rebels on the ropes, Rey (Ridley) is tasked with bringing Luke Skywalker (Hamill) back from seclusion to help restore hope. Meanwhile, Po (Isaac), Finn (Boyega) and series newcomer Rose (Tran) attempt to evade capture and death at the hands of Kylo Ren (Driver), who leads the New Order's armada of Star Destroyers.
Part of the reason The Last Jedi is so effective in its ability to deliver both pulse-pounding action and satisfying stakes is because it answers old questions in unexpected ways while raising and examining larger thematic questions that audiences didn't know they had. While remaining as opaque as I possibly can (for fear spoiler-haters will string me up by my thumbs) the film bends and widens previously stated definitions of good, evil, the force, fate and choice as set up by earlier films. Some of that stuff is stated at the forefront as when Benecio Del Toro's ghoulish thief DJ is introduced in the second act. Other times, the framing of some scenes and the character development of others, laces the fabric of the story with a lot more to wrap your head around than just swinging swords and picking up rocks.
Key to this trilogy's larger arc is the interplay between Rey and Kylo. While Daisy Ridley blossoms as a conflicted protagonist that nevertheless oozes old-school charm, charisma and heroism, Driver's Kylo Ren really comes into his own in this one. I didn't really hate the Kylo as much as some in the Force Awakens. To the contrary the idea of having a petulant child running around in granddaddy's clothes was to me, the perfect fictional counterpoint to a certain real group of proto-fascist hate trolls. But here it seems the waters are a little deeper, the feelings a little more mixed and the generational gap a little more wide. This was, to me, the best thing writer/director Rian Johnson could have possibly done with the character.
Speaking of which the direction; both in terms of behind the camera and overall narrative flow, is refreshingly grounding here. Instead of opting for a fun, expensive-pretending-level fan film like J.J. Abrams did, Johnson brings a level of strong visual literacy and storytelling panache. The themes here are clearer and weightier even as the script muddies the waters of Jedi legends with ambiguity and regret. Additionally there's a sense of scope in Last Jedi. Aside from Rogue One (2016) and a few scenes in the unmentionable prequels (1999-2005), we never see very much life outside of the bad guy/good guy paradigm. Here we not only see other people going about their daily lives, we see how this intergalactic tug-o-war ultimately affects other living beings.
There are some editing and time-clock issues, the second act does go a little long and there's a subplot whose impetus is interesting and clever but comes across as just a little clunky. Mere quibbles. The larger, more interesting issue may just stem from the cognitive dissonance created by Disney, when the super studio, makes a point of standing up for the little guy; inspiring its audience to never lose hope even when all is about to be engulfed in flames and blaster fire. But even if this latest Star Wars is, by definition a corporate shill to sell toys (when was it not?), it certainly doesn't feel like it.
Instead it feels like a glorious multi-generational remix of most of what made the first trilogy great while also treading a brave new path with growing confidence. There are impeccably choreographed lightsaber battles and incredibly taut X-wing dogfights alongside new intimate character moments and plucky sequences of daring-do. To some longtime fans, The Last Jedi may devastate with the force of an exploding Star Killer. But lest you think the beloved sci-fi series is at risk of implosion, I remind you "we are what (the new generation) grows beyond," and it seems the next generation has finally found Star Wars.
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I believe this film is divisive because it's different. Some people like the risks it takes, and some people think it deviates from what Star Wars is. Personally, I appreciated its boldness and its willingness to take risks. One of my biggest problems with The Force Awakens was that it pretty much followed the Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope formula. In my eyes, it played it safe. But I do understand why some would be turned off by The Last Jedi. It does try new things, and that won't work for everyone. However, I personally found the good outweighed the bad, and there was a lot more good in the film than bad. But there will be people who disagree specifically on what are the good parts and what are the bad parts. The Last Jedi, moment by moment, asks itself what the complete opposite thing anyone would have expected them to do is, and then does it. But this isn't simply for the sake of doing so, but rather it all serves the story and the narrative Rian Johnson has crafted. The things that happen in this film come completely out of left field. If you had told me what happens in this movie prior to my seeing it, I would have been angry. I would have thought that it ruined the movie, and it was a disservice to the characters and to the brand. However, upon seeing it in context, and seeing how every choice, no matter how different it may be, serves the story, I'm on board. It's not the story I would have chosen myself, but it ultimately works and I like the direction they are going in. It's not often that I get to sit in a movie theater and genuinely have zero idea of what is going to happen next. For the eighth (technically ninth) entry into a single franchise, having this level of unpredictability and originality is incredibly refreshing...
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Star Wars The Last Jedi:
.... Well that's not what I was expecting. That sums up Last Jedi, that with a little 'what the fuck did I just watch'.
But am getting ahead of myself; The Last Jedi is the 8th instalment in the Star Wars episodic story and the second of these brand new ones. Direction has been handed to Rian Johnson (Looper) and continues to tell the struggle of the plucky Resistance against the looming First Order, while our new hero Ray (Daisy Ridley) discovers her new found powers with the original hero Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill- who indeed does talk this time round).
Without going into anything spoiler-ey: The Last Jedi is a rather difficult movie to review as am not entirely sure what I saw. It was definitely Star Wars- there was space stuff and blasters and lightsabers- but it's a different kind Star Wars, a very unique Star Wars. There's certain choices made in The Last Jedi which boggle the mind and really puts Episode IX into question, but am okay with it.
But beyond this oddness, The Last Jedi still has some pretty damn awesome stuff in it. All the space stuff is super exciting, with some spectacular shots that'll be remembered amongst other great Star Wars scenes. The effects, for the most part, are great. I love how they are continuing to blend CGI and actual props and animatronics- it really helps in the world immersion, that you believe the actors are actually there touching stuff.
The actors are all hitting their marks with believable performances, and providing some emotional oomph when needed. Mark Hamill is giving his best Luke Skywalker in the entire saga and every moment with him is a joy to witness. There's also more comedy in The Last Jedi which doesn't distract from the rest of the movie so that's all good. And Porgs: they are both adorable and not annoying, so thumbs up to them.
The lightsaber fights are some of the best. All am going to say is: wide shot lightsaber fight. Wide shot. Lightsaber fight. Wide shot + lightsaber fight= fucking booya.
The only problem with The Last Jedi, putting the strange decision to one side, is the subplot that involves Finn (John Boyega) and the new character Rose (Kelly Marie Tran). The subplot is important but halts the movie in its place every time it cuts to it, an almost diversion. And this whole sequence feels like a extended short movie or from a completely different movie. The place they go to seem to similar to Earth with some exotic species and totally disconnects from the rest of this fantasy universe. And in a 2 and half hour movie this 30 minute subplot could have been cut down. Also the Force makes even less sense if that's possible but Last Jedi somehow manages it.
Star Wars The Last Jedi is a rather odd experience... And I like it. There's a few scenes that just make you go 'huh' but they are such oddball huhs that I don't care. The Last Jedi isn't the best Star Wars, truth be told I enjoyed Force Awakens a little bit more, but it is by far not the worse. And it's such a unique vision of Star Wars that its hard to fault it. I give Star Wars The Last Jedi a A-
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As Ep. I,II,III were about Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padmé, and IV,V,VI, Luke, Han and Leia, we now have three new heroes: Rey, Finn and Poe.
The Last Jedi brings what Star Wars needed with a lot of content that only appeared in the animated series and comics (although it could have explained some of them for the average viewer) and makes the bridge between the old trilogy and the new. Giving now the stage for the new stars to shine
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10/10
Great movie; genuinely confused by the backlash...
I'm genuinely so utterly confused by the terrible ratings of this film. I can understand it not being your fav SW film, or being disappointed with the approach to the way that some of the questions we had were answered...but ratings of 1 and 2?! Are you kidding?
To me, this just boils down to having insanely high expectations, because a 1 or a 2 is a rating for like, a B-list film.
Just because you don't agree with the approach does NOT mean that this is not a quality film. The graphics/visuals were spot on. The acting was also quality. The film consistently keeps you on the edge of your seat, and it is in no way predictable...which, I would imagine, is a plus. And, for the record, I'm not a newb to SW by any means.
Basically every SW film after the initial trilogy had huuuuuge shoes to fill, and it seems that anything that doesn't live up to ESB is a failure in a lot of fan's eyes. I just don't understand that, I guess.
A lot of people are apparently furious that Disney is in control now... but hey, Lucas made that decision, too. And he obviously trusted Disney with his creation or he would not have done it.
All that being said... go into this movie with an open mind, untainted by personal opinions about Disney, the director, etc...and you will surely enjoy it. There is nothing bland or boring about this film, and if you are a very visual person, as I am, it is sure to grab you by the heart.
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Any "fan" complaining about how stuff is missing from the books has not been paying attention because when Disney got control they released a statement that they were scrapping all cannon not in the official movies.
While not a fan of this decision the fact is that it was made and it's done, and no amount of bitching about it is going to change that fact.
Overall it is a "Good" Star Wars movie and well worth seeing on the big screen.
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I get how a lot of people feel passionately about this movie... either for or against. I'm pleased to say this one worked for me! I'd say about 96% of it I found to be unexpectedly pleasing... only 4% I might've tweaked myself, but that stuff is negligible.
The main things I loved about LAST JEDI were the full-circle moments. When R2-D2 replayed Leia's original holographic message, to remind him of the stakes he still has in the fight against the Dark Side. When in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Luke says to Yoda, "I'm not afraid." And Yoda tells Luke, "Yeah? You will be... you will be." And then we see Luke in this flick being rightfully scared by a momentary lapse of judgment... and the deadly repercussions for his students. And finally, When in RETURN OF THE JEDI on the forest moon of Endor, Luke tells Leia, "You have that power, too. In time you'll learn to use it as I have." This finally occurs onscreen during this movie!
So, yes... I'm a die-hard fan from the original era... and I've already seen this installment several times... and intend to see it many more while it's still on the big screen!
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I saw ANH in May of 1977 when I was 19. I think this is why I enjoyed TLJ much more than many of the other user reviews. I think younger viewers who saw the original trilogy or the prequels as children have different expectations that SW will stay true to an expanded universe canon. I don't care about any of that. The SW universe is a space opera with wild characters, villains and heroes, moments of distress followed by last second rescues, and a great score. TLJ has all these plus some better acting from Hamill and Fisher.
Like all SW movies this is full of plot holes, undeveloped characters, impossible physics, cringey dialogue, and story-stopping interludes; but not of that mattered to me either.
Just as TFA had parallels to ANH this has parallels to ESB. That gives the story a familiarity but it is still exciting and full of dark moments like in ESB. I liked the humor, the beautiful set pieces, space battles, 2 on 20 light saber battles, and the Williams score, I think it also sets up some epic action in Episode IX (but Disney, please don't blow up another Death Star).
I'm keeping this spoiler-free for those who are thinking about seeing it but are afraid to read the spoiler-filled bad reviews. If you are a casual to moderately interested Star Wars fan you will be entertained by The Last Jedi.
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I wasn't planning on seeing this one. I don't have the typical Star Wars itch most people have. I'm a film lover first and not a fantasy or sci-fi or superhero action film lover. I normally stay away from those unless someone says it is worth watching. After seeing all the poor reviews I began to think that there is a real reason for me to watch this. I was intrigued to watch this "disappointing" film. Guess what? It was amazing. Not perfect, but creative, complex and yes fun! What Rian Johnson added to the Star Wars universe was a much needed jolt of realism and complexity. I think the major reason most people dislike it is that they don't like to feel uncomfortable or unsure, but they are willing to watch the completely unoriginal "The Force Awakens" and left satisfied? Are you kidding me? There are a lot of social problems I'm not going to go into that makes me think why the masses tend to behave this way, but anyone who loves creative and thoughtful explorations in film (Blade Runner 2049, The Arrival to name a few) will enjoy this one. Those that want to see regurgitated adaptation will not. One thing I promise is that in the next few years to come this movie will finally pick up steam as being one of the best if not "the" best Star Wars movie ever made. Just you watch.
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10/10
Despite some slight issues, still one of the best movies.
Really people? Saying you're not going to see another Star Wars movie? Get a life in all honesty. The fact that we're all still here seeing Star Wars movies literally 40 years after the original came out is evidence enough that we are all going to continue to accept anything that is thrown at us. And, in addition to that, we have lived through some pretty rough Star Wars moments: the ewoks. The special editions (don't even get me started on the song "Jedi Rocks." Also, Vader screaming "NO" as he throws the Emperor into the reactor shaft is one of the worst scenes in cinematic history. It literally killed the climax of the original trilogy). THE FREAKING HOLIDAY SPECIAL!!!!!! Ewok tv shows. The Phantom Menace. The abysmal CGI in Attack of the Clones. Anakin and Padme's romance. Padme dying from a broken heart. The Clone Wars movie (not the TV show. The show is incredible). We are going to live through all of these things, and yet people are still going to complain because they didn't like the explanation about Rey's parents or the fact that they made a new plot and Kylo Ren doesn't just come back to the light like Vader did, but instead kills his master and becomes an even greater villain than he already was.
Is this movie perfect? Absolutely not, but what movie is. You can even look at some of the best rated movies of all time and they are not perfect. Did I love every second of this movie? Not entirely. Finn and Rose's story wasn't the best. Phasma still sucks. But, LUKE FREAKING SKYWALKER??? He literally did things with the force that no one had ever imagined was possible before! Crashing a rebel cruiser through a Star Destroyer at light speed? Such an incredible scene. The awesome WWII style bombers that take out the dreadnought are amazing. Rian Johnson, while not a perfect script writer, did an amazing job with this movie. In his defense, there are a lot of new characters in this new trilogy and he did a great job of trying to balance the old and the new.
Finally, all of you naysayers are probably just the people who could only find one major complaint with The Force Awakens: it's similar to a New Hope. So your major complaint about a very well executed movie is that it's similar to literally the first blockbuster of which it is a sequel? Furthermore, you criticized the prequels for being too different. And for anyone who's saying it's a carbon copy of IV, I'd like to ask, "Where's the second sun on Jakku? Where is this mystical missing Jedi that they're searching for in New Hope?" The similarities are there, don't get me wrong, but they are 2 seperate movies. And can you blame Johnson for taking risks? Abrams got ripped apart for not being original enough. So Johnson does what people wanted and creates a new story that phases out the old Star Wars gradually while bringing in the new generation of heroes. This movie is incredible and anyone who tells you otherwise probably thinks that Hayden Christensen's line about sand is one of the finest moments in Cinema as well.
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Just got back from the Last Jedi show! Wow! Just wow!
The people will try and tell you that they "fundamentally disagree" with all the things that happen with luke. But, this is what character arc is. Frankly, I've never liked luke but wow did this movie turn my feelings!
People were clamouring for a new sort of Star Wars movie and it is here, not just a rehash of the past films, but a new stand alone movie and i can tell you right now that this movie will stand the test of time.
I am not the "Empire" fan i am "a new hope" guy and the charater arc that luke gets is thoroughly satisfying. Don't listen to all those idiots who claim to want a new film but can't let go of the past. Go watch it for yourself and get your own opinion!
For me, without a doubt, this is the best movie of the year!
And the more I think of it, the more I fall in love with it!
Loved the last jedi, just loved it!
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To start out, this in my mind is no where near the crash and burn that Episode 1-3 were, and the fact that it is receiving lower ratings doesn't make sense to me. This adaptation takes risks, and helps people understand deeper the meaning of the force in an interesting way.
The only reason I gave it 8 out of 10 stars is because of the Nazi Yoda burning the sacred books. Never in history has that been a good idea.
If you have seen this and hated it, I have had multiple friends who went and saw it a second time and enjoyed it much more because there expectation of what Star Wars needed to be was removed from the equation.
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I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan and The Last Jedi left me speechless. I literally couldn't talk when it was over. My throat couldn't make a sound. The lump in it was too big. It's weird and hilarious and heartbreaking and more action packed than any other Star Wars movie. I lost track of how many times I wept while watching Rian Johnson's film. But I'm sure I also laughed hard just as many times, if not more. Nothing can prepare you for the emotional ride it takes you on. It's a truly epic journey that has enough plot twists for two movies. It's also a true example of auteur filmmaking, and it gives us some startlingly beautiful images that I still can't get out of my head.
The line in the trailer was right: This isn't going to go the way you think. The answers it provides to the questions posed by The Force Awakens are unexpected, but they all make perfect sense. It's original and surprising and deeply moving and it will change the way you view Star Wars - in a good way.
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I am honestly confused and frustrated by all the one and two star reviews that this exceptional movie has been receiving. I am really? Y'all think this movie was one of the worst movies ever made? I know, I know, we all did not expect a lot of things to happen that did happen. We constantly argued who Rey's parents were, and who Snoke could be. We didn't see Luke dying the way he did. Totally unpredictable. But isn't that what makes a great movie? I'd say the worst movies are the ones you can predict by watching the teaser trailer. However, those movies are the ones to get nine and ten star reviews while this one gets one and two stars.
As a massive Star Wars fan, I left the theatre opening night in awe of the pure raw emotion and feeling this movie contained. I have never cried while watching a movie; yet, this movie, (although as stupid as it sounds to some people), is extremely powerful and moving to fans who have loved Star Wars their entire lives.
To those who criticize the slo mo chase. Really? Personally I have never found a chase scene to be more intriguing. You have to keep in mind the significance of this scene. If the Resistance runs out of fuel, then the entire Resistance movement is over. Done. Game Over. Everything the Rebel Alliance and Resistance movements, all the lives lost means nothing, and yet some people find this extremely boring.
One of the first questions I was asked when I walked out of the theatre was, "do you think it was better than The Empire Strikes Back?" And I started to think, we cannot as Star Wars fans compare these new movie installments to the originals. Yes the original trilogy will always have a special place in our hearts, but the entire way the new movies are shot, written, and directed is totally different. These new movies are written to both old audience, and new fans, and we must constantly keep in mind how difficult that may be. However, The Last Jedi is easily the better than both Episode VII and Rogue One.
So, is Star Wars: The Last Jedi a perfect movie? No. I gave it ten stars only to pull up the ratings. The Last Jedi should easily be a 8.8, yet at the time I write this review it stands at a 7.8. Don't hate the movie because of its unpredictability, and don't hate it because it was not exactly what you thought it would turn out to be. And what's one of the best parts of The Last Jedi? We have no idea what Episode IX will be like.
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9/10
Star Wars Fans Should be Ashamed of Themselves - Not this Film.
Don't believe the hate, this is a good film. The problem lies in the "Star Wars fan" who has for so long taken ownership of the franchise to the point where they, themselves, have turned into their own echo chambers of misconceptions and poor film analysis. It's never been disgusting than it is now, as evidenced by fake down-voting campaigns on social media and the sheer level of boneheaded distaste in ever single user review I've seen on this site. Have yet to speak to a single soul in person that didn't like the film, the film boasts an "A" CinemaScore among the average audience member that saw it (because in real life you only get one vote, you wack jobs), and it has lit the internet on fire and made Star Wars, for better or worse, more relevant than ever. If you really think that a film which makes its bed in not taking the easy way out of any creative decision is just "too corporate" then you've clearly lost all perspective as a movie-goer, frankly. Count this as one film and series where the critics have way more insight here than the "fans". Yeah, I put "fans" in quotations like that purposely, you're not fans, you're idiot children.
But I don't want to review the fanbase that I'm currently embarrassed to be a part of, I want to review the film. Rian Johnson fed us all some very bitter pills, but it isn't without purpose, meaning, or substantiation. Any assertion to the contrary is, in no uncertain terms, false. Let me first address a few misconceptions:
1. "Why did Luke Skywalker die like that!!?? He just basically slipped on a banana peel!!!" - The film informs the viewer during one of the first "psychic" exchanges between Kylo Ren and Rey that such a feat, a force projection like that into another system, would kill the user. Ren was initially under the assumption that Rey was force projecting herself, you see. Luke chose to sacrifice his physical form to save the Resistance. But no one is ever truly gone, as he says, and we see Luke become one with the force as Obi wan and Yoda did before him.
2. "The Canto Bight subplot was just a waste of time!" No it wasn't, without that event the entire finale of the film doesn't happen. DJ (Benicio Del Toro) sold them out to the First Order to save his own skin. That led to the deaths of thousands of Resistance fighters and the pursuit of the surviving Resistance to the planet Crait. To the character development, we see 3 major characters make decisions that contribute to this, most notably Poe Dameron. It was his plan to send them to Canto Bight because of his own personal recklessness. The failures of key characters are a huge teaching tool in this film in shaping them into leaders who may actually one day win this thing. The sequence also offers Finn and Rose their personal arc of reestablishing many of the themes that Star Wars was built upon way back in 1977. Just because a plan does not work does not mean it has no cinematic value, children. Learn something about cinema and writing before opening your electronic mouths for a change. "Plot" is what happens, "story" is why it happens, and the two are equally important in delivering a narrative.
3. "Leia flying around in space was ridiculous!" Leia didn't fly. There's no gravity in space. She used the force to pull herself back to the cruiser. Force pull. "Fans". Pah!
And so on.
Rian Johnson presented a very wise version of Luke, someone who had a point to make about the place of the Jedi in the universe. As Yoda once said "the force surrounds us and binds us". Life creates it, makes it grow. The force belongs to all of life, not to the Jedi. To say that the force belongs to the Jedi is vanity. That is Luke's point, that is his perspective, and he is restrained not by cowardice but by this measured rationale. Take someone 30+ years ahead, they will not be the same man that they used to be. They don't have to be. The key is in having Luke make sense with the man he used to be. And that is intact. Just not in the way that one would expect, and that is a bitter pill to swallow. But it isn't without its rewards and insights.
Through Luke, the force has been deepened and fleshed out in cinema for the first time, really, since 1980's The Empire Strikes Back. That is a reward. Imparting that knowledge to Rey is a reward. Luke saving the Resistance and assuming his place as an inspirational figure for a new generation of soldier and citizen, alike, is a great reward on this character and a fitting tribute. (But you can't tell that to "fans" who just wanted to see a Jedi Master, of all people, show up and start slaughtering storm troopers).
Using Luke Skywalker, Rian Johnson has returned the series to its foundational heart, and that is a reward. I think it just requires a little deeper look into things than all the fan-theories of Snoke being Darth Plagueis...
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Most reviews I have read condemn Rian Johnson for placing Luke Skywalker in a place of "Grey Jedi" ala "Jolee Bindo". But I believe that very much his natural evolution of an un-directed Luke toward his understanding of the force, makes sense. And hence his direction of Rey's training is understandable.
The main characters of this series are Rey and Kylo and the Dynamic of that relationship will only be truly defined in the 9th film.
The Jedi and the Sith are very absolute understandings of the universe/force, but for Luke to feel like the balnce lies in the Grey maks sense to me.
Do I think Poe, and Finn, and Holdo's storylines were irritating? Yes!!!!!! but that is litterally how the chain of command works. I don't feel it was designed to eat time (like EP VI forest scenes), I feel like it was designed to raise excitement to the payoff, which I also feel is fine for a Star Wars movies.
Honestly, is it my favourite movie? Not yet. But I believe Rian Johnson is a fan of the extended Star Wars universe and hence fans of the movies may find conflict in thin movie.
For those who have not ventured out of the film universe, hold tight. the conclusion to the trilogy is yet to end.
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Bananas! I loved it! had a great time! Probably will see it again! If I had 1 critique it would be the fight scene against the guards after Kylo killed Snoke. Choreography could've been better. But that's so minor lol I thought they hit all the marks and it felt like a Star Wars movie!
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The Last Jedi has the least amount of time elapsed since the previous instalment (you could make a case for Rogue One into A New Hope, but I'm not really sure that counts). The resistance, after their victory against Starkiller base, are now fleeing their own base as The First Order arrive to bombard it. We also pick up on Ahch'to immediately, with Rey handing the lightsaber over to Luke. The story that follows, in broad strokes, is pretty much just the Resistence running away from the First Order as they keep hot on their heels. Meanwhile Rey learns about herself, Luke, the Jedi, and digs deeper into Kylo Ren's psyche on the hidden planet.
The biggest thing to keep in mind with The Last Jedi is it's aim, one of subversion. It subverts every expectation and Star Wars trope there is. This has rubbed many people up the wrong way, but for me it has rivitalised the franchise after the New Hope copy of Force Awakens. Where Force Awakens attempted to feel familiar and as a result mimic a lot of elements we've already seen in the saga a number of times before, Last Jedi throws them out the window and forges its own path. In this regard it's a very self-aware movie. Rian Johnson knows exactly what he was doing with it, and the hype surrounding the script - that he had written some crazy, new stuff for the franchise - does not go unfounded.
One of the biggest examples of this is the role of Poe and Finn. As they reach desperation and hopelessness, they go against orders to hatch their own against-the-odds plan. They seek the heroic path we've seen a number of times in these kinds of movies. But against all expectations they fail. They fail hard. It does not result in a big triumphant moment where the good guys win against all hope and the bad guys are left scratching their heads. I've seen criticism that it makes Finn's sub-plot entirely pointless, and yeah I can understand that point of view. We get dragged to a bizarre set of sequences set at a casino that ram a message of corporations and wealth down our throats, and we don't get a satisfactory payoff from it. But on the other hand it shows us that our protagonists are not flawless heroes who always win. They make mistakes. They're brash and impulsive.
The Last Jedi tries very hard to drift away from the black-and-white, good vs evil that has defined the saga for so long. It flirts with shades of grey instead. Luke is no longer a hopeful optimist who always does the right thing, but he hides away in shame of a mistake he made that cost lives. Rey is not the infallible hero she's been built up to be as she delves deep into the depths of darkside willingly, without resisting. Kylo Ren grows beyond just being the petulant Anakin-copy, himself seeking a new world order that is greater than anything that has come before, neither light nor dark.
An early theory I had during the movie pertained to a developing relationship between Kylo and Rey. They're connected across lightyears by the force and share conversations with one another where they open up and learn more about each other. So my theory was this; maybe Rey's importance in the saga has nothing to do with her parentage, her past, but instead is because of her future. Her destiny is to join Kylo and together they bring balance to the force with force-neutral children that are neither light or dark. Rey and Kylo themselves are neither extreme either, and so bringing balance to one another. As the film went on this theory started to deteriorate, so in a couple of years I'll probably look like a complete idiot (or you never know, I might look like a genius). And yet the fact I was so readily given this open interpretation for where the franchise might go has me excited. The subversions of The Last Jedi have effectively wiped the slate clean again, opening the way for Episode IX to go in any direction.
Of course I'm a visuals guy, always have been and always will be, so I have no doubt that a big part of my love for this movie stems from the fact that it is without doubt the best looking Star Wars movie to date. Everything from composition to colours to the quality of CGI and puppetry is grade A stuff. The third act on Crait is simply beautiful to watch, with icicle wolves running around, and red crystals beneath salt-flats that ploom up creating such a gorgeous contrast between white and a rich red. The big climax between Rey, Kylo, and Snoke is also a feast for the eyes, as the clean red and black interior of Snoke's throne room is soiled by flame and betrayal, and his red-clad guards burst into fervent action in one of the most enticing lightsaber battles the franchise has seen. Also love it or hate it, but Leia drifting back to the ship through the debris is fantastic just to watch.
But okay, I acknowledge that this film isn't flawless, and I can at least understand some of the criticisms levied it's way. For starters the pacing seems a little off. The big climax of the whole movie occurs at the end of the second act. The Rey/Kylo/Snoke, Finn/Rose/BB-8, and Poe/Leia/Holdo climaxes all occur at the same time, and once they've all been resolved that feels like when the movie should end. Instead the action drifts to a nearby planet where the remnants of the Resistance are holed up in a mine while the First Order continues their chase in giant, futuristic AT-ATs. On subsequent viewings this might all fly by a little better, but on first viewing it does start to drag a little as the third act kicks in.
Then there's the jokes and one-liners. Now, I didn't mind them for the most part. Star Wars has always had jokes and one-liners, and not all of them land. The Last Jedi however opens with a super clunky joke that doesn't feel natural or particularly funny at all. It turns General Hux into a joke who we can't take seriously for the entirety of the movie. I mean I get it, it's another subversion of the arrogant Imperial officer who makes grand pronouncements and threats without looking passed his nose, but it just completely cheapened the character for later on. That said I did enjoy the caretakers of Ahch'to and their disdain for Rey, the Porgs, and many of the lesser one-liners sprinkled all over.
Nonetheless I feel Last Jedi is one of the best Star Wars movies made. It's not without fault, and some things could've been done better, like Snoke, and Poe's disobedience, and I admit I'd have liked more continuity to have stayed intact from Force Awakens (not like Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi haphazardly retconned things from New Hope after all, right?), but the good far, far, far outweighs the bad in my opinion, and I can't wait to see it again. I give it a solid 9/10, up with Empire, Revenge, and Rogue One as the best Star Wars movies.
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When it came out two years ago, The Force Awakens felt a little too familiar. It had ANOTHER Death Star (by another name, bigger and even more deadly, but still...yawn...) It didn't explain why the winners of Episode 6 are somehow still the underdogs in a fight against the New Order. It gave us some great moments but didn't feel like it made the universe any bigger than it used to be. However, it revived that old Star Wars feeling and introduced us to some wonderful new characters, especially a complex, conflicted villain named Kylo Ren.
The Last Jedi now takes those characters -- and the old ones that are left -- to new places. It builds on the mythology of the old movies (not the legacy books) and asks exciting new questions about it.
SPOILERS ahead:
I love that Rey comes from nothing. That means that a force user doesn't have to have a pedigree. It means that if someone were to snuff out all the Skywalkers, Palpatines and Kenobis in the universe, new force users can still be born.
Snoke was boring, so it's just as well that he's gone. That sets up Kylo Ren as the main opponent for Ep9 from the start.
I love Luke's character arc. He had stopped believing in the Jedi because he felt no one should own the force. Rey wanted to bring him back to the Resistance to give it hope. Instead, she brought him hope. And in the end, his faith is restored and he goes in peace.
I love how the movie undercuts the whole "Ambitious person defies authority and saves the day" trope. Poe, Finn and Rose actually end up harming the resistance with their shenanigans.
I love how, at the end, it's not about the heroes. They are just the catalyst for change, "the spark that lights the fire that defeats the New Order". In the end, the people in the galaxy will have to save themselves. By protecting what they love, not killing what they hate.
I hope, Episode 9 will show us how that happens.
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Star Wars has been gutted by the Last Jedi. Here are twenty things wrong with this abomination of a film:
1. Suddenly the First Order is in control of the entire galaxy???
2. Snoke is easily killed without revealing any backstory.
3. Captain Phasma is easily killed without any backstory.
4. Rey's parents turn out to be scumbag nobodies who sold her into slavery.
5. They drop bombs in space (zero-g)????
6. The rebelion gets obliterated because of their stupidity (begin with hundreds and end up with barely a dozen left).
7. Gratuitous cute penguin thingys.
8. Gratuitous weird crystal doggy thingys.
9. Luke skywalker comes off as a complete asshole.
10. Leia flies through the vacuum of space like superman.
11. It's basically a very badly executed re-hash of the Empire Strikes Back.
12. Luke Skywalker is all by himself on a deserted island, but wait -- there's maid service there (alien frog maid thingys).
14. Luke Skywalker milks an alien sea lion by squeezing green milk from its multiple breasts (yes really).
15. Yoda appears only to burn down the Jedi's holiest site and cackle maniacally (WTF?).
17. Rey gets Jedi powers without any training or discipline (everyone's a jedi/SJW).
18. The casino subplot that doesn't go anywhere.
19. Luke skywalker dies for no reason at all.
20. Laura Dern's moronic purple-haired admiral character.
And I'm just getting started. Who put these idiots in charge of Star Wars and why didn't the cast revolt on reading this stupid stupid stupid script? A nine year old could old written something bettter. This movie is absolute proof that Rotten Tomatoes is composed of of a bunch of Hollywood suck ups (Suckups - 93%, Actual Fans - 56%).
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Great movie, fantastic shoot, cut and with the right composer John Williams i pray to god that he survives until the next capter because Michael Giacchino's music has no soul though he composes for all new movies. Good but lame music lack soul. Every scene in this movie you feel the scene because of Williams score.
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Its different... That's really all I need to say. People are hating on it because it doesn't copy the empire strikes back. Probably one of the best star wars movies.
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I love Star Wars. The original trilogy is up there with the best trilogies in film ever. I even see the good in the prequel trilogy, despite their many flaws. I'll find something to love about them. When The Force Awakens came out I was very pleased with the revival of the Star Wars Universe and how fun and exciting the film and new characters were. The perfect blend of nostalgia and a new hope. I welcomed Rian Johnson and his vision for this sequel. This may be me looking at the series with my Star Wars fanboy glasses but this film was very good and a worthy successor and entry into the series.
The film directly follows the events of The Force Awakens, where Rey tries to convince Luke to teach her the ways of the Jedi. Conflicted Kylo Ren communicates with Rey while also being under the rule of Supreme Leader Snoke. The Resistance led by General Leia Organa must do what they can do avoid the First Order and their impending attack while trying to mount against them. Old heroes and new faces unite to find a common cause against evil forces. The film definitely feels like a smooth sequel to The Force Awakens.
The film boasts a familiar excellent score by John Williams. The set design and effects are fantastic. The theme and use of the color red is eye popping and glorious. The scenes in Snoke's throne room and the final battle with the old speeders on salt and red dust is beautiful. The action sequences are never dull and look exquisite (take some notes, Justice League). Without spoiling anything, there are a few wonderful battle moments which will have Star Wars fans feeling overjoyed with excitement.
The film introduces new cuddly critters and has humor, which is a hallmark of the saga. One thing I really love about the series is its ability to build new universes, as if there is infinite possibilities when introducing new worlds and characters. There are some questionable character decisions and plot choices, but this sets up for something grand in the final film of the sequel trilogy. Carrie Fischer has a stronger and more prominent role in this film and I think its a satisfying departure for a very memorable character and actress.
So where does the film rank among its predecessors? I think Last Jedi is comfortably better than the prequel trilogy and even outshines Rogue One (which is also really good). It doesn't quite meet the adventure and excitement that The Force Awakens brings, but that's perfectly fine. Its a film I plan to watch and experience again on home media, as is the case with the rest in this film series. Very pleased with this effort. Will be anxiously awaiting the return of JJ Abrams to finish off this trilogy.
9/10
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a challenging, bold, and different movie than many expected. While critical response has been extremely positive, it seems general audiences are having more divisive views on the film. Some applaud it as the best entry in the series since the release of Empire Strikes Back, while there are others who claim it is the worst entry in the entire series. For me personally, I believe in the years to come Last Jedi will be looked back upon as one of the greatest Star Wars films, and one of the greatest sequels, ever made. It's been interesting to see the audience response since many who feel disappointed seem to forget, or were just never aware, that this kind of reception is the exact one received by Empire Strikes Back when it was first released. People were divided on that as well. It wasn't until the original trilogy ended that fans looked back on it so fondly, as do I (Empire is not only my favorite Star Wars film but also my favorite film period.) So like everyone who went to see Last Jedi opening night I did indeed have high expectations. Force Awakens was the film that brought Star Wars back to it's former glory, and Last Jedi elevated it even further. It is gracefully written and directed by Rian Johnson, giving us some of the best visuals we've ever had in a Star Wars film, as well as a gut retching story about self discovery, loss, coping, dealing with hate and revenge, and inner demons. This a movie not afraid to make you think and, more importantly, feel. You will have emotional reactions to this film and that exactly what the filmmaker wanted, whether you like those reactions or not. It's redundant to talk about what a stellar cast the movie has. From Daisy Ridley's Rey to Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, they all do a phenomenal job here, including Oscar Issac, who was sorely underused in Awakens, as Poe Dameron. His arc is one of the more interesting ones, whose resolution goes against normal "hotshot pilot" cliche's. The weakest, but by no means is a weak performance, of the cast would be John Boyega's Finn and the newly introduced Kelly Marie Tran's Rose. Their plot meanders as they're sent on a side quest of sorts, but the resolution leading to the climax helps save this subplot. As most have agreed, the stand outs are the late Carrie Fisher in her final performance, which was beautifully poetic and wonderfully performed, and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, who gives the greatest performance of his career thus far. Luke is not the same wide eyed boy from the original trilogy hoping for a greater purpose. He is a broken man who has had tragedy strike his life. Much like Empire, this is a darker entry in the series, but still has a feeling of hope throughout it. It may not be easy for some to accept yet, but in time I feel The Last Jedi will indeed be recognized as a great film that holds up to the lofty standards of it's predecessors, just as I see it today.
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7/10
Not a masterpiece, not as bad as some of these reviews might make you think
I'd probably give it more of a 6.5 score tbh. I feel like that lightsaber stuck between Ray and Kylo, but leaning towards the 'I liked it' side a bit more. The hate coming from some of the fans is sort of understandable, the movie makes some bold choises and some work out better than others without getting into specifics here.
I really liked the Ray/Luke/Kylo storyline, I LOVED the answer to who Ray's parents are (I hope JJ doesn't just go ahead and change that in IX), I thought the acting was great across the board and am genuanly intirgued to see where this goes next. I also hope they give Finn and Poe a bit more to do in the next one, Finn's storyline especially didn't seem to matter all that much in this one and he was one of my favourites in TFA.
Enjoy the movie everyone!
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After watching TLJ, a fan said: "It's like someone shot John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison all in one night."
Heheh. That was perfect.
In a recent interview, comedian/actor and life-long Star Wars fan, Bobby Moynihan said: "I love the idea, that it's quite possible that all of these (previous SW) movies are all for not. And that the Skywalker line is just a whinny bunch of guys, from his dad on. Just these wimps. Males in Star Wars are just wimps and Leia was like ... 'I had it this the whole time man but I was to busy correcting everything else instead of you magical Jedi stuff but I can also do that too' " (I.e. Leia using the force to survive and fly through the vacuum of space - cring)
So true.
In The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams sacrificed the entire Star Wars Lore on the alter of 21st century hyper-Feminism ... creating yet another perfectly boring, predictable, yawningly clichéd, stock character called Rey ... A hyper-empowered, pretty, feminist robot of implausibly infinite abilities ... whose endless and escalating waves of superlative confidence quickly wash away any and all hints of limitations and reality ... a superwoman fetish of automatic and unearned abilities ... served on the altar of bottomless female vanity.
In The Last Jedi, Johnson continues the feminist 'march through the institutions' ... but he also begins the deconstruction of Star Wars' male heroes past, present, and future.
Star Wars per Disney, may be bereft of meaning, purpose, white males and source lore ... but on the other hand, it is brimming with requisite SJW/PC/Feminist zeal to pass 'boardroom' muster ... and loaded with all the expected aesthetics (cinematics, CGI and score) worthy of 'blockbuster' status. And THAT is all that is needed to be well-received in today's market.
Hell, even I had to give TLJ a 7/10 ... but truthfully ... I had to mind-wipe everything I know about SW lore (now reduced to roadkill) ... or else be a SW-illiterate newbie ... to do so.
Unlike so many newbie fans who don't care about SW lore ... and find all the criticism from older fans strange and even irrational ... I can understand how many people are angry.
For fans who have been vested in the franchise (movies, books, or adaptations) their WHOLE LIFE ... Disney's SW is like a home invasion ... done by some one you know (which is even worse) ... and who in their wake ... left your home/family/trust ... violated and dead.
What Disney has done to SW is akin to a reboot. ... they should have just said so lol.
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When you hear critics saying, "...greatest Star Wars since Empire..." and you watch The Force Awakens which establishes so many mysterious back stories, then yes you come into this movie expecting a lot. The 10 star reviewers are missing that point. Furthermore, anyone giving this movie 10 stars for Carrie Fisher's acting must have seen a different movie than I did, because Leia was literally in a coma half of the movie.
The opening crawl of this movie was analogous to how the movie would go. Basically nothing has changed since the last movie, and nothing gets resolved.
The movie starts with the Resistance evacuating an unnamed planet under duress very much like Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Amazing visuals and a new larger class star destroyer is introduced. The scene is then ruined by Poe and Hux having one of the most cringe worthy scenes in Star Wars since the Gungan Boss Nass slobber speech in Episode I.
Over the course of the entire 2.5+ hour movie this same pattern is repeated. Amazing visuals, a scene that builds to a crescendo only to be ruined by cute humor followed by a middle finger from Rian Johnson.
The good: Rey's training on the island, Kylo Ren and Rey's force connection (even if it was a ruse by Snoke), Yoda's infinite wisdom, the light speed kamakazi, Chewbacca and Porg humor, and Luke's honorable death with artistic visuals back to the binary sunset on Tatooine. Overall one of the best visual movies from the Star Wars franchise.
The bad: Snoke's character development being as bland as the decor in his throne room, Carrie Fishers acting, the Maz / Casino planet side story, the slowest space pursuit in history, Snoke's death, Phasma's death, BB8 plugging holes, BB8 AT-ST antics, significant plot shortcuts like how Rey got off Snoke's ship, and the forced development of Rose's character.
The ugly: Force Leia, cheap humor, and a director with so much hubris that he thought he could stick his thumb in the audience eye over and over again.
This movie will go down as the most controversial Star Wars subject along side the endless debates about Ewoks and Jake Lloyd. I, like many fans came out of this movie very frustrated expecting to learn some answers stemming from Rey's visions in The Force Awakens. As I've had days to reflect on the movie, it isn't as bad as I originally felt, but it falls very short of the expectations set from the previous film.
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When it comes to the Star Wars franchise, I may have been late to the game in terms of when I became a huge fan, but I see myself as being pretty well-versed in the core saga as of today. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the latest installment in this universe, and while it's easily the riskiest and most daring of the series, it also ranks among the best, at least in my opinion. I rarely do this, but I felt the need to see this movie twice before writing this review. Having a very solid memory of this eighth installment, here's why I believe it's one of the best in the franchise, but also why it may not be for everyone.
As I mentioned, this is a film that deserves multiple viewings in order to fully appreciate the routes it decides to take. The story itself is simple. The Resistance is being pursued by the First Order while Rey is off training with Luke Skywalker. Finn finds himself on a mission with newcomer Rose and the movie sets itself in motion. I'm keeping the plot ambiguous because this movie is truly an experience that needs to be seen with completely cold eyes. I feel as though certain elements will definitely catch people off guard though, so let's get the negatives out of the way.
There are some moments of comedy that really work here, just like they did in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but there are also a few gags that fall completely flat upon first viewing, due to the fact that they feel jarring. Some of them are actually spoilers, so I'll just say that you should go into this film with an open mind and let the emotion, as well as the comedy, take you along for this epic journey.
There are side plots that will definitely not please everyone, but I find myself appreciating everything this movie had to offer in retrospect. It didn't play it safe like its predecessor and it brought its viewers into new territory, as well as diving deep into certain things you've wondered about since the very beginning of the saga. Aside from some of the jokes or risks taken throughout the movie, those feel like minor nitpicks when looking back on the movie as a whole.
For anyone who goes into this film hoping to see a great continuation for Rey, a fun ride with Finn, or to see Carrie Fisher or Mark Hamill deliver satisfying performances and character arcs, you'll be very pleased when walking out of this installment. In terms of character development, this movie has it all. On top of that, this movie has one of best third acts I've ever seen in a Star Wars movie to date.
Although the pacing can seem daunting throughout the first act of the movie, it really just takes its precious time trying to invest you in this newfound territory that Star Wars has never explored before. Once the third act begins and the pace picks up, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is filled with so many satisfying surprises and memorable moments that I found myself in awe by the time the credits rolled.
In the end, yes, this movie feels very different from anything that's come before it, but when you're on the eighth installment in a franchise you kind of have to start taking risks, even if it means not pleasing everyone. Personally, I found this film to be rich in its cinematography, deep in terms of character development, exciting and surprising in terms of its action sequences and reveals, and although simplistic in its story, moving within its devotion to certain themes. While I don't think this will be remembered as the greatest Star Wars movie, it's a damn good one. If you're a fan or just want to just escape at the theatre, Star Wars: The Last Jedi may just be the fix you need. Aside from a few nitpicks, I thought this movie was terrific.
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I'm super confused about all the criticism this movie is taking. I've noticed that much of the disdain comes from fanboys about how TLJ handles established "canon". Usually pointing to many of the things setup by EU/Legacy.
I think the theme of "killing the past" really offends some of these superfans, and they then become quick to point out things as flaws that really aren't. I'm sorry, did this movie make you laugh? Then apparently it's not a Star Wars movie. Oh it didn't make you laugh? Then the jokes weren't funny... geez.
Criticisms about new Force powers? Remember when the Emperor (who was treated the same as Snoke, btw) started using lightning? Or when Qui-Gon and Obiwan force sped away from some crappy droids? No... okay.
The characters in this movie were strong. I liked the connection between Ren and Rey, and I especially liked the explanation of the creation of Ren - with the varying points of view on how it went down. It definitely offers motivations for their actions.
The truth is this is a fun, exciting movie. They dare to take the franchise in new directions, with new characters and new themes. It's not a perfect movie, but if you love Star Wars (and don't consider it some sort of nerd religion) then you will love this movie. :)
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Those childish creatures and pink hair of the rebel's vice admiral were not a star wars thing.
The plot is very close to episode V - empire strikes back and i'm asking myself is this a remake or is it a new episode. The cantina changed to a casino, final battle similar to the battle of Hoth, another weapon similar to the death star, what is going on in these directors's minds, don't you have any single new idea? Deep deep down there are still some elements that bring us back to the original star wars atmosphere, but it's fading.
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Well, so much has been written, said and tweeted already that very little can be added to a loud choir of either praise or another choir, of criticism. Anyway, having said that, I must admit that The Last Jedi is a truly astounding episode and it holds admirably well in the already large and weighty Star Wars saga. This new part is the longest but the movie never drags or stalls and what's more, a very healthy intake of breezy humor adds a very strong element to this tightly-knit fabric of a plot.
Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher - to name the few - do a very spellbinding and jaw-dropping work, and what's again very cool and decent, they are shown as real people, with weak spots, doubts, hopes, hesitations, panic, fear, terror and strength. Much has been written about Kylo Ren's battle with his own Dark Side, so no new thing must be added, but this very struggle is a truly breathtaking edge-of-the-seat holder all through this excellent film. Large and very clever parts played by Hamill, Fisher and Ridley also never let us down, and every time any of our beloved characters appear on the screen, we feel delighted to see them alive and kicking and going on their uneasy but deserved and rewarding paths.
Awesome CGI, heart-wrenching deaths, intrepid feats, daredevil space battles add a huge portion of awe and excitement. And then, a beauty of the nature as well as very strong music put new pieces of mosaic thus building a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of thriller and food for thought.
This is a very welcomed new part of a large mechanism, and so many hints were dropped, new bridges to a fresh episode were built that we now have to take a deep breath and pluck up all our patience awaiting a new film.
So, this one earns 10 out of 10, to my and to many watchers' minds. I do hope the next part will fly into high space (pun intended) with the same gusto and valor.
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This movie was a fantastic addition to the Star Wars universe.
First, see this movie more than once. There is a lot going on in this film and it takes multiple viewings to fully see everything this movie has to offer. Some things you didn't understand the first time make perfect sense the second time.
From the opening scene, I loved this movie. It was so great to see BB-8 actually working inside the X-wing! That is a small detail that was interesting and fun! The whole first scene was an amazing set up that had me on the edge of my seat.
There was a couple of things I didn't love about the movie. (Leia flying, the whole Kanto Byte adventure) BUT I loved this movie as a whole.
This movie takes risks, (killing Snoke, leaving Luke, Yoda coming back). Some of these risks pay off tremendously, some do not. BUT the point is that the movie takes risks. It is going in directions you don't see coming. THAT IS GOOD. I don't want a rehash of episodes 4-6 with different characters. This movie changes the franchise. Its taking it somewhere new. THAT IS GREAT!
I can't wait to see where episode 9 goes!
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As the Rebellion tries to evade The First Order, Rey asks Luke Skywalker to teach her the ways of the Force. Meanwhile Kylo Ren is still a whiny POS.
Director/writer Rian Johnson faced a gargantuan task. Two years ago J.J. Abrams did the impossible by making a successful sequel to 'Star Wars'. Johnson had to follow that up with something more creative because let's be honest, 'The Force Awakens' (TFA) was a copy. He succeeds partially.
When the movie started there were cheers. It doesn't get any better than the iconic opening crawl with John Williams' score. Although there's a certain resemblance to 'The Empire Strikes Back' (opening scene, Luke on the remote planet) 'The last Jedi' isn't a copy. Johnson has came up with a more or less original story with new characters and some twists.
However, the problem with some of the new characters is that they get too much screen time while contributing nothing to the story. In some cases up to the point where they're just plain annoying. Benicio Del Toro anyone? Meanwhile we find out nothing new about the characters we got to know in 'TFA'. Rey, Finn & Dameron still feel new.
The villains are another problem. The most iconic part about 'Star Wars' has always been the villains. Darth Vader is an icon. Emperor Palpatine and Darth Maul were also quite impressive. Without spoiling anything I think it's safe to say Kylo Ren (who's still suffering from huge mommy and daddy issues), Supreme Leader Snoke & General Hux are terribly underwhelming.
That of course doesn't mean it's a bad movie. Although it runs too long it entertains. The effects and choreography are top notch and the overall look of the film is stunning. DOP Steve Yedlin does a fine job. The final battle looks amazing ( the red stripes on the salt plains). Although there's a bit too much humor for our liking, there's some genuine funny moments. The Porgs have a bright future ahead of them marketingwise.
Of course there's the nostalgia factor. It's great to see those familiar faces again and the sound of lightsabres and TIE fighters are music to our ears.
On the other hand it's obvious Johnson and Disney want to go down a new path. Whether that path is the right one remains to be seen. With the announcement of a new trilogy coming up it feels like they're milking it. And you can take that literally. What's up with that milk scene? Cringeworthy.
The biggest problem is that 'The Last Jedi' is incredibly hyped. There are reviews that say the movie is dark and that it's the best since 'The Empire Strikes Back'. I know opinions can differ but it doesn't come close to any of the original trilogy.
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Before i start to review this film, I wanna tell everyone that I' m a star wars fan since I was 15 years old, I just saw The last jedi about 5 hours ago. However, I have many point to review after I saw this film.I will separate are both of disappointment and impressive. Let me talk about my disappointment to this film before impression.
For my disappointment, firstly,after saw this film, I still not clearly know that who is ray's parents , there are many questions about ray's parents after The force awaken was released , and I expect that this film will give a good answer to me. Unfortunately, look like this issue is not important for this film, I believes that many people disappoint about this .
Secondly, Supreme reader Snoke in The force awaken look seriously mysterious and so powerful character , It hard to believe that he quickly to die. In my opinion, writer should tell about the origin of Supreme reader Snoke more than this and audience should have opportunity to see his power of dark side and fighting more than this .
Thirdly, the scene that encounter between Luke and Kyro len, before I saw this film, I considerably expect that I have to see dual-lightsaber seriously scene between both of them like The phantom mance (obi wan vs. darth maul scene). Unfortunately, disappoint again for this scene.
Fourthly, the humour in this film is not funny enough to audience.I notice from interact of many people who watched the last jedi at the same time with me in theater , when some humour scene arrived, the audience have completely quiet.
Fifth,I think Sound directors,they reduce bass sound of lightsaber, especially lightsaber sound while Rey have swing her lightsaber in training scene, that made me not impressive
For my impressive in this film, firstly,I really appreciate that they bring Yoda, jedi master come back to this movie. It very surprising for me, Furthermore,I will very surprise more if they bring Obi-wan kennobi come back to joint with them.
Secondly, I think the location where they chose for this film is amazing place also including amazing animals in this film such as crystal fox, porg and other, I like so much.
Thirdly, Fighting scene both of Kylo ren and ley to encounter with the group of red guard knights.It is a novelty of fighting scene in Star Wars movie that I like also.
All of my reviews above, maybe someone disagrees with me, sometimes I think i expect too much about this film. However, I really expect that Abrams will create Episode 9 as I expect. And Finally, I still love Star wars movie and I will continuously watch about Star wars universe.
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"Let the past die" is a frequently spoken line in the movie, and might as well be the film's real sub-title. Most major plot point reinforced by the original trilogy and the Force Awakens, the sacred cows that kept the franchise incredibly rote, but still resonant, are debased in an open challenge to change the SW universe going forward. In fact, the very last scene of the movie is a meta-commentary on the universe itself, and how the time has come to pass the torch to new generations, new styles and new stories.
However, the movie still has to hit enough notes that us fans want to hear, resulting in a movie that doesn't go boldly in either direction - the Iron Man 3 effect. If you disagree with the direction the movie goes with its villains and heroes, you will not forgive the movie's bipolarity. If you agree with it, the movie will be one hell of a ride into the unknown.
I was lucky to have ended up enjoying myself with the movies. What was most conducive to my enjoyment vs. the apparently apoplectic rest of the fanbase is that I was never that invested in the JJ Abrams-verse. I didn't spend two years thinking of ways in which Emperor Snokepatine, Kylo Mehder, Rey Skysprinter and the R2D2-ball might advance their copy-paste adventures. They are all charming and wonderful characters, but the adventure was never going to shake off the shackles of the SW trope machine (which I am sick of) without radical shifts in gear. We saw a first attempt be made in Rogue One and its lengthy protagonist body count, and now we see it in the unceremonious death of Snokepatine and Luke's over-flawed personality. Like it or not, the past is dying and it is Disney that is killing it. It just so happens that I agree that a rebirth was long overdue.
It doesn't hurt that I found the film to be delightful - many more jokes hit than miss, the battle scenes are impressive and personal (replete with the best crowd-fight lightsaber scene in any movie) and all the actors give their A+ performances, especially the old guard. I even like Luke's send-off and was overjoyed to get one more Yoda cameo before the end. I will admit to having teared up at least a couple of times - in my lifetime, I got to watch Luke rise and fall a hero, and it got to me.
The fact that I loved the movie doesn't mean it isn't obviously flawed. The entire casino planet nonsense needed to be binned on the second draft in favor of more Jedi/Sith talk and reflection, or even another battle scene. I get why they included it and I appreciate the commentary and a glimpse at more weird alien species, but...just...no. I am already cringing my skin off thinking of a possible Finn - Rey - Rose - love-dodecahedron. They could have elaborated on the Knights of Ren and expanded them to make Kylo that much more menacing. Finally, the movie needed an ending scene with a mustering rebel fleet - something to make that aborted radio signal more than just a red herring.
In spite of this, I am looking forward to both a second viewing of this movie, and its future sequel(s). Love it or hate it, SW will find its way to continue after this movie in a new direction, a new hope for a future generation of Jedi-lovers. Enjoy your time with it and may the force be with you.
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Loved this movie!!! It definitely takes a different turn then expected. Johnson did a really good job writing a script that was fun, bold, surprising, suspenseful, and exciting. He made some choices that a lot of die hard fans might have a hard time with.
One thing that I didn't like about the Force Awkens was how similar it was to A New Hope. I was a little worried this movie would copy the Last Jedi.
Thankfully though, other than a few plot points, it doesn't. The story is an original well written story. It feels completely different from the last 8 Star Wars movies, but yet still manages to have that feel like a Star Wars movie. Forget all the theories you have heard about this movie. That is the best way to enjoy.
New Comers to Star Wars are probably more likely to love the movie then the diehards. Johnson made some really bold moves, there both surprising and amazing. You don't get very many answers about Rey's parents or Who is Snoke., but this movie set up a bright future for the Star Wars Saga. I can't wait for the next one!
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I have to disagree with most of these reviews here. If you give this movie a 1-3/10 you are not being objective. I suspect many people expected very specific things from this movie and their disappointment over not getting what they wanted influences their rating/review.
The biggest theme for this story is "the old must die to make way for the new/young". Both the strong dark and light side leaders pass their torches. Snork is tricked and killed by his apprentice while he is blinded by his emotions - that is the Sith way! And Luke sacrifices himself and passes on his wisdom to teach a final lesson - the traditional Jedi way.
The next big theme for me was: balance. This culminates in the scene where Ben/Kylo has to make a decision. Everything stops for a moment, everything is possible and a new balance is created. Same goes for Rey. These moments were absolutely amazing in my opinion. Great story telling, very tense and unexpected.
The audio/visuals were unbelievably good. This is pure StarWars. The space battles, the orchestral music, the sequence when Admiral Holdo jumps and there are silent explosions forcing the whole theater to hold their breath - brilliant. The various animals, how the camera captures these beautiful paintings of nature and people in artistic moments... Eye/eargasm.
There are issues, yes, this is not the best SW movie ever.
The plot with Finn is unnecessary, they obviously didn't know what to do with him as a character. And they put them in a situation on an exploding cruiser that requires several deus ex machina to get them to safety again.
The chase which serves as the countdown of the movie doesn't really build tension and introduces various plot holes. Why does every action/sci-fi movie ever need a constant countdown throughout the whole movie? Why? It's impossible have anything else than a constantly rising drama curve when you do that. You can't have a real breather, you can't use forward time jumps for character growth and most of all everything that happens in the movie has to be rushed and quick.
Honestly that is my biggest gripe with this and many other modern movies and that is the one thing that I would change to make it better. Imagine the fleet being chased by the first order all over the galaxy for months and months, while Rey can actually train for some time instead of just mastering anything she tries within seconds. And then you can still start the "chase-countdown" later on when it actually makes sense.
Final thing. Luke. That is the point that most people have issues with I think. But I personally think they were spot on. Anybody read the Thrawn trilogy? Luke is not the shining knight that solves things by slicing and dicing. He's a pacifist. He believes in reaching people and in creating balance instead of fighting. And he completely failed. Yoda mentions this to him. Luke should teach them how to deal with failure. But Luke still has to learn that lesson for himself and that's the second reason why Yoda speaks to him. Even though Luke is a true master of the Force he's still human - like the rest of us. Overcoming the failure he experienced with his school and Ben allows him to create that spark of hope with his last action as a physical being. Like a true Jedi he does not charge in and destroys an army, he reaches out to one important person not to destroy but to create calm, to distract and to reach his goal without violence. IMHO it's brilliant.
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8/10
A Long Rebuttal Because I Am, If Nothing Else, Verbose
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that no one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans (the same can be said of Trekkies with their fandom so I see a trend).
I cut my teeth on Episodes IV, V, and VI (my father found them to be excellent babysitting tools). Episode V was my absolute favorite so I had very high expectations for Episode VIII, especially after enjoying the grittiness and despair, yet hint of hope found in Rogue One. I thought, they haven't completely forgotten how to 'go dark' in a movie.
I have read through the various one star reviews and felt the need to address some of the complaints people seem to have from a different perspective. (I would address them all, but that would make this a treatise and who has time for that?) While certainly not a perfect movie after a second viewing, I felt it was still amazing and captured the spirit of Episode V that I loved so much.
The most common complaint is the treatment of Luke Skywalker. Here is a young man, at the end of Episode VI, who has triumphed over the Dark Side and is ready to fly off into the sunset on his X-Wing to enjoy his happily ever after. He does as Yoda requested and passes on what little he has learned (how long do we really think he spent on Dagobah, even with the time lapse between Episodes V and VI; certainly not an entire childhood/adolescence). Then everything blows up in his face. Everything he tried to do is circumvented by the Dark Side, because defeating the evil Empire doesn't mean he defeated evil. He's a broken man and believes he has destroyed the very soul of his beloved nephew. So he runs away and hides. It's easy on the outside looking in to be angry he didn't just act the hero and start over, but I think he had a very human reaction to a devastating event. I loved where they took his character, because it showed no matter how high we rise, we can still fall so hard and hurt so deep, but have the potential to rise again, which Luke does in his character's penultimate scene. It was an awesome ending for what was the most powerful Jedi the universe had ever seen. I think that's what people need to remember: no matter how powerful, all humans have a physical end. (Besides now we get Force Spirit Luke!)
Another issue I'd like to address is Rey's heritage. I love that she came from nothing! Here we have Ben Solo (Kylo Ren) who's bloodline is the stuff of legend. It's made into a very big deal by everyone! Then we have Rey, who is so ashamed of her parentage that she suppressed who they were and what they did. She has no vaunted bloodline, but she's a Force prodigy! It's a wonderful homage to class warfare and diamonds in the rough. One doesn't have to be royalty to be powerful in the Force. I would have been disappointed if she had come from famous, powerful parents.
The movie is a beautiful path of very dark events united by moments of humor and joy. That's life in a nutshell! It was about finding a way through the sucker punches and never giving into despair. It was about the hope and heroes and leaders that were born (and reborn) at that darkest hour before the dawn.
It certainly wasn't a perfect movie, and I wasn't happy with every scene (no Rey-Finn for me). There are still questions to be answered, but it isn't the end. There's still Episode IX to come and I can't wait to see where it goes from here!
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10/10
Better than Empire. Star Wars fan boys should go away!
Best Star Wars ever. I hate all the fan boys who hated this before watching it. Lets face facts A New Hope is dated badly with shitty acting and Jedi was always poor. This and Force Awakens were epic on Epic proportions. Rogue One was mint too. As Mark Kermode said, this is the best written character driven Star Wars film ever. The only one that normal people will like. Suck it loser fan boys. Go back to your mums basement.
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I can understand why this movie didn't land with some people and that's because this movie took risks and showed us things we have never seen before. We learn so much more about the Force in this movie and I thought it was absolutely fantastic.
During one great scene in this movie I kept hearing the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi when he said "If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
I don't want to spoil anything and I won't. Just know that the majority of us reviewers thought this movie was great. Go in with an open mind and enjoy this great story.
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After reading some of the reviews I was slightly concerned going into this...
But a worthy sequel that moves the story along and provides a good reason for Luke's self imposed exile and his story a good arc. I was also pleased to see a better story no more silly jumping through shields or lightspeeding through hanger doors.
Kylo's character is coming together and it sets up both his and Rey's future perfectly, Rey's parentage was probably expected and makes sense with her Jakku backstory.
Looking forward to the next episode I just hope JJ doesn't ruin it,
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The cultural phenomenon that is "Star Wars" is transcendent. Watching one of the now 8 films is like being knee deep in presents at your grandparent's home for Christmas. The films warm us like a fireplace on a bitterly cold night. When the opening credits begin, our eyes get misty and we feel a sense of joy. For the next 2 plus hours we are in a galaxy far far away, and the cares of this world disappear for us. Thankfully, "Episode 8: The Last Jedi" does nothing to diminish the legacy of the series, or take us away from the aforementioned joy.
There were complaints about "The Force Awakens" which were justified. The film re-imagined the first Star Wars movie (which later became episode 4, A New Hope) and seemed to cement the reputation of J. J. Abrams as someone who can't tell an original story. I believe turning over the writing of Episode 8 to director Rian Johnson was a very good choice. I was worried that "The Last Jedi" would be a remake of "The Empire Strikes Back," given "The Force Awakens," but fortunately there is only a nod in that direction. The story is definitely original in concept and surprises in a number of ways.
There are some who believe this new trilogy doesn't measure up to the original trilogy, in much the same way that some weren't happy with the prequel trilogy. I understand their feelings, but do not share them. "The Last Jedi" is Star Wars for a whole new generation, and you can embrace it or reject it as you wish. I choose to embrace the new trilogy, and I eagerly anticipate Episode 9.
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This film is an instant epic, of classic proportions. The audience I was with was quite notably the most noisiest audience I have ever been to the cinema with, at least until the opening scroll started. Then silence, with the exceptions of the well timed and brilliantly executed funny moments in which I felt at one with all the strangers around me. They instantly became my family.
(Oh not forgetting the gasps and the deafening silence which were more or less one after another.)
After leaving the cinema I found myself dumbfounded and in shock at what I had witnessed, I could not find the words to define my emotions for the rest of the day and much of the next. It was just that good.
The Last Jedi is by far (in my opinion) the best Star Wars film ever, and quite possibly the greatest film I have ever seen. I say that quite easily and without hesitation.
I was there, I was on the planets, I was on the starships and I felt part of the story. Still I am finding it hard to explain just how simply awesome the film is.
I am going to watch it again tonight.
For the life of me I can't fathom how there are so many bad user reviews of this film.
Even if you have never seen Star Wars before, go watch it. It is a journey, the film is exquisitely beautiful.
Anyone who claims to be a film/cinema buff. This is the film of your life so far.
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The Last Jedi is the first Star Wars movie I've seen where I really didn't have an inkling of the plot as I entered the cinema. As a result, everything that unfolded during the epic running time was unexpected, breathtaking and brilliant.
It's quite an achievement to bring something new to a franchise that dates all the way back to 1977. Rian Johnson pulls off an impressive feat. This is a dark, gripping instalment - the Empire Strikes Back, if you like, of the new trilogy.
There are touches to this film that will amaze and delight die-hard fans, including the most moving reference to a barely noticed or remembered prop from A New Hope.
The Star Wars imagery has never looked so breathtaking and the sense of peril never so real.
10 out of 10. This is a solid movie that sets the bar for future offerings.
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Star Wars was my entire childhood. When the prequels came out, I thought they were wonderful, regardless their flaws. I was also hugely disappointed when George Lucas said that he wasn't going to do any more films after Revenge of the Sith, arguably one of the best Star Wars movies.
The year is 2017, and The Last Jedi, the third Disney installment of Star Wars. I have to say that this movie is just as good as Empire Strikes Back. The film takes time to build up to the final act. It's a movie that respects the fans and brings a whole new perspective to the story. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. YES it has its problems, but at no point in the film did those problems take me out of the movie. I just remember that it's made by flawed people who are trying to make a great movie. I would say that they succeeded. If you love Star Wars, you'll probably like this movie a great deal. It's very different from all of the other Star Wars movies. It's an emotional roller-coaster that doesn't stop until the credits roll. GO SEE IT!
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If yout expect Jedi lore or Sith mysteries, prepare to be dissappointed!
First of all, I'm a Star Wars fan since I was old enough to watch the movies, roughly since the mid-90s. I've read a lot of books (mostly pre-Palpatine-era) and watched most SW movies 50+ times and more and enjoyed games like the Jedi Knight series or KoTOR series, too.
Just like the movie "The Force Awakens", the "Last Jedi" completely destroys everything you could expect from a Star Wars movie. It reminds me of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", this The-Asylum-like Indiana Jones piss-take, combined with awful Dwayne-Johnson-Baywatch-dialogs.
Jedi/Sith lore: Downright subsidiary during the whole movie. The Force and the Jedi lore were only "used" to remind the audience of Star Wars and the Force. There are no mysteries in the movie, no "Beware of the Dark Side" nor mysterious places corrupted by the dark side (something like a Sith temple). If you expect some strong Jedi/Sith characters like Kenobi, Windu, the Emperor Darth Sidious/Palpatine or Vader: they're not intended to be part of this movie.
Creatures: Merely used to support scenes or the plot or to create "funny" moments. Just imagine a cute kitten, which would have ended up as a dinner for Conan the barbarian, but finally escapes making huge cute kitten eyes, turning Conan to teras and leaving him as an upright vegan. "There are rats, they're intelligent animals, always guessing the right way out". Even Thestrales or Hippogriffs from the Harry Potter movies had a more meaningful right to exist.
Other characters: There are no main characters, hence every character seems to be a supporting one. Of course, there's a short and simple main plot, but every character seems to play a minor role... Bla bla bla...
If you have read Lord of the Rings and if you could imagine Frodo (in a movie "based" on Toliens original novel) snitching a ringwraith-dragon out of Gothmog's garage, flying to Sauron to cut off his head with his high-tech-elven-sword Sting after rushing trough Shelobs den to get rid of the remaining ringwraiths and afterwards returning back to his buddy Gandalf, twinkling and asking something like "Got a new haircut?", you could probably imagine what "The Last Jedi" is like.
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7/10
Not the movie we longed for, but ultimately fun to watch
People who are reviewing this movie with 6 stars and below are obvious spoilers or at least narrow-minded. This movie is quite entertaining and a visual masterpiece. Furthermore John Williams delivers another great movie score.
However I must totally agree with Mark Hamill on utterly hating on how the writers dealt with the character of Luke Skywalker. In the OT he was never a classic Jedi because he used his emotions to a certain amount, but now he keeps the ancient Jedi temple and scrolls safe, but at the same time resents Jedi for being egoistic and ultimately wrong about the Force. He does not seem like the Luke we all once knew and loved.
Furthermore Leia was always Force sensitive, but couldn't wield it, but now she can somehow use the Force to bring herself back into the spaceship she was blown out of. Moreover the ease of defeating Snoke and not revealing his origin whatsoever is ridiculous. Not to mention Rey's origin, which kept us wondering for the past two years was a real letdown to me. Kylo Ren is still a whiny little b*tch but somehow evolves a bit, but still not enough to be considered a real threat and a heir to Darth Vader.
In conclusion probably the thing that bothered me the most is too much of humor that I sometimes felt as I was watching a Star Wars parody instead of a new chapter in a longtime saga. SW always had some humor, but this amount kind of swept all the seriousness away fro the movie. All in all a fun movie to watch, but ultimately didn't meet my high expectations.
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As a starwars fan I believe you will either love or hate this new addition with no ground in between. I personally loved it and thought it was absolutely brilliant. This film completely subverts everything we've come to expect and I think it works wonderfully.
There are several themes running through out, but the main ones are what makes a hero, lies and truth, and moral ambiguity. I feel that some of the main complaints of the film regarding Luke's character are unjustified because they are completely missing the theme and reasoning behind what is going on in the film.
As far as visuals there are several moments where myself as well as many in the audience audibly let out words of awe. This film is strikingly beautiful from scene to scene and is amazing.
The humor is good at some points and a little bit too Disney at others for my taste but hey it didn't come anywhere close to jar jar levels of cheesines so it was fine by me.
The plot and story development will have you guessing up until they end. You won't be able to tell where the story is going at all. That's all I'll say on that.
Ultimately people are upset because absolutely none of their fan theories or ideas came true. So go buy the ticket and watch this if you haven't already, but remember "this is not going to go the way you think'
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We met Luke Skywalker 40 years ago in Star Wars: A New Hope, and while many thought fan favorite Hans Solo would be the central character of the trilogy, it was actually Luke's journey that formed the crux of the original trilogy- from a peasant to a rebel and then to a Jedi. He defeated the Empire back in 1983 and disappeared, only to make an appearance in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as the last Jedi. Or not?
The Last Jedi picks up from where the Force Awakens ended- Rey meets Luke and wants him to teach her to master the Force, while Leia evacuates the Resistance base in spectacular fashion, as the First Order forces chases them. Both of them are unlucky though- Luke grieves over his failure in teaching Kylo and so has lost his faith in the ways of the Jedi. And Leia loses a huge chunk of her fleet in the initial First Order attack, and is incapacitated later on.
The Rebel forces are on the run, and Poe Dameron and Finn devise an alternate plan to escape from the clutches of the First Order. Meanwhile Kylo and Rey develop a telepathic connection which leads to a confrontation between them that has drastic results for everyone, including Snoke. At the same time, a movie titled The Last Jedi has it's final act devoted to the supposed Last Jedi, as Luke finally appears, and lights the spark that keeps the Resistance alive.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is probably the best of all Star Wars movies. It has the right mix of humor, emotion, and action. Light saber duels, X-wing dogfights, messy relations- it is all there. Director Rian Johnson clear direction almost makes it difficult to choose between the dark side, and light. It is impeccably paced, and all the actors do a great job while they are at it.
Some of the newer characters are fleshed out- Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaacs are rousing. And Mark Hamill gives the performance of his lifetime, and keeping up with the theme of old giving way to the new, gracefully relieves himself from the series, even though we expect him to appear Yoda like in future.
It is not all perfect though- the movie is too long, there are plot holes, unanswered questions and questionable logic, and similarities with The Empire Strikes Back abound, but at the end of it, we are left at a far brighter place than The Empire Strikes Back.
Change is the only thing that is constant. This is Star Wars, for this generation. And the good news for fans is that there seemingly is no end to the story
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10/10
The best and worst star wars movie at the same time
The worst : While I thought Disney has nailed humour (a bit from time to time) it makes no doubt that many scenes were there only to sell toys later, and the first half of the movie I was very afraid to be disappointed. As a long time star wars fan I was pretty disappointed with that direction. While this is no Jar Jar Binks level it certainly is too much.
The best : They took a lot of bet with this movie (this is why you might see very hard review on this movie), I think almost all of them payed off. Some scenes are the best in star wars. Period. Those scenes are so good that it will probably make you forget the bad of this movie.
I literally discovered what it really meant to be on the edge of your seat.
Overall : I loved it, it has obvious flaws but the good certainly does overweight the bad. Special mention to the director, Daisy William and beyond all Adam Driver, I never would have thought an actor could fit a character so much.
Don't let the critics discourage you, go see it and see for yourself the magic of star wars be renewed on a way never been seen before.
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7/10
Mediocre and quite polarizing Star Wars experience
This movie is by far my least favorite of the "Disney" Star Wars movies. It is in too many parts borderline idiotic in a way that it feels like "Spaceballs 2" - a SW parody...
It is almost as bad as Episode III. I promised no spoilers, so I won't delve into details, but Ep 8 is worse than Ep 7.
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10/10
Just because it isn't your vision, doesn't mean it isn't a terrific film
Having read a lot of the reviews, I can see an overarching theme. The majority of negative reviews seem to have been written by people saying "I wouldn't have done this" / "This isn't what I wanted". With a saga as incredible as Star Wars, everyone is going to have their own story in their head about how the story should go (I know that many of the things I wanted didn't happen and some incredible moments I didn't think of did). Just because this story isn't the one you came up with doesn't mean in isn't a tremendous continuation of the saga!
I quite literally had moments where my jaw dropped, others where I was grinning ear to ear and others where I cried. I'm still getting goosebumps thinking about some of the things that happened (one late scene in particular).
Yes some of the humour falls flat, but overall this film is terrific, the new characters are great, Kylo Ren continues to be the most interesting character in the saga for years and it's a perfect send off for Carrie Fisher.
The force is still very much with Star Wars.
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I think a lot of the negative reviews are pitched too close to "super-negative" or "hatred." I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to feel. I understand where the negative reviews are coming from. This stuff means a lot to us, and risks were taken. I also think the extremes of opinion and the wording used to describe those opinions here are both very much a part of the internet flame era, where everthing sucks or is the best. I loved The Last Jedi. I was moved, I laughed, I was constantly surprised, and it felt like a natural continuation of The Force Awakens. Although not a natural contunuation of the OT. Full disclosure: I'm 41 love the OT, respect and like TFA and Rogue One, hate the prequels, but appreciate what George was trying to do. I hang a Star Wars flag whenever a new Star Wars movie comes out, I have multiple Star Wars soundtracks on vinly that I play alll year round, I display my original 1984 Kenner Millenium Falcon when the new movies come out, etc. But I'm still a discerning movie-goer, thus my hatred of the prequels. But the depth of the hatred I hear here ("garbage", "cinematic travesty") feels like the hyperbole that's usually reserved for YouTube comments. I understand that the middle dragged. And I too laughed out loud (not in a good way) at Leia flying through space, and Rose kissing Finn. Did I care about Rose? What was up with Benicio Del Toro's stutter? So many other things. But look what Rian Johnson balanced. The prequels really shat on the legacy of Jedi - they were played for fools by Palpatine, right under Yoda's nose. That was actually addressed, albeit quickly, and I appreciated that. He also had to address what TFA gave him. What makes a former hero become a hermit? And then he (director) also wanted to respect and recreate the highs of the OT. But old school fans say they don't want a retread of the OT. Just the spirit of the OT. While introducing new charactes. While also acknowledging all that has come before (prequels, ahem). It's a trickly balancing act. I think it was acheived. Again, I understand some of the shock and the negative flaming in the comments here. But most of the comments are so extreme and so badly articulated, I actually thought they were a Russian hacking/trolling operation at first :)
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Are the haters paid to give bad reviews or they're just hating for the shake of nerdiness?This is a modern masterpiece.A beautiful journey,a juggernaut of quality and emotions.Luke became even bigger as a hero in this movie.This movie is as hated as TFA by a specific group of people but TFA had better audience scores for some reason.It saddens me that these specific people try to take away from this movie a portion of the acclaim it deserves.This film is pure cinematic experience.A ride full of thrills from start to finish.
TFA was a by the book made film but this one surprised in ways that recent big budget films don't.It's among the top three star wars films and when things calm down,I hope its legacy will come to surface in the time to come and stays there for people to admire.All the new characters were great,the acting was superb,Luke as a character was handled very well so did Leia.Other than the blind haters that hate for no actual reason cause this movie is nearly perfect,all the rest of the people will rewatch this movie multiple times because it's an one of a kind cinematic experience.Ignore the spammers,they're ignorant and nobodies.
This is an objective review and people that have seen or will see the movie will understand and realise it.The haters probably whine not beacause this isn't a good movie but because they disagree with certain elements in the movie,elements that as a Star Wars fan didn't notice simply because they don't exist.Go to the cinema and enjoy history being created.
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The Last Jedi kicks off right where the force awakens concludes with the mystery of Luke Skywalker on the island world of Ahch-To. First off where the Last Jedi picks up is made beautifully clear by the opening crawl setting perfectly what we want and need to see, even my girlfriend who isn't an avid Star Wars fanatic found everything to be explained. We start off with a purely magnificent action piece, the space battle includes so much of what we haven't seen before in a Star Wars movie. We have in depth looks at the resistance fighters and their fear of the First Order. As well as the First Order understanding the potential the Resistance has against them, also the comedy in this piece as well as the rest of the film is perfect.
Does this feel like a Star Wars movie? Yes!
But give it time. When the Force Awakens released, since it was a new addition to the famous saga, people took a long time to become comfortable with the movie being within the Star Wars universe but now it is safe to say TFA is accepted within Star Wars canon and the same must be done with The Last Jedi. As already mentioned, the comedy: The porgs are fantastic, they're not overdone and there's just enough of them you begin to like them straight away, and for those idiots saying they are just there for merchandise I have a solution for you. What was BB-8 for then? also don't buy them :).
"This is not going to go the way you think!" - Luke Skywalker.
This line could not be more truthful. In The Last Jedi we see a Star Wars movie like no other, there has never been a more "force" focused movie ever before, there is no crap about midichlorians it is straight to the point because EVERYONE knows what the force is. Continuing on unexpected moments... HOLY CRAP! There are so many "wtf" moments where your inner child screams for joy, there is at least ten moments in the movie where I was so shocked and was grinning ear-to-ear. This movie is quite dark and it wasn't the way I thought it would have gone after the Force Awakens, all the characters are as you wanted them but better. Snoke is completely different and I love it! Kylo is absolutely incredible as well as Rey (full credit to their respective actors: all performances were excellent). I can understand why people think that Luke didn't at all act like how people would've interpreted Luke after Return of the Jedi. He is clearly a broken man but by the end of the movie, has the best twist ever and Luke shows us why he is the most powerful Jedi to exist!
This is easily one of, if not, THE best Star Wars movie ever!
Those who say it's bad clearly do not understand what it means to make a Star Wars movie as well as they're probably people who have "seen" Star Wars but haven't "watched" it. What I mean by this is that most people are pretty dumb when watching Star Wars as if it should abide to all other laws of movies and cliches. The Last Jedi has absolutely NO predictable moments! None at all and I don't remember seeing any cliches. This is most likely why dumb people hated it because they didn't understand that Star Wars movies work differently to other movies, furthermore this is why Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon. It is such a shame The Last Jedi now has the lowest rating in the saga since the prequels when it is beyond reasonable doubt, the best Star Wars movie in existence so far...
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Just look at the ratings not the review. It is currently 8/10.
Don't look at hating review.
This is one of the best
No longer super ace, over-powered republic.
Republics lost and lost again. So much sacrifice. So much changes towards characters as the story uncovers.
People cant accept the fact that Skywalker was a dumbass. He drunk milk from a disgusting creature. I watched the previous last jedi when I was 8 years old and I didn't like him as well. He turned his back against the young Kylo. What else Kylo can do?
The temporary commander in chief makes me think of my colleagues who made many thought-to-be selfish decision but later turned out to altruistic ones. I really like that actress. (Cant recall her name)
So much CGI. 2 hours and 20 minutes for just a normal movie ticket price.
This goes beyond my imagination.
My wife who had no clue about SW series had to admit this is one of the best movie in 2017.
Thank you the screen writer and the director., I dont even know their names. lol
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9/10
Please ignore the abysmal fanbase, this is an original story that works well
I really enjoyed this rendition of Star Wars. Keep in mind, I try to go into every movie very very optimistically. I like to be as subjective to the film as possible, because I think it really gets the reader thinking about their thoughts. This is a very good Star Wars movie, and it definitely deserves praise. This is not to say it's without its faults; there are things wrong with this movie that simply cannot be ignored. However overall, I thought the movie was an eye candy success.
I thought that the plot was very thought-provoking and well put together. One thing I've always appreciated about Disney is how their films always have a moral message behind them. For instance, in Pixar's(owned by Disney) Toy Story, the overall theme of the series was to take life slowly, and live in the moment because one day we will miss all of the things we did before. A Bug's Life showed us that you can be different, as long as you be yourself, and you'll come through in the end. How does this pertain to Star Wars? The overall theme in the movie was failure teaching us to be better. Most people associate failure with shame, and unhappiness, but this movie shows us that failure is inevitable. The film is loaded with red(more on that later). Red is obviously a symbol for failure in this movie. Snoke's throne room was loaded with red; this is important because all critical scenes that happen in this room discuss failure. Ben failed Snoke when he couldn't defeat Rei. Smoke failed to see who Ben's true enemy was. Rei failed in redeeming Ben . All of these scenes happen in this room, and the room is literally covered in red. Even in the chase through the caves in the Millennium falcon are shot in this overwhelming red hue. We see red symbolizing failure again in the final act where Finn and the last of the resistance are trying to destroy the door cannon. There is no coincidence that white salt setting leaves a red trace when it's disturbed. The trails of the gliders leave a red mist as they move. However, despite all of the resistence's clear and valiant efforts, they fail to destroy the canon. After the door is destroyed, and The First Order is about to ransack the base, you can see all of the overturned red salt. Although extremely gorgeous, this scene showcases all of the resistance's failures. It resembled a bloody battle that had been lost. However, what ends up saving them was coming to terms from them and learning from them. "Failure is the greatest teacher." I think the ending of the little boy who is presumable a Jedi, was a fantastic way to show off how the galaxy will hear of the failures; they will see these failures, but at the end of the day, they are still there. There is still something to fight for, stil something to learn, still something worth being.
The aesthetics in the film were top notch. The CGI looked beautiful! A lot of the film is shot in space, so naturally there are a lot of space battles. You can almost drool at the way the fighters and X-Wings looked in mid fight. The set was dashing with color, and the sounds were so nostalgic yet so new at the same time. However, it's not the CGI that amazed me. What amazed me were the practical effects. Rian Johnson created his own piece of the Star Wars universe and did so in such a grand scale. The entire casino on the distant planet was all practical. China sets, puppets, chips, tables, slots, golden staircases. All of these were made with great care and amazing tact. However, nothing will beat the amazing costumes in this film. The costumes were all practical, and looked gorgeous. The red guard, the casino police, storm troopers, captain phasma, all practical, all real. Not to mention that simple things such as rifles and blasters are all practical props. All of the droids are practical too. The films aesthetics are the absolute best ever made in a Star Wars film.
I thought overall, our main characters are very well developed. This is especially true when looking at Kyle Ren. He is a very complex character which makes it really difficult to see what he truly stands for as a character. I loved/hated that the main villain changes in such a tragic and dramatic way. I feel like it really took Kylo Ren's status of a secondary villain to a primary villain. His ascent to the supreme leader status was definitely given a proper catalyst for his future character.
I thought the chemistry between Rai and Ben was very believable and something we didn't really expect. Whether the atrocious fanbase of Star Wars wants to admit it, the two characters are connected. Both of whom have shoddy relationships with their parents, both have mentors who have taught them the ways of the force, both of them have a loyal military force at their back, and most of all, both of them are conflicted with themseleves. The two characters both form a methaphorical yin-yang. Rey, this seemingly innocent young girl trying to learn the ways of the force is not at all shocked by her experience with the dark side of the force. I enjoy how this character which is supposed to be from the good side is shown toying with the dark side of the force without hesitation. Kylo Ren, this seemingly evil member of the most evil force in the universe is shown having conflict with the humanity in himself. We see him refuse to kill his mother, lie to General Hux about who really killed Snoke, save Rey's life. While this character is shrouded in darkness, we do see some of the light in him. And I thought that this balance of what is good and what is bad between these two characters did tons of justice for character development in this new trilogy.
While the film was overall a success in my eyes, I have to say that there are parts of the film that leave much to be desired. While this may seem unfair to judge this film as part of the trilogy rather than its own film, I will lay judgment down to the fact that this new trilogy creates tons of false hype for its characters. The first example of this has to be Snoke. The Force Awakens introduces Snoke to the trilogy as this supreme evil which is more powerful than anything in the universe. The Force Awakens had me feeling that Snoke was going to be a pivotal character in the series. While the argument can be made that he still is s pivotal character, he is in all the wrong ways. What could have been the most amazing villain in Star Wars history is lost in a bland and very predictable way. I feel like a lot of the hype that was made towards Snoke was very ill-made and the story gives viewers an accidental middle finger in the way that he died. Andy Serkis played the role so well, and it's a shame that he probably won't be returning to the role of Snoke.
Disney humor is very distinct. It's hard to explain exactly what Disney humor is, but once you see it, you know it. I feel like there were a lot of blatant attempts at humor that simply don't work and obviously aimed at children. The first example of this was in the beginning of the film where Poe is talking to General Hux via radio. I feel that Poe pretending to not be able to hear Hux was so cliche; it was an overused trope we've seen in so many different films. If Rian Johnson was attempting to make us laugh at this, he failed in epic proportions.
Look I get it. Disney owns the Star Wars universe now. And I understand that Disney wants to show us more of this ginormous universe. However, this doesn't mean that you can throw in random strange-looking creatures just for the sake of showing strange-looking creatures. I remember seeing the very first trailer for this film and thinking to myself that the creatures might be an a zealous issue, and j was exactly right. Throwing in random creatures serves no purpose than to show off to the world that this is MY universe, and I want there to be random giants with nipples that give me milk, and why not throw in a random musk that comes from their head? While we're at it, why don't we just throw these random birds all over the place that serve no purpose to the plot other than to take up screen place. Here are some crystal foxes too. I'm not sure why the film spent so much time showing these random creatures, but I don't think anyone was impressed.
Lastly, I want to touch on Leia Organa. I have to cut this producers some slack for not expecting Carrie Fisher to unfortunately die too young. However, I just don't see what her real purpose was in this film. She offered no theme-building ideologies, she had lackluster screentime, and she was given pretentious glamor in the script. For a general in charge of an entire fleet and battalion of resistence warriors, she was not given any proper character development. To be quite honest, I thought that Carrie Fisher's performance was her weakest yet. I thought her lines were delivered very cheasily, and the directors made her only sound like she was a cranky woman. This is the woman we've seen fight through an entire rebellion before, and she was given no justice to her former character. I am very ashamed to see such an amazing character have such a bland and anticlimactic end.
Guys despite its obvious flaws, this is a good Star Wars movie. I don't know what it's going to take for people to see that their fanbase is not sacred and democratic. This fanbase has done more damage to Star Wars than any writer ever could. This film isn't the original trilogy. Even the first film of this new trilogy, a film that directly modeled the very first Star Wars movie ever written doesn't shine like the original movies do. They never will. Stop trying to think that they will. See this film for what it is: an original storyline that works well.
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I personally thought that this Star Wars was one of the best (if not the best) Star Wars movies, thanks to the unpredictability of Rian Johnson's writing.
Just to address some of the 'plot decisions':
I think killing off Snoke was a very good idea, it allows Kylo Ren to fully come into his own as the big bad guy of the trilogy, as he is no longer in Snoke's shadow. Snoke was undoubtedly very powerful, but I think a bad guy with personal ties to the protagonists makes for a better finale.
Also, why does everyone think Kylo wasn't lying about Rey's parents? He lied about Luke trying to kill him and about who killed Snoke, and immediately after he revealed they were nobody, he used that fact to try and get Rey to join him.
Anyway, the effects and music, as always were amazing and the acting was brilliant. The plot was full of twists and brilliantly written dialogue; I certainly didn't expect the story to go the way it did at all, I can't wait for Johnson's new trilogy.
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After viewing a dramatic, highly anticipated trailer, The Last Jedi proved as a disappointing, lack-lustre film, not capturing the essence necessary to raise the this film to even a "good"-level like many of the films have soared past. The Last Jedi has mainly a full returning cast, following the basic premise of most Star Wars films: The-Bad-Guys-are-shooting-us-,-what-are-we-going-to-do? sort of thing. Adam Driver performs well as the returning villain, Kylo Ren, accompanied by an emotional performance from Mark Hamill, easily the best actor in the film. New to the stage are the new species of space-penguins, the funny, adorable Porgs, who are like a sidekick for Chewie (who surprisingly wasn't in the film that much) and are a great comedic element for the otherwise boring film.
Mark Hamill, as mentioned, performs incredibly well, along with Adam Driver, but the script and plot are just not interesting. The lack-lustre lead-up to the announcement of Rey's parents, elongated, unnecessary final battle, and the cringy, cheesy one-liners just to begin with. The Last Jedi just feels like of those films that just does not end! It is extremely dragged out and, at times, can be quite frustrating. The most exciting elements was a cameo from Frank Oz and releasing Andy Serkis (who plays Supreme Leader Snoke) was in the film!
Maybe expectations were too high for this highly anticipated film. Don't go with high hopes, this is easily the weakest of this new generation of Star Wars films.
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10/10
amazing!!!!!!! can't stop talking about it best performance from mark hamill
Star Wars the last Jedi didn't reach the peak of The Force Awakens but it was really close too. the movie had this amazing characters. there were a lot of questions regarding the force awakens character origins and there were a lot of them aswered but there were a lot of new questions.
Mark Hamill reprises his role as the famous Jedi Legend Luke Skywalker and it was his best performance yet.
i would recomend watching the force awakens before you watch the last jedi because you need to remember all the characters that were in the force awakens and their development.
the only thing that the movie missed was when something big was about to happen in the movie they switch to the other character and what is going on with them.
this movie really brought me a nice smile after the movie this is a 10/10
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I am not going to exaggerate and give rating like 10 or 1. I vote 8 because this is my overall impression. Then,again I think episodes 1 to 3 were the best, while most viewers disagree, but that's just me.
And I totally agree about removing Han Solo And Luke Skywalker from the story.Han Solo and Luke Skywalker had to go sometime. Get over it
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Looking at the negative reviews, these are definitely not true Star War fans. Of course we cannot compare the new films to A New Hope, Empire Strikes back or Return of the Jedi, however, the the Last Jedi was obviously not butchered by JJ Abrams like The Force Awakens. This film was surprisingly done extremely well and does not deserve the negative reviews even the story line was done well. I do not have high hopes for episode 9 as I hear Abrams will write and direct, big mistake! Abrams is brilliant with original shows and movies but really sucks when it comes to sequels and prequels, he killed Star Trek and now Star Wars, please George Lucas and Disney stop this mad man from fucking up episode 9. There were a few stupid scenes, looked like Abrams had his 2 cents involved, but for the most part the movie was quit serious with a great set up for the next film as long as Abrams stays out of the writing and directing. I gave the film a 9 since I wanted to give it an 8.5. Episode 4,5 & 6 a big 10! Episode 1,2 & 3 I would give an 8.5. Episode 7 I gave a 2.
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10/10
Don't look to the horizon, look at the piece of massive, character-driven entertainment (and some pathos) here
Ive seen Last Jedi twice now and the second time went with my older brother (who is old enough to have owned original Return of the Jedi toys). He remarked (and I took for granted) John Williams's score once again being a highlight, and starting off on that point reminds me why Star Wars still has the adventure/operatic impact it does. The Last Jedi is full of sweeping action and tragedy and loss and hope, and Williams reflects that and heightens it, elevates it, into more than it was. We just always think, well, this is Johnny, but his achievement here is no less than any of his other compositions. For all of the attention to the psychology of the characters (as much as can happen in Star Wars, which is a fast-moving adventure serial), without Williams's themes it doesnt grab the punch. One day he will go into the great dissolve in the sky.
I'm struck even more this time by how there are many, many character dynamics in this 150 minutes - even Benicio Del Toro's stuttering thief, who has the kind of grime and sleaze but charisma this needs, some originality here and there - and Johnson as a writer is able to juggle so many. I should have more or a gripe with his Poe only kinda sorta grows by the end (for all of his cocksureness, he knows well enough to leave a giant death-star-tech cannon alone at a certain point), but it's offset by how we get to see Isaac actually inhabit this guy (unlike last film when he was away most of the time).
Every connection that should matter, from Luke to Rey to Rey and Kylo (a curious linkage by the way that makes me wonder about whether Snoke was saying truth or not when he commented on being the architect of their bond... A very small moment near the very end tells me he wasn't or at least not fully), Finn and Rose, Poe and Holdo (is she coming back in the next one? I have no clue, but her exit is easily the most breathtaking moment in this film and most of the Star Wars movies), and even Kylo and "Admiral Hugs." It might be a lot of skipping between the timelines, but the tension isn't lost from thread to thread.
If anything seeing it again I admired more the tapping between tones, from the wide-eyed goofy (mixed with a tinge of melancholy for the exploited underclass) in the Casino city to the uneasy and veering on psychedelic bits on the island. Oh, and as a director Johnson gets the most bang for his buck as far as capturing indelible images and even visual poetry (and I dont mean how Lucas once tried to say it once upon a time). Only flaw: he could have even more if he slowed down for a beat or two (my one minor gripe pace wise, it's breathless in the storytelling often in this long but not overlong sit).
This is wonderful work, funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking, and while with no twists that will especially change the fabric of pop culture, there are a couple that make enough of an impact to get a packed theater into excitement (but then again perhaps Johnson knows ironically people might go in *expecting* to get one of those bone-shattering/solar-plexus-damaging twists like in 'Empire'). And it has a strong take on what is wrong and right at the same time about legacy. You can't stick to everything in books that are older than dirt, but the impetus for keeping a balance in the force is a good one and may inspire those who are told from birth they should have none. This goes for Luke but it also goes for Kylo Ren, and his turn towards the dark side in this story is more subtle in some waye than that of his grandfather - what do you take with you and for all of the talk of God powers (and demonstrations, like the kick-you-in-the-ass climax), it's always down to choice in a given circumsrance, pure and simple.
Thats a powerful message, especially for children, and if one takes it a political step further there are far greater parallels that can be drawn, but that would take a longer review to get into (suffice it to say if you can't make paralells between the Resistance and the First Order to what's going on in America and the UK and other points worldwide now, you're not paying enough attention). In other words as basic entertainment it's a blast that has steady direction, and as something political (as all art, or good art, should be), it kicks ass too.
One question as I still am in awe of what Johnson was able to do as far as making a spectacular blockbuster film...
Why didn't Laura Dern just take Oscar Isaac aside and tell him the plan to ger into the cloaked ships? He wouldve saved a lot of trouble, though ultimately the trip to the Casino planet for Finn and Rose *is* much more important than even I first thought. It really is key to setting up a lot of what's to come in movies beyond this which was clever given how it seemed like a silly diversion (was that Justin Theroux as the expert gambler? Looked like him). But anyway, just a minor gripe.
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Almost 1,500 reviews at this point so I'm obviously most likely writing this for myself only, but that is ok as I feel a need to sort through the impressions. Just like with TFA there is a lot to like here, but there are also just like in TFA a painful amount of lost opportunities. First off, this movie was a wonderful experience, there is absolutely no doubt about that and the positives far outweighed the negatives. Having said that the negatives that were, were all related to the general story arc and unfortunately pretty significant. There also seem to be a general trend in Hollywood that we need more humor and self-depreciation in movies nowadays, which proved valuable in films like Ant-man, Deadpool and especially Guardians of the Galaxy, but which went for example completely overboard in Ragnarok, making it a painful slap-stick mess. In TLJ some jokes and gags add comic relief depending on timing, whereas others are just plain disrespectful to the franchise, such as the response Rey receives after giving Luke his light sable.
Disclaimer, from now on there will be massive spoilers. TLJ is really two movies in one, with one following Rey, Luke and to some extent Kylo Ren and the other following the resistance with a focus on Finn and the new girl Rose. The first movie turns out to be among the finest Star Wars ever delivered, and Daisy Ridley is magnificent and flawless and quite frankly carries the whole movie. Adam Driver delivers another very solid performance, but this time the screenwriting partly let him down, as he was faced with situations that gradually made his personality more black and white cartoony in contrast to the conflicted character we were introduced to. In the end this movie belonged to Mark Hamill though, what a rush to see him confront Kylo Ren in the final sequence, and how it brought back memories from him entering the nest of Jabba the hut or confronting his father. All of it brilliant.
Coming back to that second movie nested into a great Star Wars movie, focusing on the resistance, very little made sense. The whole goose hunt for the code breaker, which ended up in nothing and did nothing to move the story further, no doubt designed to introduce a regular breather from the main story with Rey, Luke and Kylo. Unfortunately, neither John Boyega nor Kelly Marie Tran as Rose are very relatable or offer any convincing acting in this movie. Boyega's Finn is some form of Han Solo copycat in the story, but where Oscar Isaac's Poe has that kind of hot tempered, boyish charm, Boyega is not even close to pull it off. I hate to say it, but the Boyega/Tran portion of the movie felt like a Disney diversity stunt altogether, not doing the very worthwhile underlying cause any service. Leia's little space Sleeping Beauty sequence was ridiculous and didn't make sense and would have made a wonderful sendoff of the late Carrie Fisher, and although I understand they hade many scenes already shot they didn't want to waste or deny the audience, surely that scene could have been re-edited to the end when they again where under heavy bombardment. Now they really have a problem in the next one.
Other have commented that it feels as if Rian Johnson deliberately ignored many of the setups JJ Abrahams introduced in TFA, and it is hard not to agree. In the case of Snoke he even made a mockery of it, showing the mysterious and ancient Sith Lord lying like a gutted pig on the floor with his tongue sticking out. It is not that it was beyond Kylo to do something like this, but it removed the whole dynamics from the Kylo Ren story line and it would have made more sense if the victim was the other protagonist, General Hoax, who is nothing less than ridiculed in this movie. I do feel that people accepted Kylo Ren's explanation of Rey's parent too easily though, and I think and hope that this is one key reveal that was saved for the third act. My own theory is that Rey really is Luke's daughter with someone he met 20+ ago, but who never told him she was pregnant and decided to hide her away from the dangerous world of Jedis and Luke Skywalker in a place called nowhere or Jakku, knowing that the whole New Order was looking for Luke. It is to me the only explanation that makes sense, partly given her extraordinary connection to the force, and partly because these three trilogies are about family, and more specifically the Skywalker family.
Overall a great experience with half of the movie faultless and wonderful, but I sure wish JJ had done it instead, imagine what could have been. I enjoyed this movie without doubt, but it had fillers, and the sense of wonder and, for lack of a better word, pride I felt when seeing TFA, really wasn't present this time. I'm from a generation that saw the originals a little kid, and they have been one of my most important filmic influences ever since, but with Han, Luke and obviously Leia now gone, it finally feels it has gone full circle. Disney will keep churning these movies out, and from now on I will not count the days to the next one anymore. I will of course see them at will, just like I enjoy a good Bond movie now and then.
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I was gripped within the first moments. It held my heart in its hand till the end. Then left me both satisfied and wanting more.
Ignore these trolls. Clear your mind. Ignore the past. Ignore the future. Be one with the present. Be one with the force, and watch this darn movie with an open mind to what the writers are trying to do rather than what you want them to do. This movie is dark, beautiful, and gripping.
(Who the is paying the two star trolls!!!)
I'm seeing a lot of one and two star reviews because this movie didn't pander to your idealization of Luke Skywalker. Luke has always been a bit of a wuss and we have finally grown up to see the light. He is stuck in the past or held to the future. He finally grows up... I don't want to spoil anything so I will stop here.
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I don't understand why everyone has been hating on this movie. It's my favorite Star Wars along with Empire and Revenge of the Sith. I thought it was very original and did the unexpected. I loved the risk it took and how nearly all of the popular theories/ questions were answered. It has it's flaws and there are moments that don't have the star wars feel but it is very well made and I think better than the force awakens. It's lukes best role yet and demonstrates a new side of the force we have never seen.
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I am stunned to see all of the bad reviews here. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. Excellent writing and the best performances we've seen from Hamill and Fisher since ANH. Director Rian Johnson took risks that paid off big time. I was pleasantly surprised several times. It's unpredictable, it's ballsy, and it's in the top 3 SW movies for me.
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As an old fan, I was choking up several times. People just aren't paying attention or aren't familiar with the OT enough to appreciate what's going on. Yoda was his old, mischievous, puppet self, just like when Luke first met him on Dagobah.
The jokes that everyone is complaining about were fine in my opinion. The original trilogy was full of fun moments, but, people have forgotten them I guess.
The Mary Sue elements of Rey were much more toned down this time, thankfully. Snoke's dressing down of Kylo about her beating him wiith a lightsaber helped difuse that situation a bit.
Fantastic job! A must see!
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8/10
The most original offering since SW, but not without controversy.
Wow. A couple of days after walking out of The Last Jedi with a big, shit-eating grin on my face, I am stricken by the wave of negative reviews I've been reading online. For years, fans have been excoriating George Lucas for rehashing, retreading, not doing anything original, etc. Along comes Rian Johnson, who has finally broken the mold and made an episodic SW movie that genuinely does some new things and shakes things up, and the result from fandom seems to be self-righteous outrage. I never mistook SW fans to be Trek fans, but maybe we are all cut from the same mold. We want our world to be rocked with each new release, but deep down we don't want anything new or different. Really? As many do, I have serious issues with the whole track the sequel trilogy has taken, SERIOUS issues with Luke's arc, but in the end I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that SW isn't MINE. (Well, it is, but you know what I mean- I'm not being paid to write the stories and make the movies, even though I SHOULD BE)- and that is the problem with every review I've read. Every die hard SW fan is so emotionally invested in the 'verse that anything that deviates from their own personal vision just seems WRONG- and this from a guy who has written novel-length rewrites of Episodes 1 and 2 for my own personal sanity. (Never did get around to Episode 3, but I know how it goes in my head...) There comes a point when you have to take a deep breath, lean back, and immerse yourself in someone else's (and as painful as it is to say- the OFFICIAL) version of the sequels and just enjoy them for what they are. Rian Johnson did some REALLY interesting stuff with this movie, and in case you didn't notice, blew the whole future of SW wide open in a great way. The very last scene of the movie is all I need to mention without getting spoilery. Free your minds!!! I cannot and will not subscribe to the hate directed at Episode 8. I give it an 8.5/10 and declare it to be the most ORIGINAL offering to the franchise since the original Star Wars. I totally get why Disney just gave Rian Johnson carte blanche to do his own trilogy independent of what has come before. May the Force be with Him!
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Spoilers *** Don't read until after you have seen the movie
So, yah I wasn't a fan of what happens to Luke and how it's handled, and there seems to be some dialogue missing and the theory of chasing a fleet down, as opposed to jumping past them, well... Rule of Ninja, Stormtroopers and Imperial fleet Commanders in affect and the next Gen of Jedi don't need much training. And we need more Chewbacca.
That aside....
Everything else was intense, cool and awesome. The ties between Kylo and Rey creates an interesting bit that keeps you on your feet. The Comedy was maybe a bit much, but with all the death it was needed to balance the film.
Even with the plot holes I would still rate this #3 from the top (Empire#1, Star Wars #2, Rogue now number #4, Revenge #5 Jedi #6, Clones 7 and Phantom menace battling the Ewok Adventure for 8, 9 and 10 (11 is clearly the Holiday special, do not watch that, Carrie Fisher literally died the day my son saw this ) on my list of Star wars movies.
some will disagree getting to caught up in plot, but the plot wasn't inconceivable like Man of Steel, but seemingly other options were available.
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A step in the right direction. Moved on from the original trilogy and created a new fresh storyline. Star Wars fans will never truly be happy with the new movies because either they are too similar to the originals or they're too different.
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I can say , not a bad at all movie, but... as i grew older, became more cynical and start to like sf. more related to our planet than in a galaxy far, far, away...
Valerian and Star Trek , are in my view relating more to me than some flying penguins and some ugly nuns from a Jedi's Scottish island.
Valerian with its new and fresh faces, was way better done , more so when we know now that the greek boy stole many ideas from them and John Carter ...Also, Star Trek does change the style and substance from one movie and tv show to another, so , it's also fresh and challenging .
That being said ( written...) i enjoyed the acting of these new actors ; like the old ones, i believe we will see more of them...
The CGI where as i expected, also the direction was really good.
I gave only eight stars, maybe for the reason of tiredness.
It's time to finish it and start something else.
Maybe a challenge to humanity while emigrating to other stars ? I mean something serious , scientific, and with a big budget .
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This is the best Star Wars movie I have watched till date. This coming from a person who was never big on the Star Wars hype. Yep, this was awesome! Last Jedi is awesome to say the least.
P.S : Just don't watch it in 3D
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Like all great franchise movies, sometimes they lose the thread and have to be rebooted. I thought thats what was going on after the previous film, and was legitimately giddy of how well it was. This film however had me questioning why I even bothered going. Its not horrible mind you, its truly not. I rated it a 7 because the 2nd half of the film carries the 1st half. There were some funny one liners and well a few funny scenes that got a chuckle. Seeing Yoda on screen again was awesome, even though short lived. Here is the thing though. I know I am not the only one who went to see this film thinking there would be more Luke Skywalker, perhaps training a Rey, passing onto her secrets of the force and how to wield its power, going through that awkward phase as he did trying to come to terms with what he had. There was hardly anything, and for that I am so disappointed. This film could have been great, with just a little more effort and thought. I recommend waiting till it comes out on DVD.
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10/10
NOT whining about what I "would have done" to prove I'm the best fanboy
I've heard some people say that Star Wars The Last Jedi is not about anything. I don't know what movie these people were watching, but what I saw was an emotionally substantial, evocative, intensely meaningful movie.
The overarching message of The Last Jedi is the notion that the needs of the many outweigh the WANTS of the few. Luke imparts this message to Rey when he reveals that the Force does not belong to the Jedi, but to everyone. Rey tries to convey this message to Kylo Ren as she strives to win him back to the light side. Leia and Holdo teach this lesson to Poe when they attempt to show him that rushing in and being the hero is far less important than protecting the light. And Rose beautifully expresses this sentiment to Finn after she saves his life and urges him to understand that the war against the First Order will be won by saving what they love, not killing what they hate.
The story is about the importance of collectivism, of embracing and protecting community and rejecting self-centered pride. It's interesting to note that the characters that express these major themes the most are female characters who are attempting to inspire and open the eyes of male characters. It is true that women tend to be more communal and it makes sense that the female characters would be the ones to spread this message of rejecting selfish dreams of glory and accepting the strength and power that comes from togetherness and unity. Such a great and unexpected theme to find in a movie series that is historically about some guy who is the chosen ONE who must save the galaxy.
In one excellent scene, Leia admonishes Poe for recklessly attacking the First Order dreadnought, an attack that costs many lives. Poe tries to defend himself, saying the people they lost were heroes. Leia responds with "Dead heroes. No leaders". Leia gets it. She has seen her share of hotshot heroes and she knows that it is better to raise up leaders who will bring the people together than to glorify heroes who will ultimately fade away.
This is why Rey is so important. She seems more interested in leading than gaining power or renown for herself. The revelation that Rey's parents were nobody of significance was so essential. It takes us back to the message of A New Hope, to the idea that even a nobody from nowhere can be special. Rey doesn't have to descend from some space-royalty bloodline to matter. Who cares who her parents are or who anybody's parents are. What is important is using one's power to lead with compassion. This is why Rey will be the greatest Jedi; she doesn't have to be a hero or a Princess, she can be a leader who shares the Force rather than keeping it for herself.
The Last Jedi is brilliant and it is certainly not about nothing. There are so many powerful messages in this story, timely messages. It is about the folly of vanity and hubris. It is about the importance of humility and forgiveness. It is about the idea that anybody can be a leader. It is about the danger of running away from feelings. It is about the destructiveness of greed. It is about the universal significance and power of hope. It is about the strength of women. It even takes a jab or two at organized religion and its tendency to anoint itself the arbiter of all good things. At its heart, it is about putting the needs of the whole galaxy ahead of the needs of the vain and the greedy and the conceited few.
Who will save the galaxy? Who will bring balance to it all? Probably not a lone man with a sword or gun out for glory. Instead, it will probably be a group of people who believe in balance, in equality, in protecting the greater good.
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My review for newest starwars (not a starwars fan but decent sci-fi viewer since 1979's TV)
Visual : Very good though in 3D viewing everything looks like mini lego blocks (:(
Editing : Excellent despite a lot of story holes and patchworks. With great editing the movie is not too boring nor too serious. Great job!
Script : I have seen very funny scenes with big hamsters with huge eyes to cover up a lot of otherwise big miss (reminding me pretentious asian soup tried with huge amount of MSG instead of authentic ingredient)
Character Development : Rey was very charming but the movie failed to deliver the inner struggle or actual development. She reminds me Jean from X-Men. Now X-Men characters are made through generic mutations. But Jedi (or any supernatural characteristics of starwars characters) is made from mostly inner trainings. (That is why I consider Buddha is greater than Superman, and starwars characters are not marvel heroes). Some decent effort to bring out new characters but mostly weak and incoherent (sorry about bad English from foreigner).
Violence : We are numb from all kinds of marvel movies' mass murder scene. And this movie shows no exception and this is sad. I see some resident evil scene (cut trunks with saber) and kamikaze style attack. (Think about it, what difference does it make from self detonating suicial bomb attack? Although it was catharic scene I have to admit..) Then again we are soaked with all kinds of mass killing enjoyable through various Hollywood presentations nowadays and long forgotten the fact that single real death event (if you ever witnessed) can be very traumatic in life.
The dilemma as the director (I think whoever made this movie is very good business man but not an artist or deep thinker) :
All good characters should whether live through incredible lucks or die heroically. (For this I think Rogue One is better movie)
All bad characters are wimpy. (I think whether the director or story writer presented Kylo Ren completely wrong.) If bad character is wimpy (regardless of the degree of violence which by the way a strong sign of wimpiness), we do not care or whatever happens from him. (Think about how much we love Darth Vader chracter, he is not a wimpy man for sure..)
Despite a lot of negatives, I give it 7 stars simply because to show respect the hard efforts from the movie production team (But not to director nor writer..), it was watchable and fun.
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Well, I have been a fan for most of my life as well, but I went to a great movie yesterday. I watched a Galaxy become complacent and the punishment for that complacency! And, as with all of the great Star Wars movies, saw the light of hope in a few.
I don't know what you expected, but i got what i expected and more, and I feel rewarded for my 40 years of investment.
People talk of Snoke as if he were important, he was always just a CGI bit player who would awaken the true Ren. You moan about Luke, but we saw a Jedi who had to do on his own what thousands before him had done with a lifetime of training.
And we had a compelling timeline that left opportunity for the developing of great heroes and tragic loss.
If you hated this movie, I'm sorry you wasted your money, please don't come back next time, so the rest of us can enjoy our make believe universe in peace!
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I'm not really gonna tell you much about why I think the movie is great, because you either already know it, or you're never going to (or you haven't seen the movie, which in this case, why are you reading this?). Instead, I'm gonna tell you why everyone giving this a poor review is wrong.
One common theme in all the bad reviews is how it takes completely unexpected turns, the trailer was completely misleading, and it takes a dump on the entire lore and all the fan theories, etc.
My question is: were you expecting to not be surprised? This is Star Wars, known for the biggest plot twist of all time. They're not gonna create a plot that some fans can predict in their own spare time, they're gonna make a plot that no one will see coming. And they did just that.
*BIG SPOILERS AHEAD*
Seriously, the film takes a dump on every single fan theory, and it's amazing. Like, Rey's parents were junkies, not someone we already knew. Snoke wasn't Mace Windu or something like that, he was just a guy that they killed off part way through to help show how strong Kylo Ren was. Star Wars turned to all the fans that nitpick every moment of each film, and gave them the finger.
And I enjoyed every moment of it. What made The Force Awakens so great two years ago was that I had no idea what to expect going into it. What made The Last Jedi even better was that I thought I knew what to expect, only to realize I knew nothing.
Is it perfect? Of course not. Finn's story arc in the movie was pretty bad, not to mention Rose was kind of an unnecessary character, Vice Admiral Holdo was pretty forgettable, Captain Phasma was again underused (although Star Wars seems to have to have one badass villain that they ruin per trilogy), and (spoiler) Luke's death was kinda weird. Like, it wasn't bad, but they really had two ways to go with that part, and they tried to do a hybrid of both and failed miserably.
But, it's still amazing. We get a really good idea as to how powerful Leia is (the late Carrie Fisher would've been proud), the same goes for Luke, Rey and Kylo Ren were both developed well, the action is stunning and realistic. And again, it's an amazing roller coaster ride full of unexpected turns that make it interesting.
I'm gonna finish this review with a fan theory of my own: All the fans hate because they're pissed that their theory of how "Rey is the granddaughter of Palpatine", and when they weren't right, they felt dumb, and got mad online. People might think it's a "disgrace to Star Wars", but the only people saying that are the people who thought they knew everything about Star Wars, and Star Wars is just reminding them that they know absolutely nothing.
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Yes, I am aware that not everyone shares this view. In fact I'm well aware that there is in fact quite a bit of backlash to the new Star Wars movie.
However, I also vividly remember when The Empire Strikes Back came out (I believe I was 10). And I vividly remember that there was quite a bit of backlash against Empire at the time of its initial release. At least a few critics and fans complained that it had no beginning and no ending, and that it was dark and more than a bit depressing at times. They took issue with the fact that the villains won - while the heroes not only lost every fight big and small, but were humiliated, tortured, and even maimed along the way. There were grumblings that there was no real plot other than the Empire chasing the rebels for two hours. Above all, it wasn't very much like its predecessor. Unlike A New Hope (simply known as Star Wars at the time), The Empire Strikes Back wasn't exactly a crowd-pleaser.
And frankly, at 10 years old, I wasn't too crazy about Empire myself. I expected the heroes to win, the Death Star (or something like it) to be blown up, and for there to be a big celebration at the end. And wow was I wrong. And at the time - disappointed.
So why do some people have such issues with TLJ? For starters, there's no beginning and no ending. The plot? Pretty much just the good guys being chased by the bad guys. And I'll also note that there have been complaints about the film's bleakness. Without giving away too much - let's just say that the fates of most the good guys in TLJ don't exactly make you feel like it's such a good idea to stand up to a bully - much less an evil galactic empire. And not only do the heroes fail to win - some of them aren't always particularly heroic. 'Never meet your heroes' is an undeniable if unspoken theme throughout the movie. And above all, the detractors note - The Last Jedi isn't like many of the other movies in the franchise.
In case you haven't caught on yet - I'm trying to make a point. The criticisms The Last Jedi very much echo the criticisms of Empire some 36 years later.
So why do I personally believe The Last Jedi will follow in the footsteps of Empire to overcome its initial criticisms and in time be viewed as one of the best in the series? In my opinion, because it has so many of the same good qualities that made Empire an eventual classic.
The plot may not be particularly complex - but it's not supposed to be. Like Empire, TLJ is not about plot but rather about a struggle - and like Empire it does it very well. And like Empire, The Last Jedi rises above the us-versus-them conflict of the previous film to (very effectively) delve into the conflicts within each character. And in so doing - the characters grow far more than they did in the previous film.
And above all - like Empire, The Last Jedi is very good at surprising us. There are moments that are very humorous - nearly all of which occur when you least expect it. Not everyone will be happy with the characters - but no one can deny they keep you on your toes. Good guys turn out to be bad guys - and vice-versa. There are characters you are certain will die who live; and characters you are certain will live who die. And even those who don't turn out to be something altogether different make choices you will not see coming - I promise.
Oh - and like Empire, The Last Jedi has some REALLY cool action/battle scenes. Some of which are good enough to make it a classic for that reason alone. Guess we'll see.
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9/10
Deviates from the Star Wars formula and stands on its own
The Last Jedi leaves the audience where they left off, with Luke (Hamill) on the receiving end of Rey's (Ridley) lightsaber pass. Meanwhile, Finn (Boyega), Poe (Isaac), Leia (Fischer), BB8 and a myriad of other characters including newcomers Rose (Tran), Admiral Holdo (Dern) fighting along the resistance. They are countered with Kylo Ren (Driver) and General Hux (Gleeson) the First Order set on a path to eradicate the Jedi religion.
One problem with the previous (7th) instalment, the Force Awakens is that it felt too much like the fourth movie, A New Hope, mimicking plot points, character introductions, even death scenes. While I cannot say this movie does not shy away from mimicking some moments from The Empire Strikes back, it does it much less frequently than the Force Awakens. Because of this moment as well as filling in plot points left ambiguous by the 7th chapter, this movie is an improvement over The Force Awakens.
Without going into much detail, The Last Jedi delivers on a investing 2nd instalment of the sequel trilogy and give fans of the new trilogy more of what they love while also answering some questions about the Force Awakens and still keeping a realm of mystery in the air. The Last Jedi takes us to new worlds with fun adventures for our heroes of the galaxy fighting along well developed villains in well choreographed fight scenes directed by Rian Johnson. It introduces wonderful new characters CGI and real life, specifically Rose who is given a great backstory and a strong will to fight alongside the resistance. The film also delivers surprising new twists that are not part of the original Star Wars formula established by the prequels and original trilogy, specifically one involving force communication. If you are a Star Wars fan, you will love the extensive world building and sound design present throughout the movie that still suck you into each planet and make you feel like you are there.
There are still some problems with the movie though and some that do carry along from the other instalments, many of which are character problems. Captain Phasma although has a bigger role in this movie is still very under-utilized. The new Admiral, Holdo is not a very interesting figure, all she was was an authority against Poe's quirkiness and charm. Finally C3PO, (Daniels) the only character to appear in all the instalments is just pointless in this movie (and in the Force Awakens), he could have been removed and the movie would have been the same. Another problem involves physics, and it involves traveling at light speed and the impulse of one object against another. Without spoiling, and method to take out an enemy's ship would result in everyone dying. And finally there is a problem with some of the looks of creatures. It is obvious that most of the creatures are computer generated and there is little reliance on traditional makeup. I don't have a problem with it if it is done well, but in the case of Snoke (Serkis) or some of the resistance fighters, specifically the ones with large heads and black hair and the look of the crystal hounds, it is very transparent visual effects works. The cinematography is great, just the makeup is lacking.
The Last Jedi opens up a complexity to the Jedi world, it shows how resistance against tyranny lives on, it demonstrates that this one dying saga still has more stories to tell, and even though an abundance of characters may slow down the action or make us less invested in the fights, there is still a ton of fun to be had and reinvigorates the series. Anyone who is new to Star Wars should not feel the need to watch the other 7 instalments to enjoy this one, although it would help amplify some of the humour.
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Personally, I enjoyed TLJ. I thought it was the necessary change Star Wars needed to move the franchise along in a different direction. I've read a lot of negative reviews and get some of the arguments, but everyone needs to calm down with this "disney killed star wars" and "worst SW ever".
I agree with 2, maybe 3 points on the bad:
1) Leia should NOT survive space, that was stupid and that should have been her sending off. Plenty of opportunities to have her killed off in a sweet way (have Leia crash the cruiser into Snoke's ship?) instead of awkwardly writing her off in Episode 9 off screen.
2) The Skywalker's (Leia and Luke) have always been one main thematic element: HOPE. There is no way Luke will ever sit on as a grumpy old man and give up. The OT established that he was ready to take on the empire before tapping into the force, blowing up the death star, taking on Vader when he wasn't ready to save his friends, AND confronting the emperor and TURNING VADER to the light side again. He doesn't give up, he always has HOPE, so yeah, i get it the anger there.
HAVING SAID THAT, calm down everyone. Luke makes up for it in one of the most epic uses of the force. Luke is one of the most powerful jedi's, if not THE most powerful jedi ever, so yes, about time they show a powerful Jedi just do some awesome insane Force stuff.
Lots of people are angry with TLJ, and that TLJ ruined The Force Awakens. Screw that, TFA left everything open with no explanations. TFA gave us Snoke with no explanation, why is that TLJ's job to explain his origin? I'm glad he got chopped in half and it led to one of the best fight scenes in SW history. TFA tries to throw in a "who is Rey's parents thing." Again, this isn't new? You want Rey to be related to Kylo Ren? Be bro and sis? Screw that, I'm glad she was a nobody. Who cares? Empire Strikes Back did that already. Why repeat the same things? Stupid. TLJ was great and I'd watch it again and again. Much better than TFA and even RTJ.
Don't even argue with me about story, George Lucas had E'woks, little teddy bears destroy the EMPIRE on Endor. And everyone arguing about how TLJ story was terrible, calm it down.
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9/10
I didn't just like it...I almost crapped my pants lost my mind liked it!
Wow! All I wanted was Luke. And boy did I get the almost perfect dose of him. WOW. I liked a lot of things in this movie. And some I didn't. What a creative filmmaker Rian Johnson is. Entertaining from beginning to end. I can't get over the things that happened in this movie. Although I could have done with some things being left out. Or entirely different. Funny. So refreshing to see a movie that takes risks. And feeds you a story so fast. It reminds you that this is what Star Wars movies are all about. Tonight with my gang. And a great audience. We laughed, we cheered, clapped, and maybe just maybe. Got a little choked up. Very well done! It felt as new and fresh as the sequel to the original Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back. And Mark Hamill knocked it out of the part. Yes I wanted more. But I'll take what I got. The series could end right here and I'd be ok with that.
And for that I have to give this film a very, very, very strong 8.5 out of 10.
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Fanboys are hating on this movie because it didn't follow fan service. This movie was entertaining, beautifully filmed, and well acted. It doesn't play it safe and takes characters out of the comfort zone fans would expect. This is one of the rare times that I say I agree with professional critics.
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Summary of episode IX (of which it is printed, when it is remembered)
JJ Abrans will leave everything he did on the straight awakening and will "fix" what Johssom Rian did.
In the case of a fiction film, the film will be released in May of this year. , and in the end Ray will take Kylo to the Jedi again and both Smash smash instead ...
I already wrote below. Why is the movie the same as the return of the Jedi? Go! At least all ANSWERS will want and MOST (ANOTHER) will accept the movie.
Oh, George Lucas is going to be back.
The staff was very friendly and helpful. Why read did not die ?? Why do not they let you finish the success? Why can not you reference Skywalkers or Obi Wan? SHE CAN NOT BE THE DAUGHTER OF ANYONE. THAT'S WRONG !! Snoke has to be fucking powerful and I have not been able to succumb to his own arrogance (those that come to Plagies) and die, he has to back back.
Yoda CG will be returned, because "fairy Yoda puppet".
And in case it is a person that is not to your liking. so in that case .. Rose will be kidnapped by the new order, Finn will save his wrath and from time to time will die, Poe will command the rebel troops, not Carrie's daughter (which in my opinion would be a great tribute to the actress, to see her own daughter taking over.
Happy ?? because you can expect because you are going to do thi
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8/10
The Last Jedi Finally Brings Balance to Disney's Force
Director Rian Johnson has delivered an intense, eye-popping, stirring and thought-provoking entry in the Star Wars saga, perhaps the best episode we've seen since the original trilogy. Johnson took the "Christopher Nolan" approach to Star Wars with this movie, giving it a darker, more realistic tone and a complex plot filled with reversals and reveals. In doing so, Johnson has created a far more interesting and involving movie than J.J. Abrams' bubblebrained retread The Force Awakens and the sloppy, unfocused Rogue One. While the movie lacks the dazzling visual splendor of George Lucas' prequels, most notably suffering from some uninspired creature designs, it makes up for that with its sheer sense of literacy. For the first time, audiences can have hope in the ongoing quality of Disney's Star Wars movies.
The Last Jedi is darker, grittier and more realistic than anything we've seen before in the Star Wars film series. Its battles are more reminiscent of Dunkirk than of Flash Gordon. This approach takes some of the original trilogy's escapist fun away, in the same way Nolan's Batman films did not provide the same simple entertainment of the previous live-action Batman movies. But in exchange for that, we get a rich and dense experience that gives thinking adults a lot to digest and enjoy.
Johnson makes almost all of the characters introduced in Episode 7 more developed, more believable, less cliched and less simplistic. He also does well fleshing out the new characters he introduces. Most importantly, Johnson succeeds at advancing Luke Skywalker's character into new and intriguing areas. Compare this to The Force Awakens which actually regressed Han Solo's character into a lazy retread of his original smuggler persona, giving us absolutely nothing new to think about.
Johnson wisely understands that for a character to be truly heroic, he has to first be seriously tempted by the dark side. Like Batman V Superman, this movie makes the characters into bigger heroes by forcing them to deal with the temptation of evil. In a movie filled with some of the strongest acting ever seen in the Star Wars movies, Mark Hamill fully embodies all the complexities of this older, grayer Luke in the best performance of his career. Hamill ages perfectly into his role in a way that his original trilogy co-stars did not.
Johnson is handed a lot of mess from The Force Awakens to try and clean up and is mostly successful in doing so. Some plot threads are perhaps still being saved to be resolved in the next and final chapter of the trilogy. Others may have been mercifully forgotten. Johnson had a herculean task on his hands to fashion a proper followup to movies created by two different previous directors and still make a movie that is worth seeing on its own terms. He did an admirable job in light of that challenge. It's no surprise that Disney has promised him his own separate Star Wars trilogy to create from start to finish. One can only imagine how much more solid and satisfying this new trilogy would've been if a real artist like Johnson had helmed it from the beginning instead of the serial plagiarist J.J. Abrams. This movie is the sequel we deserved from the beginning, something that respects what came before but takes everything in a new and different direction.
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I see many are bitter with disappointments. I believe the reason is because they don't like changing and want same thing and predictable but then they won't be happy just like The Force Awaken. Some Fans are never gonna be satisfied because of high expectations and overly analysts . So get your head out of the ass and think about the whole thing. Think you make it better? I believe Rian Johnson took the responsibility and did delivered. So he spent two years on it and then raging kids decided to take 2 hours and 40 mins to watch and take 3 sec to rate low with "IT SUCKS", cheap and lazy.
Overall I believe The Last Jedi was simply beautiful and you definitely can enjoy the ride. Grant, I did had mixed feeling, so I did chat with my friends and made me realize I love it more. Star wars is a huge universe and complex, and it is in shatter, everything is broken and need to be burn in ground so it can be rebuild. Let the past die and make it what is meant to be. Everything change, it's not just black and white but balance. Force is everything as energy with livings, around us as well as the connections. Like Poe with rebellion/Leia, Finn with Rose, Luke with Rey/Kylo, Rey and Kylo, even Porg making home with Chewbecca , etc. The Last Jedi brought something more out of mythology and larger in force. Also set things right with Star Wars. Luke is legend and he has his purpose, Snoke is just another Sith who brought darkness into Kylo Ren , Ben is torned and angry , Rey is nobody but truly something we don't realize and she is also hope. Poe is impulsive and irrational but will learn his mistake even seen what Holdo done so he has potential to be a great leader , Rose help Finn stop running away, Force can do the impossible like Leia being Mary Poppins in north pole and then the connections . Star Wars is bigger then we realize and I love it. Can't wait to watch it again and hope the final of its trilogy be Grand. Could be disappointment but hopefully the latter. But still, It's Star Wars and it is big, so read some read book and comic even play Lego with kids. Appreciate for what it is because it is good for its own. The Last Jedi will be my heart.
Those raging people who still doesn't understand are no Star Wars fan. Sod off and go watch Star Trek instead.
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7/10
Average and Odd, but Entertaining; Needs a Second Chance
This is not going to go the way you think and that's the best part. Entertaining and many memorable moments. Had some flaws, too much forced humor and a slow and disjointed first half.
I watched it twice back-to-back. After the first showing I was not sure if I liked it or not. I enjoyed it so much more the second time around. The first time, some of the movie's bold choices felt forced and cheesy. The second time, these odd moments were less awkward and I was able to appreciate them at their true magnitude.
The acting, cinematography, and music was in line with the expectations of a Star Wars film. Even the flaws were typical to this franchise. Curious to see episode 9, as it felt more like an end to a trilogy than the middle. In my opinion, it rates somewhere in the middle of all the Star Wars movies. If you saw it once and did not like it, I strongly recommend watching it again, In the end, I was entertained and that is what truly matters.
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10/10
Pathetic, soulless, vapid, shallow...I'm talking about the reviewers.
This isn't a review other than to say the The Last Jedi wasn't the strongest entry in the SW series, but it was far from the worst.
The only thing "worst" things about this movie are the absolutely pathetic excuses for people reviewing it. I'm not saying you have to love it or even like it, but the rancor and venom being spewed against it says less about the movie and more about the lack of mental stability of much of it's fanbase. If the types of dark, vile emotions people are claiming this movie spawned in them are real, then all I can say is...
You have mental issues that require professional help. You are sick, period.
However, I don't truly believe that most of you can claim mental illness as an excuse. Most of you are just bad people with such a sad, pathetic heart and soul that you can let a piece of fiction stir such garbage. The concept of the Mom's-basement-dwelling, socially-inept clown is overused, but it exists. They are usually sad failures as humans who think their opinion on SUBJECT A is more relevant because they've devoted o-so-much time to SUBJECT A. Truthfully, your lack of real-world experience in anything that truly matters makes your opinion irrelevant. You only have one frame of reference due to your lack of like.
Go and check out the movie if you want to be entertained for a few hours. There's nothing especially wrong with it. If you like it, great. If not, no harm done....unless you act lie some part of your life has been taken away because you didn't. If that's the case, keep it to yourself. There's too much anger in this world over things that matter. Expressing this kind of anger over things that don't makes you....well, read the title. It fits.
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The utter hysterics among some of the reviews claiming this is "The worst Star Wars ever!" are a bit of an over-reaction. This is a completely acceptable Star Wars movie. I will say right off the bat that I didn't enjoy it as much as The Force Awakens, but some of the story elements are intriguing. It really requires multiple viewings to digest properly.
I can say without equivocation, though, that I think that a lot of this movie's problems would be solved by changing or eliminating a certain story line, which really dragged the movie down.
Ignore the hysterics. Go in with an open mind. The movie has problems for sure, but I'd say that the good outweighs the bad.
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Terrific film I was fully engaged by throughout the full runtime. It's a wild roller coaster ride filled with magically-spirited adventure. Rian Johnson gives us a story that was needed and not what people wanted, clearly. The tone has shifted from the previous instalment, however the pacing is quite similar to that of Force Awakens. It's a trickier and more challenging journey this time around, and goes beyond to new territory. A movie of this scale, nothing is at the level of Star Wars and people's response to this kind of movie is always most reflective of our culture. The only thing that shocked me about the experience of seeing Episode 8 was the cult of negativity directed back at it. A 10-episode-netflix-series seems to be the best and most enriching way for a story to be fully appreciated these days. A movie like The Last Jedi doesn't fulfill the needs of fans (which are impossible to meet by the way) as many of them don't have the capacity for a movie this tight or a story being told in such an unprecedented direction.
Not sure what everyone else is seeing but I absolutely love this movie. The Force Awakens has like 2 or 3 moments of emotional blunder, where as this one has at least 6. I love how unalike episode 7, this film ends with a clear sense of where the story will go next in episode 9. Now there are flaws in the storyline that could be tweaked, but I will get into them later. However those problems do impact the tension in between cuts. I have similar problems with E7, but I still enjoyed that movie well enough to give it a generous 7/10 rating. For me, if I were to have written the script for this Episode 8, my version would've been very similar to Rian's.
One element I liked about this movie was the character development. Many of the side character's are more likeable and endearing this go around, specifically Poe, Hux and Leia. I especially felt more strongly about how the resistance was given light in this story, plus delving into the outer world on the planet Canto Bight, giving us a little more depth and insight into the universe. This felt like an ensemble piece as opposed to a straight-line adventure with 2 or 3 main character's. Rian Johnson delves into new plot lines with much intrigue and ambiguous inspiration in crafting his movie.
I did feel like a little bit more from Luke's flashback would've served the only demand I really wanted portrayed. But what throws this film into disarray for a lot of people I believe is the unclear cause of why the First Order patiently tracks the resistance ship's without clearly stating why the bad guys don't automatically blow something up. Instead they wait til all the other main characters conveniently arrive back in time to suppress their wrath. It puts all the other storylines into a bit of a bind and constant state of rush. Too much time focussing on the stressful situation with the resistance ship doesn't balance well with the other adventure's happening. There needed to be more sequentiality. It isn't the Fin/Rose storyline that feels out of the place, it is too many cutbacks to the resistance thread that strains everything else.
The final 3rd of this movie is sensational, and probably the best 45 minutes I've ever witnessed in a Star Wars movie before. The screenwriting and vision for where the story ends up taking the audience is to a memorable and epic realm. The score is tremendous, the performances are extravagant and the payoff is spellbinding. So many beautiful frames and much heart and care was put into bringing this wonderful script to life.
JJ Abrams has said he was jealous he wasn't directing this movie because he thought the script was unbelievable. Mark Hamill spoke in an interview this was his favourite Star Wars movie since Empire. Many movie-goers, like myself are absolutely cherishing The Last Jedi as a welcoming new entry to be placed high on the movie shelf. Unfortunately this picture is not being celebrated by fans and being recognized as it should. For me, as a writer and filmmaker myself my stories and material is in a very similar realm of narrative tenacity and exploration of that of Rian Johnson. But if this is how spoiled and negatively people respond to such raw material, it makes me question if I should even become a filmmaker and just stick to writing novels to appease a more personal audience. I don't know about anyone else but I have felt a shift in the culture since 2015, and the energy I felt in the movie theatre while watching The Last Jedi and walking out needs to be addressed. As I walked down the steps leaving the cinema, one word came to mind to the people I had shared this experience with for the second time, and that is 'uninspired.' Technology isn't killing the film industry, people's lack of interest in cinema is.
A lot of people on youtube or on most comment sections are all saying the same thing, almost like it's the same guy who has a million accounts trolling like crazy. They all begin by talking about their childhood and how star wars effects them. We're not talking about your bloody precious childhood. People are looking for continuity before even embracing the purpose of seeing a movie in the first place, which is the cinematic experience. A lot of the hardcore fan's grief towards The Last Jedi lacks sensible understanding for me. They go in looking for nitpicks and delusional expectation, which outweigh everything else. You cannot enjoy any movie that way ever. If you don't like the movie for what it is that's fine, but to not like a movie for what it's not makes absolutely no sense.
Now beyond my feelings on this movie and it's experience, I am with the critics on this one. Hopefully people would start showing some respect since I am allowed to like this movie. I thought it was beautiful. Luke was relatable and his arch couldn't have been more fulfilling, because I don't know what would be to satisfy those who found his character disappointing. Let me remind you, there is no such thing as 'being out of character.' Character choices drive a story, whether you like them or not. I don't know what people expected from this movie, because a lot of people had a checklist of questions that needed answering and things that needed to happen to make it's perfect version. What does it need to require to satisfy people? All the things the force awakens set-up were flaws and loose-ends that are being blamed on this film for some reason, when it is actually weak writing on JJ Abrams behalf. But people are too emotionally wound and straight-up dumb to see that. These fans don't deserve these movies. I will go and see it for a 3rd time shortly and again after that, and nothing will stop me.
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I watched it on imax and it was awesome. top 3 best movie of the year (with guardian of the galaxy and dunkirk). the visual and the sound is fantastic. and as for the story; there are some funny scene, unexpected twist, a fresh indie-esque touch, and amazing, i mean AMAZING galactic war scenes.
its a beautiful story about finding identity, dealing with failure, and three-dimensional characters battling their demons- or should i say "their dark side".
alot of philosophical message. and i really love the pace of this movie.
Everybody act amazingly well, and the chemistry in some of the scenes is out of this world- im curious about where it will go in the next episode. please disney; explore this further.
this episode is filled with strong female characters, and i found it to be so inspiring. its about time, i'd say 2017 is the year of women for sure, hopefully it'll continue.
the light-saber battle was FANTASTIC! one of my favorite scene.
i mean we all grew up with starwars, and have fond memories about watching it, this franchise has touched billions of people and they have the best team working on this franchise.
apart from an eery kissing scene, i cant get enough of this story of family and relationship with the set of 'out of this world' galactic war.
ps; dont listen to the trolls, they have their mind set up, and whiny about things not going according to THEIR 'imagination'. and how can you take seriously people who give 1 star for a movie? thats hardly objective isnt it? for reference, the room got 3,6. so NO, starwars, especially this one, deserve atleast an 8.
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9/10
I know... but wait. This is the Godfather pt.ii of Star Wars.
Why? Something wonderful has happened: the people holding the purse strings on some of the most valuable intellectual property in entertainment history have decided to entrust this franchise to a writer with a vision. This was not Rogue One, which, however you felt about it, was stitched together by shareholders.
There was never going to be an issue of adequate spectacle here, it was going to boil down to the key questions the audience carried for the core characters. Like these answers or not, they poured the most amount of life into them. It bowed to them, rather than the franchise, and the franchise will be served for that decision in the long term.
Luke, Leia, and Han did not sneak into our hearts by giving us what we want- we took a difficult journey with them, and this is remembered by the people who sat in the cinema decades ago and witnessed Vader reach out his hand to Luke and turn his world, and their world, upside down. It is because of that type of confusion and hardship that those three characters will always be our companions, our friends, our family.
Rian Johnson recognized the soul of the Star Wars universe at some point, as many of us have, and this story is his reaction to that recognition. I get the feeling he looked into that beautiful void and saw his own fantasy staring back- his own wish fulfillment, tailored to his identity. An unseasoned artist would have taken that to the writer's room, but what he saw, he embraced, enjoyed for a moment, and then let go. He then sat in the writer's chair and set out to do something selfless, dynamic, difficult, profound to serve this world.
This is what good writers do: it may feel like a slap, or tease, but I promise you, it is a reward.
"No reward is worth this"
It will be, in hindsight. This film's take on the Skywalker legacy will divide audiences for years to come. This is certain. Hamill himself is torn. What I saw of Luke was very, very painful, but it was the right thing to do if this franchise and its fans are to remain dedicated to exploring the human spirit by finding it in a galaxy far, far away. That contrast is part of the magic.
I, like many of you, want Rey to discover who she is. She deserves it. Luke was raised in a loving environment, protected, privileged. Sure, he was lied to, and experienced great loss, but Rey had nothing. She came from nothing. Discovering who you are is a catalyst for the human story, sure, but authoring yourself with your own choices is the very heart of what it means to be human.
Rey will never be the most iconic character in this franchise, but what the world is going to gradually realize through this film is that she is the most important, with the most dynamic arc, and the most active, consequential choices paving the road to her destiny. Luke was born in the middle of a story happening around and to him, and no other intra-franchise character will be remembered for creating their own destiny as much as Rey.
I come from a broken family, and beyond being a great time at the movies, Star Wars has always spoken the emotional language of family and childhood to people like me. Star wars, at its best, is pop culture's altar of personal, familial, primal storytelling.
This film is a sacrifice laid on that altar.
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10/10
Extraordinary! What movie were you 1 stars watching?!?!
I've been a Star Wars fan since I was a little kid growing up in the 70s/80s. I was lucky enough to have a ridiculous number of Star Wars toys when I was a kid, and I remember actually crying tears of joy when my long backordered Wicket the Ewok action figure finally showed up in the mail one day. I've owned the original trilogy on every format from VHS to DVD with Laserdisc thrown in for good measure (Star Wars: The Definitive Collection, an insane $250 for 9 discs and a book when it came out in 1994 - and worth every damn penny!). I have literally thousands of dollars worth of Lego Star Wars UCS sets in my home office - including a UCS Millennium Falcon I pieced together myself which, truth be told, may be my most prized possession in the world. I gained (lost?) the respect of my wife when she found an old Star Wars trivia book and I was able to answer every question about Ep. 4 she threw at me. I even interned at Lucasfilm back in the '90s and spent a summer working on Skywalker Ranch - which was every bit as awesome as you would imagine.
Suffice it to say, I like Star Wars.
And with those as my Star Wars bona fides, let me tell you I absolutely adored The Last Jedi.
I'm not going to go into plot points since those are well covered other places, but I just wanted to hit on the feeling. For the third year in a row, the entire family went to the theater, spent a ridiculous amount of money, and sat down to bask in the glow of a new Star Wars movie. We loved every minute of it, especially my 9 year old son. We laughed when Luke brushed off his shoulder, we were astounded at the Rey / Kylo Ren / Snoke guard battle (and all of the other amazing set pieces), and we teared up in the appropriate places. It was fun and funny, thrilling and enthralling, exciting and scary. We got to spend time with old and new friends and loved getting to do it. It was everything I could want from a movie, let alone a Star Wars movie.
Could I nitpick? Sure, but I'm not going to. What's the point? I don't know what the Force is capable of any more than anyone else. Our entire audience - us included - cheered and clapped throughout the movie and especially at the end. We had a rollicking good time and I can't wait to go back and see it again. We talked about it the rest of the day.
For those who feel personally slighted somehow by this movie, I'm both surprised and saddened. This Star Wars fan thinks it's not just a worthy entry into the canon but one of the very best. Go in with an open mind and prepared to be entertained and enthralled.
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Ok. So. I have a lot of stuff to say about this movie.
1. Is Disney trying to recreate the originals by adding new characters and following the same plot line? I mean, come on, have they run completely out of ideas?
2. Other than Disney trying to copy off of the originals, the movie overall was actually ok. There was a lot of plot twists and it made the movie interesting.
3. People forgot that since it is basically a newer version of "The Empire Strikes Back" that this movie had no beginning, middle, or end, since it is in-between two other movies.
4. People are only giving this movie low reviews because of them copying of of "The Empire Strikes Back", which was really low on Disney's part. This movie was not very original.
5. All of you reading this have to admit, this movie was much better than "The Force Awakens", (if you have already seen it), especially since the storyline had more plot twists.
6. Why the casino plot line with Finn and that other girl? Rose was her name? It was so pointless and tedious, I just couldn't wait to get to the other plot lines sooner. Why would they bore you with that dumb casino garbage? There was no point of having that in the movie.
7. Also, this movie seemed to be very long, with a lot of things in the movie to take in. Practically all of those events that happened in that movie could have been separated into two separate movies! Since this movie was 150 minutes long, as "The Empire Strikes Back" was only 124 minutes, this movie gave you a lot to take in over a shortish period of time.
8. Also, why the hell would they make Luke Skywalker some raggedy old depressed guy who feels like a failure and lives alone on some random island out in the middle of nowhere? Where is the Luke we knew and loved?!
Now, as I said before, this movie is actually pretty good! It's just that Disney seems to have lost all of their creativity, as they relied on the name of Star Wars to draw people in to watch it anyway.
So, even though this movie wasn't the greatest, Disney will probably get a lot of money off of it since it was (and still is) very highly anticipated and is very popular among Star Wars fans right now.
Go see this movie. Don't believe all of these harsh reviews. The movie is actually really good!
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I really enjoyed the movie. It was everything I wanted. Humor, action, characters, and tension. When characters were in peril, it really felt like they were in danger. You never knew who could die. The casino part and Phasma were underdeveloped, but that is a small price to pay for the excellence of the rest of the movie. People were whining about The Force Awakens being like A New Hope, but now they are mad about this movie feeling different. I bet many are mad because they spent months theorising about Snoke and Rey, and none of that mattered. Luke was better than I hoped, and we will see more from him going forward.
I also think the original plan was to have Leia train Rey. We got a taste of her power, and it could have been more fleshed out in the 9th episode. Luke would be there as a force ghost to help with some wisdom. Now it will have to be different since Carrie Fisher passed away. I can't wait to see what they bring us next.
Maybe the haters will stop watching, but I doubt it. Empire wasn't received well when it first came out, and now it is widely considered to be the best in the series. This movie won't be the best, but it is nowhere near the worst of the series.
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What's bunch of nerd whiners!!! Fantastic movie with great action set pieces!!!
Leia did not fly children. She used the force to pull herself toward the ship and survive the rigors of space for a few minutes. Luke projects an illusion of himself to fool Kylo. The ultranerds would have you believe that this is impossible because we've never seen it before. This is a made up power so now we know they have this ability. See.....logic and immobile sense. Also Leia supposedly NEVER showed those powers. Stupid nerds; that was 30 years ago. Who knows what she's learned and how powerful she's become.
So the dreadnaught gets destroyed by oh powerfully constructed bombs. We've no idea what they're made of. You but the logic of adamantium don't you?
Luke who for all we know changed tremendously in those 20 years. So he had a weak moment because he felt the darkness in Kylo ( much improved performance BTW ). He still wasn't going to through with it. Rey's parents turned out to worthless nobodies. Great twist. Vader's Mother has no powers either. So don't go there.
No light saber battle. So what? A fantastic battle with (one can assume ) extraordinarily trained guards. Rey saved Rylo but he dispatched most of them. Snoke is his arrogance and self assurance didn't sense the lightsaber about to kill him. I could go on forever. Now there were some bad parts. The whole Casino subplot sucked. They should have let Finn die. Phasma was again a nonentity and Gleeson as Hux was way over the top. Leia in space was a stretch but these are minor quibbles. Stupendously entertaining movie but judge for yourself and ignore the cellar dweller nerds. My family and I are eagerly awaiting the next one!!!!
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Okay, where do I start? I hope for the sake of the industry that we don't stop showing movies in the movie theatres! And That we don't stop going to see films. I've been rewatching all the movies at home and it's not the same as going to the movies. Especially if you end up in a full seated theatre with star wars fans, the amount of reactions that was pulled out of the film made everyone react together if that makes sense, it was like a big family JUST like all the Star Wars characters toughening in a big family.
Now to the story, I personally really liked it, the only thing I didn't like was that some of the dialogue felt forced like they were expecting people to laugh, which was too obvious and made me not laugh instead. But apart from that well done. It took goodnights sleep and a hike to the Hollywood sign to let all this sink in. This movie was filled with epic moments, two of my favourite was:
1. When Kylo Ren and Ray is fighting the red soldiers, and when the emperor/snoke is killed.
2. When the ship went through light speed through then enemies ship, that whole scene was just amazing, so well done special effects people!
Also if you let yourself be aware of the music in the background the film is brought to a whole different level, The music is just unbelievable.
To me this film was about the force, (something deeper) which I quite like. The fact that Ray's parents might just be junk traders who left here there, makes a great story. At first I didn't think so, I got pissed because I wanted to link her to one of the other characters. But then I thought about it, what it meant. That you don't have to be in a generation of Jedi's to become a really good Jedi.It proves anyone can become one, so the force is not only reserved for those whose linage gives them that power. Then they connect that to the little stableboy in the end to who picks up a broom using the force, which is just brilliant. You can draw a parallel to our everyday life to, YOU can do whatever you want to or become whatever you want to, you just gotta believe in yourself find a way that works for you.
Now to the questions:
Is snoke Darth Vader?
When did Leia become so powerful?
Great film!! I'm gonna watch it again to see what I missed and see if I can find some answers.
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Rian Johnson's Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi has a title that is a mouthful of words to say. The movie is arduously long, there is an atmosphere of hopelessness and many characters die. Questions do not end up neatly answered and are instead shoved aside to leave room for even more. Classical story beats are explored and subverted. The main character never even turns his lightsaber on the our other main character to fight her in the movie at all - but rather they resolve that plot emotionally! What the fuck!
Every single fan review of this sums up the movie thusly, and I don't think any of those complains are valid. We are eight films + one spinoff into this franchise and 40 years of expanded universe stories all resolving around masters and students, rebellions and empires (of different viewpoints) churning along with the same frequency and in a fashion that benefits a myth arc, not a story told over time.
Rian Johnson brings a visual palette to the movie that ties it closely back to the original trilogy - but rather than simply aping the visual design and palette of those movies directly Johnson opted to emulate the kinds of movies that inspired the original trilogy. From the Rashomon storytelling in the middle surrounding a master and popil, to a fight scene featuring both student of the Jedi art protagonist with chorography and set design lifted from a late era Chambara movie - The Last Jedi harkens back to the movies Lucas borrowed from to elevate Star Wars to a thing of greatness.
The central message of the movie - of letting go of the past seems to uniquely be lost on the fans of the franchise. I actually consider myself something of a recovered megafan. I used to chew through the Dark Horse comics, I followed the Clone Wars TV series and played numerous games from Starfighter through Battlefront 2. Yet after a series of failed prequels that couldn't deliver strongly on their own emotional arc I stopped holding up the franchise and fell out of love with it.
See, Star Wars Episode VIII is a movie about letting go of the past - about Masters allowing themselves to be surpassed, old ways to be dismantled and used as the cinder the new can use to ignite their own flame. But fans seem predisposed to only wanting more of the same, of more masters and flippy lightsaber combat and the familiar.
But the onus of a new franchise being made to emulate the original never was really the intention of the new caretakers of Star Wars. From the gutting of a cinematic icon in The Force Awakens to the last shot of Luke Skywalker staring at the twin suns of Tatooine, The Last Jedi drives home the message of the new blood in the galaxy being able to run free, unhampered by the ways of the old.
Stunning cinematography - great CGI, but the meat of this story is the most important part.
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9/10
Very surprised at the reviews I am reading. I loved this movie.
I have been a Star Wars fan since the 70's. Watched the movies a ridiculous amount of times, books, video games, comics you name it. This movie (as did Rouge One) stayed in the Star Wars realm but was DIFFERENT. That is something that is lacking in movies. This movie broke tradition while honoring it, took chances, and tried to go in new directions. Is not that what makes great art? Please don't read the rest if you haven't seen it as I will discuss spoilers
Spoilers
You think Poe is going to be the hero, any traditional, cookie cutter movie would have him be just that. Instead me messed up. Him and Finn. But then redeemed themselves. I love when characters who are not major, like Laura Dern's are heroes. Very realistic. Reminds me of Tolkien (books not movies).
I was very scared that they were going to have Rey kill Luke or something like that. Instead the foresight, new powers, and hero status that they gave him I just loved.
Daisy Ridley is a treasure. I saw her in Murder on the Orient Express as well and she rocks. I thought all the acting was great. I also love that Leia finally shows some force powers. I hear people complain that we did not get enough of Snape. One of my favorite parts of Vader in the original trilogy was the mystery around him and his past. We now have that with Snape.
I will admit I really wanted to see Snape fight, but the downfall of Star Wars movies is the popularity. Every ounce of the franchise is so ingrained in our culture that it is a part of us. Impossible to watch a new Star Wars movie without expectations and specific points you know should happen. I was loosing it little as well when Yoda showed up and could actually interact like he was alive. Then I remembered, that its a flipping fantasy movie and I didn't write it. Then I just thought " well he must have been developing his powers over the year as a spirit" and I loved it and moved on.
Great acting, great direction. Outstanding visuals. Great unexpected script. Nice job all around. (Empire is still my favorite thought lol).
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Overall I enjoyed the movie, but I did have a few gripes. For starters, some scenes were too silly. For example in the beginning theres a scene witth Hux and Poe that felt like something an SNL sketch would do. It felt a bit out of place for this universe. Also, a lot of the casino scenes (and characters) reminded me of the prequels. And by that I mean it was kind of kiddish. Like, you remember how silly Jar Jar was.....kind of like that. The porgs. Yes, they are cute. But they literally serve no purpose except to sell toys. I could be okay with them being created to sell merch if they at least did something in the movie. They honestly do not add anything and the runtime could have been shortened if they just cut them out. There was also a dumb scene with Leia where she basically became Starlord for a moment. It probably would have been better if she had just died in that moment or if she got injured in some other way. The scene felt kind of silly to me. Those were my major gripes. I still have a couple minor ones like R2 still not having much of a presence in this movie but it didn't bother me as much as the ones listed.
So what did I like? Well for me Adam Driver as Kylo Ren was probably my favourite thing. He brings so much vulnerability to that character. I don't think he was ever supposed to be "the big, bad evil". Its clear to me that he was a kid who felt abandoned by his parents, and then was seduced by Snoke (who probably both mentally and physically abused him) and then the last person he trusts turns on him. And yet, there are still moments in the film where he's conflicted. Some shown in the trailer (like the scene where he's in the TIE Fighter about to blast his mother) and others not. Like for instance (and this especially spoiler-y) where you can see the pain on his face when he finds out that Snoke has been manipulating him (and Rey) through the force talks they had. And I could see some guilt on his face when Rey is being tortured by Snoke. And I think Adam portrayed that wonderfully. (Plus, as a bonus you do get a shirtless scene). I also thought Daisy did a good job. And they have another cool scene together when they're both trying to force grab the lightsaber. And I also loved seeing Luke being a badass again. Another favourite moment was when he lightly dusted off his cape and gave Kylo a look that said "That's all you got?"
For those that thought Force Awakens was a re-hash of "A New Hope", will likely also think this as a re-hash of "The Empire Strikes Back". There are similarities. Benicio's character seemed to be Lando in this story. And also having the antagonist (Kylo) ask the protagonist (Rey) to rule alongside him in the galaxy.
As I said before, I did enjoy myself. There were some great action scenes, some funny scenes and as well as some great emotional scenes. Of course, some great production design, good tech etc. Where would I rank it? Well, I do like the original trilogy as well as The Force Awakens more. I rated the film a 7, but I think it would be more like a 7.5.
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The "Fans":
I would first like to state that you should skip any reviews that begin with "as a HUGE Star Wars Fan..." These people are the ones who limit Star Wars to the original trilogy and blast anything that is different (or even when its the same: TFA) They take pride in being fans, and feel cheated whenever others enjoy something in the same universe under a different name. For some reason they believe that withing a whole galaxy in a different universe, only 3 movies can shed light on its true form, when in reality Star Wars is a living thing now. It grows, evolves, changes. It is like our own world, but a hell of a lot cooler.
My Experience:
Last night, I dropped $60 for me and my friends to go and see TLJ. I had been so hyped up for months to see this film, and I have been a fan of Star Wars since the original trilogy. When we all left the cinema we all sat down at a Perkins with rapid heartbeats as we tried to discuss all our favorite moments and why we loved it. We spent about 2 hours just drooling over the spectacle of TLJ.
Why You Should See and Enjoy it:
First reason to see it: it is Star Wars. Secondly, life for many of us is a mundane sequence of similar events. Everyday we get up, go to work, come home, relax for a couple hours, go to bed, repeat. We do this day after day with no real end goal that would have any real purpose. As humans, we have no real point in existing. This fact leads many of us to be downtrodden and depressed going on day after day with life. HOWEVER, when you go into TLJ or any Star Wars movie, you forget about all that. As soon as the opening scroll comes on you are transported into a whole new world. Work, school, money, stress are no longer bombarding you. You are transported to a magical land where wacky creatures, heroes, villains, spaceships, lasers, lightsabers, and droids are all the norm. TLJ does an incredible job putting you into the universe and wowing you about how incredible it is.
ON ITS OWN:
this movie would get a 9.9/10 from me. No other times can I go into a cinema and be wowed like this. The effects were prestine. The rare but enough fighting sequences were dazzling. The creatures were as whimsical and wonderful as ever. Even the porgs being obvious advertisement were amazing. They were so adorable and funny I did not mind. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep anyone entertained and enthralled. There were so many satisfying, funny, and interesting moments. A great twist on the franchise where they can branch out and try out new things.
AS A STAR WARS MOVIE:
I would give it an 8/10 just because the plot and character development does not stand to the OT (original trilogy.) However, the universe felt so right. I felt like I was there. I felt sorrow and redemption for Luke. Overall great movie that everybody should see.
PROS:
Astonishing visuals and set pieces/cinematography
Great Cast
Funny Moments
Engaging primary as well as entertaining and interesting secondary characters
Wonderful Soundtrack
Takes away the stress of real life for 2.5 hours
Very satisfying moments of triumph
Twists and turns to keep the franchise fresh
True character development
Mind bendingly Entertaining
CONS:
Some unanswered questions
Minor plot holes
Some moments fall flat
Obvious advertisement of porgs
No Han Solo :(
CONCLUSION:
This is an amazing way to once again re-enter the galazy far far away, and be wowed and dazzled in perfect blockbuster cinema. Do not be afraid to love a movie pandered by people who claim to be fans since they hate everything that is not episode 4,5,6. It is a great film that is so unique you can not find something like it anywhere else.
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So yeah, I went to see the Last Jedi again, or was it The Almost Last Jedi, or The 2nd to the Last Star Wars Jedi movie, or maybe When is this Star Wars madness ever going to finally end movie.
So again, yeah, this is my take and "Spoiler Alert, or not" review.
After buying my ticket for the Saturday morning IMax (well of cause) I was getting tempted to go see it opening night. The earliest showing not sold out was 9:45 pm which would have me getting home after 1am, didn't seem to good being I had to work in the morning.
Got home Thursday and notice they now had tickets for the 8:45 showing, so my Star Wars madness took over and said "why not". Don't know if it was a Jedi mind trick or some little evil Jedi on my left shoulder over powering the Angle on my right shoulder and whispering in my ear "go, go, go, These are the ticket you was looking for", Hmmm... I went, I saw, I got conquered.
Now for the Spoiler.....
The Movie is made up of a lot of oohs and ahhs moments but to me in the end it just seem that's all the director was going for, hence I felt there was something missing.
I still had my tickets purchased for Saturday, do I get my refund, or just go again.
So here the big "Spoiler Alert or not, I know, you're just waiting for one"... after much consideration I gave in (again) and went to see it one more time, (must of been that little evil Jedi on my shoulder again saying "give in to the force", jezzz, how do you get rid of these guys).
So this is the big thing..... Is it that good to go see it again???? maybe, maybe not, the thing is that this is the 8th Star Wars movie, and no, that's not 8 years, that's 40 years.
We've know friend and relative for way less, we've lost love ones and precious thing in less, we create life long bonds with people and pets in less and sometimes just a few month, but here we have Star Wars for 40 years, that's a life time.
Of cause, many were born within that time frame and ended up following along, maybe because of the hype, the interest in Sci Fi, the nostalgia in old movies, or just because your parents brought you up on their memories of what is Star Wars.
Fact is, Star Wars for some of us, is like an old friend. When we go to the Movies to see a new Star Wars movie, it's like visiting that old friend again. Some of us may not know it, but sometimes things that stick with you this long become part of you.
So the movie has it's good points and some that didn't make any science sense. Some stuff that you might say "WHY" and other's you will say "OK". Sometimes it seem like it was all over the place and of cause sometimes we prefer a different direction but now it's done so it is what it is, some ones else's point of view.
Who was the best actor? Everyone may differ but I'll say Chewie, he hasn't changed much in 40 years, oh, and also the Falcon, can't forget the falcon, lol.
Yeah, I can say a few things about the other characters and actors but for now I wont.
Did I need to go see it twice? I'll have to say yes and no.
I could have just waited to see in on digital and catch whatever I missed, but in seeing it again, it was interesting to see all I did miss the first time (things in the background and important details) so it was a plus + plus and in IMax... yes.
Hope I'll be around for the next and maybe final episode, not sure it'll be the same but I'll see it all the same and hope they do the closing some justice.
I am kind of sure I wont be around for the remake in maybe another 50 or 100 years, we might even be part of the movie by then if not living the life.
The struggle will continue between the good and evil, the dark side and the light as always and in all walks of life. Maybe and hopefully one day we'll learn to understand that there isn't always dark or light but just a difference of opinion. Everyone wants it their way.
When we can understand that, and can live with the differences, then maybe we'll find balance and live in harmony, together, in the grey.
So was the movie good or was it bad...... in the long run, it doesn't matter, just take it with a gain of salt, accept it for what it is and say Hello to an old friend.
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Just a heads up: The Last Jedi is quite long. In fact, it's approximately 2 and a half hours long. That's neither good nor bad; I'm just stating a fact.
I'm going to talk about the characters, plot, and humor of this great film.
Characters: With a few exceptions, the acting is really good. Daisy Ridley is a phenomenal actress. I could tell that she genuinely cared about her role as Rey. All of her facial expressions and tone match the plot and the dialogue perfectly. When Rey is angry, Ridley is angry. Mark Hamill is really good, too. Initially, he acts uninterested in the plot. That might sound bad, but it's actually good, because Luke is supposed to be uninterested at this point. Hamill starts caring more and more as the film goes on, just like his character. Later, he shows amazing chemistry with Carrie Fisher- they act just like you'd expect 2 siblings who love each other and haven't seen each other in years to act. They hug and express their sibling love for each other. That's the kind of chemistry that you have to be really talented to portray well. Oscar Isaac and John Boyega act just as well as they did in The Force Awakens. Their facial expressions look exactly like those of a sarcastic antihero and someone who's constantly trying to impress others, respectively. Their acting matches their personalities. Andy Serkis plays Snoke very sinisterly. The only characters who aren't great are Kylo Ren, DJ, and the Porgs. Adam Driver plays Kylo Ren very emotionally, which is good, but he acts a little too emo at times. He yells numerous times, and it's only sometimes warranted (i.e. in the highly dramatic scenes). Driver's performance reminded me of Hayden Christensen's; I should add, though, that it's not nearly as bad. It's a very mild version of Christensen. DJ's performance isn't bad, but it isn't good. Benicio del Toro delivers the lines lazily and half-heartedly. He didn't seem very interested in his role. The Porgs are a little too cute. I'm not going to explain why- I'm sure that you've already seen them. They're only there to be cute. There is no Watsonian reason for why they're there. However, they don't have a lot of screen time, so I was able to tolerate them, and you'll probably be able to tolerate them too.
Plot: There are enough surprising twists to entertain you and keep you on your toes, and most of the questions raised by TFA are answered. That's not to say that it's totally conclusive, however; the ending is a good set-up for Episode IX. Yes, I know that that's vague, but I can't get more specific without spoiling it.
Humor: This isn't the best Star Wars film, but it is the funniest one. I laughed my head off too many times to count. For example, at one point, Luke asks Rey where she's from, and she says that she's from nowhere. He replies, "No one is from nowhere." She says that she's from Jakku, and he says, "All right, that is pretty much nowhere." At another point, after inadvertently breaking a cart of the caretakers on Luke's home planet, Rey says, "I don't think they like me," and Luke replies, "I can't imagine why." Those are not the only funny moments, but I can't tell you all of them- this review is already pretty long.
Overall, I give TLJ a 9.4/10, and I would definitely recommend that you see it. (I would've rated the movie 9.4/10, but this site only lets you rate something as a whole number out of 10, so I had to rate it 9/10.)
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To me this was a good movie but it didn't feel like Star Wars to me. The humor was too slapstick, the camera movements felt like another movie entirely, and the way it was cut din'dt have the same feel as other Star Wars movies. So is this good or bad? For me this was the first Star Wars movie were I actually didnt care about the rebels and if they succeed or survive. Boring repetition of war was the feeling for me. The reveal about Rey's parents felt underwhelming. And even te return of Luke wasnt that spectacular although I did enjoy some of his scenes with Rey.
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9/10
Don't Let The Naysayers Fool You - The Last Jedi Is Outstanding!
The ONLY Star Wars movie that is pretty much above or beyond criticism is The Empire Strikes Back. Other than that, they are ALL flawed in one way or another. The original Star Wars being the least flawed (as in almost not at all, but still a little flawed with some stiff, stilted dialogue and a really whiny, annoying lead character).
But The Last Jedi improves on The Force Awakens in a lot of areas. Finn and Poe are much better developed as characters this time around. Poe has a personal struggle to deal with (to blindly follow orders or to do what he believes is right), while Finn is much less of the stereotypical black comic relief character and has some legitimate personal drama and carries a little more gravitas this time around.
Luke is still Luke. A lot of people forget how whiny and impulsive and UNWISE he was in the first two movies. Guess what, like a real person, even though he is older, has more knowledge (and is far more powerful in the force) he is still unwise. He is still wrong about some things. And the nicest touch is that it is yet again Yoda who splashes some cold water in his face and show him how and why he is so wrong.
And Kylo Ren is far less whiny than he was in The Force Awakens. Hell, his goal isn't all that bad - it's just his methods towards achieving that goal that are completely unacceptable.
For those who say that, "Well, the First Order ships could just jump into light speed for a second to get into weapons range." Guess what? Light speed doesn't work that way. A second at light speed would put them far ahead of those they are trying to catch.
Rian Johnson and the writers avoid the completely laughable physics that J.J. Abrams put in The Force Awakens (newsflash, a blast from the Starkiller Base would take at least days, if not weeks or months to hit it's intended targets, and you wouldn't be able to see a planet blowing up from another star system the way Abrams showed it - but then he showed his blatant disregard for science with his Star Trek movies, too).
The Last Jedi is fun. It's wildly entertaining. And it is a distinct improvement over the previous movie (which was still a really good movie, despite it's flaws).
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In TFA there were many who complained and called the movie unoriginal. The Last Jedi is the opposite. It is too original and too far away from Star Wars, as we know it. Is it people's aim to hate the movies no matter what?
In my opinion the main plot and the subplots of the characters are simple but effective and original, and they work well until they meet. At the same time, the movie has everything Star Wars should have. It is in general mindblowing, it is emotional and it is filled with surprises. The Last Jedi really manages to keep the Star Wars spirit while being innovative on many fronts.
The acting from Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are sublime and there are Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and John Boyega among many delivering amazingly. The movie has impressive sound and the visuals are stunning as well (just look at the Crait Salt Planet).
There are many surprises and, perhaps for some, controversial ways the characters are developed, but as Mark Hamill says it's not necessarily bad breaking out of our comfort zone and that we are moving in a new direction with Star Wars.
It may not deserve a 10, more like an 8-9, as I disagree with the development of some characters during the film. But I am going with a 10 in opposition to all the 1's because those are extremely unfair.
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First off, I am indeed a Star Wars fan and this is after my first viewing of the Last Jedi. I have been processing this film for two days. I might be off the "Star Wars high", but here is my opinion:
A lot of people disliked The Force Awakens due to it being too similar to the original Star Wars. This film treads familiar waters, but never steals from the original trilogy like its predecessor. Instead, director Rian Johnson gives us an excellent film that is unexpected, expands the Star Wars universe in many ways, and gives us excellent new themes. The acting is great all across the board, as expected. Standout performances include Mark Hamil's Luke Skywalker and Adam Driver's Kylo Ren. The new characters give us great performances, but their stories feel out of place and forgettable. Finn played by John Boyega has a story arch that was bad and just took away from the film. The film could of done without this sequence if it wasn't for a particular scene in the end. On top of this, this sequence threw in a political agenda and a message that didn't belong in our beloved Star Wars franchise. The humor in the original trilogy has always been natural and enjoyable. While some of the humor in this film was natural and funny, there was forced humor that fell flat and does not belong in a Star Wars movie. It seems like since Disney has been making Star Wars films, the creatures have gotten progressively weirder. This film displayed some weird creatures that I felt like looking away from during the movie. Yes this film has negatives, but it takes away from the film rather than destroying it. All in all, this film had great acting and shocking moments that made for not only a great Star Wars film, but a great movie in general. My initial score would be a 9.1/10
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The highly anticipated eighth episode of "Star Wars" is finally here. I can say that this is a solid and generally well-made film, although it has its imperfections and struggles a bit to fit in with the rest of the franchise to a certain degree. The plot picks up almost exactly where "The Force Awakens" left off, and chronicles the ongoing battle between the Resistance and the evil First Order.
As one can expect, this film has thrilling action scenes and outstanding visuals audiences witness as they are transported to "a galaxy far, far away." These aspects show that Rian Johnson clearly has skill directing a mega-blockbuster. Unfortunately, he falters a bit when it comes to some structural issues with the narrative. While the movie is paced finely, not all of the plot arcs work particularly well. Parts of the film seem slightly tedious or, especially, convoluted. I do appreciate Johnson's attempt to take more creative risk than in "The Force Awakens," and while the execution of such sentiments of risk often pays off, it does not always do so. As a result, I would say that "The Force Awakens" (which I rate an 8/10) is a slightly better film than "The Last Jedi." Still, this is an entertaining and well-acted installment that should certainly please fans--and I most certainly had a great time watching it. 7/10
Note 1: I saw this film in IMAX 3D. While the picture and sound quality were good, they did not seem more noticeably superior than on a standard screen or compared to other films I have seen on an IMAX screen, including "The Force Awakens."
Note 2: I would rank the Star Wars (episodes and story) films in this order, from best to worst: 1-The Empire Strikes Back, 2-A New Hope, 3/4-(tie) The Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi, 5-Rogue One, 6-The Last Jedi, 7-Revenge of the Sith, 8-Attack of the Clones, 9-The Phantom Menace.
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Audacious and even somewhat bizarre, yet ultimately incredibly rewarding, THE LAST JEDI definitely feels like a film in which director Rian Johnson had complete directorial control and more often than not that is a very, very good thing. The film isn't perfect, and not by a long shot. After opening with a blisteringly thrilling forty-five minutes that features one of the series' best dogfights and the resolution of the infamous cliffhanger at the end of THE FORCE AWAKENS, the film begins to creak under the weight of multiple ongoing subplots, none so more than the unfocused casino storyline, which has received the brunt of fan criticism thus far, and rightly so. But before things get too out of hand, Johnson brings everything together with an unpredictable and astonishing final hour that delivers momentous sequence after momentous sequence, cementing Johnson as a master storyteller who could care less about fan expectations. While THE FORCE AWAKENS was criticized for being "too derivative" of A NEW HOPE, one of the main criticisms THE LAST JEDI has received thus far is that it skews too far from any previous STAR WARS film. To fans of the franchise: you can't have it both ways.
Did I enjoy it more than THE FORCE AWAKENS? It's hard to say, and I don't think I'll have the answer to that question even after a rewatch. Compared to its predecessor, THE LAST JEDI definitely has more than its fair share of flaws. It's overlong, although I admittedly have trouble finding what, if anything, should be cut, and the moment in which one of the characters briefly turns into Neo from THE MATRIX RELOADED left me scratching my head. But the stuff in here that works, works. The relationship between Rey and Luke (Mark Hamill's performance is easily the best in any STAR WARS film thus far), the further development of Kylo Ren, the revelations regarding the background of one the main characters, the thrilling action sequences (one of the film's lightsaber duels left me stunned), Steve Yedlin's series-best cinematography (those reds!), and as always, John Williams' magnificent score. Even the humor mostly works, thanks to Johnson's own idiosyncratic tendencies (would any other filmmaker have included that close-up shot of the iron?), and the fact that porgs are infinitely better than ewoks.
And simply put, there hasn't been any other film this year that I walked out of and immediately said "I want to see that again as soon as possible." And that one shot where the sound drops out is pure cinematic brilliance. Definitely the boldest blockbuster in years.
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10/10
Don't listen to the bad reviews. It is a beyond great film!
First of all I am shocked by the reviews written by so-called huge Star Wars fans who rate the movie low while half of them say they have not watched the movie but base their reviews from most of the other reviews and therefore comes to the conclusion that the movie must be bad. In TFA there were many who complained and called the movie unoriginal. The Last Jedi is the opposite, according to some. It is too original and too far away from Star Wars, as we know it. Is it people's aim to hate the movies no matter what?
In my opinion the main plot and the subplots of the characters are simple but effective and original, and they work well until they meet. At the same time, the movie has everything Star Wars should have. It is in general mindblowing, it is emotional and it is filled with surprises. The Last Jedi really manages to keep the Star Wars spirit while being innovative on many fronts.
The acting from Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are sublime and there are Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and John Boyega among many delivering amazingly. The movie has impressive sound and the visuals are stunning as well (just look at the Crait Salt Planet).
There are many surprises and, perhaps for some, controversial ways the characters are developed, but as Mark Hamill says it's not necessarily bad breaking out of our comfort zone and that we are moving in a new direction with Star Wars.
It may not deserve a 10, more like an 8-9, as I disagree with the development of some characters during the film. But I am going with a 10 in opposition to all the 1's because those are extremely unfair. My opinion is that it is definitely among the best Star Wars films.
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8/10
A satisfying film but some scenes are a tad drawn out.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Cranky nuns look after the ancient Jedi buildings on the island Luke retired to (reminded me of primary school). Rey drives them to distraction with her attempts to reinvigorate Luke, to get him to take up his Light Sabre in defence of The Republic. Luke is rusticated, his daily routine consists of kamikaze style fishing and drinking milk fresh from a dino/seacow. Just like a typical hermit. Oh, and he also haunted is by the ghost of Yoda.
Kylo Ren is on the Dark Side but has some qualms, even hesitating to destroy the Rebel ship his mother is on. Lela shows her mastery of The Force by surviving in vacuum and even flying, looking like an aged Tinker Bell. Kylo and Ren are quantum-entangled by The Force, communicating over the parsecs.
Some great space battles and ground war involving creaky fighters. Indeed much of the Rebel equipment looks aged and well used. This retro feel extends to their space bombers which appear to rely on hydraulics. The 1970s Battle Star Galactica stole spaceship designs from Star Wars but now in an 180 degree turn the 2004 BSG has influenced the look of SWTLJ. An explosion on the Flight Deck is straight from a Galactica episode as is the destruction of a battleship.
A satisfying film but some scenes are a tad drawn out. 8/10.
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I can't decide whether the negative reviews on this movie show collective ignorance of the viewing public or are an organised campaign of disinformation.
This was a very good movie. Good acting by all of the cast. Very true to the style and fell of the original movies while still being modern. Very well done humour, again back on the level of the original films, and a very cute cast of supporting animals. All together a very enjoyable few hours of movie.
Of course there were negatives. Some of the battle scenes were overly long and got tedious. Laura Dern wasn't really given much to work with, which is a pity for an actress of her ability. But minor things all up. So trust the professional reviewers, ignore the IMDb user comments, and enjoy this fine movie.
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I love and hate this film with 2 different perspectives. The lore side of me absolutely hate this movie, but the spirit of star wars side of me love this film.
The lore side of me (especially all the Old Republic stuff) want this movie to dig deeper into the light, the dark, jedi, sith, the politics and etc. I am deeply disappointed to no end.
The Star Wars movie spirit part of me really enjoyed everything because it is a Skywalker Saga. The focus of this film is really the redemption of Ben Solo (skywalker). The person is damaged and how everyone else will bring him back. (he didn't kill his mom, he is conflicted)
If we look back to the OT ( I watched it again just before the movie), the plot hole is endless. Who is the emperor, who is vader, why is Leia important, why is there a death Star, why is skywalker lineage a thing, etcetc... The lore didn't make a sense at all in the OT, but it's a trilogy about the characters and how they progress through the story.
Then we look at the prequels, where Lucas dived into the lore, the myths, and the politics. It didn't resonate to the majority of the Star Wars fan because there is no attachment to the characters. The "why" behind how Anakin turned vader is really vague. His relationship with Obi-wan has no significant. The love between anakin and padme is forced. I personally like prequel for its lore but not as a Skywalker Saga.
JJ and Rian brough back the original spirit of the Star Wars as a fan of the film, not its jedi mumbo-jumbo. If we are honest, we learned more about Star Wars in comic, video game, fan fiction and much more. However, this is just a Skywalker movie that stays true to what Star Wars was all about. Rian John is a Star Wars movie fan, not a lore or extended universe fan. He made a movie in respect to why he loved Star Wars. The character, the relationship, the growth, and how to let go of the past and move on. Altho I didn't like the movie at all after first viewing, but loved it the 2nd time once I understand the direction. We have to let go to move on, much like how we lose someone we love. It's passing the Torch, which continues what Force Awakens started.
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The Last Jedi will either be your favorite episode or your most hated. It will either be the Star Wars that you have been waiting for, or its the one you've been dreading.
Its not a Star Wars that involves destroying a Death Star. It fools the audience by playing on past story devices, like trying to turn Ren from the Darkside, or training a new Jedi. It fools the audience, as this episode is trying to break away from the traditional story. Its really a reboot, that sets up the future of the franchise. That will piss a lot off.
If your expecting to see Luke kick ass, or expect some huge plot twists, you will be disapointed.
The audience should of known from the very begining when Luke throws away the Lightsabre. Or when Ren does not turn, or when Rey has oridinary parents, Or when the ground operation of obtaining the codes fail. Or when the Jedi Temple is blown up, and it had no meaning. The entire movie is about telling all of us to let the past go. To move forward. If your waiting for Stars Wars to leave the Skywalker Timeline, you will love The Last Jedi, as it will likely be the last time you see one.
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10/10
Say that my review was "unhelpful" if you like, but the movie was stunning!
***SPOILERS ARE MINOR. IF WHAT HAPPENED TO A CHARACTER OR LIKEWISE IS MENTIONED, NO ONE IS NAMED.***
For those who really want to know about the movie and not dislike a review just because it's all they have to do (aka trolls), here goes:
The first thing you are wondering is likely if it was a ripoff of The Empire Strikes Back or not, and the quick answer is NO. Yes, there are similarities, but not eye-rolling, that's-so-obvious, I-know-he's-going-to-get-frozen-in-carbonite-next ones. (Well, a popular line was stuck in, but it was enjoyable, not annoying and a rip-off.) There were, as a matter-of-fact, shocking plot twists that were nowhere near TESB. There were actually OPPOSITES.
Those plot twists... wow. You could never see them by watching the trailers. One character died in the most surprising way, and what lightsaber fights were was completely redefined.
Rian Johnson (director) said this was going to be "funny, not dark" and he was both right and wrong. It's lighter than you think, and though there is humor, about a third of it is cheesy.
One of the things I liked best was Kylo Ren's character development. In The Force Awakens, he was basically an evil Luke whiny baby. His hissy fits were funny, but he was such a wimp. Here, he truly takes on the role of a villain and is thrilling.
There is so much to say... but, in conclusion--go ahead and say you didn't find this review unhelpful if you like, but I just wanted to share my enthusiasm. You're not going to burst my bubble; the movie had a ton of plot twists, heartbreaking moments, phenomenal music (as always, thanks, John Williams), was not a rip off of TESB like The Force Awakens was of A New Hope, and, even with cheesy jokes here and there, was enjoyable.
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Wondering where all the negative reviews are coming from?
They are about 100-200 reviews copy-pastes here over and over again, making it about 1000 negative reviews in total.
Take the dublicates out, and there is pretty much an equal number of positive, mixed, and negative user reviews.
Movie itself was the best Star Wars movie since 1983. It has its flaws, but unlike Force Awakens, it was at least an original story.
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This movie is fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed every single bit of it. The story lines, action, humor ... great entertainment. I've been a Star Wars fan since the first one (and quite frankly loathe the prequels) - these sequels & Rogue One have been excellent.
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There are some problems with the story, yes. -some unrelated connections etc.-
There are also some problems with the editing of the movie, yes.-the continuity of the screens were lost few times-
but you can't blame Ryan for the Story, because of stupid SW7 movie. since JJ made the worst SW movie, despite that I can't still undestand the IMDB score of the SW7.
It was really difficult to clean the dirt that created with the SW7.. the half of the movie was made to clean the old dirt from JJ.
I liked the athmosphere of the movie, some SW universe characters could be more detailed, and also he could completely removed Ray or the other unnecessary characters, but I liked the movie in total. I felt like the old SW movies, in time the quality of the movie will be understood, Congrats and thx Ryan.
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8/10
Not perfect, but thought-provoking and lovingly crafted
If you think Mad Max: Fury Road has no plot, you might want to sit this one out.
One of the film's most prominent themes is about assumptions/expectations and how those can totally screw you over. It challenges ideas and plans constantly, forcing characters to rethink the world around them and themselves.
It's also forced me to rethink what really makes Star Wars Star Wars. The humor, the characters, the stuff with the Force--I feel like Rian Johnson slipped in and loosened the thread of the Star Wars corset and gave the series some breathing room; the form is still there, it's still Star Wars, but it's more... free.
Go watch it, talk with your friends about it, and be open to having your assumptions challenged. Be open to failure, just as so many of the characters in TLJ are. There's problems, yeah--notice I've only given it 8 stars (though I'm thinking it might be bumped up by a rewatch)--but this is far far away from the dumpster fire a lot of people want you to believe it is.
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9/10
I loved it and so did the people I went to see it with
The theater gasped multiple times as I watched The Last Jedi. There are several moments that shock you. There are also lots of laughs and "gee whiz why didn't I ever think of that" scenes. The themes of the film are about power and aggression and when its right to use it. Kylo Ren inherited a great power and feels entitled to use it, where Luke has become disenchanted with his power having seen the side effects. Leia and the Resistance understand their greatest power comes with endurance and self-preservation.
I'm not sure why there is such angst against this movie. I feel like some fans expected a specific story or film and feel cheated out of that. Others feel like the understood boundaries around things like the Force and are upset that the filmmakers did something broader with it. I appreciate the fact that they took risks, because they delivered some incredible moments. I enjoyed this film immensely
and I think over time more people will too.
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People who have a problem with this movie went to see it with their own expectations and plot directions in their mind. They disappointed themselves. Other than the casino planet, the movie was epic. Luke pulled off the greatest Jedi skills in the history of Jedi's. Just ask C3PO.
I loved it and can't wait for episode IX!
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8/10
Contrary to most whiners this is episode can hold its ground
I was initially conflicted about whether I should go see this episode after cold-shower that episode VII was. I went in the theater with very low expectations. I have to say that the movie faired better than I expected. Acting is superb with Fisher and Hamill showing the younger folks how it's done. My gripes have to do with Adam Driver who really has remarkable potential but neither the plot nor the directing allows his real talents to shine through, leaving you with a 'meh' feeling sinking like a rock in your stomach. The other gripe I have from this movie is its over-use of comedy. I think that they overdid it in this regard in a superficial way, un-becoming for a star wars movie. Apart from these 2 dark spots the movie is engaging in every other way. If you want to throw a rotten tomato or two throw it at episode VII. Episode VIII is getting things back on track. Thumbs up (yes even to you Adam Driver).
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To be frank, when I walked out of the movie theater, I felt none of the negative emotions that so many of these other reviewers seem to have. I thought it was well-written, intriguing, and had excellent character development, with many interesting twists and turns and a new character that I liked.
Imagine my surprise to go onto IMDb and see that the reviews were swarmed with hordes of reviewers complaining about how it "didn't feel like a Star Wars movie"!
This frustrates me immensely. When TFA came out, these very same fans complained about how it was too much like the first few movies. Now, they complain that it's too different. I think that it was good to try new things, to show new abilities, and how the balance between light and dark can be re-examined and changed. It was intriguing and well-thought out.
In addition, the graphics were gorgeous! There were only a few instances in which I felt the CGI was disorienting. For the most part, they had a technically excellent film with lots of gorgeous shots and decisions with sound editing.
One complaint I can understand (and why this movie doesn't receive a ten out of ten from me) is what they did with Luke Skywalker's character. He acts completely differently from the Skywalker we know and love in the first trilogy, and while I think a disillusioned Skywalker could be interesting, he seemed to revert back to that whiny useless state he was in before all of his interesting character development. While he redeemed himself in the end, I didn't like his characterization.
Aside from that, I would HIGHLY recommend this film looking for something a little different and risk taking in a Star Wars film.
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I watched it a few days ago and i'm stilI thinking about it, i was blown away!!! i don't understand how people could hate this movie, i've seen the other star wars movies many times and this movie is by far the best one! the story is on fleek and the special effects are absolutely stunning, there are no boring parts in the movie...and Carrie Fisher's performance is brilliant. Next week i'm gonna watch it again for sure:-P!
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Do not listen to all of the bad reviews. This movie deserves to be called part of the series.
This review DOES NOT contain spoilers.
The Comedy-
The Comedy brings me back to the originals. It does not distract from the story line, it certainly does not feel forced, and it is perfectly timed and knows just the right time to do so. The writers clearly were aware what they were doing (thank god), and it set the right amount for the film.
The Characters-
This is a small problem, but does not ruin the movie. The characters we already know are developed pretty well in this movie. Rey, Finn, Luke, and Kylo, are all perfect in this movie. Snoke, and some others are not that well developed in this movie though. I know we were all excited for Snoke, but it is not as exciting as the trailer showed us he might be. Again, if you are planning to see this, this does not ruin the movie.
The Plot-
I am not going to explain the plot, but this story line works very well for a Star Wars movie. You get to see many different twists, and scenes that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The direction Rian went with this movie may seem worrying at first, but as the movie builds up you will start to realize that the way he is going is perfect!
Mark Hamill-
Yes, Mark deserves a column just for himself. Some may argue that he was horrible in this movie, some may argue that this is the best Mark has ever portrayed Luke. I like to think that for what he was given, he made it just fine. Mark Hamill did not seem bored at all playing this role, and all of the comedic scenes he was in was downright hilarious! Thank god that we were given a movie with Skywalker.
That's it! Hope you enjoyed!
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Let me be frank, I ran for A New Hope and Empire once I was done watching this over-inflated film. BUT, I can't help but feel it was attempting to tread on new territory and build on what was already established. Unfortunately, it carries the burden of a 7 movies before it, so a LOT of comparisons will be drawn to it. This is very much like Empire. She goes to train with a reluctant Jedi master as her friends are fighting to stay ahead of impending doom. We even get Lando's doppleganger in Benicio Del Toro. If you ever wanted to get a sense of Lando and Han's relationship...this seems to be an echo of what may have transpired.
I don't blame Star Wars fans for blasting this. The jokes are pretty much parody of itself. The characters do dumb stuff. And lead characters are separated. My guess...to introduce more people into the new universe. Why am I giving it a favorable review?
It's so well made. Much like the Spielberg/Lucas teaming, you can tell Rian Johnson makes...films. Rogue One seemed to be movie by committee. Though I don't think Johnson has the pixie dust buoyant touch of JJ Abrams, I can tell he is adding much more academia to future episodes. So this is more about the hope of better things coming up rather than what I've seen. Take that for what it's worth. As a film, there are heartbreaking moments that I won't get into. But it tugs at your memories in a good way. You sense Han Solo's presence, but...it seems so long ago. And how they handle Luke and Leia made me misty for the ol' days. Forget the underlying political junk of this era if you can. To me when we age out, it's always a sense of moving forward.
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Just accept that star wars you know was past. stop searching for a high as those ones and be graceful for seeing Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher on the screen, have fun. Don't expect any deep philosophy, scientific accuracy or foundation shaking lore additions.
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Saw the movie twice already. Once on IMAX and once on a Standard 3D cinema. Absolutely LOVED the movie! I seriously don't understand what's up with all the hateful reviews here on IMDd. Never thought I'd say this, but I certainly hope Kylo/Ben and Rey figure out a way to bring balance to the Force together. Balance is not about the Galaxy being ruled by the Sith exclusively nor the Jedi alone. Balance means exactly that. Balance! According to Snoke they are equally matched on opposite ends of the Force. There's no denying the Force-Skype sessions between the two lonely and misunderstood misfits Kylo/Ben and Rey have brought them together in ways no other Jedi/Sith have ever connected before. They achieve a level of emotional intimacy at a very deep level. If there's one word I could use to describe their connection now is this: sensual. Supposedly, it was Snoke who arranged the Force-Skype sessions, yet by the end of the movie, after Skoke was already dead, Rey and Kylo/Ben managed to connect via Force-Skype yet again. Their paths are intertwined in ways neither of them yet realize. I know this is not meant to be a romantic type of movie, but it would make sense to have the two opposites meet in the middle somehow. This approach didn't work for Padme and Anakin, but hopefully it will work for Rey and Kylo/Ben. It would be a win-win for the entire franchise. Nobody is ever 100% good or 100% bad. Bring balance!
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I didn't really like Star Wars when I was an 11 year old kid when it came out. I thought Close Encounters was better. But over time I have become an enthusiast for the whole saga - including the prequels.
Anyway, the negative views posted on here don't reflect the overall score from 70,000+ IMDB members. I have seen TLJ 3 times now and each time it gets better. And in each of those 3 viewings everybody in the theatre had the same reactions of laughter at the funny parts and absolute shock at the shocking bits.
What Rian has done is move things froward with Star Wars. I know that most diehard fans want to see films that stick to the rigid rules of good and bad, the light side and the dark side, the resistance/rebellion against the First Order/Empire but that would be just repeating what we have seen before.
I suppose some of these fans cannot believe that Luke has shunned all that he did before. Well, he is an old man now and has gone through a lot of stuff and his view of the galaxy has changed. Just as mine has changed in the last 40 years. If I want to see a Star Wars movie that beats back to nostalgia I'll watch a New Hope Again. You can't expect them to keep on making the same movies every time.
Anyway, the TLJ takes risks and they work. Luke and his new outlook on life. Leia using the force to save herself, Luke's force projection, the further exploration about who can use the force, Reys parents,etc. JJ Abrahams is going to have his work cut out for him for episode IX as his Force Awakens was very familiar and an homage to the original trilogy which wasn't a bad thing. Now JJ has some thinking to do - I hope he doesn't introduce another StarKiller base!
Anyway, I love the humour, the action set pieces, the shocking revelations, the return of Yoda, DJ, Rose, Admiral Holdo, Porgs, Crystal Critters, Gareth Edwards cameo, Rey, Finn, Luke and Leia. There is nothing that I did not like in this film but I am now 51 and not 11. I am an old man and Star Wars has finally caught up with me. Is the TLJ supposed to be a kids film - It was right for my age and aging outlook on life.
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10/10
I felt this was the best Star Wars film of the Disney era and is still a great film compared to the rest
I'm writing this review as I feel a lot of the other reviews of this film are grossly unfair as this is not as bad as other reviewers are making it out to be. People hated "The Force Awakens" as they felt it was a re-make of a "New Hope" which I agree is very similar but are different films. This one has elements of "Empire Strikes Back" but has a lot of original story telling also. I'm going to say it, the originals are not the masterpieces people make them out to be. They are boring in places, has cheesy dialogue and has questionable story telling in places. Nostalgia has clearly clouded people's judgement as this film was a great film but no one is seeing it which upsets me.
The story is good, it borrows elements from Empire like I said but it's done differently. Visually it's stunning and the performances are brilliant. Mark Hamill despite hating the script and what they did with the character did an amazing job in his performance in this film, a true professional. Daisy Ridley shines again in her role as Rey. I only complaint is Finn is wasted and his story was a waste, but he's great in it again. I recommend seeing it yourself and not go buy other reviews but I loved it and will likely see it again.
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8/10
Honestly, Go See It! Ignore the complaining fan boys.
This Movie is Great! Visually stunning, great character development. Above all very entertaining. Can slow down at a few parts, but what do you expect from a movie with almost 2 1/2 hour run time?
Bottom line though, Go see! Take your family and friends with you! And please forget what any of these so called "Experts" say because many years from now when your children are growing up and you want to show them this film, they won't care what the critics had to say, all that will matter is the magic these movies bring to us all!
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10/10
Go in with an open mind and you'll enjoy the movie
Been a Star Wars fans from day one in 1977. Watched the tv shows and movies, played the games, read the expanded universe books and comics, even did the Star Wars Celebrations.
I love the movie in that it fleshed out Luke, Rey, and Kylo in ways I didn't expect. It broke out some of th old in ways that was refreshing. My main determiner of a good or great movie is did it make me think about it afterwards. I had to go twice to take in the movie in again and loved it even more the second time.
The moments with a Carrie Fisher were amazing. It's too bad that she was to be the focus of the next movie for OT characters.
I think the reviews are more a reflexion of hat is happening in the USA. Too much focus on who's right and who's wrong. Everyone's got an opinion. Go to the movie and make your own judgement.
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8/10
The Last Jedi doesn't disappoint with some disappointments included
Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi is the second installment in the third trilogy of nine mainstream Star Wars movies that started back in 1977 with Episode IV: A New Hope. Back then, there was no such thing as CGI or 3D. So filmmaker George Lucas invented technology to make his vision come to life. His films were groundbreaking and laid the foundation for some of the greatest advances in cinema. Episodes IV, V, and VI were movies that changed how movies are made. They were ahead of their time and still hold up forty years later. In 1999, Lucas went back to tell us how it all began with Episode I: The Phantom Menace. CGI technology had come a long way, but it wasn't perfect. For his original trilogy, Lucas invented new technology to create what he saw in his mind. He received heavy criticism for Episode I as he seemed instead to settle for what technology was available at the time. He listened to the critics and scaled it back for Episode III, but it still lacked what made the original trilogy so special. In 2015, JJ Abrams and Disney joined forces (pun intended) to release Episode VII: The Force Awakens and it was the perfect blend of technology versus actual characters and actual props. Episode VIII continues Rey's (Daisy Ridley) Jedi training with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill).
In my preview post, I spent much of the post drawing parallels between the 7 existing Star Wars movies. There are so many similarities between the plots, the twists, the characters, the scenes. I'll skip most of that, but restate my comparisons between Episode II and Episode V since Episode VIII is the second in the trilogy as well.
In Episode II, Anakin's training is progressing rapidly. It is revealed that Senator Palpatin is really the dark Sith Lord they've been looking for and he begins to tempt Anakin with the power of the dark side. During a battle with Count Dooku, Anakin loses his hand. The movie ends with Anakin's arm and prosthetic hand around Padme (Natalie Portman) with C3PO and R2-D2 at their side. In Episode V, Luke's training is progressing rapidly. It is revealed the Darth Vader is actually Luke's father as he begins to try to seduce Luke to the dark side. During a battle with Vader, Luke loses his hand. The movie ends with Luke's arm and prosthetic hand around Leah (Carrie Fisher) with C3PO and R2-D2 at their side. Both movies begin to take a darker turn from their lighter predecessor preparing us for the darkest third installment of Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith. Ironically, the original working title for Episode VI was Revenge of the Jedi, but Lucas changed it to Return because a Jedi does not seek revenge. That is a characteristic of the dark side, hence Revenge of the Sith.
So, if history repeated itself a third time, there should have been some similarities in the newly released Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi. Rey's training should progress rapidly, and it does. There should be a surprising reveal, but there really wasn't. The previews lead us to believe there could be some darkness in Luke, but there isn't. It's more of his whiny self blaming himself for the fall of the Jedi and hoping his own isolation and death would bring an end to the Jedi. It could also have been in the revealing of who the holographic dark lord Snoke really is. Well, we do get to see Snoke up close and personal, but we still don't know who he really is or where he came from. Kylo Ren will grow more powerful as he is increasingly agitated with the struggle inside himself. That is definitely true. It will be darker than Episode VII: The Force Awakens, but not nearly as dark as Episode IX will be in two more years. It was certainly darker than its predecessor, but only time will tell what Episode IX has in store for us.
So this movie did not exactly follow the previous trilogy formulas of similarity. In fact, The Last Jedi's epic 2 hour and 44 minute adventure had elements of both second and third installments. Rey advances her training with Luke and faces her own demons. No one loses their hand in this movie like Anakin did in Attack of the Clones or like Luke did in Empire Strikes Back. And there really was no dramatic reveal. Yes, we find out who Rey's parents are, but after years of build-up and anticipation, the reveal from Kylo Ren is anti-climactic at best, if what he said is true. And we are given no reason to doubt the veracity of his claim. But that still doesn't explain Rey's connection with Luke and the force. We are also introduced to a new Han Solo type character. While Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) are imprisoned looking for the master hacker, fellow inmate DJ (Benicio Del Toro) helps them escape and vows to assist them in their mission for the right price. He later turns on them for his own freedom and a handsome payoff. He's a much more suitable Han character than Jar Jar Binks was apparently supposed to represent.
But The Last Jedi also had many elements of Episodes III and VI. Kylo Ren takes Rey to Supreme Leader Snoke in cuffs, each hoping to turn the other to their side of the force. Snoke sits confidently in his chair taunting Rey with her lightsaber at his side while the fleeing Rebel forces are under attack from the Galactic Empire.
I did take issue with a few things in the movie. I didn't care for all the "connection" scenes between Rey and Kylo Ren. Luke had a similar connection with Darth Vader, but this took it to almost an annoying level. I didn't care for Leah's "powers" that came out of nowhere. We were given a glimpse of her abilities in Empire Strikes Back when she feels Luke's whereabouts in Cloud City, and Yoda promises there is another hope for the Jedi referring to Leah and Luke says the force is in her, but we see none of it in Return of the Jedi or The Force Awakens. Also, actress Carrie Fisher sadly passed away before the film's release, but her character completed The Last Jedi which means it will have to be addressed in Episode IX. And I didn't care for Luke's trick against Kylo Ren.
JJ Abrams did not direct The Last Jedi, but handed over the reigns to a fairly new director Rian Johnson who's most notable works are a few episodes of Breaking Bad and the Sci-Fi movie Looper. But, from the previews, Johnson looked like he was more than up for the challenge. Unfortunately, I did feel that a bit of the JJ balance of CGI to real-life was sacrificed in this second installment. It was still leagues ahead of Episodes I-III, but not as flawless as Episode VII. Supreme Leader Snoke was animated with the same facial recognition technology as Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes and Avatar. It was good. But his disfigured face and mastery of the dark side were supposed to be menacing. I honestly found the Emperor from Episodes V and VI to be more scary and that was done purely through makeup. It looked like his animation wasn't limited to his face and hands, but included his clothes. For some reason, we can do hair, water, explosions really well, but clothes still elude animators when striving for undetectable perfection.
I gave Episode VII a rare perfect 5 Star rating so I expected the same perfection giving a 5 Star follow-up prediction for Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. I thought most of the animation was fantastic. It was a great story and thoroughly entertaining. I'm glad I saw it in the theatre and it was worth the money. I know I'll be owning it, but I am dropping my rating to 4 Stars.
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10/10
Despite the hate, the spirit of the Original Trilogy shines more brightly than ever
I must admit that after this year's disappointing sequels (Blade Runner 2049) and utterly bad ones (War for the Planet of the Apes), I was dismayed by the amount of hate that followed the release of this film. Especially having in mind Lucas' "prequels" and "edits" in the 2000's.
Fortunately, for no reason at all. The film is excellent. But, there's always a "but": if you're a fan of the OT, you need to watch it through the eyes of your young self, back when you first saw 'Empire'.
It seems that all the hate comes from fans who first saw OT as teenagers, and have grown meanwhile, having watched hundreds of films in the process, and now somehow expect a Star Wars film to mature with the same pace. Frankly, they remind me of my, then 35+ parents, who always found the OT irritatingly silly to the level of being unwatchable.
Looking at the faces of teenage SW lovers in awe during the projection, made me imagine how would I like the film if I first saw it the same time when I first saw the OT. Without exaggeration, it seems even better.
From the point of view of a seasoned SW fan, I found the film entertaining, interesting, entirely non-ridiculous and non-predictive. I am proud that, after those pitiful "prequels", the next generations will have their SW films. Disney didn't ruin the saga, it made it rise as a phoenix. But please have in mind that SW were a children's Sci Fi fairy tale to begin with.
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It was like watching a 2.5 hour long Spanish Soap Opera with constant emotional turmoils during every single character arc. Most of them had a unsatisfied conclusion. Was expecting to see a shocking movie. And it was, for the most part - shockingly disappointing. Action scenes were great. Humor was brutal. Great performances By Hamill and del Toro.
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8/10
Everything you love and hate about Star Wars, and why you should not trust critics sometimes
Saw the premiere on Thursday and my expectations going into it were a bit tempered. With Disney flooding the market with everything, and given that I've grown very weary of the MCU, this would hopefully be a nice reprieve from the superhero genre. For better or worse, The Last Jedi is a good Star Wars experience for new and old. However, that does not mean the movie is without faults, and some are big enough to almost ruin the film.
WARNING - Huge spoilers from here on out. You have been warned.
Starting with the negatives, The Last Jedi's biggest Achilles' heel is character development. The film has been marketed to seem that the trio of Rey, Poe, Finn and Kylo would be the focus of the films, which is great. Previous films have set up lovable characters to follow through the trilogy. TLJ does this beautifully with Rey and Kylo, but the other two are tossed to the side, Finn being the worst. Poe is reduced to a rebellious teenager and Finn is relegated to forced comic relief trying to be Han Solo. Disney needs to realize that comedy does not replace character development and cheesy dialogue, of which there is a lot of in TLJ. Characters are also killed without hesitation, such as Laura Dern's character and Snoke. Going in a darker direction is fine, but don't kill characters because you are trigger happy. Also, Leia flying??? I know she is supposed to be force sensitive and this would carry some juicy plot if Carrie Fisher was not dead in real life. I just do not see where else they can go with this moment that could be considered jumping the shark for the saga. SHE GOT SUCKED INTO SPACE. Even a jedi could not escape that fate. The casino planet scene could have also been reduced to 5-10 minutes.
While these are some crippling factors, do not be mistaken...the moments that really hit are everything you love about Star Wars, especially the beautifully shot space scenes and final battle. Rey, Kylo and Luke are the stars of this film, as the story is taken in new directions that analyzes the relationship between master, former student and pupil. The moments Rey and Kylo have in their force conversations (for lack of a better phrase) are the best, and Luke's hatred of the force now compared to what it was brings an interesting dynamic to his character. The crowning achievement of the film comes with Snoke's death and the battle that ensues, which is every Star Wars fan's wet dream, and shows a new Supreme leader taking over in Kylo Ren.
I am a Star Wars fan, but in no way would I label myself as die hard. I've had problems with the films in the past, and TLJ unfortunately includes a lot if them. However, when given the opportunity, Rian Johnson delivers, and his story writing really shines in this, at least the plot between Rey and Kylo. Johnson created a great sci-fi flick in Looper, but maybe Star Wars, a film that requires a larger scope, does not particularly give him more opportunities to show his creativity, especially since Star Wars is owned by Disney now.
I think everyone needs to stop comparing this film to Empire and lower some expectations. Yes, the film is/never was going to be Empire, but was everyone really asking for another one? The new films are trying to be different, and we can know what to expect from a Disney run Star Wars movie, but TLJ gives me hope that the films will be trying new things. The story does have some cringe worthy moments, but don't let that take away from the fact that the film has moments that make this a worthy entry to the legendary saga. People just need to stop being picky and open their eyes to new possibilities for the saga instead of always comparing it to the original three.
I think we all have some Disney hangover and need a break, but The Last Jedi is a fun, intense ride that will suit Star Wars fans old and new. However, do not be fooled by the MetaCritic and Rotten Tomatoes ratings, as they will most likely give you a preconceived notion that will just lead to disappointment.
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10/10
The Last Jedi Brings the Weird Pleasures of Star Wars Back to the Multiplex
Although Abrams and Kasden did the heavy lifting, setting the new trilogy on an exciting new path, Rian Johnson may have had the most challenging role to date-writing the screenplay and directing the sequel that matches our expectations of Empire Strikes Back, probably the most highly regarded film in the whole franchise.
Rather than drawing the same plot structure, per se, he looked to Empire for inspiration tonally. He needed to write a story that brings these characters to the edge of what they think is possible, including those still alive in the original cast.
Within the familiarity of the archetypes, comes a lot of quirkiness. There are the porgs. There are all the other fun creatures that beautifully inhabit the various planets where battles ensue. There's the witty banter as people young characters try to be heroic, with mixed results.
And there's Luke's character, thirty-years older, but with some surprises up his sleeve.
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9/10
So, we did not like ep7 being a reboot, now we dont like ep8 being something unexpected...
I believe, everyone will need some time to start to like this movie for that, what it meant to be. The Saga is evolving and we can not expect to get always the same schematic stories. Ep7 was well enough for that. Rogue One was start to a new direction, ep8 continues. Well, to be honest I have to see it again and I might change my mind... :)
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10/10
Star Wars SuperDuper Fans... You guys are completely OUT OF TOUCH. The Last Jedi ROCKED!!
What a bunch of simpering dorks. Nothing is good enough for you guys. I PROMISE, that if Empire Strikes Back had never been released in 1980, and they released it today... You bunch of pansies would cry, and say it was the worst movie you've ever seen.
Fact of the matter is THE LAST JEDI while not perfect, is the best Star Wars movie THIS Star Wars fan has seen in at least 20 years.
Action, character development, Character DEPTH, AWESOME lightsaber battles. Over the top Space Battles, LUKE FUCKING SKYWALKER kicking so much ass it's probably illegal. And the Dynamic between Rey, and Kylo... HOly Crap, what more do you want from a movie?
Kylo is the DEEP character that I always wished Darth Vader had been. Kylo Ren IS the ultimate Star Wars Villain....He does his Grandfather proud!
What a great movie!!!
Yeah, Carrie Fisher flying through space.... Stupid. But that's my only complaint.
In all honesty, I'd give it a 9/10, but since all the butthurt fanbois are having a field day with the one star ratings, I'll give it a straight up 10!!
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8/10
Oooh, a Star Wars movie that takes risk, oh no, we can't have that
The only thing that made me want to see this film was Rian Johnson at the helm. His other films Looper, Brick, Brothers Bloom have all been excellent, and his episodes of Breaking Bad: "The Fly", "Fifty-One", and "Ozymandias", are examples of the best that show has to offer.
After seeing the Force Awakens, I had realized what I hate about JJ Abrams' style of directing: 1. Everything is a puzzle, 2. Recycle any material for nostalgia, and 3. Emphasize plot, not characters. TFA was not a good movie, it was a bad movie. That'll piss off fanboys but it's true. TFA did nothing that wasn't predictable, rehashing A New Hope for a new generation, and failing at it. Only a few scenes in that film stand out. What Rian Johnson did was take the ending of TFA, throw out any stupid, superfluous puzzle boxes that Abrams left in, and actually sculpted chacacters that were not only believable, but likable. TLJ was the Star Wars film I desperately needed to see, one that i enjoyed, took a plot that in-universe took place over twelve or so hours, and used a lot of runtime to fix problems left by Abrams, and follow a lot of points through to their natural conclusion. What we're left with is the modern equivalent of Empire Strikes Back, a film that so many recognize as the best in the series, but so few really appreciate.
Don't listen to any negative reviews until you've seen it for yourself. Go in with the expectation that it ISN'T the same as any previous SW movie, and you'll probably like it. If not, that is okay.
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Wow this movie was a mixed bag, but overall I found it to be entertaining.
Here's my list of good and bad:
Good
*Interesting visual effects. The way the ships were moving, exploding...looked different than previous Star Wars. Had a more sci-fi feel rather than over the top bright explosions.
*Creative animals. They actually made the space animals cute and weird. No Jar Jar Binks mistakes - thank God.
*Carrie Fischer. Delivered an epic final performance as Princess Leia...especially in her final scenes. She will be missed.
Bad
*OMG, the Rose character annoyed me so much. She was way too try hard. And the end scene where she kissed Poe....cringe!!
*Rey is too cardboard and serious. She needs to lighten up and show some romance / sexiness.
*Great to see Luke have significant screen time. But he just disappeared at the end?? WTF??
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10/10
No Jar Jar, No Ewoks, No Midichlorians? No Lucas????????????????
I would give this more stars for them forgetting about the midi-chlorians. A fun movie for all who don't live in their parents' basement( Ha I live on the top floor). They are definitely going in another direction. The last 2 films are setting us up for the future of Star Wars and I think they are doing a good job. Time to let the past die, I guess.
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I had read the nonspoiler reviews before watching the movie tonight and i was expecting to be disappointed. Thankfully, the movie is a true Star Wars movie, of the type we have come to expect from the first 3 movies. There are 2-3 scenes which disappoint, that's the reason i didn't give it a 10 star review. I watched it tonight on private vieweing with a few friends at Gold Class, and tomorrow I am watching it again on 3D.
Set your minds to the 10 year old you were when you watched the Return of the Jedi and enjoy this true to its true, Star Wars movie.!
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As a lifelong fan of the saga, halfway through TLD after flirting with disappointment in the movie I decided to stop comparing it to the originals or waiting for a classic moment on par with say, the Death Star attack in A New hope. There is so much to enjoy about this new trilogy; the whole franchise hinged on the casting of Rey and in this movie (as with the last hour if FA) she comes to life. In fact the whole suite of new characters all hit home for me aside from possibly general Hux who feels a tad one note. Kylo Wren must surely be one of the best characters in the entire saga. The way the move keeps you guessing throughout which side he will choose is a masterstroke. Whilst there is undoubtedly flaws (certain scenes/characters feel completely out if place in the SW universe, a questionable comedy balance) the final hour is pure Star Wars heaven. As for our heroines, I'm struggling to understand the fan criticism of Luke's character developments, it feels like were seeing the result of 40 years of growth and I for one thought this was the most rounded version of Luke we've seen. Leia is treated with the respect you'd expect and Chewbacca chews plenty of scenes up. I understand certain criticisms from SW fanatics but I for one am happy to go with this new version of our galaxy far far away and cant wait to wee where the journey ends. If Rogue One was a SW film made for the purists then this is SW for a new generation!
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8/10
One of the better entries in the Star Wars franchise
Some mild spoilers follow. The Last Jedi is a good but flawed movie - the good is strong character progress for Luke, Rey and Kylo Ren, excellent use of Leia, a logical progression of Force abilities (and no mention of midichlorians anywhere, thankfully) and excellent action sequences.
The biggest negative is a sub-plot that frankly drags the film to almost a standstill, all to deliver a far-from-subtle message (animal cruelty is wrong, kids) to the audience. The Porg's could have been incredibly annoying, but thankfully their presence is limited, even if they do scream "MERCHANDISING OPPORTUNITY" very loudly. And despite the build up, Captain Phasma once again is a huge letdown - although she does get a great fight sequence this time around.
There are some nice twists in here that I, personally, did not see coming. The return of a fan favourite and the significance of it was kept quiet and it was worth the effort clearly put in to doing so. I also found the character arc of Luke very satisfying indeed. Some like to see him as perfect, but here we have a hero who is flawed, who makes mistakes and finally learns that even mistakes can ultimately be a positive.
For me, this is one of the better Star Wars films - easily better than the entire prequel trilogy and superior to the fun but overrated Rogue One. Not as good as Empire Strikes Back or A New Hope, it may beat out Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens, although I think repeated viewings are needed to firmly place it in my list. The positives far outweigh the negatives and, overall, it deserves a high score.
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8/10
Problemed 1st act gives way to a very satisfying finish
I spent the last several months hoping that the Last Jedi would make more sense than The Force Awakens, Episode VII was, in my opinion, basically a subpar rehash of A New Hope, and I was hoping we might get something out of IIX that captured more of the classic feel that Rogue One had, and not the feeling of a Star Wars fan fiction that VII had.
I think we got something somewhere in the middle.
I think the biggest problem with the movie was that they didn't take time to make sure every scene had meaning, which honestly shouldn't be surprising. Most movies don't do that, and Star Wars hasn't done that since Return of the Jedi really (although I suppose a case could be made for Rogue One). The 1st third of the movie really felt like a time filler. It gave Luke and Rey their needed scenes, but the other story arc about the Resistance seemed to be mostly a time filler. It was not well executed or thought out, and quite honestly bore very little impact on the rest of the movie. The same end could have been achieved by a much more effective mean. I think it was probably made the way it was to help hold the attention of less mature audiences. Also, the way they dealt with Princess Leia was ridiculous.
This being said, the second and third acts of the film made a great come back. It showed that Star Wars may have more going for it than simple nostalgia for the original trilogy. It had twists that kept things interesting, but was true enough to the feel of what Star Wars should be to satisfy the fans' sense of nostalgia. The return of Luke was handled much better than the return of Han and Leia in Ep. VII. The fight scenes were some of the best I've ever seen in a Star Wars film: not over done (like in the prequels), but not too slow to be uninteresting. It helped make a little more sense of the Resistance/First Order balance of power issue, although not much. I think perhaps the most important thing that The Last Jedi gives us is solid villains and characters that we care about. At the end of VII, any of the characters could have dropped dead and I would not have cared (which is why they had to kill Han Solo). I didn't feel that way any more after The Last Jedi.
Its far from the best Star Wars film, and isn't even as good as Rogue One, but it is far better than VII and is well worth seeing. If you remove the entire 1st third of the movie, then its an excellent Star Wars film, maybe as good as Return of the Jedi.
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In this latest installment of the new triology of Star Wars.
We see that The Resistance is on the run from The New Order.
The pros of this movie definetly include:
1. A fresh story that takes very few elements from Episode 5.
2. New characters that are well developed.
3. Sound design, graphics, and action sequences are all very satisfying.
4. A significant scene towards the later part of movie is very well done. The cinematography is mixed with a mystical sense of gratification.
The cons of this movie:
1. The new bird creatures (Porgs) are forced into too many scenes that offer no significant purpose.
2. Transitions are abrupt and a bit confusing - if you're not paying much attention.
3.Some scenes are very unrealistic - even by Star Wars standards of fasntasy. They just seem a bit awkward.
4. Some side characters are annoying.
This movie takes risks in introducing new worlds and characters. I would reccommend going into this movie with an open mind that doesn't try and compare with the original series. Force Awakens was better filmed, but it's Star Wars. It's enjoyable.
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I feel like ths Should be the last Jedi,I keep holding out hope but it never gets better. Like the first three Xmen films The Star Wars reboots seemed destined to dissappoint.
The last three trilogies in the franchise though flops where atleast fun.There was Pod racing ,Droids VS Clones The Obi Wan- Vader Light Saber Duel a Yoda fight scene Samuel L Jackson with a purple lightsaber and a storyline that mostly made sense even if it was simpleminded and juvenile.Young Jedi Joins the Darkside to save the woman he loves.Everyone knows the Darkside is bad and it never works out.
This movie had virtually nothing interesting fun or new.Theres a few cameos notably a fairly surprising and enjoyable one by Yoda.Kylo Ren does his thing again easily one of the most entertaining Characters in the franchise.Luke was virtually useless waiting till the last minute to step in and help Hamil was ok but his scenes just show his head to big .Carrie Fisher did her thing as Leia one of the few characters I enjoyed everytime she came on screen.Finn was Finn not remotley interesting I like when hes on screen because of his commanding presence but he doesnt do anything other than fight Captain Phasma and develop a surprising love interest needs more development he hasnt grown any since The Force Awakens.
I can hardly think of one stand out scene and there where lots of annoying little things like animals always appearing to side with the rebels and why are the droids so loyal.I just feel like something was missing.There where some decent plot twist but still sine unanswered questions.
Im not saying dont see it im not saying its not fun, it has its moments but It could have been so much more.
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Reading all the reviews on this page, i realizes that the worst enemies of star wars are the fans themselves, and more those who got stuck in the first episodes and never accept a renewal or ideas that come out of their supposed nonexistent canon. The Last Jedi is great entertainment, fun, excitement, great performances from Hamill and Driver, the truth is that it is a different star wars but not bad, on the contrary it is to see those little ones who play with laser swords, girls dressed like Rey in the street, is to feel again what you felt when you stepped into the movie theater to get fully into that galaxy far, far away. Hurts for those who come in to see what is wrong with everything and who end up putting together a hate campaign against something they deeply love. Do not believe in criticism, go and see it and decide for yourselves.
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6/10
Star Wars:The Last Jedi is exactly what Star Wars needed...
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a movie that i felt that had a lot cheesy and predictable dialogue...is what a person this generation would say. Unlike most movies that handle cheesy moments in current movies, The Last Jedi has the balls to say, i know what we are and i'm not afraid to show it.
Director Rian Johnson has created a Star Wars movie that felt like it was made by a person that loves Star Wars and the fact that it takes risks and tries new things shows how much he loves this franchise and how much he wants to impact it. Most people think that just because it's different it's bad but i tend to look for optimism in times like these and by the time the credits rolled i felt that i couldn't hope to see this movie on any other format than cinema.
I will admit that i have in times watched movies in my home and i never felt feelings that everyone else had felt when watching said movie say for instance, Lion directed by Garth Davis. But now that i have watched The Last Jedi on the big screen, i feel that i have to start watching more movies in the cinema and that is a promise i can keep.
I do understand where most people could hate The Last Jedi. It is clearly not a perfect movie and it doesn't have to be, i mean, what kind of people expect The Godfather out of Star Wars? After all, Star Wars was always more "pew pew" rather than "talk talk" and i'm not saying that just because it's a Star Wars movie it gets a pass but i think it's flaws are what makes this movie so great just like the words in this movie ,"Failure,the greatest teacher is".
I do think that this movie is like a Blade Runner where you need multiple watches to like it and i have no problem with that. Now i can't see the future and tell you if this movie is going to be regarded as a masterpiece or as a stupid,pretentious piece of shit but what i do know is that i will be on Disney's side on this one and i will tell you that i'm going to be first in line to watch whatever new Star Wars movie comes out...
8/10
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Story
This new star wars installment is different. Maybe that's why a lot of people hate the movie. The story is more complex than the majority of the other star wars films. It doesn't follow a straight story like the other star wars movies, it's a film that is hard to predict and that's what makes it fun to watch.
A lot of people is complaining about Luke's character in the movie, but I like the direction where Rian Johnson took it. Some things were a little bit extrem for the character but his overall arc is splendid.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
All Jedi made mistakes and Luke is no exception. It reminds me of Yoda. Yoda fought Sidious, he lost, went to exile and then trained Luke. Luke confronted Ben Solo because of his fear of the dark side growing in his apprentice, failed, went to exile and later on somehow trained Rey. Obi-Wan has a similar story with his Padawan Anakin. They show us that Luke, despite being a powerful Jedi, is human after all. Yoda said in the movie (I can't remember the exact words) "the duty of a master is to pass what they have learned to their apprentices, based on their own experiences and not just on something like the jedi code or those old jedi books." That's why he burned the ancient tree...Let the past die (like Kylo said).
Character Development
A lot of characters had development in this movie, but I want to talk specifically about Luke, Rey and Kylo.
Luke had character development, wich I very liked. He struggles because of the consequences of his desicions, we see a vulnerable Jedi who made errors, but at the end he redeems himself in an epic way, and his last moments, before joining the force, are gorgeous with the twin suns and the music.
Rey had good character development too. A lot of people didn't like that her parents where nobody, they where expecting her to be a Skywalker or descendant of a Jedi or important character, but I think Rian made the right desicion. She was nobody, and so was Anakin Skywalker. You don't need to have great lineage to be someone important or to achieve greatness, that's what this part of the story tell us.
Kylo had character development too and I loved it. Making him the "final boss" betraying his master Snoke. This is something very typical between Sith, to betray and kill their own masters. And I wouldn't mind if they don't show us the origins of snoke. This generation wants everything to be explained. I think the element of mistery gives the character a heavier weight.
Exploring the Force
In the movie they expand the use of the force and that was something very pleasant to watch. The astral proyection that Luke makes is something very cool and show us how powerful Luke is and that he has a great connection with the force.. We see that the force ghosts can control the physical world, Yoda controled the weather. This make them very powerful entities, more than we thought. The connection between Kylo and Rey is something not enterily new. force-sensitive beings can feel others, but Kylo and Rey can do it in a stronger way. Leia Poppins was something I wasn't expecting and I'm not enterily sure how to feel about it, but when I saw it in the movie theater I was shock and excited. Leia is a Skywalker, Anakin's daugther, that tell us that she is a powerful force user.
CGI and Practical Effects
Gorgeous.
Music
Perfect. John Williams is the composer, what else do you expect?
I've seen all star wars movies and both clon wars series (I tried to see Rebels but I couldn't, not my taste), I've played a lot of star wars games, I've read novels, comics, fan theories, etc. I'm familiar with the expanded universe and other things. I'm a fan, I love star wars and I can say that The Last Jedi has the second best story in the saga so far, being Empire strikes back the first one. Yeah I liked the movie a lot.
Sorry for my bad English. English is not my mother tongue.
I was going to give the movie an 8 out of 10, but due to all the negativity and bad reviews I'm giving it a 10. And this was my first "review" ever.
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I don't do movie reviews. I saw the first Star Wars back in my 20's and have seen them all more than once since then. I'm actually more of a trekkie but Star Wars is good scifi.
That being said, 4,5,and 6 were great, particularly for the 70's and 80's. 1,2,and 3 were well done and had continuity but not as good.
The newer ones were horrible. Drop me into one of them and I'd be hard pressed to tell you what was going on or which one it was.
Then there the Last Jedi. Finally, a coherent story line. Good acting and characters that had a script that made them memorable. This one felt like the beginning of a new trilogy. The last couple of movies seemed like fast paced, stand alone, high budget, made for TV movies.
I finally enjoyed one of the NEW Star Wars. It had slow parts yes, but they were good drama that built something, getting ready for the rest of the movie and laying keel for the next installments.
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I think, it was really awesome. There were many breathtaking scenes (I loved the scene when Holdo destroied Snoke's ship) and funny jokes (first SW movie, that made me laught). I like the idea of "everyone" being force sensitive, you don't have to be from some weird force sensitive familly. The idea of forming new Jedi order with new traditions is also good. That's what moving the story forwards.
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Ok, so I went to "The Last Jedi" with the highest expectations I've ever had for a movie, and I've seen ALOT. The film disappointed me as I expected also. I was so angry at the end of the film about that they pretty much blew us off with unnessacary sub-plots, lame twists, some stupid scenes, 1:1 copies from both episode V and VI, and an odd conclusion to Luke.
When I got to my friends house after I felt the movie was bad and I that pulling off episode IX as a good film would be impossible. Then I began to see Rian Johnsons vision and deeper themes being developed in this movie, the movie became better with messages about animal cruelty, capitalism, extreme anger, individualism, passion, and conservatism.
I also separated all the other films and looked at this film as an individual, the movie was even better.
The worst part of this movie was by far the feeling of not knowing what the hell is going on. Johnson falls short on explaining Luke's actions and why he died, or if Rey is the next chosen one, or the Finn-Rose-Rey relationship. Another ridiculous part was Roses action to block Finn from stopping the First Orders attack, risking everybody. By the way, where's Lando, and DJ is a predictable copy of him.
Ok, "The Last Jedi" didn't reach my expectations but afterwards blew my mind. Johnson failed to capture an immediate positive response from his viewers who wanted a sequel. This movie deserves an 8.5/10 so I'm boosting it with a 10/10. Thanks.
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Expectations are always taken to insane heights with each release of a major franchise film with Star Wars: The Last Jedi being no exception,
Following on directly from The Force Awakens, the film is given an opportunity to do what the first film, disappointingly, did not do; develop the characters.
Shortly after the action oriented first 20 minutes of the movie I found myself disappointed with a somewhat lackluster, meandering and repetitive plot which seemed to not be heading anywhere. However those concerns were quickly put to rest as a space epic unfolded before and I was happy to be seeing the characters grow constantly more likeable, more fleshed out and more relatable.
The film (to the dismay of many fans it seems) handles its themes incredibly well. "letting the old things die" was a brilliant way to raise the stakes and to truly model a fresh, new and interesting world that still remains respectful to what came before it.
As a Star Wars fan there is a lot to love in this movie, specifically the characters and performances. it adds greatly to the fantasy element of Star Wars as a whole and challenged what we thought we knew about the force which I commend greatly. I love the direction this movie went in. much like the Empire Strikes back it is serious while having a sense of humor.
If you are looking for more of the same this movie is not for you. If you want to see beautiful effects, well written characters with understandable motives and an overall excellent Star Wars film: GO SEE THE LAST JEDI!
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9/10
Wow! The Redemption of Luke Skywalker! *MILD spoilers ahead.*
This movie is going to divide. Once the hype and emotions settle I think it will go down as one of the best in the series. A definitive improvement over TFA. Like ESB (which opened to mixed reviews at the time and has become one of the most loved of the original trilogy) the good guys don't always win. Luke is broken and his Redemption fits the epic mold that it deserved. Despite Mark Hamill's personal feelings about the way the character was written for this chapter he brought his A game and really gave the audience a true connection to the character. If your expecting a by the number s Star Wars you will not like this movie. If you are okay with what Luke said in the trailer "this is not going to go the way you think" then you will leave thoroughly satisfied.
For help this is the way I'd rank the 9 Star Wars films so far:
The Empire Strikes Back
Last JEDI
Rogue One
A New Hope
Return of the Jedi
Revenge of the Sith
The Force Awakens
Attack of the Clones
The Phantom Menace
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I had a feeling THE LAST JEDI would be divisive purely for the fact that Rian Johnson (who is known for complex, unusual tales) was the lead creative force behind it. For me, this movie was excellent! It subverted expectations... yet what it did deliver were events, emotions and character arcs that I had no idea I wanted until I saw them. So, the surprises, the substance, along with the permission to break new ground fit with my sensibilities.
When I was very young, I thought the Force was like gravity... stagnant and reliable... but more and more the notion that the Force is ever-evolving and reacting to galactic events makes the journey forward less predictable and more interesting... multi-faceted.
This new kind of STAR WARS, more sophisticated and open, should herald a new audience into a solid, fascinating and enjoyable franchise.
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6/10
The best product you could have made out of this kind of story.
Major spoilers ahead. I usually don't type this in my reviews, but seriously, don't read this until you've watched the film. Got it?
Much like everyone else, I was excited for this film. But then I started hearing tales of disappointment and sorrow from other film-goers. I didn't get spoiled, but I can say that they're right. This was a tad bit disappointing. What was I expecting? Not a masterpiece, but a bit of fun. And I got that! It took a while, but I got that!
I really like how they diss every fan theory out there. Snoke isn't a major character, he's just a dude with the Force. Then he dies. Rey's parents aren't important, they just sold her off for booze. Then they die. It's nice it doesn't jump to that level of fanservice at every corner. There is fanservice, but not too much to where things get bogged down.
The story is clever at parts. I understood what was going on at all times, which is great, because there's a lot going on. The story basically follows an escape operation in the Rebel fleet. And it gets more complex, but I kinda don't want to talk about that. There are bigger fish to fry.
The action is very well done. Lots and lots of the scenes are very very cool. There's one scene where a ship jumps to lightspeed directly into Snoke's ship. That scene was amazing. The sound cuts, and you're just left in awe at the destruction. Another great scene is when Luke comes out towards the end, and does cool things before he... well, we'll get to that soon.
Rey meets Luke, and in comes the biggest issue: Luke is a jerk! I get it; he's the grumpy old troll, but he's not under a bridge and he's not making us solve riddles. He's trying to teach us how the Jedi were flawed, and why if he dies, the Force isn't dead, because it exists everywhere. Except he does it in the most unlikable ways possible. He has some good action scenes, but they basically sacrificed everything about the character to make those scenes great. He sees Yoda again, and Ghost Yoda looks super fake. He also dies. Yes. They kill off Luke. Thankfully, his death isn't by lightsaber, but instead it's peaceful. The scene where he dies is pretty good. It's well shot, the music is great (it's Star Wars, of course it is), and it's exactly how one would imagine Luke dying.
Another issue is that this film is way, way, way too long. Length is a big issue for me in movies. Not that I have a short attention spam, because Good Will Hunting is one of my favorite movies, and that film is very slow. The issue here comes with the ending. Every couple of transitions during the last part I thought to myself, "Okay, is it over now?" A good 20 minutes could have been cut out and nothing would have changed.
The last issue comes with the scene the advertising and trailers tried to hype up, where Kylo is about to shoot at a ship with Leia in it. He doesn't, the two other TIE Fighters do the deed. But Leia doesn't die. She gets sucked out into the cold dark empty vacuum of space, but she's fine. She just opens her eyes, reaches out her hand, and glides her way over to the ship. Yes, Leia lives. She should have died, but she's fine.
Why are people dissing this movie? What part of this was a disappointment? Why are people praising it? What part of this movie proves is a masterpiece? Honestly, this movie is fine. It's the best you could have done with the material present. I had my doubts beforehand, but I liked this film fine. They're gonna have their hands full for Episode IX though. They've got a lot to work with, and not all of it is great. Carrie's dead, but Leia's alive. Kid actors have the Force now. The Rebellion is now about 15 people large. Snoke is dead, Luke is dead, Admiral Ackbar is super dead. What the hell are they gonna do?
No matter what happens, I'll be there. I really doubt it will be that bad. Worst case scenario, they bring back the Midichlorians. But somehow I doubt that will happen.
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All the things WRONG with this movie - Fist of all Rey isn't Luke's daughter. That means 1.) her parents were just random idiots who abandoned their little girl with no one to take care of her. 2.) this makes Kylo Ren the last Skywalker. Luke dies. The whole time Rey was being trained by his ghost. This isn't REALLY The Last Jedi because Luke trained Rey and Kylo and they didn't die. At the end of the movie Luke tells Kylo "you won't be the last jedi." Then we see some random child playing around pretending to be a jedi. This really is THE WORST Star Wars movie. Don't waste your money. This was a MAJOR LET DOWN after The Force Awakens.
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This episode does a masterful job of continuing the journey of characters we love, both old and new. While it grows more grave and urgent than its predecessor, "The Last Jedi" manages to be both dark and hilarious at times, thanks to more excellent set pieces and punchy dialogue which hearkens back to my favorite of installments: "The Empire Strikes Back."
Just like "The Force Awakens," the chemistry between the characters is undeniable, breathing vitality and truth into this Galaxy afar. And the writing that drives their stories sees even secondary characters like Finn, Poe and Phasma develop more into distinct personalities, each playing their own crucial role in this epic space opera. In the fine tradition of Star Wars, there's no shortage of fascinating characters, each with their own goals, motivations and much to do that forwards the plot. And true to form, the action ranges all over, with novel yet strangely beautiful locales that advance the tale with breathless aerial assaults, courageous missions and lightsaber duels for the ages!
Of course, the film captivates, with both its grand spectacle and its small moments between people struggling to 'find their place in all this.' Kylo Ren matures in ways that genuinely surprise and ultimately satisfy. While the interplay between Luke and Rey echoes the playful yet deadly-serious tone of Luke and Yoda on Dagobah. In Mark Hamill's superb performance as the wizened, jaded old hermit, there is a constant weight of regret on his brow, yet under this abiding sorrow his eyes still sparkle with hope, revealing that same impatient farmboy whose youthful optimism first made us believe in everyday heroes. Where Episode VII focused on our favorite scoundrel, Han, coming to grips with his past and those choices that shaped it; this one is Luke's movie, and Hamill carries it with all the gravitas we'd expect from one whose faith in The Force once brought down an Empire.
For a lifelong fan, my hope has never been stronger in this story whose conclusion draws ever closer. So, buy the ticket and take the ride because The Force is Strong with this one!
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9/10
Met my expectations, seriously dont get all the low reviews.
I really enjoyed this one, kept me on my toes the entire time. They didn't go where most people predicted and that was fine with me. I don't understand all these complaints. I mean sure there are some scenes that may not be for everyone but the amount of back lash is really over the top. This was a well written and very entertaining movie, see actual professional critic reviews praising it. I know they are not always right but coming from people who rate movies for a living and know what to look for in good movies, i would listen to them over a bunch of folks who just want something to complain about. This board is also littered with the most absurd complains on the force awakens too so no matter how this movie was done you wouldn't be able to please everyone.
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The Last Jedi is special. It is an entertaining movie which gives more well-needed deepness to all major characters ahead of IX.
Overall, I am extremely happy with this movie. However, there are some negatives:
A place in this movie looks too much like Earth, it does not feel like Star Wars
Luke's Theme is over-used, should have been saved for extra special moments
Sometimes the humor is over-played. The audience does not need to laugh in every scene
Other than that, this is a fun and thrilling Star Wars-movie. I would even say it's better than TFA, because it challenges what we thought we knew about the Force and does so in a good way. In other words: TLJ is more creative.
Finally, all these hateful reviews are embarrassing. People complain about things that do not resemble earlier films. Well two years ago you guys complained about TFA being to similar to A New Hope. How's it going to be? Different or the same? George Lucas essentially ruined the prequels with bad dialogue and too much CGI. Here comes a new director with fresh ideas and good storytelling, but he gets all this hate because he doesn't do it as Lucas would have. Lucas blew it, Johnson delivers. TLJ is a great film, which every true Star Wars fan will love. 8,5.
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This was the first Star Wars with nudity (kind of).
The Poe plot line and plan of the Vice Admiral Holdo was stupid. Why the smaller cruisers didn't light-jumped in different directions instead of dying one by one. The main ship was the main target after all. Why the vice admiral hadn't shared the plan with Poe after he started acting stupid? An information leak was not so likely.
The admiral was ready to die - she could perform the kamikadze earlier and save more people. And why there are no light-speed torpedoes ?
Fin and Rose drove in different directions with their speeders on the salt planet in full speed (Fin even lifted up his stabilizer) . How she was able to catch him up ?
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10/10
The best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back .
Great film . Shocking, honest, well-written and lead the franchise to a new direction . Ryan Johnson makes Star Wars fresh and new . The script is very bold and fresh , it will certainly makes some of the hardcore fans angry, but I think this is the time to let it go . Star Wars need a new direction , and this film has seceded. Everyone can be a legend, but the legend wasn't always the way that we expected. It is a story that can inspired thousands of people and also entertaining at the same time .
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Do you guys actually watch the same movie I just saw, because I'm pretty sure you watched the wrong one. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is easily my one of my favorite movies of 2017, and it's easily better than TFA.
Mark Hamill is amazing as Luke Skywalker. Carrie Fisher is also amazing as Leia (rest in peace, you'll be greatly missed.... ). Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega's performances are clearly improve compared to TFA, and they did a great job. Newcomer Kelly Marie Tran as Rose is a welcome addition to the saga, so does La 9ura Dern and Benicio del Toro. Adam Driver is a menace in this movie, there's a lot more depth on his character, and he did a great potrayal. And Andy Serkis once again proves that he's the king of motion capture, even without being a ape, with his potrayal as Supreme Leader Snoke.
The cinematography is just, Wow. There's plenty of money shots that just sold this movie. The music is also, amazing and intense. And the fight scenes are some of the most entertaining I've seen in a Star Wars movie. Director and Writer Rian Johnson just knocked it out of the park! The CGI also looks fantastic. Oh, and porks are just so adorable....
If I could point out a negative, that would be the subplot/romance(?) between Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran). It just felt so out of place, and drags the movie a lot. But I do like the idea of the subplot, which gives a new perspective on the Star Wars storyline. Also, Gwendoline Christie as Phasma is once again underutilized, which is a shame since she has potential to be a great adversary. Beyond that, The Last Jedi easily delivers a story that's while does take some cues from The Empire Strikes Back, it is entirely a brand new story that fans of the original will definitely love it, although admittedly, some story elements may anger some diehard fans. It's definitely worth watching, and it's easily one of the best movies of 2017.
Oh, and about the incredibly large amount of 1 star ratings, resist it and walk away, because the movie is not as bad as they say! (All is as the Force wills it)
Haters can choke! That's all I'm saying.
Final Score: 9/10 for story, acting, and superb action.
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Let start that this movie is the end of a new beginning and many people that are star wars fan will be disappointed but for those that know that is the end of the line for the Skywalker family. This is the end and is the perfect beginning for a new trilogy. Director and Writer Rian Johnson did an amazing work together with the Disney story writer team.
I went to the movie not expecting what I saw, specially Luke story Arc that was enough for me to prove that the movie had a point to teach us about Failure. Yes we don't have the heroes that we grow up seeing is true I wont take that away, but heroes to can fail and be weak and that is the greats teach in this movie. To accept our failure and take on responsibly of our mistake, Luke run away to hide from the mistake that he make with Ben Solo( Kylo ren) creating the monster that he so much fear.
Another point that I want to add is that many people are disappointed with who Rey real parents are and I even wonder did you really watch the FA because it was state very clear that her parents were No body. This also teach us that you don't need to come from a very special blood line to have that type of raw power, untamed power.
And that in mind is the main reason they gave the next trilogy to work on to Rian Johnson. He will bring a new generation of force user stronger than before in the force, he will bring the balance to this new uncharted territory of the universe of star wars.
I will have to say that performer wise Luke , Rey and Kylo were amazing and beyond my expectation the throne scene what a scene it was amazing and the slow motion that make my poor lungs to stop breathing for a second or how good and stratify was to see that scene breath taking. Humor level was good I enjoy Poe much more this time than in the FA. Finn and Rose story arc it was good and safe play, that what I felt the majority of the time that I was watching it, I even though for a second that I step in back in Hunger Games but let no go there. Leia last performed was amazing it was more of Carrier Fisher personality in this movie than Leia.
Before I Finish there is two key point character that I need to address Kylo & Rey and their Force Bond. I have only read about force bond before and never in my wildest dream I would have picture the way Rian Johnson picture.
I love Kylo face when he realized that he is seeing her thru the force, it was hilarious. Each force bond encounter was unique and clear, the hand scene was clear with no sexual intensions there. But the elevator scene that was another business and pretty sure that those puppy eyes that Kylo show towards Rey aren't just for admiration only. His acceptant that she come from no special blood line was a special touch but Kylo you need a teacher in how to talk to woman 101. It was in play in the FA that as much as Rey and Kylo both have the need to belong some where to be someone important. Snoke even mention that "Darkness rise and Light to meet" another half as much of powerful as he is will be his equal and he accept that no body(Rey) was his equal once again they tech us to accept each human as equals.
What better teaching to teach younger viewer than this and accept your failure and consequences of it. What better view to accept people just how there are that we don't have to be born special to be accept into the society nowadays.
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9/10
THE LAST JEDI NOT CARING ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT STAR WARS MAKES IT GREAT
It's evident there's a disturbance in the Star Wars fandom.
But, honestly, there's ALWAYS a disturbance in the fandom.
Star Wars fans are among the worst when it comes to never being happy. It's simply impossible to make a product that's universally beloved by all the fans. Except maybe the OG trilogy and that's simply because they were the first.
The Last Jedi is all about breaking down myths, tearing down the established walls that is Star Wars and planting seeds for new growth.
It does so shockingly. It does so rather mercilessly, at times.
Writer/Director Rian Johnson takes big swings narratively with this story. Whether it connects with you is another issue, but it can't be said that there's a genuine attempt to show us something NEW.
Change is hard. Most people react to drastic change kicking and screaming.
And this is where we find ourselves, now.
Look, if you hated this movie with every ounce of you, fine. It's your right to feel that way. But, the swarm of hate is NOT reflective of the collective fanbase.
I've been a fan all my life. Star Wars, like countless others, has always held a special place for me. I too was both wracked with excitement and dread the moment Disney announced they were buying it and making more movies.
The Force Awakens did not work for me. I got it. It was Star Wars. Felt like Star Wars, but did it offer anything new? Truly? Or was it a remix of everything we know and love about Star Wars?
The Last Jedi does away with that. It changes the way we know Star Wars. I'm of the camp that feels this change is for the better.
See it for yourself and decide for yourself.
I'm excited for the future of Star Wars.
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The Star Wars films are a unique and unusual anomaly in an otherwise saturated lineup of blockbusters in its entire long running history. Other than the fact that it is a huge global phenomenon and the sci-fi classic that most filmmakers wouldn't have possibly conceptualized, it also has a drawbacks because of this status. It's almost as if each movie now have to live to the lightning that the original trilogy caught in a bottle. That there would be certain rules, expectations and certain events that must take place in order for it to be accepted. However, here comes Episode VIII, a film that unequivocally subverts and challenges the very foundations of an already 40 year old saga. It's one of the first Star Wars films, since Empire, that makes us question more about the fundamental themes that drive this saga, while crafting a film that is bold, elegant, emotional and completely thrilling.
Let's first tackle the themes and concepts in this film. The theme of letting go of the past is a very prominent one here, and its very apt considering the transition of a new trilogy. We are presented with a flawed, troubled and complex Luke Skywalker, a character that not only rejects the past, but also subverts our expectations of the values we know about him. He's not a jedi that is a master at his craft, he is a legend, a myth and yet he doesn't believe in those things. Here comes Rey, someone who challenges the very notion of what the original trilogy is known to follow. Her character represents the new colliding with an old, draconian and tired way. The other theme relates to the very myths and legends the that the franchise holds. Other than the legend of Luke Skywalker, we are introduced to the myth that there is only a good and bad side, when in reality there is a grey area that lurks beneath. The myth that the jedi have properly restored balance and peace. The myth that it is our identity and past that defines us.
With these in mind, The Last Jedi presents these themes in a fully realized fashion, wherein each character has an arc that not only serves them but the entire narrative as a whole. The scenes with Luke/Rey and Kylo are the standout, they no longer represent two opposing forces in the light and the dark, instead they represent distinct ideologies, each trying to pull each other to their ideology by choice, not by some higher order. Each motivation that they have are deeply rooted in personal conflicts within each character. Poe also conveys a strong-willed, cocky and interesting character, one that is confident in everything that he does and it has both its positive sides and down sides. Finn's development from the last film also carries on, as his distrust for the First Order further motivates each decision he makes in the film. Rose is also a worthy addition to the Star Wars roster, one whose character is easy to understand but seemed to have been overshadowed by the larger narrative in play. This film is also just drop dead the most beautiful looking Star Wars film of all time. The Rogue One went places with scale and subtle details, but this film brings a new touch to the universe, it explored places and creatures we've never seen before, yet it doesn't take away from the narrative. Never has Star Wars felt like a film with endless possibilities more than this one, and not just in the sets designs. There is something truly profound about the possibilities that the franchise has opened up to. From the twist in Empire about the family lineage of the Skywalkers, Star Wars became just that, a family space-opera. Yet with the new trilogy, it aims to dissect that very notion and without going too much into spoilers, instead presents something new and innovative that is both a bold and striking message for audiences.
If there's any problem I would have with this movie, it is with the choices they made with the story as a whole that seemed to be in relation to appealing to the fans. Now this movie is definitely not the most fan-friendly one, but there are definitely attempts to be. It was like they were obligated to add this side story or have this character be invincible for the sake of being true to Star Wars. While these decisions did not bug me as much, they objectively break some pacing of the film. However, to make up for these is a climax that connected and finally saved those problems from further reaching oblivion.
In the end, this is a film that will be remembered as the one that brought this new trilogy into a new direction, the same way that Empire brought the entire franchise into a long stretching family saga. Besides, even Empire Strikes Back had some people scratching their heads when it first opened, it just felt so different from Star Wars. Look where it stands right now, a legend.
Verdict: 9.5/10
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7/10
"Let the past die, kill it if you have to. That's the only way to become what you were meant to be"
Star Wars: The Last Jedi will certainly (and has proven to be before the opening weekend has even concluded) a polarizing entry in the franchise.
Rian Johnson had to have known that fans have been speculating answers to questions that are answered in this film since before "The Force Awakens" hit theatres.
Johnsons handling of these answers is sure to infuriate those who felt they figured out the answers by devoting untold hours of research into dissecting trailers, interviews, "The Force Awakens", and any other official cannon they could get their hands on.
Instead of further steeping Star Wars into established hierarchy, Johnson bravely decides to dash that and begins to create a new lore for the series.
No longer will the fate of the galaxy be resting on the shoulders of the same dozen or so characters. Johnson is thrusting Star Wars into new territory whether we like it or not. This isn't about the old characters anymore. The torch was passed last film and these new actors are running fiercely with it.
This isn't to say that the tone of Star Wars was lost. It's not, it's just being told through new perspectives. For example, the perpetual emphasis on the balance between good and evil is still addressed in the film, but not quite like it has before. In our modern world where the line between good and evil is an ever growing blur Johnson utilizes the yin-yang as symbolism throughout the film. Perhaps the light and dark side are not polar opposites, but forces that are interlinked together.
While that may be a change for the series, the absolutely wonderful and exciting Star Wars action set pieces are still top notch. Infact, one particular action set piece may be the best set piece since the original Death Star destruction sequence.
As with all Star Wars pictures, the set pieces are varied, from the dark void of space, to a space casino, to a dry white planet that hides crimson coloured salt just below it's top crust.
The film has it's flaws to be sure, there's logic gaps, information that's needlessly kept from characters, and humour that some may find out of place or goes too far.
However, none of these flaws are strong enough to have me not recommend the film.
Especially one that ends with a perfect encapsulation of how Star Wars makes us feel.
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I will start off by saying that The Last Jedi is not perfect, not perfect at all. This does not mean it isn't a bad movie, this is a very good movie and a different take on the Star Wars universe. It is filled with many twists, great action, and superb visuals. Like I said before it has flaws, the tone is a bit all over the place and there are a couple questionable scenes, but this does not make it bad! This is a very good movie and I left the theater very satisfied. Something that makes me laugh is that people are complaining that this movie is different and doesn't feel like a Star Wars movie, there are times that this is true, but when Force Awakens came out the same people were complaining it wasn't different and how it was just like a New Hope. That part makes me laugh and makes me think people will always complain and can never be pleased when it comes to movies. To end this review off I will say if you are a Star Wars fan don't listen to the negative reviews, go to the theater and enjoy a hell of a good time. The Last Jedi has problems but it is offset by the positives. Definitely worth a watch!!
8.5/10
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I get why some people have issues with this movie. It takes risks, something this cinematic universe was in dire need of, but risks that will upset certain viewers nontheless. However, to give this film an incredibly low score based purely on issues you have with choices made in the script is dishonest. This is a well written, well acted and well produced film that makes harsh decisions regarding it's characters, but that ultimately allows those characters to react properly and with internal consistency based on the context written around them.
Ultimately, the movie is held back by one specific story-arch, that quickly turns too whimsical and tangential for its own good. If not for that flawed segment, this film would easily rise beyond Return of the Jedi as the most comptetently crafted, and perhaps more importantly the most interesting Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back.
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Star Wars is back and its once again great. You learn a lot about each individual characters especially kylo ren and rey. There are many characters in this story and the script manages to balance them. the script and the direction by Rian Johnson is amazing . This movie is better than the force awakens and i would say it is one of the stronger entries in the star wars series.There were many twists that manged to keep me at the edge of my seat . I would recommend this movie to all.
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I have never written a review before so felt inclinded to do so after reading all these negative reviews and shed some light on my opinion and not what's wrong with the movie but more so the audience. Warning I may have spoilers but I'll try to keep the movie a mystery as much as possible. The movie it's self was a fine piece of work and felt like Star Wars but of course I did have a few issues but I'll touch on that later. First I wanted to say I am sick of people being disappointed and giving this movie bad reviews simple because they did not get what they wanted (which in my opinion still wouldn't have been enough if they did.). People seemed to be left in confusion. Which is also a feeling the directors may have intended. Sometimes you leave a movie theater feeling different emotions.. happy , sad etc and confused is one of them. Let me give some examples, the entire mystery of Snoke and how people must know this mans origins story in the first 5 seconds of meeting him. The Audience is so impatient they must know everything about a character the moment they meet them. Which would ruin a movie cause it'd be 4 hours long going into background story's. Can't forget this is a movie and not everything will have been answered or it just becomes ridiculous. Also this is a Saga and more answers may be coming our way. I looked ahead at episode 9 and Snoke is still in the cast which means we may be getting more answers as to who he is and why Kylo went to him. Let's think back to previous episodes. Say the Emperor for example no one knew his origin story or how Darth Vader and the Emperor came to be till Lucus made those CGI awfulness in the early 2000's (episodes 1,2,3). Were people up in arms about not knowing enough about the Emeror? Maybe... but they didn't have social media back in the 70s so clowns weren't freaking out, who is this? Why that and why this? Just wait watch and find out. And yes unfortunately we do not really figure out who Rey's parents are yet but that still may be coming. Rey is told from a one sided point of view who they may be. Which means they could be anyone.. Now say they did tell us Rey's parents, people would have been freaking out saying OMG this was just like the empire strikes back luke finds out Darth his is papa. So really could the directors give people what they want. I don't think so, people will never be satisfied. Also let's give these directors and writers a break about making it similar to episodes 4, 5, 6. Im sure they are huge Star Wars fans or they wouldn't be involved and I imagine they feel some what influence by the movies they may have grown up with. So call me crazy but I can't blame them for following a kind of guide line and making it similar. I'm just saying when they made another star destroyer in the force awakens people were pissed but what other kind of super weapon would you create in a lightspeed traveling univierse? Some toxic gas we'll shoot at your planet or we will unleash our super weapon which does what? They want to create a weapon of urgency, a massive laser that will blow you up in a blink of an eye can't really top that...
Luke was the best in the movie. Some people do not like how his character changed but I think you'd would be a little bitter too if your nephew went evil and you lost a generation of jedis to train. Was Yoda super pumped to see Luke in the empire strikes back? No he told him he was reckless and to old to be trained... not to mention he trolled Luke pretending to be a crazy old fool.
A few issues I did have with the movie was a bit too much comical relief. I get they are trying to appeal to crowds but do not take the seriousness out of a scene. It's okay a few times but this one had a few too many. This movie literally picks up right when the last one ends so whole the story line isn't the best but it is bridging the gap between episodes. Maybe we do not get all the answers we wanted but we do get some. One example we find out why Kylo betrays his Jedi Master. I guess my overall point in this terrible written, awful spelling/grammar (not spell checking sh*t) review is... just give the movie or saga a chance to play out before giving it the 1 ratings cause you may end up regretting any negative comments posted. Also if they made the movie a tad shorter and opened with a better scene that kept me more captivated I would have given this a 10/10. So lastly before freaking out and posting negative reviews remember if you are a true Star Wars fan you'll know what it was like to watch the originals and have questions.
Also why people are so upset Disney owns Star Wars is beyond me. If anything people should be relieved. Disney owns and makes so many movies but they do not necessarily say Disney on them. Disney is a franchise that will live on forever which is good if we want Star Wars to live on forever. Personally I'm glad, cause if Lucus continued making Star Wars we could have had some more CGI busts like we did for episode 1,2,3. Lucus just did too much to it and ruined an iconic figure Darth Vader by showing him as this little pod racing scared boy. If they introduced him as a troubled young teen would have been more interesting in my opinion. When the emperor and Anakin met for the first time on the plateform in Episode 1 it was so unsatisfactory. If I had my hand in it would have made Anakin feel the emperors strength and dark side cause if you were a Star Wars fan wasn't like you didn't already know who the guy was by his name. And my point is I think that's due to Lucus making it too directed toward children. Which does worry me about Disney. But Disney bought Star Wars for billions of dollars they are not going to screw this up. Sure maybe down the line they will make a bad Star Wars movie but this is not one them! And the side origins movies coming out like the Han Solo movie could be busts as well but just like any company they are trying to make money and if they happen to make a good movie in the process so be it. But I can't blame a francises for going down this path. The super hero movies have now created a knew path for writers and directories. Instead of having a main storyline you get side story's about how each characters and how they came to be, then a movie with all of them fighting together or against one and another. And that is exactly what Disney is doing with Star Wars, as marvel as done with its comics, seems every couple of months a new comic book hero rises to join the rest of them but not before getting his or her own movie of course. Not saying I want to see Star Wars do the same but it is nice to get to relive the excited feeling of seeing Star Wars be born to a new generation. Anyway hope you found my rant helpful and maybe changed your outlook on matters.
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Don't focus on the slew of negative reviews here. If you look closely, they're all duplicates and sometimes even more of the same reviews by the same people. That being said, you should see the movie and formulate your own opinion.
I love Star Wars and always held the saga as sacred. I didn't mind the prequels, though I know they can't hold a candle to the original trilogy. The Last Jedi is a fantastic continuation of The Force Awakens and it's important to go into it knowing that it is a "middle" movie. There are parts of it that may be shocking or confusing, but much like how Empire had Jedi to reinforce its message, The Last Jedi will have episode IX to reinforce its own message. It's hard to right a true review without giving a lot away, but I can tell you that it is a very long movie with a lot going on amongst all the characters. But even with all that, there was never a moment where I thought "this is dull". It's all told through excellent story-telling and I look forward to seeing how this trilogy can conclude.
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There's truly nothing quite like the release of a new Star Wars film. And with The Last Jedi, the franchise is forever changed.
Anyone who is even a casual fan of the Star Wars saga is well-aware of the incorrect notion that 2015's The Force Awakens is somehow a remake of 1977's A New Hope. However, for those who find that notion to be correct, they can rest assured that The Last Jedi is NOTHING like The Empire Strikes Back, nor is it like any other Star Wars film. In fact, The Last Jedi is so different from any other film in history.
But change is a good thing.
Never has there been a film that has kept me guessing the entire way through. After watching The Force Awakens, I had a pretty vivid idea of what I expected episodes eight and nine to be like.
Those expectations were destroyed.
Everything you thought you knew about Star Wars changes. Everything you expected to happen to Daisy Ridley's Rey, Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, John Boyega's Finn, and Oscar Isaac's Poe does not happen, and everything that you would never even imagine to happen to them does. In terms of the original cast, Mark Hamill gives a truly Oscar-worthy performance as Luke Skywalker. After getting literally seconds of screen time in The Force Awakens, Hamill truly gets his time to shine in The Last Jedi, and it's powerful. The late Carrie Fisher's penultimate performance as Leia Organa truly ends on a high note. Fisher gets far more screen time, and relevance in the plot of the film, than in The Force Awakens, and she truly is spectacular.
Newcomers, such as Kelly Marie Tran's Rose, Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo, and Benicio del Toro's DJ are worthy additions to the Star Wars saga, the most memorable being Marie Tran's Rose.
Some very, very, interesting new concepts, concerning the Force, to name one, are introduced to the Star Wars universe in this film, all of which I loved. Director Rian Johnson does not play by the established rules of the franchise. He takes risks. Huge ones. And they pay off. Big time.
The visual effects in The Last Jedi are better than ever. What really struck me was how incredible the lightsabers were in this film. I was not a big fan of the prequel trilogy's over-choreographed lightsaber duels, so I was very pleased when I saw the more realistic feeling battles in The Force Awakens. The Last Jedi continues this tradition.
John Williams' score for the film is glorious, as always. One particular standout to me was the theme for Rose.
What really irks me about some Star Wars fans is their inability to decide what kind of film they want. When The Force Awakens came out, many called it a remake - unoriginal, boring, and predictable. They went as far as calling JJ Abrams "Jar Jar Abrams". They wanted something different, something never seen before in Star Wars. Then The Last Jedi releases, helmed by a new director, and many others are saying it's too different, too experimental, and too unpredictable! This tells me that some people will never be happy, regardless of what kind of Star Wars film releases.
Overall, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a rollercoaster on every level imaginable. It takes the saga to new levels that virtually no one could predict. I am ever curious to see what happens next, especially given the fact that JJ Abrams, director of The Force Awakens, is directing episode nine. I feel that over time, The Last Jedi will go down as one of the greatest filmmaking achievements of our time.
A franchise forever changed.
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I never really liked the moronic hysteria around popular franchises like Star Wars. In fact, I am part of a large silent minority, who does not think the first films are perfect, feel that the prequels have their charm or that the last saga is the worst or the best of everything that exists in the galaxy.
Simply, everyone has an idea of what these movies should be, and it is impossible to meet everyone's expectations.
My personal technique is to judge the film for what it is; whether it was nice or not, if it did not belong to a popular franchise. And in the case of The Last Jedi, the answer is yes.
Most negative: Incidentally, this movie would probably be my favorite if it were not for the huge showcase of pokémon creatures (toys) constantly shoved trough our eyes. They appear in exaggeration, contrasting with certain scenes. This Billionaire business model for selling toys has always been part of Star Wars, but in this movie was exaggerated.
Most positive: The story of this film is excellent. Mark Hamill is intense, representing a disillusioned and haunted Luke Skywalker. Whose youthful aspirations were overcome by the tragedies of life. This is the core of where the narrative of this movie rolls. Not just a mere action movie, an uninspired carbon copy of past iterations. This movie is filled with credible character development and a rare balance between the drama and the comic flow of a space fantasy adventure.
As a popcorn flick, this movie deals with concepts that may be too sophisticated and insufficiently obvious to the public. I have little doubt that this will be the most controversial movie in the saga and probably the whole franchise. For its sole controversy, it pays to be appreciated on the big screen.
This is a movie that will not be for everyone, it certainly has ups and downs, but personally I discovered that its positive aspects outweigh the negatives. And it's a breath of fresh air to upgrade a franchise that has always been very monolithic.
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So.... despite what a lot of angry fans might make you believe (and this is something I experienced with SEVERAL people I know coming out of the movie loving it and being utterly confused by angry reviewers on the internet) - this movie... this movie has incredible plot twists, good pacing, amazing and satisfying character arcs. If you go to the movie theater and watch it you will probably hear a lot of clapping and cheering when you get to the end (and, surprisingly, you'll probably join in).
So there you go, A+. Watch this movie, don't believe everything an angry mob on the internet might tell you. Heck, don't even believe me if you don't want to. Just go and see, the movie will speak for itself. I just needed to make it clear here and now, there are many many people that are in love with it, myself included
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Background: (since a lot of people won't like a movie unless every question they have is answered) I didn't like TFA much at all. It was basically a NHP with new characters with similar arcs as the original Star Wars movie minus an Obi Wan. I saw it as lazy and a way to make money because of the overwhelming nostalgia of the OT, which it did. I also didn't like the fact that this trilogy is the end of the Skywalker saga. And, knowing that, I just hoped that Kennedy and Disney did Ford, Hamill, and Fisher right, while adding something new. Saw TLJ on 12/14, too.
The Movie: Johnson took the force into hyperdrive! He illustrates what Obi-Wan, Yoda, Windu, and Qui-Gon were teaching. It was amazing! I'm glad Johnson has enough understanding to depict it meaningfully, yet simply enough that most of an audience can grasp it. Hamill and Driver's performances stole the show too. Ridley was great, but the prior two characters showcased a vast range of emotion without missing a beat (Driver's going to win an Oscar one day). Loved how Johnson spent some extra time with the camera on the Princess, since we know that she's never coming back (happy about, because Rogue One CGI Leia was horrible). I'm glad that the movies so far have given each OT character their due (wasn't any other way for Han to go out than get killed while thinking his actions could turn things around like he was in the OT), and Johnson spends extra time on Fisher hoping to achieve this (probably why the run-time felt some-what long...and it was). Much of the different plots mirror Star Wars plots in the past, but Johnson goes into completely different directions, and it worked. Some humor was a bit forced, but it's a heavy movie. The middle portion of the movie with Finn is a good time to do a restroom break. I didn't like everything; however, everything was plausible and fun.
Bottom line: If you had the same gripes with TFA, you'll like this. If you aren't nit-picky about everything, you'll like this. If you're accepting of the fact that Disney is paying homage to Solo and the rest, while growing our understanding of the force, you'll like this. This film was awesome! And Abrams has huge shoes to fill!
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7/10
A good film but ending on another downer is just too much
The Last Jedi is certainly an improvement over the shallow Force Awakens. It's a far more textured affair all round and there is plenty here to get lost in. The effects are stunning plus the surprises are many and unexpected which makes for a good viewing experience.
The film does have flaws though - the "jokes" are pretty much ALL ill timed and fall flat on their asses. More than that they actually detract from the moment in which they were used, not least of all in the opening sequence.
The side story for Finn and Rose offers a clumsy moral message which takes up far too much screen time and could have been edited down to just a few scenes. Daisy Ridley is surprisingly stale and wooden in this episode, a far cry from the expressive and dynamic performance she game in TFA but the rest of the new cast do just fine.
By far the biggest flaw is Disney's seeming obsession to do away with all of the old characters via on screen deaths. The Force Awakens was pretty much ruined for me by Killing off Han Solo....not for the fact he died, but the really poor timing of it. For a film that was trying to introduce new characters, new plots and catch up on 30 years of lore it was just TOO much to take seeing a beloved character die as well as all the other baggage. The Last Jedi does the same and ends again with us losing another beloved character (for no apparent reason either). To have not one, but two films in the new trilogy end on downers is too much to take and the negative association will affect repeat viewings. I don't think it would have been too much to ask to have a happy ending for a change but Disney seem hell bent on burying the past for good in rather shoddy graves.
Regardless, the film is incredibly well made and really feels like a Star Wars movie, so if you can get past the ropy writing, bad jokes and seeing more people you love die then it really is worth a watch.
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9/10
A GREAT MOVIE AND A BRAVE NEW DIRECTION FOR STAR WARS
Don't pay attention to the hate reviews !! TLJ was trully a phenomenal movie which laid the foundations for the future of the saga, with respect to the past and with a bold new vision. Finally, it's not just about the Skywalkers anymore !!
Storywise, this movie had to deal with a lot of aspects that were set on ''Force Awakens'' like explaining why Luke Skywalker was self-exiled on an island on a far away planet while the galaxy suffered, why Kylo Ren turned to the dark side, who Rey's parents were etc. And it delivered in a bold way. Sometimes abrupt, but only in order to move the story forward. A lot of new ideas were implemented some of which reminded me of certain aspects of ''The knights of the old republic 2'' and the plot that involved Kylo and Rey as well as the transformation of Luke from a depressed hermit haunted by guilt, to the hero we all loved in the prequels, was great. Especially the last scene of Luke in the film was amazing and easily one of the best moments of the entire saga !!!
The cinematography and the special effects were trully amazing and the space battles were great with some stunning moments and not just one fleet firing lasers at the other !!! The characters (old and new) were ,for the most part, solid and there were some touching scenes ( especially one with princess Leia ). There were also some cheesy parts and some bad jokes which could have been avoided. There was also a subplot with Finn and a new character for which I had some mixed feelings but it ultimatelly gave us some good moments and perhaps a hint for the future of the saga ? We will see !
In conclusion, this movie is a bold step forward for the franchise. It has a lot of exciting new aspects combined with moments of nostalgia, great cinematography, amazing actions scenes, great acting and a solid basis for the future. And undeniably it is a great and fun movie to watch !!
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First off, I am a HUGE Star Wars Fan (almost as big as they come). For what it is worth, I am also a pretty tough rater on IMDb. And I LIKED this movie!
I'll admit, it has a side plot that I thought was entirely unnecessary (arguable even stupid), a plot hole big enough to fly a Star Destroyer through, a few missed opportunities, and a couple of decisions by Rian that are entirely inexplicable (and as a fan of the Star Wars lore made me mad). BUT, I enjoyed it - A LOT. (As did the other 4 Star Wars "nerds" I went with, AND all the Star Wars nerds I have spoken to since!)
The Rey - Kylo interactions are wonderful. Luke and Rey's relationship feels natural. It had some humorous bits which were wonderful for the younger audience (remember this was never really supposed to be a series just for adults, so we brought 2 kids to the theater). It was dark and really depressing at parts, and I think appropriately so: The Last Jedi is after all a nod to The Empire Strikes Back. I thought the added depth to the Force was really interesting (Can you name a movie franchise that does not have "power creep"?). The movie might feel different from the other movies, but if you watch the TV show Star Wars: Rebels, you know it fits right in to the new Star Wars Canon. The lightsaber duel on Snoke's ship had us cheering out loud. There are nostalgic nods to the original trilogy, which never felt forced. And the ending...the ending was fantastic! I LOVED the ending.
Is it perfect? Far from it! I liked all of the Original Trilogy and The Force Awakens better. But it feels like a natural next step for the Franchise. Now that Disney is making a new movie every year (which I am torn about), the audience will lose interest very quickly if they don't let the series evolve.
And just to make it official, THERE IS JUST NO WAY that The Phantom Menace and The Attack of the Clones are superior movies.... just saying'
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9/10
To all those whom read and watched crapy videos talking about the Last Jedi before it even came out
Well I have been reading comments and wtf?
I could write here a bunch of crap criticize and justifying why this movie is not crap as most of you are saying, instead I'm going to paste here a comment from someone that pretty much sums it all
"Just want to take a second and say what I said a year ago and the year past that. No one raised your expectations. No one told you to go into this expecting Rey to be someone. No one told you Luke would do something, no one told you what snoke would be. You did. You are the reason why you're not happy. Youre the reason why you are butt hurt and have enough salt to kill a legion of snails. Its your fault going into the theater with the movie you directed instead of what they put out. That is your fault. Youll do it again you always do. You have no one to blame for that but your dumb assessments and those lame ass youtuber Star Wars theorist that filled your heads with bs these past 2 years.
That is all."
Now think before you write anything about it
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I have watched all Star wars movies and over the year each group of artists have changed the tone of the movie in every decade. So people may see each movie differently. I loved the movie and I cannot give it anything below a 7. I enjoyed it. Thanks.
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Better then episode 4 ,but less then episode 5.
It has slower paste but it all pays off . Don't know why all the hate guys , just remember episodes 1 and 2 . Be grateful for what we got.
Can't wait for 2019. !!!!!!
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Star wars: The Last Jedi is not the best film in the Star wars saga, but that is near impossible. It is very entertaining and is visually stunning. Though there are many faults with it.
There is a sub-plot that is out of place and unnecessary. There are point that felt more 'meh' than they should have. Some of the performances seem poorer than in 'The Force Awakens' and some moments just seemed silly. It fails to give the Star wars buzz that it should have.
Though, I do not think that is deserves a poor review like many others on this site have given. (I think I have to mention Benicio del Toro's surprisingly good performance, as no one else has). I think most people were underwhelmed as they expected a more large scale movie than this, with it taking place over only about two days, though a lot happens over that time. There is important character development that adds a third dimension to the characters established in the previous film. There is also good humor, which some people might not have liked, but added more to the film.
I would not give it a bad review, as it is a good, but dodgy, movie that feels like more of an extension onto 'The Force Awakens' than a stand alone. Though it does add more conflicts to the series that will be interesting to be resolved in the ninth film.
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7/10
Definitely Improvement from Force Awakens but its still missing the Lucas touch
I never thought I'll have so mixed feelings about Star Wars movie, but here it is. Its both disappointment and not
I am glad it have some originality and depth in it, something that was lacking in previous Disney movies but still doesnt make it so great, there is space for more improvement and changes.
Story was interesting, well written for the most parts. It feels like Empire Strike Back at the moments but its definitely not.
Its overfilled with content and characters that are not so important for the main story still manages to be enjoyable and unpredictable till the very end, filled with mini twists and turns.
Direction is slightly better than Force Awakens but it still jump from scene to scene too fast. Its visually stunning as expected, action scenes are best in Star Wars yet but should had been little longer. The biggest problem is probably too much jokes all the time, added them in scenes that should be serious, killing almost every chance for tension, somethings thats becoming trend is such movies.
Acting was mostly good or at least bearable, even tho it feels younger ones were close to the line of being bad, especially Daisy Ridley.
Movie is trying to be fun, emotional and inspiring, just like original Star Wars was but again fails to deliver the full essence.
It can be seen that Rian gave his best to continue the franchise with things he got from Force Awakens but failed to build new the tension instead just wrap up the previous one . The way it ends didnt leave anything interesting nor exciting for next movie.
7.4/10
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7/10
Not Bad, but ultimately disappointing Star Wars Movie!
TL:DR Should you go out and watch it? Yes! Is it the masterpiece I hoped it would be? No, sadly it is not.
First of all: I won't spoil anything in this review! Now for the Movie, I came into this with massive, probably to massive, expectations. The Force Awakens (TFA) was alright - a good introduction into a new era of Star Wars but also borrowed to many plot devices from A New Hope. So, for me, in order to fall in love with this new trilogy, The Last Jedi (TLJ) had to really become a new Empire, a Movie that embraces all that's great about Star Wars and expands on it while also surprising the audience with new and unexpected twists and turns. And while it succeeds at the latter tasks, by really delivering some memorable and unexpected scenes, TLJ managed to really mess up the "Star Wars" part of the movie. It just feels like a fan film at times. A really good one, that comes close to Star Wars but never actually manages to create the same atmosphere and tension. This is mostly due to some questionable story decisions (that straight up make no sense at times), too many characters (its hard to get involved with a "core team" like back in the original trilogy with Han, Leia and Luke. TLJ has a tone of characters but that means each them only gets limited screen time) and the Movies tendencies to make scenes unnecessarily funny. You will know exactly what I mean after you've seen the first 10 minutes. Many scenes are just dark, serious and in their essence really good - until the awkward joke moment. I don't want to spoil, so let me give you an unrelated example: Imagine you watch the Vader scene in Empire, and just after the " I am your father" line Luke would respond with a little wink and a "Oh really?". A little tiny moment, that would change the whole movie. TLJ is full of these little moments, that are forcefully funny and sadly just don't work for me. They destroy otherwise really amazing moments for no apparent reason. And then there are some moments of magic and a long and really unnecessary "safe the animals" subplot adding salt to open wounds. But enough complaining, there is also a lot to like about TLJ . Its really well made. The visuals are stunning, the creatures are great, the Worlds amazing and the space battles intense and beautiful. The Soundtrack is on the expected level, meaning really, really amazing and just everything about the production is almost flawless. Also certain characters are really well developed, Kylo and Ray have some great moments and some of the stuff I don't want to spoil is just really well executed.
Overall this is not a bad movie, nor ist an unenjoyable one. But I wanted to leave the cinema with a big smile on my face - and I didn't. Rating TLJ as just a movie, this is a solid, enjoyable 7 out 10 - a really good movie, but not a masterwork. If this wasn't a Star Wars movie, I would be happy with it. But as a Star Wars movie, it did sadly disappoint me overall and I do think its worse then TFA and doesn't even come close to the Original Trilogy.
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I sort of like it and don't like it! The main problem with these films now is, they don't have the George Lucas touch and here's why I say this! The original three are without doubt the best by a long shot! Even the three later that had the George Lucas moments where the audience went "yeah" e.g Yoda fighting Christopher Lee, Darth Maul killing Qui and then Obi Wan waiting for the force field to go down, great moments. But these new films do not have these moments! Other things that annoy me about this film, the General, he's like a little college boy, how is he second in command? This should be a character like Grand Moth Tarkin, a leader, a man who has a menace about him, not even Darth Vader talked down to him, he had respect. The Emperors guards, looked like a bunch of samurai's, why not just the usual Emperors guards rather than these new ones. The AT-AT's, why do they have to be different, what was the point in them having fists or hands as feet, they never did anything, and the originals from empire look more realistic. Even in the other film before this they could not get the size of these correct, you had Rai leaning up against the foot of one in the dessert, lol, I think JJ got confused between the size of a Scout Walker and an AT-AT here! SO this is episode 8, a huge joke if you ask me! What was the story, rebels on the run, stuck in space with the imperials on a slow pursuit after them, hmmm, very weak. Benicio Del Toro, great actor, but what was with the stuttering, did that add some sort of value to the character other than annoyance? The main boss, he sat in the chair and died, what a let down he was! Darth Vader wannabe, he is okay, but Darth Vader also always had other villains in the films, it was never just him, Jabba The Hutt, Boba Fett, Monsters, Emperor, Sand People, etc etc there were always multiple dangers in the original films. The base at the end, all this time, and they never knew about the way out at the back? Hmm, if you say so. The snow fox things, was strange, my friend explained they were from the cartoons, which is good if you watch these, but I don't, so I guess the writer assumes everyone watches the cartoons, which I don't. Luke at the end, what was that about? At first I thought, yes, Luke is very powerful when he was getting shot down, but then it turned out to be a Doctor Strange astral projection and to top it off at the end he just vanished into thin air, at least Obi Wan Kenobi was holding off Vader in the first instance when he did this, knowing he could not win the fight, also George Lucas always said he regretted doing that, then this writer comes along and just does that to Luke? Really? So now we're gonna have ghost Luke appearing everywhere all the time even thogh ghost Annakin, Obi Wan have totally vanished, LMFAO! Get a proper writer for the last film, the George write it for crying out loud, JJ Abrahams is not that good and very overated, and this guy who wrote this must have had his blessing! The more I write about it and think about it, the less I like it so I'm gonna stop now! An old school Star Wars die hard fan whose extremely dissapointed!
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Leaving the cinema after watching the Last Jedi, I was genuinely conflicted as to whether or not I enjoyed the film. In all fairness to Rian Johnson, he has carried the torch from J.J. Abrams with flying colours - with the feel and look of this new movie being constant with that of the Force Awakens. Despite this, along with the stunning visuals, epic fight scenes and (at times) brilliant character development, parts of the movie felt cheap and unfulfilling.
I'll start with what I enjoyed - which was almost all of the film: my fears for this movie was that it would be too similar to the beloved the Empire Strikes Back, and would hold the same undermining criticism that the Force Awakens itself had. However, I can honestly say that this movie bucks the trend and establishes its own story - bringing characters old and new into the Star Wars Universe. Sure there may be a fight scene on an ice planet, a stab in the back by a likeable character (brilliantly realised by Benicio Del Torro) and extended training sequences; but these are culminated in an entirely new story with it's own twists and turns.
Hamill, Driver and Ridley give stellar performances as their characters, with the mental connection between Rey and Ren being a particularly high point. The revelation of Rey's parentage, however controversial it may be, to me came as a refreshing change. Moreover, the reappearance of Yoda's force ghost was a welcome surprise - not only bringing audible laughs, but also progressing the plot in a meaningful way. Another personal favourite moment was the addition of the flashback to Kylo's betrayal of Luke, concluding in the fact that Luke wasn't so innocent after all. The cinematography and sound design of Holdo's suicide is absolutely breathtaking. And finally the force has been given the explanation it deserves. Luke's teachings of the force on Ahch-To is note perfect, dispelling all previous Midi-Chlorian nightmares.
Now, there is one inexcusable error in this film and I was honestly bewildered watching it unfold.
The handling of Supreme Leader Snoke in this film is diabolical.
Out of all of the characters in the Force Awakens, he was who I was most curious about - who was this character? How did he seduce Kylo to the dark side of the force? What is the final stage of Kylo's training? Is Snoke a force wielder? The first time we see Snoke outside of his hologram in this film, it holds so much gravitas - he is superbly portrayed by Andy Serkis and fully realises the hype he was given after his first appearance. Snoke is presented as the most powerful force wielder we have seen in any Star Wars film; he can bridge minds across the galaxy, use FORCE LIGHTNING and fling people across the room like rag dolls with the tiniest motion of his fingers. All this culminates into a truly terrifying villain who we know both Luke, Rey and Kylo are no match for - I felt as though the revelation that he was Darth Plaguies was just around the corner.
And with that - he was killed off.
After approximately 10 to 15 minutes of screen time, the most powerful force wielder dies - without a backstory, not even allowing the audience to form any opinion on him other than "ooh, he's so scary and ugly". Not only is it insulting, it undermines the whole film meaning it doesn't feel complete. How did Snoke seduce Kylo? Where was Snoke during the original trilogy if he was so powerful? The questions remain, I can imagine now that already Disney have hired someone to write a Snoke backstory book or comic to respond to the films shortcomings.
Aside from this, Luke's force hologram fight with Kylo did feel slightly cheap - however poetic and impactful Luke's death in the end actually was. As well as this, it almost feels as though Rey and Kylo's story arc is finished almost halfway through the film, after the lightsaber splitting scene.vIt feels as though the two characters should now be able to see far more eye to eye after the events of the film, but instead they revert to the regular dark side hates light side dynamic.
All in all, I am looking forward to Episode 9 and the continuation of the Skywalker saga and whilst this film was thoroughly enjoyable - the issue of Snoke hangs over it like a dark cloud, keeping it from being as successful as it's original predecessors.
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Will Someone Please Confirm Jar-Jar is NOT in TLJ (Thank You!)
That way I can go see it and do a proper review. without risking my intelligence being insulted. I couldn't help but notice as soon as Disney spent Carl Sagan money (billions and billions) for the SW's franchise they attempted to con everyone by saying Jar-Jar was meant to be like their Goofy character. Ya Right! We all know what he really represented.
Thats why, IMHO, we got Finn. a Black Storm Trooper. which should no be. Why? Simple, Lucas based his ST's on WW2 Germany's STs and NO there were not any Black STs under Hitler.
I get Finn ,was a conscript and not a Jango Fett Clone, but all STs under Lucas's reign were white (if you could see under their armor or not). No Lucas was not racist (ie Lando and Windo) he simply patterned his STs on WW2s.
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5/10
Bad script, undeveloped characters, aiming to be a Marvel movie
DISNEY decided to turn the franchise into a MARVEL movie, devoid of any of theory and depth. But the worst part of watching this film is the weak and childish script:
1) The "universe" is not consistent. Magical Jedi powers spring out of nowhere to support cringe-worthy twist plots in outer space(!) and are used by people never to have shown such competence in the Force.
This means that anything can happen which also means that it basically forces the audience to only focus at the visuals because consistency, story line don't really matter and anything can happen.
(2) It's all a huge joke. Humor was always part of the SW saga. But now it's all about situational comedy with some chasing in between.
(3) As the middle part of the trilogy, it fails to deliver. Not to go "ancient Greek theater" on you guys but a trilogy is all about (a)Good guys are on the rise, (b) Good buys suffer/bad guys win (c) Good guys win. This film is an unsatisfying combination of b+c, where good and evil fight forever after. Honestly, there is no underlying important reason to film the next movie. Nothing to expect!
(4) I start to be annoyed by all the political correctness and forced diversity out of Hollywood. The choice of a female hero combined with a black co-lead was courageous and worked well in the previous film... because it made sense!!!. Now
(a) it looks as if Disney said that we need an Asian woman in the mix and wrote a boring and outlandish sub-plot that took her from being a guard, to being Steve Jobs and then a pilot. The whole plot can be thrown out and the story does not change!
(b) I get "girl power" (and I loved Rey in TFA!!) , but at a point when you are watching war scenes and almost all secondary characters (pilots, commanders, generals etc) are women, you have to say to yourself that this seems forced and intentional. I once knew war is tough and physically challenging.
Enough said: a bad bad movie...
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9/10
Anyone who thinks this is a bad movie is seriously high
Not really bad at all. The "Force" has an easier time doing fantastic things like communicating with video & audio over loooooong distances now. Hi Yoda!
The script was condensed so it seems, with more efficiency scene to scene and so the story moved along at a quicker pace. It almost felt like it was too fast, but not quite. Less technical mumbo jumbo in the dialogue too. Got a plan? Been a pilot? An insider or a mechanic? Get cracking everything will work out just fine.
This has very good effects, fine tuned in fact. very professional. A bunch of cool natural worlds (and some animals) that looked great.
Some of the actors we're intense & natural, others contrived.
The twist in the last scene sets up another trilogy of more Jedi kids growing up to fight the good fight. This time they live I suppose.
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I enjoyed the movie despite all the negative comments, I went in with no expectations and came out happy. It was a sci-fi fantasy action movie and thats what it should be watched as.
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First of all, I'd like to point out what i like abou this movie. I loved Hamil as Luke, Del Toro as DJ and porgs. Everything else is up to debate. The runtime is too long and the movie isn't engaging enough to keep you paying attention. There are some subplots that erase every perception I've had about some characters in The Force Awakens, by which I mean if before going watching TLJ, I liked Rey, for example, and now I just don't care for her anymore. I think it's worth saying that there are many inconsistencies in the writting of ST characters in TFA and TLJ, whoch doesn't make sense given these movies span two-three days.
As an addition, I loved porgs. They were a merchandising addition and it pains me to adimit that Dinsey has given them a more consistent treatment than any hero/villain in the movie. Without detailing any further, this movie feels like erasing in a bad manner any mistery/curiosity TFA has created in me. As someone who wasn't completely into TFA, TLJ worked to erase my desire to rewatch both these movies or the ninth installment of the saga, unfortunately.
On a side note, don't waste your money in 3D if you can avoid. It's just not worth it!
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I have just returned from seeing "Star Wars: Episode VIII" and I can honestly say that I have seen exactly what the 9 year old me would have wanted. Me and my husband walked out of that theatre with our love of Star Wars reignited after Lucas doused it out after selling it to Disney.
Yes, I am a bit of a Star Wars fanatic; tt wasn't cool to wait nine hours for Phantom Menace tickets while dressed as Princess Leia in 1999. So maybe if you are not as passionate as myself you felt differently after seeing The Last Jedi.
With just the right touch of similarity to Empire and just enough new touches from Rian Johnson I thought this movie was exactly what people who share my views wanted and, frankly, deserved. I can now handle the dreaded Solo movie and just continue to love the thing that makes me feel joy.
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This is a great movie, and probably the third best film in the franchise. It has all the moments you've been waiting for, and goes into some unfamiliar territory too.
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5/10
The only medal The Last Jedi earns is the "At least you're better than The Attack of the Clones" medal.
Disney just did the impossible, they ruined Star Wars. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi was a major disappointment. It did not feel like a SW film, it just was a Disney space adventure. Mark Hamill gave it his all, but terrible treatment to Luke's grand return. All the hype on the plot of this film is rubbish; so much focus on Jedi books and myths, Rey's mysterious parents, sinister Snoke, and Luke Skywalker ended up being a major let down, also porgs are just there to sell toys.
Disney refuses to write in "dark" things from the Original films to this movie. The original films were not dark but it was violent and packed with great action and amazing dramatic moments. Star battles here are an absolute joke, and lightsaber fights are laughable. Attack of the Clones had more action than this! The Last Jedi amazing lightsaber fights, army of X-wings flying into battle, dramatic turning points and major tragedies, and natural humor. We don't want child/family friendly film which are worse than the prequels, we want a similar tone to the original films.
However, credit to writers for not making this into an Empire Strikes Back rehash, and to Mark Hamill's performance; crap writing, but Mark still gave it his all, love his performance, hated his treatment. Snoke in the previous film looked scary, Snoke here is a bloody joke, replace Andy Serkis' Snoke with his Caesar and I promise it will be a 100 times more scary and menacing, than little Snoke in his golden robe sitting in this red crib. Rey's interaction with Kylo was useless, Rose was okay, nice new character, Leia was cool but had a very cringe worthy moment with the force, there is a sequence in the film in which if you remove this entire sequence it would have made NO difference whatsoever in plot and movie.
Disney must learn that making anything child/family friendly shifts the overall tone. Star Wars is something many people grew to for many years, they should respect the old cast, and their legacy, plus tone, not erase it all movie by movie with lazy friendly writing. Believe me when I say this; as a fan who grew up to SW his whole life and had to deal with the problems of the prequel, it is safe to say I enjoyed Episode 1 MORE than The Last Jedi, yes very controversial. Why? At least Episode 1 felt like a SW movie and not Disney adventure, it still has the greatest lightsaber fight in the whole saga, OST was brilliant as well, star battles were memorable, comedy was natural and not force, had a great villain, heroes who knew what they wanted to do, YET it was a child/family friendly film which was not good, until I saw this. I am sorry but The Last Jedi was not a good movie. It is MORE child/family friendly than the prequels, lacks tragedy, action, drama, villain, SW tone. The only medal The Last Jedi earns is the "At least you are better than The Attack of the Clones" medal. I feel sad Mark Hamill has to deal with this.
I end this review with the Star Wars film rankings:
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi/A New Hope (tie)
The Force Awakens
Revenge of The Sith
The Phantom Menace
The Last Jedi
Attack of the Clones
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6/10
I've watched every Star Wars in a Theater since I was 10 and this one?... eh..
I've been one of those die hard Star Wars Fans since I first seen Star Wars back in 77. As a child, Star Wars was like nothing I had ever seen and completely captured my imagination. I fell in love with the concept and the story back then and continued to be intrigued by how the story unfolded. I bought the books, toys, VHS tapes, DVDs and watched the movies so much that I could receipt almost every line for the first three.
The only Star Wars that I was completely satisfied with was Empire Strikes Back as it was just overall better than any other Star Wars movie. I didn't like the Ewoks at all in the Return of the Jedi, hated Jar Jar Binks, couldn't stand the sappy and stupid lines George came up with for Hayden Christensen that probably helped ruin his career and felt like Force Awakens was just a New Hope remake but was good overall.
The Last Jedi..
If you can see this in 3D then do it. The visuals are incredible in 3D and will help distract from the horrible confusing plot, lack of Character development and the direction they are taking Star Wars.. The space battles in 3D and the many of the effects lend very nicely to 3D without seeming over done and pushed for the 3D effect.
New Characters:
They introduced a new bird... for selling toys...
They introduced a new girl that is less cool that her sister was... you'll understand once you see it...
The introduced another "strong female character" Admiral Holdo with purple hair (some women do this to recapture their youth) just to give her enough screen time for us to be glad when they didn't give her more.. see the movie and you will understand.
Old Characters..
Luke Skywaker:
We see the return of Luke Skywalker and after watching him, it totally made me understand why Hans Solo was the true star of Star Wars and a Fan favorite...
Carrie Fisher
Best performance of her life but I'm not sure if she was actually alive...
Han Solo"
Relegated to a set of dice..
R2D2
Must have been having some reliability problems for he basically turned around once and became a projection TV unit..
C3PO
Tried to tell everyone the "chances of success" line that really didn't mean anything
Yoda.. didn't add anything other than wondering why they are still using a Muppet in a modern film full of spectacular CGI.. I swear I could see somebodies thumb moving his lips...
Newish Characters..
Rey... still doesn't know how to use a light saber and still doesn't "know her place in all of this"
Kylo... still throws fits as though he is a teenager and still doesn't know his role in all of this
Phasma.... I really don't care as she is just ANOTHER "strong female character" introduced to be politically correct... Don't get me wrong I like females in roles but come on!! at least develop them so we give a hoot about who they are instead of pushing a political narrative..
Finn... still Finn.. still a lucky Janitor... and still shocked by everything
Po... overall the strongest character in the movie and his lines, plot and Character development makes sense for his role.
Bottom line:
Star Wars, The Last Jedi is like any other modern movie to date.. fast and loose on the plot, no real Character development, lack of an actual script, lack of an actual direction of where they want to take the sequels and wonderful CGI..
The one thing that is for sure in Hollywood; They are making it so if there was a writer strike, we the audience wouldn't notice...
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7/10
Star Wars: The Last Jedi...I really wanted to like it
SPOILER FREE VERSION: I really wanted to like this movie. There are some very good bits in it. I thought they did a nice job adding to the Star Wars lore, but the movie was really gimmicky and heavy handed. A lot of people liked it and I am happy for them. I personally felt it was a bit much. The movie is growing on me a bit, but it did not live up to my expectations.
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Moulding an ordinary to an extraordinary is the leitmotif of Rian Johnson's movie.
Ray came from a drug addict-junk selling parents, and she became a Jedi. Now comes the story of an ordinary little boy with an austere and very little known background. Ordinary but possibility to become extraordinary and eyes full of dream.
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A recommendation to die-hard SW fans... Watch the film once. Hold your review. See the movie again and try and watch the film for what it is, not what it isn't. What it is, is an AMAZING and challenging film.
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The Star Wars franchise covers too many decades for everyone to agree if the story was appropriate. I am NOT one who complicates my movie enjoyment by over
thinking a scripts, cinematography, plots, or whether a character should have been utilized differently. I want to be entertained and Episode VIII is definitely worth seeing in the theatre.
The music that branded the franchise is still powerful and should be heard on theatre sound systems. Really, isn't the experience of the movie what makes us go? Buy a large drink of your choice, and a popcorn, lower your expectations of the script and acting, (if necessary) and sit back and enjoy the film.
I was raised with A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. All of which were truly wonderful by my layman standards. And I found 1, 2, and 3 to be average.
I thought Rogue One was fair at best. But, The Last Jedi is a good movie. I wouldn't mind the franchise coming to an end, but if there is still money to be made, expect Disney to put together a good film for the masses.
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9/10
Unpleasable fans will Hate, the Lame will always Compain, All You Do is induce long lasting mygraines, I wan't to ship on You, Yes I do, Yes I do Ill ship on You!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just like very Star Wars movie you've got these grip of nerds who can't stop talking about the initially released trilogy and how great it was but each one after has just ruined their minuscule little lives! These are the same guys that buy the $800 Lego set of the Millennium Falcon and but still live in their mothers basement where they wrote the negative reviews and spent the day crying about ti with the nerd freinds.
The Movie was a lot of fun and for those who's lives won't be ruined by every little apart of the movie go as they planned, you'll love this movie, much better then the last one!
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Going in to this movie I have read Star Wars canon book. All of the comics. I listen to podcasts discussing the world of Star Wars daily at @forcecenterpod. This was a great Star Wars movie. I think the main thing I loved about this movie is that I can't change any of it. There may have been some I didn't like, but that has always been Star Wars. There was way more great than bad. What was displayed made sense. Unanswered questions lead to imagination. If everything was told from the start we wouldn't have had 40 years of amazing speculation and lore as we continue this great story. Everything they did with the force built upon the groundwork laid by Yoda and Obi-Wan. I loved the choices they made and there were some of the coolest visual and impactful scenes of the whole saga. Great movie and I can't wait to watch it 50 more times. "That's how we're going to win, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love."
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Okay, I'm not the best at judging movies I love. I think TPM and AotC are perfectly acceptable installments of the franchise. I guess I'm sucker for special effects and nostalgia and all that (though I'm not the biggest fan of TFA). I really enjoyed this movie. It's like the satisfying payoff Marvel fans have been waiting for in Infinity War. I may need to watch it again to feel out the problems, but for a first watch, it was great. It answered so many questions left from TFA and even showed flashbacks to what Luke was up to these past thirty years.
So I have waited for, well, all my life for Luke to pass on his role as the hero and add to the Hero's Journey as a master. He does this the only way he can. Once, he was a proud Jedi Master, but now he is a failed hermit, just like Yoda was when Luke met him. Yoda had a positive attitude, but Luke took his failure to heart and refused to train Rey. I can see why Hamill disagrees with Luke's character, but I understand it well enough to see that there's a bright side to it. Luke takes a while to warm up to anything, and knowing from my own failure, it's hard to answer the call when opportunity rings. In fact, it's part of the Hero's Journey.
Rey doesn't give up on Luke. Likewise, she doesn't give up on Ben. Rey even states that she can see conflict in Ben and she thinks she can turn him. Rey has a great amount of perseverance and integrity to her duty. Rey gets the feel of what a Jedi is supposed to be, and she sticks to it rigidly. Maybe the texts would have been useful, but the old republic, the new republic, and the ancient Jedi are all gone, so it's time for the Jedi to adapt and rise while closely watching the hypocrisy Luke talks about.
This movie raises the stakes and intensifies the war. There has never been a worse time for the Resistance. The numbers weren't even so bad for the Rebellion. They went down to one ship, backed against a corner, and one man stood to show that they wouldn't go down without a fight. Luke struck right to the core of Ben, which is proven by how badly Ben feels the need to destroy Luke. It's like the Joker with Batman; if Batman kills the Joker, then the Joker wins.
On another note, the toying of the First Order with the Resistance echoes Poe's toying with General Hux. Yes, they could have slaughtered the Resistance at any point, but without hubris, what hope would we as fans have? The Resistance uses everything possible to stave off extinction, and it's just brilliant. Finn and Rose have to break the rules to ensure the survival of the Resistance, and Finn has a great payoff for his past with Phasma.
Ben and Rey's relationship is interesting, but I have to see it again to really dive into that part. I thought the jaw-dropper with the lightsaber was an incredible touch, but I can't wait to see how they develop later on.
And major fan service in Yoda, though not in Obi-Wan. Well, Yoda calls out Luke for not having read the ancient Jedi texts. I think it would have been nice to have McGreggor in the scene to have a level-headed conversation between the three of them, like they did in ESB, but I was satisfied that Yoda not only appeared, but he also has become more powerful than one could imagine in controlling the weather. Just me, though.
And one thing I need to say is that the trilogy is not complete. I know there were parts of AotC and ESB that were respectively completed by RotS and RotJ. Additionally, it's a different part of the story. It's about the grandson of Darth Vader (not Vader's son; not Vader himself), a spunky, fresh heroine, and some people connected by the Force. The Force itself is conflicted. It seems that it wants balance, meaning equality in the dark and the light sides. However, the fans, at least I, mostly imagine the will of the Force as being overcome with the light side. I understood that as happening at the end of RotJ, but I learned with TFA that Force needs that balance.
I'm sorry for my ramblings. I think this movie deserves to have its place next to the rest of the Star Wars series. So, like it or not, it gets such a place. Needless to say, the action was superb, the actors played their parts well, Carrie Fisher had a fantastic final film, Hux and Ben will be settling a score soon, Rey will train the new order of Jedi will come through and trample the First Order. But will there be balance, or with the Force be left in light?
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9/10
An Exceptional Chapter of a Less-Than-Stellar Franchise
Force awakens, what's with all the hate on this film? I thought it was an outstanding movie and I can't wait to see it again. "The Last Jedi" was an improvement on Abrams' hole-filled new chapter, and an exceptional episode to what has been -- less face it -- a less-than-stellar movie franchise.
The story takes off with fantastic action, the right touch of humor, deeper-than-usual characters, a few throw-back references, and a fair share of twists. The sequence of events is confusing, and too many things happen out of convenience to the plot. This is mostly due to lazy writing, and Abrams' episode was guilty of it as well.
Otherwise, I'm not real sure why people are dumping on this movie. Most of the reactions are various colors of "Bad! Awful! What a joke!" But let me venture a guess that's a little more probing. This was a chapter about preservation, not confrontation. It pulled away instead of pushed forward. And maybe that's what has everyone so upset.
Almost the entire plot of "The Last Jedi" doesn't make much of a dent in the current story-arc. Don't get me wrong: all of the action and humor and character elements are there, as I said. But outside of one or two events, you could skip Episode VIII and not lose anything. But that's actually the point. Rey says, "Help me find my place in all this." Her place is in less-than-epic events that still make a difference in people's lives. Those events still touch hearts and frustrate enemies.
The things she discovers in her quest to find answers are not amazing. Her backstory is disappointing, even to her. A vision she had of the future was manipulated by someone else. She has talents and abilities she has no idea what to do with, and the one person that can help her won't. At the end of the movie, this nobody from no where is still nobody from no where.
Nonetheless, she makes the most of what she has. That's not just true for Rey. It's the case with everyone in the movie. It's the case for you and me. One of the best lines in the film is delivered by a new and loveable yet largely forgettable character. More is lost than acquired by the end of this film. No one really gains anything. But that's not because the point was dropped. It was the point to be made.
When you take your Star Wars glasses off, you have to admit: the series has not been great. The prequels were all terrible, Rogue was flat, and Return was a pathetic conclusion to the original trilogy. There's only one exceptional Star Wars film, and that's Empire: an incredible story, effects ahead of its time, contains one of the most iconic moments in cinema history, and quite possibly has the best score ever composed. Nothing will ever beat Empire.
But dare I say it, "The Last Jedi" was up there. "The Force Awakens" was a safe movie, a high-budget fan-film, and I thought it was a little over-applauded. "The Last Jedi" was much more daring. It dared to retreat. And that was perfect.
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7/10
Did Obi Wan give up on the force when Anakin turned?
Throughout the entire movie I kept waiting for my Luke, the Luke of my childhood, my hero, to return. Luke was always bold, always hopeful, always caring, but alas it was not meant to be. Here are some questions I have, that I have already seen asked here, but they need to be heard:
1) Why the build up of Rey's parents, if they were nobody?
2) Why the build up of the other parts of the Force, if they were not to be explored
3) Who was Snoke, and why does no one seem to care in the Star Wars Universe?
4) But the only questioned that mattered when I left the theater was "where was Luke" this was certainly not him. I would understand if he was upset about Kylo Ren, but to have given up entirely? To show a defeatist attitude about even the attempt of bringing the light to bear. This was someone who was pretending to be Luke, someone who did not know anything about who Luke was and what he was made of. Did Obi Wan give up on the force when Anakin turned? No....and neither would Luke...
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Lucas Starwars had a better story and were a bigger fantasy with more amazing worlds and grandiose. These new movies feel like soup of the day with some old parts to give it Starwars flavor.Make no mistake the movies are enjoyable but not as memorable. They are starting to feel more like Marvel movies where action is more important than the plot.
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This movie has gotten a lot of hate and negativity. I understand to an extent but at the same time, i found that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. There's ups & downs, some charecter development and some good excitement. Some cons of the movie were that there should have been more lightsaber action, it felt lacking and also Snoke was a joke but overall this was an enjoyable film, my guess is the final chapter to this trilogy will be the best one!!
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9/10
Great Action, Great Visuals, A pretty original story that serves up for the hardcore fans!
Love the new twists in the storyline. Love the build-up and uncertainty with Rey's future. Love Mark Hamill's acting with Luke's internal struggles with his guilt. Pleasantly surprised to see Leia pull a hat trick out of the bag. Felt a disturbance in the force when the movie started adding funny punchlines almost all of which were aimed at Hux. (I feel for him. Seriously.) A little unsettled with Snoke's fate and how it all played out.
Overall, it wasn't a particularly bad movie. I think all it needed was Rian consulting and listening more to his Star Wars lore masters to ensure he wasn't going down a path the fans would regret. In the end, it kinda felt like watch Evil Dead - Army of Darkness.
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8/10
There's a great 2 hour movie hidden in The Last Jedi..
Too bad its running time is a half hour longer. Let's get the negatives out of the way first: the Finn/Rose casino storyline feels out of place and muddles the focus of the film, the Maz Kanata cameo was not needed and looked silly (who was filming her?), Captain Phasma is a totally unnecessary character and should have never been created in the 1st place.
Ok, now on to the good! The characters! The performances! The main storylines! Holy shit did everyone bring their A game for this. Hamill is better than he's ever been and the path his character took is refreshing and interesting, Daisy Ridley has some gut wrenching scenes which really make you empathize with her and Adam Driver is the best actor and most interesting bad guy the Star Wars saga has ever seen.
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8/10
The Most Challenging Star Wars Movie Since Empire Strikes Back
This movie takes Star Wars in a completely different direction for the better. This movie will puzzle and maybe even disappoint people, but in a few years after we've had time to digest this movie, we'll realize that this might be the best Star Wars movie since Empire and maybe even better. People forget that The Empire Strikes back got mixed reviews when it came out because it had the nerve to challenge its audience, and The Last Jedi follows the same path. The Last Jedi challenges its audience and takes the story in a direction no one ever dreamed it would. This is a hard movie to digest, but I think this movie changed the Star Wars universe for the better.
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9/10
Very Good Movie, But Fails Long-Time Fans of Star Wars Mythology
Two things seemingly the opposite are true here. This is an entertaining, well directed, thoughtful and essentially very good movie. At the same time, there are many problems including with the story itself and particularly with things apparently unanswered, never addressed or just left out. I will not address the good about this movie nearly as much as the bad, but here goes:
The Good: I enjoyed the locations, action sequences and all aspects of how the film "looked" on screen - with the lone exception of the casino sub-plot. The casino scenes and the Rose-Finn escape were the only parts of the movie which made me cringe. It reminded me of Episode I. They could have been deleted, and since I understand about an hour's worth of footage was left out of this movie, I wonder why this portion was left in. I enjoyed the Porgs, particularly when they were inside the Falcon. Daisy Ridley was excellent, as was Adam Driver, although I'm not sure where Kylo goes from here. I thought the interactions with Rey and Ren were done very well, and the reveal about how that was done was very good.
The Bad: It's probably nit-picking but there's a lot of little issues with the story. However, the major issue, and I'm sure I am far from alone on this one, is Rian Johnson's depiction of Luke. I understand he wanted to humanize him, take him away from the myth, the legend, and make him multi-faceted and flawed. However, the Luke depicted in all of the other movies and canon books would never have considered killing his student/nephew. It just does not come within the realm of possible for his character. This aspect of Episode VIII's story alone was pretty close to ruining this movie for me, but I understand what Mr. Johnson was trying to do here. Killing Snoke so easily and unceremoniously before we really got to see him in action, hate/fear him, was a wasted opportunity. I sure hope they have a new, superior villain set up for Episode IX. Failing to explain Snoke's background, rise to power, etc., was also a significant and problematic oversight in my mind. By somewhat the same token, but to a far lesser degree, eliminating Phasma so easily and quickly was also surprising - but I have little problem with that. The slow motion "chase" which makes up the primary plot point of the movie is ridiculous and I find it very hard to believe there were no better options. I understand the device and what it creates but it's just plain stupid, for lack of a better word. Running out of fuel, really? That far in the future? I could be very wrong but I don't recall fuel being used or an issue in other movies. Also, how could the Resistance ships destroy the First Order ship with small fighters and bombers but yet the First Order, with seemingly limitless technological power and ships, could not muster any ships from anywhere else to take out the main Resistance ship? Why not go after it aggressively to make it use it's power/fuel more quickly, thereby ending the conflict quicker? Ludicrous in my opinion. The story depicts the First Order as comedic relief, a bunch of bumbling idiots, which doesn't make much sense either. Luke's ending was not surprising and actually anticipated by me, although I did think they'd wait til Episode IX to do it. Rey's background was handled dismissively but I understand this and expect it was merely Kylo's way of trying to turn her. I would not be surprised if her parentage is re-addressed in Episode IX. No light saber battle was a missed opportunity here. Knowing I will never get to see Luke in full Jedi glory is perhaps the biggest missed opportunity. I know things "will not go as you think" but just too many missed opportunities making me feel wanting is the main problem with this movie and Rian Johnson's script.
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8/10
Don't expect great, it's good, but Rogue One was great, not this.
So I had to to see this twice to fully appreciate anything about it.
When I first saw it on opening night in 3D (NOTE: don't bother with the 3D). I thought it was weak. Just like with The Force Awakens the hype is not lived up to. It's not great it's just good and I'm expecting it to be great. It starts off OK, but then the second act is too long and scattered. Your expecting Empire Strikes Back, because we know it's the second in the new trilogy. It tries to be episode five without trying to be episode five, and in the process, too many stories are developing at once (and it's too much). We need to concentrate on ex-storm trooper finn's buffoonery, as his attempts to run away like a coward from the first order leads him on a mission with a new character, Rose to a part of the Star Wars universe we don't see that much, the land of the rich and the powerful. While Poe and Leia Organa are having conflict on how to handle the first order when the rebels are out matched by a first order destroyer. Meanwhile we also have to focus on Rey trying to become a Jedi, by a Luke Skywalker who seems uninterested in the idea all together (Now I see what Mark Hamill is talking about how he did not like what they did to Luke, it was not the guy I was expecting at all). To top it off, how Kylo Ren is integrated into the Last Jedi part of the movie so much it makes it a story on it's own to have to concentrate on. Then the last part of the movie reminds me of Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King so much, that even though it's a great part of the movie , I could not wait till it was over.
The second time I saw it, I did like it...Slightly better. The Disney version of Star Wars is a little too humorous, and that humor was annoying the first time I saw it, but more amusing the second time. Yet still, the humor fells like it was inserted into the film (possibly to insure a two billion dollar net like VII by appealing to international fans). You could have easily taken a lot of it out and still made a good movie that was not as long. This was a problem for the movie. We know it's not the end, we know we have another movie that will technically end the Disney Trilogy. Yet whenever you felt that it was time for the credits to roll the film kept going. It was like it was trying to over compensate for the lackluster ending in the greatest film of the Star Wars franchise, by having dozens of them.
That's my long (unending) opinion. It's good, but it's not great. I don't want to see it a billion times , I'm happy to see it twice. I'm sure this will not stop anyone from going to see it, It's just a warning to keep your expectations down, and hope it will seem better than I'm making it out to be. So I'll just end this by saying, so far, Rogue One was the best of the Disney era star wars films.
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I am a fan of Star Wars. I am a fan of Cinema. I appreciate good storytelling, plot development and strong characterisation. I saw The Last Jedi on its release day (as I have with all Star Wars films since Return of the Jedi). With 24 hours to reflect on the experience and add a bit of perspective, I have to say overall I am disappointed. My review contains spoilers.
Parts of the film are well done - the opening space battle is great (apart from the out-of-place-in-this-universe 'on hold' conversation). Luke setting foot on the Falcon and glimpses of his X Wing underwater help to connect his character between the trilogies. But these are sidelined by some bizarre moments - Luke milking a space cow!?! Leia flying in outer-space... OK, I can get past that but as the film moved on , too much humour and poor character choices let down what could have been a great film.
With The Force Awakens, new characters are introduced with enough story to be built on and explained in this film, but this is wasted - who are Rey's parents? doesn't matter now, no-one significant. Who is Snoke?, is he Sith?, connection to the Empire/Palpatine? There's no exposition and he's taken out too easily for someone seemingly so powerful. The subsequent fight with the Red Guards is good and the scene plays well. But I was a little confused as to why they all had different weapons - force chain, force swords, force bat'leth or whatever. In Ep3 the Magna Guards shared the same weapons, likewise in Ep6 with the Emperors Guards. I understand the need to move stories on, but sometimes consistencies can also work.
With the Original Trilogy and the Prequels there was an overarching 3 act story, and like them or not, the Prequels do work in terms of story development and character. In EP3, the theatre scene with Palpatine/Anakin is one of the best in the series and the sequence with Anakin's transition into Vader after Mace Windu is dispatched is also very good. With the sequel trilogy, I feel Disney should have asked a writer to outline an overall 3 act story and hire directors to fill in the gaps with their own creativity and ideas, but staying true to an original and consistent vision. But it looks like this wasn't to be and I am left underwhelmed by a disjointed cinematic experience.
Finally, the most disappointing element was the handling of Luke's character. (Mark Hamill's performance was excellent by the way). I'm struggling to rationalise how the kid from a New Hope who berates Han Solo before the final battle for turning his back on the Rebellion, or the Jedi Knight who goes to destroy the Emperor and save Vader in an act of selflessness in Return of the Jedi could become the character in this film. I don't get it, and I don't want to get it.
I think 5/10 is a fair score. The 2 and 3 ratings are a bit harsh, but I can understand some of the sentiment. (For reference I'd score EP3 7/10 and EP5 10/10)
I've seen all the other Star Wars films multiple times, but will only watch this once. For me, Luke's character arc now ends at Episode 6, the real Last Jedi
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It's incredibly difficult to write a regular review for a film like this without spoiling anything. So I'm going to come right out and say that this will be a SPOILER heavy review. Last warning.
So there's a lot to unpack with The Last Jedi. Unlike The Force Awakens, I had slightly different feelings on The Last Jedi upon second viewing. This is far from the rapidly paced and fun feel of The Force Awakens a few years ago. Which, on one hand, is an exciting new territory for this universe to explore. Rian Johnson certainly makes some homages to the films that came before, but this definitely takes the direction of the series into a bold new direction. And there are some seriously bold things Johnson does in this movie. However, on the other-hand, I loved the tone and feel of TFA in 2015 so much that I was taken aback with The Last Jedi's choices after my first watch.
But let's get right into a more detailed conversation. The film picks up with a pretty thrilling space battle as The First Order is closing in on taking down the last bits of The Resistance/Republic. This is where we find Poe Dameron, who notably didn't get a lot of screen time in The Force Awakens, gets plenty of time to shine here. He becomes the source for where we get a lot of the political/strategic/military decisions with him, Leia, and newbie Vice Admiral Holdo. Out of the few new faces we see in The Last Jedi, I thought Laura Dern's performance as Holdo was probably the one I appreciated the most. Ultimately, these scenes could have been better character builders for Poe and Leia, but alas Leia was sidelined for a good portion of the movie after nearly dying. Being that Carrie Fisher suddenly passed away last year, I would have liked to have seen more of her in this go around. Though I will say the moment she gets to use the force and bring herself back into the ship was a nice scene that I never thought I would get.
Meanwhile, Finn and other new character, Rose, are on a mission of their own to find a codebreaker to sneak them onto Snoke's ship and disable the trackers for the Rebel's ships (or some sort of technical thing). The point being that this whole side arc is easily the weakest aspect of the film by far. Finn, who was such a fresh presence in TFA and played so nicely alongside Rey, has nice chemistry with Rose, but these scenes are ultimately pointless. You can cut this entire sequence out of the film and still have the essentials amidst a quicker and more fluid film-going experience. The only reason to even keep them in the film is to set up the broom-boy at the end who can apparently use the force, which in itself was a hugely problematic reveal at the end of the film. I'm telling you, these scenes nearly killed the film at that particular point in the runtime. Luckily, we had absolutely incredible moments that followed.
While all of that was going on, Rey tried her best to lure Luke Skywalker back into the fight against the dark side as he spends his last days on a lonely Island with Porgs. Everything with Rey, Luke, and/or Kylo Ren in this film was pure gold. I love seeing Luke be amazed over Rey's raw power and Rey desperately try to persuade Luke into returning. Their training sequences and moments of intimate dialogue rest as some of the best the series has ever bolstered. Mix that in with a brilliantly timed callback to the "help me Obi-Wan Kenobi" scene, and a surprisingly effective cameo from the Jedi Master Yoda, made for some all-time great Star Wars singular scenes.
Going along with that was the expansion of the Jedi and force mythos. For the most part, I loved the way this film expanded that lore, whether that be with Rey and Kylo using the force to communicate with each other or even Luke using the force to fake teleport. It was all fantastic and deepened the mythology for J.J. Abrams to further explore in Episode IX. Daisy Ridley is magnetic as Rey, who turns out to be child of no one particular of note (which I liked). And Adam Driver, who I had mixed feelings about in TFA, I thought portrayed an emotionally damaged villain very well. There's still those moments of occasional unnecessary yelling with him, but I feel much better about him now than I did a few years back.
Which brings me to the insanely bold choices from Johnson/Lucasfilm of killing off both Snoke and Luke in this film. The scene in which Rey and Kyle team up to take down Snoke is Star Wars twists at its best. The slow motion shot of the two of them back to back fighting off Snoke goons was terrific. Only to be complemented by another twist with Kylo staying on the dark side and recruiting Rey. Absolutely loved that entire sequence. Luke's death was an interesting one because I still feel like there's a missed opportunity by never having a scene with him and Snoke together, or really just giving anything else in terms of Snoke's backstory, but it's hard to think of a more emotionally satisfying end to the legend of Luke Skywalker.
I'm a bit torn on the humor, sometimes it really works sometimes it really doesn't. The middle act trudges along because of an out of place social message sequence which doesn't add anything to the film overall. And there's about 10 times this film could have ended. Those are my 3 gripes and it's difficult to even put into a number what those weaknesses mean for the score I'm going to give it. But The Last Jedi is a bold film and likely one that will continue to grow on me upon viewing 3, 4, etc. It will be very interesting to see where Episode IV take us, but these are my initial thoughts.
9.0/10
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By breaking the formula, the movie constantly leads viewers on only to surprise them last minute. Made for a very unpredictable movie and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole.
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10/10
"Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."
I seem to be one of the few Star Wars geeks, who enjoyed this totally new approach to the Star Wars saga. I found the movie excellent, the characters a lot more human and interesting than in the previous Star Wars films.
The movie has so many layers to it... it is very different from all SW movies so far, a lot less pathos less myth, and it is being honest about it, does not try to cover itself behind the "delusion of grandeur". It starts with showing how weak heroes can be, and they make bad choices, but when they do the right thing they will become legend through their sacrifice. Then there is the concept that sometimes people do things totally useless due to misunderstanding, then there is disagreement and disobedience in the rebellion leadership (the strange thing is that there was none in the original trilogy). Heroes and villains are not perfect and all mighty, the force is not just black and white and I could continue. The burning of the Jedi scriptures and the tree, done by Yoda himself is the climax of this statement. You need to learn to let go.
I understand that this is hurtful to a lot of fans as the original trilogy and the prequels have been a lot more clear, easy to understand, but the world have changed we have grown up, and new generations grow up in a different world, where there is no space for immaculate hero's and princesses anymore, but there is a huge need for hero's and myth nevertheless.
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Yesterday with our IMAX tickets booked two months ago, we walked into a pleasant surprise. The last jedi is bold and new, pinning a thorough transaction into the generation Z, on the characters, the cast, and the audience.
I felt sorry for fossil minds that can't appreciate the young. Yoda perfectly captions on the way of nature, that each generation had its time. Come on, Lucas is old, he can't keep up with the episode I-III. It's time for a new generation.
Only then, I can see the legacy prosper over a hundred years, the message went strong and ever deep. I think it's one of the best star wards movies ever made, and an important one.
SPOLIERS ALERT
In one sentence, the movie is the formal transition form Luke/Leia/Darth generation of characters into Rey/Kylo generation. It's also part of a transition from Lucas-generation of artists into new. The evolution heads towards more free-style expression, more fun, without much deviation from the velocity from the 1977 first installment.
I'll list a few of my favorite scenes:
1. Haha, I like the cute birds. The interaction between them and Chewy is great. The other creatures including the crystal cats are nonetheless beautiful.
2. The moment Kylo and Rey touched hand is glorious. I think it's the first time in Star Wars history I saw some formal taoic integration between the force and the dark side. You can say it's the interaction between the good in Kylo and Rey, but I see it otherwise. Throughout the movie the force and the dark side begs for unity. The two emphasizes less on ideology but pay more attention to down-to-earth humane conflicts. For me, that's harder to pull out and is closer to the truth.
3. The moment Rey lifted rocks with Luke's narration. That's the formal transition I was talking about, it speaks to the characters but also to the team and the audience. I love the moment, a summarization of the movie and a pivot point in the saga. We know that from the point onward the story won't be about Luke or Leia anymore, it'll be about Kylo and Rey.
4. 3 is further tinted and augmented with the beautiful ending scene of nameless children looking forward to the future and liberation.
5. Luke's fading. The whole sequence, from the surprise of telepresence to the ending in the signature double suns, was beautifully choreographed. A detailed sense of liberation and transcendence is conveyed. Master Luke, submerged in unspeakable force, went to meet Master Yoda. After the scene, I feel light-hearted and blessed.
6. The scene when the cruiser crushing light speed into the flagship was spectacular. I think that's the grandest scene I saw in Sci-fi.
I do find a few things in the movie not satisfying:
1. The scene where Kylo killed Snoke is quite rushed. Snoke appeared unreasonably brittle and Kylo's struggle and thought process was mostly not manifested. That scene, if done well, can be fantastic, but it was not.
2. Vice Admiral Holdo's transition was also rather uneventful. I wish that scene was done better, it has the potential to be really powerful.
3. In general, Kylo is pretty 2d. One moment he has some depth was when he conflicted about whether to shoot Leia's bridge and ended up not to. The latter scene of ordering all guns to shoot Luke was rather shallow.
I think a lot of the criticism are essentially about Kylo and Rey's lack of depth. I do agree with such opinion but we have to taken into account that people are being deprived of depth and privacy in the 21st century. The world is becoming flatter and so are we. This new episode just in some way reflect that.
This is an evolution of culture and it might take some get-used-to. Same way if Shakespeare ever watched the 1977 first episode he probably would also find it crude. Such evolution is at most disruption instead of destruction, and it comes with its own revelation.
In summary, I'm happy with the Last Jedi and felt encourage for the future episode. I can already picture in my head when 40 years later the by-then old Kylo and Rey would hand the torch to the next generation, I might also felt grumpy and offended. But hey that's the way of life. And only by telescoping through time we can have the force be strong with us.
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I loved the movie. One of the most daring of the Saga. Instead of opting for SAME OLD BALL RECIPE OF THE SEVEN MOVIES, they have created something new and totally welcome for the series.
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10/10
Long, with some pacing and character issues, but wow
First of all, I don't understand why people are rating this 1/10? From my understanding a 1/10 movie would be the worst movie anyone has ever seen, including the acting, cinematography, writing, special effects, etc., and not enjoyable in any way. Which this movie is far from being.
Review:
CONS: I believe this Star Wars was a much needed improvement from the Force Awakens (which was enjoyable, but too safe in my opinion). Although, I believe the movie could've been shortened by fixing some pacing issues - especially the first encounter we have with Luke and Rey on the island - I never felt as if I were sitting through a 2 1/2 hour plus movie. I was entertained the entire time. Now this is not to say that there weren't some parts that had me thinking, "what is the point of this?" because there definitely were. The entire subplot with Finn and Rose seemed forced and like it was added just so Finn had some point, but ultimately it was almost useless and, in my opinion, did not have to be in the film. This also applies to Captain Phasma, whom was hyped up a lot and received almost no screen time before being killed off in a ridiculous manner. There were also some questionable script choices that felt forced and awkward.
PROS: Despite these flaws, The Last Jedi was able to keep me on my toes and changed things up from the typical Star Wars formula so that I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. I have seen a lot of people complaining about the part where Leia gets sucked out of the ship and uses the force, but I think that was an exceptionally powerful scene that improved upon the fact that Leia is a beacon of hope to the Resistance. Another aspect that I was incredibly happy with was how Rian decided to expand upon the Force, rather than just having it be something that moves rocks and produces lightning like the other films. The Force has always been very intriguing to me and I liked that it was finally expanded on in a main series film rather than just a cartoon series or book. Kylo and Rey's character arcs were extremely well done and, again, Rian managed to stray away from the safe, typical Star Wars by deciding that Rey was not going to be part of an old lineage we had seen before. Although I can see why it would anger some about Luke's change of character, I think the director did a great job of showing his struggle through the movie and eventual redemption. Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill gave great performances and I was satisfied with most of the other characters' performances as well.
Overall, despite the movie's flaws, this movie was entertaining and the things it did well were done very well and the things that were bad didn't keep the movie from being entertaining or original. That is why I rate the movie a 8.5/10 (I'm putting a 10/10 on IMDB to balance out all of the 1 star ratings).
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Giving this film 10 stars due to the fact that the film was GREAT AND there are multiple people giving one star reviews.
First thing to note about this movie, if you had a theory about what was going to happen, you were most likely wrong... accept that. There are many reviews complaining about the writing of this film, which is ill placed. Granted, there are a few plot hole points that are fair to point about, but to say this movie is terrible because you don't agree with the plot/direction of the film is just not tasteful.
Something to note about the Star Wars films is that they either mirror or copy the same structure of the previous movies. The Force Awakens copied the structure from Episode IV, and the prerequisites were meant to mirror (which means reverse) the original trilogy. The Last Jedi is no exception... it is LITERALLY The Empire Strikes back, just reversed. If you do not agree, think about the progression of the story.
For the reviews complaining about the First Order chasing/following the Resistance is this movie and that being "the entire story", think about The Empire Strikes Back and for how long we were watching the Falcon get chased.
Overall, The Last Jedi is unpredictable, fun, and a wild ride which will question what you know about Star Wars. Disney and Rian Johnson have turned this Star Wars franchise into a new and exciting adventure that delivers a well shot film and story, AND sets you up for the next chapter is this epic space saga--and maybe even the new trilogy to come...
May the Force be with you, always...
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Pam Pam Pam.....
Another year, another star wars movie, another review....yea yea, let's get going. Ever since Disney bought LucasArts fans have been complaining that the new movies are disappointing, that they are a treason to the old ones. From my point of view, the whole SW universe expanded and opened the door to a whole lot of new possibilities. Is Disney really ruining the series? I don't think so. The new cast is great, the plot is not brilliant but it keeps the saga promising, clearly the special effects upgraded since the new trilogy and they are even making spin-offs (can't wait to see the Solo movie).
Is it better than Episode VII?
In my opinion, it is and it is not. What? (Spoilers ahead)
Well, let's start with the porgs. They are soo cute and fluffy and cute and....they don't have a big role but they are entertaining every time we see them. The scene were Chewie tries to eat one of them is hilarious. This episode brings a lot of suspense, same as the previous one. It is thrilling and intriguing at all times. It has so many Easter Eggs from the old series that fans will love it. Not so much lightsaber battles, but a lot of explosions and x-wing fights and old people being badass. We were introduced to a lot of new creatures: of course the porgs, the caretakers (the island natives who had to clean after Rey), the Space Horses and the Crystal Foxes. They were spectacular, each one in their own way. This new episode is bad at being bad. You can't hate it only because it was under the care of Disney.
The cast does a tremendous job. They are so into their characters and that is what makes the movie a lot better. They made the scenes so intense that I always forgot to chew the popcorn in my mouth. The visuals were astounding and made me realise (again) what CGI is capable of. Rey's relation with Ben is very deep. They know that there is a strong force that attracts them. We can see at the final scene where the last rebels climb the board of Falcon that they are connected again even if Snoke is dead. Maybe Rey can change Ben, but then who will be the villain? Maybe the nun creatures.
Poe, Leia, Finn, C-3PO, BB-8, the new Rose etc. fight for the survival of the Rebellion till the very end. Luke awakes from his pessimistic thoughts and remembers what the Jedi represent (obviously with a little help from the little green master, Yoda). We learn from Rose there is still hope if you protect the ones you love. The saga continues with hope.
The film left us with some unanswered questions such as : Are Rey's parents really nobodies? Who is Snoke really?
and other ones but I think we have to wait for the answers in the next episodes. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a must-see even if you are not a big fan. Not only it reminds us of the old series, but it brings new things that exceed the universe created by George Lucas at that time.
9/10.
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It followed along some of the plot drivers as the original series, which works with the new worlds, new characters and better special effects. I agree that the Finn plot line didn't really add much (and got a bunch of people killed), but it was entertaining.
As far as the Jedi stuff, the Force always wins, and Luke is right to point out the senselessness of trying to control it. Reys background is given, which helps explains Darth Vaders origin as well. One thing I thought when I was watching that fight on the salt planet, evidently the battle of Hoth wasn't well documented, because guys in trenches dont really work (there are a few things like this). But it was fun, entertaining, and had some unexpected twists and turns in it.
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8/10
Enjoy the adventure with your families as it is intended
I have read a plethora of "fans" reviews for this film prior to writing this. I am sure that the majority were children when the original trilogy was shown in cinemas back in the late 70's and early 80's. These films were originally conceived by George Lucas to be a modern / up to date answer to the Saturday morning adventure serials screened for children at cinemas in the 1930's. The point being they were made for children, his films a loving tribute made by him and updated for the next generation of children to enjoy. I am sure that all fans agree that what he achieved was a phenomenal success and there mere fact that films are still being produced today over 40 year later stands testament to this. Unfortunately I find, unlike George Lucas, these fans are unwilling to pass this experience (a child friendly movie) on to the next generation of children (their families) and choose to overanalyse and criticise every plot turn and character arc. I believe a conscientious effort has been made by Rian Johnson to placate fans whilst essentially keeping true to the films original intention which was light hearted, escapist adventure for children. Sure there is peril in the original trilogy which gives weight to the hero's undertaking but above all else it is a family oriented adventure story, suitable for children to watch unsupervised.
As times change we are faced with a different world than we lived in, in the late 20th century. With themes like sexual equality, terrorism and oppression being represented in a format that can be conveyed to a young audience in an escapist setting without scarring them I think Rian Johnson has done an admiral job of inspiring future sci fi / movie fans. I hope fans that were children when the original films were delivered can reappraise in time what I see as a legacy franchise that is still giving to their children top quality entertainment that we enjoyed when we were their age. After all, all episodes start with the introduction "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ...." a take on all good bedtime stories.
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The movie smacks of political correctness and inclusiveness buzzwords of contemporary American society racial and cultural identities. The introduction of the short chubby Asian female and the African-American actor who plays the ex-storm trooper as sub-plots further heightens the notion of an ongoing theme to incorporate aspects of American society into the Star Wars trilogy films. I might please American audiences but overseas might not have the same appeal. But an otherwise all-Caucasian characters would be really controversial in the current social climate. Also noteworthy are the British accents of some of the especially Imperial characters. The Star Wars film characters and plots were always inspired by and adapted from previous elements of American society right from the original Episode IV. Location shooting introduces nothing new from the last film Luke is still away on his little island home although the introduction of maintenance worker creatures and the little bird-like big eye animals is questionable to the story development. Those old enough to remember the entire series since 1977 will be reminded of their age especially when looking at General Leia and Luke in their very apparent older years. Given that Carrie Fisher actress has now died we would expect her to be killed off in this sequel but apparently not so. As always, great space battle special effects and well choreographed fight scenes does not disappoint. The ending of the movie is a little bit puzzling showing some seemingly unconnected children who presumably will somehow play into the next sequel possibly to become the new generation of Jedi warriors.
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Let me make something clear: I hated the Force Awakens. I thought it was massively unoriginal and played too much off of nostalgia. Leaving The Last Jedi, I found myself ecstatic. No, it was not perfect. Some lines of dialogue were cringe worthy. But this movie went in unexpected directions and I find it to be an excellent movie.
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8/10
The First Order Strikes Back, but not in the way you may expect
Over the years I have written several reviews, and adapted almost each of them one or two times over the years, because I find that how I experience a movie can change from year to year, and even from day to day. I am quite envious of people who can grasp a movie in one sitting, because that is something that rarely happens with me. Having seen The Last Jedi on its opening day, I am pretty certain that I am going to revisit it a few times, and that my opinion (and that of many other fans) will probably change over the years.
I always prefer to write my reviews without spoilers, but I soon found out that this is impossible if I want to make a proper appraisal. I'll admit, I am in two minds about this movie, and the fans also seem divided, judging by some harsh reviews. But I also acknowledge that there is more than meets the eye here, and that I (we) may not be able to fully grasp TLJ until this sequel trilogy is completed in another 2 years.
Let me start out with the biggest compliments that I can give: TLJ is really the Empire Strikes Back of the third trilogy. It is bold, it is dark; it takes risks and dares to venture into dark terrain. This may be the least crowd-pleasing blockbuster since a long time, perhaps even for years to come. There is spectacle and substance, and although there are plenty of visual and narrative nods to the original trilogy, it is mostly referencing instead of rehashing. There is a sense of familiarity, but it is nowhere near the (highly entertaining) nostalgia recycling machine that was The Force Awakens, where Han's death was the only big gamble.
TLJ opens with an epic space battle that is both funny and dramatic, and gives Poe Dameron and BB-8, two of our fine new heroes in the saga, ample time to shine and add some levity to a movie that becomes less cheerful over time. Like in Empire Strikes Back, we the find our heroes being chased by evil, and divided into two camps: one is trying to learn the ways of the Force from an old master, whereas the rest (not surprisingly, a quite racially diverse group) are desperately trying to stay out of baddies' hands, and some make a side-tour while they're at it. It's a set-up familiar from ESB and it works, as it takes some pleasant turns to the left where ESB went to the right. We learn that Luke is far from the brave Jedi who we remember; he has become desillusioned as he himself may have been partially to blame for the Dark Side's return. His redemption arc with him taking responsibility and accepting his place in the Force in the touching finale is easily one of the best elements in the film, not to mention his funny yet melancholic encounter with Yoda (although reusing that old puppet really felt unnecessarily retro amidst all those CGI porgs).
Some story elements are less easily defined. Finn's subplot where he and his new sidekick end up in a place where the real victims of the conflict can be found initially felt like a cheap jab at the weapons industry, which only strays from the main plot. However, the finale suggests that this subplot is much more important than we thought, and will play out in the next film. A lot in this movie feels like set-up for the main course, rather than plot evolution in its own right.
There are more elements in the film of which the merit is somewhat ambiguous to me. Director Rian Johnson (Looper, Breaking Bad) is no stranger to down-beat plot developments, and the scene where the Resistance transports are butchered one by one was one of the most agonizing scenes in the entire saga. Johnson also dares to present unexpected outcomes that we may not like, such as that Kylo Ren may be beyond redemption, the truth about Rey's parentage, and that all old wisdom about the Force is futile in the end. You could call it nihilistic and say that in the end, most of what happened in the film and what has been discovered was all for nothing. As much as I criticized TFA for playing things safe, I have to admit it was all good fun and with instant satisfaction, whereas we derive very little of that from this movie. But perhaps it is all part of a larger theme, that despite our best efforts, failure is sometimes inevitable (and can be the best teacher, as Yoda says), and that maybe the past must die in favor of the future. In that respect, in its uncompromising brutality, the only recent fantasy movie that comes close is Wolverine's Logan.
And with every risk, there is always the question of whether it pays off. And to be frank, some simply don't. The most glaring example would be Supreme Leader Snoke, who was once introduced as this mysterious, incredibly powerful force, feared by the First Order and Resistance alike; a man whose backstory would be of great importance. Alas, Johnson simply sacrifices Snoke (whose Force powers should have seen this coming BTW) in order to make Ben Solo seem less whimpy. You can hate the prequels (I like them) but Anakin and the Emperor got plenty of exposition, so that we can finally understand who they are and where they came from. Maz Kenata would have been a great source of some necessary exposition, but she is criminally underused in a whimsical cameo that fails to be funny. And Captain Phasma, one of the coolest things introduced in the previous movie, should have made Finn even more miserable this time, so that he could get his revenge and a worthy battle in the final installment. But instead, all we get is a lame death after a fight that barely lasts 5 minutes. It's as if Johnson did not know what to do with the legacy of J.J. Abrams, and simply chose to toss these figures aside for cheap shock value.
There are more things that simply don't work. There is nothing wrong with a running time of 150 minutes, but one hour of Luke moping around being uncooperative gets boring at one point. Silly humor and annoying creatures don't really help make it more bearable, so some tighter editing here and there would have been welcome. The final battle really doesn't amount to anything more than a Hoth-throwback where Finn can learn a cheesy lesson about saving things we love. Also, it seems as if someone organized an overacting contest, and Domnhall Gleeson was the only one to receive the memo. But at least his character gets something substantial to do, which we can't say of Benicio del Toro and Laura Dern, who are introduced as potentially interesting but ultimately served off as mere plot devices.
But despite everything, I still love TLJ for its strong points, and perhaps for how it will hold up in the future. I remember not really liking ESB either, until I saw Return of the Jedi. Maybe TLJ is also a movie we cannot fully appreciate until after the fact, when we may retroactively appreciate it as a dark but essential link that tied the new trilogy together.
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First of all I am deeply saddened to read all this negativity towards this movie. Although I understand, that Star Wars means different things to different people. I think if I ask the question "What Star Wars means to you?" I would get lots and lots of different answers. That is the very reason why it is so hard to please the fans, because they are not the same. Saying that I have to say The Last Jedi is one of my favorite SW movies ever made. I went to see it twice in 24 hours. When reviewing this film you should not forget the best Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back was not all loved in its time. From now on I will include SPOLIERS.
Reasons I liked the movie:
we learned so much more about the Force, the new ways were fantastically introduced
in this movie noone is black and white, we can see the dark side of nearly everybody, really liked the power-struggle in the Resistance
this is the first time every major character is portrayed amazingly by the actors/actresses
the movie looked fantastic and the score was overwhelmingly excellent
Snoke: I was happy he was killed off, it gave chance for Kylo Ren to be the real villain and Snoke was an unnecessary Emperor like character, I am not at all troubled about his past after all we did not know anything about the Emperor in the OT.
Rey's parentage and the little boy: I loved that she is a nobody, Force-sensitive individuals can come from any background. Liked the boy I hope he is the future of the Rebellion/Resistance.
Poe: his arc to become the leader for the new generations was good and exciting also well acted by Oscar Isaac and Laura Dern.
Finn and Rose: they were the everyman and woman, the Canto Bight scenes were visually stunning and the moral lessons about the war were a nice touch in todays world.
Luke and Hamill were one of the best things. Like how he changed in these 30 years. He is still Luke but matured and crippled by his failiure. Yoda was OT Yoda amazing scene.
The only negative I could point out is Leia. I always wanted her to use the Force, but it was so sudden. All in all I can forgive that, and it was great for Carrie.
In conclusion it was a fantastic movie. Lot to explain in Episode IX., but that's how it should be. The character development was on point. Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill were perfect this time around. We learned so much more about the Force and it was compelling. I think this film will be this trilogy's Empire. In time we will appreciate how it ushered in the new and gave SW a new and interesting place to go. Although, how we'll see this movie in 40 years time only time will tell. May the Force be with you all.
Enjoy this masterpiece. Thank you Rian Johnson.
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The Last Jedi did not have to do much to be an improvement over "the force awakens" - it pretty much accomplished that goal when someone other than JJ Abrams wrote the script.
But still, the improvement is great, and in no small part this is due to the film's not-so-subtle criticism over its predecessor: For example, early on, Kylo Ren is chastised for being just a silly guy in a mask who got beaten by a girl who had never used a lightsaber, addressing (at least in part) one of the many ridiculous points of tFA. Then the film pokes fun at tFA's last scene (and some other plot points). But more importantly, it has 2-3 major twists that seem to be direct refutations of what Abrams wanted to do with the story - I mean, perhaps these were planned all along, but I somehow doubt that master-copycat JarJar Abrams intended to have Snoke die so quickly, easily and ingloriously. I doubt he intended for Ray to really be a nobody from nowhere. The latter is a really good choice, the former can be criticised to a degree (we learn next to nothing about who this extremely powerful Sith is, where he came from, etc), but it is a bold decision: it says enough with the master-apprentice Sith duos, we have seen more than our fair share of those. It is suprising, it is interesting, it is a bold step, and I can't help but applaud it.
Now, it doesn't fix everything - we still have no idea how the hell the galaxy went from the reinstatement of the Republic to "oh, yeah, this First Order thing demolished the Republic, we are doing the Resistance thing again", but well, that may have been impossible to correct. But it does provide a somewhat better context to Luke's isolation. Where tFA said "he left because his nephew is a bad guy", here at least we get some more insight regarding not only this story, but Luke's disillusionment with the whole Jedi affair.
And you know, the story is actually good. Not in any ground-breaking way, but it is refreshing how characters learn that space-operatic swashbucklery doesn't always save the day. It's nice that secondary characters prove cleverer and more heroic than some of the main ones. It's surprising how funny the film is at times (not "oh look that funny alien" or "haha, C3PO is a coward" funny, actual jokes), with Mark Hamill doing a great job.
Really, all in all, the Last Jedi is a great, great Star Wars film. Not perfect, I mean, there is no real lightsaber fight, duh, but very good. There is only that one thing at the end that is disappointing. Luke Skywalker demonstrates how he could never be beaten by Kylo Ren, who is still too weak a villain for such a feat. And then he...vanishes in Obi-Wan fashion, becoming one with the Force. But did he have to? No. The scene is done superbly, the photography, the symbolism, the references are all perfect so it seems a fitting end to the hero. But the question is, did the story need him removed? Absolutely not. The sad realisation is that it was a choice not to fit the story, but to accommodate the new characters, who could not compete with this larger than life legend. Well executed, but poorly reasoned.
PS: It was nice to see Yoda again
PS2: Kylo Ren is yet not a convincing villain (he seems a bit of a pushover) but Adam Driver does a good job with him
PS3: there is (again) an overuse of cute critters (which always stop running to face the camera and exhibit their cuteness). They are likeable, but could be slightly reduced.
PS4: Saddest thing of all, JarJar Abrams will return to write, direct, and in all likelihood, utterly ruin Episode IX.
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This isn't that unique of a stance here, but overall, I TLJ was a great movie with a few moments of absolutely unnecessary garbage. The pacing was thrown off by entire plot lines that, had they not been in the movie, wouldn't have changed the outcome of the main story at all.
I highly recommend seeing this in theaters (you probably would have regardless of this short review), but know going in that the movie lasts about 20 minutes longer than is actually necessary, and the ending felt reminiscent of Return of the King in that it could (and should) have ended about twice before the end credits rolled.
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Was this better than Empire? No it was not and that is fine. Did it have a lot of similarities to Empire? Yes it did and again that was fine. Fine in the sense that it borrows elements and turns a lot of things upside down. Were there disappointments? Absolutely.
If you read through the review here, you see a lot of people complaining that it boils down to a bad guy, good guy chase through space. I get it, not that thrilling when you label it as such. But what was the main point of Empire? Rebels get located, they have to run and regroup with the fleet and a lot of stuff happens along the way. So this is similar to Empire yet it does things differently, so why is everyone complaining so much about it? Is it due to there being a lack of originality? Maybe, but I would challenge that because there are a lot of stories here that take the familiar and make it less so.
What was most disappointing to me was Luke's story and I now understand why he even didn't like it at first. I don't like seeing my child hood hero being beaten down and then slowly finding his purpose all over again. I get that these new movies are not supposed to be about them but this was such a big let down. I wanted to see Luke in action, not a projection of himself. Now does the possibility of a Force Ghost Luke excite me? Yes indeed. But I wish his story arch up to now would have been handled differently.
Moving to the last part (at least for me) is all of this talk about Snoke. It was the fans that set the expectations so high for Snoke and put him on this big pedestal. Would it be great to get this story fleshed out? Absolutely, and for better or worse you better believe Disney will do that in a book or something. His death and the manner in which he died would have had more impact had we cared more about the character, instead he ends up being a plot piece to forward the story of Kylo and Rey - but is that bad? The story after all is about Kylo, Rey, Finn and Poe.
Is the The Last Jedi as bad as the reviews here are making it out to be? Not at all. Could it have been so much more? Without a doubt, but so can so many other good things. There are more than a handful of moments in this movie that are great, most of it is good and some of it was a let down.
All in all, I laughed, I clapped, I teared up and I smiled and nodded my head. Don't let the negative reviews deter you from seeing this movie. Go see it and make your mind up for yourself.
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First, know that I am a gigantic Star Wars fan but I had no plans to see this movie at the theater. I just knew my heart could not handle another disappointment, and it has been decades of disappointment for me, from the prequels to Episode VII and Rogue One. However, my 11 year old son begged me to take him on opening night. I couldn't be happier that he did.
Unlike VII, it does a nice job of developing interesting characters. Whereas Poe was a paper thin fighter pilot, now he's a fledgling leader driven to success despite (or because) of his personality flaws. I disliked Kylo and Rey in VII, but here an interesting relationship is developed between them that I found realistic and compelling. Luke's back story had me emotionally engaged throughout the movie.
I would have given this movie a higher score if it weren't for it's many flaws. I thought Flynn's storyline was poorly done and I still don't find him to be an interesting or necessary character. I would have liked to have seen them do more with him than just chasing McGuffins. There's a few small plot holes, too, but I'm willing to forgive them because I enjoyed the movie so much.
All things considered, I must admit that I haven't been this excited after watching a movie in a long, long time, and the fact that it's a Star Wars movie couldn't make me happier. It's a shame that Disney has brought Jar Jar Abrams back to do IX, but oh well, at least we got one good episode out of them before they screw things up again.
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I thought it was great. After the travesty that was the prequel trilogy, everyone clamoured for " more Star Wars " and that was exactly what Abrams gave us, down to a virtually cloned episode 4, but that was what was being called for. Thankfully, this was not another Empire, much as I like that movie. This was well thought out and well executed, with an ensemble cast who, for the most part, can actually act out good dialogue. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and this , together with rogue one, is making the prequel trilogy a distant memory, thank goodness !! People can say what they like about Disney, but they DO know how to employ people who can actually write a coherent script.
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Ok, so there is some issues with this movie, I'm not going to lie. But seriously, what movie doesn't have issues? With that being said...
This is a fairly well entry into the Star Wars canon. It has the humor and action that a Star Wars movie deserves to have and has emotion that is usually missing in these movies. Yes, there are opportunities missed and one in-particular scene I have a major issue with, but I'm not going to give it a horrible rating because of it. It does also have some awesome jaw-dropping imagery.
This is where some major spoilers come into play, so please, STOP READING if you do not want it to be ruined.
Still here? OK, After one of the most awesome reveals in Star Wars cinema, Luke looks off to the two suns of the Jedi planet as he did long ago on his foster home planet at the beginning of A New Hope and fades away. As in dies. Which I have no problem with his death, but how do you follow up such a tremendous scene with another like that? Should have let the great scene feed the ending and let Luke pass in the final movie of the trilogy to finish the trilogy. I feel he will be a Force Ghost, so he will be in it, but it just killed the momentum, and, in doing so, it reflects in the current run of bad ratings on this page. It may be honest ratings, but I believe it is knee jerk reactions to the gut shot people feel with the ending.
It also has a superb twist with Kylo Ren, who is much better in this movie than the last.
Rey is just good and so is Poe with his humor and tough love lessons he learns in this film.
Finn has a side quest that seems forced, but it is just a chance to show some eye candy with scene imagery. Still, A well made film that has some issues with the plot.
Truly, it has an ending you have to come to terms with, and like life, with time something like that can work out for the better in the end.
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8/10
Luke didn't know what to say after watching this movie!
Impressive,most impressive.After 37 years(The Empire Strikes Back) Star Wars is back.Star Wars:The Last Jedi is a nearly perfect film full of jaw-dropping action scenes,stunning visuals and huge twists and turns.
The film is awesomely directed by Rian Johnson,who achieves to depict his own vision of this beloved universe.The action scenes never miss a bit due to his directing.The film's plot is really effective. lot of things happen that even the hugest Star Wars fan couldn't think of.This movie expands the Star Wars universe and adds new ideas to it in an original, fascinating way.The risky direction that the film takes make it a pure delight.
The performances were really good.Mark Hamill was better than ever,Adam Driver was excellent and generally the whole cast did a great job.The relasinonship between Ray and Kylo is well-developed and although some people
found Fin's and Rose's adventure boring or insignificant,but I found it fine.
The third act of the film one of the best moments in Star Wars history.Character's collide,the screen bursts with breath-taking scenes and a lot of questions are answered.
The only flaw was the humor.Despite the fact that I laughed a lot,I have to admit that a lot of the jokes were presented in a way that looked like the film was making fun of itself.But this,in my opinion,is a flaw of minimum importance.
All in all, Star Wars :The Last Jedi is amazing.It's a film to remember.A film which proves that Star Wars is and will always be a part of our history.But,even if it was bad or a failure,It wouldn't worry me at all.Because,as an old master once said:"Failure the greatest lesson is".
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A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias, literally "milky", a reference to the Milky Way. Galaxies range in size from dwarfs with just a few hundred million stars to giants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass.
Galaxies are categorized according to their visual morphology as elliptical, spiral, or irregular. Many galaxies are thought to have black holes at their active centers. The Milky Way's central black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, has a mass four million times greater than the Sun. As of March 2016, GN-z11 is the oldest and most distant observed galaxy with a comoving distance of 32 billion light-years from Earth, and observed as it existed just 400 million years after the Big Bang.....
This instalement is a bridge between the 7th and the 9th, so I think it's pretty well done. Questions and answers. SW Plot. It's all there.
Lucas woul'd have done it better, but I think the story is his and not so much Disney's.
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8/10
This movie is going to divide so many people and I love it for that.
So let me get this straight. JJ was burned for making TFA too much like New Hope, for not doing anything new or risky. So Rian comes around and makes risks with this movie, and everyone goes "OH NO THEY RUINED THE CHARACTERS, THEY RUINED STAR WARS". This is the most divisive Star Wars film yet to say the least. It makes questionable choices with the characters on paper such as Luke wanting to murder his nephew, that one really pissed me off when I read it online. But when you see it in the context of the story it really does beg the question of whether Luke is the same character as we remembered him from ROTJ. This is the most well made movie since Empire on a technical scale, there so many beautiful shots to look at and the special effects are very well done. We can all agree on that at least? That shot of Yoda and Luke might become one of my favorite scenes in the history of cinema. Here were my biggest gripes with the movie, it was too lengthy for me and I would've trimmed the whole Finn and Rose storyline for pacing sake just because of how long that third act is. It also didn't handle the humor as well as it could have which is the same problem I had with TFA. I'm probably in the minority but that's why I liked Rogue One out of the Disney films the most due to how they took the tone seriously when it came to topics like war and death, yet it found the appropriate moments to be funny like with K2SO. All in all this movie makes some bold choices and I admire it for that. Whether you agree with them or not is a different story, but they took risks and for a Star Wars director that's pretty ballsy in my book.You should just watch it for yourself first before jumping to conclusions with all these negative reviews. I knew everything going in and I was still very moved by it. And if you don't like it, at least we still got the Original Trilogy right?
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9/10
A Soon-To-Be Controversial Product From the Disney Machine
Love or hate Disney and the direction they have taken with all of your beloved childhood favorites (or Lord, what are they going to do to The Simpsons?!?!!?), they are the company everyone else is looking up to. They have 5 of the 10 highest-grossing movies in cinema history, the highest-grossing American film of all-time, and in the year 2017 own 4 of the 10 most successful films globally-and this is with Star Wars and perhaps even Coco making its way towards the top. They have their crap figured out in an era where Hollywood is struggling to go up against indie cinema, Netflix, digital streaming, and the YouTube generation of sheer creativity, incredible access to the past, and overanalyzation.
Point is: Disney has a plan, they always have a plan to beat and defy the odds. Disney hardly missteps and when they do, it's because they become arrogant or take too big a risk. They are basically the Golden State Warriors of American entertainment, they are their own worst enemy. All this must be remembered when viewing The Last Jedi, because this film has Disney's psychotic blueprints all over it, even in the midst of all the risks they clearly take in the eighth installment of the beloved and slightly polarizing franchise. The Last Jedi is a visual feast, a dramatic work that will flood the fanbase with controversial decisions, and overall yet another step in the right direction for a franchise that was sputtering just a decade ago. Disney has indeed made treasure out of trash, and has given an intense breath of life to a series that has spanned five different decades-from film to comics and books.
This span hinders the current trilogy more than anything. In the real world, people age, people die (look at what happened to the Harry Potter and Matrix series after key actors passed), unexpected twists and turns occur, and screenplay decisions sometimes has to bounce off what is happening once the cameras stop rolling. The Last Jedi is most definitely affected by Carrie Fisher's passing, the aging of multiple actors, the sheer amount of time and scope since it all began, and of course a legion of hungry yet hesitant fans that have been collected in different generations, leading to differing views on where Star Wars has been and where it should go. This movie is great, yet polarizing. It will have its enemies and defectors, and Disney doesn't care.
To say I agree with all the events of The Last Jedi is inaccurate, but nonetheless within the 150+ minutes there's a passion, a magic that cannot be explained. The camerawork, the soundtrack, the visual effects are top-notch and keeps in line with the Star Wars look and feel. Rian Johnson's take on Star Wars mixes the same formula with a few unique quirks and some subtle and not-so-subtle contemporary commentary on the way the world (or in this case, universe) works. The dialogue isn't as wooden, and the characters aren't as one-dimensional as what we're used to in Star Wars. The original trilogy in the midst of all its greatness was pretty darn black-and-white. Just like in The Force Awakens and especially Rogue One, The Last Jedi doesn't operate this way. From Rey to Luke to Kylo Ren, their motives and emotions constantly shift and develop.
The story in the eighth installment is actually much more grounded than the previous films, as it mainly involves a race against time as the First Order is inches away from fully destroying a small Resistance group led by Leia that is desperately just trying to escape the clutches from the overpowering legion of enemy ships. At the same time, Rey is trying to figure out her place while also attempting to convince Luke Skywalker to join the tiring fight that seems to be tilting heavily towards the First Order. The Last Jedi is a mental and physical race, as everyone is running out of time, patience, options, and most importantly hope. The theme of hope in a cruel world is very much prevalent here, much like in Rogue One.
All your favorite characters from The Force Awakens returns, even though some are very short on screentime (because your entourage of questions and hunger for more content will lead to book sales for Disney; and yes they are evil). I assure you, some of you will walk out disappointed in the lack of focus on some. And yet no matter how lengthy the build-up feels, the payoffs were consistently gratifying, and then we have cameos left and right tossed in for good measure. There was plenty of action and different locales, but we needed more. There was plenty of interaction between the new school and the old school, but we needed more. The Last Jedi felt like a main course that was plentiful, yet left you hungry for more. And if you think this is an accident, then you are missing the entire picture.
Disney (once again) prevents one of their films from going truly mad and absolutely crazy, once again not all the cards are left on the table. This was the biggest problem with Force Awakens, and other massive Disney blockbuster movies like Age of Ultron, Civil War, and especially Dead Man's Chest (which just missed being an all-time blockbuster masterpiece)-just a cinematic tapping of the brakes. You see three movies making up a trilogy, Disney sees seven through nine as three episodes of a massive television series, each with their cliffhangers to keep you thirsty and desperate for resolution and answers.
Force Awakens was the salad and drink, just to start the process. The Last Jedi, as enjoyable as it was, definitely felt like the hearty appetizer leading to a (hopefully outstanding) main course that we won't receive until 2019. You can disagree with this direction, as even Empire Strikes Back didn't quite feel this empty by the final frame. But, this is the current system of Disney filmmaking and as long as they keep getting top-tier talent to produce top-quality content in a current age of cinema that can become frustratingly dry in large sections, this is a formula that will not change.
The Last Jedi is quality from a filmmaking and production standpoint. From music to cinematography to directing, this film is no slouch and is even deserving of some Oscar nominations (although lack of screentime really hurts the outstanding Adam Driver and even Mark Hamill from theirs). However, this movie will upset fans, especially some of the old-school fans guaranteed. Personally to me Star Wars has become so big that we each have our interpretation of the franchise. This is why only some love the prequels (those poor souls), why only some enjoy the Clone Wars series, only some enjoy the current films, and why only some will truly hate this film. Putting on the fandom hat, I definitely expected and hoped for something different, and might need a second viewing to digest it all. Taking off the fandom hat, I can't deny the fact that aspiring big budget filmmakers and movie studios need to see this as an example of great storytelling, pacing, and a genuine care of the main characters--exactly how Disney wanted.
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9/10
What did you expect from the creators of the MCU????
Let me first say that I do not believe that this is a perfect movie, or even a near perfect movie. The dialogue is very mainstream and there are a lot of characters to keep track of, probably too many at times. The story telling for the most part is somewhat underwhelming with the flooding of characters and messages that were seemingly forced on the audience. This movie suffers from multiple endings and there are some scenes that you wish were paused in the theater to ask around to see if you understood what was happening correctly. For example, I was much more excited after first viewing of VII to see VIII than I am currently to see IX. There are other aspects you could pick apart if you really wanted to, but from what I can see almost all of the recent reviews have been picking it apart like vultures over a recently deceased antelope.
With all that being said, I think that this was a very solid film that provided me personally with some very personal connections with the main group of new characters on both sides of the force. How Rey and Kilo Ren develop a captivating and ambiguous relationship was something that I did not see coming. Luke's character arc is not the ideal but it is reasonable and you can maybe see that the creators were trying to be ballsy but not too ballsy with Luke in this. Giving Poe more of a role was fun for me and I feel that Oscar Isaac was like 6.5-7.5/10 in most of his scenes. The almost Kain and Able relationship between Hux and Kilo turned into one of my favorite parts toward the end. I love the look, music, acting (Daisey Ridley, Mark Hamill and Adam Driver especially). And while I agree the writing was not superb, it was very good at creating tension and mystery for some aspects of the story line.
Now I have a question for some of the people that are angry with this movie. What exactly did you expect? Were you expecting a non-formulaic, simple story? If so, why? Disney has been working at perfecting the movie franchise model. The MCU is their creation and most people can't get enough of it. Personally, I do not particularly enjoy most of the MCU entries, but they are entertaining since I know what to expect. The MCU is the most formulaic and overexposed franchise in recent history. So, since Disney is having so much success with that, why would they not try and replicate it with Star Wars. There is too much money to be had to take a risk with a particularly dark or super dramatic story line. This is a major cash cow and they are trying to figure out a way to overextend the Star Wars universe to cash in as much as possible. And if everyone hated the prequel trilogy so much, which was different from the originals, then why would they go away from the money making formula? Do what works! That's the mentality they take with the MCU, so why change it.
So with the given circumstances, I think that this movie met the massive hype behind it. Was I as blown away as I had hoped? No, not really. However, I am captivated and am thinking about seeing it at least 3 more times before the theater run is over. I thought it was pretty gutsy in parts with some of the twists that the creative team decided to make. Killing off Snoke? I defiantly did not see that coming. But I am happy with it because it is helping the arc of Kilo Ren. Luke peacefully leaving after the battle with Kilo? Not what I was hoping for, but I am interested to see how he will come into IX, if at all. Phasma gone? Finally if you ask me, because she was just like some of the other characters, only in the movie to sell toys and action figures!
I would like to end by saying that Star Wars is near and dear to my heart. Every movie in the saga up to this point has been a entertaining and emotional watch for me. I am too young to have understood the missteps of the prequel trilogy when it was in the first theater run and I was not even born when the original trilogy was in theaters. One thing that comes with the territory of continuing on in the universe is that the main characters from the originals are unfortunately going to go. This is a ceremonial changing of the guard. Luke, Han, and Leia are leaving us and Rey, Finn and Poe are moving in to their place. It sucks because I love Luke, Han and Leia. I am devastated to see them go. However, if the franchise is going to move forward with multiple sequels then the baton must be handed over new faces. I hope that people do not give up on this movie so soon. At least give it one more shot.
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I really enjoyed most moments of this movie, My only con that I believe the movie lacked was a lightsaber duel. Having a duel would of brought this review to a ten and I'm sure would of increased the reviews for other people as well. I still enjoyed seeing Rey and Kylo Ren fight against Supreme Leader Snokes guards, Luke dodging all of Kylo Ren's shots was very cool also, however an offical duel would of stregethened the film. This was still an amazing film that I reccomend to others. I hope this review can make episode 9 even greater.
Thank You
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7/10
Better than the last one, but still dazed & confused
So this movie was (as the millions of dollars spent on it would suggest) a visualy pleasing one. There were some good jokes and some moments where I was excited. But. I'd say both the Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are sad attempts to bring back the magic of the original series, and their writers and directors don't seem to understand which part exactly is the one that contains it. So they collect all the ingredients and blend it all together and make a hamburger out of it for the consumer society. Star Wars wasn't really ment to be a blockbuster movie for merchandise sales. Honestly, it's a bedtime tale for geeks who wish to connect with the world. The magic was never in the Millenium Falcon, the Deathstar, the props or the tools used. The magic was in the story that told tales of good and evil and the wisdom of knowing what they are. It had characters you could relate to and cheer for. Tragedies that ment something because you understood the nature of those it happened to. It was never grandiose, that was just a wallpaper in the background. It was always small, and personal. Like when you only had a bucket and a broomstick but in your head you were a knight in shining armour.
I'd say even the prolouge series was better than the new series so far- for one reason only: it had a good story and knew where it was going and better characters and actors. All together it was a decent flick though, around 2 points better than your avarage movie (hence 7 points), definitely your first pick if you want to see a blockbuster before christmas. Finaly, here's my rating for all episodes.
I got very mixed feelings, but this movie was not good at all.
I liked Kylo and Rey this time, they, and their "relationship" was a nice surprise, and their fight scene was amazing. And thats all, the rest of the movie is a nonsense bullsh*t. 6 star destroyers and a ship bigger than a city can't catch/shoot/destroy a single cruiser? It was so dumb, and took too long long, like the whole Canto Bight thing. The new characters were lame as well, we got more information of Rose in 1 hour than from Snoke in 2 movies? Really? Who needed another filling character with a dumb backstory. They also brought back Phasma for another solid 2 minutes of screentime.
But the worst thing was Luke. They completely destroyed the character, and his death was purposeless and forced too.
I did not like it after all, I had so big expectations towards this episode, but it failed very badly.
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This movie had few main purposes, from the producers point of view. Those are completely fulfilled.
This movie purposely cut the ties with the original saga.
It's biggest weakness is the producers, you can see which scenes were forced in by those with the money. I would say that a lot of money were coming from a country named China. You could say this movie targeted Chinese customers who are not very fond with the SW original trilogy, and even less with the episodes I, II and III.
The plot choices are not bad, on the contrary, the writers knew they couldn't make something too close to the original feel, so they decided to explore ways that could hurt your expectations. It has great moments that are really enjoyable, considering that we're still watching a Star Wars movie, nothing serious, it's a sci-fi fantasy epic saga in a galaxy far far away... but this time the galaxy doesn't feel so far away, you can clearly see and count each and every "quotation scene" from other movies, from the series "clone wars" and so on. The old magic of the Star Wars universe in my personal opinion has been slightly ruined, still i think this is a proper Star Wars movie, maybe not between the best, but still very enjoyable.
There are though parts were it's clear that they are selling toys, and this kinda hurts my feelings.
All this conflict between the new and the old, is well described in the first part of the movie through the character of Luke.
I liked it, because i entered the cinema with no expectation and strangely no hype, and was a bit stoned (not enough to not see these little details that hurt my eyes and my feelings)
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It hurts because some parts of me liked this movie. Really liked it. I even go as far as to say that this was the best Star Wars movie after 1983. I guess I need to back that up a little. The Force Awakens was a lot more coherent movie and a nice introduction of the new guard. And it was better than this movie. But TFA wasn't really a movie because it was just a reimagining of great movie named Star Wars: A New Hope and thus a sure hit. Rogue One was good but in the same time it didn't have much anything to offer since all the characters were killed off and it was always known what the ending would be. So, it was a very nice filler scene and not a stand-alone movie. Episodes 1 through 3 were awful for reasons I shouldn't need explain here.
So, the best SW movie since Return of the Jedi? Well, yes. And no. The Last Jedi was extremely stylish, entertaining and it felt somewhat fresh instead of spoon-feeding the well tried recipe like in the last instalment. But unfortunately that was only the very outer shell. Digging a little deeper, The Last Jedi's plot was just a thematical re-hash of both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Luke was Yoda being a silly old hermit and giving insufficient lessons to a young pupil. Rey was Luke trying to find the legendary master. The whatever planet the rebels landed on was Hoth, Kylo Ren was Vader and so on and so forth. BUT, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable movie.
But then come the bad pieces. My grievance is two-fold: the characters and the future of the movie series. I'll go through the horrible handling of characters first. Apologies beforehand, the list will be boring.
General Hux was as good a general as stormtroopers are marksmen. Almost as credible too. The SW universe has a long history of incompetent baddie commanders but this was just too much. On to the next one, Captain Brienne of Phasma. Captain Plasma was a useless let-down in the last movie and there were promises she would be much more menacing in this one. Cpt. Pasha was also blaster-proof, thanks to her mirror-like armor. Are you suggesting that blasters can be deflected with an armor like that, what the f..? Captain Phantasma added absolutely nothing but a slight meh to the movie and she died off as stupidly as a garden variety stormtrooper would. Next, Luke. This pains me so even though Mark Hamill gave a stellar performance. Luke's behaviour and logic of denying the whole jedi order was a big slap in the face. It would've been a lot easier to stomach if Luke gave proper explanation for it. Not just saying I failed and nobody should have the power, boo-hoo. Luke maintains the position that there are no more jedi and there shouldn't be and then goes on saying just a moment later that there is a new one in Rey. Huh? And Luke died because (?) Kylo skewered his projection with a lightsaber, double huh? Wait, why, what? Neeeext. Snoke, the extremely powerful boss with a mysterious past. Great job darthmauling him, Rian Johnson. So much potential and then being a single-serving End Boss totally wasted. And that past got never explained. Neext! Holdo, she's a neverheard and now leads the resistance, and now she's dead, next! Master Codebreaker from the planet of rich people, 2 seconds screentime and then being substituted with Benicio Del Toro (very good performance by him, though). And Leia as the last item on this list of horrors. Vacuum-cleaning-force-pulling her back to the movie felt so bad and keeping her through the movie was a really odd choice. Carrie Fisher was a great actress and I valued her screen time but this will be problematic later on.
So, where to from here? Leia needs to disappear awkwardly because unfortunately Carrie Fisher isn't there to portray her. This could've been done with a dignified heroine's goodbye in this movie. Now it's a problem and she needs to be deleted in the next movie. Snoke, the big evil got cut (mmm-hmm) from the movie and there isn't natural continuation for the next movie. Luke vanished in a puff of logic so there shouldn't be a new jedi order either. Rey is still (!!) an under-developed character without any past or depth. I like her but she feels like cardboard. Kylo Ren is the best developed character by far and also the most complex one. In TFA he was prepared to be the ruthless, ultimate evil but now he's gone soft too. Kylo Ren isn't a good choice for the big evil for the new rebels to fight against.
It's really difficult to understand where this saga could go next. And I'm not sure if I want to see it go there, either. Being a realist, the expectations for any new SW movie are almost impossible to fulfill. But why, oh, why you needed to do this to almost all of the characters?
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Star Wars has been an interesting ride since the Disney acquisition, mixing financial success with timid artistic expression. Thank George Lucas for creating a universe that is very hard to get right, and for personally demonstrate how horribly wrong it can all go when one strays too far from the winning formula of the original trilogy (by creating the lamentable prequel trilogy). Disney has struggled so far to tell a compelling new story while remaining on safe ground: episode VII captured the tone perfectly but felt like too much of a reboot in terms of plot, while Rogue One tried something new and got bogged down in a dour mood peppered with weird fan-service. Measured against those two offerings, The Last Jedi is another step in the right direction. It still contains a bit too much that is familiar, but, for the most part, succeeds best when it tries to be different.
Plot-wise there is still a bit of confusion. Judging by our catch-up with Luke and Rey, we kick off the minute Force Awakens ended, but the opening crawl and action scene imply time has passed, mostly to the First Order's advantage (and on that front, there is still much confusion as to why there was a Resistance when there was a Republic, and why those resistance always allude to themselves as "Rebels"). From the opening seconds, though, it is clear that a new hand it as the wheel, and one soon understands why Disney seemed so impressed with director Rian Johnson's work here. The visual language is more poetic and effective than Abrams' anonymous work in VII and more appropriate to the universe than Gareth Edwards' more visceral experiment. Between a kamikaze jump to light-speed and Luke Skywalker showing us what a Star Wars Mexican standoff would look like, This is the first film in Lucas' galaxy far far away to carry images that will sear themselves into your retinae.
The plot, in Disney fashion, tries to offer us comforting beats from Empire Strikes Back, our reference episode from the original saga, but, more often than not, this is to subvert our corresponding expectations. A grand second-act mission does not go as one would expect, and, thankfully, potentially groan-inducing revelations are either handled very well or, thankfully, simply do not occur. Not all is perfect, and this film specifically suffers from issues with the Great Disney Plan: clarity of context, as with the First Order thing, clarity with the villains, some of which, such as Snoke and particularly Phasma, do not register as hoped... But the new ingredients, particularly the new lead trio of Rey, Finn and Poe, are definitely winners. Daisy Ridley carries most of the film's emotion on what turn out to be very solid shoulders, while Oscar Isaac is given more to do this time around. In the baddie camp, we're still missing someone with the cold killer poise of Peter Cushing (the real one, not Rogue One's CGI abomination), but Adam Driver continues to knock it out of the park in unexpected ways as Kylo Ren. It is the kind of part that could have gone either way - and, in the hands of a Lucas directed Hayden Christensen, went truly bad - so kudos to Driver for making us care for his conflicted antagonist.
Just as much of the early word on Episode VII was about a great return to form from Harrison Ford, so the internet has been on fire about Mark Hamill burning through the screen. I find the comparison unfair. While Ford merely tapped into that old magic - something he can do very well, admittedly - Hamill's turn as Skywalker here is something else. There are still deep, buried traces of the earnest farm-boy many of us grew up with, but when Master Skywalker decides to throw his weight in, Hamill unleashes a presence and charisma he had never hinted at previously, and it is a jaw-dropping joy to behold. The late Carrie Fisher also glows throughout, her gentle warmth giving the film a lot of its more touching moments.
All in all, this might be looked back on as the one where the new generation of Star Wars films finally decided what they wanted to be, and which language they wanted to use. It does not reach the lofty heights of Empire, nor does it slavishly adhere to that classic's structure. In fact, it offers a cleaner ending, one that opens a fresh horizon with new, established and compelling characters. It will be intriguing to see what happens next.
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I had great expectations walking into the Theatre to see this movie. I thought I will end up watching another ''Empire Strikes Back''. Well this is for sure not the case here...
Ok, I will start with the positives:
+ Very well Directed! Not clumsy like the prequels;
+ Battles in space look amazing!!
+ Luke Skywalker! At last we see him again!
+ 1-2 scenes that someone can say are surprises, you don't see them coming.
The negatives:
No decent lightsaber duel! Now seriously how is it possible??? There is no Jedi vs Sith lightsaber duel that lasts more than some seconds. The movie prepares us for a big duel in the end but nothing happens. This film has the worst lightsaber duel of all SW episodes (I don't count Rogue One since there where no Jedi there). And now what? we must wait for another 2 years to see one!? Come on Disney...
In the middle of the movie the Ray Finn story arc seemed to me like I am watching a Harry Potter movie, the creatures in these scenes where targeting very very very young audience.
Another problem of the movie (started from the force awakens) is the villain. These movies need a strong villain. There is no such thing is this movie.
Closing my positives/negatives review I want to add that in SW movies you need to have cool moments. For example Episode III, although a prequel movie, many people wanted to go back to see the movie because of the Mace Windu vs Palpatine duel, cool quotes like ''Execute Order 66'', Yoda vs Palpatine etc etc. I believe this movie was better directed than Episode III but story wise and regarding cool moments Episode III is a far more a superior film. So overall I will rank the original Trilogy and Episode III higher than the Last Jedi but better Last Jedi is better than the rest Episodes of the SW saga (episodes 7, 1, 2),
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7/10
Improves slightly over the previous film & takes some narrative risks. A little crazy too. 70%
Following on from the previous movie in this final (?) trilogy, whose name escapes me right now (looking it up on Wikipedia now...ah, yes, "Star Wars: Episode VII"...just kidding..."Star Wars: The force awakens"...actually, it just came to me now...I didn't even need to look it up!), we get to find out what happens when our young heroine, Rey (I had to check the spelling of her name on Wikipedia) meets Luke Skywalker, who may prove to be the Resistance's final hope (I had to Wikipedia what they were called...I initially typed "the Alliance") in staving of the wannabe New Empire (The First Order?). Things get complicated between them. The good news is that the film doesn't suck. The bad news is that it doesn't reach any great heights, although it does have more going for it than most of the other films in the series (especially episodes I and II, and, to a lesser extent, episode VII. Of course, there will be battles with the New Empire or whatever they're called. Anyway, I suppose I'll be happy enough to see this trilogy through to the end, as it is improving slightly on each outing. "The last Jedi" was tracking to score about 65% for me, but a little bit of daring on its part as far as what happens to characters goes pushes my score out to a flat 70%. In other words, I liked how the film created certain character expectations and then subverted them.
Okay, to general observations about this film. I mentioned earlier that it doesn't reach any great heights. Why not? Well, part of the problem as you might have observed from my opening paragraph is how forgettable the character's names are, unlike the characters in "A new hope"...or is that just me? Having seen "The force awakens" only once, and when it was originally in cinemas too, most of the new characters' names didn't stick with me, apart from Rey and Kylo Ren. I would mentally thank characters for mentioning the name of those familiar looking characters, e.g. the black Resistance fighter from the previous film...er...Finn. "The last Jedi" has one Resistance character get a lot of screen time and I wondered if that was the bloke who was supposed to be an ace fighter pilot in "The force awakens"...I'm guessing that it was. I wasn't kidding when I said that I couldn't recall the name of the previous movie, until it came to me...or maybe I unconsciously noticed it on a Wikipedia article about "The last Jedi". Maybe it's me, but I just don't find these new characters as iconic as those of the original trilogy.
Another criticism for me is that the trilogy doesn't really feel epic, with a grand narrative arc and a large, historical sweep. It might have elements of that, but it feels more like an exercise in ticking boxes. It looks like the next film is going to wrap-up the trilogy but that will seem as though it's been done very quickly...the events of the previous film and this one seemed to have happened all very quickly...it doesn't really feel like an epic war between the forces of good and evil, with an ebb and flow of fortunes.
As with "The force awakens", this next instalment also relies a lot on gestures. It's kind of like a pretender to the kind of movie that it wants to be. Whereas "A new hope" had those exhilarating moments which excited the audience (and me), "The last Jedi" has characters whooping it up and almost high-fiving each other, as a proxy for the way that film wants the audience to react. Except that I didn't react that way. Then again, I'm not a small boy, like I was when I saw "A new hope". Then again, the largish audience I saw "The last Jedi" with didn't seem to share the joy of the characters either...if they were, they must have been doing it "on the inside", as George Smilovici might have put it. Sure, there is action aplenty in this film, right from the start. However, I just didn't find it particularly engaging...there's certainly not the emotional pay-off you get with "A new hope", especially with Luke Skywalker's flight to the Death Star.
Some positives from the film include that it has humour...at least I found some scenes amusing and had one moment make me laugh out loud...unlike the "humour" of the early Star Wars prequels which I just found cringeworthy, to be honest (Jar Jar Binks, anybody?). On the other hand, it is perhaps sad to see Chewbacca being reduced to comic relief cameo status.
Also interesting was the expansion, perhaps, of The Force lore in Rey's time on the planet where she found Luke Skywalker. That definitely had some narrative intrigue as to what would happen next. However, the relationship between Rey and Luke is in stark contrast to the narrative arc which occurred between Luke and Yoda in "The Empire strikes back".
Random observations:
I can't remember if there was much made of any connection between Kylo Ren and Rey in the previous film, but in this film it is a focus which piques one's interest and does get resolved later in the story. Just by the by, I could have sworn that Kylo Ren is often called "Ben" in this film...I'm not sure if my ears deceived me or I'm missing something which would explain why that happens.
Some things in the film surprised me...there's one scene with Princess Leia which I just found silly...maybe you'll recognise what I mean when you the film. Another scene with Luke Skywalker I just found flat-out crazy, but, on reflection, it's not as crazy as it seems...if it wasn't explained the way that it was, I'd wonder what the scriptwriters were taking as far as illegal substances go.
An early scene has a villain with an English accent, which gives his words a very theatrical air...quite pantomime dialogue, really.
Interestingly, Mark Hamill has credits for two roles in this film! I didn't notice his other role though! For the record, his other credit is for a character called "Dobbu Scay".
The military strategy and capabilities of the Resistance are "interesting" to say the least...and the bad guys do love to tell the good guys how they are going to defeat them...at great length...which is probably not the best thing to do...when time is of the essence!
There are scenes and some dialogue which harks back to earlier films in this franchise...which might perhaps provide some fan service.
The iconic John Williams score at the start of movie seemed to me to be under the influence of valium at times...but maybe I just imagined that?
I did wonder if there was a continuity problem at the end of the film...that boy...how did he know of Luke Skywalker? Is the film pointing to a reboot of the series or another trilogy...like an endless Buddhist cycle?
Lastly, I do wonder if events in the real world will force changes to the original plans for the final in this trilogy. It would be sad if it were so. I would not be against CGI being used to allow certain characters to fulfill their intended narrative arcs, if this wasn't possible in reality.
Anyway, I can't really imagine wanting to rewatch the final trilogy of this series, although I will see how it all ends. Only the original trilogy (episodes IV to VI) had that kind of appeal. There lies the difference.
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* Now, right now in Siberia far, far away...
people live and watch SW too.
* The movie has a good balance of drama (real tear-squeezing drama) and PIU-PIU-action.
* Charisma Del Toro is huge. And he looks young for his 50!
* I have to tell the truth - i don't like SW. I tried, tried hard - watched all the series, read comics, Lucas bio and history of saga. I was born on May 4! My love is asleep. But i will watch SW, cause i love cinema in general.
* The landing of the iron is one of best self-ironic scenes. Parody films envy.
* Red-salt desert - spectacular location, but the authors did't use it's capabilities.
* Cast are strange. Who needs fat-faced Asia-girl? Weinstein will be disappointed.
* Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) looks like J.K. Rowling with purple hair and 50-centimeter heel. I waited, when she snatches out magic wand, and a new-new story will begin.
* The fleet of the Empire don't know about weapon volley or turn. Its so funny.
* I noticed an interesting position - THEY (SW politics) ARE ALL BAD, LET THEM KILL EACH OTHER NA HUI, AND BUILD SOMETHING NEW. Very actuallity!
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The movie made me consider the basic elements of a classical Disney movie into the Star Wars universe.
First of all, there is a lot of fun. The Last Jedi is also a parody. It challenges your mind to face the opposite of what you might have expected, and then over and over again.
Second, Disney brings your attention on creature rights. The Star Wars universe is made of lovely creatures and they take a central part in movie when they get rescued and later rescue the main characters in a sort of luck. The Force that the Jedi order uses is also inside living creatures.
Third, the main characters can be viewed as a king, a queen, a prince, a princess, an evil sorcerer, a thief etc. The "queen" is no doubt the passed away Carrie Fisher, which acts as the rebel leader. Mark Hamill is the "king" etc. This depends on your own imagination of course.
Fourth, the music is more beautiful.
Fifth, there is a certain defencelessness in the approach of the final solution.
The Last Jedi raises questions as well. It is definitively worth to see this movie on cinema.
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Should put more backstory on Snoke. Luke's final appearance at the end was EPIC and deceiving. Overall I enjoyed it, although lots of lingering questions remain.
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Where to start with The Last Jedi? Probably by stating the obvious for anybody who has seen or will see the movie: it will be the most divisive movie in the series. Even more so than the prequels or The Force Awakens. It might be the, sometimes almost slapstick level of, humor for some and for others how the Force itself is cranked up to insane levels. Maybe even the fact that, looking at the story objectively, The Last Jedi is quite straight forward and empty.
And yet somehow it ended up being a great movie to me.
Small disclaimer: I did not like TFA. At all. Primary reason being the rehashing of all plot lines and storybeats, but also most of the new characters being hyped by everybody and then turning out to be shallow (Phasma, Kylo, Finn etc). TLJ seems to be very conscious of the legacy of TFA and Star Wars in general and manages to do several hard resets, some of which will shock you, leave you cheering and others still have me thinking about whether or not I like what I saw.
Storywise the movie is straightforward, with minor spoilers ahead. Resistance gets followed by First Order...just outside their reach and our main heroes go one sidequests to help the Resistance get away. Things don't go as you think they will. A lot of people and Star Wars myths die and then its over. It almost covers an entire trilogy worth of stories in a single movie, leaving Ep. IX to start with a clean sheet.
The things I like:
Surprise cameos
Humor...porgs are surprisingly funny as is BB-8
Bringing back some of that prequel space opera flavour on Canto Bight as well as the war vibes of Rogue One.
Visually a stunning movie
There are some truly amazing lightsaber battles and a particularly awesome moment during a space battle. That scene with Snoke....wow.
Characters such as Rey and Poe suddenly aren't dull anymore, Rosie is a nice and sweet addition to the cast...some other dull characters meet their ends.
The things I didn't like:
Going all Super Sayan on the Force...sometimes it works, sometimes its absolutely ridiculous (you instantly know what scene I mean), sometimes it is such an over the top spectacle you're left wondering why none of the old Jedi Order could do this and prevent Palpatine from even doing what he did.
First Order still is incredibly incompetent. Including Kylo. They're not ruthless, they're incompetent, simple as that.
Biggest problem is one that many modern blockbusters have: they don't explain their context enough. I mean: the First Order controls the galaxy...but only has a relatively minor fleet and seems to be nowhere as present as the Republic or even the Empire was. Why is the Rebellion now the Resistance? Who is Snoke? Where does he fit within the ashes of the Empire. Despite some nice story nods to morally grey areas, I'd rather see the universe-scale that the prequels had return and put everything in context.
Overall though: I think its a great movie. Not nearly on the level of the Empire Strikes Back. But better than TFA, most prequels and even ROTJ. Then again: it also still has me going back and forth thinking whether or not I truly enjoyed everything about it. Bottom line is: I haven't been enjoying a Star Wars movie in a theatre for a very long time. And I guess that counts for something.
I'd say: 8/10.
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I have read a lot of reviews on here, both good and bad. Let's not forget that the original Star Wars was a film for children. Those children are now all grown up and are comparing new with old.
The Force awakens was a lift of some elements from a new hope and there was no escaping that. My young sons love it and that is enough for me.
The Last Jedi has some comedy, nostalgia and some truly jaw dropping moments. The main characters are fleshed out. The effects and action sequences are excellent, as to be expected.
Many reviewers on here feel that Disney has lost its way with the new trilogies. We are judging this based on George Lucas's story telling from over 30 years ago. When a new hope came out in 1977 it started the summer blockbuster genre. Every summer now, the Hollywood money machine will turn out any number of "blockbusters" in name only. There have been very few successes of late. We will never capture that Star Wars moment again.
My point being is that this is a new trilogy. It will, in my opinion, never compare to the original trilogy, ewoks and all.
Despite the prequels luke warm reception on the whole, I would have loved to have seen George Lucas have some involvement in these new films.
Let's face it, despite the taxation of trade routes and other nonsense the prequels were only going to end one way.
Pros and cons listed below.
******** WARNING - SPOILERS **********
Pros.
Luke and Reys screen time together was excellent. I can see why Mark Hamill was unhappy with the direction Luke was taking, but to be fair, you couldn't tell.
Excellent action sequences.
Kylo Rens back story explained......
The force connection between Rey and Ren. Nice plot vehicle, explained away by Snokes involvement.
Good supporting cast throughout.
Cons.
Why would Luke even consider killing his nephew after redeeming his genocide committing father.
Finn and Rose... I get the code slicer thing but really, waste of half an hour.
Reys connection to the force. If Luke was so scared of training her, believe you me, if my old teacher popped up out of the blue it would be the first question on my lips. Who is she? Even if we got no answer in this film, asking the question would have made sense.
Snoke. Nice twist but other than some fancy force moves, what a waste. We will never know who he was. Palpatine he is not.
Luke milking a sea cow!!!(comedy)
Leia in space!!!(not comedy)
I appreciate that there appear to be more cons. I did like the film as a whole and I am being hyper critical of some plot lines that to me, could have been different.
I think that this film will stand the test of time and will be loved for what it essentially is.... 21st century Star Wars.
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Okay, I might get a lot of hate from the hardcore fans but here it goes: I liked the last Jedi. A lot.
I sit here reading the rants in these reviews about how this movie was not how Star Wars is supposed to be. This is exactly the reason why I like it. Now don't get me wrong, I really like the other Star Wars movies as well, but it was time to do things a little different. The Force Awakens got a lot of flak for being a copy of A New Hope, so they used that criticism to create something new.
In the old Star Wars movies, you always could alway guess how the heroes were going to get out of it and that they were going to be fine, but in the Last Jedi you get a feeling of doubt. During most of the movie, I wondered what was going to happen next and was pleasantly surprised at times at the turns and twists the plot took.
Now there were a couple of issues in my opinion, the most important of it all being the length. At 2,5 hours, it's a full 30 minutes longer than the classics and you notice it. Three or four times I thought the movie would end but it kept on going, adding in another fight (although it was a good one I admit).
In conclusion I find The Last Jedi a great movie, maybe aimed at a slightly wider audience than the classics. But hey, the fanboys will always find something to complain about.
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Like many last night at the midnight screening, I left at a groggy 3 am very confused and somewhat disappointed, but after a day to digest I think we'll come to realise this movie is a creeper. FULL SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
I'm just going to take what I initially had problems with as a fanboy and dissect it a little.
-Leia flying through space
Rip on this if you will, but we've always known, being the daughter of Anakin and sister of Luke, that Leia is strong with the force, we have never seen her use force powers until now, and I thought it was fitting that the force would protect her as she is passive and peaceful character.
Luke being evil/hermit and death
I actually enjoyed this plot twist, if he could feel darkness in Ben it would make sense to try and kill him, it humanises Luke a lot, and while the movie cheapens his character his final scene with Kylo is epic. Finally after mind melding with the characters he feels he has done his job, they are safe for now, and he's passed the lineage to Rey, His disappearing act hints at the strength of his powers, so strong with the force that he can choose to unify with it at will, only the highest Jedi attain this power, plus he could be a force ghost in ep 9
Kylo Killing snoke
WOW! Didn't see that coming, this IMO was bad ass and now is giving me a LOL because how much time did people invest in Snoke theories? it's kinda like Star Wars meets game of thrones. However the whole scene was executed awesomely, surreal visuals and epic to see Kylo is so bad ass he could kill his master
Yes the side arcs were a little flat, I wasn't a fan of Admiral Holdo, AGAIN captain phasma was underused etc, but we did complain for lack of originality with TFA and I can hardly say that was present in the last Jedi, it certainly has divided the masses from day one but let it cook for a while and it will be looked back at as a games changer!
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9/10
A Film Adorned with Beautiful Animals and an equally Beautiful and Slightly Tedious Narrative
I saw Star Wars : The Last Jedi at midnight on the 14th of December in NZ and I loved every moment of the film. I loved the way the layered characters of Luke Skywalker, Rey and Kylo Ren were examined, I loved how light was thrown on the internal politics that has been brewing up within the Resisitance and how that is impacting their capability to fight with the First Order, I loved the film's zest for adventure and I also loved the fact that this is one of the funniest Star Wars films I've seen. Also, I loved all the exotic creatures that this film has showcased. The Star Wars franchise could give the Fantastic Beasts franchise a run for their money any day when it comes to showing off a plethora of amazing otherwordly animals.
And one of the things I loved the most about last night's screening was the enthusiasm of the people who came to see the film. I saw many people who came dressed in Star Wars attire. One person was dressed as Vader, then I'm sure I saw someone dressed up as a Jedi, I was wearing my Star Wars cap and a lot of people were wearing their Star Wars t-shirts. This is one of the advantages of watching a cult franchise's early screenings. You get to see the film the way it is meant to be seen. I just woke up from my sleep to type this status because after watching almost 24 hours worth of Star wars films I was deprived of some good sleep. So I came back from the theatre and slept like there was no tomorrow and I think I saw Luke Skywalker in my dreams. May the Force be with me
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Is a film that needed to play it safe in some regards. It was introducing new characters, new worlds, and trying to restore a fan base that felt burned by the prequels. It succeeded in establishing a baseline for the sequel trilogy, and that baseline has allowed writer-director Rian Johnson to move the franchise forward with the stunning
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Although, like The Force Awakens, it takes more than a few beats from the Original Trilogy, Johnson feels eager to subvert our expectations, challenge the archetypes the series was founded on, and take bold steps to establishing a new concept of what a Star Wars movie can be while still feeling very much in line with previous films in the franchise. ,from the film's stunning craft and confident storytelling.
If The Force Awakens was a matter of giving fans what they wanted, then The Last Jedi is giving them what they need, which is more complex characters and themes that break free of the traditional archetypes and mythic tropes the franchise was founded upon.
Even if you can feel the film's runtime as it heads to the climax, there's no shortage of appreciation for what Johnson has accomplished. I won't be surprised if fans start openly wondering if The Last Jedi is better than A New Hope or Empire, although I think it's clear that the film surpasses The Force Awakens even if the sequel's success is partly due to the unglamorous groundwork The Force Awakens had to accomplish. There are so many moments and details I want to dig into with The Last Jedi, but I don't want to spoil the many reveals, twists, and turns that make the movie such a wonderful experience. I lost count of the jaw-dropping moments The Last Jedi presents, and it's a movie I can't wait to revisit.
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9/10
Well... There goes your Snoke / Rey Parent theories.
I have to agree with the score, maybe not so high but it definitely is one of my favorites because of how bold it was. It literally fucked every conceivable theory back and forth. Also, that final moment with Luke when everyone stopped to clap was just magical. Holy hell, this movie really didn't go the way I thought IN THE LEAST. The music score wasn't that great and the early middle of the movie was very slow but the rest was just brutal, to the point when I had no idea anymore where was Episode IX headed to.
So far:
II < I < III = VI < Rogue One < VII < IV < VIII < V
Edit: lol, I see everyone hating it in the comments. Whatever, I had truly a blast with it. I thought Star Wars reinvented itself. It had a lot of personality, and this movie overall was a really unique experience, which is what I value the most. To each their own I guess ;)
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8/10
Cringed while watching Episode VII, but I liked this
I'll be brief. This installment is good enough for me to be wanting to see again The Force Awakens in the future (already an achievement by itself).
I thought Episode VII had been written by a ten-years old on some of his most uninspired days (and still think), but the plot advance in this and the (partially-)filled gaps manage to make the previous movie - if not agreeable - at least bearable.
Don't be mistaken, there will still be those scenes in The Last Jedi that make you go "pff" (not many, to be honest, or not as many as they've accustomed us to), but the (good) twists and the feeling of "awesomeness" that some of the scenes provide might be said to make this a nice entry in the Star Wars saga.
I warn you, don't be spoilered or you'll be doomed.
Perhaps there's nothing really unexpectable here, but it's in the execution and in the details that any presumed quality resides.
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From the crawl to the ending, this movie has shattered all my expectations while also setting an even higher bar for the upcoming movies in the franchise. The revolutionary directing by Rian Johnson is by far the best part of this movie, incredible scenes, amazing battles and a plot that not only fits perfectly in the SW universe but also sets the stage for the last installment in the trilogy.
I never thought of SW as a comical franchise, for this reason I was one of the fans that did not really like the Endor sequence in RTJ. But oh man did TLJ get it right? I laughed many times during the movie and I enjoyed every joke they put in there. This goes to show that you can make SW funny and amazing at the same time.
The movie also includes some of the best acting and effects I have seen in a few years, this is makes the movie that much better. I am sure we all remember how ANH shattered the film industry with practical effects years ahead of 1977, TLJ builds on that with some of the most stunning scenes in the franchise.
An all-around amazing movie with a great cast and a compelling story that is not only relatable but believable.
May the force be with you.
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The Last Jedi was the film that really took a 180° turn process through the film and then took another 180° turn, towards the end of it. Resulting in a 360° turn, which is inline with a roller coaster, you start where you end. This film had plenty, and yes, I meant plenty of fanfare which I can safely say unexpected. This can be a nuisance at times but when you look at it right, it was necessary. Like I said, it was a roller coaster ride. Usually, in a standard plot process, there is a climax and I repeat a climax, but this film felt that there are several climaxes. It really depends how invested are you in the character(s) of the film, be it Leia, Rey, Kylo and of course, Luke (which I believe is the main climax of the film). Indeed, a roller coaster ride which goes up, goes down, and goes up again.
In conclusion, The Last Jedi certainly played its role as a Star Wars film and yet made some bold changes to the whole "tradition" set by predecessor films. And it wasn't a deliberate change, the change is made organically by Luke through the process of the film. We the audience, just experience the process of it. I would like to quote Maz Kanata, "The belonging you seek is not behind you - it is ahead".
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The last jedi does have some plot points that drag mainly the side story with the casino and Finn as a character doesn't get a whole lot to do and it does fell like they don't really know what to do with character he wants to find Rey but he comes nowhere and Rose is alright but what i really enjoyed where the fight scenes and the scenes with Luke Mark Hamill steals the show i this movie he is fucking amazing in this movie and so is Rey she has a lot of shit to think about in this movie handles everything brilliantly Adam driver is ones again great as kylo he was one of my favourite things about the tfa and to the spoilers
snoke dies in a scene that is handled in a great way in my opinion you see kylo think about before he actually does it and another thing i like about snkoe death is the fact that he is getting cocky like Palpatine in the older movies and yes there no grand lightsaber fight but that as great because this i called the last jedi luke wants the jedi to end and yeah Rey sorta becomes a jedi at the end but this movie is not about jedis and the sith it's about the rebellion it's abut hope Poe has a line where he says we are the spark that will destroy the first order and yes they do spend a lot of the movie on that ship in space trying to get away but that works because it shows that the first order is bigger it's better and most important terrifying and it's really funny but the best part is it takes chances for as much as i love tfa it didn't really take any chances this does GO AND SEE IT
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This is the first Star Wars movie experience that I truly feel satisfied. If you love vivid stories of hope and faith (may the force be with you), then this is the right movie for you.
The slow build up may be making some of the younger viewers itching in their seats, but hey, just after the trademarked prologue rolled away, I was instantly hooked.
The story flows amazingly, like a wild river it took you to turns and corners that you didn't expect. Just when you think you'd guess where it will turn, it suddenly took a different path. And the way the director gave the viewers so many chances to interpret how the story goes themselves, it was just totally brilliant. No mansplaining necessary.
It's like watching Final Fantasy and animes in a Star Wars package. Beautifully presented I must say.
And yeah I will watch this one again and again, no boring scene at all. All the main casts and supporting casts were utilised harmoniously. 10/10
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10/10
Let Explore the film. Rating should be 7.7 something.
1. Character development
Rey: More dedicated, powerful and wise. Her internal conflict about her parent also resolved (eventho I'm not sure that was her real parent)
Kylo: Becoming more naive, more corrupted, more egoist, full of revenge. There is a plot twist that indicate there is a good within him, but it disappear with his lust of power
Poe: At first, he is very egoistic by trying to destroy enemy, doing rebel. But in the end, he learned and tried to be a leader.
Finn: He's a good soldier. but still not evolving to be a leader. Still naive, escaping, Trying to sacrifice himself for nothing, etc.
Rose: Pure and smart. She got a lot of potential since part of her past is still a mystery.
Hux: Still so evil and full of strategy, but powerless vs Kylo or Snoke too bad he is not a Jedi.
2. Visual Effect
CGI: It's good and steady. No complain. All monster looks nice, Leia also good.
Lightsaber, laser: Still the same as the first star wars film.
When Rebel Ship slice thru FO with light speed: It was a glorious effect tbh. very well done
City: Casino city could be more light, more glamour, etc.
Fire, burning, etc: it was fine. nice idea to have a fire while kyro and rey fighting
Salt effect on last war: very briliant idea
Lightspeed tunnel effect: It could be more cool
Others: Just normal.
3. Plot
Title: "The Last Jedi". so they refer to Rey?
Trailer: it was very nice.
Duration: Ship-chasing is not that intense and quite boring
Dreadnought scene: Dreadnought defense is a joke.
Leia: Still alive in the open space is quite bullshit tbh
All Rey and Kylo scene: Their internal fight within themself, their decision, etc. it was briliant
Snoke: Very intresting bad guy. but die so fast, seriously?
Plot twist: They insert too many plot twist that blur the real story. (almost all of the plot twist is "good-bad". people becoming good, and then bad, and then good.) sequel should have more setup for the 3rd. This film feels like it's the end.
There is nearby a planet with old rebel base: Worst plot ever.
Jokes: Some are funny, some awkward. Chewbacca joke is the best. Rose joke is the worst
Begining: Quite a good opening.
Ending: Luke fading because of fainting is so damn weird. dude. Leia seems like she want to sacri herself but in the end still at the ship.
Back story: So many thing remains questionable. I (hope and doubt) 3rd movie can answer em all.
4. Emotion
There is no climax for sad nor happy emotion tbh
There is no love emotion also. (Both "Luke and leia" and "Finn and Rose" emotion kissing scene was not that climax).
I think the only climax emotion that this movie gave was "curious about what's next?" and "whoa that was a good fight"
5. Fighting scene
Rey and Kylo was the best, Airship fight is quite nice, Finn fight was good, Kylo and Luke fighting was okay, Finn and Rose Casino riot also good. Ending war also not so disappointing.
6.Sound effect
I watch it with an Atmos Dolby. It was amazing and intense. Kudos to sound effect, sound mixer and dub team.
7. Technology
It bothers me a lot that they didnt have technology advancement. normal laser, normal tazer, normal ships, normal shield, normal beam? I've seen them all
++
8. English accent
Idk but I loved it
I think rating should be around 7.7
I always give 10 rating to a >7 rating film to appreciate the film-maker. so pls ignore it.
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Well its 3 am and I have just got back from the midnight showing of The Last Jedi.
We re-join the heroes of the Force Awakens as they attempt to flee from the New Order. A bit like Empire Strikes Back really there are a few bits in terms of mimicking that film. My biggest qualm about The Force Awakens was that it mimicked a New Hope. The Last Jedi makes you think it will go down that mimicking path but it turns.
After a cool opening sequence we now get to meet our hero of the day/week 40 years.... Oh yes Luke is back. Or more to the point Mark Hamill is back, from the moment he arrives on screen he had me mesmerised.
He is older, greyer, maybe a bit bitter and a shadow of his former self but his story is not yet finished. Without giving too much away he plays a huge role here.
Daisy Ridley as Rey does a decent job of the female hero orphan but she still needs all those around her to carry her through the film as her screen presence is a bit weak. Rather than being naïve about the force like in The Force Awakens here she is slightly less naïve about the force, which is a dangerous thing I guess.
Adam Driver as Kylo Ren continues to play an angry moody young lad and this is played upon many a time, He suits the role though and it kind of works but he definitely isn't the best bad guy out there.
John Boyega has a more toned down version of Finn here and less excitable which makes him way more likeable and he plays a big part in this film.
Carrie Fisher may she rest in peace, does her bit and there are a few sad moments and I did shed a tear for at one point in what I thought was a very touching scene due to her passing.
Oscar Issac as Poe plays the erratic swashbuckling pilot who still has much to learn. He is a hero but can also be a danger but Oscar plays it well.
Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux is ok, I find him a bit wooden as an actor and he comes across as a bossy head prefect rather than a great leader, to be fair this becomes his role later on.
Gwendoline Christie uses her voice ones more as Captain Phasma who is more of a bit part and not very interesting.
Kelly Marie Tran plays Rose a new character who becomes Fins sidekick, she is ok but pretty limited although I did come to like her by the end.
Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro make interesting cameos, I won't say too much about them as not to spoil things but both do a good job if only for a short time.
There are some interesting and strange creatures again in this Star Wars film as well as some cute little things that find their way on the Millenium Falcon, I think Chewie has a softy spot for them.
I was a bit disappointed we did not get to see more of Maz Kanata as I liked her character in the Force Awakens, maybe she will reappear in the next film.
Overall this is a solid 8th film in the franchise but for me this one is all about Luke and his Legacy. It was like Mark Hamill had been waiting most of his life for this one moment and he did it with aplomb.
Positives - Great visuals and and action scenes, brilliant performance from Mark Hamill, Good twists and turns so you could never predict what was going to happen.
Negatives - Not enough depth into the Star Wars universe or the Force, I always want more. A few too many throwaway characters.
Ill give this 8/10 as while its not perfect its a fun and enjoyable movie and Mark Hamill gets it a bonus point or two. Without him it may have fell flat !!!
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I came into this movie not knowing much about it; I avoided most of the trailers and I wasn't keeping up with any of the theories and plot speculations online, and boy am I glad that i did. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is one of the most intense and unpredictable films I've seen in recent years, and it blows The Force Awakens out of the water in almost every aspect. The characters here feel so much more fleshed out and the writing is a lot more mature and interesting this time around. The dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is particularly intriguing, and it goes to places you would never expect. And of course, Mark Hamill's performance as Luke Skywalker is simply delightful. You can feel so much pain and regret in his voice, and he steals the show in every scene he's in (thankfully there are a lot). Overall the cast does an amazing job and the story takes so many fun and exciting turns.
*LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD*
But it's not a perfect movie. There are aspects of The Last Jedi that I genuinely dislike quite a bit, and they mainly come from story choices that I wouldn't be able to talk about without spoilers. First of all, the "side quest" mission that Finn and Rose go on feels very out of place and it definitely drags down the pace of this already very long film. There is some seriously questionable CGI in this sequence too (I'm talking phantom menace level bad), and I just felt like they should've executed the whole sequence in a different way that was less convoluted and less time consuming. Also the thing they do with Leia, yes, THAT thing, was very confusing and I didn't really understand why they needed to show us that. Finally, the way Snoke was handled in this film felt like a bit of a cop out. While Andy Serkis' performance is incredible, the character feels under-utilised considering how much they hyped up his role in this series. We don't really learn anything about him; where he came from, what his motivations are, nothing. That was really disappointing for me. With that being said it's not like I disliked his character in the movie, I just wish there was more of him. Also, I couldn't help but notice how much self sacrifice there was in this movie. There are a lot of characters that die by sacrificing themselves to save others, which i'm ok with, but they really beat you over the head with it by the end.
The story of Rey, Kylo, Luke and Snoke was hands down the best part of the film. It's beautiful and confronting; It asks you to question everything about Star Wars. The First Order, The Resistance, The Jedi, The Sith; What's it all for? Whats the point? Perhaps there dark side and the light side aren't so different? After all this time, what are we really fighting for? The Last Jedi will undoubtedly make you feel conflicted, not just on whether you like the movie or not, but on whether you even understand Star Wars. I'm so Glad Rian Johnson took risks and tried to give us something we haven't seen before, I think it paid off in a lot of ways, even if there were a few stumbles along the way.
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Dear readers, Star Wars in my country Indonesia is always be a legend. Since 1980s, Indonesian children love Star Wars. In this Last Jedi movie, I can feel the sense of perfection of sci fi movie by the sci fi director legend, JJ Abrams. I follow Star Wars since my childhood and also watched his other movies and series such as Star Trek and Fringe, so for me the Last Jedi is just perfect. The effect, sound, story plot, characters, ending, etc, there is no small mistake that I can found, nor I can criticize. Thank you JJ Abrams for making this Last Jedi the best Star Wars movie in my mature age that I can still feel of being Star Wars movie again and again. I can not imagine when Star Wars is not longer directed by JJ Abrams, it is like American history without Abraham Lincoln or World War II history without Adolf Hitler. Love this movie!! For the story plot, sometimes for those who do not follow the beginnning, might be asking, "who is this girl?", "what is her role?", but after focusing on the core of the story, each character comeback to their own role and audience will applause of what they did really unpredictedly in each scene. This implies also for the history of the ship, galaxy, superpower force, Might the Force be with you, then to watch this Last Jedi movie for about 2,5 hours with unending emotion after. Bravoooo
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So, the most anticipated film of the year, the film that had to defy the pressure and had to take us by surprise after so many fan theories. And did it work?
Well, 7/10 is a good rating by all means. Most of the film succeeds at bringing all the good stuff from SW universe. Judging by the visuals it is everything you like about this majestic saga. So where did it go wrong?
Ever since they appeared, I haven't made my opinion on new characters and this movie didn't help that. Rey and Finn are poster girl and boy for Resistance but they seem to be too one-dimensional. None of them is that slick as Han Solo or as convincing as Luke Skywalker. But the dark side has some pretty strong aces in Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke. These two characters developed nicely and Ren's intentions are finally made clear. There is a bunch of new characters, but none of them really contribute to the plot, they are merely stand-up guys here. And what about two veterans here, Leia and Luke? Well, no need to point out they were as good as ever
Furthermore, there are so many plot twists and sudden changes in rhytm and I really wonder why. First third of the movie is moving along nicely, just like it's supposed to do. Second third is where this movie is losing pace and insufficiently deep scenario is a real problem here. It would have benefited from a less straightforward and more meaningful script. In the last third the movie goes full godspeed and demonstrates some stunning visuals, but as the 150 minute mark was approaching they slowed suddenly and even dragged it a bit at the end but nevertheless it was very (if not too much) eventful. Did they really have to push that many drama, theories, possibities only to go back to the seen-before route?
So the movie almost turned out to be a mixed bag and yet I saw some stunning moments,never seen before in this saga. The movie had a lot of boxes to tick and a lot of feel good atmosfere to create and it does that decently. But in the end what looked like to be a definitive Star Wars movie for generations to come is really a lot of everything that still ends up short of being constant and majestic as some previous installments were.
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First of all, I never have written a review before and I'm sorry if I make some grammar mistakes.
So Star Wars: The Last Jedi... It's good, It's fun and it's spectacular. However, it's not even close to part 4,5,6 and it will never be. The Last Jedi is just a replica of the older movies but made for the people in this time. It has the bad vs good but more in a funny way. The older movies remember us of the world we live in and makes it realistic. The Last Jedi and TFA makes it more a Disney serie and not the Star Wars we know (which is quite dark). You can clearly see that it's also made for younger people with those fluffy cute animals, which are still funny and they don't ruin the film. Throughout the movie I could guess what was going to happen because of the older films. So there isn't much new things and it's getting a bit dull.
So, The film looks amazing! The characters are funny but you don't have a special feeling except for Finn, I like him. But the problem is if you watched all the other movies you know what is going to happen and nothing is new. Is it worth watching? yes, but watch it with an open mind and enjoy the humor and the effects.
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I know many have criticized it for having to many plots and trying to hard to be a new Empire Strikes Back, but I loved it and would have given it a 10, if I had not gone away from IMAX with too many questions unanswered.
Luke was amazing and more human-like in TLJ and we saw that he wasn't perfect, like jedis before him, because though a lot of fans hate the prequel, they are part of the saga and in the prequels we learned that the jedis had faults and were in no way perfect. Rey is still my favorite next to Leia.
Yes, there were things that could have been done better and I still don't know who Snoke is nor do I know his background, so I guess I will have to wait for the novel or some lexicon. Now I will look forward to the big final in two years.
May the force be with you and thank you Carrie Fisher, you will always be our princess.
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The visual aspects of the film are stunning, the use of colour, beautiful landscapes, and gorgeous lighting, for me, the best looking Star Wars film to date, really adding to the spectacle, I cannot stress enough that you must watch this on the big screen. It fills you with nostalgia and immerses you into the universe again
The film once again introduced us to some new characters locations and animals, some of which are a direct scheme to sell some more merchandise and toys, but luckily that does not spoil these creatures at all. The only critique on the additions is the new character, Rose, who provides us with some rather 'cheesy' acting and moments, but other than the acting, she added nicely to the narrative, further increasing some character arcs. The only other critique to the film I have is I found the battle sequences quite repetitive, where we would see one side get battered, until there was little hope, then bang! Hope is restored by an emerging saviour.
The acting overall was really good, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, was excellent, and Carrie Fisher was beautiful. Daisy Ridley as Rey performed her demanding role very well, much better than her previous Star Wars film in my opinion.
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***Spoiler Alert***
If I haven't be such a nerd and watched way too many anime, this movie will be a 10/10 for me. The plot and the actors are definitely astonishing.
Actually I guess it would not be accurate to say it is similar to naruto because let's face it, most authors have watched star wars and their stories are most likely been affected by the originial trilogy in someway. (Spoiler)By the way, seriously? Kage Bunshin no Jutsu?
I am just sad that I can't be surprise by the plot like others do.
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The Last Jedi buids on all that made TFA great and does away with the bits of it that weren't so great. It manages to upset many expectations in a good way, and pays homage to Empire and ROTJ.
Negative reviews: "As if a barely trained girl could use the force against Kylo Ren" etc, etc, etc, other plot holes, implausibilities.
Yet the same people have no problem with:
A New Hope: "Of course Luke, the farm boy, could expertly fly an X-wing with no training and the rebels who he's just met would let him lead the mission against the Death Star".
Return of the Jedi: "Sure, four foot furball creatures throw rocks and shoot small stick arrows at armoured professional soldiers and kill them."
The Phantom Menace: "Sure, the Jedi tacitly condone slavery and cut a deal where a 6 year old has to win a high speed equivalent to F1 race to earn his freedom".
And so on for every aspect of every Star Wars movie.
It's all made up fantasy BS with glaring inconsistencies, since 1977. This movie is no different. Let it go and just enjoy it for what it is, a swashbuckling sci fi/ fantasy space adventure. Go an watch The Martian if you want some hard sci-fi. (Also, love the number of negative reviews about strong female leads - says more about the reviewer's insecurities than the movie.)
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First I'm gonna say I honestly don't really like the dynamic of the first 1/3 portion of the movie. It kinda out of place. Maybe I have to watch again to REALLY see what happened. But from the very beginning the visual and the soundtrack are amazing, it kinda sold me to watch the rest of the movie. Those two components are consistent throughout the ending, making it more epic.
I love Carrie Fisher in this movie, she portrays Leia exactly like what I've always think of Leia. Strong and funny. For Luke, I felt weird seeing him, after years in exile, suddenly likes to throw some jokes here and there. It's like seeing Mark Hamill, not Luke Skywalker, but that's not that big of a deal. I still love how Mark put his emotions in his act. Adam Driver is perfect in this, his acting is top notch, they developed Kylo Ren perfectly and we can really understand Kylo Ren more from watching The Last Jedi.
Now the twists are surprisingly good. At first I'm afraid it will be just another OG Star Wars, (like The Force Awakens). Johnson didn't play safe and put something new for Star Wars fans to process and develop another crazy theory. I'm looking forward to know another unsolved mysteries in 2019 Star Wars.
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